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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +2
Contract jobs citing DevOps 328 146 245
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 8.75% 7.41% 9.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.24% 8.16% 11.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 221 117 140
10th Percentile £406 £351 £450
25th Percentile £456 £450 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £548 £590
Median % change year-on-year +0.46% -7.20% -1.67%
75th Percentile £613 £644 £675
90th Percentile £750 £700 £734
England median daily rate £525 £525 £553
% change year-on-year - -5.02% -4.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 40
10th Percentile £57.48 - -
25th Percentile £59.33 £85.00 -
Median hourly rate £62.40 £90.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.67% +28.57% -9.97%
75th Percentile £78.08 £95.00 £74.11
90th Percentile £87.48 - £85.00
England median hourly rate £68.75 £67.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +2.61% -4.29% +7.69%

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 2,917 1,789 2,125
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 77.83% 90.81% 83.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,626 1,026 1,229
10th Percentile £329 £213 £300
25th Percentile £450 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £634 £620 £638
90th Percentile £734 £715 £724
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 480 265 204
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.10 £22.50
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £48.00
Median hourly rate £62.00 £25.15 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +146.52% -62.74% +8.00%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% -3.37%

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 1 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 +13 123 £550 +4.76% 84
Somerset +14 61 £475 +5.56% 41
Gloucestershire +6 56 £575 -11.54% 98
Wiltshire +7 49 £564 -4.04% 32
Devon -10 16 £560 +7.69% 23
Dorset -10 8 £350 -6.67% 18
Cornwall - 1 £505 - 3
Avon - 1 - - 29
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 28 (8.54%) Confluence
2 13 (3.96%) Apache
2 13 (3.96%) SharePoint
3 12 (3.66%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.83%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (1.22%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.91%) IIS
7 1 (0.30%) JBoss
7 1 (0.30%) Mattermost
7 1 (0.30%) nginx
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle Coherence
7 1 (0.30%) WebSphere
Applications
1 6 (1.83%) Spreadsheet
2 5 (1.52%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.91%) Trello
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.30%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 4 (1.22%) Oracle Payroll
1 4 (1.22%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.30%) ResourceLink
2 1 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
2 1 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 138 (42.07%) Azure
2 98 (29.88%) AWS
3 74 (22.56%) Azure DevOps
4 68 (20.73%) GCP
5 20 (6.10%) dbt
6 19 (5.79%) GitHub
7 16 (4.88%) Serverless
8 14 (4.27%) Azure AKS
9 12 (3.66%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (3.35%) Amazon S3
10 11 (3.35%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (3.35%) OpenShift
11 10 (3.05%) AWS Lambda
12 9 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (2.74%) Power Platform
13 8 (2.44%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 8 (2.44%) SaaS
14 7 (2.13%) Cloud Composer
14 7 (2.13%) OCI
14 7 (2.13%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 12 (3.66%) DNS
2 11 (3.35%) Firewall
3 6 (1.83%) VPN
4 5 (1.52%) VSAN
5 2 (0.61%) CTI
6 1 (0.30%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.30%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.66%) Data Warehouse
2 11 (3.35%) Geospatial Data
2 11 (3.35%) Metadata
2 11 (3.35%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (3.05%) SQL Server
4 9 (2.74%) Big Data
4 9 (2.74%) Hadoop
4 9 (2.74%) Power BI
5 8 (2.44%) BigQuery
5 8 (2.44%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (2.13%) SAP HANA
7 5 (1.52%) DynamoDB
7 5 (1.52%) MongoDB
7 5 (1.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (1.22%) Looker
8 4 (1.22%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.22%) Parquet
8 4 (1.22%) Tableau
9 3 (0.91%) Flink
Development Applications
1 51 (15.55%) Git
2 40 (12.20%) JIRA
3 38 (11.59%) GitLab
3 38 (11.59%) Jenkins
4 11 (3.35%) Cucumber
4 11 (3.35%) MSI
5 7 (2.13%) Postman
5 7 (2.13%) REST Assured
6 6 (1.83%) Selenium
7 5 (1.52%) Gatling
7 5 (1.52%) LoadRunner
8 4 (1.22%) JMeter
9 3 (0.91%) Claude Code
9 3 (0.91%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.91%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.61%) Appium
10 2 (0.61%) JUnit
10 2 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.61%) Visual Studio Team System
11 1 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
General
1 62 (18.90%) Social Skills
2 37 (11.28%) Public Sector
3 23 (7.01%) Finance
4 18 (5.49%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (4.88%) Banking
6 5 (1.52%) Aerospace
6 5 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (1.52%) Military
6 5 (1.52%) Retail
7 4 (1.22%) Legal
7 4 (1.22%) Local Government
7 4 (1.22%) Police
8 3 (0.91%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.30%) Aviation
10 1 (0.30%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 78 (23.78%) DevOps Engineer
