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 4 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 58 75
Rank change year-on-year +12 +17 -7
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 179 121 142
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.10% 3.48% 2.87%
As % of the Systems Management category 28.96% 26.54% 21.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 133 80 107
10th Percentile £361 £401 £400
25th Percentile £416 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £550 £638 £615
90th Percentile £637 £675 £674
England median daily rate £525 £600 £575
% change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 0 5
10th Percentile £40.00 - £68.19
25th Percentile £48.44 - -
Median hourly rate £60.00 - £76.53
75th Percentile £81.50 - -
90th Percentile £88.75 - -
England median hourly rate £64.75 £51.84 £55.00
% change year-on-year +24.90% -5.75% -18.22%

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 618 456 670
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 14.16% 13.10% 13.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 447 336 455
10th Percentile £260 £260 £205
25th Percentile £400 £375 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £495 £514
Median % change year-on-year -0.66% -3.65% -2.10%
75th Percentile £569 £609 £607
90th Percentile £646 £675 £675
England median daily rate £512 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -2.57% -2.78% -8.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 4 30
10th Percentile - £14.39 £23.96
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.98 £30.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £26.99 £52.37
Median % change year-on-year +76.02% -48.47% -4.79%
75th Percentile £80.00 £36.50 £69.66
90th Percentile £86.00 £37.40 £76.53
England median hourly rate £53.25 £26.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +100.94% -42.62% +24.07%

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 4 January 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 4 January 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 4 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
Thames Valley -6 79 £500 -2.68% 167
Hampshire +14 75 £490 -14.78% 77
Berkshire +6 74 £493 -1.50% 110
Surrey 0 13 £425 -15.00% 53
East Sussex +7 4 £565 +22.83% 17
Oxfordshire -10 3 £525 +5.00% 23
West Sussex -14 3 £273 -53.81% 16
Middlesex - 3 £594 - 47
Buckinghamshire -8 2 £613 -3.92% 34
Kent - 1 £325 - 51
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 6 (3.35%) Confluence
2 4 (2.23%) Apache
2 4 (2.23%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.68%) IIS
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.56%) CMS
4 1 (0.56%) Drupal
4 1 (0.56%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Fuse
4 1 (0.56%) SAS
4 1 (0.56%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 93 (51.96%) AWS
2 88 (49.16%) Azure
3 50 (27.93%) OpenShift
4 48 (26.82%) GitHub
5 44 (24.58%) GCP
6 27 (15.08%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (10.06%) Azure AKS
8 17 (9.50%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (6.70%) Datadog
9 12 (6.70%) IaaS
10 9 (5.03%) Amazon EKS
10 9 (5.03%) Amazon S3
10 9 (5.03%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (5.03%) Serverless
11 8 (4.47%) Amazon ECR
11 8 (4.47%) Cloud Computing
12 7 (3.91%) Entra ID
12 7 (3.91%) PaaS
13 5 (2.79%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (2.79%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 14 (7.82%) DNS
2 12 (6.70%) Firewall
3 9 (5.03%) TCP/IP
4 6 (3.35%) DHCP
5 5 (2.79%) Kerberos
6 3 (1.68%) HTTP
6 3 (1.68%) Network Security
6 3 (1.68%) SSL
7 2 (1.12%) MQTT
8 1 (0.56%) HTTPS
8 1 (0.56%) Internet
8 1 (0.56%) SSH
8 1 (0.56%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (18.99%) PostgreSQL
2 23 (12.85%) NoSQL
3 17 (9.50%) MongoDB
4 11 (6.15%) Redis
5 8 (4.47%) HBase
6 7 (3.91%) DynamoDB
7 6 (3.35%) Couchbase
8 5 (2.79%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (2.79%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (2.79%) Data Lake
9 4 (2.23%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (2.23%) Relational Database
9 4 (2.23%) SQL Server
10 3 (1.68%) Big Data
11 2 (1.12%) BigQuery
12 1 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
12 1 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
12 1 (0.56%) Delta Lake
12 1 (0.56%) Hadoop
12 1 (0.56%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 52 (29.05%) Jenkins
2 36 (20.11%) GitLab
3 30 (16.76%) Git
4 16 (8.94%) Artifactory
5 15 (8.38%) Cucumber
6 13 (7.26%) JUnit
6 13 (7.26%) Sonatype Nexus
7 12 (6.70%) Gradle
8 10 (5.59%) JIRA
9 7 (3.91%) Maven
10 6 (3.35%) JMeter
11 5 (2.79%) SonarQube
12 3 (1.68%) Bitbucket
12 3 (1.68%) MLflow
13 2 (1.12%) Gatling
14 1 (0.56%) Cypress.io
14 1 (0.56%) Mocha
14 1 (0.56%) Postman
14 1 (0.56%) PyCharm
14 1 (0.56%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 51 (28.49%) Social Skills
2 17 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (8.38%) Public Sector
4 11 (6.15%) Finance
5 4 (2.23%) Aerospace
5 4 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.12%) Banking
6 2 (1.12%) Billing
6 2 (1.12%) Telecoms
7 1 (0.56%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.56%) Legal
Job Titles
1 35 (19.55%) Developer
2 34 (18.99%) DevOps Engineer
3 27 (15.08%) Java Developer
3 27 (15.08%) Senior
4 22 (12.29%) Architect
