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 29 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 40 66
Rank change year-on-year +4 +26 -24
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 146 82 97
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.31% 4.86% 2.99%
As % of the Systems Management category 37.24% 26.80% 22.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 82 72 72
10th Percentile £400 £464 £475
25th Percentile £450 £523 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +9.09% -
75th Percentile £613 £645 £600
90th Percentile £691 £724 £638
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 6
10th Percentile £79.40 £78.96 £59.88
25th Percentile £80.00 £79.35 £65.94
Median hourly rate £81.00 £80.00 £74.44
Median % change year-on-year +1.25% +7.47% +1.97%
75th Percentile £82.00 £81.48 £76.74
90th Percentile £82.60 £82.37 £77.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £80.00 £67.00
% change year-on-year -18.75% +19.40% -7.90%

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 392 306 425
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 11.56% 18.14% 13.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 263 236 331
10th Percentile £300 £265 £213
25th Percentile £425 £440 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £551 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.90% +4.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £627 £600
90th Percentile £700 £698 £690
England median daily rate £507 £521 £525
% change year-on-year -2.59% -0.86% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 7 15
10th Percentile £46.00 £16.47 -
25th Percentile £48.25 £18.33 -
Median hourly rate £51.00 £70.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.14% +75.00% -45.21%
75th Percentile - £79.35 £72.85
90th Percentile £79.00 £81.18 £76.28
England median hourly rate £56.50 £29.00 £27.25
% change year-on-year +94.83% +6.42% -47.91%

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 29 May 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
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 29 May 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 +4 50 £550 +5.26% 9
Gloucestershire -4 35 £575 -8.18% 24
Wiltshire +6 33 £548 -8.75% 3
Dorset +8 20 £369 -32.91%
Somerset - 2 £525 - 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 13 (8.90%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.48%) Apache
3 2 (1.37%) nginx
4 1 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 5 (3.42%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 71 (48.63%) AWS
2 55 (37.67%) Azure
3 34 (23.29%) GCP
4 23 (15.75%) GitHub
5 20 (13.70%) Azure DevOps
6 18 (12.33%) OpenShift
7 16 (10.96%) Serverless
8 15 (10.27%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (8.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 12 (8.22%) Amazon EKS
11 10 (6.85%) Amazon S3
11 10 (6.85%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (6.85%) Azure AKS
12 9 (6.16%) Azure Key Vault
13 8 (5.48%) Amazon ECS
13 8 (5.48%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (5.48%) Datadog
14 5 (3.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 5 (3.42%) Azure Monitor
14 5 (3.42%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 11 (7.53%) VPN
2 8 (5.48%) DNS
3 5 (3.42%) Firewall
3 5 (3.42%) TCP/IP
4 4 (2.74%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (2.05%) Network Security
6 2 (1.37%) DHCP
6 2 (1.37%) NAS
6 2 (1.37%) SAN
7 1 (0.68%) AMQP
7 1 (0.68%) Calico
7 1 (0.68%) HTTP
7 1 (0.68%) IPsec
7 1 (0.68%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.68%) LAN
7 1 (0.68%) SSH
7 1 (0.68%) VLAN
7 1 (0.68%) WAN
7 1 (0.68%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (10.27%) NoSQL
2 9 (6.16%) Relational Database
3 8 (5.48%) MongoDB
4 7 (4.79%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (4.79%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (4.11%) Big Data
5 6 (4.11%) Flink
6 4 (2.74%) Redis
7 3 (2.05%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (2.05%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (2.05%) BigQuery
7 3 (2.05%) HBase
8 2 (1.37%) CockroachDB
8 2 (1.37%) InfluxDB
8 2 (1.37%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.68%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.68%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.68%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 39 (26.71%) GitLab
2 31 (21.23%) Jenkins
3 20 (13.70%) Git
4 14 (9.59%) Gatling
5 12 (8.22%) LoadRunner
6 11 (7.53%) JMeter
7 6 (4.11%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (3.42%) JUnit
8 5 (3.42%) Selenium
9 4 (2.74%) SonarQube
10 3 (2.05%) Artifactory
10 3 (2.05%) Cucumber
10 3 (2.05%) JIRA
11 2 (1.37%) Bitbucket
11 2 (1.37%) MLflow
12 1 (0.68%) Burp Suite
12 1 (0.68%) Postman
12 1 (0.68%) REST Assured
12 1 (0.68%) Snyk
12 1 (0.68%) Spinnaker
General
1 10 (6.85%) Social Skills
2 8 (5.48%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (4.11%) Public Sector
4 4 (2.74%) Finance
5 3 (2.05%) Aerospace
5 3 (2.05%) Banking
5 3 (2.05%) Legal
6 2 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 53 (36.30%) DevOps Engineer
2 23 (15.75%) Developer
3 15 (10.27%) GCP Engineer
4 14 (9.59%) Java Developer
