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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 56 74
Rank change year-on-year +8 +18 -9
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 179 123 141
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.07% 3.64% 2.85%
As % of the Systems Management category 28.82% 26.97% 21.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 133 80 108
10th Percentile £361 £401 £400
25th Percentile £413 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.37% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £544 £638 £615
90th Percentile £635 £675 £675
England median daily rate £525 £600 £575
% change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 5
10th Percentile £40.00 - £68.19
25th Percentile £50.63 - -
Median hourly rate £60.00 - £76.53
75th Percentile £81.00 - -
90th Percentile £86.00 - -
England median hourly rate £60.00 £51.84 £56.25
% change year-on-year +15.74% -7.84% -14.45%

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 621 456 651
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 14.12% 13.50% 13.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 340 443
10th Percentile £260 £261 £205
25th Percentile £393 £375 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £569 £613 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £656
England median daily rate £510 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.33% -8.51%
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% -8.93%
75th Percentile £60.00 £36.50 £69.66
90th Percentile £86.00 £37.40 £76.53
England median hourly rate £52.50 £26.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +98.11% -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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -1 81 £493 -4.14% 122
Berkshire +3 76 £488 -2.50% 87
Hampshire +10 72 £500 -13.04% 45
Surrey +10 14 £425 -15.00% 32
East Sussex +7 4 £565 +22.83% 15
West Sussex -11 4 £273 -53.81% 14
Oxfordshire -10 3 £525 +5.00% 19
Buckinghamshire -11 2 £613 -3.92% 16
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 1
Kent - 1 £325 - 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 (3.35%) Confluence
2 4 (2.23%) Apache
2 4 (2.23%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.68%) IIS
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 99 (55.31%) AWS
2 91 (50.84%) Azure
3 49 (27.37%) OpenShift
4 48 (26.82%) GCP
5 47 (26.26%) GitHub
6 27 (15.08%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (10.06%) Azure AKS
8 16 (8.94%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (6.70%) Datadog
9 12 (6.70%) IaaS
10 11 (6.15%) Serverless
11 10 (5.59%) Amazon S3
12 9 (5.03%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (4.47%) Amazon ECR
13 8 (4.47%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (4.47%) Cloud Computing
13 8 (4.47%) Entra ID
14 7 (3.91%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (3.91%) PaaS
15 6 (3.35%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 13 (7.26%) DNS
2 12 (6.70%) Firewall
3 8 (4.47%) TCP/IP
4 6 (3.35%) DHCP
5 5 (2.79%) Kerberos
6 3 (1.68%) HTTP
6 3 (1.68%) Network Security
7 1 (0.56%) Internet
7 1 (0.56%) MQTT
7 1 (0.56%) Reverse Proxy
7 1 (0.56%) SSL
7 1 (0.56%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (18.99%) PostgreSQL
2 23 (12.85%) NoSQL
3 15 (8.38%) MongoDB
4 11 (6.15%) Redis
5 8 (4.47%) DynamoDB
5 8 (4.47%) HBase
6 6 (3.35%) Couchbase
7 5 (2.79%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (2.79%) Data Lake
7 5 (2.79%) Relational Database
8 4 (2.23%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (2.23%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (2.23%) SQL Server
9 3 (1.68%) Big Data
10 2 (1.12%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
11 1 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
11 1 (0.56%) Amazon QuickSight
11 1 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
11 1 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 48 (26.82%) Jenkins
2 37 (20.67%) GitLab
3 30 (16.76%) Git
4 17 (9.50%) Artifactory
5 15 (8.38%) Cucumber
6 13 (7.26%) JUnit
6 13 (7.26%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (6.15%) Gradle
8 8 (4.47%) JIRA
9 6 (3.35%) JMeter
9 6 (3.35%) Maven
10 5 (2.79%) SonarQube
11 3 (1.68%) Bitbucket
12 2 (1.12%) Gatling
12 2 (1.12%) MLflow
13 1 (0.56%) Cypress.io
13 1 (0.56%) LoadRunner
13 1 (0.56%) Mocha
13 1 (0.56%) Postman
13 1 (0.56%) Selenium
General
1 55 (30.73%) Social Skills
2 17 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (8.94%) Public Sector
4 12 (6.70%) 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%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.12%) Telecoms
7 1 (0.56%) Legal
7 1 (0.56%) Military
Job Titles
1 36 (20.11%) Developer
2 32 (17.88%) DevOps Engineer
3 28 (15.64%) Java Developer
4 27 (15.08%) Senior
5 21 (11.73%) Architect
