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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 48 60
Rank change year-on-year -14 +12 -4
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 232 142 143
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.48% 4.08% 3.11%
As % of the Systems Management category 35.64% 29.58% 22.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 88 113
10th Percentile £358 £393 £406
25th Percentile £453 £413 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £625
90th Percentile £700 £624 £675
England median daily rate £543 £528 £570
% change year-on-year +2.84% -7.46% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 0 1
10th Percentile £63.40 - -
25th Percentile - - £36.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 - £38.50
75th Percentile £70.88 - £40.25
90th Percentile £83.78 - -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +4.48% +21.82% -24.66%

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 651 480 626
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 9.77% 13.79% 13.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 422 319 474
10th Percentile £325 £250 £290
25th Percentile £450 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% - -6.98%
75th Percentile £625 £588 £608
90th Percentile £725 £636 £678
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 9 9
10th Percentile £26.88 £18.87 £21.00
25th Percentile £44.86 £19.00 £30.00
Median hourly rate £69.11 £28.00 £36.17
Median % change year-on-year +146.81% -22.58% -34.25%
75th Percentile £70.63 £55.00 £40.25
90th Percentile £87.15 £84.33 £53.90
England median hourly rate £67.47 £34.00 £39.25
% change year-on-year +98.44% -13.38% -23.41%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -23 92 £465 -3.88% 154
Berkshire -22 72 £460 -4.91% 87
Hampshire -12 70 £558 +1.45% 65
Surrey +17 50 £460 -15.60% 40
Buckinghamshire -20 14 £451 - 17
West Sussex -15 10 £322 -0.92% 34
Middlesex -11 9 - - 1
Oxfordshire -22 6 £850 +81.33% 51
East Sussex -2 1 £330 -26.67% 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 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
5 1 (0.43%) IIS
5 1 (0.43%) OpenEdge
5 1 (0.43%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (1.72%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 1 (0.43%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 125 (53.88%) Azure
2 120 (51.72%) AWS
3 61 (26.29%) OpenShift
4 45 (19.40%) GCP
5 39 (16.81%) GitHub
6 36 (15.52%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (11.21%) GitHub Actions
8 16 (6.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 15 (6.47%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (6.03%) Azure Monitor
10 14 (6.03%) Serverless
11 12 (5.17%) SaaS
12 11 (4.74%) Azure AKS
12 11 (4.74%) Datadog
13 10 (4.31%) Entra ID
14 8 (3.45%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (3.45%) Power Platform
15 6 (2.59%) AWS Lambda
16 4 (1.72%) Amazon S3
17 3 (1.29%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (6.47%) DNS
2 13 (5.60%) VPN
3 12 (5.17%) Firewall
4 10 (4.31%) TCP/IP
5 8 (3.45%) DHCP
5 8 (3.45%) Network Security
6 7 (3.02%) LTE
7 6 (2.59%) 5G
7 6 (2.59%) Diameter Protocol
7 6 (2.59%) Radio Access Network
7 6 (2.59%) VoLTE
7 6 (2.59%) VoWiFi
7 6 (2.59%) Wireshark
8 4 (1.72%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (1.72%) MQTT
8 4 (1.72%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (1.29%) BGP
10 2 (0.86%) HTTP
11 1 (0.43%) HTTPS
11 1 (0.43%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (10.78%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (6.90%) NoSQL
3 12 (5.17%) Relational Database
4 10 (4.31%) Oracle Database
5 8 (3.45%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (2.59%) Big Data
7 5 (2.16%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (2.16%) Power BI
8 4 (1.72%) MongoDB
9 3 (1.29%) DocumentDB
9 3 (1.29%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.86%) Amazon Aurora
10 2 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.86%) BigQuery
10 2 (0.86%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.86%) Redis
10 2 (0.86%) Spark SQL
10 2 (0.86%) SQL Server
11 1 (0.43%) Couchbase
11 1 (0.43%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 41 (17.67%) Git
1 41 (17.67%) GitLab
2 37 (15.95%) Jenkins
3 27 (11.64%) SonarQube
4 8 (3.45%) MLflow
5 4 (1.72%) Gradle
5 4 (1.72%) JUnit
5 4 (1.72%) Maven
5 4 (1.72%) NUnit
6 3 (1.29%) JIRA
6 3 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.43%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.43%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.43%) JMeter
7 1 (0.43%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.43%) Mockito
7 1 (0.43%) NeoLoad
7 1 (0.43%) Octopus Deploy
7 1 (0.43%) Selenium
7 1 (0.43%) Subversion
General
1 59 (25.43%) 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 3 (1.29%) Banking
8 3 (1.29%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.29%) Publishing
9 2 (0.86%) Automotive
9 2 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (0.86%) Retail
10 1 (0.43%) Advertising
10 1 (0.43%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.43%) German Language
