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 16 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 37 68
Rank change year-on-year -8 +31 -18
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 146 101 70
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.20% 5.06% 2.49%
As % of the Systems Management category 32.44% 34.71% 26.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 84 55
10th Percentile £400 £378 £407
25th Percentile £450 £423 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £488 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% -11.36% -6.38%
75th Percentile £599 £584 £650
90th Percentile £652 £646 £694
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 2 1
10th Percentile - £75.65 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £78.88 £52.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £87.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.78% +58.18% +26.90%
75th Percentile £63.31 £92.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.10 £93.95 -
England median hourly rate £69.50 £80.00 £67.25
% change year-on-year -13.13% +18.96% -10.33%

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 450 291 261
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.95% 14.57% 9.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 203 189
10th Percentile £311 £264 £210
25th Percentile £403 £372 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £473 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.49% -0.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £593 £538 £575
90th Percentile £652 £638 £650
England median daily rate £513 £513 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 7 12
10th Percentile £25.22 £62.54 £16.89
25th Percentile £52.50 - £17.72
Median hourly rate £55.00 £63.40 £22.61
Median % change year-on-year -13.25% +180.41% -22.83%
75th Percentile £63.31 £84.88 £58.44
90th Percentile £76.70 £89.15 £80.38
England median hourly rate £58.94 £42.25 £30.75
% change year-on-year +39.49% +37.40% -44.09%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -5 104 £525 +10.53% 112
Cheshire -16 27 £538 +13.16% 20
Lancashire -9 7 £712 +18.70% 37
Merseyside - 5 £453 - 17
Cumbria - 3 £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 (6.85%) Confluence
2 7 (4.79%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.74%) Apache
4 1 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.68%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.37%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.68%) FIS Private Capital Suite
1 1 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 96 (65.75%) AWS
2 79 (54.11%) Azure
3 40 (27.40%) GCP
4 21 (14.38%) GitHub
4 21 (14.38%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 19 (13.01%) Serverless
6 16 (10.96%) OpenShift
7 15 (10.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 14 (9.59%) Azure AKS
8 14 (9.59%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (8.90%) Azure DevOps
10 12 (8.22%) Amazon EKS
11 9 (6.16%) Amazon EC2
11 9 (6.16%) Amazon S3
12 7 (4.79%) AWS Lambda
13 6 (4.11%) Amazon ECR
13 6 (4.11%) Amazon SQS
14 5 (3.42%) Entra ID
15 4 (2.74%) IaaS
16 3 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 20 (13.70%) Firewall
2 5 (3.42%) DNS
3 4 (2.74%) Network Security
4 3 (2.05%) DHCP
4 3 (2.05%) NetScaler
4 3 (2.05%) TCP/IP
5 2 (1.37%) VPN
6 1 (0.68%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (13.70%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (8.90%) NoSQL
3 10 (6.85%) SQL Server
4 9 (6.16%) DocumentDB
5 6 (4.11%) Relational Database
6 5 (3.42%) DynamoDB
6 5 (3.42%) MongoDB
6 5 (3.42%) MySQL
7 4 (2.74%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (2.74%) Hadoop
8 3 (2.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (1.37%) Apache Cassandra
9 2 (1.37%) Data Lake
9 2 (1.37%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.68%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.68%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.68%) Semantic Layer
10 1 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (24.66%) GitLab
2 24 (16.44%) Git
2 24 (16.44%) Jenkins
3 13 (8.90%) JIRA
4 9 (6.16%) Gradle
5 7 (4.79%) Postman
5 7 (4.79%) Selenium
5 7 (4.79%) SonarQube
6 6 (4.11%) IntelliJ
7 5 (3.42%) Cucumber
7 5 (3.42%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (2.74%) JUnit
9 3 (2.05%) JMeter
10 2 (1.37%) Bitbucket
10 2 (1.37%) Burp Suite
10 2 (1.37%) Gatling
10 2 (1.37%) LoadRunner
10 2 (1.37%) Mocha
10 2 (1.37%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.68%) MLflow
General
1 36 (24.66%) Finance
2 27 (18.49%) Public Sector
3 19 (13.01%) Social Skills
4 13 (8.90%) Banking
5 8 (5.48%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (2.05%) Health Technology
7 2 (1.37%) Retail
8 1 (0.68%) Automotive
8 1 (0.68%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 29 (19.86%) Developer
2 26 (17.81%) DevOps Engineer
3 21 (14.38%) Senior
3 21 (14.38%) Software Engineer
4 20 (13.70%) Lead
4 20 (13.70%) Security Engineer
5 16 (10.96%) Java Engineer
