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 22 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 41 69
Rank change year-on-year -1 +28 -26
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 143 97 72
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.34% 5.00% 2.72%
As % of the Systems Management category 32.95% 32.66% 27.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 89 78 57
10th Percentile £402 £393 £408
25th Percentile £450 £456 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -7.37%
75th Percentile £608 £587 £650
90th Percentile £650 £641 £694
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 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% +35.80%
75th Percentile £61.81 £92.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £68.13 £93.95 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £79.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year -17.72% +27.42% -15.07%

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 434 297 263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.18% 15.32% 9.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 285 201 189
10th Percentile £300 £263 £212
25th Percentile £400 £381 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% - -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £575
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
England median daily rate £507 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -3.43% +0.96% -9.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 8 15
10th Percentile £38.52 £55.33 £16.64
25th Percentile £52.50 £62.86 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £63.40 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -13.25% +257.79% -40.24%
75th Percentile £62.88 £84.69 £59.38
90th Percentile £71.20 £88.18 £93.00
England median hourly rate £56.50 £29.00 £25.77
% change year-on-year +94.83% +12.56% -50.58%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 -2 102 £525 +5.00% 75
Cheshire -4 29 £569 +19.74% 7
Merseyside - 5 £330 - 4
Lancashire -10 4 £712 +18.70% 21
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 (6.99%) Confluence
2 7 (4.90%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.80%) Apache
4 1 (0.70%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.40%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 96 (67.13%) AWS
2 68 (47.55%) Azure
3 34 (23.78%) GCP
4 22 (15.38%) GitHub
5 20 (13.99%) Serverless
6 15 (10.49%) OpenShift
7 13 (9.09%) Amazon EKS
7 13 (9.09%) GitHub Actions
7 13 (9.09%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 12 (8.39%) Azure AKS
8 12 (8.39%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (6.29%) Amazon EC2
9 9 (6.29%) Amazon S3
9 9 (6.29%) AWS Lambda
9 9 (6.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (4.20%) Amazon ECR
10 6 (4.20%) Amazon SQS
11 5 (3.50%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (2.80%) IaaS
12 4 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 12 (8.39%) Firewall
2 5 (3.50%) DNS
3 4 (2.80%) DHCP
3 4 (2.80%) NetScaler
3 4 (2.80%) TCP/IP
4 3 (2.10%) Network Security
5 2 (1.40%) VPN
6 1 (0.70%) HTTP
6 1 (0.70%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (14.69%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (9.09%) NoSQL
3 9 (6.29%) DocumentDB
3 9 (6.29%) SQL Server
4 5 (3.50%) DynamoDB
4 5 (3.50%) MongoDB
4 5 (3.50%) Relational Database
5 4 (2.80%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (2.80%) Hadoop
5 4 (2.80%) MySQL
6 3 (2.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (1.40%) Apache Cassandra
7 2 (1.40%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.40%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.70%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.70%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 43 (30.07%) GitLab
2 24 (16.78%) Jenkins
3 23 (16.08%) Git
4 14 (9.79%) Gradle
4 14 (9.79%) JIRA
5 12 (8.39%) IntelliJ
6 7 (4.90%) Postman
7 6 (4.20%) Selenium
7 6 (4.20%) SonarQube
8 3 (2.10%) Bitbucket
8 3 (2.10%) Cucumber
8 3 (2.10%) JMeter
8 3 (2.10%) JUnit
8 3 (2.10%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (1.40%) Mocha
10 1 (0.70%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.70%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.70%) fastlane
10 1 (0.70%) Gatling
10 1 (0.70%) Mockito
General
1 31 (21.68%) Finance
2 29 (20.28%) Public Sector
3 16 (11.19%) Social Skills
4 13 (9.09%) Banking
5 6 (4.20%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (2.10%) Health Technology
7 2 (1.40%) Retail
8 1 (0.70%) Automotive
8 1 (0.70%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 31 (21.68%) Developer
2 24 (16.78%) Software Engineer
3 21 (14.69%) DevOps Engineer
3 21 (14.69%) Senior
4 19 (13.29%) Java Engineer
5 18 (12.59%) Lead
6 17 (11.89%) Java Software Engineer
7 16 (11.19%) Architect
8 15 (10.49%) Security Engineer
9 14 (9.79%) Java Developer
10 13 (9.09%) Lead Developer
11 11 (7.69%) Software Developer
12 10 (6.99%) AWS Engineer
12 10 (6.99%) Platform Engineer
13 9 (6.29%) Cloud Engineer
