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 13 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 17 20
Rank change year-on-year +2 +3 -6
Contract jobs citing DevOps 279 174 217
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.24% 8.26% 7.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.80% 9.32% 8.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 100 155
10th Percentile £358 £355 £425
25th Percentile £404 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £518 £533
Median % change year-on-year -9.12% -2.77% -6.16%
75th Percentile £551 £585 £585
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
England median daily rate £525 £575 £569
% change year-on-year -8.70% +1.05% -5.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 3 13
10th Percentile £39.53 £62.01 £45.88
25th Percentile - £65.95 -
Median hourly rate £45.46 £75.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -39.39% +62.41% -2.78%
75th Percentile £45.84 £82.50 -
90th Percentile £82.75 £85.50 -
England median hourly rate £50.00 £70.97 £65.00
% change year-on-year -29.55% +9.18% -0.76%

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 2,365 1,867 2,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 86.82% 88.65% 86.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,532 1,115 1,624
10th Percentile £213 £265 £307
25th Percentile £358 £380 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £570 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 99 218
10th Percentile £16.15 £16.21 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.85 £22.72 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.69 £31.52 £29.22
Median % change year-on-year +35.42% +7.87% -22.08%
75th Percentile £61.25 £55.59 £46.18
90th Percentile £75.18 £75.30 £53.75
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 0 153 £500 - 119
Cheshire +8 78 £447 +25.56% 13
Lancashire -1 28 £670 +16.52% 49
Merseyside -19 12 £500 -4.31% 11
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 (8.96%) Confluence
2 8 (2.87%) Apache
2 8 (2.87%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (2.51%) IIS
3 7 (2.51%) JBoss
4 6 (2.15%) iPlanet
4 6 (2.15%) WebSphere
4 6 (2.15%) WebSphere Application Server
5 4 (1.43%) OpenStack
6 3 (1.08%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (1.08%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.72%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.36%) CICS
8 1 (0.36%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (5.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (5.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.72%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.72%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.43%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.72%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 148 (53.05%) AWS
2 113 (40.50%) Azure
3 44 (15.77%) Azure DevOps
3 44 (15.77%) Serverless
4 43 (15.41%) GitHub
5 35 (12.54%) GCP
6 32 (11.47%) AWS CloudFormation
7 28 (10.04%) GitHub Actions
8 26 (9.32%) AWS Lambda
9 18 (6.45%) Amazon S3
9 18 (6.45%) Power Platform
10 17 (6.09%) Amazon EKS
11 16 (5.73%) Amazon ECS
12 15 (5.38%) Amazon EC2
13 13 (4.66%) Amazon SQS
13 13 (4.66%) OpenShift
14 12 (4.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 10 (3.58%) Azure AKS
15 10 (3.58%) Dynamics 365
16 9 (3.23%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 20 (7.17%) Firewall
2 6 (2.15%) DNS
2 6 (2.15%) Kerberos
2 6 (2.15%) TCP/IP
3 5 (1.79%) DHCP
3 5 (1.79%) HTTPS
3 5 (1.79%) Network Security
3 5 (1.79%) VPN
4 4 (1.43%) NetScaler
4 4 (1.43%) SSL
5 1 (0.36%) Reverse Proxy
5 1 (0.36%) VLAN
5 1 (0.36%) VoIP
5 1 (0.36%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (6.45%) DynamoDB
2 15 (5.38%) NoSQL
3 13 (4.66%) MongoDB
3 13 (4.66%) Tableau
