Kubernetes Contract Job Trends in the North West

Kubernetes (k8s)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Kubernetes skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 34 70
Rank change year-on-year +1 +36 -33
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 172 101 70
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.41% 5.24% 2.54%
As % of the Systems Management category 38.83% 32.37% 24.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 115 80 57
10th Percentile £368 £393 £406
25th Percentile £449 £456 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.40% -4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £609 £585 £694
90th Percentile £652 £638 £700
England median daily rate £525 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £52.50 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 - £55.00
75th Percentile £61.81 - £57.50
90th Percentile £68.13 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £59.75
% change year-on-year +8.33% +0.42% -17.01%

All Systems Management Skills
North West

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 North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 443 312 287
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.94% 16.18% 10.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 293 209 214
10th Percentile £313 £260 £248
25th Percentile £400 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.27% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £591 £563 £600
90th Percentile £650 £651 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 5 15
10th Percentile £39.53 £29.23 £16.64
25th Percentile £52.50 £41.50 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +252.71% -47.50%
75th Percentile £70.00 £77.50 £59.38
90th Percentile £74.26 £82.15 £93.00
England median hourly rate £55.00 £26.50 £25.77
% change year-on-year +107.55% +2.85% -55.19%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in the North West

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in the North West over the 6 months to 12 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Kubernetes in the North West

Kubernetes
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Kubernetes
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Kubernetes in the North West over the 6 months to 12 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kubernetes in the North West

Kubernetes
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 Kubernetes within the North West region over the 6 months to 12 April 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 -1 114 £550 +10.00% 56
Cheshire +3 44 £478 -0.91% 4
Merseyside - 6 £330 - 4
Lancashire -18 5 £550 -8.33% 21
Cumbria - 2 £525 -
Kubernetes
England

