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

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 59 52
Rank change year-on-year +25 -7 -18
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 159 64 123
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.46% 3.50% 3.76%
As % of the Systems Management category 37.95% 20.92% 28.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 56 87
10th Percentile £400 £469 £475
25th Percentile £453 £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 £682 £709 £675
England median daily rate £535 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -0.93% -1.82% -11.29%
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 419 306 429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 11.76% 16.72% 13.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 277 226 328
10th Percentile £345 £243 £214
25th Percentile £449 £448 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £528
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% +4.27% -4.09%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £625
90th Percentile £700 £691 £690
England median daily rate £518 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +0.98% -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 £62.25 £48.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year +28.35% +53.97% -42.73%

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 5 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 5 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 +8 54 £550 +4.76% 11
Gloucestershire +1 37 £575 -11.54% 71
Wiltshire +4 28 £575 +4.55% 8
Dorset +8 24 £449 -18.36% 4
Somerset - 9 £431 - 12
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 (7.55%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.03%) Confluence
3 5 (3.14%) Apache
4 2 (1.26%) nginx
5 1 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.63%) Oracle Coherence
Business Applications
1 1 (0.63%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 82 (51.57%) AWS
2 72 (45.28%) Azure
3 39 (24.53%) GCP
4 24 (15.09%) GitHub
5 23 (14.47%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (10.69%) GitHub Actions
6 17 (10.69%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 17 (10.69%) Serverless
7 13 (8.18%) Amazon EKS
8 12 (7.55%) OpenShift
9 11 (6.92%) AWS Lambda
10 10 (6.29%) Amazon S3
10 10 (6.29%) Azure Key Vault
11 9 (5.66%) Datadog
12 8 (5.03%) AWS CloudFormation
13 7 (4.40%) Amazon ECS
14 6 (3.77%) Azure AKS
15 5 (3.14%) SaaS
16 3 (1.89%) Amazon EC2
17 2 (1.26%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (6.29%) DNS
2 6 (3.77%) Firewall
2 6 (3.77%) TCP/IP
2 6 (3.77%) VPN
3 4 (2.52%) Reverse Proxy
4 3 (1.89%) DHCP
4 3 (1.89%) Network Security
5 2 (1.26%) NAS
5 2 (1.26%) SAN
5 2 (1.26%) VLAN
6 1 (0.63%) AMQP
6 1 (0.63%) Calico
6 1 (0.63%) IPsec
6 1 (0.63%) Kerberos
6 1 (0.63%) LAN
6 1 (0.63%) SSH
6 1 (0.63%) WAN
6 1 (0.63%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (8.81%) NoSQL
2 10 (6.29%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (5.66%) Relational Database
4 8 (5.03%) MongoDB
5 7 (4.40%) Geospatial Data
6 6 (3.77%) Big Data
6 6 (3.77%) Elasticsearch
6 6 (3.77%) Flink
7 4 (2.52%) Oracle Database
7 4 (2.52%) Redis
8 3 (1.89%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (1.89%) Apache Cassandra
8 3 (1.89%) HBase
9 2 (1.26%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.26%) CockroachDB
9 2 (1.26%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.63%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.63%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.63%) Metadata
10 1 (0.63%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 39 (24.53%) GitLab
2 32 (20.13%) Jenkins
3 29 (18.24%) Git
4 14 (8.81%) Gatling
5 12 (7.55%) LoadRunner
6 11 (6.92%) JIRA
6 11 (6.92%) JMeter
7 7 (4.40%) MSI
8 6 (3.77%) JUnit
9 5 (3.14%) Selenium
9 5 (3.14%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (1.89%) Cucumber
10 3 (1.89%) SonarQube
11 2 (1.26%) Bitbucket
11 2 (1.26%) MLflow
11 2 (1.26%) Spinnaker
12 1 (0.63%) Burp Suite
12 1 (0.63%) Gradle
12 1 (0.63%) Postman
12 1 (0.63%) REST Assured
General
1 15 (9.43%) Public Sector
2 11 (6.92%) Social Skills
3 8 (5.03%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (2.52%) Legal
4 4 (2.52%) Military
5 3 (1.89%) Finance
5 3 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (1.89%) Local Government
5 3 (1.89%) Police
6 2 (1.26%) Banking
7 1 (0.63%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.63%) Aviation
7 1 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.63%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 46 (28.93%) DevOps Engineer
2 32 (20.13%) Developer
3 16 (10.06%) Senior
4 15 (9.43%) Java Developer
5 14 (8.81%) GCP Engineer
6 13 (8.18%) Site Engineer
6 13 (8.18%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 12 (7.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 12 (7.55%) Software Engineer
8 11 (6.92%) Performance Engineer
9 9 (5.66%) Backend Developer
10 8 (5.03%) GCP DevOps
