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 2 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 38 66
Rank change year-on-year -7 +28 -15
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 149 98 71
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.46% 5.01% 2.59%
As % of the Systems Management category 32.89% 34.03% 26.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 81 56
10th Percentile £403 £393 £408
25th Percentile £450 £450 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -6.38%
75th Percentile £611 £584 £650
90th Percentile £652 £635 £694
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 1
10th Percentile - £75.65 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £78.88 £52.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £87.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.78% +58.18% +26.90%
75th Percentile £61.81 £92.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £68.13 £93.95 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £80.00 £67.00
% change year-on-year -18.75% +19.40% -9.46%

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 453 288 264
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.55% 14.72% 9.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 301 199 188
10th Percentile £305 £274 £212
25th Percentile £401 £386 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% - -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £575
90th Percentile £650 £636 £650
England median daily rate £507 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -2.50% -0.95% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 7 13
10th Percentile £33.16 £62.54 £16.59
25th Percentile £52.50 - -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £63.40 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -13.25% +257.79% -40.93%
75th Percentile £62.44 £84.88 £61.25
90th Percentile £70.60 £89.15 £96.50
England median hourly rate £56.50 £37.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +50.67% +36.36% -50.00%

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 2 June 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 2 June 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 2 June 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 -9 105 £525 +7.69% 93
Cheshire -4 30 £538 +13.16% 7
Lancashire -10 6 £712 +18.70% 16
Merseyside - 5 £330 - 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 (6.71%) Confluence
2 7 (4.70%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.68%) Apache
4 1 (0.67%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.34%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 98 (65.77%) AWS
2 75 (50.34%) Azure
3 38 (25.50%) GCP
4 20 (13.42%) GitHub
4 20 (13.42%) Serverless
5 19 (12.75%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 17 (11.41%) OpenShift
7 14 (9.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 13 (8.72%) Amazon EKS
8 13 (8.72%) Azure AKS
8 13 (8.72%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (8.05%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (6.04%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (6.04%) Amazon S3
10 9 (6.04%) AWS Lambda
11 6 (4.03%) Amazon ECR
11 6 (4.03%) Amazon SQS
12 5 (3.36%) AWS CloudFormation
13 4 (2.68%) Entra ID
13 4 (2.68%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 18 (12.08%) Firewall
2 5 (3.36%) DNS
3 4 (2.68%) DHCP
3 4 (2.68%) NetScaler
3 4 (2.68%) TCP/IP
4 3 (2.01%) Network Security
5 2 (1.34%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (13.42%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (8.72%) NoSQL
3 10 (6.71%) SQL Server
4 9 (6.04%) DocumentDB
5 5 (3.36%) DynamoDB
5 5 (3.36%) MongoDB
6 4 (2.68%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (2.68%) Hadoop
6 4 (2.68%) Relational Database
7 3 (2.01%) MySQL
7 3 (2.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (1.34%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.34%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.34%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.67%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.67%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 43 (28.86%) GitLab
2 23 (15.44%) Jenkins
3 22 (14.77%) Git
4 14 (9.40%) Gradle
5 13 (8.72%) JIRA
6 12 (8.05%) IntelliJ
7 6 (4.03%) Postman
7 6 (4.03%) Selenium
7 6 (4.03%) SonarQube
8 3 (2.01%) Bitbucket
8 3 (2.01%) Cucumber
8 3 (2.01%) JMeter
8 3 (2.01%) JUnit
8 3 (2.01%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (1.34%) Mocha
10 1 (0.67%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.67%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.67%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.67%) Mockito
10 1 (0.67%) Xcode
General
1 35 (23.49%) Finance
2 29 (19.46%) Public Sector
3 16 (10.74%) Social Skills
4 11 (7.38%) Banking
5 6 (4.03%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (2.01%) Health Technology
7 2 (1.34%) Retail
8 1 (0.67%) Automotive
8 1 (0.67%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 29 (19.46%) Developer
2 24 (16.11%) DevOps Engineer
2 24 (16.11%) Software Engineer
3 21 (14.09%) Senior
4 20 (13.42%) Security Engineer
