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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 14 14
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 +5
Contract jobs citing DevOps 252 166 279
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 9.32% 10.78% 9.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.04% 11.55% 11.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 179 122 188
10th Percentile £381 £378 £425
25th Percentile £413 £416 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £584
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -5.78% +6.14%
75th Percentile £599 £650 £663
90th Percentile £670 £686 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £564 £550
% change year-on-year -6.96% +2.59% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 22
10th Percentile £74.36 £35.98 £56.65
25th Percentile £77.88 £44.56 £57.89
Median hourly rate £82.00 £60.75 £75.63
Median % change year-on-year +34.98% -19.68% -4.49%
75th Percentile £89.38 £77.56 £86.66
90th Percentile £99.20 £86.53 £87.53
South East median hourly rate £67.50 £60.75 £75.00
% change year-on-year +11.11% -19.00% +35.14%

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 2,283 1,437 2,490
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 84.46% 93.31% 88.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,493 872 1,440
10th Percentile £280 £300 £213
25th Percentile £400 £412 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +2.25% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 54 171
10th Percentile £15.91 £14.52 £15.85
25th Percentile £19.49 £23.79 £19.63
Median hourly rate £58.00 £50.25 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.42% +18.24% -22.73%
75th Percentile £85.50 £62.92 £62.47
90th Percentile £95.00 £76.68 £79.78
South East median hourly rate £30.00 £37.80 £37.50
% change year-on-year -20.62% +0.79% -16.67%

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 17 March 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 17 March 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 17 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
Berkshire -1 209 £492 -8.47% 31
Buckinghamshire 0 36 £550 -2.22% 31
Oxfordshire -9 7 £513 - 23
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 13 (5.16%) SharePoint
2 11 (4.37%) Confluence
3 8 (3.17%) GeoServer
3 8 (3.17%) Smallworld
4 4 (1.59%) IIS
5 3 (1.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (1.19%) Anypoint
5 3 (1.19%) ArcGIS
5 3 (1.19%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.79%) CMS
6 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.79%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.40%) Apache
7 1 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.40%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.40%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 1 (0.40%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.40%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.40%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 10 (3.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.79%) CPLEX
3 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (1.59%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.40%) Maximo
2 1 (0.40%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 194 (76.98%) Azure
2 108 (42.86%) Azure DevOps
3 77 (30.56%) AWS
4 50 (19.84%) GCP
5 32 (12.70%) GitHub
6 30 (11.90%) Entra ID
7 26 (10.32%) Power Platform
8 20 (7.94%) Azure Monitor
8 20 (7.94%) SaaS
9 18 (7.14%) GitHub Actions
10 16 (6.35%) Microsoft 365
10 16 (6.35%) OCI
11 15 (5.95%) IaaS
12 14 (5.56%) OpenShift
12 14 (5.56%) Serverless
13 12 (4.76%) Azure AKS
13 12 (4.76%) Azure Key Vault
14 11 (4.37%) Azure Functions
14 11 (4.37%) PaaS
15 7 (2.78%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 14 (5.56%) Firewall
2 13 (5.16%) DNS
3 8 (3.17%) Network Security
3 8 (3.17%) SD-WAN
4 6 (2.38%) LAN
4 6 (2.38%) WAN
5 5 (1.98%) VPN
6 4 (1.59%) BGP
6 4 (1.59%) IPsec
6 4 (1.59%) MQTT
6 4 (1.59%) SSL
7 3 (1.19%) 5G
7 3 (1.19%) DHCP
7 3 (1.19%) MPLS
7 3 (1.19%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.79%) 2G
8 2 (0.79%) Internet
8 2 (0.79%) Mobile Backhaul
8 2 (0.79%) OSPF
8 2 (0.79%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (8.73%) Power BI
2 9 (3.57%) GIS
2 9 (3.57%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (3.17%) Azure SQL Database
3 8 (3.17%) Geospatial Data
3 8 (3.17%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 8 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (3.17%) QGIS
4 7 (2.78%) NoSQL
5 5 (1.98%) Metadata
5 5 (1.98%) Tableau
6 4 (1.59%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (1.59%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.59%) SQL Server
7 3 (1.19%) Delta Lake
7 3 (1.19%) MySQL
7 3 (1.19%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.19%) Parquet
7 3 (1.19%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.79%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 32 (12.70%) Jenkins
2 30 (11.90%) JIRA
3 27 (10.71%) Git
4 9 (3.57%) GitLab
5 6 (2.38%) JUnit
6 5 (1.98%) Bitbucket
6 5 (1.98%) HP UFT
7 4 (1.59%) Storybook
7 4 (1.59%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.19%) Cucumber
8 3 (1.19%) Jaeger
8 3 (1.19%) Selenium
9 2 (0.79%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.79%) Mockito
9 2 (0.79%) Postman
9 2 (0.79%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.40%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 95 (37.70%) Social Skills
2 39 (15.48%) Analytical Skills
3 30 (11.90%) Documentation Skills
4 29 (11.51%) Public Sector
5 13 (5.16%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (4.76%) Finance
7 8 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.78%) Marketing
8 7 (2.78%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.98%) Billing
