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

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 52 61
Rank change year-on-year -15 +9 -10
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 222 139 155
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.31% 3.94% 3.15%
As % of the Systems Management category 29.21% 28.54% 21.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 88 113
10th Percentile £360 £374 £415
25th Percentile £439 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £630
90th Percentile £713 £619 £675
England median daily rate £538 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +0.09% -2.36% -10.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 0 1
10th Percentile £62.50 - -
25th Percentile - - £36.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 - £38.50
75th Percentile - - £40.25
90th Percentile £70.75 - -
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 760 487 723
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.33% 13.82% 14.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 503 328 532
10th Percentile £313 £259 £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 £608 £588 £608
90th Percentile £725 £625 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -7.08%
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% -32.58%
75th Percentile £70.00 £69.00 £47.56
90th Percentile £71.60 £85.65 £53.45
England median hourly rate £65.45 £54.50 £36.83
% change year-on-year +20.09% +47.97% -26.14%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -31 92 £460 -4.91% 66
Hampshire -14 70 £550 +7.32% 53
Berkshire -26 66 £460 -6.60% 30
Surrey +9 48 £475 -12.84% 14
Buckinghamshire -20 21 £402 +29.47% 12
Middlesex -13 6 - - 2
Oxfordshire -22 5 £825 +57.14% 24
West Sussex -20 4 £270 -16.92% 9
East Sussex +2 2 £330 -28.65% 3
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 (3.60%) OpenStack
2 7 (3.15%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (3.15%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.35%) Palantir Foundry
4 2 (0.90%) Confluence
5 1 (0.45%) Apache
5 1 (0.45%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.45%) IIS
5 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (2.25%) CPLEX
Cloud Services
1 117 (52.70%) Azure
2 115 (51.80%) AWS
3 54 (24.32%) OpenShift
4 45 (20.27%) GCP
5 35 (15.77%) Azure DevOps
5 35 (15.77%) GitHub
6 26 (11.71%) GitHub Actions
7 16 (7.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 15 (6.76%) Amazon EKS
9 14 (6.31%) Serverless
10 12 (5.41%) Azure AKS
11 11 (4.95%) Azure Monitor
11 11 (4.95%) Entra ID
12 9 (4.05%) AWS CloudFormation
12 9 (4.05%) Datadog
12 9 (4.05%) SaaS
13 6 (2.70%) Amazon S3
13 6 (2.70%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (2.25%) Azure Key Vault
14 5 (2.25%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 14 (6.31%) DNS
2 13 (5.86%) VPN
3 12 (5.41%) Firewall
4 8 (3.60%) Network Security
4 8 (3.60%) TCP/IP
5 7 (3.15%) LTE
6 6 (2.70%) 5G
6 6 (2.70%) DHCP
6 6 (2.70%) Diameter Protocol
6 6 (2.70%) Radio Access Network
6 6 (2.70%) VoLTE
6 6 (2.70%) VoWiFi
6 6 (2.70%) Wireshark
7 4 (1.80%) MQTT
8 3 (1.35%) BGP
8 3 (1.35%) Software-Defined Networking
9 2 (0.90%) HTTP
9 2 (0.90%) Intrusion Detection
10 1 (0.45%) iSCSI
10 1 (0.45%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (13.06%) PostgreSQL
2 15 (6.76%) NoSQL
3 13 (5.86%) Relational Database
4 8 (3.60%) Big Data
4 8 (3.60%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.70%) Oracle Database
6 5 (2.25%) Elasticsearch
6 5 (2.25%) MongoDB
7 4 (1.80%) DocumentDB
7 4 (1.80%) DynamoDB
8 3 (1.35%) Redis
8 3 (1.35%) SQL Server
9 2 (0.90%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.90%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.90%) MySQL
9 2 (0.90%) Power BI
9 2 (0.90%) Spark SQL
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.45%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 33 (14.86%) GitLab
2 32 (14.41%) Git
3 31 (13.96%) SonarQube
4 30 (13.51%) Jenkins
5 8 (3.60%) MLflow
6 5 (2.25%) NUnit
7 4 (1.80%) Jaeger
8 3 (1.35%) JIRA
8 3 (1.35%) JUnit
8 3 (1.35%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.45%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.45%) Gradle
9 1 (0.45%) JMeter
9 1 (0.45%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.45%) Maven
9 1 (0.45%) Mockito
9 1 (0.45%) NeoLoad
9 1 (0.45%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.45%) Selenium
9 1 (0.45%) Subversion
General
1 57 (25.68%) Social Skills
2 21 (9.46%) Analytical Skills
2 21 (9.46%) Public Sector
3 15 (6.76%) Finance
4 12 (5.41%) Aerospace
5 10 (4.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (4.05%) Telecoms
7 5 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.35%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.35%) Publishing
9 2 (0.90%) Automotive
9 2 (0.90%) Banking
9 2 (0.90%) Financial Institution
9 2 (0.90%) Military
9 2 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (0.90%) Retail
10 1 (0.45%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.45%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 42 (18.92%) Developer
2 27 (12.16%) Architect
2 27 (12.16%) Platform Engineer
3 18 (8.11%) Java Developer
4 16 (7.21%) DevOps Engineer
4 16 (7.21%) Senior
5 13 (5.86%) Lead
