Kubernetes Contract Job Trends in the South East

Kubernetes (k8s)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Kubernetes skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 46 58 58
Rank change year-on-year +12 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 148 140 194
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.13% 3.28% 3.52%
As % of the Systems Management category 27.01% 22.84% 27.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 105 156
10th Percentile £376 £406 £441
25th Percentile £413 £453 £517
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £462 £525 £586
Median % change year-on-year -12.10% -10.45% +6.59%
75th Percentile £554 £625 £665
90th Percentile £619 £675 £758
England median daily rate £525 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 5
10th Percentile - - £68.19
25th Percentile £104.50 - -
Median hourly rate £109.00 - £76.53
75th Percentile £113.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £67.00 £63.79 £70.00
% change year-on-year +5.04% -8.88% +8.53%

All Systems Management Skills
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 548 613 711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 15.29% 14.38% 12.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 452 491
10th Percentile £254 £275 £206
25th Percentile £393 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% -6.98% +7.50%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £638
90th Percentile £619 £688 £713
England median daily rate £506 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.67% -4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 7 27
10th Percentile £18.87 £26.90 £24.20
25th Percentile £19.00 £31.00 £44.20
Median hourly rate £20.00 £36.17 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.70% -34.25% +22.22%
75th Percentile £69.00 £45.50 £74.36
90th Percentile £89.63 £54.80 £76.53
England median hourly rate £34.00 £37.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -9.33% -28.57% +119.57%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Kubernetes relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in the South East

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Kubernetes.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in the South East over the 6 months to 14 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Kubernetes in the South East

Kubernetes
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Kubernetes.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
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 Kubernetes within the South East region over the 6 months to 14 October 2025. 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 +4 72 £475 -9.52% 47
Berkshire +10 67 £475 -8.65% 32
Hampshire +30 53 £456 -10.55% 17
Surrey +7 11 £425 -34.62% 24
East Sussex +5 6 £508 +10.33% 2
Buckinghamshire -10 3 £650 +10.64% 2
Oxfordshire -9 2 £469 -6.25% 14
Middlesex - 2 £635 -
Kent - 2 £325 - 1
West Sussex -18 1 £325 -26.97% 6
Kubernetes
England

