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 2 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 57 52
Rank change year-on-year +21 -5 -12
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 157 64 122
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.41% 3.59% 3.71%
As % of the Systems Management category 37.74% 21.05% 28.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 56 86
10th Percentile £400 £469 £475
25th Percentile £452 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £645 £625
90th Percentile £685 £709 £669
England median daily rate £533 £544 £553
% change year-on-year -2.11% -1.54% -10.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 8
10th Percentile - £78.96 £61.43
25th Percentile - £79.35 £70.31
Median hourly rate - £80.00 £74.22
Median % change year-on-year - +7.79% -4.85%
75th Percentile - £81.48 £75.21
90th Percentile - £82.37 £77.65
England median hourly rate £70.00 £79.50 £67.25
% change year-on-year -11.95% +18.22% -7.88%

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 416 304 433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 11.68% 17.06% 13.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 275 225 332
10th Percentile £324 £241 £219
25th Percentile £449 £447 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £528
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% +4.27% -4.09%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £616
90th Percentile £700 £692 £690
England median daily rate £515 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 9 16
10th Percentile £46.00 £17.13 -
25th Percentile £46.50 £18.87 £40.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £70.00 £51.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.14% +37.25% -34.62%
75th Percentile - £78.70 £74.11
90th Percentile - £80.59 £75.97
England median hourly rate £62.00 £52.50 £31.25
% change year-on-year +18.10% +68.00% -43.18%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 +5 52 £550 +4.76% 13
Gloucestershire +3 36 £575 -11.54% 78
Wiltshire +8 30 £575 +4.55% 8
Dorset +7 23 £449 -18.36% 4
Somerset - 9 £431 - 10
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 (7.64%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.10%) Confluence
3 5 (3.18%) Apache
4 2 (1.27%) nginx
5 1 (0.64%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.64%) Oracle Coherence
Business Applications
1 2 (1.27%) Maximo
2 1 (0.64%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 79 (50.32%) AWS
2 71 (45.22%) Azure
3 37 (23.57%) GCP
4 25 (15.92%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (15.29%) GitHub
6 17 (10.83%) GitHub Actions
6 17 (10.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 17 (10.83%) Serverless
7 14 (8.92%) OpenShift
8 13 (8.28%) Amazon EKS
9 11 (7.01%) AWS Lambda
10 10 (6.37%) Amazon S3
10 10 (6.37%) Azure Key Vault
11 9 (5.73%) Datadog
12 8 (5.10%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (5.10%) Azure AKS
13 7 (4.46%) Amazon ECS
14 5 (3.18%) SaaS
15 3 (1.91%) Amazon EC2
15 3 (1.91%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 10 (6.37%) DNS
2 8 (5.10%) VPN
3 6 (3.82%) Firewall
3 6 (3.82%) TCP/IP
4 4 (2.55%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (1.91%) DHCP
5 3 (1.91%) Network Security
6 2 (1.27%) NAS
6 2 (1.27%) SAN
6 2 (1.27%) VLAN
7 1 (0.64%) AMQP
7 1 (0.64%) Calico
7 1 (0.64%) IPsec
7 1 (0.64%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.64%) LAN
7 1 (0.64%) SSH
7 1 (0.64%) WAN
7 1 (0.64%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (8.92%) NoSQL
2 9 (5.73%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (5.73%) Relational Database
3 8 (5.10%) MongoDB
4 7 (4.46%) Geospatial Data
5 6 (3.82%) Big Data
5 6 (3.82%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (3.82%) Flink
6 4 (2.55%) Oracle Database
6 4 (2.55%) Redis
7 3 (1.91%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.91%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (1.91%) HBase
8 2 (1.27%) BigQuery
8 2 (1.27%) CockroachDB
8 2 (1.27%) InfluxDB
9 1 (0.64%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.64%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.64%) Metadata
9 1 (0.64%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 38 (24.20%) GitLab
2 31 (19.75%) Jenkins
3 29 (18.47%) Git
4 14 (8.92%) Gatling
5 12 (7.64%) LoadRunner
6 11 (7.01%) JIRA
6 11 (7.01%) JMeter
7 7 (4.46%) MSI
8 5 (3.18%) JUnit
8 5 (3.18%) Selenium
8 5 (3.18%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (1.91%) Cucumber
9 3 (1.91%) SonarQube
10 2 (1.27%) Bitbucket
10 2 (1.27%) MLflow
10 2 (1.27%) Spinnaker
11 1 (0.64%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.64%) Gradle
11 1 (0.64%) Postman
11 1 (0.64%) REST Assured
General
1 15 (9.55%) Public Sector
2 11 (7.01%) Social Skills
3 8 (5.10%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (2.55%) Legal
4 4 (2.55%) Military
5 3 (1.91%) Finance
5 3 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (1.91%) Local Government
5 3 (1.91%) Police
6 2 (1.27%) Banking
7 1 (0.64%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.64%) Aviation
7 1 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.64%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 47 (29.94%) DevOps Engineer
2 30 (19.11%) Developer
3 16 (10.19%) Senior
4 14 (8.92%) GCP Engineer
5 13 (8.28%) Java Developer
5 13 (8.28%) Site Engineer
5 13 (8.28%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 12 (7.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (7.64%) Software Engineer
