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 17 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 47 55
Rank change year-on-year +17 +8 -23
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 169 86 91
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.16% 4.16% 3.24%
As % of the Systems Management category 41.22% 26.79% 26.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 65 65
10th Percentile £355 £363 £418
25th Percentile £401 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.50% -6.98% -10.42%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £688
90th Percentile £643 £615 £700
England median daily rate £525 £600 £570
% change year-on-year -12.50% +5.26% -8.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 1 10
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% -12.87%
75th Percentile £58.44 £68.18 -
90th Percentile £69.13 - £58.13
England median hourly rate £60.00 £58.75 £62.00
% change year-on-year +2.13% -5.24% -1.98%

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 410 321 349
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.95% 15.53% 12.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 257 192 249
10th Percentile £312 £250 £312
25th Percentile £367 £373 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £568 £584
90th Percentile £638 £640 £670
England median daily rate £500 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -9.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 8 30
10th Percentile £15.50 £21.05 £16.77
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.40 £17.72
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.59 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +63.74% -27.26% +8.66%
75th Percentile £57.50 £70.51 £53.75
90th Percentile £72.56 £80.50 £79.13
England median hourly rate £52.50 £26.00 £42.03
% change year-on-year +101.92% -38.14% -16.88%

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 17 February 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 17 February 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 17 February 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 +6 107 £519 +3.70% 68
Cheshire +18 49 £433 +17.85% 8
Merseyside -6 6 £330 +10.00% 2
Lancashire -21 4 £550 -8.33% 22
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 7 (4.14%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (2.37%) Apache Spark
2 4 (2.37%) Confluence
2 4 (2.37%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.59%) Apache
3 1 (0.59%) IIS
Cloud Services
1 108 (63.91%) AWS
2 57 (33.73%) Azure
3 38 (22.49%) GCP
4 30 (17.75%) GitHub
5 20 (11.83%) OpenShift
6 19 (11.24%) Serverless
7 16 (9.47%) AWS CloudFormation
7 16 (9.47%) AWS Lambda
8 15 (8.88%) GitHub Actions
9 14 (8.28%) Amazon EKS
10 13 (7.69%) Amazon ECS
11 12 (7.10%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (5.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 9 (5.33%) Amazon S3
14 7 (4.14%) Amazon SQS
15 6 (3.55%) Apigee
16 5 (2.96%) Amazon SageMaker
16 5 (2.96%) Azure AKS
16 5 (2.96%) Datadog
16 5 (2.96%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 21 (12.43%) Firewall
2 5 (2.96%) TCP/IP
2 5 (2.96%) VPN
3 4 (2.37%) DHCP
3 4 (2.37%) DNS
3 4 (2.37%) HTTP
3 4 (2.37%) HTTPS
3 4 (2.37%) NetScaler
3 4 (2.37%) Network Security
3 4 (2.37%) VLAN
4 3 (1.78%) BGP
4 3 (1.78%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (0.59%) VoIP
5 1 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (9.47%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (6.51%) MySQL
2 11 (6.51%) NoSQL
3 8 (4.73%) Relational Database
4 7 (4.14%) DocumentDB
5 6 (3.55%) MongoDB
6 5 (2.96%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (2.96%) Big Data
7 4 (2.37%) DynamoDB
7 4 (2.37%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (2.37%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.78%) Apache Cassandra
8 3 (1.78%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.18%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.59%) ObjectStore
10 1 (0.59%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.59%) Redis
10 1 (0.59%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 59 (34.91%) GitLab
2 37 (21.89%) Jenkins
3 33 (19.53%) Git
4 16 (9.47%) JIRA
5 12 (7.10%) Gradle
5 12 (7.10%) IntelliJ
6 7 (4.14%) Bitbucket
6 7 (4.14%) Postman
7 6 (3.55%) MLflow
8 5 (2.96%) Snyk
8 5 (2.96%) SonarQube
9 4 (2.37%) Mockito
10 3 (1.78%) JMeter
10 3 (1.78%) Selenium
11 2 (1.18%) Mocha
11 2 (1.18%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.59%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.59%) fastlane
12 1 (0.59%) Spinnaker
12 1 (0.59%) XCTest
General
1 40 (23.67%) Public Sector
2 39 (23.08%) Finance
3 23 (13.61%) Banking
4 20 (11.83%) Social Skills
5 17 (10.06%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (1.78%) Games
7 2 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.59%) Automotive
8 1 (0.59%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.59%) Military
Job Titles
1 46 (27.22%) Developer
2 24 (14.20%) Java Developer
3 22 (13.02%) Software Engineer
4 20 (11.83%) DevOps Engineer
