DevOps Contract Job Trends in the North West

DevOps
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring DevOps skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 14 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 -1
Contract jobs citing DevOps 335 195 237
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 9.04% 9.07% 8.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.78% 10.31% 10.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 154 163
10th Percentile £392 £333 £413
25th Percentile £413 £395 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% -9.52% -
75th Percentile £619 £575 £650
90th Percentile £695 £646 £845
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 2 3
10th Percentile - £70.25 -
25th Percentile £25.38 £74.38 -
Median hourly rate £44.74 £82.50 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -45.77% +79.82% +5.86%
75th Percentile £75.00 £89.38 -
90th Percentile £86.25 £92.75 -
England median hourly rate £68.75 £66.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +3.38% -5.00% +6.87%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

DevOps falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,107 1,891 2,313
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.88% 87.95% 84.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,840 1,243 1,418
10th Percentile £297 £280 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £450 £493
Median % change year-on-year +6.17% -8.72% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £564 £584
90th Percentile £675 £667 £675
England median daily rate £525 £514 £525
% change year-on-year +2.14% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 284 118 261
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.30 £11.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £19.07 £15.50
Median hourly rate £50.50 £29.90 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.90% +8.73% -6.14%
75th Percentile £76.00 £60.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £85.00 £79.43 £68.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -6.09%

DevOps
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DevOps relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

DevOps job vacancy trend in the North West

DevOps
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DevOps.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DevOps

DevOps
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DevOps in the North West over the 6 months to 11 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DevOps in the North West

DevOps
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DevOps.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DevOps

DevOps
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DevOps in the North West over the 6 months to 11 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DevOps in the North West

DevOps
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DevOps within the North West region over the 6 months to 11 July 2026. 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
Manchester +6 218 £500 -2.72% 118
Cheshire -6 67 £483 +20.15% 10
Lancashire +5 29 £640 +16.36% 26
Merseyside -17 12 £510 -2.63% 9
DevOps
England

