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 29 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 32 77
Rank change year-on-year 0 +45 -43
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 157 95 77
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 5.21% 5.58% 2.39%
As % of the Systems Management category 37.29% 29.69% 18.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 77 55
10th Percentile £400 £491 £463
25th Percentile £450 £513 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £538
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +11.63% -6.52%
75th Percentile £675 £631 £594
90th Percentile £750 £734 £675
England median daily rate £525 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 5
10th Percentile £81.00 £79.13 £59.10
25th Percentile £84.50 £79.77 £63.75
Median hourly rate £104.00 £80.83 £74.44
Median % change year-on-year +28.67% +8.58% +23.55%
75th Percentile £119.00 £81.90 £77.50
90th Percentile - £82.53 £77.80
England median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +8.33% - -14.29%

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 421 320 423
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 13.96% 18.78% 13.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 315 248 322
10th Percentile £314 £347 £213
25th Percentile £450 £456 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £669 £633 £638
90th Percentile £738 £716 £700
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 3 15
10th Percentile £46.40 £71.74 -
25th Percentile £50.75 £74.35 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £78.70 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.41% +96.75% -38.46%
75th Percentile £96.50 £80.83 £69.63
90th Percentile £119.00 £82.11 £76.28
England median hourly rate £55.00 £26.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +107.55% -11.67% -45.45%

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 29 March 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Kubernetes in the South West over the 6 months to 29 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kubernetes in the South West

