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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 52 65
Rank change year-on-year -14 +13 -12
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 224 139 155
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.35% 3.96% 3.15%
As % of the Systems Management category 29.63% 28.37% 21.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 88 113
10th Percentile £360 £374 £415
25th Percentile £433 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £630
90th Percentile £713 £619 £675
England median daily rate £538 £531 £551
% change year-on-year +1.18% -3.50% -10.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 0 1
10th Percentile £63.00 - -
25th Percentile - - £36.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 - £38.50
75th Percentile - - £40.25
90th Percentile £71.00 - -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £67.25
% change year-on-year +4.48% -0.37% -7.88%

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 756 490 724
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.30% 13.95% 14.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 498 333 530
10th Percentile £312 £250 £278
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £610 £588 £608
90th Percentile £725 £625 £675
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 7 10
10th Percentile £23.65 £18.87 £21.63
25th Percentile £36.75 £23.44 £30.50
Median hourly rate £67.47 £32.77 £37.08
Median % change year-on-year +105.89% -11.63% -25.43%
75th Percentile £70.00 £69.00 £47.56
90th Percentile £71.60 £85.65 £53.45
England median hourly rate £65.69 £53.50 £37.75
% change year-on-year +22.79% +41.72% -24.09%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -26 95 £460 -4.91% 92
Berkshire -18 69 £460 -6.60% 32
Hampshire -18 69 £550 +7.32% 61
Surrey +9 47 £475 -12.84% 31
Buckinghamshire -22 21 £402 +29.47% 17
Middlesex -13 7 - - 3
Oxfordshire -22 5 £825 +57.14% 43
West Sussex -20 4 £270 -16.92% 13
East Sussex +2 2 £330 -28.65% 7
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 8 (3.57%) OpenStack
2 7 (3.13%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (2.68%) Apache Spark
4 3 (1.34%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.89%) Confluence
6 1 (0.45%) Apache
6 1 (0.45%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.45%) IIS
6 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (2.23%) CPLEX
Cloud Services
1 120 (53.57%) Azure
2 116 (51.79%) AWS
3 54 (24.11%) OpenShift
4 44 (19.64%) GCP
5 38 (16.96%) Azure DevOps
6 37 (16.52%) GitHub
7 27 (12.05%) GitHub Actions
8 17 (7.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 15 (6.70%) Amazon EKS
10 13 (5.80%) Serverless
11 12 (5.36%) Azure AKS
11 12 (5.36%) Azure Monitor
12 11 (4.91%) Entra ID
13 10 (4.46%) Datadog
13 10 (4.46%) SaaS
14 9 (4.02%) AWS CloudFormation
15 5 (2.23%) Amazon S3
15 5 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
15 5 (2.23%) Azure Key Vault
15 5 (2.23%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 14 (6.25%) DNS
2 13 (5.80%) VPN
3 12 (5.36%) Firewall
4 8 (3.57%) Network Security
4 8 (3.57%) TCP/IP
5 7 (3.13%) LTE
6 6 (2.68%) 5G
6 6 (2.68%) DHCP
6 6 (2.68%) Diameter Protocol
6 6 (2.68%) Radio Access Network
6 6 (2.68%) VoLTE
6 6 (2.68%) VoWiFi
6 6 (2.68%) Wireshark
7 4 (1.79%) MQTT
8 3 (1.34%) BGP
8 3 (1.34%) Intrusion Detection
8 3 (1.34%) Software-Defined Networking
9 2 (0.89%) HTTP
10 1 (0.45%) Broadband
10 1 (0.45%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (12.50%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (6.25%) NoSQL
3 12 (5.36%) Relational Database
4 7 (3.13%) Big Data
4 7 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.68%) Oracle Database
6 5 (2.23%) Elasticsearch
6 5 (2.23%) MongoDB
7 4 (1.79%) DocumentDB
8 3 (1.34%) DynamoDB
8 3 (1.34%) Redis
8 3 (1.34%) SQL Server
9 2 (0.89%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.89%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.89%) MySQL
9 2 (0.89%) Power BI
9 2 (0.89%) Spark SQL
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.45%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 36 (16.07%) GitLab
2 33 (14.73%) Git
2 33 (14.73%) Jenkins
3 30 (13.39%) SonarQube
4 8 (3.57%) MLflow
5 5 (2.23%) NUnit
6 4 (1.79%) Jaeger
7 3 (1.34%) JIRA
7 3 (1.34%) JUnit
7 3 (1.34%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.45%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.45%) Gradle
8 1 (0.45%) JMeter
8 1 (0.45%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.45%) Maven
8 1 (0.45%) Mockito
8 1 (0.45%) NeoLoad
8 1 (0.45%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.45%) Selenium
8 1 (0.45%) Subversion
General
1 56 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 22 (9.82%) Analytical Skills
2 22 (9.82%) Public Sector
3 14 (6.25%) Finance
4 13 (5.80%) Aerospace
5 10 (4.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (4.02%) Telecoms
7 5 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.34%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.34%) Publishing
9 2 (0.89%) Automotive
9 2 (0.89%) Banking
9 2 (0.89%) Financial Institution
9 2 (0.89%) Military
9 2 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (0.89%) Retail
10 1 (0.45%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.45%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.45%) Local Government
10 1 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 40 (17.86%) Developer
