DevOps Engineer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Development Operations Engineer
England > South East

The median Development Operations Engineer daily rate in the South East is £511, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 188 111 116
Rank change year-on-year -77 +5 -31
Contract jobs requiring a DevOps Engineer 42 53 61
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.64% 1.49% 1.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 1.67% 1.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 36 42 50
10th Percentile £438 £382 £442
25th Percentile £462 £413 £503
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £450 £580
Median % change year-on-year +13.44% -22.41% +3.11%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £638
90th Percentile £658 £584 £670
England median daily rate £525 £500 £563
% change year-on-year +5.00% -11.11% -2.17%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 5,980 3,179 3,939
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.16% 89.50% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,343 2,055 2,343
10th Percentile £285 £204 £245
25th Percentile £425 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -0.99% -0.35%
75th Percentile £625 £598 £625
90th Percentile £725 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 836 299 238
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.00 £16.00
25th Percentile £20.43 £15.53 £27.00
Median hourly rate £48.81 £24.00 £58.49
Median % change year-on-year +103.38% -58.97% +11.41%
75th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £74.97
90th Percentile £87.83 £71.30 £78.75
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.89%

DevOps Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'DevOps Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

DevOps Engineer job vacancy trend in the South East

DevOps Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for DevOps Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for DevOps Engineer job vacancies in the South East

DevOps Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DevOps Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 13 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DevOps Engineer in the South East

DevOps Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for DevOps Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for DevOps Engineer job vacancies in the South East

DevOps Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DevOps Engineer within the South East region over the 6 months to 13 October 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
Thames Valley -39 26 £492 +15.76% 43
Berkshire -33 14 £550 +29.41% 20
Buckinghamshire -17 12 £492 -18.00% 12
Surrey -17 8 £450 - 11
Hampshire -43 8 £550 +4.76% 15
DevOps Engineer
England

DevOps Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 13 October 2026, DevOps Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring DevOps Engineer in the job title.

1 42 (100.00%) DevOps
2 31 (73.81%) CI/CD
3 25 (59.52%) Azure
4 24 (57.14%) Security Cleared
5 20 (47.62%) Kubernetes
5 20 (47.62%) SC Cleared
5 20 (47.62%) Terraform
6 17 (40.48%) Containerisation
6 17 (40.48%) Infrastructure as Code
7 14 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (30.95%) Docker
9 10 (23.81%) Agile
10 9 (21.43%) AWS
10 9 (21.43%) GitLab
11 8 (19.05%) Python
12 7 (16.67%) Ansible
12 7 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
12 7 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
12 7 (16.67%) Microsoft
12 7 (16.67%) Virtual Machines
13 6 (14.29%) Azure Certification
13 6 (14.29%) GitHub
13 6 (14.29%) Linux
13 6 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
14 5 (11.90%) ARM Templates
14 5 (11.90%) Bash
14 5 (11.90%) Digital Innovation
14 5 (11.90%) DV Cleared
14 5 (11.90%) Git
14 5 (11.90%) Grafana

DevOps Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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:

Cloud Services
1 25 (59.52%) Azure
2 14 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
3 9 (21.43%) AWS
4 6 (14.29%) GitHub
5 5 (11.90%) OpenShift
6 4 (9.52%) Amazon EKS
6 4 (9.52%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (7.14%) Power Platform
8 2 (4.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (4.76%) Amazon ECS
8 2 (4.76%) Azure AI
9 1 (2.38%) Azure AKS
9 1 (2.38%) Azure Functions
9 1 (2.38%) Azure Logic Apps
9 1 (2.38%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.38%) DNS
1 1 (2.38%) Firewall
1 1 (2.38%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (7.14%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 9 (21.43%) GitLab
2 5 (11.90%) Git
2 5 (11.90%) Jenkins
3 1 (2.38%) Artifactory
3 1 (2.38%) SonarQube
3 1 (2.38%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 7 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 5 (11.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 5 (11.90%) Public Sector
3 1 (2.38%) Finance
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (47.62%) Terraform
2 5 (11.90%) ARM Templates
3 2 (4.76%) GraphQL
3 2 (4.76%) Loki
3 2 (4.76%) Node.js
3 2 (4.76%) OpenTelemetry
3 2 (4.76%) YAML
4 1 (2.38%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (2.38%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 3 (7.14%) Cloud Native
2 1 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
2 1 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 6 (14.29%) Linux
2 3 (7.14%) CentOS
2 3 (7.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 3 (7.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (100.00%) DevOps
2 31 (73.81%) CI/CD
3 17 (40.48%) Containerisation
3 17 (40.48%) Infrastructure as Code
4 10 (23.81%) Agile
5 7 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
5 7 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
6 6 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (11.90%) Digital Innovation
7 5 (11.90%) Infrastructure Automation
7 5 (11.90%) Observability
7 5 (11.90%) Software Engineering
7 5 (11.90%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 4 (9.52%) Deployment Automation
8 4 (9.52%) Full-Stack Development
8 4 (9.52%) Platform Engineering
9 3 (7.14%) Business Intelligence
9 3 (7.14%) Cloud Security
9 3 (7.14%) Release Automation
9 3 (7.14%) Software Delivery
Programming Languages
1 8 (19.05%) Python
2 5 (11.90%) Bash
3 3 (7.14%) Java
4 2 (4.76%) JavaScript
4 2 (4.76%) Scala
4 2 (4.76%) TypeScript
5 1 (2.38%) Bicep
5 1 (2.38%) Groovy
5 1 (2.38%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 24 (57.14%) Security Cleared
2 20 (47.62%) SC Cleared
3 6 (14.29%) Azure Certification
4 5 (11.90%) DV Cleared
5 1 (2.38%) AWS Certification
System Software
1 13 (30.95%) Docker
2 7 (16.67%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (47.62%) Kubernetes
2 7 (16.67%) Ansible
3 5 (11.90%) Grafana
3 5 (11.90%) Prometheus
4 4 (9.52%) Argo
5 3 (7.14%) Packer
6 2 (4.76%) Puppet
6 2 (4.76%) Rancher
Vendors
1 7 (16.67%) Microsoft
2 2 (4.76%) Red Hat
3 1 (2.38%) VMware