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 12 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 46 61
Rank change year-on-year -10 +15 -4
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 244 149 143
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.74% 4.19% 3.32%
As % of the Systems Management category 36.86% 29.10% 24.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 161 99 107
10th Percentile £366 £376 £406
25th Percentile £455 £413 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £462 £525
Median % change year-on-year +17.01% -12.10% -10.64%
75th Percentile £669 £554 £625
90th Percentile £788 £619 £675
England median daily rate £550 £525 £575
% change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 1 0
10th Percentile £66.20 - -
25th Percentile - £104.50 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £109.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -35.78% - -
75th Percentile £70.88 £113.50 -
90th Percentile £83.78 - -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £63.79
% change year-on-year +4.48% +5.04% -8.88%

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 662 512 586
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 10.14% 14.41% 13.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 432 349 431
10th Percentile £315 £250 £267
25th Percentile £450 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.69% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £575 £608
90th Percentile £735 £619 £688
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 10 7
10th Percentile £26.25 £18.87 £26.90
25th Percentile £46.56 £19.00 £31.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £26.39 £36.17
Median % change year-on-year +165.30% -27.04% -34.25%
75th Percentile £70.75 £76.00 £45.50
90th Percentile £87.42 £92.02 £54.80
England median hourly rate £65.00 £34.00 £37.75
% change year-on-year +91.18% -9.93% -28.10%

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 12 October 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 12 October 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 12 October 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 -9 105 £500 +5.26% 99
Berkshire -12 76 £465 -2.11% 50
Hampshire -12 76 £619 +35.77% 54
Surrey +14 47 £460 +8.24% 26
Buckinghamshire -7 24 £588 -9.62% 16
West Sussex -15 11 £322 -0.92% 22
Middlesex -12 9 - - 1
Oxfordshire -21 5 £850 +81.33% 34
East Sussex -5 1 £330 -34.98% 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 (2.87%) Apache Airflow
1 7 (2.87%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.23%) Palantir Foundry
3 2 (0.82%) Apache
3 2 (0.82%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.82%) Apache Superset
3 2 (0.82%) Confluence
3 2 (0.82%) IIS
4 1 (0.41%) OpenEdge
4 1 (0.41%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (1.64%) CPLEX
2 1 (0.41%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.41%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 128 (52.46%) Azure
2 120 (49.18%) AWS
3 59 (24.18%) OpenShift
4 44 (18.03%) GitHub
5 41 (16.80%) GCP
6 39 (15.98%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (11.89%) GitHub Actions
8 18 (7.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (6.56%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (5.74%) Azure Monitor
11 13 (5.33%) Serverless
12 11 (4.51%) Datadog
12 11 (4.51%) SaaS
13 10 (4.10%) Azure AKS
13 10 (4.10%) Entra ID
14 9 (3.69%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (3.28%) Power Platform
16 5 (2.05%) Amazon ECS
16 5 (2.05%) AWS Lambda
16 5 (2.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (6.15%) DNS
2 14 (5.74%) Firewall
3 12 (4.92%) VPN
4 10 (4.10%) TCP/IP
5 9 (3.69%) DHCP
6 8 (3.28%) Network Security
7 7 (2.87%) LTE
8 6 (2.46%) 5G
8 6 (2.46%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (2.46%) Radio Access Network
8 6 (2.46%) VoLTE
8 6 (2.46%) VoWiFi
8 6 (2.46%) Wireshark
9 4 (1.64%) Intrusion Detection
9 4 (1.64%) MQTT
9 4 (1.64%) Software-Defined Networking
10 3 (1.23%) BGP
11 2 (0.82%) HTTP
12 1 (0.41%) HTTPS
12 1 (0.41%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (9.43%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (5.74%) NoSQL
3 11 (4.51%) Relational Database
4 10 (4.10%) Oracle Database
5 5 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (2.05%) Elasticsearch
5 5 (2.05%) MongoDB
5 5 (2.05%) Power BI
6 3 (1.23%) DocumentDB
7 2 (0.82%) Amazon Aurora
7 2 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.82%) Big Data
7 2 (0.82%) BigQuery
7 2 (0.82%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.82%) MySQL
7 2 (0.82%) Redis
7 2 (0.82%) Spark SQL
7 2 (0.82%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.41%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 46 (18.85%) Git
2 45 (18.44%) GitLab
3 40 (16.39%) Jenkins
4 26 (10.66%) SonarQube
5 8 (3.28%) MLflow
6 4 (1.64%) Gradle
6 4 (1.64%) JIRA
6 4 (1.64%) Maven
7 3 (1.23%) JUnit
7 3 (1.23%) NUnit
7 3 (1.23%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.41%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.41%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.41%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.41%) JMeter
8 1 (0.41%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.41%) Mockito
8 1 (0.41%) NeoLoad
8 1 (0.41%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.41%) Subversion
General
1 61 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 25 (10.25%) Analytical Skills
3 21 (8.61%) Public Sector
4 19 (7.79%) Aerospace
5 15 (6.15%) Finance
6 12 (4.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (3.28%) Telecoms