5 19 (11.24%) Platform Engineer
5 19 (11.24%) Senior
6 16 (9.47%) Architect
7 14 (8.28%) AWS Engineer
7 14 (8.28%) Java Engineer
7 14 (8.28%) Java Software Engineer
8 11 (6.51%) Lead
8 11 (6.51%) Security Engineer
9 9 (5.33%) DevSecOps Engineer
10 8 (4.73%) Lead Developer
11 7 (4.14%) AWS DevOps
11 7 (4.14%) AWS DevOps Engineer
11 7 (4.14%) Cloud Engineer
11 7 (4.14%) Data Engineer
11 7 (4.14%) Software Developer
12 6 (3.55%) AWS Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (36.69%) Spring
2 61 (36.09%) Spring Boot
3 29 (17.16%) Kafka
4 27 (15.98%) RESTful
5 26 (15.38%) REST
6 13 (7.69%) Node.js
7 12 (7.10%) Hibernate
7 12 (7.10%) OpenTelemetry
8 10 (5.92%) JMS
8 10 (5.92%) React
9 7 (4.14%) JAX-RS
9 7 (4.14%) JSON
9 7 (4.14%) Spring Security
10 6 (3.55%) AngularJS
10 6 (3.55%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (3.55%) HTML
10 6 (3.55%) JWT
10 6 (3.55%) OAuth
11 5 (2.96%) Apache NiFi
11 5 (2.96%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 30 (17.75%) Cloud Native
2 10 (5.92%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 7 (4.14%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (4.14%) Product Ownership
3 7 (4.14%) Public Cloud
4 6 (3.55%) Private Cloud
5 4 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (1.78%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.18%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.18%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.18%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.18%) NHS
7 2 (1.18%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.59%) Clustering
8 1 (0.59%) CUDA
8 1 (0.59%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (0.59%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 35 (20.71%) Linux
2 13 (7.69%) Windows
3 8 (4.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (4.14%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.37%) Unix
5 4 (2.37%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.59%) Android
6 1 (0.59%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.59%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (60.36%) CI/CD
2 83 (49.11%) DevOps
3 76 (44.97%) Containerisation
4 50 (29.59%) Infrastructure as Code
5 48 (28.40%) Agile
6 46 (27.22%) Microservices
7 40 (23.67%) Problem-Solving
8 34 (20.12%) Software Engineering
9 31 (18.34%) Observability
10 26 (15.38%) Test Automation
11 17 (10.06%) DevSecOps
11 17 (10.06%) Event-Driven
11 17 (10.06%) TDD
12 16 (9.47%) Cloud Security
12 16 (9.47%) Platform Engineering
12 16 (9.47%) SDLC
13 15 (8.88%) Infrastructure Automation
14 13 (7.69%) AI
14 13 (7.69%) API Design
14 13 (7.69%) API Development
Programming Languages
1 78 (46.15%) Java
2 59 (34.91%) Python
3 24 (14.20%) SQL
4 23 (13.61%) Bash
5 16 (9.47%) TypeScript
6 12 (7.10%) Kotlin
7 11 (6.51%) Go
7 11 (6.51%) PowerShell
8 8 (4.73%) JavaScript
9 6 (3.55%) PHP
9 6 (3.55%) Ruby
10 4 (2.37%) C#
11 2 (1.18%) Perl
12 1 (0.59%) Bicep
12 1 (0.59%) C
12 1 (0.59%) C++
12 1 (0.59%) Clojure
12 1 (0.59%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.59%) Swift
Qualifications
1 39 (23.08%) Security Cleared
2 23 (13.61%) SC Cleared
3 11 (6.51%) Computer Science Degree
3 11 (6.51%) Degree
4 9 (5.33%) AWS Certification
5 8 (4.73%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (3.55%) CISSP
6 6 (3.55%) DV Cleared
7 5 (2.96%) CISM
8 3 (1.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.78%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.18%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (1.18%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.59%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.59%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (7.69%) QA
2 11 (6.51%) ISO 20022
2 11 (6.51%) PSD2
3 10 (5.92%) SEPA
4 7 (4.14%) Accessibility
5 5 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (2.96%) NIST
6 2 (1.18%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.59%) GDPR
7 1 (0.59%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.59%) WCAG
System Software
1 111 (65.68%) Docker
2 12 (7.10%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (7.10%) vSphere
3 5 (2.96%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.37%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (1.18%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 58 (34.32%) Terraform
2 32 (18.93%) Grafana
3 11 (6.51%) Prometheus
4 5 (2.96%) Ansible
4 5 (2.96%) Fluentd
4 5 (2.96%) SCCM
5 4 (2.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (2.37%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (1.78%) Istio
6 3 (1.78%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.59%) Argo
7 1 (0.59%) Puppet
Vendors
1 19 (11.24%) Oracle
2 13 (7.69%) Microsoft
2 13 (7.69%) VMware
3 11 (6.51%) Splunk
4 8 (4.73%) F5
5 7 (4.14%) Cribl.io
6 6 (3.55%) Red Hat
7 5 (2.96%) Checkmarx
7 5 (2.96%) Google
7 5 (2.96%) Veracode
8 4 (2.37%) Confluent
8 4 (2.37%) Palo Alto
8 4 (2.37%) Veeam
9 3 (1.78%) PagerDuty
10 2 (1.18%) AppDynamics
10 2 (1.18%) Atlassian
10 2 (1.18%) Ping Identity
11 1 (0.59%) Citrix
11 1 (0.59%) CyberArk
11 1 (0.59%) ServiceNow