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 £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 January 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 111 114 130
Rank change year-on-year +3 +16 -7
Contract jobs requiring a DevOps Engineer 72 50 77
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.64% 1.52% 1.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.82% 1.63% 1.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 52 42 60
10th Percentile £413 £501 £448
25th Percentile £423 £525 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £585 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.26% +11.43% -12.50%
75th Percentile £600 £653 £583
90th Percentile £686 £675 £625
England median daily rate £525 £598 £550
% change year-on-year -12.13% +8.64% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £46.25 - £62.63
Median hourly rate £47.50 - £67.27
75th Percentile £48.75 - £71.90
90th Percentile £62.05 - -
England median hourly rate £47.50 £68.89 £67.27
% change year-on-year -31.05% +2.42% +23.42%

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 3,963 3,059 4,766
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.44% 92.84% 93.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,573 1,909 3,035
10th Percentile £250 £235 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £367
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £613 £607
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 347 111 312
10th Percentile £13.88 £19.30 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.61 £24.34 £23.53
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.35% -14.24% +14.94%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £63.94
90th Percentile £81.40 £71.25 £75.62
England median hourly rate £28.50 £35.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year -18.57% -13.21% +15.21%

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 19 January 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DevOps Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 19 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DevOps Engineer 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 19 January 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
Hampshire -1 39 £538 -6.52% 13
Thames Valley -20 25 £425 -31.45% 37
Berkshire -15 22 £425 -31.73% 22
Surrey -3 7 £675 +3.85% 14
Buckinghamshire -7 2 £575 -4.17% 9
Kent - 1 £600 - 8
Oxfordshire - 1 - - 6
DevOps Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 January 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 72 (100.00%) DevOps
2 46 (63.89%) Security Cleared
3 38 (52.78%) CI/CD
4 34 (47.22%) Azure
4 34 (47.22%) Python
5 31 (43.06%) Kubernetes
6 29 (40.28%) SC Cleared
7 28 (38.89%) Terraform
8 26 (36.11%) Agile
9 25 (34.72%) Ansible
10 24 (33.33%) Containerisation
11 23 (31.94%) Infrastructure as Code
12 22 (30.56%) AWS
13 20 (27.78%) Bash
13 20 (27.78%) Linux
14 19 (26.39%) Azure DevOps
14 19 (26.39%) GitHub
15 16 (22.22%) DV Cleared
15 16 (22.22%) Red Hat
16 15 (20.83%) GitHub Actions
16 15 (20.83%) Windows
17 14 (19.44%) Docker
17 14 (19.44%) Grafana
17 14 (19.44%) Observability
17 14 (19.44%) PowerShell
17 14 (19.44%) Prometheus
18 13 (18.06%) DevSecOps
18 13 (18.06%) GitLab
19 12 (16.67%) Kafka
20 11 (15.28%) Jenkins

