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 4 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 8 12
Rank change year-on-year -10 +4 0
Contract jobs citing DevOps 256 229 247
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 8.49% 13.43% 11.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.45% 14.80% 13.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 139 186
10th Percentile £360 £363 £460
25th Percentile £462 £413 £514
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £495 £605
Median % change year-on-year +6.06% -18.18% +0.83%
75th Percentile £619 £563 £650
90th Percentile £700 £628 £671
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £593
% change year-on-year +5.00% -15.61% +3.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 0 2
10th Percentile £65.98 - -
25th Percentile £71.00 - -
Median hourly rate £81.03 - £87.46
75th Percentile £87.31 - -
90th Percentile £104.00 - -
South East median hourly rate £71.00 £58.50 £87.46
% change year-on-year +21.37% -33.11% +15.58%

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 2,449 1,547 1,853
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 81.23% 90.73% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,483 954 1,046
10th Percentile £335 £267 £294
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £492 £510
Median % change year-on-year +6.65% -3.48% -2.86%
75th Percentile £610 £588 £625
90th Percentile £713 £650 £680
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 103 79
10th Percentile £13.24 £14.75 £18.66
25th Percentile £16.29 £15.83 £28.88
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £58.38
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -56.92% +11.19%
75th Percentile £84.06 £44.68 £64.73
90th Percentile £101.78 £79.50 £77.54
South East median hourly rate £47.50 £22.19 £58.38
% change year-on-year +114.06% -61.99% +7.37%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 4 October 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 -9 198 £535 +7.00% 145
Buckinghamshire -6 53 £492 +15.76% 76
Oxfordshire -32 5 £800 +45.45% 76
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 9 (3.52%) Confluence
2 5 (1.95%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.95%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.17%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.78%) Apache
4 2 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.78%) Apache Superset
4 2 (0.78%) JBoss
4 2 (0.78%) Smallworld
4 2 (0.78%) WebSphere
4 2 (0.78%) WebSphere Application Server
5 1 (0.39%) CICS
5 1 (0.39%) CIMPLICITY
5 1 (0.39%) IIS
5 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.39%) Predix
Applications
1 6 (2.34%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (0.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.17%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.78%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 199 (77.73%) Azure
2 113 (44.14%) Azure DevOps
3 68 (26.56%) AWS
4 36 (14.06%) GCP
5 23 (8.98%) Entra ID
5 23 (8.98%) OpenShift
5 23 (8.98%) Power Platform
6 21 (8.20%) Azure Monitor
6 21 (8.20%) GitHub
7 16 (6.25%) GitHub Actions
8 15 (5.86%) Azure Sentinel
9 13 (5.08%) Azure AKS
10 11 (4.30%) Azure Key Vault
10 11 (4.30%) Azure Logic Apps
11 10 (3.91%) Azure App Service
12 8 (3.13%) Azure API Management
12 8 (3.13%) SaaS
13 7 (2.73%) Dynamics 365
13 7 (2.73%) IaaS
13 7 (2.73%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 17 (6.64%) Firewall
2 16 (6.25%) DNS
3 14 (5.47%) VPN
4 13 (5.08%) TCP/IP
5 11 (4.30%) DHCP
6 10 (3.91%) Network Security
7 8 (3.13%) LAN
7 8 (3.13%) WAN
8 7 (2.73%) BGP
8 7 (2.73%) MPLS
9 5 (1.95%) SSH
10 3 (1.17%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.78%) OSPF
11 2 (0.78%) SD-WAN
11 2 (0.78%) VXLAN
12 1 (0.39%) HTTP
12 1 (0.39%) NGFW
12 1 (0.39%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (7.81%) NoSQL
2 14 (5.47%) Power BI
3 9 (3.52%) Azure SQL Database
4 8 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (3.13%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.73%) Metadata
6 6 (2.34%) MongoDB
6 6 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (1.95%) Big Data
7 5 (1.95%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.56%) Parquet
9 3 (1.17%) DocumentDB
