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 7 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 46 45
Rank change year-on-year +16 -1 -11
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 164 81 102
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.55% 3.86% 3.85%
As % of the Systems Management category 40.80% 27.84% 26.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 52 64
10th Percentile £352 £356 £425
25th Percentile £393 £431 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -2.38% -12.50%
75th Percentile £613 £578 £678
90th Percentile £651 £639 £698
England median daily rate £525 £600 £575
% change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 21
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £52.50 - -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +19.10% - -12.87%
75th Percentile £59.38 £57.18 -
90th Percentile £70.00 £63.78 £57.50
England median hourly rate £64.75 £51.84 £55.00
% change year-on-year +24.90% -5.75% -18.22%

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 402 291 392
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 16.06% 13.88% 14.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 164 271
10th Percentile £303 £250 £300
25th Percentile £358 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £582
90th Percentile £650 £651 £669
England median daily rate £513 £530 £540
% change year-on-year -3.30% -1.85% -8.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 10 44
10th Percentile £15.50 £21.05 £17.73
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £19.81
Median hourly rate £55.00 £44.59 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +23.35% -3.44% -7.30%
75th Percentile £60.31 £62.68 £54.69
90th Percentile £72.13 £78.50 £78.00
England median hourly rate £54.00 £26.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +103.77% -42.62% +23.61%

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 7 January 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 7 January 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 7 January 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 +3 96 £522 +4.35% 40
Cheshire +29 53 £430 +20.79% 19
Merseyside -2 8 £510 +70.00% 10
Lancashire -16 4 £550 +4.76% 14
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 (4.88%) Apache Airflow
2 5 (3.05%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.83%) Confluence
4 2 (1.22%) Mule
4 2 (1.22%) Mule ESB
4 2 (1.22%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.61%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.61%) IIS
5 1 (0.61%) JBoss
5 1 (0.61%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (0.61%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 100 (60.98%) AWS
2 56 (34.15%) Azure
3 44 (26.83%) GCP
4 33 (20.12%) GitHub
5 22 (13.41%) OpenShift
6 20 (12.20%) Amazon ECS
7 19 (11.59%) Serverless
8 18 (10.98%) AWS Lambda
9 16 (9.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (9.76%) AWS CloudFormation
10 15 (9.15%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (8.54%) Amazon EC2
12 13 (7.93%) Datadog
13 11 (6.71%) Amazon SQS
13 11 (6.71%) Apigee
14 10 (6.10%) SaaS
15 9 (5.49%) Amazon EKS
15 9 (5.49%) PaaS
16 8 (4.88%) Azure DevOps
17 6 (3.66%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (12.20%) Firewall
2 4 (2.44%) HTTP
2 4 (2.44%) HTTPS
2 4 (2.44%) TCP/IP
2 4 (2.44%) VLAN
2 4 (2.44%) VPN
3 3 (1.83%) BGP
3 3 (1.83%) Network Security
3 3 (1.83%) Software-Defined Networking
4 2 (1.22%) DHCP
4 2 (1.22%) DNS
4 2 (1.22%) NetScaler
5 1 (0.61%) VoIP
5 1 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.61%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (12.80%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (9.76%) Relational Database
3 15 (9.15%) MySQL
4 12 (7.32%) NoSQL
5 11 (6.71%) Amazon RDS
6 9 (5.49%) DynamoDB
7 8 (4.88%) BigQuery
7 8 (4.88%) Redis
8 6 (3.66%) Amazon Aurora
8 6 (3.66%) Big Data
9 5 (3.05%) RDBMS
10 4 (2.44%) MongoDB
11 3 (1.83%) Apache Cassandra
11 3 (1.83%) Data Lake
12 1 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
12 1 (0.61%) Metadata
12 1 (0.61%) ObjectStore
12 1 (0.61%) Power BI
12 1 (0.61%) SQL Server
12 1 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 47 (28.66%) GitLab
2 43 (26.22%) Jenkins
3 39 (23.78%) Git
4 17 (10.37%) JIRA
5 16 (9.76%) Gradle
6 11 (6.71%) IntelliJ
6 11 (6.71%) SonarQube
7 8 (4.88%) Postman
8 7 (4.27%) Bitbucket
9 5 (3.05%) JUnit
9 5 (3.05%) Maven
9 5 (3.05%) MLflow
9 5 (3.05%) Snyk
9 5 (3.05%) SonarLint
10 3 (1.83%) Mockito
10 3 (1.83%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (1.22%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.61%) Android Studio
12 1 (0.61%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.61%) fastlane
General
1 36 (21.95%) Finance
2 31 (18.90%) Public Sector
3 28 (17.07%) Banking
3 28 (17.07%) Social Skills
4 16 (9.76%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (2.44%) Games
6 2 (1.22%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.61%) Financial Institution
7 1 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.61%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.61%) Military
7 1 (0.61%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 37 (22.56%) Developer