DevOps
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 25 (7.46%) Confluence
2 10 (2.99%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.49%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.19%) SAS
5 3 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.60%) Apache
7 1 (0.30%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.30%) Camunda
7 1 (0.30%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.30%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.30%) nginx
7 1 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 6 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.19%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.60%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.60%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.60%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (1.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
2 1 (0.30%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.30%) SAP PM
2 1 (0.30%) SAP QM
2 1 (0.30%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.30%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 182 (54.33%) Azure
2 150 (44.78%) AWS
3 81 (24.18%) Azure DevOps
4 54 (16.12%) GCP
5 49 (14.63%) GitHub
6 43 (12.84%) Serverless
7 29 (8.66%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (7.16%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 22 (6.57%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (6.27%) Azure AKS
11 16 (4.78%) Amazon S3
11 16 (4.78%) SaaS
12 15 (4.48%) Amazon EC2
12 15 (4.48%) Dynamics 365
12 15 (4.48%) Power Platform
12 15 (4.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 12 (3.58%) Entra ID
13 12 (3.58%) OCI
14 11 (3.28%) Amazon EKS
14 11 (3.28%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 34 (10.15%) Firewall
2 10 (2.99%) BGP
2 10 (2.99%) BIG-IP
2 10 (2.99%) Ethernet VPN
2 10 (2.99%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 10 (2.99%) OSPF
2 10 (2.99%) SD-WAN
2 10 (2.99%) VXLAN
2 10 (2.99%) WAN
3 9 (2.69%) DNS
3 9 (2.69%) Wi-Fi
3 9 (2.69%) WLAN
4 7 (2.09%) Network Security
5 6 (1.79%) SSL
6 4 (1.19%) DHCP
7 3 (0.90%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.90%) VPN
8 2 (0.60%) NetScaler
9 1 (0.30%) iSCSI
9 1 (0.30%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.06%) SQL Server
2 24 (7.16%) MongoDB
3 21 (6.27%) Relational Database
4 20 (5.97%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (4.18%) NoSQL
6 13 (3.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 11 (3.28%) RDBMS
8 9 (2.69%) DocumentDB
8 9 (2.69%) DynamoDB
8 9 (2.69%) Oracle Database
9 8 (2.39%) Data Lake
9 8 (2.39%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (2.39%) MySQL
10 7 (2.09%) Amazon RDS
10 7 (2.09%) Ataccama
10 7 (2.09%) Power BI
11 6 (1.79%) BigQuery
12 5 (1.49%) Data Vault
13 4 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
13 4 (1.19%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 56 (16.72%) GitLab
2 48 (14.33%) Git
3 45 (13.43%) Jenkins
4 41 (12.24%) JIRA
5 14 (4.18%) Selenium
6 10 (2.99%) REST Assured
7 9 (2.69%) Postman
8 8 (2.39%) Claude Code
8 8 (2.39%) Cucumber
8 8 (2.39%) Gatling
8 8 (2.39%) SonarQube
9 6 (1.79%) JUnit
9 6 (1.79%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (1.49%) Gradle
10 5 (1.49%) Serenity BDD
11 4 (1.19%) Mocha
12 3 (0.90%) ClearCase
12 3 (0.90%) Cypress.io
12 3 (0.90%) Maven
13 2 (0.60%) LoadRunner
General
1 68 (20.30%) Finance
2 59 (17.61%) Social Skills
3 55 (16.42%) Public Sector
4 28 (8.36%) Banking
5 21 (6.27%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (3.58%) Retail
7 7 (2.09%) Military
8 4 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (0.90%) Health Technology
9 3 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (0.90%) Local Government
9 3 (0.90%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.60%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.60%) Financial Institution
10 2 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.60%) Publishing
11 1 (0.30%) Advertising
11 1 (0.30%) Law
11 1 (0.30%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.30%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 58 (17.31%) DevOps Engineer
2 57 (17.01%) Senior
3 56 (16.72%) Developer
4 49 (14.63%) Lead
5 34 (10.15%) Architect
6 20 (5.97%) Software Engineer
7 18 (5.37%) Java Developer
8 17 (5.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 17 (5.07%) Solutions Architect
9 16 (4.78%) Azure Engineer
9 16 (4.78%) Lead Developer
10 15 (4.48%) Cloud Engineer
10 15 (4.48%) Security Engineer
10 15 (4.48%) Software Developer
11 13 (3.88%) Analyst
11 13 (3.88%) DBA
11 13 (3.88%) Senior Developer
12 12 (3.58%) Platform Engineer
13 11 (3.28%) Azure DevOps Engineer
14 10 (2.99%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (13.13%) Spring
2 43 (12.84%) Spring Boot
3 31 (9.25%) Kafka
4 29 (8.66%) REST
5 27 (8.06%) Node.js
6 26 (7.76%) React
7 17 (5.07%) .NET
8 16 (4.78%) Playwright
9 15 (4.48%) JSON
10 12 (3.58%) PySpark
10 12 (3.58%) XML
