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 30 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 49 63
Rank change year-on-year -12 +14 -11
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 232 146 137
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.53% 4.15% 3.12%
As % of the Systems Management category 35.42% 29.55% 23.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 90 107
10th Percentile £358 £363 £404
25th Percentile £453 £413 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £461 £525
Median % change year-on-year +13.98% -12.26% -12.50%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £625
90th Percentile £714 £620 £675
England median daily rate £550 £529 £575
% change year-on-year +3.97% -8.00% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 0 0
10th Percentile £65.60 - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £70.00 - -
75th Percentile £71.00 - -
90th Percentile £84.11 - -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +4.48% -4.29% -3.45%

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 655 494 590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 9.96% 14.03% 13.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 423 329 439
10th Percentile £316 £233 £273
25th Percentile £439 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.14% -1.50% -5.21%
75th Percentile £624 £584 £608
90th Percentile £710 £627 £688
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 9 8
10th Percentile £25.00 £18.87 £20.38
25th Percentile £44.86 £19.00 £28.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £20.00 £35.08
Median % change year-on-year +250.00% -42.99% -36.21%
75th Percentile £71.00 £55.00 £41.75
90th Percentile £87.96 £84.33 £54.35
England median hourly rate £67.00 £34.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +97.06% -15.00% -23.81%

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 30 September 2026.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Kubernetes in the South East over the 6 months to 30 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kubernetes in the South East

