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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 40 69
Rank change year-on-year -1 +29 -30
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 149 98 71
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.53% 5.00% 2.67%
As % of the Systems Management category 34.02% 32.56% 25.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 79 56
10th Percentile £401 £393 £408
25th Percentile £450 £456 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.03% -9.09% -6.38%
75th Percentile £608 £586 £656
90th Percentile £651 £640 £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 438 301 279
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.33% 15.35% 10.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 289 204 202
10th Percentile £304 £264 £213
25th Percentile £400 £384 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £489
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -2.86% -6.86%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £600
90th Percentile £650 £646 £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 16
10th Percentile £38.52 £55.33 £16.67
25th Percentile £52.50 £62.86 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £63.40 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -13.25% +257.79% -40.93%
75th Percentile £62.88 £84.69 £58.44
90th Percentile £71.20 £88.18 £91.25
England median hourly rate £56.50 £29.00 £25.77
% change year-on-year +94.83% +12.56% -50.75%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -3 107 £525 +5.00% 61
Cheshire -3 30 £538 +13.16% 8
Merseyside - 5 £330 - 4
Lancashire -14 4 £712 +18.70% 22
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 (6.71%) Confluence
2 7 (4.70%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.68%) Apache
4 1 (0.67%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.34%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 100 (67.11%) AWS
2 71 (47.65%) Azure
3 37 (24.83%) GCP
4 24 (16.11%) GitHub
5 20 (13.42%) Serverless
6 15 (10.07%) Amazon EKS
6 15 (10.07%) OpenShift
7 14 (9.40%) GitHub Actions
7 14 (9.40%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 13 (8.72%) Azure AKS
8 13 (8.72%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (6.71%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (6.04%) Amazon S3
10 9 (6.04%) AWS Lambda
10 9 (6.04%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 7 (4.70%) Amazon ECR
12 6 (4.03%) Amazon SQS
13 5 (3.36%) AWS CloudFormation
14 4 (2.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 4 (2.68%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 12 (8.05%) Firewall
2 5 (3.36%) DNS
3 4 (2.68%) DHCP
3 4 (2.68%) NetScaler
3 4 (2.68%) TCP/IP
4 3 (2.01%) Network Security
5 2 (1.34%) VPN
6 1 (0.67%) HTTP
6 1 (0.67%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (14.77%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (8.72%) NoSQL
3 9 (6.04%) DocumentDB
3 9 (6.04%) SQL Server
4 6 (4.03%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.36%) DynamoDB
5 5 (3.36%) MongoDB
5 5 (3.36%) MySQL
6 4 (2.68%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (2.68%) Hadoop
7 3 (2.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (1.34%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.34%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.34%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.67%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.67%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 46 (30.87%) GitLab
2 25 (16.78%) Jenkins
3 24 (16.11%) Git
4 14 (9.40%) Gradle
4 14 (9.40%) JIRA
5 12 (8.05%) IntelliJ
6 7 (4.70%) Postman
7 6 (4.03%) Selenium
7 6 (4.03%) SonarQube
8 3 (2.01%) Bitbucket
8 3 (2.01%) Cucumber
8 3 (2.01%) JMeter
8 3 (2.01%) JUnit
8 3 (2.01%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (1.34%) Mocha
10 1 (0.67%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.67%) fastlane
10 1 (0.67%) Gatling
10 1 (0.67%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.67%) Spinnaker
General
1 33 (22.15%) Finance
2 31 (20.81%) Public Sector
3 17 (11.41%) Social Skills
4 15 (10.07%) Banking
5 6 (4.03%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (2.01%) Health Technology
7 2 (1.34%) Retail
8 1 (0.67%) Automotive
8 1 (0.67%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 32 (21.48%) Developer
2 24 (16.11%) Software Engineer
3 22 (14.77%) DevOps Engineer
4 21 (14.09%) Senior
5 19 (12.75%) Java Engineer
6 18 (12.08%) Lead
7 17 (11.41%) Java Software Engineer
8 16 (10.74%) Architect
9 15 (10.07%) Java Developer
9 15 (10.07%) Security Engineer
10 13 (8.72%) Lead Developer
11 12 (8.05%) Platform Engineer
12 11 (7.38%) Software Developer
13 10 (6.71%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (6.71%) Cloud Engineer
14 9 (6.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 8 (5.37%) GCP Engineer
16 7 (4.70%) AWS Architect
