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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 44 65
Rank change year-on-year +10 +21 -27
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 150 79 92
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.45% 4.74% 2.91%
As % of the Systems Management category 37.69% 26.51% 22.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 85 69 68
10th Percentile £400 £463 £475
25th Percentile £450 £515 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -
75th Percentile £613 £669 £583
90th Percentile £714 £726 £642
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 £79.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year -17.72% +27.42% -15.07%

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 398 298 402
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 11.80% 17.89% 12.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 232 315
10th Percentile £306 £237 £205
25th Percentile £428 £433 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.36% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £591
90th Percentile £738 £700 £698
England median daily rate £507 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -3.43% +0.96% -9.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 6 15
10th Percentile £46.00 £16.15 -
25th Percentile £48.25 £30.84 -
Median hourly rate £51.00 £74.35 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.41% +85.88% -45.21%
75th Percentile - £79.68 £72.85
90th Percentile £79.00 £81.48 £76.28
England median hourly rate £56.50 £29.00 £25.77
% change year-on-year +94.83% +12.56% -50.58%

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 22 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 22 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 0 53 £550 +5.26% 18
Wiltshire +8 35 £545 -9.17% 3
Gloucestershire -2 35 £575 -8.18% 38
Dorset +8 21 £369 -32.91% 1
Somerset - 2 £525 - 6
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 12 (8.00%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.33%) Apache
3 2 (1.33%) nginx
4 1 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 5 (3.33%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 71 (47.33%) AWS
2 54 (36.00%) Azure
3 34 (22.67%) GCP
4 25 (16.67%) GitHub
5 20 (13.33%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (11.33%) OpenShift
6 17 (11.33%) Serverless
7 16 (10.67%) GitHub Actions
8 14 (9.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 12 (8.00%) Amazon EKS
10 11 (7.33%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (6.67%) Amazon ECS
11 10 (6.67%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (6.67%) Azure AKS
12 9 (6.00%) Amazon S3
12 9 (6.00%) Azure Key Vault
13 7 (4.67%) Datadog
14 5 (3.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 5 (3.33%) Azure Monitor
14 5 (3.33%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 11 (7.33%) VPN
2 10 (6.67%) DNS
3 6 (4.00%) Reverse Proxy
4 5 (3.33%) Firewall
4 5 (3.33%) TCP/IP
5 3 (2.00%) Network Security
6 2 (1.33%) DHCP
6 2 (1.33%) NAS
6 2 (1.33%) SAN
7 1 (0.67%) AMQP
7 1 (0.67%) Calico
7 1 (0.67%) HTTP
7 1 (0.67%) IPsec
7 1 (0.67%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.67%) LAN
7 1 (0.67%) SSH
7 1 (0.67%) VLAN
7 1 (0.67%) WAN
7 1 (0.67%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (10.67%) NoSQL
2 10 (6.67%) MongoDB
3 8 (5.33%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (5.33%) Relational Database
4 7 (4.67%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (4.00%) Flink
6 5 (3.33%) Big Data
7 4 (2.67%) Redis
8 3 (2.00%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (1.33%) Apache Cassandra
9 2 (1.33%) CockroachDB
9 2 (1.33%) HBase
9 2 (1.33%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.67%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.67%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.67%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.67%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 40 (26.67%) GitLab
2 29 (19.33%) Jenkins
3 21 (14.00%) Git
4 14 (9.33%) Gatling
5 12 (8.00%) LoadRunner
6 11 (7.33%) JMeter
7 7 (4.67%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (2.67%) JUnit
8 4 (2.67%) Selenium
8 4 (2.67%) SonarQube
9 3 (2.00%) Artifactory
9 3 (2.00%) Cucumber
10 2 (1.33%) Bitbucket
10 2 (1.33%) JIRA
10 2 (1.33%) MLflow
11 1 (0.67%) NUnit
11 1 (0.67%) Postman
11 1 (0.67%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.67%) Snyk
11 1 (0.67%) Spinnaker
General
1 11 (7.33%) Social Skills
2 9 (6.00%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (4.00%) Public Sector
4 5 (3.33%) Banking
5 4 (2.67%) Finance
6 3 (2.00%) Aerospace
6 3 (2.00%) Legal
7 2 (1.33%) Military
8 1 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 53 (35.33%) DevOps Engineer
2 25 (16.67%) Developer
3 16 (10.67%) GCP Engineer
3 16 (10.67%) Java Developer
4 14 (9.33%) Senior
5 12 (8.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (8.00%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 11 (7.33%) Performance Engineer
6 11 (7.33%) Site Engineer
6 11 (7.33%) Software Engineer
7 9 (6.00%) Backend Developer
7 9 (6.00%) GCP DevOps
