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 1 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 46 58
Rank change year-on-year +15 +12 -26
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 172 88 84
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.11% 4.25% 3.00%
As % of the Systems Management category 40.95% 26.11% 25.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 123 67 60
10th Percentile £358 £381 £412
25th Percentile £413 £453 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £544
Median % change year-on-year -1.24% -3.45% -9.38%
75th Percentile £616 £586 £689
90th Percentile £649 £615 £700
England median daily rate £525 £589 £563
% change year-on-year -10.83% +4.67% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 1 8
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £52.50 £59.39 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £63.79 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -13.77% +38.12% -21.06%
75th Percentile £58.44 £68.18 £49.01
90th Percentile £69.13 - £59.38
England median hourly rate £60.00 £58.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +2.13% -6.00% -2.34%

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 420 337 332
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.91% 16.28% 11.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 270 199 235
10th Percentile £315 £249 £307
25th Percentile £381 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.49% -0.10% -4.76%
75th Percentile £586 £575 £585
90th Percentile £639 £656 £673
England median daily rate £500 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -9.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 8 26
10th Percentile £15.50 £21.05 £16.67
25th Percentile £24.88 £23.40 £17.72
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.59 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +63.74% -27.26% +8.66%
75th Percentile £60.31 £70.51 £56.56
90th Percentile £73.83 £80.50 £80.63
England median hourly rate £54.00 £26.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +107.69% -35.00% -23.27%

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 1 March 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 1 March 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 1 March 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 +2 107 £544 +8.75% 59
Cheshire +21 52 £447 +14.32% 18
Merseyside -11 6 £330 +10.00% 6
Lancashire -21 4 £550 -8.33% 17
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 Airflow
3 4 (2.33%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.33%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.58%) Apache
Applications
1 1 (0.58%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 113 (65.70%) AWS
2 67 (38.95%) Azure
3 44 (25.58%) GCP
4 32 (18.60%) GitHub
5 24 (13.95%) OpenShift
6 19 (11.05%) Serverless
7 18 (10.47%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (9.88%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (8.72%) AWS CloudFormation
10 14 (8.14%) AWS Lambda
11 13 (7.56%) Amazon ECS
11 13 (7.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 12 (6.98%) Amazon EC2
13 9 (5.23%) Amazon S3
13 9 (5.23%) Azure AKS
13 9 (5.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (4.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 8 (4.65%) Azure DevOps
15 6 (3.49%) Apigee
16 5 (2.91%) Amazon SageMaker
Communications & Networking
1 26 (15.12%) Firewall
2 5 (2.91%) VPN
3 4 (2.33%) DHCP
3 4 (2.33%) DNS
3 4 (2.33%) HTTP
3 4 (2.33%) HTTPS
3 4 (2.33%) NetScaler
3 4 (2.33%) Network Security
3 4 (2.33%) TCP/IP
4 3 (1.74%) BGP
4 3 (1.74%) Software-Defined Networking
4 3 (1.74%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (9.88%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (6.98%) NoSQL
3 9 (5.23%) MySQL
4 8 (4.65%) Relational Database
5 7 (4.07%) DocumentDB
6 5 (2.91%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (2.91%) Big Data
6 5 (2.91%) DynamoDB
6 5 (2.91%) MongoDB
7 4 (2.33%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (2.33%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.74%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.16%) Apache Cassandra
9 2 (1.16%) Data Lake
9 2 (1.16%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.58%) ObjectStore
10 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.58%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 61 (35.47%) GitLab
2 39 (22.67%) Jenkins
3 31 (18.02%) Git
4 19 (11.05%) JIRA
5 12 (6.98%) Gradle
5 12 (6.98%) IntelliJ
6 7 (4.07%) Bitbucket
6 7 (4.07%) Postman
7 6 (3.49%) MLflow
8 5 (2.91%) Snyk
8 5 (2.91%) SonarQube
9 3 (1.74%) JMeter
9 3 (1.74%) Selenium
10 2 (1.16%) Mocha
10 2 (1.16%) Mockito
10 2 (1.16%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.58%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.58%) fastlane
11 1 (0.58%) Spinnaker
11 1 (0.58%) XCTest
General
1 41 (23.84%) Finance
2 38 (22.09%) Public Sector
3 22 (12.79%) Banking
4 20 (11.63%) Social Skills
5 17 (9.88%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.16%) Financial Institution
