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 28 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 45 61
Rank change year-on-year -3 +16 -17
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 159 88 60
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.28% 4.03% 2.42%
As % of the Systems Management category 29.89% 31.54% 22.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 72 34
10th Percentile £406 £340 £403
25th Percentile £463 £400 £466
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £559 £495 £538
Median % change year-on-year +12.88% -7.91% -6.52%
75th Percentile £621 £615 £638
90th Percentile £700 £668 £668
England median daily rate £538 £539 £550
% change year-on-year -0.30% -1.98% -10.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 1
10th Percentile £61.55 £75.65 -
25th Percentile £62.00 £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 £87.80 £93.95 -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £67.25
% change year-on-year +4.48% -0.37% -7.24%

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 532 279 264
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.31% 12.79% 10.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 370 185 182
10th Percentile £294 £230 £213
25th Percentile £402 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% -2.11% -9.52%
75th Percentile £613 £563 £573
90th Percentile £675 £654 £650
England median daily rate £521 £511 £525
% change year-on-year +1.86% -2.67% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 8 10
10th Percentile £20.92 £48.54 £17.63
25th Percentile £41.18 £62.86 £17.72
Median hourly rate £64.58 £63.40 £22.61
Median % change year-on-year +1.86% +180.41% -43.93%
75th Percentile £76.75 £84.69 £42.76
90th Percentile £95.00 £88.18 £54.28
England median hourly rate £65.00 £54.50 £30.50
% change year-on-year +19.27% +78.69% -44.55%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +1 114 £538 +7.50% 88
Cheshire -7 31 £620 +30.53% 13
Lancashire -4 7 £712 +18.70% 15
Cumbria - 3 £525 -
Merseyside - 2 £575 -
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 (5.03%) Apache Spark
1 8 (5.03%) Confluence
2 4 (2.52%) Apache
3 2 (1.26%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.26%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.26%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.26%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.63%) FIS Private Capital Suite
1 1 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 117 (73.58%) AWS
2 87 (54.72%) Azure
3 49 (30.82%) GCP
4 23 (14.47%) GitHub
5 22 (13.84%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 20 (12.58%) GitHub Actions
7 19 (11.95%) Azure DevOps
7 19 (11.95%) Serverless
8 18 (11.32%) OpenShift
9 17 (10.69%) AWS CloudFormation
10 15 (9.43%) Amazon EKS
10 15 (9.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 14 (8.81%) Azure AKS
12 9 (5.66%) AWS Lambda
13 8 (5.03%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (4.40%) Amazon EC2
14 7 (4.40%) Amazon S3
14 7 (4.40%) Entra ID
15 6 (3.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 6 (3.77%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (13.21%) Firewall
2 7 (4.40%) Network Security
3 4 (2.52%) DNS
4 3 (1.89%) VPN
5 2 (1.26%) DHCP
5 2 (1.26%) SSL
5 2 (1.26%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.63%) BGP
6 1 (0.63%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.63%) Ethernet VPN
6 1 (0.63%) HTTP
6 1 (0.63%) MPLS
6 1 (0.63%) NetScaler
6 1 (0.63%) OSPF
6 1 (0.63%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.63%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (0.63%) VXLAN
6 1 (0.63%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (10.06%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (6.29%) SQL Server
3 8 (5.03%) NoSQL
4 7 (4.40%) MySQL
4 7 (4.40%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.14%) DocumentDB
5 5 (3.14%) DynamoDB
6 4 (2.52%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (2.52%) Hadoop
7 3 (1.89%) MongoDB
7 3 (1.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (1.26%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.26%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.26%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.63%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.63%) Flink
9 1 (0.63%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.63%) Semantic Layer
9 1 (0.63%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 29 (18.24%) GitLab
2 24 (15.09%) Git
3 22 (13.84%) Jenkins
4 9 (5.66%) JIRA
5 7 (4.40%) SonarQube
6 6 (3.77%) JUnit
6 6 (3.77%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (3.14%) Claude Code
7 5 (3.14%) Cucumber
8 4 (2.52%) Postman
8 4 (2.52%) Selenium
9 3 (1.89%) Bitbucket
9 3 (1.89%) Gradle
9 3 (1.89%) Mockito
10 2 (1.26%) Burp Suite
10 2 (1.26%) Gatling
10 2 (1.26%) LoadRunner
10 2 (1.26%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.63%) Mocha
11 1 (0.63%) Robot Framework
General
1 39 (24.53%) Finance
2 22 (13.84%) Public Sector
2 22 (13.84%) Social Skills
3 13 (8.18%) Banking
4 8 (5.03%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (4.40%) Retail
6 3 (1.89%) Health Technology
6 3 (1.89%) Military
7 1 (0.63%) Automotive
7 1 (0.63%) Financial Institution
