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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 50 56
Rank change year-on-year -17 +6 +2
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 187 123 180
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.96% 3.81% 3.15%
As % of the Systems Management category 26.68% 26.74% 23.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 134 77 128
10th Percentile £361 £331 £411
25th Percentile £416 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £563
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -11.11% -6.25%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £626
90th Percentile £696 £606 £675
England median daily rate £535 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -0.93% -1.86% -11.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 0 2
10th Percentile £61.25 - £37.70
25th Percentile £62.50 - £39.13
Median hourly rate £70.00 - £43.00
75th Percentile - - £46.63
90th Percentile - - £47.90
England median hourly rate £70.00 £79.50 £67.25
% change year-on-year -11.95% +18.22% -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 701 460 777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.10% 14.26% 13.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 483 315 563
10th Percentile £306 £255 £250
25th Percentile £406 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £723 £630 £675
England median daily rate £518 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +0.98% -2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 5 14
10th Percentile £17.05 - £14.00
25th Percentile £31.25 £18.87 £17.56
Median hourly rate £56.25 £28.00 £37.33
Median % change year-on-year +100.89% -25.00% -32.12%
75th Percentile £70.00 £32.77 £48.75
90th Percentile - £46.11 £52.10
England median hourly rate £62.00 £48.50 £31.25
% change year-on-year +27.84% +55.20% -43.18%

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 3 July 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
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 3 July 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 -33 71 £401 -11.87% 43
Hampshire -10 70 £550 +7.32% 50
Berkshire -36 49 £400 -15.79% 22
Surrey +1 35 £508 -6.88% 24
Buckinghamshire -23 17 £392 +26.09% 9
West Sussex -16 5 £500 +66.67% 5
Oxfordshire -27 5 £825 +71.43% 12
Middlesex -5 4 £475 - 2
East Sussex -4 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 8 (4.28%) Apache Spark
2 7 (3.74%) OpenStack
3 6 (3.21%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (1.60%) Confluence
4 3 (1.60%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (1.07%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.53%) IIS
6 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 6 (3.21%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 1 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 100 (53.48%) AWS
2 90 (48.13%) Azure
3 48 (25.67%) OpenShift
4 44 (23.53%) GCP
5 23 (12.30%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (11.23%) GitHub
7 16 (8.56%) Serverless
8 15 (8.02%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (6.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 12 (6.42%) Amazon EKS
11 9 (4.81%) Amazon S3
11 9 (4.81%) AWS Lambda
11 9 (4.81%) Azure AKS
12 8 (4.28%) Entra ID
13 7 (3.74%) SaaS
13 7 (3.74%) Snowflake
14 6 (3.21%) AWS CloudFormation
15 5 (2.67%) Azure Monitor
15 5 (2.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 4 (2.14%) Azure API Management
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.74%) Firewall
2 6 (3.21%) 5G
2 6 (3.21%) Diameter Protocol
2 6 (3.21%) LTE
2 6 (3.21%) Network Security
2 6 (3.21%) Radio Access Network
2 6 (3.21%) VoLTE
2 6 (3.21%) VoWiFi
2 6 (3.21%) Wireshark
3 4 (2.14%) MQTT
3 4 (2.14%) VPN
4 3 (1.60%) DNS
4 3 (1.60%) HTTP
5 1 (0.53%) DHCP
5 1 (0.53%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.53%) iSCSI
5 1 (0.53%) Remote Desktop
5 1 (0.53%) Reverse Proxy
5 1 (0.53%) SAN
5 1 (0.53%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (14.44%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (9.09%) NoSQL
3 10 (5.35%) Big Data
3 10 (5.35%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.21%) Data Warehouse
4 6 (3.21%) DynamoDB
4 6 (3.21%) MongoDB
5 4 (2.14%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (2.14%) Redis
6 3 (1.60%) DocumentDB
7 2 (1.07%) Amazon Aurora
7 2 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (1.07%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.53%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.53%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.53%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.53%) MySQL
8 1 (0.53%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 27 (14.44%) SonarQube
2 26 (13.90%) GitLab
3 24 (12.83%) Git
4 22 (11.76%) Jenkins
5 9 (4.81%) MLflow
6 5 (2.67%) NUnit
7 4 (2.14%) Jaeger
8 3 (1.60%) JIRA
8 3 (1.60%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (1.07%) JUnit
10 1 (0.53%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.53%) JMeter
10 1 (0.53%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.53%) Mockito
10 1 (0.53%) NeoLoad
10 1 (0.53%) Selenium
General
1 46 (24.60%) Social Skills
2 20 (10.70%) Public Sector
3 18 (9.63%) Finance
4 10 (5.35%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (3.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 6 (3.21%) Telecoms
6 4 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.60%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.60%) Military
8 2 (1.07%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.07%) Automotive
8 2 (1.07%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.07%) Publishing