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 29 March 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 +1 51 £536 -1.83% 24
Gloucestershire -3 46 £613 -0.41% 33
Wiltshire -5 37 £570 -5.00% 5
Dorset +18 19 £388 -1.15% 1
Somerset - 1 £600 - 7
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
2 10 (6.37%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.64%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (4.46%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 61 (38.85%) Azure
2 59 (37.58%) AWS
3 38 (24.20%) GitHub
4 24 (15.29%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (13.38%) OpenShift
6 19 (12.10%) Serverless
7 18 (11.46%) GCP
8 17 (10.83%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (9.55%) Amazon S3
10 10 (6.37%) Amazon ECS
10 10 (6.37%) Amazon EKS
10 10 (6.37%) AWS Lambda
10 10 (6.37%) Azure AKS
10 10 (6.37%) Azure Data Factory
10 10 (6.37%) Azure Key Vault
11 9 (5.73%) Amazon EC2
11 9 (5.73%) Azure Monitor
12 7 (4.46%) Azure Sentinel
12 7 (4.46%) Datadog
12 7 (4.46%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.46%) VPN
2 4 (2.55%) Reverse Proxy
3 3 (1.91%) Network Security
3 3 (1.91%) TCP/IP
4 2 (1.27%) DNS
5 1 (0.64%) AMQP
5 1 (0.64%) Firewall
5 1 (0.64%) HTTP
5 1 (0.64%) LAN
5 1 (0.64%) NAS
5 1 (0.64%) SAN
5 1 (0.64%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (11.46%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (8.28%) Elasticsearch
2 13 (8.28%) MongoDB
2 13 (8.28%) NoSQL
3 10 (6.37%) Relational Database
4 7 (4.46%) Redis
5 6 (3.82%) Flink
6 4 (2.55%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.91%) Big Data
7 3 (1.91%) ObjectStore
8 2 (1.27%) BigQuery
8 2 (1.27%) CockroachDB
8 2 (1.27%) Hadoop
8 2 (1.27%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.64%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.64%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 35 (22.29%) GitLab
2 24 (15.29%) Jenkins
3 16 (10.19%) Git
4 9 (5.73%) Gatling
5 8 (5.10%) Artifactory
6 7 (4.46%) JMeter
6 7 (4.46%) LoadRunner
7 6 (3.82%) SonarQube
7 6 (3.82%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (1.27%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.64%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.64%) JUnit
9 1 (0.64%) MLflow
9 1 (0.64%) Mocha
9 1 (0.64%) Mockito
9 1 (0.64%) NUnit
9 1 (0.64%) Selenium
9 1 (0.64%) Snyk
General
1 17 (10.83%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (7.01%) Public Sector
4 4 (2.55%) Finance
4 4 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
4 4 (2.55%) Presentation Skills
5 3 (1.91%) Aerospace
5 3 (1.91%) Banking
5 3 (1.91%) Legal
6 1 (0.64%) Military
6 1 (0.64%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 43 (27.39%) DevOps Engineer
2 26 (16.56%) Developer
3 25 (15.92%) Senior
4 13 (8.28%) Java Developer
5 12 (7.64%) Backend Developer
5 12 (7.64%) Data Engineer
6 11 (7.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 11 (7.01%) Senior Data Engineer
7 10 (6.37%) Azure Engineer
8 9 (5.73%) Software Engineer
9 8 (5.10%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 8 (5.10%) GCP Engineer
10 7 (4.46%) Architect
10 7 (4.46%) Performance Engineer
10 7 (4.46%) Platform Engineer
10 7 (4.46%) Python Developer
11 6 (3.82%) DevSecOps Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Linux Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 5 (3.18%) Senior DevOps
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (15.92%) Kafka
2 18 (11.46%) REST
3 15 (9.55%) Spring
3 15 (9.55%) Spring Boot
4 12 (7.64%) RESTful
5 11 (7.01%) Apache NiFi
5 11 (7.01%) Keycloak
6 9 (5.73%) ARM Templates
6 9 (5.73%) gRPC
7 8 (5.10%) Flask
8 7 (4.46%) Elastic Stack
8 7 (4.46%) FastAPI
8 7 (4.46%) GraphQL
8 7 (4.46%) WebSockets
9 5 (3.18%) Java Concurrency
9 5 (3.18%) RabbitMQ
9 5 (3.18%) YAML
10 4 (2.55%) OAuth
10 4 (2.55%) OAuth2
11 3 (1.91%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 20 (12.74%) Cloud Native
2 17 (10.83%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (6.37%) Enterprise Software
4 7 (4.46%) Onboarding
5 5 (3.18%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.55%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (1.27%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.27%) Private Cloud
9 1 (0.64%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.64%) Client/Server
9 1 (0.64%) Cloud Security Posture
9 1 (0.64%) Data Fabric
9 1 (0.64%) DataPower
9 1 (0.64%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.64%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.64%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.64%) Replication
9 1 (0.64%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 39 (24.84%) Linux
2 18 (11.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 14 (8.92%) Windows
4 13 (8.28%) Ubuntu
5 5 (3.18%) Unix
6 4 (2.55%) VMS
7 3 (1.91%) Debian
7 3 (1.91%) Rocky
8 2 (1.27%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (63.69%) DevOps
2 93 (59.24%) CI/CD
3 77 (49.04%) Containerisation
4 44 (28.03%) Infrastructure as Code
5 32 (20.38%) Microservices
6 27 (17.20%) Agile
7 26 (16.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 24 (15.29%) Continuous Improvement
8 24 (15.29%) DevSecOps
9 23 (14.65%) Problem-Solving
10 21 (13.38%) Data Engineering
11 20 (12.74%) Cloud Security
12 19 (12.10%) Data Pipeline
13 18 (11.46%) Analytics
14 17 (10.83%) Software Engineering
15 15 (9.55%) Observability
16 14 (8.92%) Machine Learning
16 14 (8.92%) Platform Engineering
16 14 (8.92%) Test Automation
17 13 (8.28%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 72 (45.86%) Python
2 34 (21.66%) SQL
3 27 (17.20%) Java
4 24 (15.29%) Go
5 20 (12.74%) Bash
6 13 (8.28%) PowerShell
7 11 (7.01%) Bicep
8 9 (5.73%) JavaScript
9 8 (5.10%) Shell Script
10 4 (2.55%) TypeScript
11 3 (1.91%) C#
12 2 (1.27%) Ruby
12 2 (1.27%) Rust
13 1 (0.64%) C
13 1 (0.64%) PHP
Qualifications
1 94 (59.87%) Security Cleared
2 71 (45.22%) SC Cleared
3 44 (28.03%) DV Cleared
4 21 (13.38%) Azure Certification
5 11 (7.01%) Degree
6 10 (6.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (5.10%) CISM
7 8 (5.10%) CISSP
7 8 (5.10%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (4.46%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (3.18%) AWS Certification
10 3 (1.91%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.27%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.64%) CSPO
12 1 (0.64%) ISTQB
12 1 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (8.28%) QA
2 8 (5.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (4.46%) NIST
3 7 (4.46%) NIST 800
4 6 (3.82%) NCSC
5 2 (1.27%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.64%) GDPR
6 1 (0.64%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.64%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 84 (53.50%) Docker
2 5 (3.18%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.91%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.64%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 71 (45.22%) Terraform
2 37 (23.57%) Ansible
3 31 (19.75%) Prometheus
4 26 (16.56%) Grafana
5 8 (5.10%) Argo
6 6 (3.82%) SCOM
7 5 (3.18%) Dell DRAC
7 5 (3.18%) Red Hat Satellite
8 4 (2.55%) Nessus
8 4 (2.55%) Packer
8 4 (2.55%) Progress Chef
9 3 (1.91%) Istio
9 3 (1.91%) Nagios
9 3 (1.91%) Podman
9 3 (1.91%) Puppet
10 2 (1.27%) Kibana
10 2 (1.27%) logstash
10 2 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.64%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.64%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 32 (20.38%) Red Hat
2 22 (14.01%) Microsoft
3 12 (7.64%) Splunk
4 10 (6.37%) Google
5 8 (5.10%) IBM
5 8 (5.10%) VMware
6 7 (4.46%) AppDynamics
6 7 (4.46%) Databricks
6 7 (4.46%) Dynatrace
6 7 (4.46%) New Relic
7 6 (3.82%) Dell
8 3 (1.91%) Oracle
9 2 (1.27%) Broadcom
9 2 (1.27%) NVIDIA
10 1 (0.64%) BeyondTrust
10 1 (0.64%) Checkmarx
10 1 (0.64%) Cisco
10 1 (0.64%) EMC
10 1 (0.64%) Thales
10 1 (0.64%) Veracode