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 23 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 35 52 49
Rank change year-on-year +17 -3 -16
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 148 76 108
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.09% 3.22% 3.93%
As % of the Systems Management category 39.57% 27.05% 25.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 41 69
10th Percentile £333 £356 £425
25th Percentile £367 £400 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £593 £588 £625
90th Percentile £656 £675 £688
England median daily rate £530 £586 £597
% change year-on-year -9.56% -1.84% -4.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 23
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £74.26 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +60.81% - -12.87%
75th Percentile - £57.18 -
90th Percentile - £63.78 £60.24
England median hourly rate £67.00 £60.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +11.67% -7.69% +0.78%

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 374 281 432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 15.39% 11.91% 15.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 144 305
10th Percentile £300 £243 £302
25th Percentile £358 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £581 £581 £583
90th Percentile £650 £656 £661
England median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -5.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 11 42
10th Percentile - £21.05 £17.83
25th Percentile £15.50 £24.18 £41.94
Median hourly rate £18.87 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -59.14% - +4.87%
75th Percentile £55.44 £58.46 £52.27
90th Percentile £74.26 £77.50 £77.64
England median hourly rate £36.00 £36.83 £47.83
% change year-on-year -2.26% -22.99% +86.04%

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 23 November 2025.

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
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 23 November 2025. 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 +5 78 £519 -5.73% 43
Cheshire +30 57 £404 -12.62% 19
Merseyside +4 5 £510 +70.00% 5
Lancashire -11 4 £550 +4.76% 30
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 (5.41%) Apache Airflow
2 5 (3.38%) Confluence
2 5 (3.38%) JBoss
2 5 (3.38%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.35%) Mule
3 2 (1.35%) Mule ESB
3 2 (1.35%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.35%) WebSphere
3 2 (1.35%) WebSphere Application Server
4 1 (0.68%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.68%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.68%) IIS
4 1 (0.68%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (0.68%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 93 (62.84%) AWS
2 52 (35.14%) Azure
3 39 (26.35%) GCP
4 29 (19.59%) GitHub
4 29 (19.59%) OpenShift
5 19 (12.84%) Serverless
6 17 (11.49%) Amazon ECS
6 17 (11.49%) AWS Lambda
7 16 (10.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 16 (10.81%) GitHub Actions
8 15 (10.14%) Amazon EC2
8 15 (10.14%) SaaS
9 14 (9.46%) AWS CloudFormation
9 14 (9.46%) Datadog
9 14 (9.46%) PaaS
10 11 (7.43%) Amazon SQS
11 10 (6.76%) Apigee
11 10 (6.76%) IaaS
12 9 (6.08%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (4.73%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (12.16%) Firewall
2 4 (2.70%) VLAN
2 4 (2.70%) VPN
3 3 (2.03%) BGP
3 3 (2.03%) HTTP
3 3 (2.03%) HTTPS
3 3 (2.03%) Network Security
3 3 (2.03%) Software-Defined Networking
4 2 (1.35%) Calico
4 2 (1.35%) TCP/IP
4 2 (1.35%) X.509
5 1 (0.68%) VoIP
5 1 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (16.22%) Relational Database
2 17 (11.49%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (9.46%) MySQL
4 11 (7.43%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (6.08%) DynamoDB
5 9 (6.08%) NoSQL
5 9 (6.08%) RDBMS
6 8 (5.41%) BigQuery
6 8 (5.41%) Redis
7 6 (4.05%) Amazon Aurora
7 6 (4.05%) Big Data
8 4 (2.70%) MongoDB
9 3 (2.03%) Apache Cassandra
9 3 (2.03%) Data Lake
9 3 (2.03%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.68%) Metadata
10 1 (0.68%) Power BI
10 1 (0.68%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.68%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 46 (31.08%) Jenkins
2 41 (27.70%) Git
3 36 (24.32%) GitLab
4 21 (14.19%) JIRA
5 14 (9.46%) SonarQube
6 8 (5.41%) Bitbucket
7 7 (4.73%) Maven
7 7 (4.73%) Postman
8 6 (4.05%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (3.38%) Gradle
9 5 (3.38%) JUnit
9 5 (3.38%) MLflow
9 5 (3.38%) SonarLint
10 4 (2.70%) Snyk
10 4 (2.70%) TeamCity
11 3 (2.03%) Artifactory
11 3 (2.03%) Bitbucket Server
11 3 (2.03%) CA Release Automation
11 3 (2.03%) Mockito
11 3 (2.03%) Rational DOORS
General
1 34 (22.97%) Finance
2 28 (18.92%) Social Skills
3 27 (18.24%) Banking
3 27 (18.24%) Public Sector
4 15 (10.14%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (2.70%) Games
6 2 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.35%) Retail
