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 19 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 35 51 45
Rank change year-on-year +16 -6 -11
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 141 74 111
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.78% 3.19% 4.07%
As % of the Systems Management category 38.52% 26.91% 26.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 114 41 71
10th Percentile £335 £356 £425
25th Percentile £364 £400 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £625
90th Percentile £654 £675 £688
England median daily rate £525 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -10.26% -2.50% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 23
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £74.26 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +60.81% - -12.87%
75th Percentile - £57.18 -
90th Percentile - £63.78 £60.24
England median hourly rate £67.00 £60.00 £68.63
% change year-on-year +11.67% -12.58% +6.41%

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 366 275 421
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 15.00% 11.86% 15.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 141 294
10th Percentile £295 £243 £302
25th Percentile £356 £375 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £575
90th Percentile £650 £656 £655
England median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -5.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 11 41
10th Percentile - £21.05 £18.50
25th Percentile £15.50 £24.18 £45.88
Median hourly rate £18.87 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -59.14% - +37.35%
75th Percentile £55.44 £58.46 £53.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £77.50 £78.00
England median hourly rate £35.00 £37.75 £49.00
% change year-on-year -7.28% -22.96% +90.59%

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 19 November 2025.

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
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 19 November 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
Manchester +8 72 £500 -9.09% 119
Cheshire +27 56 £405 -12.29% 37
Merseyside +4 5 £510 +70.00% 8
Lancashire -15 4 £550 +4.76% 36
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 8 (5.67%) Apache Airflow
2 5 (3.55%) Confluence
2 5 (3.55%) JBoss
2 5 (3.55%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.42%) Mule
3 2 (1.42%) Mule ESB
3 2 (1.42%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.42%) WebSphere
3 2 (1.42%) WebSphere Application Server
4 1 (0.71%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.71%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.71%) IIS
4 1 (0.71%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (0.71%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 88 (62.41%) AWS
2 48 (34.04%) Azure
3 35 (24.82%) GCP
4 29 (20.57%) OpenShift
5 27 (19.15%) GitHub
6 19 (13.48%) Serverless
7 17 (12.06%) Amazon ECS
7 17 (12.06%) AWS Lambda
8 15 (10.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 15 (10.64%) GitHub Actions
8 15 (10.64%) SaaS
9 14 (9.93%) Amazon EC2
9 14 (9.93%) AWS CloudFormation
9 14 (9.93%) Datadog
9 14 (9.93%) PaaS
10 11 (7.80%) Amazon SQS
11 10 (7.09%) IaaS
12 9 (6.38%) Apigee
13 8 (5.67%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (4.26%) Amazon EventBridge
Communications & Networking
1 18 (12.77%) Firewall
2 4 (2.84%) VLAN
2 4 (2.84%) VPN
3 3 (2.13%) BGP
3 3 (2.13%) HTTP
3 3 (2.13%) HTTPS
3 3 (2.13%) Network Security
3 3 (2.13%) Software-Defined Networking
4 2 (1.42%) Calico
4 2 (1.42%) TCP/IP
4 2 (1.42%) X.509
5 1 (0.71%) VoIP
5 1 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (16.31%) Relational Database
2 16 (11.35%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (9.22%) MySQL
4 11 (7.80%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (6.38%) DynamoDB
5 9 (6.38%) NoSQL
5 9 (6.38%) RDBMS
6 8 (5.67%) BigQuery
6 8 (5.67%) Redis
7 6 (4.26%) Amazon Aurora
7 6 (4.26%) Big Data
8 4 (2.84%) MongoDB
9 3 (2.13%) Apache Cassandra
9 3 (2.13%) Data Lake
9 3 (2.13%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.71%) Metadata
10 1 (0.71%) Power BI
10 1 (0.71%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 45 (31.91%) Jenkins
2 40 (28.37%) Git
3 33 (23.40%) GitLab
4 21 (14.89%) JIRA
5 14 (9.93%) SonarQube
6 8 (5.67%) Bitbucket
7 7 (4.96%) Maven
7 7 (4.96%) Postman
8 6 (4.26%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (3.55%) Gradle
9 5 (3.55%) JUnit
9 5 (3.55%) MLflow
9 5 (3.55%) SonarLint
10 4 (2.84%) Snyk
10 4 (2.84%) TeamCity
11 3 (2.13%) Artifactory
11 3 (2.13%) Bitbucket Server
11 3 (2.13%) CA Release Automation
11 3 (2.13%) Mockito
11 3 (2.13%) Rational DOORS
General
1 31 (21.99%) Finance
2 27 (19.15%) Social Skills
3 25 (17.73%) Public Sector
4 24 (17.02%) Banking
5 15 (10.64%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.84%) Games
7 2 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.42%) Retail
