Kubernetes Contract Job Trends in the Midlands

Kubernetes (k8s)
England > Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Midlands requiring Kubernetes skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 88 86
Rank change year-on-year +63 -2 +24
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 218 44 48
As % of all contract jobs in the Midlands 7.05% 1.75% 1.79%
As % of the Systems Management category 42.41% 16.24% 14.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 170 36 40
10th Percentile £428 £444 £368
25th Percentile £492 £500 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £588 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.79% +2.17% -
75th Percentile £588 £685 £700
90th Percentile £700 £725 £775
England median daily rate £525 £600 £580
% change year-on-year -12.50% +3.45% -7.20%

All Systems Management Skills
Midlands

Kubernetes falls under the Systems Management category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring systems management skills in the Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 514 271 331
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands 16.63% 10.80% 12.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 356 173 249
10th Percentile £263 £200 £257
25th Percentile £405 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £445
Median % change year-on-year - +12.36% -6.32%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £569
90th Percentile £650 £661 £688
England median daily rate £513 £531 £550
% change year-on-year -3.39% -3.55% -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 3
10th Percentile - - £15.34
25th Percentile £16.25 £12.18 £16.24
Median hourly rate £26.25 £12.85 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +104.28% -27.48% -
75th Percentile £46.31 £14.43 £36.36
90th Percentile £64.88 £16.07 £47.54
England median hourly rate £39.50 £32.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +21.54% -29.62% +34.83%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Kubernetes relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands.

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in the Midlands

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Trend in the Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Kubernetes.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in the Midlands over the 6 months to 13 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Kubernetes in the Midlands

Kubernetes
Contract Job Locations in the Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Kubernetes within the Midlands region over the 6 months to 13 December 2025. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
West Midlands +49 199 £537 -11.39% 58
East Midlands -2 19 £429 -16.29% 45
Kubernetes
England

