Kubernetes Contract Job Trends in the South West

Kubernetes (k8s)
England > South West

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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 34 79
Rank change year-on-year +5 +45 -43
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 158 95 77
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 5.08% 5.57% 2.41%
As % of the Systems Management category 37.89% 29.41% 18.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 79 55
10th Percentile £400 £473 £463
25th Percentile £450 £513 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -
75th Percentile £675 £631 £583
90th Percentile £750 £733 £670
England median daily rate £525 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 5
10th Percentile £81.00 £79.13 £59.10
25th Percentile £84.50 £79.77 £63.75
Median hourly rate £104.00 £80.83 £74.44
Median % change year-on-year +28.67% +8.58% +23.55%
75th Percentile £119.00 £81.90 £77.50
90th Percentile - £82.53 £77.80
England median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -17.86%

All Systems Management Skills
South West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 417 323 418
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 13.42% 18.93% 13.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 313 252 320
10th Percentile £313 £355 £212
25th Percentile £450 £450 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £631 £625
90th Percentile £738 £700 £700
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.19% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 3 14
10th Percentile £46.40 £71.74 -
25th Percentile £50.75 £74.35 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £78.70 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.41% +96.75% -38.46%
75th Percentile £96.50 £80.83 £70.44
90th Percentile £119.00 £82.11 £76.58
England median hourly rate £55.00 £26.50 £25.77
% change year-on-year +107.55% +2.85% -55.19%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in the South West

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in the South West over the 6 months to 6 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Kubernetes in the South West

Kubernetes
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Kubernetes
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Kubernetes in the South West over the 6 months to 6 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kubernetes in the South West

Kubernetes
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 Kubernetes within the South West region over the 6 months to 6 April 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 0 50 £536 -1.15% 24
Gloucestershire -3 44 £575 -6.50% 33
Wiltshire +2 40 £573 +8.53% 5
Dorset +15 19 £388 -1.15% 1
Somerset - 1 £600 - 7
Kubernetes
England