Kubernetes
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 5 (3.38%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.70%) Confluence
3 2 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.35%) Apache Spark
3 2 (1.35%) Camunda
3 2 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.68%) CMS
4 1 (0.68%) Drupal
4 1 (0.68%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.68%) nginx
4 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Fuse
4 1 (0.68%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.68%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (2.03%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 72 (48.65%) Azure
2 57 (38.51%) AWS
3 35 (23.65%) OpenShift
4 31 (20.95%) GCP
5 25 (16.89%) GitHub
6 23 (15.54%) Azure AKS
7 20 (13.51%) Azure DevOps
8 15 (10.14%) Amazon EKS
9 14 (9.46%) IaaS
9 14 (9.46%) PaaS
10 12 (8.11%) Amazon S3
10 12 (8.11%) Azure Storage
10 12 (8.11%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (6.76%) Azure Data Factory
12 9 (6.08%) Serverless
13 7 (4.73%) Azure Monitor
14 6 (4.05%) AWS Lambda
14 6 (4.05%) Azure Machine Learning
14 6 (4.05%) Datadog
14 6 (4.05%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 10 (6.76%) Firewall
2 5 (3.38%) DNS
2 5 (3.38%) VPN
3 4 (2.70%) DHCP
3 4 (2.70%) HTTP
3 4 (2.70%) MPLS
3 4 (2.70%) TCP/IP
4 3 (2.03%) 4G
4 3 (2.03%) 5G
4 3 (2.03%) DOCSIS
4 3 (2.03%) GPON
4 3 (2.03%) Kerberos
4 3 (2.03%) LTE
4 3 (2.03%) Network Security
4 3 (2.03%) Radio Access Network
4 3 (2.03%) SSL
4 3 (2.03%) VoIP
4 3 (2.03%) xDSL
5 2 (1.35%) Converged Networks
5 2 (1.35%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (15.54%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (12.84%) NoSQL
3 13 (8.78%) Azure SQL Database
3 13 (8.78%) MongoDB
4 8 (5.41%) Redis
5 6 (4.05%) Data Lake
6 5 (3.38%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (3.38%) Relational Database
7 4 (2.70%) Apache Cassandra
7 4 (2.70%) Big Data
7 4 (2.70%) Couchbase
7 4 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (2.70%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (2.03%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (2.03%) DynamoDB
8 3 (2.03%) HBase
8 3 (2.03%) MySQL
9 2 (1.35%) Power BI
9 2 (1.35%) RDBMS
9 2 (1.35%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 40 (27.03%) Jenkins
2 24 (16.22%) GitLab
3 18 (12.16%) Git
4 12 (8.11%) JIRA
5 9 (6.08%) Cucumber
6 6 (4.05%) Artifactory
7 5 (3.38%) JUnit
8 4 (2.70%) Gradle
8 4 (2.70%) Maven
8 4 (2.70%) SonarQube
9 3 (2.03%) MLflow
9 3 (2.03%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (1.35%) Cypress.io
10 2 (1.35%) JMeter
10 2 (1.35%) Mockito
10 2 (1.35%) REST Assured
10 2 (1.35%) Selenium
11 1 (0.68%) Mocha
11 1 (0.68%) PyCharm
11 1 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 48 (32.43%) Social Skills
2 18 (12.16%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (9.46%) Public Sector
4 10 (6.76%) Telecoms
5 9 (6.08%) Finance
6 4 (2.70%) Aerospace
7 3 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (2.03%) Retail
8 2 (1.35%) Banking
8 2 (1.35%) Law
8 2 (1.35%) Legal
9 1 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.68%) Police
Job Titles
1 30 (20.27%) DevOps Engineer
2 28 (18.92%) Developer
3 24 (16.22%) Senior
4 20 (13.51%) Platform Engineer
5 18 (12.16%) Site Engineer
5 18 (12.16%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 17 (11.49%) Architect
7 15 (10.14%) Azure Engineer
8 13 (8.78%) Senior Developer
9 12 (8.11%) Cloud Engineer
9 12 (8.11%) Java Developer
10 11 (7.43%) Azure DevOps Engineer
11 9 (6.08%) Security Architect
12 7 (4.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (4.73%) Support Engineer
13 6 (4.05%) AWS DevOps
13 6 (4.05%) AWS Engineer
13 6 (4.05%) Kubernetes Engineer
14 5 (3.38%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
14 5 (3.38%) Senior Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (14.86%) Kafka
2 20 (13.51%) React
3 16 (10.81%) REST
4 13 (8.78%) ADO
4 13 (8.78%) Spring Boot
5 12 (8.11%) Middleware
6 11 (7.43%) Elastic Stack
6 11 (7.43%) PyTorch
6 11 (7.43%) TensorFlow
7 10 (6.76%) Spring
8 9 (6.08%) scikit-learn
9 7 (4.73%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (4.73%) YAML
10 6 (4.05%) AngularJS
10 6 (4.05%) ARM Templates
10 6 (4.05%) Node.js
11 5 (3.38%) .NET
11 5 (3.38%) HTML
11 5 (3.38%) Keycloak
12 4 (2.70%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 19 (12.84%) Cloud Native
2 14 (9.46%) Private Cloud