Kubernetes
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Midlands by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 57 (26.15%) SAS
2 11 (5.05%) Confluence
3 9 (4.13%) OpenStack
4 5 (2.29%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (1.83%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.92%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.92%) Drupal
7 1 (0.46%) JBoss
7 1 (0.46%) Mule
7 1 (0.46%) nginx
7 1 (0.46%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.46%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.38%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 80 (36.70%) Azure
2 72 (33.03%) AWS
3 60 (27.52%) GitHub
4 44 (20.18%) OpenShift
5 33 (15.14%) GCP
6 31 (14.22%) GitHub Actions
7 26 (11.93%) Serverless
8 24 (11.01%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (7.34%) Azure AKS
10 15 (6.88%) Amazon EKS
11 11 (5.05%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (4.59%) Azure Key Vault
13 9 (4.13%) Amazon S3
14 7 (3.21%) Amazon EC2
15 6 (2.75%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (2.75%) Azure Monitor
16 4 (1.83%) AWS KMS
16 4 (1.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 4 (1.83%) npm
16 4 (1.83%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.83%) Firewall
1 4 (1.83%) SSL
2 3 (1.38%) Network Security
3 2 (0.92%) DNS
3 2 (0.92%) SSH
3 2 (0.92%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.46%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (16.06%) PostgreSQL
2 34 (15.60%) Pentaho
3 27 (12.39%) Elasticsearch
4 19 (8.72%) NoSQL
5 16 (7.34%) Oracle Database
6 15 (6.88%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 13 (5.96%) MongoDB
8 9 (4.13%) Amazon RDS
8 9 (4.13%) Redis
9 7 (3.21%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 5 (2.29%) Relational Database
11 4 (1.83%) MySQL
11 4 (1.83%) SAS Data Integration Studio
12 3 (1.38%) InfluxDB
13 2 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
13 2 (0.92%) Big Data
13 2 (0.92%) Delta Lake
13 2 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
13 2 (0.92%) Parquet
13 2 (0.92%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 93 (42.66%) Jenkins
2 79 (36.24%) Git
3 62 (28.44%) GitLab
4 52 (23.85%) JIRA
5 27 (12.39%) JUnit
6 26 (11.93%) Selenium
7 22 (10.09%) SonarQube
8 10 (4.59%) Liquibase
8 10 (4.59%) Maven
9 9 (4.13%) CircleCI
9 9 (4.13%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (3.21%) Bitbucket
10 7 (3.21%) Cucumber
10 7 (3.21%) Mockito
11 5 (2.29%) Artifactory
11 5 (2.29%) Postman
12 4 (1.83%) Cypress.io
12 4 (1.83%) Gradle
12 4 (1.83%) Snyk
12 4 (1.83%) webpack
General
1 80 (36.70%) Social Skills
2 22 (10.09%) Public Sector
3 17 (7.80%) Finance
4 12 (5.50%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (5.50%) Banking
5 10 (4.59%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (4.59%) Financial Institution
6 4 (1.83%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.92%) Aeronautics
8 2 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.46%) Military
Job Titles
1 37 (16.97%) Senior
2 28 (12.84%) Data Engineer
3 25 (11.47%) DevOps Engineer
4 20 (9.17%) Developer
5 19 (8.72%) Cloud Engineer
5 19 (8.72%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 18 (8.26%) Test Specialist
7 16 (7.34%) Site Engineer
8 13 (5.96%) DevSecOps Engineer
9 12 (5.50%) Senior Data Engineer
9 12 (5.50%) Software Engineer
10 11 (5.05%) AWS Engineer
10 11 (5.05%) Splunk Engineer
11 10 (4.59%) Backend Developer
11 10 (4.59%) Lead
12 9 (4.13%) GCP Engineer
12 9 (4.13%) Senior DevOps
12 9 (4.13%) Senior DevOps Engineer
13 8 (3.67%) Python Developer
13 8 (3.67%) Test Automation Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (20.64%) REST
2 44 (20.18%) Elastic Stack
3 24 (11.01%) RESTful
3 24 (11.01%) Spring
4 21 (9.63%) Spring Boot
5 17 (7.80%) pytest
5 17 (7.80%) YAML
6 15 (6.88%) Kafka
7 13 (5.96%) Keycloak
8 11 (5.05%) JSON
8 11 (5.05%) OAuth
9 10 (4.59%) .NET
9 10 (4.59%) Flask
10 8 (3.67%) FastAPI
10 8 (3.67%) GraphQL
10 8 (3.67%) OpenID
10 8 (3.67%) Playwright
10 8 (3.67%) RabbitMQ
10 8 (3.67%) Swagger
10 8 (3.67%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 27 (12.39%) Cloud Native
2 14 (6.42%) Public Cloud
3 13 (5.96%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (4.59%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (4.13%) Management Information System
6 7 (3.21%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.83%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.83%) PKI
8 4 (1.83%) Private Cloud
8 4 (1.83%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.38%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (1.38%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.38%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.92%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.46%) AI Agents
11 1 (0.46%) Distributed Applications
11 1 (0.46%) Smart City
Operating Systems
1 48 (22.02%) Linux
2 9 (4.13%) Unix
2 9 (4.13%) Windows
3 5 (2.29%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.92%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (73.85%) CI/CD
2 152 (69.72%) DevOps
3 125 (57.34%) Containerisation
4 105 (48.17%) Agile
5 74 (33.94%) Test Automation
6 73 (33.49%) Problem-Solving
7 65 (29.82%) Analytics
8 61 (27.98%) Data Pipeline
9 56 (25.69%) Scrum
10 53 (24.31%) Microservices
11 52 (23.85%) Infrastructure as Code
12 50 (22.94%) Data Modelling
13 46 (21.10%) ETL
14 42 (19.27%) Continuous Improvement
15 38 (17.43%) Migration
16 35 (16.06%) Data Integration
16 35 (16.06%) Deployment Automation
17 33 (15.14%) Data Analytics
17 33 (15.14%) Data Virtualisation
18 31 (14.22%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 86 (39.45%) Python
2 73 (33.49%) SQL
3 42 (19.27%) Go
4 31 (14.22%) Java
5 23 (10.55%) Bash
6 13 (5.96%) Shell Script
7 10 (4.59%) JavaScript
8 6 (2.75%) PowerShell
9 4 (1.83%) Bicep
9 4 (1.83%) PHP
10 3 (1.38%) C#
10 3 (1.38%) Ruby
11 2 (0.92%) Groovy
11 2 (0.92%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.92%) Perl
12 1 (0.46%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.46%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 125 (57.34%) Security Cleared
2 105 (48.17%) SC Cleared
3 32 (14.68%) DV Cleared
4 28 (12.84%) Degree
5 25 (11.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (10.09%) Azure Certification
7 14 (6.42%) Master's Degree
8 11 (5.05%) AWS Certification
9 8 (3.67%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (3.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (2.29%) CISSP
12 4 (1.83%) CISM
13 2 (0.92%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.92%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 1 (0.46%) BPSS Clearance
14 1 (0.46%) MCP
14 1 (0.46%) PhD
14 1 (0.46%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.46%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (13.76%) Data Quality
2 13 (5.96%) NCSC
3 10 (4.59%) QA
4 6 (2.75%) WCAG
5 5 (2.29%) GDPR
6 4 (1.83%) Accessibility
7 3 (1.38%) HIPAA
7 3 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.92%) NIST
8 2 (0.92%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 168 (77.06%) Docker
2 6 (2.75%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.46%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 69 (31.65%) Terraform
2 58 (26.61%) Ansible
3 48 (22.02%) Grafana
4 40 (18.35%) Prometheus
5 25 (11.47%) Kibana
6 16 (7.34%) Puppet
7 13 (5.96%) Progress Chef
8 11 (5.05%) Argo
9 8 (3.67%) logstash
10 6 (2.75%) Istio
11 4 (1.83%) Podman
12 3 (1.38%) Tivoli Identity Manager
13 2 (0.92%) Docker Swarm
13 2 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
14 1 (0.46%) Consul
14 1 (0.46%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 51 (23.39%) Oracle
2 40 (18.35%) Microsoft
3 38 (17.43%) Splunk
4 34 (15.60%) Denodo
4 34 (15.60%) Talend
5 9 (4.13%) Google
6 8 (3.67%) Red Hat
7 5 (2.29%) IBM
8 3 (1.38%) Databricks
8 3 (1.38%) Ping Identity
8 3 (1.38%) VMware
9 2 (0.92%) Cloudera
9 2 (0.92%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.92%) PagerDuty
10 1 (0.46%) AppDynamics
10 1 (0.46%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.46%) Checkmarx
10 1 (0.46%) CheckPoint
10 1 (0.46%) F5
10 1 (0.46%) OpenAI