Kubernetes
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 10 (6.33%) Apache
1 10 (6.33%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (1.90%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (4.43%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 62 (39.24%) AWS
2 58 (36.71%) Azure
3 34 (21.52%) GitHub
4 22 (13.92%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (13.29%) OpenShift
6 20 (12.66%) GCP
7 18 (11.39%) Serverless
8 15 (9.49%) Amazon S3
8 15 (9.49%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (6.33%) Amazon ECS
9 10 (6.33%) Amazon EKS
9 10 (6.33%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (6.33%) Azure AKS
10 9 (5.70%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (5.70%) Azure Data Factory
10 9 (5.70%) Azure Key Vault
10 9 (5.70%) Azure Monitor
11 8 (5.06%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 7 (4.43%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 7 (4.43%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 9 (5.70%) VPN
2 4 (2.53%) DNS
2 4 (2.53%) Reverse Proxy
3 3 (1.90%) Network Security
3 3 (1.90%) TCP/IP
4 2 (1.27%) Firewall
5 1 (0.63%) AMQP
5 1 (0.63%) HTTP
5 1 (0.63%) IPsec
5 1 (0.63%) LAN
5 1 (0.63%) NAS
5 1 (0.63%) SAN
5 1 (0.63%) WAN
5 1 (0.63%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (10.13%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (8.23%) Elasticsearch
2 13 (8.23%) MongoDB
2 13 (8.23%) NoSQL
3 10 (6.33%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.80%) Flink
4 6 (3.80%) Redis
5 4 (2.53%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.90%) Big Data
6 3 (1.90%) ObjectStore
7 2 (1.27%) BigQuery
7 2 (1.27%) CockroachDB
7 2 (1.27%) Hadoop
7 2 (1.27%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.63%) InfluxDB
8 1 (0.63%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 35 (22.15%) GitLab
2 24 (15.19%) Jenkins
3 15 (9.49%) Git
4 11 (6.96%) Gatling
5 9 (5.70%) JMeter
5 9 (5.70%) LoadRunner
6 6 (3.80%) Artifactory
6 6 (3.80%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (3.16%) SonarQube
8 2 (1.27%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.63%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.63%) JUnit
9 1 (0.63%) MLflow
9 1 (0.63%) Mocha
9 1 (0.63%) Mockito
9 1 (0.63%) NUnit
9 1 (0.63%) Selenium
9 1 (0.63%) Snyk
General
1 17 (10.76%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (6.96%) Public Sector
4 4 (2.53%) Finance
4 4 (2.53%) Influencing Skills
4 4 (2.53%) Presentation Skills
5 3 (1.90%) Aerospace
5 3 (1.90%) Banking
5 3 (1.90%) Legal
6 1 (0.63%) Military
6 1 (0.63%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 43 (27.22%) DevOps Engineer
2 25 (15.82%) Developer
3 24 (15.19%) Senior
4 13 (8.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 13 (8.23%) Java Developer
5 11 (6.96%) Backend Developer
5 11 (6.96%) Data Engineer
6 10 (6.33%) Azure Engineer
6 10 (6.33%) Senior Data Engineer
7 9 (5.70%) GCP Engineer
7 9 (5.70%) Performance Engineer
7 9 (5.70%) Software Engineer
8 8 (5.06%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 7 (4.43%) Architect
9 7 (4.43%) Platform Engineer
9 7 (4.43%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 6 (3.80%) Linux Engineer
10 6 (3.80%) Python Developer
11 5 (3.16%) Administrator
11 5 (3.16%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (15.19%) Kafka
2 15 (9.49%) REST
2 15 (9.49%) Spring
2 15 (9.49%) Spring Boot
3 12 (7.59%) RESTful
4 10 (6.33%) Keycloak
5 9 (5.70%) Apache NiFi
5 9 (5.70%) ARM Templates
6 8 (5.06%) gRPC
7 7 (4.43%) Elastic Stack
7 7 (4.43%) Flask
8 6 (3.80%) FastAPI
8 6 (3.80%) GraphQL
8 6 (3.80%) WebSockets
9 5 (3.16%) Java Concurrency
9 5 (3.16%) RabbitMQ
10 4 (2.53%) OAuth
10 4 (2.53%) OAuth2
10 4 (2.53%) React
10 4 (2.53%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (12.66%) Cloud Native
2 16 (10.13%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (6.33%) Enterprise Software
4 8 (5.06%) Onboarding
5 5 (3.16%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.53%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.90%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.27%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.63%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.63%) Client/Server
9 1 (0.63%) Cloud Security Posture
9 1 (0.63%) Data Fabric
9 1 (0.63%) DataPower
9 1 (0.63%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.63%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.63%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.63%) Replication
9 1 (0.63%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 41 (25.95%) Linux
2 18 (11.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 13 (8.23%) Ubuntu
3 13 (8.23%) Windows
4 5 (3.16%) Unix
5 4 (2.53%) VMS
6 3 (1.90%) Debian
6 3 (1.90%) Rocky
7 2 (1.27%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (63.29%) DevOps
2 93 (58.86%) CI/CD
3 77 (48.73%) Containerisation
4 44 (27.85%) Infrastructure as Code
5 31 (19.62%) Microservices
6 28 (17.72%) Agile
6 28 (17.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 24 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
8 23 (14.56%) DevSecOps
9 22 (13.92%) Continuous Improvement
10 21 (13.29%) Data Engineering
11 20 (12.66%) Analytics
12 19 (12.03%) Cloud Security
13 18 (11.39%) Data Pipeline
14 17 (10.76%) Software Engineering
15 16 (10.13%) Observability
16 15 (9.49%) Site Reliability Engineering
17 14 (8.86%) Machine Learning
18 13 (8.23%) Technical Leadership
18 13 (8.23%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 69 (43.67%) Python
2 35 (22.15%) SQL
3 28 (17.72%) Java
4 23 (14.56%) Go
5 20 (12.66%) Bash
6 11 (6.96%) Bicep
6 11 (6.96%) PowerShell
7 10 (6.33%) JavaScript
8 8 (5.06%) Shell Script
9 4 (2.53%) TypeScript
10 3 (1.90%) C#
11 2 (1.27%) Ruby
11 2 (1.27%) Rust
12 1 (0.63%) C
12 1 (0.63%) PHP
Qualifications
1 89 (56.33%) Security Cleared
2 67 (42.41%) SC Cleared
3 41 (25.95%) DV Cleared
4 20 (12.66%) Azure Certification
5 11 (6.96%) Degree
6 10 (6.33%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (5.06%) CISM
7 8 (5.06%) CISSP
7 8 (5.06%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (4.43%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 4 (2.53%) AWS Certification
10 2 (1.27%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (1.27%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.63%) CSPO
11 1 (0.63%) ISTQB
11 1 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.96%) QA
2 8 (5.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (4.43%) NIST
3 7 (4.43%) NIST 800
4 5 (3.16%) NCSC
5 2 (1.27%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.63%) GDPR
6 1 (0.63%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.63%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 85 (53.80%) Docker
2 5 (3.16%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.90%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.27%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.63%) iptables
6 1 (0.63%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 70 (44.30%) Terraform
2 36 (22.78%) Ansible
3 32 (20.25%) Prometheus
4 27 (17.09%) Grafana
5 10 (6.33%) Argo
6 6 (3.80%) SCOM
7 5 (3.16%) Dell DRAC
7 5 (3.16%) Red Hat Satellite
8 4 (2.53%) Nagios
8 4 (2.53%) Nessus
8 4 (2.53%) Packer
8 4 (2.53%) Progress Chef
9 3 (1.90%) Istio
9 3 (1.90%) Podman
9 3 (1.90%) Puppet
10 2 (1.27%) Kibana
10 2 (1.27%) logstash
10 2 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.63%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.63%) Rancher
Vendors
1 30 (18.99%) Red Hat
2 21 (13.29%) Microsoft
3 14 (8.86%) Splunk
4 10 (6.33%) Google
5 9 (5.70%) AppDynamics
5 9 (5.70%) Dynatrace
5 9 (5.70%) New Relic
5 9 (5.70%) VMware
6 8 (5.06%) IBM
7 7 (4.43%) Databricks
8 6 (3.80%) Dell
9 3 (1.90%) Oracle
10 2 (1.27%) Broadcom
10 2 (1.27%) NVIDIA
11 1 (0.63%) BeyondTrust
11 1 (0.63%) Checkmarx
11 1 (0.63%) Cisco
11 1 (0.63%) EMC
11 1 (0.63%) Thales
11 1 (0.63%) Veracode