7 11 (7.01%) Performance Engineer
8 9 (5.73%) Backend Developer
9 8 (5.10%) GCP DevOps
9 8 (5.10%) GCP DevOps Engineer
10 7 (4.46%) Architect
10 7 (4.46%) Platform Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Cloud Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Java Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Lead
11 6 (3.82%) Python Developer
12 5 (3.18%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (17.83%) Spring Boot
2 26 (16.56%) Spring
3 20 (12.74%) RESTful
4 19 (12.10%) Kafka
4 19 (12.10%) REST
5 11 (7.01%) React
6 9 (5.73%) RabbitMQ
7 7 (4.46%) .NET
7 7 (4.46%) .NET Core
7 7 (4.46%) .NET Framework
7 7 (4.46%) ATL
7 7 (4.46%) COM
7 7 (4.46%) CSS
7 7 (4.46%) CSS3
7 7 (4.46%) GeoJSON
7 7 (4.46%) HTML
7 7 (4.46%) HTML5
7 7 (4.46%) MFC
7 7 (4.46%) Node.js
7 7 (4.46%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 36 (22.93%) Cloud Native
2 9 (5.73%) Onboarding
3 8 (5.10%) Enterprise Software
4 7 (4.46%) Linux Command Line
5 6 (3.82%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (3.82%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (3.18%) Product Ownership
7 4 (2.55%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.91%) Clustering
8 3 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
8 3 (1.91%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.91%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.27%) Mobile App
10 1 (0.64%) Learning Management System
10 1 (0.64%) PKI
10 1 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 39 (24.84%) Linux
2 17 (10.83%) Windows
3 9 (5.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.18%) Rocky
4 5 (3.18%) Ubuntu
5 4 (2.55%) Debian
5 4 (2.55%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.91%) Unix
7 1 (0.64%) Android
7 1 (0.64%) CentOS
7 1 (0.64%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (70.06%) CI/CD
2 109 (69.43%) DevOps
3 82 (52.23%) Containerisation
4 62 (39.49%) Infrastructure as Code
5 40 (25.48%) Agile
5 40 (25.48%) Microservices
6 34 (21.66%) Site Reliability Engineering
7 27 (17.20%) Observability
8 24 (15.29%) Problem-Solving
8 24 (15.29%) Software Engineering
9 22 (14.01%) DevSecOps
10 20 (12.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 20 (12.74%) Test Automation
11 19 (12.10%) Platform Engineering
12 18 (11.46%) Full-Stack Development
13 17 (10.83%) Deployment Automation
14 16 (10.19%) Analytics
14 16 (10.19%) Continuous Improvement
14 16 (10.19%) High Availability
14 16 (10.19%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 66 (42.04%) Python
2 39 (24.84%) Java
3 30 (19.11%) SQL
4 27 (17.20%) Bash
5 22 (14.01%) Go
6 20 (12.74%) JavaScript
7 13 (8.28%) TypeScript
8 10 (6.37%) Bicep
9 7 (4.46%) C#
9 7 (4.46%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.91%) Rust
11 2 (1.27%) Groovy
11 2 (1.27%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.64%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 78 (49.68%) Security Cleared
2 57 (36.31%) SC Cleared
3 34 (21.66%) DV Cleared
4 8 (5.10%) Degree
5 7 (4.46%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.18%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (2.55%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.55%) CCNA
7 4 (2.55%) CISSP
7 4 (2.55%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.91%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 3 (1.91%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.91%) CISM
9 2 (1.27%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 1 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.64%) CCSP
10 1 (0.64%) CompTIA Security+
10 1 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.64%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.64%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.01%) NCSC
1 11 (7.01%) QA
2 10 (6.37%) Accessibility
2 10 (6.37%) WCAG
3 4 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (1.91%) NIST
5 2 (1.27%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.64%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.64%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 87 (55.41%) Docker
2 6 (3.82%) Active Directory
2 6 (3.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.18%) Hyper-V
4 4 (2.55%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.27%) KVM
5 2 (1.27%) VirtualBox
5 2 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.64%) iptables
6 1 (0.64%) NFS
6 1 (0.64%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 72 (45.86%) Terraform
2 33 (21.02%) Prometheus
3 28 (17.83%) Grafana
4 27 (17.20%) Ansible
5 15 (9.55%) Argo
6 6 (3.82%) Istio
7 4 (2.55%) Nagios
7 4 (2.55%) Podman
7 4 (2.55%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (1.91%) Docker Swarm
8 3 (1.91%) OPNET
8 3 (1.91%) Progress Chef
8 3 (1.91%) Proxmox
9 2 (1.27%) Cilium
9 2 (1.27%) Kustomize
9 2 (1.27%) linkerd
9 2 (1.27%) Puppet
9 2 (1.27%) VxRail
10 1 (0.64%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.64%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 21 (13.38%) Microsoft
2 18 (11.46%) Google
3 16 (10.19%) Dynatrace
3 16 (10.19%) Splunk
4 14 (8.92%) Red Hat
5 12 (7.64%) Oracle
6 11 (7.01%) AppDynamics
6 11 (7.01%) New Relic
6 11 (7.01%) VMware
7 8 (5.10%) Databricks
8 4 (2.55%) Dell
9 3 (1.91%) IBM
10 2 (1.27%) BeyondTrust
10 2 (1.27%) BiZZdesign
10 2 (1.27%) Cisco
10 2 (1.27%) Thales
11 1 (0.64%) Broadcom
11 1 (0.64%) EMC
11 1 (0.64%) Sparx
11 1 (0.64%) webMethods