10 4 (1.59%) Retail
11 3 (1.19%) Electronics
11 3 (1.19%) Law
11 3 (1.19%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.40%) Advertising
13 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.40%) Health Technology
13 1 (0.40%) Legal
13 1 (0.40%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 39 (15.48%) Architect
2 33 (13.10%) Analyst
3 26 (10.32%) DevOps Engineer
4 25 (9.92%) Azure Engineer
4 25 (9.92%) Developer
5 23 (9.13%) Senior
6 17 (6.75%) Test Analyst
7 15 (5.95%) Lead
8 13 (5.16%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 12 (4.76%) Cloud Engineer
9 12 (4.76%) Solutions Architect
10 10 (3.97%) Oracle Analyst
11 9 (3.57%) Platform Engineer
11 9 (3.57%) Senior DevOps
11 9 (3.57%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 8 (3.17%) Full-Stack Developer
13 7 (2.78%) Test Engineer
14 6 (2.38%) Data Analyst
14 6 (2.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 6 (2.38%) Integration Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (9.92%) LDAP
2 24 (9.52%) REST
3 18 (7.14%) ADO
4 15 (5.95%) .NET
5 13 (5.16%) React
6 11 (4.37%) ARM Templates
6 11 (4.37%) CSS
6 11 (4.37%) OAuth
6 11 (4.37%) SOAP
7 10 (3.97%) RESTful
8 8 (3.17%) .NET Framework
8 8 (3.17%) HTML
8 8 (3.17%) JSON
9 7 (2.78%) .NET Core
9 7 (2.78%) Middleware
9 7 (2.78%) SAML
10 6 (2.38%) SailPoint
11 5 (1.98%) Entity Framework
11 5 (1.98%) OpenID
11 5 (1.98%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 26 (10.32%) Cloud Native
2 11 (4.37%) Product Ownership
3 9 (3.57%) Enterprise Software
4 8 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (3.17%) Security Posture
5 7 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (2.38%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.98%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (1.98%) Onboarding
7 5 (1.98%) Operational Technology
7 5 (1.98%) PKI
8 4 (1.59%) Algorithms
9 3 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.19%) Replication
9 3 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.79%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.79%) IoT
10 2 (0.79%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 33 (13.10%) Linux
2 18 (7.14%) Windows
3 6 (2.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
4 1 (0.40%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
4 1 (0.40%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 125 (49.60%) CI/CD
2 81 (32.14%) Agile
3 76 (30.16%) Problem-Solving
4 42 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
5 40 (15.87%) Cybersecurity
6 39 (15.48%) Analytics
7 38 (15.08%) DevSecOps
8 33 (13.10%) Containerisation
9 30 (11.90%) Root Cause Analysis
10 28 (11.11%) Microservices
10 28 (11.11%) SIEM
11 27 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
12 25 (9.92%) Business Intelligence
12 25 (9.92%) Migration
13 24 (9.52%) AI
13 24 (9.52%) Scrum
14 21 (8.33%) ITIL
14 21 (8.33%) Machine Learning
14 21 (8.33%) Observability
14 21 (8.33%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 83 (32.94%) Python
2 61 (24.21%) PowerShell
3 37 (14.68%) SQL
4 31 (12.30%) JavaScript
5 28 (11.11%) Bash
6 21 (8.33%) Java
7 16 (6.35%) C#
8 12 (4.76%) Bicep
9 11 (4.37%) TypeScript
10 6 (2.38%) BeanShell
11 5 (1.98%) PHP
11 5 (1.98%) VBScript
12 4 (1.59%) Go
12 4 (1.59%) T-SQL
13 3 (1.19%) DataWeave
13 3 (1.19%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.79%) C++
14 2 (0.79%) Groovy
14 2 (0.79%) Jython
14 2 (0.79%) R
Qualifications
1 88 (34.92%) Security Cleared
2 66 (26.19%) SC Cleared
3 26 (10.32%) CISSP
4 24 (9.52%) CISM
5 16 (6.35%) Degree
6 11 (4.37%) Azure Certification
7 9 (3.57%) DV Cleared
8 8 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (2.78%) RHCE
10 5 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.98%) PMP
11 4 (1.59%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.59%) OCP
11 4 (1.59%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.59%) PMI Certification
12 3 (1.19%) CCNP
12 3 (1.19%) ISTQB
12 3 (1.19%) MCSE
12 3 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (1.19%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (14.29%) GDPR
1 36 (14.29%) NIST
2 29 (11.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (7.54%) QA
4 14 (5.56%) Data Quality
5 12 (4.76%) NCSC
6 5 (1.98%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.59%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.59%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.59%) PMO
8 3 (1.19%) GRC
9 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
System Software
1 48 (19.05%) Active Directory
2 31 (12.30%) Docker
3 6 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.38%) VMware NSX
3 6 (2.38%) vSphere
4 4 (1.59%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 46 (18.25%) Terraform
2 44 (17.46%) Kubernetes
3 21 (8.33%) Ansible
4 12 (4.76%) Grafana
4 12 (4.76%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.38%) Argo
5 6 (2.38%) vCenter Server
6 4 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (1.19%) CloudHub
7 3 (1.19%) Data Guard
7 3 (1.19%) Istio
7 3 (1.19%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 3 (1.19%) Oracle RMAN
7 3 (1.19%) Podman
7 3 (1.19%) Proxmox
7 3 (1.19%) Rancher
8 2 (0.79%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.79%) systemd
9 1 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.40%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 30 (11.90%) Microsoft
1 30 (11.90%) Oracle
2 25 (9.92%) BeyondTrust
2 25 (9.92%) CyberArk
3 18 (7.14%) Red Hat
4 14 (5.56%) ServiceNow
5 12 (4.76%) VMware
6 11 (4.37%) Databricks
7 9 (3.57%) ESRI
8 8 (3.17%) Intergraph
9 7 (2.78%) Splunk
10 6 (2.38%) Pure Storage
11 5 (1.98%) AppDynamics
11 5 (1.98%) MuleSoft
11 5 (1.98%) Zscaler
12 4 (1.59%) BiZZdesign
12 4 (1.59%) Dynatrace
12 4 (1.59%) Google
12 4 (1.59%) Salesforce
13 3 (1.19%) OpenAI