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 15 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 43 60
Rank change year-on-year +13 +17 -26
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 172 90 81
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.75% 4.42% 2.86%
As % of the Systems Management category 40.47% 27.78% 25.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 118 69 60
10th Percentile £358 £393 £412
25th Percentile £418 £456 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £525 £544
Median % change year-on-year +1.17% -3.45% -9.38%
75th Percentile £617 £584 £689
90th Percentile £652 £615 £700
England median daily rate £525 £575 £558
% change year-on-year -8.70% +3.14% -10.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 1 5
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £52.50 £59.39 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £63.79 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -13.77% +38.12% -21.06%
75th Percentile £61.25 £68.18 £57.50
90th Percentile £68.40 - £61.25
England median hourly rate £60.00 £60.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year - -3.23% -3.13%

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 425 324 315
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.20% 15.93% 11.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 274 200 232
10th Percentile £313 £250 £310
25th Percentile £400 £375 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £590 £564 £584
90th Percentile £648 £638 £686
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 9 20
10th Percentile £15.50 £21.05 £16.77
25th Percentile £52.50 £24.18 £17.72
Median hourly rate £55.00 £43.00 £19.25
Median % change year-on-year +27.91% +123.38% -54.71%
75th Percentile £62.00 £77.50 £58.44
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.70 £79.13
England median hourly rate £55.00 £26.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +107.55% -18.46% -37.66%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 15 March 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 +4 109 £550 +7.00% 45
Cheshire +15 50 £447 +13.74% 11
Merseyside - 6 £330 - 3
Lancashire -19 4 £550 -8.33% 9
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 (5.81%) Confluence
2 7 (4.07%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.33%) Apache
3 4 (2.33%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.33%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (1.16%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 112 (65.12%) AWS
2 73 (42.44%) Azure
3 45 (26.16%) GCP
4 35 (20.35%) GitHub
5 23 (13.37%) OpenShift
6 22 (12.79%) Serverless
7 20 (11.63%) GitHub Actions
8 18 (10.47%) Amazon EKS
9 14 (8.14%) AWS CloudFormation
10 13 (7.56%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (7.56%) Azure DevOps
10 13 (7.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 11 (6.40%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (5.81%) Amazon ECS
13 9 (5.23%) Azure AKS
13 9 (5.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (4.65%) Amazon S3
15 7 (4.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 6 (3.49%) Apigee
17 5 (2.91%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (14.53%) Firewall
2 4 (2.33%) DHCP
2 4 (2.33%) DNS
2 4 (2.33%) HTTP
2 4 (2.33%) HTTPS
2 4 (2.33%) NetScaler
2 4 (2.33%) Network Security
2 4 (2.33%) TCP/IP
3 3 (1.74%) BGP
3 3 (1.74%) Software-Defined Networking
3 3 (1.74%) VLAN
3 3 (1.74%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (10.47%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (6.98%) NoSQL
3 8 (4.65%) MySQL
3 8 (4.65%) Relational Database
4 7 (4.07%) DocumentDB
5 5 (2.91%) MongoDB
6 4 (2.33%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (2.33%) DynamoDB
6 4 (2.33%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (2.33%) Hadoop
6 4 (2.33%) SQL Server
7 3 (1.74%) BigQuery
8 2 (1.16%) Big Data
8 2 (1.16%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.58%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.58%) ObjectStore
9 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.58%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 59 (34.30%) GitLab
2 36 (20.93%) Jenkins
3 34 (19.77%) Git
4 19 (11.05%) JIRA
5 12 (6.98%) Gradle
5 12 (6.98%) IntelliJ
6 8 (4.65%) Bitbucket
7 7 (4.07%) Postman
8 6 (3.49%) SonarQube
9 5 (2.91%) Snyk
10 3 (1.74%) JMeter
10 3 (1.74%) MLflow
10 3 (1.74%) Selenium
11 2 (1.16%) Mocha
11 2 (1.16%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.58%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.58%) fastlane
12 1 (0.58%) Mockito
12 1 (0.58%) Spinnaker
12 1 (0.58%) XCTest
General
1 43 (25.00%) Finance
2 34 (19.77%) Public Sector
3 22 (12.79%) Banking
4 20 (11.63%) Social Skills
5 14 (8.14%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.16%) Financial Institution
6 2 (1.16%) Games
6 2 (1.16%) Retail
7 1 (0.58%) Automotive
7 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.58%) Military
Job Titles
1 40 (23.26%) Developer
2 24 (13.95%) Software Engineer
3 21 (12.21%) Senior
4 20 (11.63%) Security Engineer
5 19 (11.05%) DevOps Engineer
5 19 (11.05%) Java Developer