2 23 (14.02%) Java Developer
3 22 (13.41%) Architect
3 22 (13.41%) Software Engineer
4 19 (11.59%) DevOps Engineer
5 18 (10.98%) Platform Engineer
6 17 (10.37%) Senior
7 13 (7.93%) AWS Engineer
8 12 (7.32%) DevSecOps Engineer
8 12 (7.32%) Java Engineer
8 12 (7.32%) Java Software Engineer
9 11 (6.71%) Security Engineer
9 11 (6.71%) Technical Architect
10 8 (4.88%) Cloud Engineer
10 8 (4.88%) Data Engineer
10 8 (4.88%) Java Architect
10 8 (4.88%) Java Technical Architect
10 8 (4.88%) Senior Developer
11 7 (4.27%) AWS DevOps
12 6 (3.66%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (34.15%) Spring Boot
2 50 (30.49%) Spring
3 33 (20.12%) RESTful
4 19 (11.59%) Kafka
4 19 (11.59%) REST
5 14 (8.54%) AngularJS
6 13 (7.93%) Node.js
7 12 (7.32%) JSON
7 12 (7.32%) React
8 11 (6.71%) JWT
8 11 (6.71%) OpenTelemetry
9 10 (6.10%) Hibernate
10 9 (5.49%) JMS
11 8 (4.88%) J2EE
12 7 (4.27%) HTML
12 7 (4.27%) JAX-RS
12 7 (4.27%) Spring Security
13 6 (3.66%) OAuth
13 6 (3.66%) PySpark
13 6 (3.66%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (14.63%) Cloud Native
2 9 (5.49%) Distributed Systems
2 9 (5.49%) Product Ownership
2 9 (5.49%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 6 (3.66%) N-Tier
4 4 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
4 4 (2.44%) Private Cloud
4 4 (2.44%) Public Cloud
5 3 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.22%) Algorithms
6 2 (1.22%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.22%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.61%) Cloud Security Posture
7 1 (0.61%) Distributed Computing
7 1 (0.61%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.61%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.61%) IBM XIV
7 1 (0.61%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.61%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 39 (23.78%) Linux
2 14 (8.54%) Windows
3 6 (3.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.05%) Unix
4 5 (3.05%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.22%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (1.22%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.61%) Android
6 1 (0.61%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (61.59%) CI/CD
2 84 (51.22%) Containerisation
3 74 (45.12%) DevOps
4 46 (28.05%) Agile
4 46 (28.05%) Microservices
5 44 (26.83%) Infrastructure as Code
6 42 (25.61%) Problem-Solving
7 32 (19.51%) Software Engineering
8 27 (16.46%) Observability
9 21 (12.80%) TDD
9 21 (12.80%) Test Automation
10 20 (12.20%) SDLC
11 19 (11.59%) API Design
12 18 (10.98%) DevSecOps
12 18 (10.98%) Unit Testing
13 17 (10.37%) AI
14 16 (9.76%) Cloud Security
14 16 (9.76%) Event-Driven
15 15 (9.15%) Infrastructure Automation
16 14 (8.54%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 76 (46.34%) Java
2 68 (41.46%) Python
3 28 (17.07%) Bash
4 27 (16.46%) SQL
5 11 (6.71%) Kotlin
6 10 (6.10%) PHP
7 9 (5.49%) PowerShell
7 9 (5.49%) TypeScript
8 7 (4.27%) Go
8 7 (4.27%) JavaScript
9 6 (3.66%) Ruby
10 4 (2.44%) C#
10 4 (2.44%) C++
11 3 (1.83%) PL/SQL
12 2 (1.22%) Perl
13 1 (0.61%) C
13 1 (0.61%) Clojure
13 1 (0.61%) Korn
13 1 (0.61%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.61%) Scala
Qualifications
1 36 (21.95%) Security Cleared
2 19 (11.59%) SC Cleared
3 12 (7.32%) Degree
4 10 (6.10%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (4.88%) AWS Certification
6 6 (3.66%) CISSP
7 5 (3.05%) CISM
8 4 (2.44%) Azure Certification
8 4 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.83%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (1.22%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (1.22%) DV Cleared
11 1 (0.61%) OSCP
11 1 (0.61%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (7.93%) QA
2 10 (6.10%) Accessibility
2 10 (6.10%) ISO 20022
2 10 (6.10%) PSD2
3 9 (5.49%) SEPA
4 5 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (3.05%) NIST
5 3 (1.83%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.61%) GDPR
6 1 (0.61%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.61%) WCAG
System Software
1 111 (67.68%) Docker
2 10 (6.10%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (6.10%) vSphere
3 3 (1.83%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.22%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (1.22%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 55 (33.54%) Terraform
2 29 (17.68%) Grafana
3 9 (5.49%) Prometheus
4 6 (3.66%) Ansible
5 5 (3.05%) Fluentd
6 3 (1.83%) Istio
6 3 (1.83%) Podman
6 3 (1.83%) Progress Chef
6 3 (1.83%) SCCM
6 3 (1.83%) SELinux
7 2 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (1.22%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.61%) Argo
8 1 (0.61%) Puppet
Vendors
1 23 (14.02%) Oracle
2 16 (9.76%) Splunk
3 11 (6.71%) Microsoft
3 11 (6.71%) VMware
4 8 (4.88%) AppDynamics
5 7 (4.27%) Cribl.io
6 6 (3.66%) Dynatrace
6 6 (3.66%) F5
6 6 (3.66%) Gigya
6 6 (3.66%) Google
6 6 (3.66%) Red Hat
7 5 (3.05%) Checkmarx
7 5 (3.05%) Veracode
8 4 (2.44%) Confluent
8 4 (2.44%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.22%) Ping Identity
9 2 (1.22%) Veeam
10 1 (0.61%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.61%) Citrix
10 1 (0.61%) IBM