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 25 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 38 60
Rank change year-on-year -14 +22 -17
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 158 111 66
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.04% 5.00% 2.70%
As % of the Systems Management category 32.58% 37.76% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 88 35
10th Percentile £408 £330 £404
25th Percentile £463 £398 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -9.09% -4.35%
75th Percentile £630 £581 £650
90th Percentile £703 £666 £705
England median daily rate £540 £533 £557
% change year-on-year +1.27% -4.18% -7.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 2
10th Percentile £61.70 £75.65 -
25th Percentile £68.50 £78.88 -
Median hourly rate £76.00 £87.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -12.64% +88.39% -
75th Percentile £77.00 £92.38 -
90th Percentile £84.20 £93.95 -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year +4.48% -0.74% -10.00%

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 485 294 216
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.39% 13.25% 8.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 351 201 149
10th Percentile £263 £251 £205
25th Percentile £389 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £458 £465
Median % change year-on-year +5.57% -1.61% -7.00%
75th Percentile £588 £563 £550
90th Percentile £653 £650 £630
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 6
10th Percentile £21.25 - £27.88
25th Percentile £47.87 £18.87 £33.67
Median hourly rate £75.00 £63.40 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +18.30% +37.29% +0.65%
75th Percentile £77.00 £71.56 £48.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £85.18 £76.38
England median hourly rate £67.00 £51.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +31.37% +36.00% -24.80%

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 25 August 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 25 August 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 25 August 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 +2 113 £550 +10.00% 119
Cheshire -11 31 £620 +30.53% 7
Lancashire -3 7 £712 +35.66% 5
Cumbria - 3 £525 -
Merseyside -20 1 £575 +12.75% 4
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 5 (3.16%) Apache
1 5 (3.16%) Apache Spark
2 3 (1.90%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.90%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.27%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.63%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.63%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.63%) FIS Private Capital Suite
1 1 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 109 (68.99%) AWS
2 83 (52.53%) Azure
3 48 (30.38%) GCP
4 25 (15.82%) Azure DevOps
4 25 (15.82%) GitHub
5 21 (13.29%) AWS CloudFormation
5 21 (13.29%) GitHub Actions
6 20 (12.66%) Azure AKS
6 20 (12.66%) Serverless
7 19 (12.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 17 (10.76%) Amazon EKS
9 10 (6.33%) Amazon ECS
10 9 (5.70%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (5.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 8 (5.06%) Azure Sentinel
11 8 (5.06%) OpenShift
11 8 (5.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 7 (4.43%) Entra ID
13 6 (3.80%) GitHub Copilot
13 6 (3.80%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 16 (10.13%) Firewall
2 7 (4.43%) Network Security
3 4 (2.53%) HTTP
4 3 (1.90%) DNS
5 2 (1.27%) SSL
5 2 (1.27%) VPN
6 1 (0.63%) BGP
6 1 (0.63%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.63%) DHCP
6 1 (0.63%) Ethernet VPN
6 1 (0.63%) MPLS
6 1 (0.63%) OSPF
6 1 (0.63%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.63%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (0.63%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.63%) VXLAN
6 1 (0.63%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (10.13%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (6.33%) SQL Server
3 9 (5.70%) MySQL
4 8 (5.06%) NoSQL
4 8 (5.06%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.16%) DynamoDB
6 3 (1.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (1.27%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.27%) DocumentDB
7 2 (1.27%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.63%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.63%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.63%) Flink
8 1 (0.63%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.63%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.63%) Semantic Layer
8 1 (0.63%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 26 (16.46%) Git
2 24 (15.19%) GitLab
3 21 (13.29%) Jenkins
4 8 (5.06%) JUnit
4 8 (5.06%) SonarQube
5 6 (3.80%) Claude Code
5 6 (3.80%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (3.16%) Cucumber
6 5 (3.16%) Mockito
7 4 (2.53%) Bitbucket
7 4 (2.53%) Gradle
7 4 (2.53%) Postman
7 4 (2.53%) Selenium
8 2 (1.27%) Burp Suite
8 2 (1.27%) Gatling
8 2 (1.27%) JIRA
8 2 (1.27%) LoadRunner
8 2 (1.27%) Maven
8 2 (1.27%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.63%) Cypress.io
General
1 37 (23.42%) Finance
2 26 (16.46%) Social Skills
3 14 (8.86%) Public Sector
4 12 (7.59%) Banking