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 30 September 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 -17 96 £483 +1.58% 97
Berkshire -25 74 £460 -3.16% 50
Hampshire -11 68 £567 +25.89% 55
Surrey +7 45 £460 -14.81% 29
Buckinghamshire -17 16 £525 -19.23% 11
West Sussex -14 11 £322 -0.92% 29
Middlesex -13 9 - -
Oxfordshire -23 6 £850 +81.33% 36
East Sussex -2 1 £330 -18.52% 6
Home Counties - 1 £600 -
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 7 (3.02%) Apache Airflow
1 7 (3.02%) OpenStack
2 6 (2.59%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.29%) Palantir Foundry
4 2 (0.86%) Apache
4 2 (0.86%) Apache Superset
4 2 (0.86%) Confluence
4 2 (0.86%) IIS
5 1 (0.43%) OpenEdge
5 1 (0.43%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (1.72%) CPLEX
2 1 (0.43%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.43%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 130 (56.03%) Azure
2 125 (53.88%) AWS
3 58 (25.00%) OpenShift
4 46 (19.83%) GCP
5 40 (17.24%) GitHub
6 39 (16.81%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (11.64%) GitHub Actions
8 17 (7.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (6.90%) Amazon EKS
10 15 (6.47%) Serverless
11 14 (6.03%) Azure Monitor
12 12 (5.17%) SaaS
13 11 (4.74%) Azure AKS
13 11 (4.74%) Datadog
14 10 (4.31%) Entra ID
15 8 (3.45%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (3.45%) Power Platform
16 7 (3.02%) AWS Lambda
17 5 (2.16%) Amazon S3
18 4 (1.72%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 14 (6.03%) DNS
2 13 (5.60%) Firewall
2 13 (5.60%) VPN
3 10 (4.31%) TCP/IP
4 8 (3.45%) DHCP
4 8 (3.45%) Network Security
5 7 (3.02%) LTE
6 6 (2.59%) 5G
6 6 (2.59%) Diameter Protocol
6 6 (2.59%) Radio Access Network
6 6 (2.59%) VoLTE
6 6 (2.59%) VoWiFi
6 6 (2.59%) Wireshark
7 4 (1.72%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (1.72%) MQTT
7 4 (1.72%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (1.29%) BGP
9 2 (0.86%) HTTP
10 1 (0.43%) Broadband
10 1 (0.43%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (11.64%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (7.76%) NoSQL
3 14 (6.03%) Relational Database
4 10 (4.31%) Oracle Database
5 7 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (2.59%) Big Data
7 5 (2.16%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (2.16%) MongoDB
7 5 (2.16%) Power BI
8 3 (1.29%) DocumentDB
8 3 (1.29%) DynamoDB
8 3 (1.29%) Redis
9 2 (0.86%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.86%) BigQuery
9 2 (0.86%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.86%) MySQL
9 2 (0.86%) Spark SQL
9 2 (0.86%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.43%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 43 (18.53%) GitLab
2 42 (18.10%) Git
3 37 (15.95%) Jenkins
4 24 (10.34%) SonarQube
5 8 (3.45%) MLflow
6 4 (1.72%) Gradle
6 4 (1.72%) JIRA
6 4 (1.72%) Maven
7 3 (1.29%) JUnit
7 3 (1.29%) NUnit
7 3 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.43%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.43%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.43%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.43%) JMeter
8 1 (0.43%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.43%) Mockito
8 1 (0.43%) NeoLoad
8 1 (0.43%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.43%) Subversion
General
1 60 (25.86%) Social Skills
2 25 (10.78%) Analytical Skills
3 19 (8.19%) Aerospace
3 19 (8.19%) Public Sector
4 15 (6.47%) Finance
5 12 (5.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (3.88%) Telecoms
7 5 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.72%) Banking
9 3 (1.29%) Automotive
9 3 (1.29%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.29%) Publishing
10 2 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.86%) Retail
11 1 (0.43%) German Language
11 1 (0.43%) Health Technology
11 1 (0.43%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.43%) Local Government
11 1 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 36 (15.52%) Developer
2 30 (12.93%) Architect
3 24 (10.34%) Platform Engineer
3 24 (10.34%) Senior
4 18 (7.76%) DevOps Engineer
5 16 (6.90%) DevSecOps Engineer
5 16 (6.90%) Lead
6 12 (5.17%) Java Developer
7 11 (4.74%) Technical Leader
8 10 (4.31%) Azure Engineer
8 10 (4.31%) Cloud Architect
9 9 (3.88%) Java Engineer
10 8 (3.45%) Service Owner
10 8 (3.45%) Software Engineer
10 8 (3.45%) Systems Engineer
11 7 (3.02%) Cloud Engineer
12 6 (2.59%) .NET Developer
12 6 (2.59%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 6 (2.59%) Consultant
12 6 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (34.05%) Terraform
2 32 (13.79%) Kafka
3 30 (12.93%) REST
4 26 (11.21%) RESTful
5 22 (9.48%) AngularJS
6 21 (9.05%) React
7 16 (6.90%) Quarkus
8 14 (6.03%) OAuth
9 13 (5.60%) .NET
9 13 (5.60%) OAuth2
10 12 (5.17%) Django
11 11 (4.74%) ARM Templates
11 11 (4.74%) Spring
11 11 (4.74%) YAML
12 9 (3.88%) OpenID
12 9 (3.88%) Spring Boot
13 8 (3.45%) CSS
13 8 (3.45%) HTML
14 7 (3.02%) .NET Framework
14 7 (3.02%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 44 (18.97%) Cloud Native
2 23 (9.91%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (6.47%) Distributed Systems
4 12 (5.17%) Enterprise Cloud
5 9 (3.88%) Product Ownership
6 8 (3.45%) AI Agents
6 8 (3.45%) CMDB
6 8 (3.45%) Onboarding
7 6 (2.59%) Algorithms
7 6 (2.59%) Data Structures
8 5 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.72%) Distributed Computing
9 4 (1.72%) Management Information System
10 3 (1.29%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.29%) PKI
10 3 (1.29%) Public Cloud
11 2 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
11 2 (0.86%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.86%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.86%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 67 (28.88%) Linux
2 25 (10.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 15 (6.47%) Windows
4 12 (5.17%) Windows Server
5 9 (3.88%) Unix
6 4 (1.72%) CentOS
6 4 (1.72%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.86%) Android
7 2 (0.86%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (62.93%) CI/CD
2 121 (52.16%) DevOps
3 107 (46.12%) Containerisation
4 89 (38.36%) Agile
5 70 (30.17%) DevSecOps
6 69 (29.74%) Infrastructure as Code
7 57 (24.57%) Problem-Solving
8 53 (22.84%) Platform Engineering
9 51 (21.98%) Continuous Improvement
10 46 (19.83%) Software Engineering
11 45 (19.40%) AI
12 41 (17.67%) Machine Learning
13 40 (17.24%) Test Automation
14 34 (14.66%) Microservices
14 34 (14.66%) Observability
15 33 (14.22%) Scrum
16 32 (13.79%) Technical Leadership
17 29 (12.50%) SDLC
18 27 (11.64%) Analytics
19 26 (11.21%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 116 (50.00%) Python
2 49 (21.12%) Bash
3 43 (18.53%) Java
4 41 (17.67%) PowerShell
5 24 (10.34%) JavaScript
6 21 (9.05%) SQL
7 15 (6.47%) Bicep
7 15 (6.47%) TypeScript
8 12 (5.17%) C#
9 9 (3.88%) Go
10 4 (1.72%) Rust
10 4 (1.72%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.29%) Groovy
12 2 (0.86%) Scala
13 1 (0.43%) C++
Qualifications
1 120 (51.72%) Security Cleared
2 103 (44.40%) SC Cleared
3 18 (7.76%) Azure Certification
4 16 (6.90%) Degree
4 16 (6.90%) DV Cleared
5 14 (6.03%) CISSP
6 11 (4.74%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (4.31%) AWS Certification
8 9 (3.88%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (3.45%) ITIL Certification
10 7 (3.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 7 (3.02%) Master's Degree
11 6 (2.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (2.16%) RHCE
13 4 (1.72%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 4 (1.72%) CEH
13 4 (1.72%) CISM
13 4 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
13 4 (1.72%) OSCP
14 3 (1.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (17.24%) QA
2 14 (6.03%) NIST
3 11 (4.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (3.45%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (3.02%) Accessibility
5 7 (3.02%) NCSC
6 6 (2.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 6 (2.59%) SLA
7 4 (1.72%) GDPR
8 3 (1.29%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.86%) GRC
9 2 (0.86%) IASME
9 2 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.86%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.86%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 107 (46.12%) Docker
2 13 (5.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (3.45%) IAG
4 7 (3.02%) Hyper-V
5 4 (1.72%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.86%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 49 (21.12%) Ansible
2 27 (11.64%) Grafana
3 23 (9.91%) Argo
4 22 (9.48%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.59%) Istio
5 6 (2.59%) Podman
5 6 (2.59%) Puppet
6 5 (2.16%) Rancher
7 3 (1.29%) Packer
8 2 (0.86%) CASB
8 2 (0.86%) Kibana
8 2 (0.86%) linkerd
9 1 (0.43%) QRadar
Vendors
1 48 (20.69%) Microsoft
2 35 (15.09%) Red Hat
3 22 (9.48%) Google
4 15 (6.47%) Oracle
5 14 (6.03%) VMware
6 12 (5.17%) Dynatrace
7 8 (3.45%) Nexthink
7 8 (3.45%) ServiceNow
8 7 (3.02%) Splunk
9 6 (2.59%) BT
9 6 (2.59%) Ericsson
9 6 (2.59%) Huawei
9 6 (2.59%) Nokia
9 6 (2.59%) Tenable
10 4 (1.72%) Databricks
10 4 (1.72%) Foundry
10 4 (1.72%) NVIDIA
11 3 (1.29%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.29%) Palantir
11 3 (1.29%) Salesforce