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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 58 72
Rank change year-on-year -5 +14 -17
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 185 101 145
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.14% 3.40% 2.65%
As % of the Systems Management category 26.73% 27.90% 20.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 63 97
10th Percentile £357 £340 £425
25th Percentile £402 £423 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -4.35% -0.86%
75th Percentile £567 £594 £625
90th Percentile £650 £663 £680
England median daily rate £525 £570 £550
% change year-on-year -7.89% +3.64% -10.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 0 2
10th Percentile £53.13 - £37.70
25th Percentile £60.00 - £39.13
Median hourly rate £67.50 - £43.00
75th Percentile £70.00 - £46.63
90th Percentile £81.00 - £47.90
England median hourly rate £65.00 £69.35 £62.00
% change year-on-year -6.27% +11.85% -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 692 362 718
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.75% 12.17% 13.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 504 267 517
10th Percentile £280 £294 £213
25th Percentile £400 £417 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -11.63%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £600
90th Percentile £725 £661 £650
England median daily rate £510 £525 £524
% change year-on-year -2.86% +0.24% -8.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 2 14
10th Percentile £33.24 £20.77 £14.00
25th Percentile £44.86 £21.98 £17.91
Median hourly rate £60.00 £23.99 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +150.16% -44.22% -26.71%
75th Percentile £70.00 £25.99 £48.75
90th Percentile £76.00 £27.20 £55.25
England median hourly rate £56.50 £28.00 £25.74
% change year-on-year +101.79% +8.79% -52.49%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -10 83 £414 -17.31% 43
Hampshire 0 67 £548 -4.78% 40
Berkshire -13 63 £414 -17.31% 23
Surrey +1 25 £505 -7.34% 7
Buckinghamshire -21 16 £402 +29.47% 3
West Sussex -15 5 £400 +33.33% 2
Oxfordshire -16 4 £600 +9.09% 17
Middlesex -1 3 £509 - 1
East Sussex -2 1 - - 3
Home Counties - 1 - - 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 7 (3.78%) OpenStack
3 4 (2.16%) IIS
4 3 (1.62%) Apache
5 2 (1.08%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.54%) Confluence
6 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.54%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (2.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 1 (0.54%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 99 (53.51%) Azure
2 95 (51.35%) AWS
3 49 (26.49%) GCP
4 45 (24.32%) OpenShift
5 24 (12.97%) Azure DevOps
6 23 (12.43%) GitHub
7 21 (11.35%) GitHub Actions
8 16 (8.65%) Amazon EKS
9 15 (8.11%) Serverless
10 14 (7.57%) AWS CloudFormation
10 14 (7.57%) Azure AKS
11 11 (5.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 11 (5.95%) Amazon S3
12 10 (5.41%) AWS Lambda
13 7 (3.78%) Snowflake
14 6 (3.24%) Entra ID
15 5 (2.70%) Amazon ECS
15 5 (2.70%) Datadog
16 4 (2.16%) Amazon EC2
16 4 (2.16%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (5.95%) Firewall
2 8 (4.32%) DNS
3 6 (3.24%) 5G
3 6 (3.24%) Diameter Protocol
3 6 (3.24%) LTE
3 6 (3.24%) Radio Access Network
3 6 (3.24%) VoLTE
3 6 (3.24%) VoWiFi
3 6 (3.24%) Wireshark
4 5 (2.70%) DHCP
4 5 (2.70%) TCP/IP
5 4 (2.16%) VPN
6 3 (1.62%) HTTP
7 1 (0.54%) Internet
7 1 (0.54%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.54%) MQTT
7 1 (0.54%) Remote Desktop
7 1 (0.54%) Reverse Proxy
7 1 (0.54%) SAN
7 1 (0.54%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (14.05%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (8.65%) NoSQL
3 12 (6.49%) Relational Database
4 10 (5.41%) Big Data
4 10 (5.41%) Redis
5 6 (3.24%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (3.24%) DynamoDB
5 6 (3.24%) MongoDB
6 5 (2.70%) SQL Server
7 2 (1.08%) BigQuery
7 2 (1.08%) DocumentDB
7 2 (1.08%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.54%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.54%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.54%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.54%) HBase
8 1 (0.54%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 34 (18.38%) Git
2 26 (14.05%) Jenkins
3 20 (10.81%) GitLab
4 14 (7.57%) SonarQube
5 4 (2.16%) Jaeger
6 3 (1.62%) Artifactory
6 3 (1.62%) Gradle
6 3 (1.62%) NUnit
7 2 (1.08%) Bitbucket
7 2 (1.08%) JUnit
7 2 (1.08%) Maven
7 2 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.54%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.54%) JIRA
8 1 (0.54%) MLflow
8 1 (0.54%) Postman
8 1 (0.54%) Selenium
General
1 43 (23.24%) Social Skills
2 20 (10.81%) Public Sector
3 17 (9.19%) Finance
4 11 (5.95%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (1.62%) Banking