8 2 (1.07%) Retail
9 1 (0.53%) Advertising
9 1 (0.53%) Banking
9 1 (0.53%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 41 (21.93%) Developer
2 22 (11.76%) Java Developer
2 22 (11.76%) Platform Engineer
3 16 (8.56%) Architect
4 15 (8.02%) DevOps Engineer
5 13 (6.95%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 12 (6.42%) Software Engineer
7 11 (5.88%) Senior
8 10 (5.35%) Analyst
8 10 (5.35%) Java Engineer
8 10 (5.35%) Security Analyst
8 10 (5.35%) Site Engineer
9 9 (4.81%) Azure Engineer
9 9 (4.81%) DevSecOps Engineer
10 7 (3.74%) Python Developer
11 6 (3.21%) Azure DevOps Engineer
12 5 (2.67%) .NET Developer
12 5 (2.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 4 (2.14%) Applications Developer
13 4 (2.14%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (17.11%) Kafka
2 27 (14.44%) AngularJS
3 21 (11.23%) RESTful
4 20 (10.70%) Quarkus
5 14 (7.49%) .NET
5 14 (7.49%) React
5 14 (7.49%) REST
5 14 (7.49%) Spring
6 13 (6.95%) Spring Boot
7 9 (4.81%) Loki
7 9 (4.81%) YAML
8 8 (4.28%) Django
8 8 (4.28%) OpenAPI
8 8 (4.28%) pytest
8 8 (4.28%) Swagger
9 7 (3.74%) Flask
9 7 (3.74%) Keycloak
9 7 (3.74%) Node.js
9 7 (3.74%) OAuth2
9 7 (3.74%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 27 (14.44%) Distributed Systems
2 26 (13.90%) Cloud Native
3 11 (5.88%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (5.35%) Data Structures
4 10 (5.35%) Onboarding
5 8 (4.28%) Algorithms
6 6 (3.21%) Product Ownership
7 5 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (2.14%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.60%) CMDB
9 3 (1.60%) Public Cloud
10 2 (1.07%) AI Agents
10 2 (1.07%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (1.07%) Distributed Computing
10 2 (1.07%) Enterprise Cloud
10 2 (1.07%) FMCG
10 2 (1.07%) PKI
11 1 (0.53%) Chip and PIN
11 1 (0.53%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.53%) EMV
Operating Systems
1 43 (22.99%) Linux
2 11 (5.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 10 (5.35%) Unix
4 3 (1.60%) Windows
5 1 (0.53%) Android
5 1 (0.53%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.53%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (66.31%) CI/CD
2 83 (44.39%) Containerisation
3 79 (42.25%) DevOps
4 68 (36.36%) Agile
5 50 (26.74%) Infrastructure as Code
6 44 (23.53%) DevSecOps
7 42 (22.46%) Software Engineering
8 39 (20.86%) Problem-Solving
8 39 (20.86%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 36 (19.25%) Platform Engineering
10 34 (18.18%) Scrum
11 28 (14.97%) High Availability
12 27 (14.44%) AI
12 27 (14.44%) Machine Learning
12 27 (14.44%) Microservices
13 25 (13.37%) Observability
13 25 (13.37%) Test Automation
14 24 (12.83%) Continuous Improvement
14 24 (12.83%) SDLC
15 23 (12.30%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 92 (49.20%) Python
2 53 (28.34%) Java
3 39 (20.86%) Bash
4 23 (12.30%) PowerShell
5 21 (11.23%) Go
6 17 (9.09%) SQL
7 16 (8.56%) JavaScript
8 10 (5.35%) TypeScript
9 9 (4.81%) Bicep
9 9 (4.81%) C#
10 4 (2.14%) Rust
10 4 (2.14%) Shell Script
11 2 (1.07%) Groovy
11 2 (1.07%) Scala
12 1 (0.53%) C
12 1 (0.53%) C++
12 1 (0.53%) Korn
12 1 (0.53%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 94 (50.27%) Security Cleared
2 82 (43.85%) SC Cleared
3 15 (8.02%) Degree
4 11 (5.88%) DV Cleared
5 9 (4.81%) Azure Certification
6 8 (4.28%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (3.74%) RHCE
8 6 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.60%) CISSP
9 3 (1.60%) ITIL Certification
9 3 (1.60%) Master's Degree
10 2 (1.07%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 2 (1.07%) AWS Certification
10 2 (1.07%) CCSP
10 2 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.53%) CSPO
11 1 (0.53%) ISTQB
11 1 (0.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 1 (0.53%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.53%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (13.37%) QA
2 7 (3.74%) NIST
2 7 (3.74%) PCI DSS
3 6 (3.21%) SLA
4 5 (2.67%) Cyber Essentials
4 5 (2.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 5 (2.67%) GDPR
4 5 (2.67%) IASME
4 5 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 5 (2.67%) NCSC
4 5 (2.67%) NIST 800
5 4 (2.14%) GRC
6 1 (0.53%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.53%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.53%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.53%) ISO 8583
6 1 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.53%) JSP 440
System Software
1 75 (40.11%) Docker
2 5 (2.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (2.14%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.60%) IAG
5 2 (1.07%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.07%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.53%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 49 (26.20%) Terraform
2 31 (16.58%) Grafana
3 30 (16.04%) Prometheus
4 26 (13.90%) Argo
5 22 (11.76%) Ansible
6 9 (4.81%) Rancher
7 7 (3.74%) Puppet
8 6 (3.21%) Istio
9 5 (2.67%) Podman
10 3 (1.60%) Kustomize
11 2 (1.07%) CASB
11 2 (1.07%) Kibana
11 2 (1.07%) linkerd
11 2 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.53%) Fluentd
12 1 (0.53%) Kubeflow
12 1 (0.53%) Nessus
12 1 (0.53%) Packer
12 1 (0.53%) Salt
Vendors
1 33 (17.65%) Red Hat
2 14 (7.49%) Google
3 13 (6.95%) Microsoft
4 7 (3.74%) Ericsson
5 6 (3.21%) BT
5 6 (3.21%) Huawei
5 6 (3.21%) Nokia
5 6 (3.21%) Oracle
5 6 (3.21%) VMware
6 5 (2.67%) Ab Initio
6 5 (2.67%) Dynatrace
6 5 (2.67%) Splunk
6 5 (2.67%) Tenable
6 5 (2.67%) Teradata
7 4 (2.14%) Foundry
7 4 (2.14%) NVIDIA
7 4 (2.14%) OpenAI
8 3 (1.60%) Nexthink
8 3 (1.60%) Palantir
8 3 (1.60%) ServiceNow