6 2 (1.16%) Games
7 1 (0.58%) Automotive
7 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.58%) Military
7 1 (0.58%) Retail
Job Titles
1 41 (23.84%) Developer
2 22 (12.79%) Security Engineer
2 22 (12.79%) Software Engineer
3 21 (12.21%) Senior
4 20 (11.63%) Java Developer
5 19 (11.05%) DevOps Engineer
6 17 (9.88%) Platform Engineer
7 16 (9.30%) Architect
8 14 (8.14%) Java Engineer
8 14 (8.14%) Java Software Engineer
9 12 (6.98%) AWS Engineer
9 12 (6.98%) Cloud Engineer
10 10 (5.81%) Lead
11 9 (5.23%) Data Engineer
11 9 (5.23%) DevSecOps Engineer
12 8 (4.65%) Lead Developer
13 7 (4.07%) AWS Architect
13 7 (4.07%) Software Developer
14 6 (3.49%) Cloud Architect
14 6 (3.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (33.14%) Spring
2 56 (32.56%) Spring Boot
3 27 (15.70%) RESTful
4 25 (14.53%) Kafka
5 23 (13.37%) REST
6 12 (6.98%) Hibernate
6 12 (6.98%) OpenTelemetry
7 11 (6.40%) Node.js
8 8 (4.65%) React
9 7 (4.07%) JMS
9 7 (4.07%) JSON
10 6 (3.49%) HTML
10 6 (3.49%) JWT
10 6 (3.49%) OAuth
11 5 (2.91%) AngularJS
11 5 (2.91%) Elastic Stack
11 5 (2.91%) Flask
11 5 (2.91%) JAX-RS
11 5 (2.91%) PySpark
11 5 (2.91%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 37 (21.51%) Cloud Native
2 10 (5.81%) Security Posture
3 7 (4.07%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (4.07%) Product Ownership
3 7 (4.07%) Public Cloud
3 7 (4.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 6 (3.49%) Private Cloud
5 5 (2.91%) Cloud Security Posture
5 5 (2.91%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (2.91%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.74%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.16%) Algorithms
8 2 (1.16%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.16%) Data Structures
8 2 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.16%) NHS
8 2 (1.16%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 40 (23.26%) Linux
2 16 (9.30%) Windows
3 10 (5.81%) 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
1 105 (61.05%) CI/CD
2 86 (50.00%) DevOps
3 78 (45.35%) Containerisation
4 53 (30.81%) Infrastructure as Code
5 52 (30.23%) Agile
6 43 (25.00%) Microservices
7 36 (20.93%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (19.19%) Observability
9 31 (18.02%) Software Engineering
10 25 (14.53%) Cloud Security
11 23 (13.37%) Test Automation
12 21 (12.21%) DevSecOps
12 21 (12.21%) Infrastructure Automation
13 20 (11.63%) Event-Driven
14 16 (9.30%) Continuous Improvement
15 15 (8.72%) Platform Engineering
15 15 (8.72%) TDD
16 14 (8.14%) AI
16 14 (8.14%) SDLC
17 13 (7.56%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 75 (43.60%) Java
2 69 (40.12%) Python
3 29 (16.86%) Bash
4 25 (14.53%) SQL
5 21 (12.21%) PowerShell
6 14 (8.14%) TypeScript
7 12 (6.98%) Kotlin
8 10 (5.81%) Go
9 7 (4.07%) JavaScript
10 6 (3.49%) Ruby
11 5 (2.91%) PHP
12 4 (2.33%) Bicep
12 4 (2.33%) C#
13 2 (1.16%) Perl
13 2 (1.16%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.58%) C
14 1 (0.58%) C++
14 1 (0.58%) Objective-C
14 1 (0.58%) Swift
Qualifications
1 36 (20.93%) Security Cleared
2 23 (13.37%) SC Cleared
3 15 (8.72%) AWS Certification
4 13 (7.56%) Degree
5 11 (6.40%) Azure Certification
5 11 (6.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (5.81%) CISSP
7 8 (4.65%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (3.49%) CISM
9 5 (2.91%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 4 (2.33%) DV Cleared
11 3 (1.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (1.16%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.58%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.58%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.81%) QA
2 8 (4.65%) ISO 20022
2 8 (4.65%) PSD2
3 7 (4.07%) Accessibility
3 7 (4.07%) NIST
3 7 (4.07%) SEPA
4 6 (3.49%) GDPR
5 5 (2.91%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 5 (2.91%) HIPAA
5 5 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.16%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.58%) WCAG
System Software
1 118 (68.60%) Docker
2 11 (6.40%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (6.40%) vSphere
3 5 (2.91%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.33%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 63 (36.63%) Terraform
2 33 (19.19%) Grafana
3 13 (7.56%) Prometheus
4 7 (4.07%) Progress Chef
5 5 (2.91%) Fluentd
5 5 (2.91%) Istio
6 4 (2.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (2.33%) Ansible
6 4 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (2.33%) SCCM
7 3 (1.74%) Argo
8 2 (1.16%) linkerd
9 1 (0.58%) Puppet
Vendors
1 19 (11.05%) Microsoft
2 16 (9.30%) Oracle
3 14 (8.14%) Splunk
4 12 (6.98%) VMware
5 10 (5.81%) Google
6 8 (4.65%) F5
6 8 (4.65%) Red Hat
7 7 (4.07%) Cribl.io
8 5 (2.91%) Checkmarx
8 5 (2.91%) Varonis
8 5 (2.91%) Veracode
9 4 (2.33%) Confluent
9 4 (2.33%) Palo Alto
9 4 (2.33%) Veeam
10 3 (1.74%) CyberArk
10 3 (1.74%) PagerDuty
11 2 (1.16%) Atlassian
11 2 (1.16%) Ping Identity
12 1 (0.58%) OpenAI
12 1 (0.58%) ServiceNow