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 19 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 52 55
Rank change year-on-year +19 +3 -14
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 153 73 109
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.31% 4.15% 3.29%
As % of the Systems Management category 38.15% 23.25% 25.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 89 65 80
10th Percentile £400 £479 £474
25th Percentile £450 £550 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £669 £600
90th Percentile £691 £722 £654
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -11.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 7
10th Percentile - £78.96 £60.65
25th Percentile - £79.35 £68.13
Median hourly rate - £80.00 £74.44
Median % change year-on-year - +7.47% -4.56%
75th Percentile - £81.48 £75.97
90th Percentile - £82.37 £77.70
England median hourly rate £69.75 £80.00 £64.50
% change year-on-year -12.81% +24.03% -14.00%

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 401 314 432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 11.30% 17.85% 13.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 235 337
10th Percentile £313 £256 £215
25th Percentile £428 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £575 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.96% +9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £608 £638 £600
90th Percentile £691 £700 £690
England median daily rate £513 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.15% -2.24% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 9 15
10th Percentile £46.00 £17.13 -
25th Percentile £46.50 £18.87 -
Median hourly rate £51.00 £70.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.14% +75.00% -48.72%
75th Percentile - £78.70 £74.22
90th Percentile - £80.59 £76.28
England median hourly rate £58.94 £44.50 £30.75
% change year-on-year +32.44% +44.72% -44.09%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 +12 50 £544 +4.07% 7
Gloucestershire -2 35 £575 -8.18% 56
Wiltshire +8 33 £575 - 9
Dorset +8 21 £388 -29.55% 3
Somerset - 7 £463 - 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 (7.84%) Apache Spark
2 6 (3.92%) Confluence
3 5 (3.27%) Apache
4 2 (1.31%) nginx
5 1 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.65%) Oracle Coherence
Business Applications
1 5 (3.27%) Maximo
2 1 (0.65%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 77 (50.33%) AWS
2 67 (43.79%) Azure
3 36 (23.53%) GCP
4 25 (16.34%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (15.69%) GitHub
6 17 (11.11%) GitHub Actions
6 17 (11.11%) OpenShift
6 17 (11.11%) Serverless
7 16 (10.46%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 13 (8.50%) Amazon EKS
9 11 (7.19%) AWS Lambda
9 11 (7.19%) Azure AKS
10 10 (6.54%) Amazon S3
11 9 (5.88%) Azure Key Vault
12 8 (5.23%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (5.23%) Datadog
13 7 (4.58%) Amazon ECS
14 5 (3.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 5 (3.27%) Azure Monitor
14 5 (3.27%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 11 (7.19%) VPN
2 10 (6.54%) DNS
3 6 (3.92%) Firewall
3 6 (3.92%) TCP/IP
4 4 (2.61%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (1.96%) DHCP
5 3 (1.96%) Network Security
6 2 (1.31%) NAS
6 2 (1.31%) SAN
6 2 (1.31%) VLAN
7 1 (0.65%) AMQP
7 1 (0.65%) Calico
7 1 (0.65%) IPsec
7 1 (0.65%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.65%) LAN
7 1 (0.65%) SSH
7 1 (0.65%) WAN
7 1 (0.65%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (9.15%) NoSQL
2 9 (5.88%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (5.88%) Relational Database
3 7 (4.58%) MongoDB
4 6 (3.92%) Big Data
4 6 (3.92%) Elasticsearch
4 6 (3.92%) Flink
5 5 (3.27%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (2.61%) Oracle Database
6 4 (2.61%) Redis
7 3 (1.96%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.96%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (1.96%) HBase
8 2 (1.31%) BigQuery
8 2 (1.31%) CockroachDB
8 2 (1.31%) InfluxDB
9 1 (0.65%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.65%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.65%) Metadata
9 1 (0.65%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 39 (25.49%) GitLab
2 31 (20.26%) Jenkins
3 27 (17.65%) Git
4 14 (9.15%) Gatling
5 12 (7.84%) LoadRunner
6 11 (7.19%) JMeter
7 9 (5.88%) JIRA
8 5 (3.27%) JUnit
8 5 (3.27%) MSI
8 5 (3.27%) Selenium
8 5 (3.27%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (1.96%) Cucumber
9 3 (1.96%) SonarQube
10 2 (1.31%) Bitbucket
10 2 (1.31%) MLflow
10 2 (1.31%) Spinnaker
11 1 (0.65%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.65%) Gradle
11 1 (0.65%) Postman
11 1 (0.65%) REST Assured
General
1 11 (7.19%) Public Sector
2 10 (6.54%) Social Skills
3 8 (5.23%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (2.61%) Legal
5 3 (1.96%) Finance
5 3 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.31%) Banking
6 2 (1.31%) Local Government
6 2 (1.31%) Military
6 2 (1.31%) Police
7 1 (0.65%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.65%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 50 (32.68%) DevOps Engineer
2 28 (18.30%) Developer
3 14 (9.15%) GCP Engineer
3 14 (9.15%) Senior
4 13 (8.50%) Java Developer
4 13 (8.50%) Site Engineer
