DevOps Contract Job Trends in the South West

DevOps
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring DevOps skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 22 14
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 -1
Contract jobs citing DevOps 322 121 270
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 8.81% 6.37% 9.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.18% 7.10% 11.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 214 93 165
10th Percentile £400 £315 £453
25th Percentile £425 £447 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -4.17%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £650
90th Percentile £682 £695 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -6.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 42
10th Percentile £64.15 £83.37 -
25th Percentile £76.00 £83.98 -
Median hourly rate £92.50 £90.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% +28.57% -2.10%
75th Percentile £102.50 £95.00 £74.33
90th Percentile £102.95 - £85.00
England median hourly rate £67.00 £67.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year - -4.29% +6.87%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South West

DevOps falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,881 1,705 2,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 78.82% 89.69% 83.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,623 989 1,485
10th Percentile £325 £216 £263
25th Percentile £425 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £613 £619 £634
90th Percentile £725 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £511 £525
% change year-on-year +2.68% -2.61% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 430 216 260
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.92 £14.35
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.51 £43.75
Median hourly rate £58.92 £25.15 £67.14
Median % change year-on-year +134.25% -62.54% +6.56%
75th Percentile £68.00 £64.06 £72.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £77.50
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.81%

DevOps
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DevOps relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

DevOps job vacancy trend in the South West

DevOps
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DevOps.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DevOps

DevOps
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DevOps in the South West over the 6 months to 19 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DevOps in the South West

DevOps
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DevOps.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DevOps

DevOps
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DevOps in the South West over the 6 months to 19 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DevOps in the South West

DevOps
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DevOps within the South West region over the 6 months to 19 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
Bristol +10 110 £525 +2.94% 70
Somerset +17 70 £475 -9.05% 11
Wiltshire +16 65 £550 +2.33% 8
Gloucestershire +11 47 £575 -9.80% 98
Devon -14 16 £560 +7.69% 5
Dorset -15 3 £430 +14.67% 6
Cornwall -4 1 £505 -12.17% 1
DevOps
England

