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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 54 77
Rank change year-on-year +5 +23 -12
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 174 121 145
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.88% 3.72% 2.71%
As % of the Systems Management category 27.58% 27.82% 21.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 79 110
10th Percentile £363 £399 £400
25th Percentile £413 £421 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £550 £554
Median % change year-on-year -11.36% -0.68% +0.68%
75th Percentile £540 £631 £615
90th Percentile £635 £675 £675
England median daily rate £525 £590 £575
% change year-on-year -11.02% +2.61% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 6
10th Percentile £40.00 - £54.44
25th Percentile £50.63 - £66.11
Median hourly rate £60.00 - £76.53
75th Percentile £81.00 - -
90th Percentile £86.00 - -
England median hourly rate £58.75 £57.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +2.17% +2.22% -16.04%

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 631 435 672
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 14.08% 13.38% 12.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 322 455
10th Percentile £255 £263 £205
25th Percentile £381 £380 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £563 £613 £588
90th Percentile £646 £675 £650
England median daily rate £505 £530 £530
% change year-on-year -4.63% -0.09% -9.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 2 35
10th Percentile £18.99 £12.80 £21.44
25th Percentile £19.00 £13.99 £30.00
Median hourly rate £43.75 £15.99 £48.40
Median % change year-on-year +173.69% -66.97% -15.83%
75th Percentile £60.00 £17.98 £68.63
90th Percentile £82.40 £19.17 £76.53
England median hourly rate £48.36 £26.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +82.49% -42.62% +19.95%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -3 82 £488 -3.70% 139
Berkshire +3 78 £485 -1.77% 99
Hampshire +10 69 £500 -13.04% 47
Surrey +4 12 £469 +33.93% 36
East Sussex +6 4 £565 +22.83% 20
West Sussex -14 4 £273 -53.81% 19
Middlesex - 3 £509 - 1
Oxfordshire -12 2 - - 23
Buckinghamshire -13 2 £613 -3.92% 17
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 (3.45%) Confluence
2 5 (2.87%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.30%) Apache
4 3 (1.72%) IIS
5 1 (0.57%) CMS
5 1 (0.57%) Drupal
5 1 (0.57%) SAS
5 1 (0.57%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 96 (55.17%) AWS
2 88 (50.57%) Azure
3 50 (28.74%) OpenShift
4 46 (26.44%) GCP
4 46 (26.44%) GitHub
5 27 (15.52%) GitHub Actions
6 18 (10.34%) Azure AKS
7 16 (9.20%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (6.90%) IaaS
9 11 (6.32%) Datadog
10 10 (5.75%) Amazon S3
10 10 (5.75%) Serverless
11 9 (5.17%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (4.60%) Amazon ECR
12 8 (4.60%) Cloud Computing
13 7 (4.02%) Amazon EKS
13 7 (4.02%) Entra ID
13 7 (4.02%) PaaS
14 6 (3.45%) AWS Lambda
15 5 (2.87%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 13 (7.47%) DNS
1 13 (7.47%) Firewall
2 8 (4.60%) TCP/IP
3 6 (3.45%) DHCP
4 5 (2.87%) Kerberos
5 3 (1.72%) HTTP
5 3 (1.72%) Network Security
6 1 (0.57%) Internet
6 1 (0.57%) MQTT
6 1 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
6 1 (0.57%) SNMP
6 1 (0.57%) SSL
6 1 (0.57%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (19.54%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (12.07%) NoSQL
3 13 (7.47%) MongoDB
4 10 (5.75%) Redis
5 8 (4.60%) DynamoDB
5 8 (4.60%) HBase
6 6 (3.45%) Couchbase
7 5 (2.87%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (2.87%) Big Data
7 5 (2.87%) Relational Database
8 4 (2.30%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (2.30%) Data Lake
8 4 (2.30%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (2.30%) SQL Server
9 2 (1.15%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
10 1 (0.57%) Amazon QuickSight
10 1 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 45 (25.86%) Jenkins
2 34 (19.54%) GitLab
3 27 (15.52%) Git
4 17 (9.77%) Artifactory
5 15 (8.62%) Cucumber
6 13 (7.47%) JUnit
6 13 (7.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (6.32%) Gradle
8 7 (4.02%) JIRA
9 6 (3.45%) JMeter
9 6 (3.45%) Maven
10 4 (2.30%) SonarQube
11 3 (1.72%) Bitbucket
12 2 (1.15%) Gatling
13 1 (0.57%) LoadRunner
13 1 (0.57%) Postman
13 1 (0.57%) Selenium
General
1 55 (31.61%) Social Skills
2 17 (9.77%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (8.62%) Public Sector
4 12 (6.90%) Finance
5 4 (2.30%) Aerospace
6 3 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.15%) Banking
7 2 (1.15%) Billing
7 2 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.57%) Military
8 1 (0.57%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 35 (20.11%) Developer
2 32 (18.39%) DevOps Engineer
3 28 (16.09%) Java Developer
4 25 (14.37%) Senior
5 19 (10.92%) Architect
6 16 (9.20%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 15 (8.62%) Site Engineer
8 13 (7.47%) Azure Engineer
8 13 (7.47%) Platform Engineer
9 12 (6.90%) Senior Developer