2 51 (15.55%) Developer
3 37 (11.28%) Data Engineer
4 34 (10.37%) Architect
5 32 (9.76%) Senior
6 23 (7.01%) GCP Engineer
7 22 (6.71%) Software Developer
8 18 (5.49%) Lead
9 16 (4.88%) Analyst
10 15 (4.57%) Platform Engineer
10 15 (4.57%) Senior DevOps
10 15 (4.57%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 14 (4.27%) Azure DevOps Engineer
11 14 (4.27%) Azure Engineer
12 11 (3.35%) GCP DevOps
12 11 (3.35%) GCP DevOps Engineer
12 11 (3.35%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 10 (3.05%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (3.05%) Site Engineer
14 9 (2.74%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (36.89%) Terraform
2 32 (9.76%) REST
3 29 (8.84%) .NET
4 18 (5.49%) React
4 18 (5.49%) RESTful
5 16 (4.88%) .NET Framework
5 16 (4.88%) Kafka
6 15 (4.57%) .NET Core
6 15 (4.57%) Playwright
7 14 (4.27%) CSS
7 14 (4.27%) HTML
7 14 (4.27%) Spring Boot
8 12 (3.66%) CSS3
8 12 (3.66%) HTML5
8 12 (3.66%) Spring
9 11 (3.35%) ATL
9 11 (3.35%) COM
9 11 (3.35%) GeoJSON
9 11 (3.35%) MFC
9 11 (3.35%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 60 (18.29%) Cloud Native
2 26 (7.93%) Onboarding
3 19 (5.79%) Enterprise Software
3 19 (5.79%) Hybrid Cloud
3 19 (5.79%) Product Ownership
4 17 (5.18%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (3.96%) Wiki
6 6 (1.83%) Clustering
7 5 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (1.22%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.22%) Enterprise Cloud
8 4 (1.22%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (0.91%) EPoS
9 3 (0.91%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.91%) Replication
10 2 (0.61%) Data Centre
10 2 (0.61%) IVR
10 2 (0.61%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 44 (13.41%) Linux
2 31 (9.45%) Windows
3 12 (3.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (1.52%) Unix
5 4 (1.22%) CentOS
5 4 (1.22%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.30%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 179 (54.57%) CI/CD
2 116 (35.37%) Infrastructure as Code
3 104 (31.71%) Agile
4 76 (23.17%) Containerisation
5 66 (20.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 51 (15.55%) Test Automation
7 47 (14.33%) Platform Engineering
8 45 (13.72%) AI
9 44 (13.41%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 44 (13.41%) Stakeholder Management
10 43 (13.11%) Problem-Solving
11 41 (12.50%) Deployment Automation
12 40 (12.20%) DevSecOps
12 40 (12.20%) ETL
13 37 (11.28%) Data Modelling
14 35 (10.67%) Technical Leadership
15 33 (10.06%) Microservices
15 33 (10.06%) Observability
16 32 (9.76%) Software Engineering
17 30 (9.15%) Software Delivery
Programming Languages
1 102 (31.10%) Python
2 57 (17.38%) SQL
3 48 (14.63%) Bash
4 43 (13.11%) Java
5 39 (11.89%) JavaScript
6 33 (10.06%) C#
7 24 (7.32%) Bicep
8 19 (5.79%) PowerShell
9 18 (5.49%) TypeScript
10 14 (4.27%) PL/SQL
11 12 (3.66%) Go
12 4 (1.22%) Apex Code
12 4 (1.22%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.91%) Groovy
13 3 (0.91%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 160 (48.78%) Security Cleared
2 106 (32.32%) SC Cleared
3 67 (20.43%) DV Cleared
4 16 (4.88%) Degree
5 9 (2.74%) AWS Certification
6 6 (1.83%) Azure Certification
7 5 (1.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 5 (1.52%) ISTQB
8 4 (1.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.91%) AWS Certified Developer
9 3 (0.91%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.91%) VCAP
9 3 (0.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 2 (0.61%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.61%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (0.30%) CompTIA Security+
11 1 (0.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 1 (0.30%) SAFe Agilist
11 1 (0.30%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (7.01%) QA
2 18 (5.49%) Accessibility
3 16 (4.88%) WCAG
4 15 (4.57%) NCSC
5 13 (3.96%) Data Quality
6 6 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.52%) SLA
8 3 (0.91%) GDPR
8 3 (0.91%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.61%) GRC
9 2 (0.61%) ISO 20022
9 2 (0.61%) NIST
9 2 (0.61%) SEPA
10 1 (0.30%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.30%) PMO
System Software
1 71 (21.65%) Docker
2 6 (1.83%) Corosync
2 6 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (1.83%) VMware NSX
3 5 (1.52%) VMware ESXi
3 5 (1.52%) vSphere
4 4 (1.22%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.30%) zsh
Systems Management
1 117 (35.67%) Kubernetes
2 57 (17.38%) Ansible
3 12 (3.66%) Grafana
4 10 (3.05%) Prometheus
5 7 (2.13%) Failover Clustering
5 7 (2.13%) Pacemaker
6 6 (1.83%) Argo
7 5 (1.52%) PowerCLI
7 5 (1.52%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.91%) Istio
9 2 (0.61%) Puppet
9 2 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.30%) CASB
10 1 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.30%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.30%) Nagios
10 1 (0.30%) Nessus
10 1 (0.30%) OPNET
10 1 (0.30%) VxRail
Vendors
1 50 (15.24%) Microsoft
2 39 (11.89%) Google
3 15 (4.57%) Oracle
4 12 (3.66%) VMware
5 10 (3.05%) Red Hat
6 9 (2.74%) Dynatrace
7 8 (2.44%) Salesforce
7 8 (2.44%) SAP
8 7 (2.13%) Splunk
9 6 (1.83%) Databricks
10 5 (1.52%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.52%) SaltStack
11 4 (1.22%) AppDynamics
11 4 (1.22%) Conga
11 4 (1.22%) GoCardless
11 4 (1.22%) InterSystems
11 4 (1.22%) MuleSoft
11 4 (1.22%) New Relic
11 4 (1.22%) webMethods
12 3 (0.91%) Dell