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 8 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 39 52
Rank change year-on-year -13 +13 -8
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 158 111 67
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.98% 5.16% 2.85%
As % of the Systems Management category 32.24% 38.68% 31.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 104 88 40
10th Percentile £409 £330 £356
25th Percentile £461 £385 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £555 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +16.84% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £623 £550 £650
90th Percentile £707 £654 £680
England median daily rate £543 £525 £574
% change year-on-year +3.33% -8.50% -4.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 2
10th Percentile £68.13 £75.65 -
25th Percentile £75.25 £78.88 -
Median hourly rate £76.50 £87.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -12.07% +88.39% -
75th Percentile £77.00 £92.38 -
90th Percentile £86.00 £93.95 -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +4.48% +21.82% -24.66%

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 490 287 216
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.33% 13.34% 9.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 356 197 152
10th Percentile £240 £258 £207
25th Percentile £380 £350 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +6.78% - -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £553
90th Percentile £658 £650 £626
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 6
10th Percentile £21.25 £17.52 £27.88
25th Percentile £47.87 £18.87 £33.67
Median hourly rate £75.00 £62.95 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +19.14% +36.31% -
75th Percentile £77.00 £64.63 £48.11
90th Percentile £95.00 £82.78 £76.38
England median hourly rate £67.47 £44.48 £38.50
% change year-on-year +51.70% +15.52% -23.00%

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 8 September 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 8 September 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 8 September 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 -4 113 £550 +10.00% 152
Cheshire -21 31 £613 +42.56% 8
Lancashire -8 7 £712 +35.66% 19
Cumbria - 3 £525 -
Merseyside -17 1 £575 +12.75% 2
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 3 (1.90%) Apache
1 3 (1.90%) Apache Spark
1 3 (1.90%) OpenStack
1 3 (1.90%) Tomcat
2 2 (1.27%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.63%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (0.63%) FIS Private Capital Suite
1 1 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 106 (67.09%) AWS
2 83 (52.53%) Azure
3 46 (29.11%) GCP
4 23 (14.56%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (13.29%) AWS CloudFormation
6 20 (12.66%) GitHub
7 19 (12.03%) Serverless
8 18 (11.39%) Azure AKS
9 17 (10.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 16 (10.13%) GitHub Actions
11 15 (9.49%) Amazon EKS
12 11 (6.96%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (6.33%) AWS Lambda
13 10 (6.33%) OpenShift
14 9 (5.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 8 (5.06%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (5.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 7 (4.43%) Entra ID
17 6 (3.80%) Anthropic Claude
17 6 (3.80%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 17 (10.76%) Firewall
2 8 (5.06%) Network Security
3 5 (3.16%) HTTP
4 3 (1.90%) DNS
5 2 (1.27%) SSL
5 2 (1.27%) VPN
6 1 (0.63%) BGP
6 1 (0.63%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.63%) DHCP
6 1 (0.63%) Ethernet VPN
6 1 (0.63%) MPLS
6 1 (0.63%) OSPF
6 1 (0.63%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.63%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (0.63%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.63%) VXLAN
6 1 (0.63%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (9.49%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (6.33%) NoSQL
3 9 (5.70%) MySQL
4 8 (5.06%) Relational Database
4 8 (5.06%) SQL Server
5 4 (2.53%) DynamoDB
6 2 (1.27%) Data Lake
6 2 (1.27%) DocumentDB
6 2 (1.27%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.63%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.63%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.63%) Flink
7 1 (0.63%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.63%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.63%) Semantic Layer
7 1 (0.63%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 25 (15.82%) Git
2 22 (13.92%) GitLab
3 17 (10.76%) Jenkins
4 8 (5.06%) JUnit
4 8 (5.06%) SonarQube
5 6 (3.80%) Claude Code
5 6 (3.80%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (3.16%) Cucumber
6 5 (3.16%) Mockito
7 4 (2.53%) Bitbucket
7 4 (2.53%) Gradle
7 4 (2.53%) Postman
7 4 (2.53%) Selenium
8 2 (1.27%) Burp Suite
8 2 (1.27%) Gatling
8 2 (1.27%) JIRA
8 2 (1.27%) LoadRunner
8 2 (1.27%) Maven
8 2 (1.27%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.63%) Robot Framework
General
1 38 (24.05%) Finance
2 27 (17.09%) Social Skills
3 14 (8.86%) Public Sector
4 11 (6.96%) Banking