7 1 (0.68%) Financial Institution
7 1 (0.68%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.68%) Military
7 1 (0.68%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 33 (22.30%) Developer
2 19 (12.84%) DevOps Engineer
2 19 (12.84%) Java Developer
2 19 (12.84%) Platform Engineer
3 18 (12.16%) Architect
4 17 (11.49%) Senior
5 13 (8.78%) Software Engineer
6 11 (7.43%) AWS Engineer
6 11 (7.43%) Security Engineer
6 11 (7.43%) Technical Architect
7 9 (6.08%) AWS DevOps
7 9 (6.08%) Lead
8 8 (5.41%) Data Engineer
8 8 (5.41%) DevSecOps Engineer
8 8 (5.41%) Java Architect
8 8 (5.41%) Java Technical Architect
8 8 (5.41%) Senior Developer
9 7 (4.73%) AWS DevOps Engineer
10 6 (4.05%) Senior Java Developer
10 6 (4.05%) Virtualisation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (28.38%) Spring Boot
2 32 (21.62%) Spring
3 28 (18.92%) RESTful
4 20 (13.51%) AngularJS
5 19 (12.84%) Kafka
6 18 (12.16%) Node.js
7 14 (9.46%) REST
8 12 (8.11%) React
9 10 (6.76%) JWT
10 9 (6.08%) Elastic Stack
10 9 (6.08%) JSON
11 8 (5.41%) Hibernate
11 8 (5.41%) J2EE
11 8 (5.41%) JMS
12 7 (4.73%) HTML
12 7 (4.73%) Spring Security
13 6 (4.05%) Dropwizard
13 6 (4.05%) JAX-RS
13 6 (4.05%) Micronaut
13 6 (4.05%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 23 (15.54%) Cloud Native
2 9 (6.08%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (5.41%) Product Ownership
3 8 (5.41%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 6 (4.05%) N-Tier
5 3 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (2.03%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.35%) Algorithms
6 2 (1.35%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.35%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.35%) PKI
7 1 (0.68%) Clustering
7 1 (0.68%) CUDA
7 1 (0.68%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.68%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.68%) IBM XIV
7 1 (0.68%) Private Cloud
7 1 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 48 (32.43%) Linux
2 21 (14.19%) Windows
3 11 (7.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.38%) Unix
5 3 (2.03%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.35%) Android
6 2 (1.35%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (67.57%) CI/CD
2 84 (56.76%) Containerisation
3 75 (50.68%) DevOps
4 45 (30.41%) Microservices
5 44 (29.73%) Agile
6 42 (28.38%) Infrastructure as Code
7 38 (25.68%) Problem-Solving
8 36 (24.32%) Observability
9 23 (15.54%) Software Engineering
10 19 (12.84%) TDD
10 19 (12.84%) Test Automation
11 18 (12.16%) Platform Engineering
12 17 (11.49%) SDLC
13 16 (10.81%) API Design
13 16 (10.81%) Unit Testing
14 15 (10.14%) AI
14 15 (10.14%) Cloud Security
14 15 (10.14%) Event-Driven
14 15 (10.14%) Infrastructure Automation
15 14 (9.46%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 73 (49.32%) Python
2 60 (40.54%) Java
3 27 (18.24%) Bash
4 23 (15.54%) SQL
5 15 (10.14%) PHP
6 9 (6.08%) TypeScript
7 6 (4.05%) Go
7 6 (4.05%) JavaScript
7 6 (4.05%) Perl
7 6 (4.05%) PowerShell
8 4 (2.70%) C#
8 4 (2.70%) C++
9 3 (2.03%) PL/SQL
9 3 (2.03%) Ruby
10 2 (1.35%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.68%) Bicep
11 1 (0.68%) C
11 1 (0.68%) Clojure
11 1 (0.68%) Korn
11 1 (0.68%) Scala
Qualifications
1 35 (23.65%) Security Cleared
2 18 (12.16%) SC Cleared
3 10 (6.76%) Degree
4 8 (5.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (4.73%) AWS Certification
5 7 (4.73%) CISSP
6 6 (4.05%) CISM
7 5 (3.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (2.03%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (1.35%) DV Cleared
9 2 (1.35%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.68%) OSCP
10 1 (0.68%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.43%) QA
2 8 (5.41%) ISO 20022
2 8 (5.41%) PSD2
2 8 (5.41%) SEPA
3 6 (4.05%) Accessibility
3 6 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (4.05%) NIST
4 3 (2.03%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.68%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.68%) WCAG
System Software
1 112 (75.68%) Docker
2 8 (5.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (5.41%) vSphere
3 5 (3.38%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.35%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 51 (34.46%) Terraform
2 22 (14.86%) Grafana
3 9 (6.08%) Prometheus
4 7 (4.73%) Ansible
4 7 (4.73%) Progress Chef
5 5 (3.38%) Fluentd
6 4 (2.70%) Kibana
7 3 (2.03%) Istio
7 3 (2.03%) Podman
7 3 (2.03%) SELinux
8 1 (0.68%) Argo
8 1 (0.68%) Puppet
8 1 (0.68%) SCCM
Vendors
1 26 (17.57%) Oracle
2 20 (13.51%) Splunk
3 17 (11.49%) AppDynamics
4 12 (8.11%) Microsoft
5 10 (6.76%) Red Hat
6 8 (5.41%) VMware
7 7 (4.73%) Cribl.io
7 7 (4.73%) Dynatrace
8 6 (4.05%) Gigya
9 5 (3.38%) Cloudera
10 4 (2.70%) Checkmarx
10 4 (2.70%) F5
10 4 (2.70%) Google
10 4 (2.70%) Palo Alto
10 4 (2.70%) Veracode
11 3 (2.03%) Confluent
11 3 (2.03%) IBM
12 2 (1.35%) Atlassian
12 2 (1.35%) Ping Identity
13 1 (0.68%) BiZZdesign