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

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 23 24
Rank change year-on-year +10 +1 -14
Contract jobs citing DevOps 245 143 197
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 9.06% 7.66% 6.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.12% 8.64% 7.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 181 107 143
10th Percentile £400 £450 £408
25th Percentile £450 £506 £483
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% - +4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £685 £700
90th Percentile £700 £718 £750
England median daily rate £525 £575 £570
% change year-on-year -8.70% +0.88% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 8
10th Percentile £83.80 - £35.00
25th Percentile £85.00 £66.25 £64.06
Median hourly rate £90.00 £67.50 £77.75
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -13.18% +18.51%
75th Percentile £93.75 £71.60 £78.81
90th Percentile £94.50 £73.30 £81.25
England median hourly rate £50.00 £67.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -25.93% +3.85% -0.76%

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 2,203 1,655 2,627
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 81.50% 88.64% 84.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,234 1,019 1,696
10th Percentile £275 £225 £270
25th Percentile £409 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -0.94% -2.75%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 387 99 326
10th Percentile £16.62 £19.57 £14.54
25th Percentile £22.72 £47.50 £31.60
Median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £52.35
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +24.16% -14.87%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile - £70.00 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 11 February 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
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 11 February 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
Gloucestershire +16 97 £500 -18.37% 33
Bristol -1 62 £550 - 45
Wiltshire +8 53 £525 -12.50% 20
Dorset - 16 £500 - 8
Somerset -3 12 £500 -20.00% 9
Devon -15 4 £550 -19.71% 9
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 21 (8.57%) Confluence
2 10 (4.08%) Apache
3 9 (3.67%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.45%) Apache Spark
5 3 (1.22%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (2.45%) NEC Housing
2 5 (2.04%) Maximo
3 2 (0.82%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 139 (56.73%) Azure
2 85 (34.69%) Azure DevOps
3 58 (23.67%) AWS
4 49 (20.00%) GitHub
5 23 (9.39%) GCP
6 15 (6.12%) GitHub Actions
6 15 (6.12%) Serverless
7 14 (5.71%) Azure Data Factory
7 14 (5.71%) Entra ID
8 11 (4.49%) Azure Key Vault
8 11 (4.49%) OpenShift
9 10 (4.08%) AWS CloudFormation
9 10 (4.08%) Azure AKS
10 9 (3.67%) Azure Monitor
11 8 (3.27%) Amazon EKS
11 8 (3.27%) IaaS
12 7 (2.86%) Dynamics 365
13 6 (2.45%) Azure Sentinel
14 5 (2.04%) Amazon ECS
14 5 (2.04%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.27%) VPN
2 5 (2.04%) Firewall
3 4 (1.63%) Network Security
4 3 (1.22%) DNS
4 3 (1.22%) TCP/IP
4 3 (1.22%) WAN
5 2 (0.82%) DHCP
5 2 (0.82%) HTTP
5 2 (0.82%) LAN
5 2 (0.82%) NAS
5 2 (0.82%) SAN
5 2 (0.82%) WAAS
6 1 (0.41%) NGFW
6 1 (0.41%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.41%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (0.41%) SSL
6 1 (0.41%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.80%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (6.53%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (3.27%) Redis
4 6 (2.45%) NoSQL
5 4 (1.63%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (1.63%) Metadata
5 4 (1.63%) Power BI
6 3 (1.22%) Flink
6 3 (1.22%) Oracle Database
6 3 (1.22%) Relational Database
6 3 (1.22%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.82%) Big Data
7 2 (0.82%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.82%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.82%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.82%) Power Query
8 1 (0.41%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 32 (13.06%) GitLab
1 32 (13.06%) JIRA
2 30 (12.24%) Oracle APEX
3 24 (9.80%) Git
4 22 (8.98%) Jenkins
5 13 (5.31%) SonarQube
6 9 (3.67%) Artifactory
7 4 (1.63%) MSI
8 3 (1.22%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.22%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.82%) AdminStudio
9 2 (0.82%) InstallShield
9 2 (0.82%) Maven
10 1 (0.41%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.41%) JUnit
10 1 (0.41%) Mocha
10 1 (0.41%) Oracle Forms
10 1 (0.41%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.41%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.41%) TestNG
General
1 72 (29.39%) Social Skills
2 24 (9.80%) Public Sector
3 16 (6.53%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (6.12%) Finance
5 5 (2.04%) Telecoms
6 4 (1.63%) Aerospace
6 4 (1.63%) Back Office
6 4 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (1.63%) Military
7 3 (1.22%) Legal
8 2 (0.82%) Law
8 2 (0.82%) Local Government
9 1 (0.41%) Banking
9 1 (0.41%) Electronics
9 1 (0.41%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.41%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 62 (25.31%) Developer
1 62 (25.31%) Senior
2 51 (20.82%) DevOps Engineer
3 35 (14.29%) Senior Developer
4 17 (6.94%) Data Engineer
5 12 (4.90%) Architect
5 12 (4.90%) Senior Data Engineer
6 11 (4.49%) Analyst
7 10 (4.08%) Azure Engineer
7 10 (4.08%) Backend Developer