Kubernetes
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 10 (5.81%) Confluence
2 7 (4.07%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.33%) Apache
3 4 (2.33%) OpenStack
4 2 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 2 (1.16%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 113 (65.70%) AWS
2 78 (45.35%) Azure
3 48 (27.91%) GCP
4 31 (18.02%) GitHub
5 21 (12.21%) Serverless
6 18 (10.47%) GitHub Actions
6 18 (10.47%) OpenShift
7 17 (9.88%) Amazon EKS
8 13 (7.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 12 (6.98%) Azure DevOps
10 11 (6.40%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (6.40%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (5.81%) Azure AKS
12 9 (5.23%) Amazon EC2
13 8 (4.65%) Amazon S3
13 8 (4.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 7 (4.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 6 (3.49%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (3.49%) Apigee
16 5 (2.91%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 22 (12.79%) Firewall
2 6 (3.49%) Network Security
3 5 (2.91%) DNS
4 4 (2.33%) DHCP
4 4 (2.33%) HTTP
4 4 (2.33%) HTTPS
4 4 (2.33%) NetScaler
4 4 (2.33%) TCP/IP
5 3 (1.74%) BGP
5 3 (1.74%) Software-Defined Networking
5 3 (1.74%) VLAN
5 3 (1.74%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (13.95%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (6.98%) NoSQL
3 8 (4.65%) MySQL
3 8 (4.65%) Relational Database
4 7 (4.07%) DocumentDB
5 6 (3.49%) SQL Server
6 4 (2.33%) Data Lake
6 4 (2.33%) DynamoDB
6 4 (2.33%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (2.33%) Hadoop
6 4 (2.33%) MongoDB
7 3 (1.74%) BigQuery
8 2 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.58%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.58%) ObjectStore
9 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.58%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 52 (30.23%) GitLab
2 30 (17.44%) Jenkins
3 29 (16.86%) Git
4 16 (9.30%) JIRA
5 12 (6.98%) Gradle
5 12 (6.98%) IntelliJ
6 7 (4.07%) Postman
7 4 (2.33%) SonarQube
8 3 (1.74%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.74%) JMeter
8 3 (1.74%) Selenium
9 2 (1.16%) Mocha
9 2 (1.16%) Snyk
10 1 (0.58%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.58%) fastlane
10 1 (0.58%) MLflow
10 1 (0.58%) Mockito
10 1 (0.58%) Spinnaker
10 1 (0.58%) Xcode
10 1 (0.58%) XCTest
General
1 41 (23.84%) Finance
2 33 (19.19%) Public Sector
3 21 (12.21%) Social Skills
4 19 (11.05%) Banking
5 12 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.16%) Financial Institution
6 2 (1.16%) Retail
7 1 (0.58%) Automotive
7 1 (0.58%) Games
7 1 (0.58%) Health Technology
7 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 42 (24.42%) Developer
2 25 (14.53%) Software Engineer
3 22 (12.79%) Senior
4 21 (12.21%) Java Developer
5 19 (11.05%) Platform Engineer
5 19 (11.05%) Security Engineer
6 18 (10.47%) DevOps Engineer
7 17 (9.88%) Lead
8 16 (9.30%) Architect
8 16 (9.30%) Java Engineer
9 15 (8.72%) Java Software Engineer
10 12 (6.98%) Lead Developer
11 11 (6.40%) Cloud Engineer
12 10 (5.81%) AWS Engineer
12 10 (5.81%) Software Developer
13 9 (5.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 7 (4.07%) AWS Architect
14 7 (4.07%) Cloud Architect
15 6 (3.49%) Azure Engineer
15 6 (3.49%) Lead Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (34.88%) Spring
2 54 (31.40%) Spring Boot
3 26 (15.12%) REST
4 23 (13.37%) Kafka
4 23 (13.37%) RESTful
5 18 (10.47%) Node.js
6 15 (8.72%) OpenTelemetry
7 11 (6.40%) Hibernate
8 8 (4.65%) OAuth
8 8 (4.65%) React
9 7 (4.07%) GraphQL
9 7 (4.07%) JSON
10 6 (3.49%) JMS
10 6 (3.49%) JWT
10 6 (3.49%) Nunjucks
11 5 (2.91%) Express.js
11 5 (2.91%) OAuth2
11 5 (2.91%) RabbitMQ
12 4 (2.33%) JAX-RS
12 4 (2.33%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 41 (23.84%) Cloud Native
2 13 (7.56%) Security Posture
3 9 (5.23%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (4.07%) Product Ownership
4 7 (4.07%) Public Cloud
4 7 (4.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 6 (3.49%) Management Information System
5 6 (3.49%) Private Cloud
6 5 (2.91%) Cloud Security Posture
6 5 (2.91%) Linux Command Line
7 4 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (1.74%) AI Agents
8 3 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.74%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.74%) NHS
8 3 (1.74%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.16%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.16%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 32 (18.60%) Linux
2 13 (7.56%) Windows
3 9 (5.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (4.07%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.33%) Unix
5 4 (2.33%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (2.33%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.58%) Android
6 1 (0.58%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.58%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (63.37%) CI/CD
2 83 (48.26%) DevOps
3 79 (45.93%) Containerisation
4 59 (34.30%) Infrastructure as Code
5 51 (29.65%) Agile
6 46 (26.74%) Microservices
7 38 (22.09%) Observability
7 38 (22.09%) Problem-Solving
8 34 (19.77%) Software Engineering
9 26 (15.12%) Test Automation
10 22 (12.79%) Event-Driven
11 21 (12.21%) Cloud Security
12 20 (11.63%) Platform Engineering
13 18 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
14 17 (9.88%) DevSecOps
15 16 (9.30%) Infrastructure Automation
16 15 (8.72%) Event-Driven Architecture
17 14 (8.14%) API Design
17 14 (8.14%) Code Quality
17 14 (8.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 78 (45.35%) Java
2 68 (39.53%) Python
3 29 (16.86%) Bash
4 27 (15.70%) SQL
5 22 (12.79%) PowerShell
6 16 (9.30%) TypeScript
7 12 (6.98%) Kotlin
8 11 (6.40%) Go
9 10 (5.81%) JavaScript
10 8 (4.65%) Bicep
11 4 (2.33%) C#
11 4 (2.33%) PHP
11 4 (2.33%) Ruby
12 2 (1.16%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.58%) C
13 1 (0.58%) C++
13 1 (0.58%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.58%) Swift
Qualifications
1 36 (20.93%) Security Cleared
2 25 (14.53%) SC Cleared
3 13 (7.56%) Azure Certification
3 13 (7.56%) Degree
4 11 (6.40%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (5.81%) AWS Certification
6 7 (4.07%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (4.07%) CISSP
7 4 (2.33%) CISM
7 4 (2.33%) DV Cleared
8 3 (1.74%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 3 (1.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.58%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.58%) OCP
9 1 (0.58%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.58%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (7.56%) GDPR
2 10 (5.81%) QA
3 8 (4.65%) ISO 20022
3 8 (4.65%) NIST
3 8 (4.65%) PSD2
4 7 (4.07%) Accessibility
4 7 (4.07%) SEPA
5 5 (2.91%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 5 (2.91%) HIPAA
5 5 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (2.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (2.33%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.58%) WCAG
System Software
1 111 (64.53%) Docker
2 10 (5.81%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (5.81%) vSphere
3 6 (3.49%) Active Directory
4 5 (2.91%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (2.33%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.58%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.58%) zsh
Systems Management
1 65 (37.79%) Terraform
2 37 (21.51%) Grafana
3 18 (10.47%) Prometheus
4 7 (4.07%) Argo
5 6 (3.49%) Ansible
5 6 (3.49%) Istio
6 4 (2.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (2.33%) Progress Chef
6 4 (2.33%) SCCM
7 3 (1.74%) Fluentd
8 2 (1.16%) linkerd
8 2 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.58%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 21 (12.21%) Microsoft
2 13 (7.56%) Oracle
3 12 (6.98%) Splunk
4 11 (6.40%) Google
4 11 (6.40%) VMware
5 10 (5.81%) Red Hat
6 8 (4.65%) F5
7 5 (2.91%) Varonis
8 4 (2.33%) Confluent
8 4 (2.33%) Palo Alto
8 4 (2.33%) Veeam
9 3 (1.74%) Cribl.io
9 3 (1.74%) CyberArk
9 3 (1.74%) PagerDuty
10 2 (1.16%) Atlassian
10 2 (1.16%) Checkmarx
10 2 (1.16%) Dynatrace
10 2 (1.16%) OpenAI
10 2 (1.16%) SAP
10 2 (1.16%) Veracode