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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 57 49
Rank change year-on-year +21 -8 -10
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 165 64 122
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.59% 3.39% 3.80%
As % of the Systems Management category 38.19% 20.85% 28.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 56 86
10th Percentile £400 £463 £475
25th Percentile £455 £511 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £669 £625
90th Percentile £691 £709 £675
England median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -10.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 8
10th Percentile - £78.96 £61.43
25th Percentile - £79.35 £70.31
Median hourly rate £100.00 £80.00 £74.22
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +7.79% -4.85%
75th Percentile - £81.48 £75.21
90th Percentile - £82.37 £77.65
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £67.25
% change year-on-year +4.48% -0.37% -9.12%

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 432 307 424
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 12.01% 16.24% 13.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 283 228 323
10th Percentile £320 £246 £265
25th Percentile £449 £445 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% +3.77% -3.64%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £613
90th Percentile £704 £693 £690
England median daily rate £520 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.38% -2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 9 16
10th Percentile £28.75 £17.13 -
25th Percentile £46.25 £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 £71.77 £78.70 £74.11
90th Percentile £100.00 £80.59 £75.97
England median hourly rate £65.00 £54.50 £31.25
% change year-on-year +19.27% +74.40% -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 13 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 13 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 +14 53 £550 +6.80% 13
Gloucestershire +1 36 £575 -15.29% 55
Wiltshire +3 28 £575 -4.17% 2
Dorset +8 25 £449 -18.36% 2
Somerset - 16 £431 - 11
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 (7.27%) Apache Spark
2 9 (5.45%) Confluence
3 4 (2.42%) Apache
4 2 (1.21%) nginx
5 1 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.61%) Oracle Coherence
Business Applications
1 1 (0.61%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 86 (52.12%) AWS
2 75 (45.45%) Azure
3 39 (23.64%) GCP
4 24 (14.55%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (13.94%) GitHub
6 17 (10.30%) GitHub Actions
6 17 (10.30%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 17 (10.30%) Serverless
7 13 (7.88%) Amazon EKS
8 11 (6.67%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (6.06%) Amazon S3
9 10 (6.06%) Azure Key Vault
9 10 (6.06%) Datadog
9 10 (6.06%) OpenShift
10 8 (4.85%) AWS CloudFormation
11 7 (4.24%) Amazon ECS
12 6 (3.64%) Azure AKS
13 5 (3.03%) SaaS
14 3 (1.82%) Amazon EC2
15 2 (1.21%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (9.70%) DNS
2 12 (7.27%) Firewall
2 12 (7.27%) TCP/IP
3 9 (5.45%) DHCP
4 6 (3.64%) VPN
5 4 (2.42%) Reverse Proxy
5 4 (2.42%) VSAN
6 3 (1.82%) Network Security
7 2 (1.21%) NAS
7 2 (1.21%) SAN
7 2 (1.21%) VLAN
8 1 (0.61%) AMQP
8 1 (0.61%) Calico
8 1 (0.61%) IPsec
8 1 (0.61%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.61%) LAN
8 1 (0.61%) SSH
8 1 (0.61%) WAN
8 1 (0.61%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (8.48%) NoSQL
2 10 (6.06%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (5.45%) Relational Database
4 8 (4.85%) Geospatial Data
4 8 (4.85%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.64%) Big Data
5 6 (3.64%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (3.64%) Flink
6 4 (2.42%) Oracle Database
6 4 (2.42%) Redis
7 3 (1.82%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.82%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (1.82%) HBase
8 2 (1.21%) BigQuery
8 2 (1.21%) CockroachDB
8 2 (1.21%) InfluxDB
9 1 (0.61%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.61%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.61%) Metadata
9 1 (0.61%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 36 (21.82%) GitLab
2 31 (18.79%) Jenkins
3 29 (17.58%) Git
4 14 (8.48%) Gatling
5 12 (7.27%) JIRA
5 12 (7.27%) LoadRunner
6 11 (6.67%) JMeter
7 8 (4.85%) MSI
8 6 (3.64%) JUnit
9 5 (3.03%) Selenium
10 4 (2.42%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (1.82%) Cucumber
11 3 (1.82%) SonarQube
12 2 (1.21%) Bitbucket
12 2 (1.21%) MLflow
12 2 (1.21%) Spinnaker
13 1 (0.61%) Burp Suite
13 1 (0.61%) Gradle
13 1 (0.61%) Postman
13 1 (0.61%) REST Assured
General
1 18 (10.91%) Public Sector
2 11 (6.67%) Social Skills
3 9 (5.45%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (2.42%) Legal
4 4 (2.42%) Military
5 3 (1.82%) Finance
5 3 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (1.82%) Local Government
5 3 (1.82%) Police
6 2 (1.21%) Banking
7 1 (0.61%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.61%) Aviation
7 1 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.61%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 45 (27.27%) DevOps Engineer