5 8 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (4.43%) Retail
7 3 (1.90%) Health Technology
7 3 (1.90%) Military
8 1 (0.63%) Police
Job Titles
1 32 (20.25%) DevOps Engineer
2 27 (17.09%) Security Engineer
3 25 (15.82%) Senior
4 23 (14.56%) Software Engineer
5 22 (13.92%) Cloud Engineer
6 20 (12.66%) Lead
7 18 (11.39%) Architect
8 17 (10.76%) Developer
8 17 (10.76%) Java Engineer
9 15 (9.49%) Cloud Security Engineer
10 14 (8.86%) Java Software Engineer
11 12 (7.59%) AWS Engineer
12 11 (6.96%) Solutions Architect
13 10 (6.33%) Azure Engineer
14 8 (5.06%) Azure DevOps Engineer
14 8 (5.06%) Kubernetes Engineer
14 8 (5.06%) Lead Developer
14 8 (5.06%) Platform Engineer
15 7 (4.43%) Full-Stack Developer
15 7 (4.43%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (47.47%) Terraform
2 36 (22.78%) Spring
3 29 (18.35%) REST
3 29 (18.35%) Spring Boot
4 26 (16.46%) Kafka
5 22 (13.92%) Node.js
6 17 (10.76%) React
7 10 (6.33%) Next.js
8 9 (5.70%) RESTful
9 7 (4.43%) Spring MVC
10 6 (3.80%) Nunjucks
11 5 (3.16%) ARM Templates
11 5 (3.16%) Azure Blueprints
11 5 (3.16%) Express.js
11 5 (3.16%) GraphQL
12 4 (2.53%) AngularJS
12 4 (2.53%) AWS CDK
12 4 (2.53%) Spring Security
13 3 (1.90%) Hibernate
13 3 (1.90%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 63 (39.87%) Cloud Native
2 23 (14.56%) Security Posture
3 19 (12.03%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (6.96%) Management Information System
5 10 (6.33%) Enterprise Cloud
6 7 (4.43%) Cloud Security Posture
6 7 (4.43%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (3.16%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (3.16%) Onboarding
7 5 (3.16%) Private Cloud
7 5 (3.16%) Public Cloud
8 4 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (2.53%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.90%) AI Agents
9 3 (1.90%) Culture of Ownership
9 3 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.90%) PKI
9 3 (1.90%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.90%) Replication
9 3 (1.90%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 35 (22.15%) Linux
2 19 (12.03%) Windows
3 17 (10.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.63%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (75.95%) CI/CD
2 94 (59.49%) DevOps
3 70 (44.30%) Infrastructure as Code
4 58 (36.71%) Observability
5 57 (36.08%) Agile
6 47 (29.75%) Containerisation
7 46 (29.11%) Microservices
8 41 (25.95%) Software Engineering
9 37 (23.42%) Cloud Security
10 33 (20.89%) Test Automation
11 32 (20.25%) Event-Driven
12 31 (19.62%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 27 (17.09%) Infrastructure Automation
14 26 (16.46%) Scrum
15 25 (15.82%) AI
16 22 (13.92%) Platform Engineering
17 21 (13.29%) Change Management
17 21 (13.29%) Continuous Improvement
18 19 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
19 18 (11.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 72 (45.57%) Java
2 55 (34.81%) Python
3 35 (22.15%) Bash
4 29 (18.35%) PowerShell
5 22 (13.92%) Bicep
6 18 (11.39%) SQL
7 15 (9.49%) TypeScript
8 9 (5.70%) JavaScript
9 8 (5.06%) Kotlin
10 3 (1.90%) Go
11 2 (1.27%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 30 (18.99%) Security Cleared
2 27 (17.09%) SC Cleared
3 20 (12.66%) Azure Certification
4 19 (12.03%) Degree
5 17 (10.76%) AWS Certification
6 15 (9.49%) CISSP
7 5 (3.16%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (1.27%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.63%) CCIE
10 1 (0.63%) CCNP
10 1 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.63%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.63%) OCP
10 1 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (5.06%) GDPR
1 8 (5.06%) QA
2 6 (3.80%) Data Quality
3 5 (3.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 4 (2.53%) Accessibility
4 4 (2.53%) NIST
5 2 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.63%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.63%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.63%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.63%) PSD2
6 1 (0.63%) SEPA
6 1 (0.63%) SLA
6 1 (0.63%) Software Quality Assurance
6 1 (0.63%) WCAG
System Software
1 90 (56.96%) Docker
2 5 (3.16%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.90%) Ceph
3 3 (1.90%) KVM
4 2 (1.27%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 2 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.27%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.63%) vSphere
5 1 (0.63%) zsh
Systems Management
1 20 (12.66%) Ansible
2 15 (9.49%) Grafana
2 15 (9.49%) Progress Chef
3 12 (7.59%) Prometheus
4 7 (4.43%) Argo
5 6 (3.80%) Istio
6 2 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.63%) Packer
7 1 (0.63%) Puppet
7 1 (0.63%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 21 (13.29%) Microsoft
1 21 (13.29%) Red Hat
2 18 (11.39%) Google
3 7 (4.43%) Dynatrace
4 5 (3.16%) Oracle
5 4 (2.53%) ServiceNow
6 3 (1.90%) SAP
6 3 (1.90%) Splunk
7 2 (1.27%) Cisco
7 2 (1.27%) Confluent
7 2 (1.27%) OpenAI
7 2 (1.27%) Palo Alto
7 2 (1.27%) VMware
8 1 (0.63%) CyberArk
8 1 (0.63%) Databricks
8 1 (0.63%) Fortinet
8 1 (0.63%) Pure Storage
8 1 (0.63%) Tanium
8 1 (0.63%) Tenable
8 1 (0.63%) Varonis