4 13 (8.50%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 12 (7.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (7.84%) Software Engineer
6 11 (7.19%) Performance Engineer
7 9 (5.88%) Backend Developer
8 8 (5.23%) Azure DevOps Engineer
8 8 (5.23%) Azure Engineer
8 8 (5.23%) GCP DevOps
8 8 (5.23%) GCP DevOps Engineer
8 8 (5.23%) Platform Engineer
9 6 (3.92%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (3.92%) Java Engineer
9 6 (3.92%) Python Developer
10 5 (3.27%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (17.65%) Spring Boot
2 25 (16.34%) Spring
3 19 (12.42%) Kafka
4 18 (11.76%) RESTful
5 17 (11.11%) REST
6 11 (7.19%) React
7 8 (5.23%) RabbitMQ
8 7 (4.58%) Node.js
9 6 (3.92%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (3.92%) Flask
9 6 (3.92%) gRPC
9 6 (3.92%) WebSockets
10 5 (3.27%) .NET Core
10 5 (3.27%) .NET Framework
10 5 (3.27%) ARM Templates
10 5 (3.27%) CSS3
10 5 (3.27%) FastAPI
10 5 (3.27%) GeoJSON
10 5 (3.27%) HTML5
10 5 (3.27%) Java Concurrency
Miscellaneous
1 33 (21.57%) Cloud Native
2 10 (6.54%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (4.58%) Onboarding
4 6 (3.92%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (3.92%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (3.27%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (3.27%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.61%) Data Centre
6 4 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (2.61%) Private Cloud
7 3 (1.96%) Clustering
7 3 (1.96%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.31%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.65%) Learning Management System
9 1 (0.65%) PKI
9 1 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 37 (24.18%) Linux
2 12 (7.84%) Windows
3 9 (5.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.27%) Rocky
4 5 (3.27%) Ubuntu
5 4 (2.61%) Debian
6 3 (1.96%) Unix
6 3 (1.96%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.65%) Android
7 1 (0.65%) CentOS
7 1 (0.65%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (70.59%) CI/CD
2 107 (69.93%) DevOps
3 78 (50.98%) Containerisation
4 57 (37.25%) Infrastructure as Code
5 37 (24.18%) Agile
6 36 (23.53%) Microservices
7 32 (20.92%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 27 (17.65%) Observability
9 24 (15.69%) Problem-Solving
9 24 (15.69%) Software Engineering
10 23 (15.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 20 (13.07%) Cloud Security
12 19 (12.42%) Analytics
12 19 (12.42%) DevSecOps
13 17 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
13 17 (11.11%) Platform Engineering
13 17 (11.11%) Test Automation
14 16 (10.46%) Full-Stack Development
14 16 (10.46%) High Availability
15 15 (9.80%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 64 (41.83%) Python
2 38 (24.84%) Java
3 30 (19.61%) SQL
4 27 (17.65%) Bash
5 22 (14.38%) Go
6 18 (11.76%) JavaScript
7 11 (7.19%) Bicep
7 11 (7.19%) TypeScript
8 6 (3.92%) PowerShell
9 5 (3.27%) C#
10 3 (1.96%) Rust
11 2 (1.31%) Groovy
11 2 (1.31%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.65%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 75 (49.02%) Security Cleared
2 54 (35.29%) SC Cleared
3 36 (23.53%) DV Cleared
4 8 (5.23%) Degree
5 7 (4.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (3.92%) Azure Certification
6 6 (3.92%) CISM
6 6 (3.92%) CISSP
6 6 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (3.27%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 4 (2.61%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.96%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.65%) CCNA
11 1 (0.65%) CCSK
11 1 (0.65%) CCSP
11 1 (0.65%) ISTQB
11 1 (0.65%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 1 (0.65%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.54%) QA
2 9 (5.88%) NCSC
3 8 (5.23%) Accessibility
3 8 (5.23%) WCAG
4 7 (4.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (3.92%) NIST
6 5 (3.27%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.65%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 83 (54.25%) Docker
2 6 (3.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.27%) Hyper-V
4 4 (2.61%) Active Directory
5 2 (1.31%) KVM
5 2 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.31%) VirtualBox
5 2 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.65%) iptables
6 1 (0.65%) NFS
6 1 (0.65%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 71 (46.41%) Terraform
2 32 (20.92%) Prometheus
3 27 (17.65%) Grafana
4 26 (16.99%) Ansible
5 15 (9.80%) Argo
6 6 (3.92%) Istio
7 4 (2.61%) Nagios
7 4 (2.61%) Podman
7 4 (2.61%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (1.96%) Docker Swarm
8 3 (1.96%) Progress Chef
9 2 (1.31%) Cilium
9 2 (1.31%) Kustomize
9 2 (1.31%) linkerd
9 2 (1.31%) Puppet
9 2 (1.31%) VxRail
10 1 (0.65%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.65%) OPNET
10 1 (0.65%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.65%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 21 (13.73%) Microsoft
2 17 (11.11%) Google
3 16 (10.46%) Dynatrace
3 16 (10.46%) Red Hat
3 16 (10.46%) Splunk
4 11 (7.19%) AppDynamics
4 11 (7.19%) New Relic
4 11 (7.19%) VMware
5 9 (5.88%) Oracle
6 8 (5.23%) Databricks
7 6 (3.92%) IBM
8 4 (2.61%) Dell
9 2 (1.31%) BeyondTrust
9 2 (1.31%) BiZZdesign
9 2 (1.31%) Thales
10 1 (0.65%) Broadcom
10 1 (0.65%) Cisco
10 1 (0.65%) EMC
10 1 (0.65%) Sparx
10 1 (0.65%) webMethods