2 33 (20.00%) Developer
3 18 (10.91%) Senior
4 15 (9.09%) Java Developer
5 14 (8.48%) GCP Engineer
5 14 (8.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 14 (8.48%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 13 (7.88%) Site Engineer
7 11 (6.67%) Performance Engineer
7 11 (6.67%) Software Engineer
8 9 (5.45%) Backend Developer
9 8 (4.85%) GCP DevOps
9 8 (4.85%) GCP DevOps Engineer
9 8 (4.85%) Platform Engineer
10 7 (4.24%) Architect
10 7 (4.24%) Cloud Engineer
11 6 (3.64%) Java Engineer
11 6 (3.64%) Lead
11 6 (3.64%) Python Developer
12 5 (3.03%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (18.18%) Spring Boot
2 28 (16.97%) Spring
3 22 (13.33%) REST
3 22 (13.33%) RESTful
4 20 (12.12%) Kafka
5 13 (7.88%) React
6 9 (5.45%) RabbitMQ
7 8 (4.85%) .NET
7 8 (4.85%) .NET Core
7 8 (4.85%) .NET Framework
7 8 (4.85%) ATL
7 8 (4.85%) COM
7 8 (4.85%) CSS
7 8 (4.85%) CSS3
7 8 (4.85%) GeoJSON
7 8 (4.85%) HTML
7 8 (4.85%) HTML5
7 8 (4.85%) MFC
7 8 (4.85%) WPF
8 7 (4.24%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 38 (23.03%) Cloud Native
2 11 (6.67%) Onboarding
3 8 (4.85%) Linux Command Line
4 7 (4.24%) Data Centre
4 7 (4.24%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (4.24%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (3.64%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (3.64%) PKI
6 4 (2.42%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.42%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.82%) Clustering
8 2 (1.21%) Mobile App
8 2 (1.21%) Private Cloud
9 1 (0.61%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.61%) Learning Management System
9 1 (0.61%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 45 (27.27%) Linux
2 25 (15.15%) Windows
3 8 (4.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.42%) Rocky
4 4 (2.42%) Ubuntu
4 4 (2.42%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.82%) Debian
5 3 (1.82%) Unix
6 1 (0.61%) Android
6 1 (0.61%) CentOS
6 1 (0.61%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (72.73%) CI/CD
2 110 (66.67%) DevOps
3 87 (52.73%) Containerisation
4 71 (43.03%) Infrastructure as Code
5 43 (26.06%) Agile
5 43 (26.06%) Microservices
6 35 (21.21%) Site Reliability Engineering
7 29 (17.58%) Problem-Solving
8 27 (16.36%) DevSecOps
8 27 (16.36%) Observability
9 24 (14.55%) Platform Engineering
9 24 (14.55%) Software Engineering
10 22 (13.33%) Test Automation
11 21 (12.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 20 (12.12%) Full-Stack Development
12 20 (12.12%) Technical Leadership
13 18 (10.91%) Deployment Automation
14 17 (10.30%) Continuous Improvement
15 16 (9.70%) AI
15 16 (9.70%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 73 (44.24%) Python
2 42 (25.45%) Java
3 34 (20.61%) Bash
4 31 (18.79%) SQL
5 21 (12.73%) Go
5 21 (12.73%) JavaScript
6 15 (9.09%) TypeScript
7 13 (7.88%) PowerShell
8 9 (5.45%) Bicep
9 8 (4.85%) C#
10 3 (1.82%) Rust
11 2 (1.21%) Groovy
11 2 (1.21%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.61%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 83 (50.30%) Security Cleared
2 56 (33.94%) SC Cleared
3 39 (23.64%) DV Cleared
4 7 (4.24%) Degree
5 6 (3.64%) Cisco Certification
5 6 (3.64%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.03%) AWS Certification
6 5 (3.03%) CCNA
7 3 (1.82%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 2 (1.21%) CISSP
8 2 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.21%) VCAP
9 1 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.61%) CCSK
9 1 (0.61%) CISM
9 1 (0.61%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (0.61%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.61%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (7.27%) Accessibility
1 12 (7.27%) NCSC
1 12 (7.27%) WCAG
2 11 (6.67%) QA
3 2 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.61%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.61%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.61%) NIST
System Software
1 96 (58.18%) Docker
2 12 (7.27%) Active Directory
2 12 (7.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (6.67%) Hyper-V
4 5 (3.03%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (3.03%) vSphere
5 4 (2.42%) VMware NSX
6 2 (1.21%) KVM
6 2 (1.21%) VirtualBox
6 2 (1.21%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.61%) iptables
7 1 (0.61%) NFS
Systems Management
1 79 (47.88%) Terraform
2 35 (21.21%) Ansible
3 33 (20.00%) Prometheus
4 28 (16.97%) Grafana
5 15 (9.09%) Argo
6 6 (3.64%) Istio
7 5 (3.03%) VxRail
8 4 (2.42%) Nagios
8 4 (2.42%) OPNET
8 4 (2.42%) Podman
8 4 (2.42%) Proxmox
8 4 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (1.82%) Docker Swarm
9 3 (1.82%) Progress Chef
10 2 (1.21%) Cilium
10 2 (1.21%) Kustomize
10 2 (1.21%) linkerd
10 2 (1.21%) Puppet
11 1 (0.61%) Kubeflow
11 1 (0.61%) logstash
Vendors
1 20 (12.12%) Microsoft
2 19 (11.52%) Google
3 17 (10.30%) VMware
4 16 (9.70%) Dynatrace
4 16 (9.70%) Splunk
5 13 (7.88%) Oracle
6 11 (6.67%) AppDynamics
6 11 (6.67%) New Relic
6 11 (6.67%) Red Hat
7 8 (4.85%) Databricks
8 4 (2.42%) Dell
9 3 (1.82%) Thales
10 2 (1.21%) BeyondTrust
10 2 (1.21%) BiZZdesign
10 2 (1.21%) Cisco
10 2 (1.21%) CyberArk
11 1 (0.61%) Cloudera
11 1 (0.61%) EMC
11 1 (0.61%) IBM
11 1 (0.61%) Sparx