7 10 (4.08%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 10 (4.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 9 (3.67%) GCP Engineer
9 8 (3.27%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 8 (3.27%) Cloud Engineer
9 8 (3.27%) Consultant
9 8 (3.27%) Java Developer
9 8 (3.27%) Lead
9 8 (3.27%) Platform Engineer
9 8 (3.27%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (13.47%) REST
2 19 (7.76%) Kafka
3 16 (6.53%) Node.js
3 16 (6.53%) React
4 15 (6.12%) ARM Templates
5 13 (5.31%) Keycloak
5 13 (5.31%) YAML
6 9 (3.67%) Apache NiFi
6 9 (3.67%) GraphQL
6 9 (3.67%) Spring
7 8 (3.27%) FastAPI
7 8 (3.27%) Flask
7 8 (3.27%) gRPC
7 8 (3.27%) RESTful
7 8 (3.27%) WebSockets
8 7 (2.86%) Spring Boot
9 6 (2.45%) .NET
9 6 (2.45%) CSS
9 6 (2.45%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (2.45%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (12.24%) Cloud Native
2 18 (7.35%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (5.71%) Product Ownership
4 8 (3.27%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (2.45%) Public Cloud
6 5 (2.04%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.22%) CMDB
7 3 (1.22%) Operational Technology
8 2 (0.82%) Distributed Computing
8 2 (0.82%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (0.82%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.82%) Private Cloud
8 2 (0.82%) Security Posture
8 2 (0.82%) Wiki
9 1 (0.41%) Client/Server
9 1 (0.41%) Clustering
9 1 (0.41%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.41%) Raspberry Pi
9 1 (0.41%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 35 (14.29%) Windows
2 21 (8.57%) Linux
3 7 (2.86%) Windows 10
4 4 (1.63%) Ubuntu
4 4 (1.63%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.82%) Unix
5 2 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (45.71%) Agile
2 103 (42.04%) CI/CD
3 63 (25.71%) Containerisation
4 56 (22.86%) Infrastructure as Code
5 47 (19.18%) Scrum
6 42 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
7 37 (15.10%) Collaborative Working
8 36 (14.69%) Validation
9 33 (13.47%) ITIL
10 30 (12.24%) Microservices
10 30 (12.24%) Software Delivery
11 28 (11.43%) Requirements Analysis
12 27 (11.02%) Web Application Development
13 26 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
14 22 (8.98%) Service Management
15 21 (8.57%) Data Engineering
15 21 (8.57%) Data Pipeline
16 20 (8.16%) DevSecOps
17 19 (7.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 19 (7.76%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 84 (34.29%) Python
2 63 (25.71%) SQL
3 48 (19.59%) JavaScript
4 46 (18.78%) PowerShell
5 36 (14.69%) PL/SQL
6 24 (9.80%) Go
7 23 (9.39%) Java
8 16 (6.53%) Bash
8 16 (6.53%) TypeScript
9 14 (5.71%) Bicep
10 8 (3.27%) C#
11 4 (1.63%) VBScript
12 3 (1.22%) Ruby
12 3 (1.22%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.82%) C
13 2 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.41%) Apex Code
14 1 (0.41%) C++
14 1 (0.41%) Scala
14 1 (0.41%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 174 (71.02%) Security Cleared
2 153 (62.45%) SC Cleared
3 48 (19.59%) DV Cleared
4 25 (10.20%) Azure Certification
5 17 (6.94%) Degree
6 13 (5.31%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (2.86%) AWS Certification
9 5 (2.04%) CISM
9 5 (2.04%) CISSP
9 5 (2.04%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 4 (1.63%) MCSA
11 3 (1.22%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 3 (1.22%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.82%) BPSS Clearance
13 1 (0.41%) CBAP
13 1 (0.41%) CSPO
13 1 (0.41%) IIBA
13 1 (0.41%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (6.94%) QA
2 15 (6.12%) NCSC
3 13 (5.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (4.49%) NIST
5 5 (2.04%) GDPR
5 5 (2.04%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.82%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.82%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.82%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (0.82%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.41%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.41%) SLA
7 1 (0.41%) WCAG
System Software
1 68 (27.76%) Docker
2 19 (7.76%) Active Directory
3 11 (4.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.04%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (2.04%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.63%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (1.22%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.82%) vSphere
8 1 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.41%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 89 (36.33%) Kubernetes
2 74 (30.20%) Terraform
3 37 (15.10%) Ansible
4 21 (8.57%) Prometheus
5 20 (8.16%) Grafana
6 8 (3.27%) Packer
7 7 (2.86%) Argo
7 7 (2.86%) SCCM
8 6 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (1.63%) Nessus
10 3 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (1.22%) Kibana
10 3 (1.22%) Nagios
10 3 (1.22%) Podman
10 3 (1.22%) Proxmox
11 2 (0.82%) Istio
11 2 (0.82%) Puppet
11 2 (0.82%) Rancher
12 1 (0.41%) Dell DRAC
12 1 (0.41%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 41 (16.73%) Microsoft
2 39 (15.92%) Oracle
3 18 (7.35%) VMware
4 17 (6.94%) Red Hat
5 15 (6.12%) Google
6 14 (5.71%) Atlassian
7 7 (2.86%) Databricks
8 6 (2.45%) Cisco
8 6 (2.45%) NEC
9 5 (2.04%) IBM
9 5 (2.04%) NetApp
10 4 (1.63%) ServiceNow
11 3 (1.22%) Salesforce
12 2 (0.82%) Dell
12 2 (0.82%) HP
13 1 (0.41%) CheckPoint
13 1 (0.41%) EMC
13 1 (0.41%) Informatica
13 1 (0.41%) SAP
13 1 (0.41%) TOWER Software