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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 45 73
Rank change year-on-year -10 +28 -26
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 147 90 61
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.99% 4.15% 2.25%
As % of the Systems Management category 28.16% 31.69% 23.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 73 40
10th Percentile £406 £341 £406
25th Percentile £453 £400 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% -9.09% -4.35%
75th Percentile £610 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £660 £653
England median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -10.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 0
10th Percentile £61.55 £75.65 -
25th Percentile £62.00 £78.88 -
Median hourly rate £76.00 £87.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -12.64% - -
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% -9.12%

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 522 284 263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.17% 13.09% 9.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 365 191 187
10th Percentile £297 £230 £210
25th Percentile £401 £357 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% - -9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £563 £570
90th Percentile £653 £645 £650
England median daily rate £520 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.38% -2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 7 10
10th Percentile £20.58 £62.54 £16.74
25th Percentile £34.49 - -
Median hourly rate £62.50 £63.40 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -1.42% +257.79% -39.52%
75th Percentile £77.00 £84.88 £31.56
90th Percentile £95.00 £89.15 £54.28
England median hourly rate £65.00 £54.50 £31.25
% change year-on-year +19.27% +74.40% -43.18%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -1 106 £525 +5.00% 83
Cheshire -9 28 £600 +36.83% 11
Lancashire -8 7 £712 +18.70% 15
Merseyside - 3 £575 - 3
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 (6.80%) Confluence
2 7 (4.76%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.72%) Apache
4 1 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.68%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.36%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.68%) FIS Private Capital Suite
1 1 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 101 (68.71%) AWS
2 81 (55.10%) Azure
3 41 (27.89%) GCP
4 23 (15.65%) GitHub
5 19 (12.93%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 19 (12.93%) Serverless
6 18 (12.24%) GitHub Actions
6 18 (12.24%) OpenShift
7 15 (10.20%) Azure DevOps
7 15 (10.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 14 (9.52%) Azure AKS
9 11 (7.48%) Amazon EKS
10 9 (6.12%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (6.12%) Amazon S3
11 7 (4.76%) AWS Lambda
12 6 (4.08%) Amazon ECR
12 6 (4.08%) Amazon SQS
13 5 (3.40%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (3.40%) Entra ID
14 4 (2.72%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (12.93%) Firewall
2 4 (2.72%) DNS
2 4 (2.72%) Network Security
3 2 (1.36%) DHCP
3 2 (1.36%) NetScaler
3 2 (1.36%) SSL
3 2 (1.36%) TCP/IP
3 2 (1.36%) VPN
4 1 (0.68%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (10.88%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (6.80%) SQL Server
3 9 (6.12%) DocumentDB
3 9 (6.12%) NoSQL
4 7 (4.76%) MySQL
4 7 (4.76%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.40%) DynamoDB
5 5 (3.40%) MongoDB
6 4 (2.72%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (2.72%) Hadoop
7 3 (2.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (1.36%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.36%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.36%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.68%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.68%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.68%) Semantic Layer
9 1 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 30 (20.41%) GitLab
2 26 (17.69%) Git
3 23 (15.65%) Jenkins
4 13 (8.84%) JIRA
5 7 (4.76%) Postman
5 7 (4.76%) Selenium
5 7 (4.76%) SonarQube
6 5 (3.40%) Cucumber
6 5 (3.40%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (2.72%) JUnit
8 3 (2.04%) Claude Code
8 3 (2.04%) Gradle
8 3 (2.04%) JMeter
9 2 (1.36%) Bitbucket
9 2 (1.36%) Burp Suite
9 2 (1.36%) Gatling
9 2 (1.36%) LoadRunner
9 2 (1.36%) Mocha
9 2 (1.36%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.68%) Cypress.io
General
1 35 (23.81%) Finance
2 28 (19.05%) Public Sector
3 20 (13.61%) Social Skills
4 13 (8.84%) Banking
5 7 (4.76%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (3.40%) Retail
7 3 (2.04%) Health Technology
8 2 (1.36%) Military
9 1 (0.68%) Automotive
9 1 (0.68%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 28 (19.05%) Developer
2 26 (17.69%) Senior
3 25 (17.01%) DevOps Engineer
4 22 (14.97%) Security Engineer
5 21 (14.29%) Lead
6 19 (12.93%) Software Engineer