16 7 (4.70%) Lead Software Developer
16 7 (4.70%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (36.91%) Spring
2 48 (32.21%) Spring Boot
3 21 (14.09%) REST
4 19 (12.75%) Kafka
4 19 (12.75%) Node.js
5 15 (10.07%) OpenTelemetry
6 14 (9.40%) RESTful
7 9 (6.04%) React
8 7 (4.70%) GraphQL
9 6 (4.03%) Hibernate
9 6 (4.03%) Nunjucks
10 5 (3.36%) AWS CDK
10 5 (3.36%) Express.js
10 5 (3.36%) RabbitMQ
11 4 (2.68%) Apache NiFi
11 4 (2.68%) JMS
11 4 (2.68%) JSON
11 4 (2.68%) OAuth
11 4 (2.68%) Spring Cloud
12 3 (2.01%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 45 (30.20%) Cloud Native
2 14 (9.40%) Security Posture
3 9 (6.04%) Public Cloud
4 8 (5.37%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (5.37%) Linux Command Line
5 7 (4.70%) Management Information System
6 6 (4.03%) Cloud Security Posture
6 6 (4.03%) Product Ownership
7 5 (3.36%) NHS
7 5 (3.36%) Private Cloud
7 5 (3.36%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 3 (2.01%) AI Agents
8 3 (2.01%) Data Centre
8 3 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (2.01%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.34%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.34%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.34%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 23 (15.44%) Linux
2 9 (6.04%) Windows
3 6 (4.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.36%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.68%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (2.68%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.67%) Android
6 1 (0.67%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.67%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (61.07%) CI/CD
2 76 (51.01%) DevOps
3 55 (36.91%) Containerisation
4 48 (32.21%) Infrastructure as Code
5 43 (28.86%) Agile
6 41 (27.52%) Microservices
7 32 (21.48%) Observability
8 30 (20.13%) Software Engineering
9 26 (17.45%) Problem-Solving
10 22 (14.77%) Test Automation
11 21 (14.09%) Event-Driven
12 16 (10.74%) Cloud Security
13 15 (10.07%) Event-Driven Architecture
14 14 (9.40%) Continuous Improvement
14 14 (9.40%) DevSecOps
14 14 (9.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 14 (9.40%) Mentoring
14 14 (9.40%) Platform Engineering
15 12 (8.05%) High Availability
15 12 (8.05%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 73 (48.99%) Java
2 51 (34.23%) Python
3 24 (16.11%) SQL
4 21 (14.09%) Bash
4 21 (14.09%) PowerShell
5 16 (10.74%) TypeScript
6 12 (8.05%) Kotlin
7 9 (6.04%) Go
8 8 (5.37%) Bicep
8 8 (5.37%) JavaScript
9 4 (2.68%) Shell Script
10 3 (2.01%) C#
10 3 (2.01%) Ruby
11 1 (0.67%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.67%) Swift
Qualifications
1 27 (18.12%) Security Cleared
2 21 (14.09%) SC Cleared
3 14 (9.40%) Azure Certification
4 10 (6.71%) AWS Certification
5 8 (5.37%) Degree
6 7 (4.70%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (3.36%) CISSP
7 5 (3.36%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (2.68%) DV Cleared
9 3 (2.01%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 3 (2.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.67%) CISM
10 1 (0.67%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.67%) OCP
10 1 (0.67%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (0.67%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.74%) GDPR
2 8 (5.37%) QA
3 7 (4.70%) Accessibility
3 7 (4.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (4.03%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 6 (4.03%) HIPAA
4 6 (4.03%) ISO 20022
4 6 (4.03%) NIST
4 6 (4.03%) PSD2
5 5 (3.36%) SEPA
6 3 (2.01%) Data Quality
7 2 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.67%) WCAG
System Software
1 88 (59.06%) Docker
2 6 (4.03%) Active Directory
3 5 (3.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.36%) vSphere
4 4 (2.68%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.68%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.67%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.67%) zsh
Systems Management
1 53 (35.57%) Terraform
2 32 (21.48%) Grafana
3 16 (10.74%) Prometheus
4 9 (6.04%) Istio
5 8 (5.37%) Ansible
5 8 (5.37%) Argo
6 4 (2.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (2.68%) Progress Chef
6 4 (2.68%) SCCM
7 2 (1.34%) linkerd
7 2 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.67%) Packer
8 1 (0.67%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 19 (12.75%) Microsoft
2 10 (6.71%) Oracle
3 9 (6.04%) Google
4 7 (4.70%) Red Hat
5 6 (4.03%) Splunk
5 6 (4.03%) Varonis
5 6 (4.03%) VMware
6 4 (2.68%) CyberArk
6 4 (2.68%) F5
6 4 (2.68%) Veeam
7 3 (2.01%) Confluent
7 3 (2.01%) Dynatrace
7 3 (2.01%) PagerDuty
7 3 (2.01%) SAP
8 2 (1.34%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.67%) Databricks
9 1 (0.67%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.67%) SnapLogic
9 1 (0.67%) Trend Micro
9 1 (0.67%) Veracode