5 8 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (5.06%) Retail
6 3 (1.90%) Health Technology
6 3 (1.90%) Military
7 1 (0.63%) Police
Job Titles
1 33 (20.89%) DevOps Engineer
2 28 (17.72%) Senior
3 25 (15.82%) Security Engineer
4 23 (14.56%) Software Engineer
5 20 (12.66%) Lead
6 19 (12.03%) Cloud Engineer
6 19 (12.03%) Java Engineer
7 18 (11.39%) Architect
8 17 (10.76%) Developer
9 16 (10.13%) Java Software Engineer
10 14 (8.86%) Cloud Security Engineer
11 13 (8.23%) AWS Engineer
12 11 (6.96%) Solutions Architect
13 9 (5.70%) Azure Engineer
13 9 (5.70%) Kubernetes Engineer
13 9 (5.70%) Senior DevOps
13 9 (5.70%) Senior DevOps Engineer
14 8 (5.06%) Lead Developer
14 8 (5.06%) Platform Engineer
15 7 (4.43%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (49.37%) Terraform
2 37 (23.42%) Spring
3 30 (18.99%) Spring Boot
4 26 (16.46%) Kafka
4 26 (16.46%) REST
5 24 (15.19%) Node.js
6 16 (10.13%) React
7 10 (6.33%) Next.js
8 9 (5.70%) RESTful
9 7 (4.43%) Spring MVC
10 6 (3.80%) AWS CDK
10 6 (3.80%) Nunjucks
11 5 (3.16%) ARM Templates
11 5 (3.16%) Express.js
12 4 (2.53%) Azure Blueprints
12 4 (2.53%) Spring Security
13 3 (1.90%) AngularJS
13 3 (1.90%) GraphQL
13 3 (1.90%) Hibernate
13 3 (1.90%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 60 (37.97%) Cloud Native
2 22 (13.92%) Security Posture
3 18 (11.39%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (6.33%) Enterprise Cloud
4 10 (6.33%) Management Information System
5 6 (3.80%) Cloud Security Posture
5 6 (3.80%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (3.16%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (3.16%) Onboarding
6 5 (3.16%) Private Cloud
6 5 (3.16%) Public Cloud
7 4 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (2.53%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (1.90%) Culture of Ownership
8 3 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (1.90%) NHS
8 3 (1.90%) PKI
8 3 (1.90%) Product Ownership
8 3 (1.90%) Replication
8 3 (1.90%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 33 (20.89%) Linux
2 17 (10.76%) Windows
3 15 (9.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.63%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (77.22%) CI/CD
2 94 (59.49%) DevOps
3 73 (46.20%) Infrastructure as Code
4 57 (36.08%) Observability
5 55 (34.81%) Agile
6 48 (30.38%) Containerisation
7 45 (28.48%) Microservices
8 41 (25.95%) Software Engineering
9 35 (22.15%) Cloud Security
10 33 (20.89%) Event-Driven
11 31 (19.62%) Test Automation
12 29 (18.35%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 29 (18.35%) Infrastructure Automation
13 25 (15.82%) AI
13 25 (15.82%) Scrum
14 24 (15.19%) Continuous Improvement
15 23 (14.56%) Platform Engineering
16 21 (13.29%) Problem-Solving
17 19 (12.03%) DevSecOps
17 19 (12.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 69 (43.67%) Java
2 60 (37.97%) Python
3 37 (23.42%) Bash
4 32 (20.25%) PowerShell
5 25 (15.82%) Bicep
6 19 (12.03%) SQL
7 16 (10.13%) TypeScript
8 8 (5.06%) JavaScript
8 8 (5.06%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.90%) Go
10 2 (1.27%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 29 (18.35%) Security Cleared
2 26 (16.46%) SC Cleared
3 22 (13.92%) Azure Certification
4 18 (11.39%) AWS Certification
4 18 (11.39%) Degree
5 13 (8.23%) CISSP
6 5 (3.16%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.90%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (1.27%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.63%) CCIE
10 1 (0.63%) CCNP
10 1 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.63%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.63%) OCP
10 1 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.33%) GDPR
2 8 (5.06%) QA
3 7 (4.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (3.80%) Data Quality
5 4 (2.53%) Accessibility
5 4 (2.53%) NIST
6 2 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.63%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.63%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.63%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.63%) PSD2
7 1 (0.63%) SEPA
7 1 (0.63%) SLA
7 1 (0.63%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.63%) WCAG
System Software
1 92 (58.23%) Docker
2 5 (3.16%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.90%) Ceph
3 3 (1.90%) KVM
3 3 (1.90%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.27%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 2 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.27%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.63%) vSphere
5 1 (0.63%) zsh
Systems Management
1 20 (12.66%) Ansible
2 19 (12.03%) Grafana
3 16 (10.13%) Prometheus
4 14 (8.86%) Progress Chef
5 11 (6.96%) Argo
6 8 (5.06%) Istio
7 2 (1.27%) linkerd
7 2 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.63%) Packer
8 1 (0.63%) Puppet
8 1 (0.63%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 25 (15.82%) Microsoft
2 19 (12.03%) Red Hat
3 17 (10.76%) Google
4 7 (4.43%) Dynatrace
4 7 (4.43%) Splunk
5 5 (3.16%) Oracle
6 4 (2.53%) SAP
6 4 (2.53%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.27%) Cisco
7 2 (1.27%) Confluent
7 2 (1.27%) OpenAI
7 2 (1.27%) Palo Alto
7 2 (1.27%) VMware
8 1 (0.63%) CheckPoint
8 1 (0.63%) CyberArk
8 1 (0.63%) Databricks
8 1 (0.63%) Fortinet
8 1 (0.63%) Sage
8 1 (0.63%) Tanium
8 1 (0.63%) Varonis