7 16 (10.88%) Lead Developer
8 13 (8.84%) Architect
8 13 (8.84%) Java Engineer
9 11 (7.48%) Java Software Engineer
9 11 (7.48%) Software Developer
10 10 (6.80%) Cloud Engineer
10 10 (6.80%) Java Developer
11 9 (6.12%) Platform Engineer
12 8 (5.44%) AWS Engineer
12 8 (5.44%) Solutions Architect
13 7 (4.76%) Kubernetes Engineer
13 7 (4.76%) Lead Software Developer
13 7 (4.76%) Senior Software Engineer
14 6 (4.08%) Lead Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (28.57%) Spring
2 35 (23.81%) Spring Boot
3 28 (19.05%) Kafka
4 25 (17.01%) Node.js
5 23 (15.65%) REST
6 14 (9.52%) React
7 9 (6.12%) RESTful
8 7 (4.76%) Next.js
9 6 (4.08%) Nunjucks
9 6 (4.08%) RabbitMQ
10 5 (3.40%) AWS CDK
10 5 (3.40%) Express.js
10 5 (3.40%) GraphQL
11 4 (2.72%) Apache NiFi
11 4 (2.72%) ARM Templates
12 3 (2.04%) Hibernate
12 3 (2.04%) JMS
12 3 (2.04%) OAuth
12 3 (2.04%) OpenTelemetry
13 2 (1.36%) JSF
Miscellaneous
1 61 (41.50%) Cloud Native
2 20 (13.61%) Security Posture
3 13 (8.84%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (8.84%) Management Information System
4 9 (6.12%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (5.44%) Public Cloud
6 6 (4.08%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (4.08%) Onboarding
7 5 (3.40%) AI Agents
7 5 (3.40%) Cloud Security Posture
7 5 (3.40%) NHS
7 5 (3.40%) Product Ownership
8 4 (2.72%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (2.72%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.72%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 4 (2.72%) Virtual Team
9 3 (2.04%) Data Centre
9 3 (2.04%) Enterprise Cloud
9 3 (2.04%) PKI
9 3 (2.04%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 31 (21.09%) Linux
2 15 (10.20%) Windows
3 14 (9.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.72%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (1.36%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.68%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (76.19%) CI/CD
2 92 (62.59%) DevOps
3 54 (36.73%) Containerisation
4 53 (36.05%) Agile
4 53 (36.05%) Infrastructure as Code
5 47 (31.97%) Observability
6 44 (29.93%) Microservices
7 30 (20.41%) Software Engineering
8 28 (19.05%) Event-Driven
8 28 (19.05%) Test Automation
9 26 (17.69%) Cloud Security
9 26 (17.69%) Problem-Solving
10 22 (14.97%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 20 (13.61%) Infrastructure Automation
11 20 (13.61%) Scrum
12 19 (12.93%) AI
13 18 (12.24%) Continuous Improvement
14 17 (11.56%) Load Balancing
14 17 (11.56%) SIEM
15 16 (10.88%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 67 (45.58%) Java
2 59 (40.14%) Python
3 30 (20.41%) Bash
4 29 (19.73%) PowerShell
5 22 (14.97%) SQL
6 18 (12.24%) TypeScript
7 10 (6.80%) Bicep
8 8 (5.44%) Go
8 8 (5.44%) JavaScript
9 6 (4.08%) Kotlin
10 4 (2.72%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.68%) C#
Qualifications
1 29 (19.73%) Security Cleared
2 23 (15.65%) SC Cleared
3 19 (12.93%) Azure Certification
4 16 (10.88%) AWS Certification
5 14 (9.52%) Degree
6 12 (8.16%) CISSP
7 10 (6.80%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (3.40%) DV Cleared
9 3 (2.04%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 3 (2.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.68%) CISM
11 1 (0.68%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.68%) OCP
11 1 (0.68%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (10.20%) GDPR
2 9 (6.12%) QA
3 7 (4.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (4.08%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 6 (4.08%) Data Quality
4 6 (4.08%) HIPAA
4 6 (4.08%) NIST
5 4 (2.72%) Accessibility
5 4 (2.72%) ISO 20022
5 4 (2.72%) PSD2
5 4 (2.72%) SEPA
6 2 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.68%) SLA
7 1 (0.68%) WCAG
System Software
1 95 (64.63%) Docker
2 5 (3.40%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.72%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (2.04%) vSphere
5 2 (1.36%) Apache ZooKeeper
5 2 (1.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.68%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.68%) zsh
Systems Management
1 65 (44.22%) Terraform
2 24 (16.33%) Grafana
3 18 (12.24%) Prometheus
4 13 (8.84%) Ansible
5 11 (7.48%) Progress Chef
6 10 (6.80%) Argo
7 8 (5.44%) Istio
8 2 (1.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (1.36%) linkerd
8 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (1.36%) SCCM
8 2 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.68%) Packer
9 1 (0.68%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 26 (17.69%) Microsoft
2 16 (10.88%) Google
2 16 (10.88%) Red Hat
3 7 (4.76%) Dynatrace
3 7 (4.76%) Oracle
3 7 (4.76%) Splunk
4 6 (4.08%) Varonis
5 3 (2.04%) CyberArk
5 3 (2.04%) PagerDuty
5 3 (2.04%) SAP
5 3 (2.04%) VMware
6 2 (1.36%) Atlassian
6 2 (1.36%) Confluent
6 2 (1.36%) F5
6 2 (1.36%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.36%) Veeam
7 1 (0.68%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.68%) Pure Storage
7 1 (0.68%) Tanium
7 1 (0.68%) Tenable