8 1 (0.71%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.71%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.71%) Military
8 1 (0.71%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 32 (22.70%) Developer
2 18 (12.77%) Architect
2 18 (12.77%) DevOps Engineer
2 18 (12.77%) Java Developer
3 17 (12.06%) Platform Engineer
3 17 (12.06%) Senior
4 13 (9.22%) Software Engineer
5 11 (7.80%) AWS Engineer
5 11 (7.80%) Security Engineer
5 11 (7.80%) Technical Architect
6 9 (6.38%) AWS DevOps
6 9 (6.38%) Lead
7 8 (5.67%) Data Engineer
7 8 (5.67%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 8 (5.67%) Java Architect
7 8 (5.67%) Java Technical Architect
7 8 (5.67%) Senior Developer
8 7 (4.96%) AWS DevOps Engineer
9 6 (4.26%) Senior Java Developer
9 6 (4.26%) Virtualisation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (29.08%) Spring Boot
2 31 (21.99%) Spring
3 27 (19.15%) RESTful
4 20 (14.18%) AngularJS
5 17 (12.06%) Node.js
6 16 (11.35%) Kafka
7 13 (9.22%) REST
8 12 (8.51%) React
9 10 (7.09%) JWT
10 9 (6.38%) Elastic Stack
10 9 (6.38%) JSON
11 8 (5.67%) J2EE
11 8 (5.67%) JMS
12 7 (4.96%) Hibernate
12 7 (4.96%) HTML
13 6 (4.26%) Dropwizard
13 6 (4.26%) JAX-RS
13 6 (4.26%) Micronaut
13 6 (4.26%) PySpark
13 6 (4.26%) Spring Security
Miscellaneous
1 22 (15.60%) Cloud Native
2 9 (6.38%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (5.67%) Product Ownership
3 8 (5.67%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 6 (4.26%) N-Tier
5 3 (2.13%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.42%) Algorithms
6 2 (1.42%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.42%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.42%) PKI
7 1 (0.71%) CUDA
7 1 (0.71%) Distributed Computing
7 1 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.71%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.71%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.71%) IBM XIV
7 1 (0.71%) Private Cloud
7 1 (0.71%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 48 (34.04%) Linux
2 21 (14.89%) Windows
3 11 (7.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.55%) Unix
5 3 (2.13%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.42%) Android
6 2 (1.42%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (68.79%) CI/CD
2 79 (56.03%) Containerisation
3 73 (51.77%) DevOps
4 44 (31.21%) Microservices
5 43 (30.50%) Agile
6 40 (28.37%) Infrastructure as Code
7 37 (26.24%) Problem-Solving
8 34 (24.11%) Observability
9 23 (16.31%) Software Engineering
10 18 (12.77%) TDD
10 18 (12.77%) Test Automation
11 17 (12.06%) SDLC
12 16 (11.35%) Platform Engineering
12 16 (11.35%) Unit Testing
13 15 (10.64%) Cloud Security
13 15 (10.64%) Infrastructure Automation
14 14 (9.93%) AI
14 14 (9.93%) API Design
14 14 (9.93%) DevSecOps
14 14 (9.93%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 69 (48.94%) Python
2 56 (39.72%) Java
3 26 (18.44%) Bash
4 23 (16.31%) SQL
5 15 (10.64%) PHP
6 9 (6.38%) TypeScript
7 6 (4.26%) Go
7 6 (4.26%) JavaScript
7 6 (4.26%) Perl
8 5 (3.55%) PowerShell
9 4 (2.84%) C++
10 3 (2.13%) C#
10 3 (2.13%) PL/SQL
10 3 (2.13%) Ruby
11 2 (1.42%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.71%) C
12 1 (0.71%) Clojure
12 1 (0.71%) Korn
12 1 (0.71%) Scala
Qualifications
1 32 (22.70%) Security Cleared
2 16 (11.35%) SC Cleared
3 9 (6.38%) Degree
4 7 (4.96%) AWS Certification
4 7 (4.96%) CISSP
4 7 (4.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (4.26%) CISM
6 5 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.42%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
7 2 (1.42%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.42%) DV Cleared
7 2 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
8 1 (0.71%) OSCP
8 1 (0.71%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.80%) QA
2 8 (5.67%) ISO 20022
2 8 (5.67%) PSD2
2 8 (5.67%) SEPA
3 6 (4.26%) Accessibility
3 6 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (4.26%) NIST
4 3 (2.13%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.71%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.71%) WCAG
System Software
1 106 (75.18%) Docker
2 8 (5.67%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (5.67%) vSphere
3 5 (3.55%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.42%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 48 (34.04%) Terraform
2 21 (14.89%) Grafana
3 8 (5.67%) Prometheus
4 7 (4.96%) Ansible
4 7 (4.96%) Progress Chef
5 5 (3.55%) Fluentd
6 4 (2.84%) Kibana
7 3 (2.13%) Podman
7 3 (2.13%) SELinux
8 2 (1.42%) Istio
9 1 (0.71%) Argo
9 1 (0.71%) Puppet
9 1 (0.71%) SCCM
Vendors
1 25 (17.73%) Oracle
2 20 (14.18%) Splunk
3 17 (12.06%) AppDynamics
4 11 (7.80%) Microsoft
5 10 (7.09%) Red Hat
6 8 (5.67%) VMware
7 7 (4.96%) Cribl.io
8 6 (4.26%) Dynatrace
8 6 (4.26%) Gigya
9 5 (3.55%) Cloudera
10 4 (2.84%) Checkmarx
10 4 (2.84%) F5
10 4 (2.84%) Google
10 4 (2.84%) Palo Alto
10 4 (2.84%) Veracode
11 3 (2.13%) IBM
12 2 (1.42%) Atlassian
12 2 (1.42%) Ping Identity
13 1 (0.71%) BiZZdesign
13 1 (0.71%) OpenAI