6 12 (5.41%) Azure Engineer
6 12 (5.41%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 11 (4.95%) Software Engineer
8 10 (4.50%) Analyst
8 10 (4.50%) Java Engineer
8 10 (4.50%) Security Analyst
8 10 (4.50%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 8 (3.60%) Cloud Architect
9 8 (3.60%) Technical Leader
10 7 (3.15%) .NET Developer
10 7 (3.15%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 7 (3.15%) Site Engineer
11 6 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (15.32%) Kafka
2 30 (13.51%) AngularJS
3 25 (11.26%) REST
3 25 (11.26%) RESTful
4 24 (10.81%) Quarkus
5 17 (7.66%) React
6 16 (7.21%) .NET
7 12 (5.41%) OAuth
7 12 (5.41%) YAML
8 11 (4.95%) Django
8 11 (4.95%) OAuth2
9 10 (4.50%) Spring
10 9 (4.05%) ARM Templates
11 8 (3.60%) .NET Framework
11 8 (3.60%) OpenAPI
11 8 (3.60%) Spring Boot
11 8 (3.60%) Swagger
12 7 (3.15%) ASP.NET Web API
12 7 (3.15%) OpenID
12 7 (3.15%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 34 (15.32%) Cloud Native
2 21 (9.46%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (9.01%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (3.60%) Enterprise Cloud
4 8 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 7 (3.15%) Data Structures
5 7 (3.15%) Product Ownership
6 5 (2.25%) AI Agents
6 5 (2.25%) Algorithms
6 5 (2.25%) CMDB
6 5 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.80%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.80%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.35%) Distributed Computing
9 2 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (0.90%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (0.90%) Operational Technology
9 2 (0.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 58 (26.13%) Linux
2 19 (8.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 10 (4.50%) Unix
4 8 (3.60%) Windows
5 7 (3.15%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.45%) Android
6 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (64.41%) CI/CD
2 106 (47.75%) DevOps
3 95 (42.79%) Containerisation
4 90 (40.54%) Agile
5 67 (30.18%) DevSecOps
6 64 (28.83%) Infrastructure as Code
7 48 (21.62%) Problem-Solving
8 47 (21.17%) Platform Engineering
9 46 (20.72%) Software Engineering
10 43 (19.37%) Scrum
11 41 (18.47%) Continuous Improvement
12 40 (18.02%) AI
12 40 (18.02%) Test Automation
13 37 (16.67%) Machine Learning
14 34 (15.32%) SDLC
15 32 (14.41%) Microservices
16 31 (13.96%) Observability
16 31 (13.96%) Site Reliability Engineering
17 30 (13.51%) Analytics
18 28 (12.61%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 105 (47.30%) Python
2 47 (21.17%) Java
3 45 (20.27%) Bash
4 38 (17.12%) PowerShell
5 21 (9.46%) JavaScript
6 20 (9.01%) SQL
7 14 (6.31%) Go
8 13 (5.86%) Bicep
9 12 (5.41%) C#
9 12 (5.41%) TypeScript
10 4 (1.80%) Rust
10 4 (1.80%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.90%) Groovy
11 2 (0.90%) Scala
12 1 (0.45%) Korn
Qualifications
1 111 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 98 (44.14%) SC Cleared
3 14 (6.31%) Azure Certification
3 14 (6.31%) Degree
4 12 (5.41%) DV Cleared
5 9 (4.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (3.60%) AWS Certification
7 7 (3.15%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (3.15%) RHCE
8 6 (2.70%) CISSP
9 5 (2.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 5 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (2.25%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (2.25%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.80%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 4 (1.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (1.35%) CCSP
12 2 (0.90%) CEH
12 2 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (18.02%) QA
2 10 (4.50%) NIST
3 8 (3.60%) GDPR
3 8 (3.60%) NCSC
4 7 (3.15%) Cyber Essentials
4 7 (3.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 6 (2.70%) PCI DSS
5 6 (2.70%) SLA
6 5 (2.25%) Accessibility
6 5 (2.25%) GRC
6 5 (2.25%) IASME
6 5 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 5 (2.25%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.80%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.45%) JSP 440
System Software
1 97 (43.69%) Docker
2 14 (6.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (3.15%) Hyper-V
4 5 (2.25%) IAG
5 4 (1.80%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.90%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.45%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 1 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 69 (31.08%) Terraform
2 39 (17.57%) Ansible
3 29 (13.06%) Grafana
4 28 (12.61%) Argo
5 25 (11.26%) Prometheus
6 9 (4.05%) Rancher
7 6 (2.70%) Istio
7 6 (2.70%) Puppet
8 5 (2.25%) Podman
9 2 (0.90%) CASB
9 2 (0.90%) Kibana
9 2 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.45%) Nessus
10 1 (0.45%) QRadar
Vendors
1 42 (18.92%) Red Hat
2 34 (15.32%) Microsoft
3 19 (8.56%) Google
4 15 (6.76%) VMware
5 12 (5.41%) Oracle
6 10 (4.50%) Dynatrace
7 7 (3.15%) Splunk
8 6 (2.70%) BT
8 6 (2.70%) Ericsson
8 6 (2.70%) Huawei
8 6 (2.70%) Nokia
9 5 (2.25%) Databricks
9 5 (2.25%) Nexthink
9 5 (2.25%) ServiceNow
9 5 (2.25%) Tenable
10 4 (1.80%) Foundry
10 4 (1.80%) NVIDIA
10 4 (1.80%) OpenAI
11 3 (1.35%) Ab Initio
11 3 (1.35%) Teradata