7 1 (0.63%) Police
Job Titles
1 32 (20.13%) Security Engineer
2 28 (17.61%) DevOps Engineer
3 27 (16.98%) Senior
4 24 (15.09%) Developer
5 21 (13.21%) Lead
6 19 (11.95%) Cloud Engineer
7 17 (10.69%) Software Engineer
8 15 (9.43%) Architect
9 14 (8.81%) Java Engineer
10 12 (7.55%) Cloud Security Engineer
10 12 (7.55%) Java Software Engineer
10 12 (7.55%) Lead Developer
11 10 (6.29%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (5.66%) AWS Engineer
12 9 (5.66%) Software Developer
13 8 (5.03%) Platform Engineer
14 7 (4.40%) Java Developer
14 7 (4.40%) Kubernetes Engineer
14 7 (4.40%) Senior DevOps
14 7 (4.40%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (22.01%) Spring
2 28 (17.61%) Spring Boot
3 26 (16.35%) Kafka
4 25 (15.72%) Node.js
5 23 (14.47%) REST
6 14 (8.81%) React
7 9 (5.66%) Next.js
8 8 (5.03%) RESTful
9 6 (3.77%) ARM Templates
9 6 (3.77%) Nunjucks
10 5 (3.14%) AWS CDK
10 5 (3.14%) Express.js
11 4 (2.52%) Apache NiFi
11 4 (2.52%) GraphQL
11 4 (2.52%) Spring MVC
12 3 (1.89%) Azure Blueprints
12 3 (1.89%) OpenTelemetry
12 3 (1.89%) RabbitMQ
13 2 (1.26%) Model Context Protocol
13 2 (1.26%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 62 (38.99%) Cloud Native
2 27 (16.98%) Security Posture
3 14 (8.81%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (8.81%) Management Information System
4 9 (5.66%) Enterprise Cloud
4 9 (5.66%) Linux Command Line
5 7 (4.40%) Cloud Security Posture
5 7 (4.40%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (3.77%) Public Cloud
7 5 (3.14%) NHS
7 5 (3.14%) Onboarding
7 5 (3.14%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.52%) AI Agents
8 4 (2.52%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (2.52%) Product Ownership
8 4 (2.52%) Virtual Team
9 3 (1.89%) Culture of Ownership
9 3 (1.89%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.89%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 41 (25.79%) Linux
2 19 (11.95%) Windows
3 18 (11.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.52%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.63%) Unix
5 1 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (72.96%) CI/CD
2 99 (62.26%) DevOps
3 67 (42.14%) Infrastructure as Code
4 57 (35.85%) Agile
5 52 (32.70%) Observability
6 50 (31.45%) Containerisation
7 40 (25.16%) Cloud Security
8 39 (24.53%) Microservices
9 32 (20.13%) Software Engineering
10 28 (17.61%) Event-Driven
11 27 (16.98%) Infrastructure Automation
11 27 (16.98%) Scrum
11 27 (16.98%) Test Automation
12 24 (15.09%) AI
12 24 (15.09%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 24 (15.09%) Problem-Solving
13 22 (13.84%) Continuous Improvement
14 21 (13.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 21 (13.21%) Mentoring
14 21 (13.21%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 70 (44.03%) Python
2 64 (40.25%) Java
3 39 (24.53%) Bash
4 36 (22.64%) PowerShell
5 23 (14.47%) SQL
6 20 (12.58%) Bicep
7 15 (9.43%) TypeScript
8 6 (3.77%) JavaScript
8 6 (3.77%) Kotlin
9 5 (3.14%) Go
10 4 (2.52%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.63%) C#
Qualifications
1 33 (20.75%) Security Cleared
2 28 (17.61%) SC Cleared
3 24 (15.09%) Azure Certification
4 19 (11.95%) AWS Certification
4 19 (11.95%) Degree
5 15 (9.43%) CISSP
6 6 (3.77%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (3.14%) DV Cleared
8 3 (1.89%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 3 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (1.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.63%) CCIE
10 1 (0.63%) CCNP
10 1 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.63%) CISM
10 1 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.63%) OCP
10 1 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (9.43%) GDPR
2 9 (5.66%) QA
3 7 (4.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (3.77%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 6 (3.77%) Data Quality
4 6 (3.77%) HIPAA
4 6 (3.77%) NIST
5 4 (2.52%) Accessibility
6 2 (1.26%) ISO 20022
6 2 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.26%) PSD2
6 2 (1.26%) SEPA
7 1 (0.63%) SLA
7 1 (0.63%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.63%) WCAG
System Software
1 97 (61.01%) Docker
2 6 (3.77%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.52%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (1.26%) Apache ZooKeeper
5 2 (1.26%) Ceph
5 2 (1.26%) KVM
5 2 (1.26%) VMware NSX
5 2 (1.26%) vSphere
6 1 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.63%) zsh
Systems Management
1 83 (52.20%) Terraform
2 22 (13.84%) Grafana
3 20 (12.58%) Ansible
4 17 (10.69%) Prometheus
5 15 (9.43%) Progress Chef
6 11 (6.92%) Argo
7 8 (5.03%) Istio
8 2 (1.26%) linkerd
8 2 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.63%) Packer
9 1 (0.63%) Puppet
9 1 (0.63%) SCCM
9 1 (0.63%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 28 (17.61%) Microsoft
2 20 (12.58%) Red Hat
3 19 (11.95%) Google
4 7 (4.40%) Dynatrace
4 7 (4.40%) Splunk
5 6 (3.77%) Oracle
5 6 (3.77%) Varonis
6 3 (1.89%) CyberArk
6 3 (1.89%) SAP
6 3 (1.89%) ServiceNow
6 3 (1.89%) VMware
7 2 (1.26%) Cisco
7 2 (1.26%) Confluent
7 2 (1.26%) F5
7 2 (1.26%) OpenAI
7 2 (1.26%) Palo Alto
8 1 (0.63%) Databricks
8 1 (0.63%) Pure Storage
8 1 (0.63%) Tanium
8 1 (0.63%) Tenable