DevOps Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

DevOps
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring DevOps skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 10 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 +7 0
Contract jobs citing DevOps 231 197 259
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 10.65% 11.71% 9.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.51% 12.83% 10.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 144 195
10th Percentile £400 £408 £425
25th Percentile £425 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% - +9.09%
75th Percentile £586 £651 £663
90th Percentile £653 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £580 £550
% change year-on-year -9.48% +5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 17
10th Percentile £77.10 - -
25th Percentile £80.25 - £56.65
Median hourly rate £86.00 - £75.67
75th Percentile £97.63 - £85.65
90th Percentile £102.35 - £87.53
South East median hourly rate £48.75 - £75.67
% change year-on-year - - +15.31%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

DevOps falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,847 1,536 2,395
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 85.19% 91.32% 90.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,237 883 1,475
10th Percentile £268 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £501 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.60% +0.10% -
75th Percentile £588 £629 £600
90th Percentile £650 £663 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% +1.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 42 140
10th Percentile £15.62 £24.79 £16.69
25th Percentile £18.87 £42.50 £24.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £60.25 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -58.26% +26.84% +74.31%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.39 £63.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £75.49 £76.47
South East median hourly rate £23.58 £42.88 £48.40
% change year-on-year -45.02% -11.40% +9.38%

DevOps
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DevOps relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

DevOps job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

DevOps
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing DevOps.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing DevOps

DevOps
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DevOps in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 27 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DevOps in the Thames Valley

DevOps
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing DevOps.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing DevOps

DevOps
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DevOps in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 27 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DevOps in the Thames Valley

DevOps
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DevOps within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 27 January 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
Berkshire -2 199 £500 -16.67% 122
Buckinghamshire -2 20 £550 -2.22% 33
Oxfordshire -3 12 £550 - 24
DevOps
South East