5 16 (8.94%) Platform Engineer
6 15 (8.38%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 14 (7.82%) Site Engineer
8 13 (7.26%) Azure Engineer
9 12 (6.70%) Senior Developer
10 11 (6.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (5.59%) AWS DevOps
12 8 (4.47%) Senior Java Developer
13 7 (3.91%) Lead
13 7 (3.91%) Software Engineer
14 6 (3.35%) AWS Developer
14 6 (3.35%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
14 6 (3.35%) Cloud Engineer
14 6 (3.35%) Java Engineer
14 6 (3.35%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (19.55%) Kafka
2 23 (12.85%) Spring
2 23 (12.85%) Spring Boot
3 17 (9.50%) REST
4 16 (8.94%) Elastic Stack
5 14 (7.82%) AngularJS
6 11 (6.15%) RabbitMQ
7 10 (5.59%) Keycloak
7 10 (5.59%) Loki
7 10 (5.59%) React
8 8 (4.47%) Middleware
8 8 (4.47%) RESTful
9 6 (3.35%) ADO
9 6 (3.35%) PyTorch
9 6 (3.35%) TensorFlow
10 4 (2.23%) .NET
10 4 (2.23%) JSON
10 4 (2.23%) scikit-learn
10 4 (2.23%) Swagger
10 4 (2.23%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 29 (16.20%) Cloud Native
2 13 (7.26%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (4.47%) Virtual Team
4 7 (3.91%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (3.35%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (2.23%) PKI
7 3 (1.68%) Cloud Security Posture
7 3 (1.68%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.68%) Private Cloud
7 3 (1.68%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.68%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.12%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.12%) TM Forum
9 1 (0.56%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.56%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.56%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.56%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 61 (34.08%) Linux
2 15 (8.38%) Windows
3 11 (6.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (3.35%) Ubuntu
5 5 (2.79%) VMS
5 5 (2.79%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.68%) CentOS
7 2 (1.12%) Unix
8 1 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (74.30%) CI/CD
2 88 (49.16%) DevOps
3 81 (45.25%) Containerisation
4 50 (27.93%) Agile
5 49 (27.37%) Infrastructure as Code
6 42 (23.46%) Observability
7 40 (22.35%) Microservices
8 38 (21.23%) Problem-Solving
9 32 (17.88%) Platform Engineering
9 32 (17.88%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 29 (16.20%) DevSecOps
11 24 (13.41%) Software Engineering
12 21 (11.73%) High Availability
13 20 (11.17%) Test Automation
14 16 (8.94%) Configuration Management
15 15 (8.38%) Continuous Integration
15 15 (8.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 15 (8.38%) Scrum
16 12 (6.70%) Task Automation
17 11 (6.15%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 83 (46.37%) Python
2 51 (28.49%) Java
3 49 (27.37%) Bash
4 24 (13.41%) SQL
5 23 (12.85%) PowerShell
6 15 (8.38%) Go
6 15 (8.38%) JavaScript
7 11 (6.15%) C#
8 9 (5.03%) Bicep
9 4 (2.23%) R
9 4 (2.23%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.68%) TypeScript
11 2 (1.12%) Perl
11 2 (1.12%) PHP
11 2 (1.12%) Rust
12 1 (0.56%) C
12 1 (0.56%) C++
12 1 (0.56%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 93 (51.96%) Security Cleared
2 80 (44.69%) SC Cleared
3 9 (5.03%) Degree
3 9 (5.03%) DV Cleared
3 9 (5.03%) OCP
3 9 (5.03%) Oracle Certification
4 8 (4.47%) AWS Certification
5 7 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (3.91%) RHCE
6 4 (2.23%) Azure Certification
6 4 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (1.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.68%) CCSP
7 3 (1.68%) CISSP
7 3 (1.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 2 (1.12%) RHCSA
9 1 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.56%) JNCIP
9 1 (0.56%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.70%) QA
2 7 (3.91%) NCSC
3 5 (2.79%) NIST
4 4 (2.23%) GDPR
4 4 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (2.23%) PCI DSS
5 3 (1.68%) Def Stans
5 3 (1.68%) PSD2
6 2 (1.12%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.56%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 74 (41.34%) Docker
2 23 (12.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (8.38%) vSphere
4 6 (3.35%) Active Directory
4 6 (3.35%) VMware NSX
5 4 (2.23%) Hyper-V
6 2 (1.12%) KVM
7 1 (0.56%) NDS
7 1 (0.56%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 1 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 69 (38.55%) Terraform
2 65 (36.31%) Ansible
3 50 (27.93%) Grafana
4 43 (24.02%) Prometheus
5 27 (15.08%) Argo
6 9 (5.03%) Puppet
7 8 (4.47%) Kustomize
7 8 (4.47%) Progress Chef
8 7 (3.91%) Istio
8 7 (3.91%) Sysdig
8 7 (3.91%) vCenter Server
9 6 (3.35%) linkerd
10 5 (2.79%) SCOM
11 4 (2.23%) Podman
11 4 (2.23%) Rsyslog
12 3 (1.68%) Cilium
12 3 (1.68%) Nessus
13 2 (1.12%) Kubeflow
13 2 (1.12%) logstash
13 2 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 42 (23.46%) Red Hat
2 37 (20.67%) VMware
3 18 (10.06%) Splunk
4 13 (7.26%) Microsoft
5 6 (3.35%) Google
5 6 (3.35%) Pure Storage
6 5 (2.79%) Atlassian
7 4 (2.23%) AppDynamics
7 4 (2.23%) Dynatrace
8 3 (1.68%) NVIDIA
8 3 (1.68%) Oracle
8 3 (1.68%) Tenable
9 1 (0.56%) Cloudera
9 1 (0.56%) NetIQ
9 1 (0.56%) OpenText
9 1 (0.56%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.56%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.56%) Virgin Media
9 1 (0.56%) Zscaler