10 11 (6.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (5.75%) AWS DevOps
12 8 (4.60%) Senior Java Developer
13 7 (4.02%) Lead
14 6 (3.45%) AWS Developer
14 6 (3.45%) AWS Engineer
14 6 (3.45%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
14 6 (3.45%) Java Engineer
14 6 (3.45%) Software Engineer
14 6 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (20.11%) Kafka
2 24 (13.79%) Spring
2 24 (13.79%) Spring Boot
3 16 (9.20%) REST
4 15 (8.62%) Elastic Stack
5 14 (8.05%) AngularJS
6 11 (6.32%) Loki
6 11 (6.32%) RabbitMQ
7 10 (5.75%) Keycloak
8 7 (4.02%) React
8 7 (4.02%) RESTful
9 6 (3.45%) ADO
9 6 (3.45%) Middleware
10 5 (2.87%) PyTorch
10 5 (2.87%) scikit-learn
10 5 (2.87%) TensorFlow
11 4 (2.30%) Hibernate
11 4 (2.30%) JSON
11 4 (2.30%) Quarkus
11 4 (2.30%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 26 (14.94%) Cloud Native
2 17 (9.77%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (4.60%) Enterprise Software
3 8 (4.60%) Virtual Team
4 6 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.30%) PKI
6 3 (1.72%) Cloud Security Posture
6 3 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.72%) Public Cloud
6 3 (1.72%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.15%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.15%) Product Ownership
7 2 (1.15%) TM Forum
8 1 (0.57%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.57%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.57%) Distributed Architecture
8 1 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.57%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.57%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 59 (33.91%) Linux
2 15 (8.62%) Windows
3 10 (5.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (2.87%) Ubuntu
4 5 (2.87%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.72%) CentOS
5 3 (1.72%) Unix
6 2 (1.15%) VMS
7 1 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (76.44%) CI/CD
2 80 (45.98%) DevOps
3 73 (41.95%) Containerisation
4 48 (27.59%) Infrastructure as Code
5 47 (27.01%) Agile
6 43 (24.71%) Observability
7 39 (22.41%) Problem-Solving
8 36 (20.69%) Microservices
8 36 (20.69%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 29 (16.67%) Platform Engineering
10 27 (15.52%) DevSecOps
11 24 (13.79%) High Availability
12 20 (11.49%) Software Engineering
12 20 (11.49%) Test Automation
13 17 (9.77%) Task Automation
14 16 (9.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 15 (8.62%) Continuous Integration
16 14 (8.05%) Configuration Management
16 14 (8.05%) Scrum
17 13 (7.47%) Release Management
Programming Languages
1 85 (48.85%) Python
2 55 (31.61%) Java
3 49 (28.16%) Bash
4 21 (12.07%) PowerShell
5 20 (11.49%) Go
6 19 (10.92%) SQL
7 12 (6.90%) JavaScript
8 8 (4.60%) Bicep
8 8 (4.60%) C#
9 4 (2.30%) R
9 4 (2.30%) Shell Script
10 2 (1.15%) Perl
10 2 (1.15%) PHP
10 2 (1.15%) Rust
10 2 (1.15%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.57%) C
11 1 (0.57%) C++
Qualifications
1 95 (54.60%) Security Cleared
2 81 (46.55%) SC Cleared
3 10 (5.75%) Degree
4 9 (5.17%) DV Cleared
4 9 (5.17%) OCP
4 9 (5.17%) Oracle Certification
5 8 (4.60%) AWS Certification
6 7 (4.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (4.02%) RHCE
7 4 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 3 (1.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.72%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.72%) CCSP
8 3 (1.72%) CISSP
8 3 (1.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 2 (1.15%) RHCSA
10 1 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.57%) JNCIP
10 1 (0.57%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.75%) QA
2 7 (4.02%) NCSC
3 4 (2.30%) GDPR
3 4 (2.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.30%) NIST
3 4 (2.30%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.72%) Def Stans
4 3 (1.72%) PSD2
5 2 (1.15%) JSP 440
System Software
1 68 (39.08%) Docker
2 23 (13.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (8.62%) vSphere
4 7 (4.02%) Active Directory
5 6 (3.45%) VMware NSX
6 4 (2.30%) Hyper-V
7 2 (1.15%) KVM
8 1 (0.57%) NDS
8 1 (0.57%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 65 (37.36%) Terraform
2 57 (32.76%) Ansible
3 50 (28.74%) Grafana
4 44 (25.29%) Prometheus
5 28 (16.09%) Argo
6 9 (5.17%) Kustomize
6 9 (5.17%) Puppet
7 8 (4.60%) Progress Chef
8 7 (4.02%) Sysdig
8 7 (4.02%) vCenter Server
9 6 (3.45%) Istio
9 6 (3.45%) linkerd
10 4 (2.30%) Podman
11 3 (1.72%) Nessus
12 2 (1.15%) logstash
12 2 (1.15%) Packer
12 2 (1.15%) Salt
12 2 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.57%) Docker Swarm
13 1 (0.57%) Rundeck
Vendors
1 39 (22.41%) Red Hat
2 38 (21.84%) VMware
3 17 (9.77%) Splunk
4 10 (5.75%) Microsoft
5 6 (3.45%) Pure Storage
6 5 (2.87%) Atlassian
6 5 (2.87%) Google
7 4 (2.30%) AppDynamics
7 4 (2.30%) Dynatrace
7 4 (2.30%) Oracle
8 3 (1.72%) Tenable
9 2 (1.15%) Fortinet
10 1 (0.57%) Ab Initio
10 1 (0.57%) Ericsson
10 1 (0.57%) Mavenir
10 1 (0.57%) NetIQ
10 1 (0.57%) OpenText
10 1 (0.57%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.57%) Teradata
10 1 (0.57%) Virgin Media