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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 57 69
Rank change year-on-year -6 +12 -15
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 185 105 143
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.18% 3.50% 2.59%
As % of the Systems Management category 26.89% 29.41% 19.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 132 67 94
10th Percentile £357 £376 £416
25th Percentile £402 £423 £477
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -4.35% -0.86%
75th Percentile £563 £604 £625
90th Percentile £649 £668 £684
England median daily rate £525 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 0 2
10th Percentile £43.75 - £37.70
25th Percentile £60.00 - £39.13
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £43.00
75th Percentile £70.00 - £46.63
90th Percentile £80.80 - £47.90
England median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year +8.33% -3.23% -15.07%

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 688 357 722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.82% 11.90% 13.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 508 266 513
10th Percentile £263 £323 £213
25th Percentile £400 £425 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% +5.37% -11.63%
75th Percentile £594 £590 £606
90th Percentile £717 £663 £650
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 2 16
10th Percentile £42.05 £20.77 £14.00
25th Percentile £48.75 £21.98 £21.72
Median hourly rate £65.00 £23.99 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +171.00% -49.51% -19.15%
75th Percentile £70.00 £25.99 £51.88
90th Percentile £78.40 £27.20 £66.25
England median hourly rate £57.50 £28.00 £25.77
% change year-on-year +105.36% +8.67% -55.19%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -18 79 £414 -17.31% 47
Hampshire -3 72 £525 -8.70% 40
Berkshire -17 59 £414 -17.31% 20
Surrey +2 24 £509 -6.65% 12
Buckinghamshire -17 16 £402 +29.47% 7
West Sussex -14 5 £400 +33.33% 2
Oxfordshire -18 4 £600 +9.09% 20
Middlesex -1 3 £509 - 7
East Sussex 0 1 - - 3
Home Counties - 1 - -
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 10 (5.41%) Apache Spark
2 5 (2.70%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.62%) Apache
3 3 (1.62%) IIS
4 2 (1.08%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.54%) Confluence
5 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.54%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 3 (1.62%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 1 (0.54%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 101 (54.59%) AWS
2 97 (52.43%) Azure
3 49 (26.49%) GCP
4 47 (25.41%) OpenShift
5 30 (16.22%) GitHub
6 24 (12.97%) GitHub Actions
7 22 (11.89%) Azure DevOps
8 15 (8.11%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (8.11%) Serverless
9 14 (7.57%) AWS CloudFormation
9 14 (7.57%) Azure AKS
10 11 (5.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 11 (5.95%) Amazon S3
11 10 (5.41%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (3.78%) Snowflake
13 6 (3.24%) Datadog
13 6 (3.24%) Entra ID
14 5 (2.70%) Amazon ECS
15 4 (2.16%) Azure Key Vault
15 4 (2.16%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 11 (5.95%) Firewall
2 8 (4.32%) DNS
3 5 (2.70%) DHCP
3 5 (2.70%) TCP/IP
4 4 (2.16%) 5G
4 4 (2.16%) Diameter Protocol
4 4 (2.16%) LTE
4 4 (2.16%) Radio Access Network
4 4 (2.16%) VoLTE
4 4 (2.16%) VoWiFi
4 4 (2.16%) VPN
4 4 (2.16%) Wireshark
5 3 (1.62%) HTTP
6 1 (0.54%) Internet
6 1 (0.54%) iSCSI
6 1 (0.54%) Kerberos
6 1 (0.54%) MQTT
6 1 (0.54%) Reverse Proxy
6 1 (0.54%) SAN
6 1 (0.54%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (16.22%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (9.19%) NoSQL
3 11 (5.95%) Redis
3 11 (5.95%) Relational Database
4 10 (5.41%) Big Data
5 7 (3.78%) DynamoDB
6 6 (3.24%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (3.24%) MongoDB
7 4 (2.16%) SQL Server
8 3 (1.62%) HBase
9 2 (1.08%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.08%) DocumentDB
9 2 (1.08%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.54%) Amazon Aurora
10 1 (0.54%) Amazon QuickSight
10 1 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.54%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.54%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 32 (17.30%) Git
2 29 (15.68%) Jenkins
3 22 (11.89%) GitLab
4 14 (7.57%) SonarQube
5 7 (3.78%) Artifactory
6 6 (3.24%) JUnit
6 6 (3.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (2.70%) Cucumber
7 5 (2.70%) Gradle
8 4 (2.16%) Jaeger
9 3 (1.62%) NUnit
10 2 (1.08%) Bitbucket
10 2 (1.08%) JMeter
10 2 (1.08%) Maven
11 1 (0.54%) JIRA
11 1 (0.54%) MLflow
11 1 (0.54%) Postman
11 1 (0.54%) Selenium
General
1 45 (24.32%) Social Skills
2 20 (10.81%) Finance
3 19 (10.27%) Public Sector
4 10 (5.41%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (1.62%) Banking
5 3 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (1.62%) Military
6 2 (1.08%) Billing
6 2 (1.08%) Financial Institution
6 2 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (1.08%) Telecoms
7 1 (0.54%) Advertising
7 1 (0.54%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.54%) Automotive
7 1 (0.54%) Health Technology
7 1 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 37 (20.00%) Developer
2 29 (15.68%) DevOps Engineer
3 27 (14.59%) Java Developer
4 22 (11.89%) Platform Engineer
5 17 (9.19%) Senior
6 16 (8.65%) Architect