2 28 (12.50%) Architect
2 28 (12.50%) Platform Engineer
3 17 (7.59%) Senior
4 16 (7.14%) DevOps Engineer
4 16 (7.14%) Java Developer
5 14 (6.25%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 13 (5.80%) Lead
7 12 (5.36%) Azure Engineer
8 11 (4.91%) Software Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) Analyst
9 10 (4.46%) Java Engineer
9 10 (4.46%) Security Analyst
9 10 (4.46%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 8 (3.57%) Cloud Architect
10 8 (3.57%) Technical Leader
11 7 (3.13%) .NET Developer
11 7 (3.13%) Azure DevOps Engineer
11 7 (3.13%) Site Engineer
12 6 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (14.73%) Kafka
2 29 (12.95%) AngularJS
3 25 (11.16%) REST
3 25 (11.16%) RESTful
4 23 (10.27%) Quarkus
5 17 (7.59%) React
6 16 (7.14%) .NET
7 12 (5.36%) OAuth
7 12 (5.36%) YAML
8 11 (4.91%) Django
8 11 (4.91%) OAuth2
9 10 (4.46%) ARM Templates
10 9 (4.02%) Spring
11 8 (3.57%) .NET Framework
11 8 (3.57%) OpenAPI
11 8 (3.57%) Swagger
12 7 (3.13%) ASP.NET Web API
12 7 (3.13%) OpenID
12 7 (3.13%) pytest
12 7 (3.13%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 38 (16.96%) Cloud Native
2 22 (9.82%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (8.93%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (3.57%) Enterprise Cloud
4 8 (3.57%) Onboarding
5 7 (3.13%) Data Structures
5 7 (3.13%) Product Ownership
6 6 (2.68%) CMDB
7 5 (2.23%) AI Agents
7 5 (2.23%) Algorithms
7 5 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.79%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.79%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.34%) Distributed Computing
10 2 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.89%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (0.89%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.89%) Operational Technology
10 2 (0.89%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 59 (26.34%) Linux
2 19 (8.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 9 (4.02%) Unix
4 8 (3.57%) Windows
5 7 (3.13%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.45%) Android
6 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (64.29%) CI/CD
2 110 (49.11%) DevOps
3 98 (43.75%) Containerisation
4 92 (41.07%) Agile
5 69 (30.80%) DevSecOps
6 67 (29.91%) Infrastructure as Code
7 49 (21.88%) Platform Engineering
7 49 (21.88%) Problem-Solving
8 46 (20.54%) Software Engineering
9 43 (19.20%) Continuous Improvement
10 42 (18.75%) Scrum
11 41 (18.30%) AI
12 40 (17.86%) Test Automation
13 38 (16.96%) Machine Learning
14 34 (15.18%) Observability
14 34 (15.18%) SDLC
15 32 (14.29%) Microservices
16 31 (13.84%) Site Reliability Engineering
17 30 (13.39%) Analytics
18 28 (12.50%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 106 (47.32%) Python
2 47 (20.98%) Bash
3 45 (20.09%) Java
4 40 (17.86%) PowerShell
5 21 (9.38%) JavaScript
6 19 (8.48%) SQL
7 14 (6.25%) Bicep
7 14 (6.25%) Go
8 12 (5.36%) C#
8 12 (5.36%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.79%) Rust
9 4 (1.79%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.89%) Groovy
10 2 (0.89%) Scala
11 1 (0.45%) Korn
Qualifications
1 113 (50.45%) Security Cleared
2 99 (44.20%) SC Cleared
3 14 (6.25%) Azure Certification
3 14 (6.25%) Degree
4 13 (5.80%) DV Cleared
5 9 (4.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (3.57%) AWS Certification
6 8 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
6 8 (3.57%) CISSP
7 7 (3.13%) RHCE
8 6 (2.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 6 (2.68%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (2.23%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.79%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 4 (1.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (1.34%) CCSP
11 3 (1.34%) CEH
11 3 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (0.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (17.86%) QA
2 12 (5.36%) NIST
3 9 (4.02%) NCSC
4 8 (3.57%) Cyber Essentials
4 8 (3.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 8 (3.57%) GDPR
5 7 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (2.68%) PCI DSS
6 6 (2.68%) SLA
7 5 (2.23%) Accessibility
7 5 (2.23%) GRC
7 5 (2.23%) IASME
7 5 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 5 (2.23%) NIST 800
8 4 (1.79%) Data Quality
System Software
1 98 (43.75%) Docker
2 14 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (3.13%) Hyper-V
4 6 (2.68%) IAG
5 4 (1.79%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.89%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.45%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 1 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 72 (32.14%) Terraform
2 43 (19.20%) Ansible
3 29 (12.95%) Grafana
4 27 (12.05%) Argo
5 25 (11.16%) Prometheus
6 9 (4.02%) Rancher
7 7 (3.13%) Istio
8 6 (2.68%) Puppet
9 5 (2.23%) Podman
10 2 (0.89%) CASB
10 2 (0.89%) Kibana
10 2 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.45%) linkerd
11 1 (0.45%) QRadar
Vendors
1 41 (18.30%) Red Hat
2 36 (16.07%) Microsoft
3 19 (8.48%) Google
4 15 (6.70%) VMware
5 12 (5.36%) Oracle
6 11 (4.91%) Dynatrace
7 7 (3.13%) Splunk
8 6 (2.68%) BT
8 6 (2.68%) Ericsson
8 6 (2.68%) Huawei
8 6 (2.68%) Nexthink
8 6 (2.68%) Nokia
8 6 (2.68%) ServiceNow
9 5 (2.23%) Databricks
10 4 (1.79%) Foundry
10 4 (1.79%) NVIDIA
10 4 (1.79%) OpenAI
10 4 (1.79%) Tenable
11 3 (1.34%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.34%) Salesforce