6 14 (9.59%) Architect
6 14 (9.59%) Java Software Engineer
6 14 (9.59%) Lead Developer
7 13 (8.90%) Java Developer
8 11 (7.53%) Software Developer
9 10 (6.85%) Cloud Engineer
10 9 (6.16%) Platform Engineer
10 9 (6.16%) Solutions Architect
11 8 (5.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (4.79%) AWS Engineer
12 7 (4.79%) GCP Engineer
12 7 (4.79%) Lead Software Developer
13 6 (4.11%) Lead Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (32.88%) Spring
2 41 (28.08%) Spring Boot
3 22 (15.07%) Kafka
4 21 (14.38%) Node.js
5 18 (12.33%) REST
6 12 (8.22%) React
6 12 (8.22%) RESTful
7 9 (6.16%) OpenTelemetry
8 6 (4.11%) Nunjucks
9 5 (3.42%) AWS CDK
9 5 (3.42%) Express.js
9 5 (3.42%) GraphQL
9 5 (3.42%) RabbitMQ
10 4 (2.74%) Apache NiFi
10 4 (2.74%) ARM Templates
10 4 (2.74%) Next.js
10 4 (2.74%) Spring Cloud
11 3 (2.05%) AngularJS
11 3 (2.05%) Hibernate
11 3 (2.05%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 55 (37.67%) Cloud Native
2 20 (13.70%) Security Posture
3 13 (8.90%) Management Information System
4 11 (7.53%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (7.53%) Public Cloud
5 9 (6.16%) Linux Command Line
6 5 (3.42%) Cloud Security Posture
6 5 (3.42%) NHS
6 5 (3.42%) Onboarding
6 5 (3.42%) Private Cloud
6 5 (3.42%) Product Ownership
7 4 (2.74%) AI Agents
7 4 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.74%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 4 (2.74%) Virtual Team
8 3 (2.05%) Data Centre
8 3 (2.05%) PKI
9 2 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.37%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 29 (19.86%) Linux
2 16 (10.96%) Windows
3 14 (9.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.42%) Windows Server
5 3 (2.05%) Windows Server 2012
5 3 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.68%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (70.55%) CI/CD
2 88 (60.27%) DevOps
3 53 (36.30%) Containerisation
4 51 (34.93%) Infrastructure as Code
5 48 (32.88%) Agile
6 43 (29.45%) Microservices
7 41 (28.08%) Observability
8 29 (19.86%) Software Engineering
9 28 (19.18%) Problem-Solving
10 24 (16.44%) Cloud Security
10 24 (16.44%) Test Automation
11 22 (15.07%) Event-Driven
12 20 (13.70%) Infrastructure Automation
13 19 (13.01%) Scrum
14 18 (12.33%) Load Balancing
15 17 (11.64%) SIEM
16 16 (10.96%) Event-Driven Architecture
17 15 (10.27%) AI
17 15 (10.27%) Continuous Improvement
17 15 (10.27%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 71 (48.63%) Java
2 58 (39.73%) Python
3 28 (19.18%) Bash
4 27 (18.49%) PowerShell
5 24 (16.44%) SQL
6 16 (10.96%) TypeScript
7 9 (6.16%) Go
7 9 (6.16%) Kotlin
8 8 (5.48%) Bicep
8 8 (5.48%) JavaScript
9 4 (2.74%) Shell Script
10 2 (1.37%) C#
11 1 (0.68%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 27 (18.49%) Security Cleared
2 22 (15.07%) SC Cleared
3 20 (13.70%) Azure Certification
4 17 (11.64%) AWS Certification
5 14 (9.59%) Degree
6 12 (8.22%) CISSP
7 8 (5.48%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (3.42%) DV Cleared
9 3 (2.05%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 3 (2.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.68%) CISM
11 1 (0.68%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.68%) OCP
11 1 (0.68%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.68%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.96%) GDPR
2 7 (4.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 6 (4.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
3 6 (4.11%) HIPAA
3 6 (4.11%) NIST
3 6 (4.11%) QA
4 5 (3.42%) Data Quality
4 5 (3.42%) ISO 20022
4 5 (3.42%) PSD2
5 4 (2.74%) Accessibility
5 4 (2.74%) SEPA
6 2 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.68%) SLA
7 1 (0.68%) WCAG
System Software
1 92 (63.01%) Docker
2 6 (4.11%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.74%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (2.74%) vSphere
4 3 (2.05%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.68%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.68%) zsh
Systems Management
1 60 (41.10%) Terraform
2 26 (17.81%) Grafana
3 16 (10.96%) Prometheus
4 11 (7.53%) Progress Chef
5 10 (6.85%) Ansible
5 10 (6.85%) Istio
6 8 (5.48%) Argo
7 3 (2.05%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (2.05%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (2.05%) SCCM
8 2 (1.37%) linkerd
8 2 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.68%) Packer
9 1 (0.68%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 23 (15.75%) Microsoft
2 18 (12.33%) Google
3 15 (10.27%) Red Hat
4 7 (4.79%) Oracle
5 6 (4.11%) Splunk
5 6 (4.11%) Varonis
6 4 (2.74%) Dynatrace
6 4 (2.74%) VMware
7 3 (2.05%) CyberArk
7 3 (2.05%) F5
7 3 (2.05%) PagerDuty
7 3 (2.05%) SAP
7 3 (2.05%) Veeam
8 2 (1.37%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.68%) Databricks
9 1 (0.68%) Foundry
9 1 (0.68%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.68%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.68%) Tanium
9 1 (0.68%) Trend Micro