DevOps
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 29 (9.01%) Confluence
2 9 (2.80%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.48%) IIS
4 6 (1.86%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.86%) Mattermost
5 4 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.62%) Apache
7 1 (0.31%) JBoss
7 1 (0.31%) Oracle Coherence
7 1 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
Applications
1 6 (1.86%) MS Visio
1 6 (1.86%) Spreadsheet
2 4 (1.24%) Trello
3 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.31%) InDesign
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (1.86%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (1.24%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.62%) Maximo
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.31%) ResourceLink
4 1 (0.31%) SAP Hybris
4 1 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.31%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 141 (43.79%) Azure
2 101 (31.37%) AWS
3 75 (23.29%) Azure DevOps
4 51 (15.84%) GCP
5 28 (8.70%) GitHub
6 18 (5.59%) Serverless
7 14 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
8 13 (4.04%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (3.42%) Azure Key Vault
9 11 (3.42%) dbt
10 10 (3.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 10 (3.11%) SaaS
11 9 (2.80%) OCI
11 9 (2.80%) Power Platform
12 8 (2.48%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (2.48%) Azure AKS
13 7 (2.17%) Amazon S3
13 7 (2.17%) Azure Monitor
13 7 (2.17%) Entra ID
14 6 (1.86%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 13 (4.04%) DNS
2 11 (3.42%) Firewall
3 6 (1.86%) VPN
4 3 (0.93%) 3GPP
4 3 (0.93%) TETRA
4 3 (0.93%) VSAN
5 2 (0.62%) CTI
6 1 (0.31%) AMQP
6 1 (0.31%) HTTP
6 1 (0.31%) Network Security
6 1 (0.31%) SMTP
6 1 (0.31%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.31%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.35%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.42%) Geospatial Data
3 8 (2.48%) MongoDB
3 8 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (2.48%) Power BI
4 7 (2.17%) SAP HANA
5 6 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.86%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.55%) NoSQL
7 4 (1.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.93%) Big Data
8 3 (0.93%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.93%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.93%) Metadata
8 3 (0.93%) Redis
8 3 (0.93%) SQLite
9 2 (0.62%) BigQuery
9 2 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.62%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 45 (13.98%) Git
1 45 (13.98%) JIRA
2 30 (9.32%) Jenkins
3 27 (8.39%) GitLab
4 12 (3.73%) Gatling
4 12 (3.73%) LoadRunner
4 12 (3.73%) MSI
5 11 (3.42%) JMeter
6 7 (2.17%) Cucumber
6 7 (2.17%) REST Assured
7 6 (1.86%) Postman
8 4 (1.24%) IntelliJ
9 3 (0.93%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.93%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.62%) AdminStudio
10 2 (0.62%) Claude Code
10 2 (0.62%) InstallShield
10 2 (0.62%) JUnit
10 2 (0.62%) Selenium
10 2 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 71 (22.05%) Social Skills
2 38 (11.80%) Public Sector
3 20 (6.21%) Finance
4 19 (5.90%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (2.17%) Legal
6 6 (1.86%) Banking
6 6 (1.86%) Military
7 5 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (1.55%) Retail
8 4 (1.24%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.24%) Police
9 3 (0.93%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (0.93%) Local Government
10 1 (0.31%) Aviation
10 1 (0.31%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.31%) Marketing
10 1 (0.31%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 82 (25.47%) DevOps Engineer
2 48 (14.91%) Developer
3 28 (8.70%) Architect
4 25 (7.76%) Senior
5 21 (6.52%) Data Engineer
6 20 (6.21%) GCP Engineer
6 20 (6.21%) Lead
7 18 (5.59%) Analyst
7 18 (5.59%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 17 (5.28%) Site Engineer
9 14 (4.35%) GCP DevOps
9 14 (4.35%) GCP DevOps Engineer
9 14 (4.35%) Platform Engineer
10 13 (4.04%) Software Developer
11 12 (3.73%) Azure Engineer
11 12 (3.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 11 (3.42%) Performance Engineer
13 10 (3.11%) Delivery Manager
14 9 (2.80%) Technical Architect
14 9 (2.80%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (11.49%) .NET
2 30 (9.32%) REST
3 23 (7.14%) .NET Framework
4 19 (5.90%) RESTful
5 15 (4.66%) .NET Core
5 15 (4.66%) React
6 14 (4.35%) Playwright
7 13 (4.04%) Kafka
7 13 (4.04%) Spring Boot
8 12 (3.73%) ATL
8 12 (3.73%) COM
8 12 (3.73%) CSS
8 12 (3.73%) GeoJSON
8 12 (3.73%) HTML
8 12 (3.73%) MFC
9 11 (3.42%) CSS3
9 11 (3.42%) HTML5
9 11 (3.42%) Spring
9 11 (3.42%) WPF
10 9 (2.80%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 56 (17.39%) Cloud Native
2 23 (7.14%) Legacy Systems
3 20 (6.21%) Enterprise Software
4 19 (5.90%) Onboarding
5 14 (4.35%) Hybrid Cloud
5 14 (4.35%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.48%) Wiki
7 7 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.55%) Legacy Code
10 4 (1.24%) Linux Command Line
10 4 (1.24%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.93%) EPoS
11 3 (0.93%) Legacy Applications
11 3 (0.93%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.93%) Replication
12 2 (0.62%) Data Centre
12 2 (0.62%) Enterprise Cloud
12 2 (0.62%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 47 (14.60%) Linux
2 40 (12.42%) Windows
3 14 (4.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 12 (3.73%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.24%) Unix
6 3 (0.93%) CentOS
7 2 (0.62%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.31%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (49.38%) CI/CD
2 113 (35.09%) Agile
3 98 (30.43%) Infrastructure as Code
4 71 (22.05%) Continuous Improvement
5 68 (21.12%) Containerisation
6 46 (14.29%) Test Automation
7 44 (13.66%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 42 (13.04%) Stakeholder Management
9 39 (12.11%) Microservices
10 38 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
11 36 (11.18%) Platform Engineering
12 32 (9.94%) Deployment Automation
12 32 (9.94%) DevSecOps
13 28 (8.70%) Software Engineering
14 26 (8.07%) Migration
14 26 (8.07%) Observability
14 26 (8.07%) Root Cause Analysis
15 25 (7.76%) ITIL
15 25 (7.76%) Technical Leadership
16 23 (7.14%) AI
Programming Languages
1 83 (25.78%) Python
2 47 (14.60%) SQL
3 40 (12.42%) Bash
4 35 (10.87%) Java
4 35 (10.87%) JavaScript
5 30 (9.32%) C#
6 19 (5.90%) Bicep
6 19 (5.90%) PowerShell
7 18 (5.59%) TypeScript
8 12 (3.73%) PL/SQL
9 11 (3.42%) Go
10 4 (1.24%) Apex Code
10 4 (1.24%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.24%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.93%) Groovy
12 1 (0.31%) C++
12 1 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.31%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.31%) PHP
Qualifications
1 158 (49.07%) Security Cleared
2 119 (36.96%) SC Cleared
3 46 (14.29%) DV Cleared
4 12 (3.73%) Degree
5 10 (3.11%) AWS Certification
6 8 (2.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 7 (2.17%) ISTQB
8 6 (1.86%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (1.86%) TOGAF Certification
9 4 (1.24%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.93%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 3 (0.93%) AWS Certified Developer
10 3 (0.93%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.93%) VCAP
10 3 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (0.62%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.62%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.31%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.28%) Accessibility
1 17 (5.28%) QA
2 16 (4.97%) WCAG
3 14 (4.35%) NCSC
4 10 (3.11%) Data Quality
5 7 (2.17%) SLA
6 6 (1.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.93%) GDPR
7 3 (0.93%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.93%) PMO
8 2 (0.62%) GRC
9 1 (0.31%) NIST
System Software
1 70 (21.74%) Docker
2 10 (3.11%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.86%) Corosync
4 5 (1.55%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.24%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.93%) vSphere
7 2 (0.62%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.31%) zsh
Systems Management
1 112 (34.78%) Kubernetes
2 101 (31.37%) Terraform
3 49 (15.22%) Ansible
4 15 (4.66%) Grafana
5 14 (4.35%) Prometheus
6 9 (2.80%) Argo
7 7 (2.17%) Failover Clustering
7 7 (2.17%) Pacemaker
8 4 (1.24%) Istio
9 3 (0.93%) PowerCLI
9 3 (0.93%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.62%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.62%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.62%) Puppet
10 2 (0.62%) SCCM
10 2 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.31%) Nagios
11 1 (0.31%) Nessus
11 1 (0.31%) OPNET
Vendors
1 53 (16.46%) Microsoft
2 26 (8.07%) Google
3 16 (4.97%) Dynatrace
4 13 (4.04%) Red Hat
4 13 (4.04%) Splunk
5 11 (3.42%) AppDynamics
5 11 (3.42%) New Relic
5 11 (3.42%) Oracle
6 10 (3.11%) VMware
7 9 (2.80%) SAP
8 7 (2.17%) Databricks
8 7 (2.17%) Salesforce
9 6 (1.86%) Atlassian
9 6 (1.86%) Remedy
10 5 (1.55%) InterSystems
11 4 (1.24%) Conga
11 4 (1.24%) GoCardless
11 4 (1.24%) IBM
12 3 (0.93%) MuleSoft
12 3 (0.93%) SaltStack