5 19 (12.75%) Java Engineer
6 18 (12.08%) Lead
7 17 (11.41%) Architect
7 17 (11.41%) Java Software Engineer
8 13 (8.72%) Lead Developer
9 12 (8.05%) Cloud Engineer
9 12 (8.05%) Java Developer
10 11 (7.38%) Software Developer
11 10 (6.71%) AWS Engineer
11 10 (6.71%) Platform Engineer
12 9 (6.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 9 (6.04%) Solutions Architect
13 7 (4.70%) AWS Architect
13 7 (4.70%) GCP Engineer
13 7 (4.70%) Lead Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (34.23%) Spring
2 44 (29.53%) Spring Boot
3 20 (13.42%) Node.js
4 18 (12.08%) REST
5 16 (10.74%) Kafka
6 15 (10.07%) OpenTelemetry
7 11 (7.38%) React
7 11 (7.38%) RESTful
8 7 (4.70%) GraphQL
9 6 (4.03%) Nunjucks
10 5 (3.36%) AWS CDK
10 5 (3.36%) Express.js
10 5 (3.36%) RabbitMQ
11 4 (2.68%) Apache NiFi
11 4 (2.68%) Next.js
11 4 (2.68%) Spring Cloud
12 3 (2.01%) AngularJS
12 3 (2.01%) ARM Templates
12 3 (2.01%) Hibernate
12 3 (2.01%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 51 (34.23%) Cloud Native
2 20 (13.42%) Security Posture
3 12 (8.05%) Management Information System
4 11 (7.38%) Public Cloud
5 8 (5.37%) Distributed Systems
5 8 (5.37%) Linux Command Line
6 6 (4.03%) Cloud Security Posture
6 6 (4.03%) Private Cloud
6 6 (4.03%) Product Ownership
7 5 (3.36%) NHS
8 4 (2.68%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 3 (2.01%) AI Agents
9 3 (2.01%) Data Centre
9 3 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (2.01%) Onboarding
9 3 (2.01%) Virtual Team
10 2 (1.34%) Driving Licence
10 2 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (1.34%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 30 (20.13%) Linux
2 16 (10.74%) Windows
3 13 (8.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (4.03%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.68%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (2.68%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.67%) Android
6 1 (0.67%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.67%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (64.43%) CI/CD
2 83 (55.70%) DevOps
3 51 (34.23%) Containerisation
4 49 (32.89%) Infrastructure as Code
5 47 (31.54%) Agile
6 40 (26.85%) Microservices
7 35 (23.49%) Observability
8 31 (20.81%) Software Engineering
9 25 (16.78%) Problem-Solving
10 23 (15.44%) Cloud Security
11 21 (14.09%) Test Automation
12 18 (12.08%) Event-Driven
12 18 (12.08%) Infrastructure Automation
13 17 (11.41%) Load Balancing
13 17 (11.41%) Scrum
14 16 (10.74%) SIEM
15 15 (10.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 14 (9.40%) Continuous Improvement
16 14 (9.40%) Platform Engineering
16 14 (9.40%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 72 (48.32%) Java
2 55 (36.91%) Python
3 27 (18.12%) Bash
3 27 (18.12%) PowerShell
4 22 (14.77%) SQL
5 16 (10.74%) TypeScript
6 12 (8.05%) Kotlin
7 9 (6.04%) Go
8 8 (5.37%) JavaScript
9 7 (4.70%) Bicep
10 4 (2.68%) Shell Script
11 3 (2.01%) Ruby
12 2 (1.34%) C#
13 1 (0.67%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.67%) Swift
Qualifications
1 26 (17.45%) Security Cleared
2 21 (14.09%) SC Cleared
3 19 (12.75%) Azure Certification
4 16 (10.74%) AWS Certification
5 13 (8.72%) Degree
6 11 (7.38%) CISSP
7 7 (4.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (2.68%) DV Cleared
9 3 (2.01%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 3 (2.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.67%) CISM
11 1 (0.67%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.67%) OCP
11 1 (0.67%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.67%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (10.74%) GDPR
2 7 (4.70%) Accessibility
2 7 (4.70%) QA
2 7 (4.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 6 (4.03%) California Consumer Privacy Act
3 6 (4.03%) HIPAA
3 6 (4.03%) NIST
4 5 (3.36%) ISO 20022
4 5 (3.36%) PSD2
5 4 (2.68%) SEPA
6 3 (2.01%) Data Quality
7 2 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.67%) SLA
8 1 (0.67%) WCAG
System Software
1 87 (58.39%) Docker
2 7 (4.70%) Active Directory
3 5 (3.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.36%) vSphere
4 4 (2.68%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.68%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.67%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.67%) zsh
Systems Management
1 58 (38.93%) Terraform
2 31 (20.81%) Grafana
3 15 (10.07%) Prometheus
4 10 (6.71%) Progress Chef
5 9 (6.04%) Ansible
6 8 (5.37%) Argo
6 8 (5.37%) Istio
7 4 (2.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (2.68%) SCCM
8 2 (1.34%) linkerd
8 2 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.67%) Packer
9 1 (0.67%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 20 (13.42%) Microsoft
2 17 (11.41%) Google
3 14 (9.40%) Red Hat
4 7 (4.70%) Oracle
5 6 (4.03%) Varonis
6 5 (3.36%) Splunk
6 5 (3.36%) VMware
7 4 (2.68%) CyberArk
7 4 (2.68%) F5
7 4 (2.68%) Veeam
8 3 (2.01%) PagerDuty
8 3 (2.01%) SAP
9 2 (1.34%) Atlassian
9 2 (1.34%) Dynatrace
10 1 (0.67%) Checkmarx
10 1 (0.67%) Databricks
10 1 (0.67%) OpenAI
10 1 (0.67%) Tanium
10 1 (0.67%) Trend Micro
10 1 (0.67%) Veracode