6 3 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (1.62%) Military
7 2 (1.08%) Billing
7 2 (1.08%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.08%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.54%) Advertising
8 1 (0.54%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.54%) Automotive
8 1 (0.54%) Health Technology
8 1 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 34 (18.38%) Developer
2 30 (16.22%) DevOps Engineer
3 23 (12.43%) Java Developer
3 23 (12.43%) Platform Engineer
4 16 (8.65%) Architect
4 16 (8.65%) Senior
5 15 (8.11%) Software Engineer
6 14 (7.57%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 11 (5.95%) Azure Engineer
7 11 (5.95%) Site Engineer
8 10 (5.41%) Analyst
8 10 (5.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 10 (5.41%) Security Analyst
9 9 (4.86%) Java Engineer
10 7 (3.78%) AWS Engineer
11 6 (3.24%) Solutions Architect
12 5 (2.70%) Cloud Engineer
12 5 (2.70%) Python Developer
12 5 (2.70%) Security Engineer
12 5 (2.70%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (15.68%) Kafka
2 26 (14.05%) AngularJS
3 16 (8.65%) Spring
4 15 (8.11%) Spring Boot
5 14 (7.57%) Quarkus
5 14 (7.57%) REST
6 13 (7.03%) React
7 12 (6.49%) .NET
8 11 (5.95%) Loki
9 10 (5.41%) Keycloak
9 10 (5.41%) RESTful
10 7 (3.78%) Node.js
10 7 (3.78%) OpenTelemetry
11 6 (3.24%) OpenAPI
11 6 (3.24%) pytest
11 6 (3.24%) Swagger
11 6 (3.24%) Vue
12 5 (2.70%) Elastic Stack
12 5 (2.70%) Flask
12 5 (2.70%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 31 (16.76%) 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 6 (3.24%) Algorithms
6 6 (3.24%) 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%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.54%) Distributed Architecture
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 15 (8.11%) Windows
3 10 (5.41%) Unix
4 5 (2.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (2.70%) 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
1 127 (68.65%) CI/CD
2 89 (48.11%) DevOps
3 84 (45.41%) Containerisation
4 64 (34.59%) Infrastructure as Code
5 60 (32.43%) Agile
6 47 (25.41%) Platform Engineering
7 39 (21.08%) Site Reliability Engineering
7 39 (21.08%) Software Engineering
8 38 (20.54%) Observability
9 33 (17.84%) DevSecOps
10 32 (17.30%) Microservices
10 32 (17.30%) Problem-Solving
11 29 (15.68%) High Availability
12 25 (13.51%) Scrum
13 19 (10.27%) Test Automation
14 18 (9.73%) GitOps
14 18 (9.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 18 (9.73%) Unit Testing
15 17 (9.19%) SDLC
16 16 (8.65%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 87 (47.03%) Python
2 54 (29.19%) Java
3 48 (25.95%) Bash
4 34 (18.38%) PowerShell
5 21 (11.35%) Go
6 17 (9.19%) JavaScript
6 17 (9.19%) SQL
7 11 (5.95%) Bicep
7 11 (5.95%) C#
8 6 (3.24%) TypeScript
9 2 (1.08%) PHP
9 2 (1.08%) Rust
9 2 (1.08%) Scala
10 1 (0.54%) C
10 1 (0.54%) C++
10 1 (0.54%) Korn
10 1 (0.54%) Kotlin
10 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 9 (4.86%) RHCE
6 7 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (3.24%) Azure Certification
8 5 (2.70%) AWS Certification
9 4 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (1.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (1.08%) OCP
11 2 (1.08%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.54%) ISTQB
12 1 (0.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.54%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (9.73%) QA
2 11 (5.95%) NCSC
3 7 (3.78%) PCI DSS
4 6 (3.24%) SLA
5 5 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 5 (2.70%) GDPR
5 5 (2.70%) IASME
5 5 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 5 (2.70%) NIST
5 5 (2.70%) NIST 800
6 4 (2.16%) GRC
7 3 (1.62%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.54%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.54%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.54%) ISO 8583
8 1 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 72 (38.92%) 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 67 (36.22%) Terraform
2 42 (22.70%) Ansible
3 39 (21.08%) Grafana
4 38 (20.54%) Prometheus
5 28 (15.14%) Argo
6 11 (5.95%) Istio
7 10 (5.41%) Rancher
8 9 (4.86%) Puppet
9 7 (3.78%) linkerd
10 4 (2.16%) Nessus
10 4 (2.16%) Podman
11 3 (1.62%) Kustomize
12 2 (1.08%) Progress Chef
12 2 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
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 18 (9.73%) Splunk
3 17 (9.19%) VMware
4 12 (6.49%) Microsoft
5 7 (3.78%) Ericsson
5 7 (3.78%) Google
6 6 (3.24%) BT
6 6 (3.24%) Huawei
6 6 (3.24%) Nokia
7 5 (2.70%) Ab Initio
7 5 (2.70%) Dynatrace
7 5 (2.70%) Teradata
8 4 (2.16%) AppDynamics
8 4 (2.16%) Tenable
9 3 (1.62%) Oracle
10 2 (1.08%) Fortinet
10 2 (1.08%) Foundry
10 2 (1.08%) OpenAI
11 1 (0.54%) Mavenir
11 1 (0.54%) Palantir