7 14 (7.57%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 14 (7.57%) Software Engineer
8 11 (5.95%) Site Engineer
9 10 (5.41%) Analyst
9 10 (5.41%) Azure Engineer
9 10 (5.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 10 (5.41%) Java Engineer
9 10 (5.41%) Security Analyst
10 8 (4.32%) AWS Engineer
11 7 (3.78%) AWS DevOps
12 6 (3.24%) Senior Developer
12 6 (3.24%) Solutions Architect
13 5 (2.70%) Security Engineer
13 5 (2.70%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (17.84%) Kafka
2 25 (13.51%) AngularJS
3 20 (10.81%) Spring
4 18 (9.73%) Spring Boot
5 14 (7.57%) Quarkus
6 13 (7.03%) REST
7 12 (6.49%) .NET
7 12 (6.49%) React
8 11 (5.95%) Keycloak
8 11 (5.95%) Loki
9 9 (4.86%) RESTful
10 7 (3.78%) Elastic Stack
10 7 (3.78%) Node.js
10 7 (3.78%) OpenTelemetry
11 5 (2.70%) JSON
11 5 (2.70%) OpenAPI
11 5 (2.70%) pytest
11 5 (2.70%) RabbitMQ
11 5 (2.70%) Swagger
11 5 (2.70%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 30 (16.22%) Cloud Native
2 26 (14.05%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (4.86%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (4.32%) Onboarding
5 7 (3.78%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (2.70%) Algorithms
6 5 (2.70%) Data Structures
7 4 (2.16%) PKI
7 4 (2.16%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.62%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.62%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (1.08%) TM Forum
10 1 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
10 1 (0.54%) Chip and PIN
10 1 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.54%) EMV
10 1 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
10 1 (0.54%) Mobile App
10 1 (0.54%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 42 (22.70%) Linux
2 14 (7.57%) Windows
3 8 (4.32%) Unix
4 4 (2.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.16%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.08%) Ubuntu
5 2 (1.08%) VMS
6 1 (0.54%) Android
6 1 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.54%) CentOS
6 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (70.81%) CI/CD
2 88 (47.57%) DevOps
3 82 (44.32%) Containerisation
4 63 (34.05%) Infrastructure as Code
5 58 (31.35%) Agile
6 46 (24.86%) Platform Engineering
7 41 (22.16%) Observability
8 38 (20.54%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 36 (19.46%) Software Engineering
10 34 (18.38%) DevSecOps
11 33 (17.84%) Microservices
12 30 (16.22%) Problem-Solving
13 27 (14.59%) High Availability
14 25 (13.51%) Scrum
15 20 (10.81%) Test Automation
16 19 (10.27%) GitOps
17 18 (9.73%) Unit Testing
18 17 (9.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 17 (9.19%) SDLC
19 16 (8.65%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 82 (44.32%) Python
2 56 (30.27%) Java
3 47 (25.41%) Bash
4 31 (16.76%) PowerShell
5 21 (11.35%) Go
6 17 (9.19%) SQL
7 16 (8.65%) JavaScript
8 11 (5.95%) Bicep
9 10 (5.41%) C#
10 6 (3.24%) TypeScript
11 2 (1.08%) PHP
11 2 (1.08%) Rust
11 2 (1.08%) Scala
12 1 (0.54%) C
12 1 (0.54%) C++
12 1 (0.54%) Korn
12 1 (0.54%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 91 (49.19%) Security Cleared
2 72 (38.92%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.57%) DV Cleared
4 11 (5.95%) Degree
5 8 (4.32%) RHCE
6 7 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (2.70%) AWS Certification
7 5 (2.70%) Azure Certification
8 4 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (2.16%) OCP
8 4 (2.16%) Oracle Certification
9 3 (1.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (1.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 1 (0.54%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.54%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (9.73%) QA
2 12 (6.49%) NCSC
3 7 (3.78%) PCI DSS
4 5 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials
4 5 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 5 (2.70%) GDPR
4 5 (2.70%) IASME
4 5 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 5 (2.70%) NIST
4 5 (2.70%) NIST 800
5 4 (2.16%) GRC
5 4 (2.16%) SLA
6 3 (1.62%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.54%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.54%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.54%) ISO 8583
7 1 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 68 (36.76%) Docker
2 11 (5.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (3.78%) Active Directory
4 6 (3.24%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.54%) Citrix Hypervisor
5 1 (0.54%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 68 (36.76%) Terraform
2 45 (24.32%) Ansible
3 43 (23.24%) Grafana
4 41 (22.16%) Prometheus
5 28 (15.14%) Argo
6 12 (6.49%) Istio
7 10 (5.41%) Rancher
8 9 (4.86%) Puppet
9 8 (4.32%) linkerd
10 4 (2.16%) Nessus
10 4 (2.16%) Podman
10 4 (2.16%) Progress Chef
11 3 (1.62%) Kustomize
12 2 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
12 2 (1.08%) Sysdig
13 1 (0.54%) Fluentd
13 1 (0.54%) Kubeflow
13 1 (0.54%) Packer
13 1 (0.54%) Salt
13 1 (0.54%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 34 (18.38%) Red Hat
2 19 (10.27%) Splunk
2 19 (10.27%) VMware
3 13 (7.03%) Microsoft
4 7 (3.78%) Google
5 5 (2.70%) Ab Initio
5 5 (2.70%) Dynatrace
5 5 (2.70%) Ericsson
5 5 (2.70%) Teradata
6 4 (2.16%) AppDynamics
6 4 (2.16%) BT
6 4 (2.16%) Huawei
6 4 (2.16%) Nokia
6 4 (2.16%) Tenable
7 3 (1.62%) Oracle
8 2 (1.08%) Fortinet
8 2 (1.08%) Foundry
8 2 (1.08%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.54%) Databricks
9 1 (0.54%) Virgin Media