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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (1.39%) Apache
1 1 (1.39%) IIS
Cloud Services
1 34 (47.22%) Azure
2 22 (30.56%) AWS
3 19 (26.39%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (26.39%) GitHub
4 15 (20.83%) GitHub Actions
5 10 (13.89%) OpenShift
6 8 (11.11%) IaaS
7 7 (9.72%) Amazon EKS
7 7 (9.72%) Azure AKS
7 7 (9.72%) PaaS
7 7 (9.72%) Serverless
8 6 (8.33%) Azure Functions
8 6 (8.33%) Cloud Computing
8 6 (8.33%) Entra ID
9 4 (5.56%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (5.56%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (5.56%) Azure Monitor
9 4 (5.56%) Azure Storage
9 4 (5.56%) GCP
10 3 (4.17%) Azure API Management
Communications & Networking
1 4 (5.56%) Firewall
2 3 (4.17%) DNS
3 2 (2.78%) SSL
3 2 (2.78%) VPN
4 1 (1.39%) DHCP
4 1 (1.39%) HTTP
4 1 (1.39%) Internet
4 1 (1.39%) Network Security
4 1 (1.39%) SAN
4 1 (1.39%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (12.50%) PostgreSQL
1 9 (12.50%) Redis
2 4 (5.56%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (2.78%) Elasticsearch
3 2 (2.78%) NoSQL
4 1 (1.39%) Amazon Aurora
4 1 (1.39%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (1.39%) Delta Lake
4 1 (1.39%) Relational Database
4 1 (1.39%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (18.06%) GitLab
2 11 (15.28%) Jenkins
3 6 (8.33%) Git
4 2 (2.78%) JIRA
5 1 (1.39%) Artifactory
5 1 (1.39%) Postman
5 1 (1.39%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 8 (11.11%) Public Sector
2 7 (9.72%) Social Skills
3 6 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (4.17%) Billing
5 2 (2.78%) Retail
6 1 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (16.67%) Kafka
2 10 (13.89%) Keycloak
3 9 (12.50%) YAML
4 7 (9.72%) REST
5 6 (8.33%) JSON
5 6 (8.33%) XML
6 5 (6.94%) .NET
6 5 (6.94%) .NET Core
6 5 (6.94%) Elastic Stack
6 5 (6.94%) GraphQL
7 4 (5.56%) ADO
8 3 (4.17%) ARM Templates
8 3 (4.17%) OAuth
8 3 (4.17%) OAuth2
8 3 (4.17%) OpenID
8 3 (4.17%) SAML
9 2 (2.78%) .NET Framework
9 2 (2.78%) Jinja
9 2 (2.78%) Loki
9 2 (2.78%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 4 (5.56%) Linux Command Line
2 2 (2.78%) Public Cloud
3 1 (1.39%) Cloud Native
3 1 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (1.39%) Onboarding
3 1 (1.39%) PKI
3 1 (1.39%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 20 (27.78%) Linux
2 15 (20.83%) Windows
3 11 (15.28%) Windows 10
4 1 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (1.39%) Ubuntu
4 1 (1.39%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (100.00%) DevOps
2 38 (52.78%) CI/CD
3 26 (36.11%) Agile
4 24 (33.33%) Containerisation
5 23 (31.94%) Infrastructure as Code
6 14 (19.44%) Observability
7 13 (18.06%) DevSecOps
8 11 (15.28%) Platform Engineering
9 10 (13.89%) Project Management
10 9 (12.50%) GitOps
10 9 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
10 9 (12.50%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 9 (12.50%) Software Engineering
11 7 (9.72%) Configuration Management
12 6 (8.33%) AI
12 6 (8.33%) RBAC
12 6 (8.33%) Test Automation
13 5 (6.94%) High Availability
13 5 (6.94%) Identity Management
13 5 (6.94%) SBOM
Programming Languages
1 34 (47.22%) Python
2 20 (27.78%) Bash
3 14 (19.44%) PowerShell
4 7 (9.72%) SQL
5 6 (8.33%) C#
5 6 (8.33%) JavaScript
6 5 (6.94%) PHP
7 4 (5.56%) Java
8 3 (4.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 46 (63.89%) Security Cleared
2 29 (40.28%) SC Cleared
3 16 (22.22%) DV Cleared
4 2 (2.78%) AWS Certification
4 2 (2.78%) Degree
5 1 (1.39%) CCNA
5 1 (1.39%) CCNP
5 1 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (1.39%) JNCIP
5 1 (1.39%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (6.94%) NCSC
1 5 (6.94%) QA
2 3 (4.17%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.39%) NIST
3 1 (1.39%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (19.44%) Docker
2 6 (8.33%) Active Directory
3 2 (2.78%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.39%) DFS Replication
4 1 (1.39%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 31 (43.06%) Kubernetes
2 28 (38.89%) Terraform
3 25 (34.72%) Ansible
4 14 (19.44%) Grafana
4 14 (19.44%) Prometheus
5 9 (12.50%) Argo
6 7 (9.72%) Puppet
7 6 (8.33%) Istio
7 6 (8.33%) linkerd
8 4 (5.56%) Podman
9 3 (4.17%) Progress Chef
10 2 (2.78%) logstash
10 2 (2.78%) Packer
10 2 (2.78%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (1.39%) Proxmox
11 1 (1.39%) Rancher
Vendors
1 16 (22.22%) Red Hat
2 10 (13.89%) Splunk
3 9 (12.50%) VMware
4 4 (5.56%) Microsoft
5 3 (4.17%) Google
6 2 (2.78%) Databricks
7 1 (1.39%) Salesforce
7 1 (1.39%) Tenable
7 1 (1.39%) Zscaler