3 12 (8.11%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (3.38%) Algorithms
4 5 (3.38%) Product Ownership
4 5 (3.38%) Security Posture
5 4 (2.70%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.70%) Public Cloud
5 4 (2.70%) Virtual Team
6 3 (2.03%) Cloud Security Posture
6 3 (2.03%) Data Centre
6 3 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (2.03%) TM Forum
7 2 (1.35%) Clustering
7 2 (1.35%) IoT
7 2 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.35%) PKI
7 2 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.68%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 37 (25.00%) Linux
2 7 (4.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (4.05%) Windows
4 4 (2.70%) Ubuntu
4 4 (2.70%) Windows Server
5 3 (2.03%) CentOS
5 3 (2.03%) Unix
5 3 (2.03%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (73.65%) CI/CD
2 78 (52.70%) DevOps
3 61 (41.22%) Containerisation
4 46 (31.08%) Infrastructure as Code
5 36 (24.32%) Problem-Solving
6 30 (20.27%) Agile
7 27 (18.24%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 24 (16.22%) Platform Engineering
9 22 (14.86%) Configuration Management
9 22 (14.86%) High Availability
9 22 (14.86%) Machine Learning
9 22 (14.86%) Migration
10 21 (14.19%) Microservices
10 21 (14.19%) Observability
11 18 (12.16%) Software Engineering
12 17 (11.49%) Analytics
13 15 (10.14%) Open Source
14 13 (8.78%) AI
14 13 (8.78%) Test Automation
15 12 (8.11%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 78 (52.70%) Python
2 46 (31.08%) Java
3 43 (29.05%) SQL
4 25 (16.89%) JavaScript
5 24 (16.22%) Bash
6 23 (15.54%) PowerShell
7 16 (10.81%) C#
8 13 (8.78%) Go
9 10 (6.76%) Bicep
10 9 (6.08%) R
11 6 (4.05%) TypeScript
12 5 (3.38%) C++
13 4 (2.70%) C
13 4 (2.70%) Shell Script
14 3 (2.03%) Scala
15 2 (1.35%) Korn
15 2 (1.35%) Perl
15 2 (1.35%) Ruby
16 1 (0.68%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 53 (35.81%) Security Cleared
2 46 (31.08%) SC Cleared
3 11 (7.43%) Degree
4 8 (5.41%) AWS Certification
4 8 (5.41%) Azure Certification
5 6 (4.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.38%) DV Cleared
7 4 (2.70%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (2.70%) OCP
7 4 (2.70%) Oracle Certification
8 3 (2.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 3 (2.03%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (2.03%) CCSP
8 3 (2.03%) CISSP
8 3 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (1.35%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.35%) RHCE
9 2 (1.35%) RHCSA
9 2 (1.35%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.68%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (6.08%) GDPR
1 9 (6.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (4.73%) NIST
3 6 (4.05%) QA
4 5 (3.38%) EU AI Act
4 5 (3.38%) PCI DSS
5 4 (2.70%) Data Quality
6 3 (2.03%) Def Stans
6 3 (2.03%) PSD2
7 2 (1.35%) OASIS TOSCA
8 1 (0.68%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.68%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.68%) HL7
8 1 (0.68%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.68%) NCSC
8 1 (0.68%) SLA
System Software
1 57 (38.51%) Docker
2 10 (6.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (6.08%) vSphere
4 5 (3.38%) Active Directory
5 2 (1.35%) BitLocker
5 2 (1.35%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.35%) KVM
5 2 (1.35%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (1.35%) Terminal Services
5 2 (1.35%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.68%) NDS
6 1 (0.68%) NetIQ eDirectory
6 1 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 49 (33.11%) Ansible
2 42 (28.38%) Terraform
3 26 (17.57%) Grafana
4 22 (14.86%) Prometheus
5 5 (3.38%) Argo
5 5 (3.38%) Packer
5 5 (3.38%) Puppet
5 5 (3.38%) SCOM
6 4 (2.70%) Kibana
6 4 (2.70%) Kustomize
6 4 (2.70%) Rsyslog
7 3 (2.03%) Cilium
7 3 (2.03%) Podman
8 2 (1.35%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (1.35%) Kubeflow
8 2 (1.35%) logstash
8 2 (1.35%) Progress Chef
8 2 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (1.35%) Sysdig
8 2 (1.35%) vMotion
Vendors
1 26 (17.57%) Red Hat
2 15 (10.14%) Microsoft
3 13 (8.78%) VMware
4 9 (6.08%) Splunk
5 7 (4.73%) Google
6 6 (4.05%) Atlassian
7 3 (2.03%) Dynatrace
7 3 (2.03%) NVIDIA
7 3 (2.03%) Oracle
8 2 (1.35%) Ab Initio
8 2 (1.35%) Amdocs
8 2 (1.35%) Citrix
8 2 (1.35%) Ericsson
8 2 (1.35%) HP
8 2 (1.35%) Huawei
8 2 (1.35%) NetCracker
8 2 (1.35%) Nokia
8 2 (1.35%) Symantec
9 1 (0.68%) Cisco
9 1 (0.68%) OpenText