8 5 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.64%) Banking
10 3 (1.23%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.23%) Publishing
11 2 (0.82%) Automotive
11 2 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.82%) Retail
12 1 (0.41%) German Language
12 1 (0.41%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.41%) Local Government
12 1 (0.41%) Military
Job Titles
1 36 (14.75%) Architect
2 34 (13.93%) Developer
3 24 (9.84%) Senior
4 23 (9.43%) Platform Engineer
5 19 (7.79%) DevOps Engineer
6 18 (7.38%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 16 (6.56%) Lead
8 12 (4.92%) Solutions Architect
9 11 (4.51%) Java Developer
9 11 (4.51%) Technical Leader
10 10 (4.10%) Cloud Architect
11 9 (3.69%) Azure Engineer
11 9 (3.69%) Java Engineer
12 8 (3.28%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 8 (3.28%) Service Owner
12 8 (3.28%) Software Engineer
12 8 (3.28%) Systems Engineer
13 7 (2.87%) Cloud Engineer
14 6 (2.46%) Analyst
14 6 (2.46%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (32.38%) Terraform
2 29 (11.89%) REST
3 27 (11.07%) Kafka
4 26 (10.66%) RESTful
5 24 (9.84%) AngularJS
6 23 (9.43%) React
7 18 (7.38%) Quarkus
8 14 (5.74%) OAuth
9 13 (5.33%) .NET
9 13 (5.33%) OAuth2
10 12 (4.92%) Django
11 11 (4.51%) ARM Templates
11 11 (4.51%) YAML
12 9 (3.69%) LangChain
12 9 (3.69%) LangGraph
12 9 (3.69%) OpenID
13 8 (3.28%) CSS
13 8 (3.28%) HTML
14 7 (2.87%) .NET Framework
14 7 (2.87%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 47 (19.26%) Cloud Native
2 23 (9.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 12 (4.92%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (4.92%) Enterprise Cloud
4 11 (4.51%) Data Fabric
5 10 (4.10%) AI Agents
6 9 (3.69%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (3.69%) Product Ownership
7 8 (3.28%) CMDB
7 8 (3.28%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.46%) Algorithms
8 6 (2.46%) Data Structures
9 4 (1.64%) Distributed Computing
9 4 (1.64%) Management Information System
10 3 (1.23%) Distributed Applications
10 3 (1.23%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.23%) PKI
11 2 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
11 2 (0.82%) FMCG
11 2 (0.82%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 69 (28.28%) Linux
2 28 (11.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 15 (6.15%) Windows
4 12 (4.92%) Windows Server
5 7 (2.87%) Unix
6 5 (2.05%) CentOS
6 5 (2.05%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.82%) Android
7 2 (0.82%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (61.48%) CI/CD
2 126 (51.64%) DevOps
3 113 (46.31%) Containerisation
4 94 (38.52%) Agile
5 74 (30.33%) DevSecOps
6 69 (28.28%) Infrastructure as Code
7 58 (23.77%) Problem-Solving
8 53 (21.72%) Platform Engineering
9 52 (21.31%) Continuous Improvement
9 52 (21.31%) Test Automation
10 50 (20.49%) Software Engineering
11 47 (19.26%) AI
12 40 (16.39%) Machine Learning
13 35 (14.34%) Observability
13 35 (14.34%) Scrum
13 35 (14.34%) SDLC
14 34 (13.93%) Technical Leadership
15 33 (13.52%) Microservices
16 28 (11.48%) Roadmaps
17 27 (11.07%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 116 (47.54%) Python
2 52 (21.31%) Bash
3 40 (16.39%) PowerShell
4 38 (15.57%) Java
5 25 (10.25%) JavaScript
6 19 (7.79%) SQL
7 16 (6.56%) TypeScript
8 13 (5.33%) Bicep
9 12 (4.92%) C#
10 6 (2.46%) Go
11 4 (1.64%) Rust
11 4 (1.64%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.23%) Groovy
13 2 (0.82%) Scala
14 1 (0.41%) C++
Qualifications
1 140 (57.38%) Security Cleared
2 119 (48.77%) SC Cleared
3 20 (8.20%) DV Cleared
4 17 (6.97%) Azure Certification
5 16 (6.56%) Degree
6 14 (5.74%) CISSP
7 11 (4.51%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (4.10%) AWS Certification
9 9 (3.69%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (3.28%) ITIL Certification
11 7 (2.87%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 7 (2.87%) Master's Degree
12 6 (2.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (2.05%) RHCE
14 4 (1.64%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 4 (1.64%) CEH
14 4 (1.64%) CISM
14 4 (1.64%) CompTIA Security+
14 4 (1.64%) OSCP
15 3 (1.23%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (17.62%) QA
2 12 (4.92%) NIST
3 11 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (2.87%) Accessibility
5 6 (2.46%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (2.46%) SLA
6 5 (2.05%) NCSC
7 4 (1.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 4 (1.64%) GDPR
8 3 (1.23%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.82%) GRC
9 2 (0.82%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 111 (45.49%) Docker
2 21 (8.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (3.28%) Hyper-V
3 8 (3.28%) IAG
4 4 (1.64%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.82%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 51 (20.90%) Ansible
2 26 (10.66%) Grafana
3 24 (9.84%) Argo
4 21 (8.61%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.46%) Istio
5 6 (2.46%) Podman
5 6 (2.46%) Puppet
6 4 (1.64%) Rancher
7 3 (1.23%) Packer
8 2 (0.82%) CASB
8 2 (0.82%) Kibana
8 2 (0.82%) linkerd
9 1 (0.41%) QRadar
Vendors
1 48 (19.67%) Microsoft
2 39 (15.98%) Red Hat
3 24 (9.84%) VMware
4 22 (9.02%) Google
5 15 (6.15%) Oracle
6 12 (4.92%) Dynatrace
7 8 (3.28%) Nexthink
7 8 (3.28%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.46%) BT
8 6 (2.46%) Ericsson
8 6 (2.46%) Huawei
8 6 (2.46%) Nokia
8 6 (2.46%) Splunk
8 6 (2.46%) Tenable
9 5 (2.05%) Foundry
9 5 (2.05%) OpenAI
10 4 (1.64%) Databricks
10 4 (1.64%) NVIDIA
11 3 (1.23%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.23%) Palantir