10 8 (5.03%) GCP DevOps Engineer
11 7 (4.40%) Architect
11 7 (4.40%) Platform Engineer
12 6 (3.77%) Cloud Engineer
12 6 (3.77%) Java Engineer
12 6 (3.77%) Lead
12 6 (3.77%) Python Developer
13 5 (3.14%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (18.87%) Spring Boot
2 28 (17.61%) Spring
3 21 (13.21%) REST
3 21 (13.21%) RESTful
4 20 (12.58%) Kafka
5 13 (8.18%) React
6 9 (5.66%) RabbitMQ
7 7 (4.40%) .NET
7 7 (4.40%) .NET Core
7 7 (4.40%) .NET Framework
7 7 (4.40%) ATL
7 7 (4.40%) COM
7 7 (4.40%) CSS
7 7 (4.40%) CSS3
7 7 (4.40%) GeoJSON
7 7 (4.40%) HTML
7 7 (4.40%) HTML5
7 7 (4.40%) MFC
7 7 (4.40%) Node.js
7 7 (4.40%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 36 (22.64%) Cloud Native
2 9 (5.66%) Onboarding
3 7 (4.40%) Linux Command Line
4 6 (3.77%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (3.77%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (3.77%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (3.14%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.52%) Data Centre
6 4 (2.52%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.89%) Clustering
7 3 (1.89%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.26%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.63%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.63%) Learning Management System
9 1 (0.63%) PKI
9 1 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 39 (24.53%) Linux
2 17 (10.69%) Windows
3 9 (5.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.14%) Rocky
4 5 (3.14%) Ubuntu
5 4 (2.52%) Debian
5 4 (2.52%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.89%) Unix
7 1 (0.63%) Android
7 1 (0.63%) CentOS
7 1 (0.63%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (71.70%) CI/CD
2 109 (68.55%) DevOps
3 84 (52.83%) Containerisation
4 63 (39.62%) Infrastructure as Code
5 42 (26.42%) Agile
6 41 (25.79%) Microservices
7 34 (21.38%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 27 (16.98%) Observability
9 25 (15.72%) Problem-Solving
9 25 (15.72%) Software Engineering
10 22 (13.84%) DevSecOps
11 21 (13.21%) Test Automation
12 19 (11.95%) Full-Stack Development
12 19 (11.95%) Platform Engineering
13 18 (11.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 17 (10.69%) Continuous Improvement
14 17 (10.69%) Deployment Automation
15 16 (10.06%) High Availability
15 16 (10.06%) Technical Leadership
16 15 (9.43%) AI
Programming Languages
1 67 (42.14%) Python
2 42 (26.42%) Java
3 31 (19.50%) SQL
4 28 (17.61%) Bash
5 22 (13.84%) Go
6 21 (13.21%) JavaScript
7 14 (8.81%) TypeScript
8 8 (5.03%) Bicep
9 7 (4.40%) C#
9 7 (4.40%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.89%) Rust
11 2 (1.26%) Groovy
11 2 (1.26%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.63%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 77 (48.43%) Security Cleared
2 55 (34.59%) SC Cleared
3 33 (20.75%) DV Cleared
4 8 (5.03%) Degree
5 7 (4.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.14%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (2.52%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.52%) CCNA
8 3 (1.89%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (1.26%) CISSP
9 2 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.63%) CCSP
10 1 (0.63%) CISM
10 1 (0.63%) CompTIA Security+
10 1 (0.63%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.63%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.63%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.92%) Accessibility
1 11 (6.92%) NCSC
1 11 (6.92%) QA
1 11 (6.92%) WCAG
2 2 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.63%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.63%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (0.63%) NIST
System Software
1 89 (55.97%) Docker
2 6 (3.77%) Active Directory
2 6 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.14%) Hyper-V
4 4 (2.52%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.26%) KVM
5 2 (1.26%) VirtualBox
5 2 (1.26%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.63%) iptables
6 1 (0.63%) NFS
6 1 (0.63%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 71 (44.65%) Terraform
2 33 (20.75%) Prometheus
3 28 (17.61%) Ansible
3 28 (17.61%) Grafana
4 15 (9.43%) Argo
5 6 (3.77%) Istio
6 4 (2.52%) Nagios
6 4 (2.52%) Podman
6 4 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (1.89%) Docker Swarm
7 3 (1.89%) OPNET
7 3 (1.89%) Progress Chef
7 3 (1.89%) Proxmox
8 2 (1.26%) Cilium
8 2 (1.26%) Kustomize
8 2 (1.26%) linkerd
8 2 (1.26%) Puppet
8 2 (1.26%) VxRail
9 1 (0.63%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.63%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 19 (11.95%) Google
1 19 (11.95%) Microsoft
2 16 (10.06%) Dynatrace
2 16 (10.06%) Splunk
3 12 (7.55%) Oracle
3 12 (7.55%) Red Hat
4 11 (6.92%) AppDynamics
4 11 (6.92%) New Relic
4 11 (6.92%) VMware
5 8 (5.03%) Databricks
6 4 (2.52%) Dell
7 2 (1.26%) BeyondTrust
7 2 (1.26%) BiZZdesign
7 2 (1.26%) Cisco
7 2 (1.26%) Thales
8 1 (0.63%) Broadcom
8 1 (0.63%) EMC
8 1 (0.63%) IBM
8 1 (0.63%) Sparx
8 1 (0.63%) webMethods