11 11 (3.28%) AngularJS
12 9 (2.69%) RESTful
13 8 (2.39%) GraphQL
14 7 (2.09%) ARM Templates
15 5 (1.49%) LangChain
15 5 (1.49%) Next.js
15 5 (1.49%) OAuth
15 5 (1.49%) Spring Cloud
16 4 (1.19%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 77 (22.99%) Cloud Native
2 21 (6.27%) Product Ownership
3 16 (4.78%) Security Posture
4 15 (4.48%) Management Information System
5 14 (4.18%) Hybrid Cloud
6 12 (3.58%) Data Centre
6 12 (3.58%) Replication
7 10 (2.99%) Data Protection Act
7 10 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
7 10 (2.99%) Onboarding
8 8 (2.39%) Clustering
8 8 (2.39%) Public Cloud
9 7 (2.09%) AI Agents
9 7 (2.09%) Data Structures
9 7 (2.09%) Private Cloud
10 6 (1.79%) Algorithms
10 6 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
11 5 (1.49%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (1.49%) Mainframe
11 5 (1.49%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 35 (10.45%) Linux
2 23 (6.87%) Windows
3 13 (3.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (1.79%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.19%) VMS
6 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.30%) AIX
7 1 (0.30%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (60.00%) CI/CD
2 123 (36.72%) Agile
3 87 (25.97%) Infrastructure as Code
4 66 (19.70%) Microservices
5 63 (18.81%) Observability
6 58 (17.31%) Test Automation
7 56 (16.72%) Containerisation
8 51 (15.22%) Continuous Improvement
9 45 (13.43%) AI
10 41 (12.24%) Software Engineering
11 40 (11.94%) Mentoring
12 38 (11.34%) Problem-Solving
13 36 (10.75%) SDLC
14 35 (10.45%) Migration
14 35 (10.45%) Platform Engineering
15 34 (10.15%) Scrum
15 34 (10.15%) Technical Leadership
16 32 (9.55%) Event-Driven
16 32 (9.55%) Roadmaps
17 31 (9.25%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 97 (28.96%) Python
2 89 (26.57%) Java
3 48 (14.33%) SQL
4 47 (14.03%) PowerShell
5 34 (10.15%) Bash
6 26 (7.76%) JavaScript
7 24 (7.16%) TypeScript
8 22 (6.57%) C#
9 11 (3.28%) Bicep
10 10 (2.99%) T-SQL
11 8 (2.39%) Rust
12 6 (1.79%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.90%) Go
13 3 (0.90%) VB
13 3 (0.90%) VB6
14 2 (0.60%) C++
14 2 (0.60%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.60%) PROC SQL
14 2 (0.60%) Scala
15 1 (0.30%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 76 (22.69%) Security Cleared
2 55 (16.42%) SC Cleared
3 34 (10.15%) Degree
4 29 (8.66%) AWS Certification
5 27 (8.06%) Azure Certification
6 23 (6.87%) BPSS Clearance
7 17 (5.07%) CISSP
8 12 (3.58%) DV Cleared
9 11 (3.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (2.39%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (2.09%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.90%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 3 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 3 (0.90%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.60%) CCIE
14 2 (0.60%) CCNP
14 2 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
14 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 2 (0.60%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (8.66%) QA
2 17 (5.07%) Accessibility
3 14 (4.18%) Data Quality
4 9 (2.69%) GDPR
5 5 (1.49%) NIST
6 4 (1.19%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.19%) PSD2
6 4 (1.19%) SEPA
6 4 (1.19%) SLA
7 3 (0.90%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.90%) GRC
7 3 (0.90%) HIPAA
7 3 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.90%) WCAG
8 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.30%) NEBOSH
9 1 (0.30%) PMO
9 1 (0.30%) Solvency II
System Software
1 84 (25.07%) Docker
2 10 (2.99%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (2.09%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.90%) Oracle RAC
5 3 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.90%) vSphere
6 2 (0.60%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 1 (0.30%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 122 (36.42%) Terraform
2 92 (27.46%) Kubernetes
3 35 (10.45%) Ansible
4 22 (6.57%) Grafana
5 17 (5.07%) Prometheus
6 11 (3.28%) Progress Chef
7 10 (2.99%) Argo
8 8 (2.39%) Istio
9 4 (1.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (1.19%) SCOM
9 4 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.90%) Data Guard
10 3 (0.90%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.60%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.60%) linkerd
11 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
11 2 (0.60%) Packer
11 2 (0.60%) SCCM
12 1 (0.30%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 66 (19.70%) Microsoft
2 28 (8.36%) Google
3 22 (6.57%) Oracle
4 16 (4.78%) Splunk
5 14 (4.18%) Red Hat
5 14 (4.18%) ServiceNow
6 13 (3.88%) F5
7 10 (2.99%) Aruba
7 10 (2.99%) Palo Alto
8 9 (2.69%) Arista
8 9 (2.69%) Databricks
8 9 (2.69%) OpenAI
9 8 (2.39%) Dynatrace
9 8 (2.39%) SAP
10 4 (1.19%) Atlassian
10 4 (1.19%) CyberArk
10 4 (1.19%) IBM
10 4 (1.19%) VMware
11 3 (0.90%) Foundry
11 3 (0.90%) Veeam