10 1 (0.43%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.43%) Local Government
10 1 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 37 (15.95%) Developer
2 31 (13.36%) Architect
3 25 (10.78%) Platform Engineer
4 24 (10.34%) Senior
5 16 (6.90%) DevOps Engineer
5 16 (6.90%) Lead
6 15 (6.47%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 15 (6.47%) Java Developer
7 11 (4.74%) Technical Leader
8 10 (4.31%) Cloud Architect
8 10 (4.31%) Java Engineer
9 9 (3.88%) Analyst
9 9 (3.88%) Azure Engineer
9 9 (3.88%) Security Analyst
9 9 (3.88%) Software Engineer
10 8 (3.45%) Service Owner
10 8 (3.45%) Systems Engineer
11 7 (3.02%) Cloud Engineer
12 6 (2.59%) .NET Developer
12 6 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (31.90%) Terraform
2 31 (13.36%) Kafka
3 27 (11.64%) REST
4 26 (11.21%) RESTful
5 25 (10.78%) AngularJS
6 20 (8.62%) Quarkus
7 19 (8.19%) React
8 14 (6.03%) OAuth
9 13 (5.60%) OAuth2
10 12 (5.17%) .NET
10 12 (5.17%) Django
11 11 (4.74%) ARM Templates
11 11 (4.74%) Spring
12 10 (4.31%) YAML
13 9 (3.88%) OpenID
13 9 (3.88%) Spring Boot
14 8 (3.45%) CSS
14 8 (3.45%) HTML
15 7 (3.02%) .NET Framework
15 7 (3.02%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 43 (18.53%) 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
7 6 (2.59%) Data Structures
7 6 (2.59%) Onboarding
8 5 (2.16%) Algorithms
8 5 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.72%) Distributed Computing
10 3 (1.29%) Management Information System
10 3 (1.29%) Public Cloud
11 2 (0.86%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.86%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (0.86%) FMCG
11 2 (0.86%) Mobile App
11 2 (0.86%) PKI
11 2 (0.86%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 64 (27.59%) Linux
2 24 (10.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 12 (5.17%) Windows
4 10 (4.31%) Windows Server
5 9 (3.88%) Unix
6 3 (1.29%) CentOS
6 3 (1.29%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.43%) Android
7 1 (0.43%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (62.07%) CI/CD
2 115 (49.57%) DevOps
3 106 (45.69%) Containerisation
4 93 (40.09%) Agile
5 71 (30.60%) DevSecOps
6 66 (28.45%) Infrastructure as Code
7 55 (23.71%) Problem-Solving
8 50 (21.55%) Continuous Improvement
8 50 (21.55%) Platform Engineering
9 48 (20.69%) Software Engineering
10 44 (18.97%) AI
11 41 (17.67%) Test Automation
12 39 (16.81%) Machine Learning
13 35 (15.09%) Microservices
13 35 (15.09%) Scrum
14 33 (14.22%) Observability
15 32 (13.79%) Technical Leadership
16 31 (13.36%) SDLC
17 28 (12.07%) Cybersecurity
18 27 (11.64%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 110 (47.41%) Python
2 47 (20.26%) Bash
3 46 (19.83%) Java
4 38 (16.38%) PowerShell
5 23 (9.91%) JavaScript
6 20 (8.62%) SQL
7 15 (6.47%) Bicep
8 14 (6.03%) TypeScript
9 11 (4.74%) C#
10 9 (3.88%) Go
11 4 (1.72%) Rust
11 4 (1.72%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.29%) Groovy
13 2 (0.86%) Scala
Qualifications
1 120 (51.72%) Security Cleared
2 104 (44.83%) SC Cleared
3 17 (7.33%) Azure Certification
4 16 (6.90%) Degree
5 14 (6.03%) DV Cleared
6 13 (5.60%) CISSP
7 11 (4.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (4.31%) AWS Certification
9 9 (3.88%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (3.45%) ITIL Certification
11 7 (3.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 7 (3.02%) Master's Degree
12 6 (2.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (2.16%) RHCE
14 4 (1.72%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 4 (1.72%) CEH
14 4 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
15 3 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
15 3 (1.29%) OSCP
15 3 (1.29%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (18.10%) QA
2 15 (6.47%) NIST
3 10 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (3.88%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (3.88%) NCSC
5 8 (3.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 7 (3.02%) Accessibility
7 6 (2.59%) SLA
8 4 (1.72%) Data Quality
8 4 (1.72%) GDPR
8 4 (1.72%) IASME
8 4 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 4 (1.72%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.86%) GRC
9 2 (0.86%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 102 (43.97%) Docker
2 14 (6.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (3.45%) Hyper-V
3 8 (3.45%) IAG
4 3 (1.29%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.86%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 49 (21.12%) Ansible
2 25 (10.78%) Argo
2 25 (10.78%) Grafana
3 20 (8.62%) Prometheus
4 6 (2.59%) Istio
4 6 (2.59%) Podman
4 6 (2.59%) Puppet
5 3 (1.29%) Rancher
6 2 (0.86%) CASB
6 2 (0.86%) Kibana
6 2 (0.86%) linkerd
7 1 (0.43%) Packer
7 1 (0.43%) QRadar
Vendors
1 47 (20.26%) Microsoft
2 37 (15.95%) Red Hat
3 21 (9.05%) Google
4 15 (6.47%) Oracle
4 15 (6.47%) VMware
5 12 (5.17%) Dynatrace
6 8 (3.45%) Nexthink
6 8 (3.45%) ServiceNow
7 7 (3.02%) Splunk
8 6 (2.59%) BT
8 6 (2.59%) Ericsson
8 6 (2.59%) Huawei
8 6 (2.59%) Nokia
9 5 (2.16%) Databricks
9 5 (2.16%) Tenable
10 4 (1.72%) Foundry
10 4 (1.72%) NVIDIA
11 3 (1.29%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.29%) OpenAI
11 3 (1.29%) Palantir