5 13 (8.90%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 12 (8.22%) Senior
6 12 (8.22%) Site Engineer
6 12 (8.22%) Software Engineer
7 11 (7.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 11 (7.53%) Performance Engineer
8 9 (6.16%) Backend Developer
9 8 (5.48%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 8 (5.48%) Azure Engineer
9 8 (5.48%) GCP DevOps
9 8 (5.48%) GCP DevOps Engineer
9 8 (5.48%) Platform Engineer
10 7 (4.79%) Cloud Engineer
11 6 (4.11%) Python Developer
12 5 (3.42%) Java Engineer
13 4 (2.74%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (17.81%) Spring Boot
2 25 (17.12%) Spring
3 20 (13.70%) Kafka
4 13 (8.90%) RESTful
5 11 (7.53%) REST
6 10 (6.85%) React
7 8 (5.48%) Elastic Stack
8 7 (4.79%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (4.11%) Apache NiFi
9 6 (4.11%) Flask
9 6 (4.11%) gRPC
9 6 (4.11%) Node.js
9 6 (4.11%) WebSockets
10 5 (3.42%) ARM Templates
10 5 (3.42%) FastAPI
10 5 (3.42%) Java Concurrency
11 4 (2.74%) GraphQL
12 3 (2.05%) Keycloak
12 3 (2.05%) Quarkus
12 3 (2.05%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 25 (17.12%) Cloud Native
2 10 (6.85%) Enterprise Software
3 5 (3.42%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (3.42%) Hybrid Cloud
3 5 (3.42%) Product Ownership
4 3 (2.05%) Clustering
4 3 (2.05%) Linux Command Line
4 3 (2.05%) Onboarding
4 3 (2.05%) Private Cloud
4 3 (2.05%) Public Cloud
5 2 (1.37%) Data Centre
5 2 (1.37%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.68%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.68%) Cloud Security Posture
6 1 (0.68%) Learning Management System
6 1 (0.68%) PKI
6 1 (0.68%) Replication
6 1 (0.68%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 37 (25.34%) Linux
2 10 (6.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (4.79%) Windows
4 6 (4.11%) Ubuntu
5 5 (3.42%) Rocky
6 4 (2.74%) Debian
7 3 (2.05%) Unix
8 1 (0.68%) CentOS
8 1 (0.68%) SUSE
8 1 (0.68%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (71.23%) CI/CD
2 99 (67.81%) DevOps
3 69 (47.26%) Containerisation
4 49 (33.56%) Infrastructure as Code
5 30 (20.55%) Microservices
5 30 (20.55%) Site Reliability Engineering
6 28 (19.18%) Agile
7 24 (16.44%) Observability
8 23 (15.75%) Software Engineering
9 22 (15.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 21 (14.38%) Problem-Solving
11 20 (13.70%) Cloud Security
12 18 (12.33%) Analytics
12 18 (12.33%) Continuous Improvement
13 15 (10.27%) High Availability
14 14 (9.59%) Platform Engineering
15 13 (8.90%) DevSecOps
16 12 (8.22%) Code Quality
16 12 (8.22%) Data Engineering
16 12 (8.22%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 61 (41.78%) Python
2 36 (24.66%) Java
3 32 (21.92%) SQL
4 29 (19.86%) Bash
5 20 (13.70%) Go
6 13 (8.90%) JavaScript
7 9 (6.16%) PowerShell
8 7 (4.79%) Bicep
9 5 (3.42%) TypeScript
10 3 (2.05%) Shell Script
11 2 (1.37%) Groovy
11 2 (1.37%) Rust
12 1 (0.68%) PHP
Qualifications
1 65 (44.52%) Security Cleared
2 41 (28.08%) SC Cleared
3 35 (23.97%) DV Cleared
4 10 (6.85%) Degree
5 9 (6.16%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (4.11%) Azure Certification
6 6 (4.11%) CISM
6 6 (4.11%) CISSP
6 6 (4.11%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (3.42%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 4 (2.74%) AWS Certification
9 3 (2.05%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.68%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.68%) CCSK
10 1 (0.68%) CCSP
10 1 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.68%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.68%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.53%) QA
2 6 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (4.11%) NIST
3 5 (3.42%) NIST 800
4 3 (2.05%) NCSC
5 2 (1.37%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.37%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.37%) WCAG
6 1 (0.68%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 79 (54.11%) Docker
2 5 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (2.74%) Hyper-V
4 3 (2.05%) Active Directory
5 2 (1.37%) KVM
5 2 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.68%) iptables
6 1 (0.68%) NFS
6 1 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.68%) VirtualBox
6 1 (0.68%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 67 (45.89%) Terraform
2 33 (22.60%) Prometheus
3 30 (20.55%) Ansible
4 28 (19.18%) Grafana
5 13 (8.90%) Argo
6 5 (3.42%) Istio
7 4 (2.74%) Nagios
7 4 (2.74%) Podman
8 3 (2.05%) Progress Chef
8 3 (2.05%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (1.37%) Cilium
9 2 (1.37%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (1.37%) Kibana
9 2 (1.37%) logstash
9 2 (1.37%) Puppet
10 1 (0.68%) Dell DRAC
10 1 (0.68%) Nessus
10 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.68%) VxRail
10 1 (0.68%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 19 (13.01%) Red Hat
2 16 (10.96%) Splunk
3 15 (10.27%) Dynatrace
3 15 (10.27%) Google
3 15 (10.27%) Microsoft
4 11 (7.53%) AppDynamics
4 11 (7.53%) New Relic
5 9 (6.16%) VMware
6 8 (5.48%) Databricks
7 6 (4.11%) Oracle
8 5 (3.42%) IBM
9 4 (2.74%) Dell
10 1 (0.68%) BeyondTrust
10 1 (0.68%) BiZZdesign
10 1 (0.68%) Broadcom
10 1 (0.68%) Cisco
10 1 (0.68%) Cloudera
10 1 (0.68%) EMC
10 1 (0.68%) Thales
10 1 (0.68%) Veracode