13 9 (6.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 7 (4.90%) AWS Architect
14 7 (4.90%) GCP Engineer
14 7 (4.90%) Lead Software Developer
14 7 (4.90%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (37.76%) Spring
2 47 (32.87%) Spring Boot
3 20 (13.99%) REST
4 18 (12.59%) Node.js
5 17 (11.89%) Kafka
6 15 (10.49%) OpenTelemetry
7 13 (9.09%) RESTful
8 9 (6.29%) React
9 7 (4.90%) GraphQL
10 6 (4.20%) Nunjucks
11 5 (3.50%) AWS CDK
11 5 (3.50%) Express.js
11 5 (3.50%) Hibernate
11 5 (3.50%) RabbitMQ
12 4 (2.80%) Apache NiFi
12 4 (2.80%) JMS
12 4 (2.80%) JSON
12 4 (2.80%) OAuth
12 4 (2.80%) Spring Cloud
13 3 (2.10%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 44 (30.77%) Cloud Native
2 14 (9.79%) Security Posture
3 9 (6.29%) Public Cloud
4 8 (5.59%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (5.59%) Linux Command Line
5 7 (4.90%) Management Information System
6 6 (4.20%) Cloud Security Posture
6 6 (4.20%) Product Ownership
7 5 (3.50%) NHS
7 5 (3.50%) Private Cloud
7 5 (3.50%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 3 (2.10%) AI Agents
8 3 (2.10%) Data Centre
8 3 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (2.10%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.40%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.40%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.40%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 23 (16.08%) Linux
2 9 (6.29%) Windows
3 6 (4.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.50%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.80%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (2.80%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.70%) Android
6 1 (0.70%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.70%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (61.54%) CI/CD
2 74 (51.75%) DevOps
3 51 (35.66%) Containerisation
4 46 (32.17%) Infrastructure as Code
5 42 (29.37%) Agile
6 40 (27.97%) Microservices
7 30 (20.98%) Observability
7 30 (20.98%) Software Engineering
8 25 (17.48%) Problem-Solving
9 21 (14.69%) Test Automation
10 19 (13.29%) Event-Driven
11 16 (11.19%) Cloud Security
12 14 (9.79%) Continuous Improvement
12 14 (9.79%) DevSecOps
12 14 (9.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 13 (9.09%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 13 (9.09%) Mentoring
14 12 (8.39%) Platform Engineering
14 12 (8.39%) Root Cause Analysis
14 12 (8.39%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 70 (48.95%) Java
2 48 (33.57%) Python
3 24 (16.78%) SQL
4 20 (13.99%) Bash
4 20 (13.99%) PowerShell
5 16 (11.19%) TypeScript
6 12 (8.39%) Kotlin
7 9 (6.29%) Go
8 8 (5.59%) JavaScript
9 7 (4.90%) Bicep
10 4 (2.80%) Shell Script
11 3 (2.10%) Ruby
12 2 (1.40%) C#
13 1 (0.70%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.70%) Swift
Qualifications
1 24 (16.78%) Security Cleared
2 19 (13.29%) SC Cleared
3 13 (9.09%) Azure Certification
4 10 (6.99%) AWS Certification
5 7 (4.90%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (4.90%) Degree
6 5 (3.50%) CISSP
7 4 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (2.80%) DV Cleared
8 3 (2.10%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 3 (2.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.70%) CISM
9 1 (0.70%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.70%) OCP
9 1 (0.70%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.70%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (11.19%) GDPR
2 8 (5.59%) QA
3 7 (4.90%) Accessibility
3 7 (4.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (4.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 6 (4.20%) HIPAA
4 6 (4.20%) ISO 20022
4 6 (4.20%) NIST
4 6 (4.20%) PSD2
5 5 (3.50%) SEPA
6 3 (2.10%) Data Quality
7 2 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.70%) WCAG
System Software
1 83 (58.04%) Docker
2 6 (4.20%) Active Directory
3 5 (3.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.50%) vSphere
4 4 (2.80%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.80%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.70%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.70%) zsh
Systems Management
1 50 (34.97%) Terraform
2 31 (21.68%) Grafana
3 15 (10.49%) Prometheus
4 8 (5.59%) Ansible
4 8 (5.59%) Argo
4 8 (5.59%) Istio
5 4 (2.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (2.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (2.80%) Progress Chef
5 4 (2.80%) SCCM
6 2 (1.40%) linkerd
6 2 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.70%) Packer
7 1 (0.70%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 18 (12.59%) Microsoft
2 9 (6.29%) Google
2 9 (6.29%) Oracle
3 7 (4.90%) Red Hat
4 6 (4.20%) Splunk
4 6 (4.20%) Varonis
4 6 (4.20%) VMware
5 4 (2.80%) CyberArk
5 4 (2.80%) F5
5 4 (2.80%) Veeam
6 3 (2.10%) PagerDuty
6 3 (2.10%) SAP
7 2 (1.40%) Atlassian
7 2 (1.40%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.70%) Checkmarx
8 1 (0.70%) Confluent
8 1 (0.70%) Databricks
8 1 (0.70%) OpenAI
8 1 (0.70%) Tanium
8 1 (0.70%) Veracode