4 12 (4.30%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (3.94%) Amazon RDS
5 11 (3.94%) DocumentDB
6 10 (3.58%) Relational Database
7 9 (3.23%) Data Lake
8 8 (2.87%) Oracle Database
8 8 (2.87%) Power BI
9 6 (2.15%) RDBMS
10 5 (1.79%) Amazon Aurora
10 5 (1.79%) Oracle Reports
10 5 (1.79%) SQL Server
11 4 (1.43%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (1.08%) MySQL
13 2 (0.72%) Apache Cassandra
13 2 (0.72%) Metadata
14 1 (0.36%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 54 (19.35%) GitLab
2 49 (17.56%) JIRA
3 48 (17.20%) Git
4 37 (13.26%) Jenkins
5 10 (3.58%) CircleCI
6 8 (2.87%) Cypress.io
6 8 (2.87%) JUnit
6 8 (2.87%) Mocha
6 8 (2.87%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (2.51%) Gradle
8 6 (2.15%) Bitbucket Server
8 6 (2.15%) CA Release Automation
9 4 (1.43%) Selenium
9 4 (1.43%) Storybook
9 4 (1.43%) Xcode
10 3 (1.08%) Bitbucket
10 3 (1.08%) Jasmine
10 3 (1.08%) Maven
11 2 (0.72%) Gatling
11 2 (0.72%) SonarQube
General
1 59 (21.15%) Social Skills
2 58 (20.79%) Public Sector
3 56 (20.07%) Finance
4 35 (12.54%) Banking
5 26 (9.32%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (1.43%) Games
6 4 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
6 4 (1.43%) Law
7 3 (1.08%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.08%) Military
7 3 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
7 3 (1.08%) Telecoms
8 2 (0.72%) Financial Institution
8 2 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.36%) Electronics
9 1 (0.36%) Legal
9 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.36%) Marketing
9 1 (0.36%) Retail
Job Titles
1 66 (23.66%) Developer
2 45 (16.13%) DevOps Engineer
3 41 (14.70%) Lead
4 36 (12.90%) Senior
5 26 (9.32%) Architect
6 20 (7.17%) Platform Engineer
7 18 (6.45%) AWS Engineer
8 17 (6.09%) AWS DevOps
8 17 (6.09%) Software Engineer
8 17 (6.09%) Solutions Architect
9 16 (5.73%) Java Developer
10 14 (5.02%) AWS DevOps Engineer
11 13 (4.66%) Full-Stack Developer
12 11 (3.94%) Analyst
13 10 (3.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 8 (2.87%) Azure Engineer
14 8 (2.87%) Business Analyst
15 7 (2.51%) Payments Solutions Architect
15 7 (2.51%) Senior DevOps
15 7 (2.51%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (15.77%) Spring
1 44 (15.77%) Spring Boot
2 43 (15.41%) REST
3 26 (9.32%) React
4 24 (8.60%) JSON
4 24 (8.60%) Node.js
5 23 (8.24%) OAuth
6 22 (7.89%) XML
7 21 (7.53%) Kafka
8 16 (5.73%) .NET
9 15 (5.38%) HTML
9 15 (5.38%) JMS
10 14 (5.02%) RESTful
10 14 (5.02%) SOAP
11 13 (4.66%) AngularJS
11 13 (4.66%) Jest
11 13 (4.66%) Playwright
12 9 (3.23%) Elastic Stack
13 8 (2.87%) JWT
13 8 (2.87%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 38 (13.62%) Cloud Native
2 21 (7.53%) Product Ownership
2 21 (7.53%) Virtual Team
3 12 (4.30%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (4.30%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.30%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 11 (3.94%) Private Cloud
5 7 (2.51%) Public Cloud
6 6 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.79%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.79%) e-Learning
8 4 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.43%) Low-Code
8 4 (1.43%) Mobile App
9 3 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (1.08%) IoT
9 3 (1.08%) NHS
9 3 (1.08%) Taxonomies
10 2 (0.72%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.36%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 37 (13.26%) Linux
2 15 (5.38%) Windows
3 8 (2.87%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.15%) Unix
5 4 (1.43%) Android
5 4 (1.43%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.43%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (1.43%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.36%) VMS
6 1 (0.36%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 167 (59.86%) CI/CD