6 16 (8.94%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 15 (8.38%) Platform Engineer
7 15 (8.38%) Site Engineer
8 13 (7.26%) Azure Engineer
9 12 (6.70%) Senior Developer
10 10 (5.59%) AWS DevOps
10 10 (5.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.47%) Senior Java Developer
12 7 (3.91%) Cloud Engineer
12 7 (3.91%) Lead
12 7 (3.91%) Software Engineer
13 6 (3.35%) AWS Developer
13 6 (3.35%) AWS Engineer
13 6 (3.35%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
13 6 (3.35%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (19.55%) Kafka
2 24 (13.41%) Spring
2 24 (13.41%) Spring Boot
3 17 (9.50%) REST
4 15 (8.38%) AngularJS
4 15 (8.38%) Elastic Stack
5 11 (6.15%) RabbitMQ
6 10 (5.59%) Keycloak
6 10 (5.59%) Loki
7 9 (5.03%) React
8 8 (4.47%) RESTful
9 7 (3.91%) Middleware
10 6 (3.35%) ADO
10 6 (3.35%) PyTorch
10 6 (3.35%) TensorFlow
11 4 (2.23%) .NET
11 4 (2.23%) JSON
11 4 (2.23%) scikit-learn
11 4 (2.23%) Swagger
11 4 (2.23%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 29 (16.20%) Cloud Native
2 16 (8.94%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (4.47%) Enterprise Software
3 8 (4.47%) Virtual Team
4 6 (3.35%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.23%) PKI
6 3 (1.68%) Cloud Security Posture
6 3 (1.68%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.68%) Public Cloud
6 3 (1.68%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.12%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.12%) Private Cloud
7 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
7 2 (1.12%) TM Forum
8 1 (0.56%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.56%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.56%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.56%) Distributed Architecture
8 1 (0.56%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 59 (32.96%) Linux
2 15 (8.38%) Windows
3 10 (5.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (2.79%) Ubuntu
4 5 (2.79%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.68%) CentOS
5 3 (1.68%) Unix
6 2 (1.12%) VMS
7 1 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (76.54%) CI/CD
2 85 (47.49%) DevOps
3 79 (44.13%) Containerisation
4 50 (27.93%) Agile
4 50 (27.93%) Infrastructure as Code
5 42 (23.46%) Observability
6 39 (21.79%) Microservices
6 39 (21.79%) Problem-Solving
7 35 (19.55%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 31 (17.32%) Platform Engineering
9 28 (15.64%) DevSecOps
10 24 (13.41%) High Availability
11 23 (12.85%) Software Engineering
12 21 (11.73%) Test Automation
13 15 (8.38%) Configuration Management
13 15 (8.38%) Continuous Integration
13 15 (8.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 15 (8.38%) Task Automation
14 14 (7.82%) Scrum
15 11 (6.15%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 86 (48.04%) Python
2 54 (30.17%) Java
3 49 (27.37%) Bash
4 22 (12.29%) PowerShell
4 22 (12.29%) SQL
5 18 (10.06%) Go
6 14 (7.82%) JavaScript
7 10 (5.59%) 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++
Qualifications
1 95 (53.07%) Security Cleared
2 81 (45.25%) SC Cleared
3 10 (5.59%) Degree
4 9 (5.03%) DV Cleared
4 9 (5.03%) OCP
4 9 (5.03%) Oracle Certification
5 8 (4.47%) AWS Certification
6 7 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (3.91%) RHCE
7 4 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 3 (1.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.68%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.68%) CCSP
8 3 (1.68%) CISSP
8 3 (1.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 2 (1.12%) RHCSA
10 1 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.56%) JNCIP
10 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 72 (40.22%) Docker
2 23 (12.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (8.38%) vSphere
4 7 (3.91%) Active Directory
5 6 (3.35%) VMware NSX
6 4 (2.23%) Hyper-V
7 2 (1.12%) KVM
8 1 (0.56%) NDS
8 1 (0.56%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 1 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 68 (37.99%) Terraform
2 61 (34.08%) Ansible
3 50 (27.93%) Grafana
4 43 (24.02%) Prometheus
5 27 (15.08%) Argo
6 10 (5.59%) Puppet
7 8 (4.47%) Kustomize
7 8 (4.47%) Progress Chef
8 7 (3.91%) Sysdig
8 7 (3.91%) vCenter Server
9 6 (3.35%) Istio
9 6 (3.35%) linkerd
10 4 (2.23%) Podman
11 3 (1.68%) Nessus
12 2 (1.12%) Kubeflow
12 2 (1.12%) logstash
12 2 (1.12%) Packer
12 2 (1.12%) Salt
12 2 (1.12%) SCOM
12 2 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 39 (21.79%) 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%) Oracle
8 3 (1.68%) Tenable
9 1 (0.56%) Ab Initio
9 1 (0.56%) Fortinet
9 1 (0.56%) NetIQ
9 1 (0.56%) NVIDIA
9 1 (0.56%) OpenText
9 1 (0.56%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.56%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.56%) Teradata
9 1 (0.56%) Virgin Media