7 9 (6.00%) GCP DevOps Engineer
8 8 (5.33%) Azure DevOps Engineer
8 8 (5.33%) Azure Engineer
8 8 (5.33%) Platform Engineer
9 6 (4.00%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (4.00%) Python Developer
10 5 (3.33%) Administrator
11 4 (2.67%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (16.00%) Spring Boot
2 23 (15.33%) Spring
3 20 (13.33%) Kafka
4 13 (8.67%) RESTful
5 11 (7.33%) REST
6 10 (6.67%) React
7 8 (5.33%) Elastic Stack
8 6 (4.00%) Apache NiFi
8 6 (4.00%) Flask
8 6 (4.00%) gRPC
8 6 (4.00%) Node.js
8 6 (4.00%) RabbitMQ
8 6 (4.00%) WebSockets
9 5 (3.33%) ARM Templates
9 5 (3.33%) FastAPI
9 5 (3.33%) Java Concurrency
10 4 (2.67%) GraphQL
10 4 (2.67%) Keycloak
11 3 (2.00%) Quarkus
11 3 (2.00%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 24 (16.00%) Cloud Native
2 10 (6.67%) Enterprise Software
3 6 (4.00%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (3.33%) Onboarding
4 5 (3.33%) Product Ownership
5 4 (2.67%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (2.00%) Linux Command Line
6 3 (2.00%) Private Cloud
6 3 (2.00%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.33%) Clustering
7 2 (1.33%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.33%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.67%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.67%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (0.67%) Learning Management System
8 1 (0.67%) PKI
8 1 (0.67%) Replication
8 1 (0.67%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 37 (24.67%) Linux
2 10 (6.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (5.33%) Windows
4 7 (4.67%) Ubuntu
5 5 (3.33%) Rocky
6 4 (2.67%) Debian
7 3 (2.00%) Unix
8 1 (0.67%) CentOS
8 1 (0.67%) SUSE
8 1 (0.67%) VMS
8 1 (0.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (69.33%) CI/CD
2 99 (66.00%) DevOps
3 70 (46.67%) Containerisation
4 51 (34.00%) Infrastructure as Code
5 28 (18.67%) Microservices
5 28 (18.67%) Site Reliability Engineering
6 27 (18.00%) Agile
7 23 (15.33%) Software Engineering
8 22 (14.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 22 (14.67%) Observability
8 22 (14.67%) Problem-Solving
9 21 (14.00%) Cloud Security
10 20 (13.33%) Continuous Improvement
11 18 (12.00%) Analytics
12 14 (9.33%) DevSecOps
12 14 (9.33%) Platform Engineering
13 13 (8.67%) Data Engineering
13 13 (8.67%) High Availability
13 13 (8.67%) Technical Leadership
14 12 (8.00%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 61 (40.67%) Python
2 35 (23.33%) Java
3 32 (21.33%) SQL
4 28 (18.67%) Bash
5 19 (12.67%) Go
6 13 (8.67%) JavaScript
7 9 (6.00%) PowerShell
8 7 (4.67%) Bicep
9 5 (3.33%) TypeScript
10 2 (1.33%) Groovy
10 2 (1.33%) Ruby
10 2 (1.33%) Rust
10 2 (1.33%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.67%) PHP
Qualifications
1 68 (45.33%) Security Cleared
2 47 (31.33%) SC Cleared
3 35 (23.33%) DV Cleared
4 10 (6.67%) Degree
5 9 (6.00%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (4.67%) Azure Certification
7 6 (4.00%) CISM
7 6 (4.00%) CISSP
7 6 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (3.33%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 4 (2.67%) AWS Certification
10 3 (2.00%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 1 (0.67%) AWS Certified Developer
12 1 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.67%) CCSK
12 1 (0.67%) ISTQB
12 1 (0.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 1 (0.67%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.67%) QA
2 6 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (4.00%) NIST
3 5 (3.33%) NIST 800
4 3 (2.00%) NCSC
5 2 (1.33%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.33%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.33%) WCAG
6 1 (0.67%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 76 (50.67%) Docker
2 5 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (2.67%) Hyper-V
4 3 (2.00%) Active Directory
4 3 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.33%) KVM
5 2 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.67%) iptables
6 1 (0.67%) NFS
6 1 (0.67%) VirtualBox
6 1 (0.67%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 67 (44.67%) Terraform
2 31 (20.67%) Prometheus
3 28 (18.67%) Ansible
4 26 (17.33%) Grafana
5 13 (8.67%) Argo
6 5 (3.33%) Istio
7 4 (2.67%) Nagios
7 4 (2.67%) Podman
8 3 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (1.33%) Cilium
9 2 (1.33%) Kibana
9 2 (1.33%) logstash
9 2 (1.33%) Nessus
9 2 (1.33%) Packer
9 2 (1.33%) Progress Chef
9 2 (1.33%) Puppet
10 1 (0.67%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.67%) Kustomize
10 1 (0.67%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.67%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 20 (13.33%) Red Hat
2 16 (10.67%) Google
3 15 (10.00%) Dynatrace
3 15 (10.00%) Microsoft
3 15 (10.00%) Splunk
4 11 (7.33%) AppDynamics
4 11 (7.33%) New Relic
5 10 (6.67%) VMware
6 8 (5.33%) Databricks
7 5 (3.33%) IBM
7 5 (3.33%) Oracle
8 4 (2.67%) Dell
9 1 (0.67%) BeyondTrust
9 1 (0.67%) BiZZdesign
9 1 (0.67%) Broadcom
9 1 (0.67%) Checkmarx
9 1 (0.67%) Cisco
9 1 (0.67%) Cloudera
9 1 (0.67%) EMC
9 1 (0.67%) Veracode