6 17 (9.88%) Java Engineer
6 17 (9.88%) Platform Engineer
7 16 (9.30%) Architect
7 16 (9.30%) Java Software Engineer
8 12 (6.98%) Cloud Engineer
8 12 (6.98%) Lead
9 11 (6.40%) AWS Engineer
10 9 (5.23%) DevSecOps Engineer
11 8 (4.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.65%) Lead Developer
11 8 (4.65%) Software Developer
12 7 (4.07%) AWS Architect
13 6 (3.49%) Data Engineer
13 6 (3.49%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (34.30%) Spring
2 58 (33.72%) Spring Boot
3 25 (14.53%) REST
3 25 (14.53%) RESTful
4 24 (13.95%) Kafka
5 15 (8.72%) Node.js
6 12 (6.98%) OpenTelemetry
7 11 (6.40%) Hibernate
8 8 (4.65%) OAuth
9 7 (4.07%) JMS
9 7 (4.07%) JSON
9 7 (4.07%) React
10 6 (3.49%) GraphQL
10 6 (3.49%) JWT
11 5 (2.91%) OAuth2
11 5 (2.91%) RabbitMQ
12 4 (2.33%) AngularJS
12 4 (2.33%) JAX-RS
12 4 (2.33%) Spring MVC
12 4 (2.33%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (21.51%) Cloud Native
2 10 (5.81%) Security Posture
3 7 (4.07%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (4.07%) Product Ownership
3 7 (4.07%) Public Cloud
3 7 (4.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 6 (3.49%) Private Cloud
5 5 (2.91%) Cloud Security Posture
5 5 (2.91%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (2.91%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.74%) AI Agents
7 3 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (1.74%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.74%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.16%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.16%) NHS
8 2 (1.16%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 41 (23.84%) Linux
2 16 (9.30%) Windows
3 9 (5.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (4.07%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.33%) Unix
5 4 (2.33%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (2.33%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.58%) Android
6 1 (0.58%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.58%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (62.79%) CI/CD
2 90 (52.33%) DevOps
3 81 (47.09%) Containerisation
4 59 (34.30%) Infrastructure as Code
5 54 (31.40%) Agile
6 44 (25.58%) Microservices
7 36 (20.93%) Problem-Solving
8 32 (18.60%) Observability
8 32 (18.60%) Software Engineering
9 25 (14.53%) Test Automation
10 22 (12.79%) Event-Driven
11 21 (12.21%) Cloud Security
11 21 (12.21%) DevSecOps
12 20 (11.63%) Infrastructure Automation
13 16 (9.30%) Continuous Improvement
13 16 (9.30%) Platform Engineering
14 15 (8.72%) Event-Driven Architecture
15 14 (8.14%) SDLC
15 14 (8.14%) TDD
16 13 (7.56%) API Design
Programming Languages
1 75 (43.60%) Java
2 71 (41.28%) Python
3 30 (17.44%) Bash
4 26 (15.12%) SQL
5 23 (13.37%) PowerShell
6 17 (9.88%) TypeScript
7 12 (6.98%) Kotlin
8 10 (5.81%) Go
9 7 (4.07%) Bicep
9 7 (4.07%) JavaScript
10 6 (3.49%) Ruby
11 5 (2.91%) PHP
12 4 (2.33%) C#
13 2 (1.16%) Perl
13 2 (1.16%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.58%) C
14 1 (0.58%) C++
14 1 (0.58%) Objective-C
14 1 (0.58%) Swift
Qualifications
1 35 (20.35%) Security Cleared
2 21 (12.21%) SC Cleared
3 15 (8.72%) AWS Certification
4 13 (7.56%) Degree
5 12 (6.98%) Azure Certification
6 11 (6.40%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (4.65%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (4.65%) CISSP
8 5 (2.91%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 4 (2.33%) CISM
9 4 (2.33%) DV Cleared
10 3 (1.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (1.16%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.58%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.58%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.40%) QA
2 8 (4.65%) Accessibility
2 8 (4.65%) GDPR
2 8 (4.65%) ISO 20022
2 8 (4.65%) PSD2
3 7 (4.07%) NIST
3 7 (4.07%) SEPA
4 5 (2.91%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 5 (2.91%) HIPAA
4 5 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (1.16%) Data Quality
6 2 (1.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 116 (67.44%) Docker
2 11 (6.40%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (6.40%) vSphere
3 6 (3.49%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.33%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.16%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.58%) zsh
Systems Management
1 65 (37.79%) Terraform
2 36 (20.93%) Grafana
3 16 (9.30%) Prometheus
4 6 (3.49%) Argo
4 6 (3.49%) Progress Chef
5 5 (2.91%) Istio
6 4 (2.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (2.33%) Ansible
6 4 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (2.33%) SCCM
7 3 (1.74%) Fluentd
8 2 (1.16%) linkerd
8 2 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 20 (11.63%) Microsoft
2 17 (9.88%) Oracle
3 13 (7.56%) Splunk
4 12 (6.98%) VMware
5 10 (5.81%) Google
6 8 (4.65%) F5
6 8 (4.65%) Red Hat
7 5 (2.91%) Checkmarx
7 5 (2.91%) Cribl.io
7 5 (2.91%) Varonis
7 5 (2.91%) Veracode
8 4 (2.33%) Confluent
8 4 (2.33%) Palo Alto
8 4 (2.33%) Veeam
9 3 (1.74%) CyberArk
9 3 (1.74%) PagerDuty
10 2 (1.16%) Atlassian
10 2 (1.16%) Ping Identity
11 1 (0.58%) SAP
11 1 (0.58%) ServiceNow