DevOps
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 14 (6.06%) SharePoint
2 8 (3.46%) GeoServer
2 8 (3.46%) OpenStack
2 8 (3.46%) Smallworld
3 6 (2.60%) Confluence
4 3 (1.30%) Anypoint
5 2 (0.87%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.87%) CMS
5 2 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.87%) nginx
6 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.43%) Apache
6 1 (0.43%) Camunda
6 1 (0.43%) Drupal
6 1 (0.43%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.43%) IIS
6 1 (0.43%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.73%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.43%) Maximo
2 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 177 (76.62%) Azure
2 93 (40.26%) Azure DevOps
3 82 (35.50%) AWS
4 45 (19.48%) GCP
5 28 (12.12%) GitHub
6 25 (10.82%) SaaS
7 24 (10.39%) Power Platform
8 22 (9.52%) Entra ID
9 19 (8.23%) IaaS
10 17 (7.36%) Azure AKS
11 16 (6.93%) Azure Monitor
11 16 (6.93%) Microsoft 365
12 14 (6.06%) Serverless
13 13 (5.63%) GitHub Actions
13 13 (5.63%) OpenShift
13 13 (5.63%) PaaS
14 10 (4.33%) Azure Key Vault
14 10 (4.33%) OCI
15 8 (3.46%) Azure Functions
16 7 (3.03%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.90%) DNS
2 8 (3.46%) BGP
2 8 (3.46%) LAN
2 8 (3.46%) MPLS
2 8 (3.46%) WAN
3 7 (3.03%) Firewall
4 5 (2.16%) SD-WAN
5 4 (1.73%) Network Security
6 3 (1.30%) IPsec
6 3 (1.30%) MQTT
7 2 (0.87%) 2G
7 2 (0.87%) 5G
7 2 (0.87%) LTE
7 2 (0.87%) Mobile Backhaul
7 2 (0.87%) SSL
7 2 (0.87%) VoIP
7 2 (0.87%) VPN
8 1 (0.43%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (9.09%) Power BI
2 9 (3.90%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (3.46%) Geospatial Data
3 8 (3.46%) GIS
3 8 (3.46%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 8 (3.46%) QGIS
4 5 (2.16%) Azure SQL Database
4 5 (2.16%) Metadata
4 5 (2.16%) NoSQL
4 5 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.73%) SQL Server
6 3 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.30%) MySQL
6 3 (1.30%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.87%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.87%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.87%) Spatial Data
7 2 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.87%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (11.26%) Jenkins
1 26 (11.26%) JIRA
2 19 (8.23%) Git
3 4 (1.73%) Bitbucket
3 4 (1.73%) HP UFT
3 4 (1.73%) JUnit
3 4 (1.73%) Selenium
3 4 (1.73%) Storybook
4 3 (1.30%) Cucumber
4 3 (1.30%) GitLab
5 2 (0.87%) ScriptRunner
5 2 (0.87%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.43%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.43%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.43%) JMeter
6 1 (0.43%) NUnit
6 1 (0.43%) Postman
6 1 (0.43%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 91 (39.39%) Social Skills
2 37 (16.02%) Analytical Skills
3 23 (9.96%) Documentation Skills
4 15 (6.49%) Public Sector
5 10 (4.33%) Finance
6 9 (3.90%) Billing
7 8 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (3.46%) Retail
8 7 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (3.03%) Telecoms
9 6 (2.60%) Marketing
10 4 (1.73%) Law
11 3 (1.30%) Electronics
11 3 (1.30%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.43%) Digital Healthcare
13 1 (0.43%) Health Technology
13 1 (0.43%) Legal
Job Titles
1 39 (16.88%) Architect
2 28 (12.12%) DevOps Engineer
3 27 (11.69%) Analyst
4 25 (10.82%) Azure Engineer
5 21 (9.09%) Senior
6 17 (7.36%) Developer
7 14 (6.06%) Cloud Engineer
8 13 (5.63%) Solutions Architect
9 12 (5.19%) Test Analyst
10 11 (4.76%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 11 (4.76%) Lead
11 9 (3.90%) Senior DevOps
11 9 (3.90%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 8 (3.46%) Project Manager
13 7 (3.03%) Business Analyst
13 7 (3.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 7 (3.03%) IP Architect
13 7 (3.03%) IP Specialist
14 6 (2.60%) AWS Engineer
14 6 (2.60%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (11.26%) ADO
2 22 (9.52%) REST
3 20 (8.66%) LDAP
4 14 (6.06%) .NET
5 10 (4.33%) ARM Templates
5 10 (4.33%) React
6 8 (3.46%) CSS
6 8 (3.46%) NETCONF
6 8 (3.46%) RESTful
6 8 (3.46%) YANG
7 7 (3.03%) HTML
7 7 (3.03%) Middleware
7 7 (3.03%) SOAP
8 6 (2.60%) SailPoint
9 5 (2.16%) .NET Core
9 5 (2.16%) GraphQL
9 5 (2.16%) JSON
9 5 (2.16%) Spring
9 5 (2.16%) Spring Boot
10 4 (1.73%) Vitest
Miscellaneous
1 29 (12.55%) Cloud Native
2 10 (4.33%) Hybrid Cloud
3 8 (3.46%) Onboarding
3 8 (3.46%) Product Ownership
4 7 (3.03%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (2.60%) Security Posture
5 6 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (2.16%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.16%) Operational Technology
6 5 (2.16%) PKI
7 4 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.73%) Linux Command Line
7 4 (1.73%) Smart Meter
8 3 (1.30%) Replication
9 2 (0.87%) Algorithms
9 2 (0.87%) IoT
9 2 (0.87%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.43%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (0.43%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 32 (13.85%) Linux
2 12 (5.19%) Windows
3 4 (1.73%) Unix
4 3 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (49.35%) CI/CD
2 72 (31.17%) Agile
3 62 (26.84%) Problem-Solving
4 37 (16.02%) Cybersecurity
5 34 (14.72%) Analytics
6 32 (13.85%) Infrastructure as Code
7 31 (13.42%) DevSecOps
8 30 (12.99%) Microservices
9 28 (12.12%) Containerisation
10 27 (11.69%) SIEM
11 25 (10.82%) AI
11 25 (10.82%) Test Automation
12 24 (10.39%) Stakeholder Management
13 23 (9.96%) Business Intelligence
14 21 (9.09%) Roadmaps
15 19 (8.23%) Scrum
16 18 (7.79%) Mentoring
16 18 (7.79%) Migration
17 17 (7.36%) Machine Learning
17 17 (7.36%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 77 (33.33%) Python
2 54 (23.38%) PowerShell
3 35 (15.15%) SQL
4 26 (11.26%) Bash
5 25 (10.82%) JavaScript
6 20 (8.66%) Java
7 16 (6.93%) C#
8 12 (5.19%) TypeScript
9 11 (4.76%) Bicep
10 6 (2.60%) BeanShell
11 5 (2.16%) PHP
11 5 (2.16%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.73%) Search Processing Language
12 4 (1.73%) VBScript
13 3 (1.30%) DataWeave
13 3 (1.30%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.87%) Groovy
14 2 (0.87%) R
15 1 (0.43%) Rust
15 1 (0.43%) X++
Qualifications
1 60 (25.97%) Security Cleared
2 46 (19.91%) SC Cleared
3 21 (9.09%) CISSP
4 19 (8.23%) CISM
5 12 (5.19%) Degree
6 9 (3.90%) Cisco Certification
6 9 (3.90%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (3.46%) CCIE
7 8 (3.46%) JNCIE
8 6 (2.60%) Azure Certification
8 6 (2.60%) DV Cleared
9 5 (2.16%) AWS Certification
9 5 (2.16%) RHCE
10 4 (1.73%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.73%) OCP
10 4 (1.73%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (1.30%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 2 (0.87%) GCIA
12 2 (0.87%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (11.69%) NIST
2 26 (11.26%) GDPR
3 23 (9.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (7.36%) QA
5 13 (5.63%) Data Quality
6 8 (3.46%) NCSC
7 5 (2.16%) HIPAA
8 4 (1.73%) PMO
8 4 (1.73%) SOC 2
9 3 (1.30%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.43%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 17025
10 1 (0.43%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 38 (16.45%) Active Directory
2 30 (12.99%) Docker
3 6 (2.60%) VMware NSX
3 6 (2.60%) vSphere
4 5 (2.16%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 52 (22.51%) Terraform
2 42 (18.18%) Kubernetes
3 32 (13.85%) Ansible
4 7 (3.03%) Grafana
4 7 (3.03%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.60%) Argo
5 6 (2.60%) vCenter Server
6 3 (1.30%) CloudHub
6 3 (1.30%) Data Guard
6 3 (1.30%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 3 (1.30%) Oracle RMAN
6 3 (1.30%) Podman
6 3 (1.30%) Proxmox
6 3 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.87%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.87%) logstash
7 2 (0.87%) systemd
8 1 (0.43%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 24 (10.39%) Oracle
2 21 (9.09%) Microsoft
3 20 (8.66%) BeyondTrust
3 20 (8.66%) CyberArk
4 15 (6.49%) Red Hat
5 11 (4.76%) Splunk
6 10 (4.33%) Databricks
7 9 (3.90%) Salesforce
8 8 (3.46%) ESRI
8 8 (3.46%) Intergraph
8 8 (3.46%) MuleSoft
8 8 (3.46%) VMware
9 6 (2.60%) Pure Storage
10 5 (2.16%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.73%) AppDynamics
11 4 (1.73%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.73%) Foundry
11 4 (1.73%) Palantir
12 3 (1.30%) Google
12 3 (1.30%) SAP