2 117 (41.94%) Agile
3 66 (23.66%) Infrastructure as Code
4 65 (23.30%) Containerisation
5 60 (21.51%) Microservices
6 53 (19.00%) Problem-Solving
7 43 (15.41%) Continuous Improvement
8 42 (15.05%) Test Automation
9 41 (14.70%) Observability
10 39 (13.98%) Mentoring
11 37 (13.26%) Project Delivery
12 33 (11.83%) Stakeholder Management
13 27 (9.68%) Full-Stack Development
14 26 (9.32%) Software Engineering
15 25 (8.96%) ITIL
16 23 (8.24%) Cloud Security
16 23 (8.24%) SDLC
17 20 (7.17%) Change Management
17 20 (7.17%) Infrastructure Automation
18 19 (6.81%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 64 (22.94%) Java
2 58 (20.79%) Python
3 47 (16.85%) SQL
4 37 (13.26%) TypeScript
5 27 (9.68%) JavaScript
6 22 (7.89%) Bash
7 15 (5.38%) C#
8 12 (4.30%) PowerShell
9 10 (3.58%) Go
10 8 (2.87%) Groovy
10 8 (2.87%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.79%) Ruby
12 4 (1.43%) Bicep
12 4 (1.43%) C++
12 4 (1.43%) Rust
13 3 (1.08%) Perl
14 2 (0.72%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.36%) ActionScript
15 1 (0.36%) JCL
15 1 (0.36%) REXX
Qualifications
1 54 (19.35%) Security Cleared
2 32 (11.47%) Degree
2 32 (11.47%) SC Cleared
3 20 (7.17%) AWS Certification
3 20 (7.17%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (5.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
5 9 (3.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 9 (3.23%) Azure Certification
5 9 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (2.15%) CISM
6 6 (2.15%) CISSP
6 6 (2.15%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (1.43%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.43%) IBM Certification
8 2 (0.72%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 2 (0.72%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.72%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.36%) CBAP
9 1 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (0.36%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (8.60%) Accessibility
2 22 (7.89%) QA
3 14 (5.02%) PSD2
4 13 (4.66%) ISO 20022
5 12 (4.30%) SEPA
6 7 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (2.51%) NIST
6 7 (2.51%) WCAG
7 4 (1.43%) GDPR
8 3 (1.08%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.36%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.36%) HL7
9 1 (0.36%) NEBOSH
9 1 (0.36%) PMO
9 1 (0.36%) SLA
9 1 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 85 (30.47%) Docker
2 12 (4.30%) Active Directory
2 12 (4.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (4.30%) vSphere
3 6 (2.15%) Tivoli Directory Server
4 4 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (1.08%) ISA Server
6 2 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.72%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.36%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 86 (30.82%) Terraform
2 82 (29.39%) Kubernetes
3 17 (6.09%) Ansible
4 15 (5.38%) Grafana
4 15 (5.38%) Prometheus
5 10 (3.58%) Progress Chef
6 8 (2.87%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (2.51%) CA Single Sign-On
8 6 (2.15%) CA Wily
8 6 (2.15%) Tivoli
9 5 (1.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 5 (1.79%) SCCM
10 4 (1.43%) Fluentd
10 4 (1.43%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (1.08%) Istio
12 1 (0.36%) Argo
12 1 (0.36%) CA Endevor
12 1 (0.36%) OMEGAMON
12 1 (0.36%) Packer
12 1 (0.36%) Puppet
Vendors
1 43 (15.41%) Microsoft
2 31 (11.11%) Oracle
3 18 (6.45%) Splunk
4 16 (5.73%) IBM
5 12 (4.30%) VMware
6 11 (3.94%) F5
7 10 (3.58%) Google
8 8 (2.87%) Databricks
9 6 (2.15%) AppDynamics
9 6 (2.15%) Broadcom
9 6 (2.15%) Cribl.io
9 6 (2.15%) MuleSoft
9 6 (2.15%) Palo Alto
10 5 (1.79%) OpenAI
10 5 (1.79%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.43%) SAP
11 4 (1.43%) Veeam
12 3 (1.08%) Adobe
12 3 (1.08%) Foundry
12 3 (1.08%) Software AG