10 2 (0.78%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.78%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.78%) Spark SQL
10 2 (0.78%) Tableau
11 1 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
11 1 (0.39%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 35 (13.67%) Git
2 28 (10.94%) Jenkins
3 16 (6.25%) GitLab
4 14 (5.47%) JIRA
5 4 (1.56%) Bitbucket
6 3 (1.17%) HP UFT
6 3 (1.17%) JMeter
6 3 (1.17%) NUnit
6 3 (1.17%) Selenium
7 2 (0.78%) LoadRunner
7 2 (0.78%) MSTest
7 2 (0.78%) NeoLoad
7 2 (0.78%) SpecFlow
7 2 (0.78%) TeamCity
7 2 (0.78%) tSQLt
7 2 (0.78%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.39%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.39%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.39%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.39%) SonarQube
General
1 77 (30.08%) Social Skills
2 34 (13.28%) Aerospace
3 32 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (10.94%) Finance
5 11 (4.30%) Billing
6 10 (3.91%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (3.52%) Public Sector
8 8 (3.13%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (2.34%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.95%) Military
11 4 (1.56%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.17%) Automotive
12 3 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (1.17%) Publishing
13 2 (0.78%) Banking
13 2 (0.78%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.78%) Legal
14 1 (0.39%) Local Government
14 1 (0.39%) Retail
14 1 (0.39%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 41 (16.02%) Senior
2 35 (13.67%) DevOps Engineer
3 31 (12.11%) Azure Engineer
3 31 (12.11%) Developer
4 27 (10.55%) Architect
5 25 (9.77%) Lead
6 21 (8.20%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 17 (6.64%) Cloud Engineer
8 16 (6.25%) Data Engineer
9 15 (5.86%) Platform Engineer
10 12 (4.69%) Analyst
10 12 (4.69%) Consultant
11 10 (3.91%) Business Analyst
11 10 (3.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (3.91%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 8 (3.13%) .NET Developer
12 8 (3.13%) Full-Stack Developer
12 8 (3.13%) Project Manager
12 8 (3.13%) SIEM Engineer
12 8 (3.13%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (25.00%) Terraform
2 28 (10.94%) REST
3 24 (9.38%) .NET
4 19 (7.42%) ARM Templates
5 16 (6.25%) RESTful
6 15 (5.86%) OAuth
7 13 (5.08%) SAML
8 12 (4.69%) React
9 11 (4.30%) .NET Core
9 11 (4.30%) .NET Framework
9 11 (4.30%) Entity Framework
10 9 (3.52%) OpenAPI
10 9 (3.52%) OpenID
10 9 (3.52%) Swagger
11 8 (3.13%) PySpark
12 7 (2.73%) FastAPI
12 7 (2.73%) Flask
12 7 (2.73%) LDAP
13 6 (2.34%) JSON
13 6 (2.34%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 32 (12.50%) Cloud Native
1 32 (12.50%) Hybrid Cloud
2 18 (7.03%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.91%) Management Information System
4 9 (3.52%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (3.13%) Data Structures
5 8 (3.13%) Distributed Systems
5 8 (3.13%) Product Ownership
6 6 (2.34%) Algorithms
7 5 (1.95%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.56%) ARM Cortex
8 4 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.17%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (1.17%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.17%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (1.17%) Distributed Computing
9 3 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (1.17%) IoT
9 3 (1.17%) PKI
9 3 (1.17%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 28 (10.94%) Linux
2 20 (7.81%) Windows
3 16 (6.25%) Windows Server
4 10 (3.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.39%) Rocky
5 1 (0.39%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.39%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (54.30%) CI/CD
2 82 (32.03%) Agile
3 63 (24.61%) Infrastructure as Code
4 52 (20.31%) Problem-Solving
5 51 (19.92%) Analytics
6 49 (19.14%) Stakeholder Management
7 40 (15.63%) Continuous Improvement
8 39 (15.23%) Platform Engineering
8 39 (15.23%) Test Automation
9 38 (14.84%) Cybersecurity
10 37 (14.45%) Containerisation
11 32 (12.50%) Roadmaps
12 31 (12.11%) Software Engineering
13 30 (11.72%) Technical Leadership
14 29 (11.33%) DevSecOps
14 29 (11.33%) Validation
15 28 (10.94%) Deployment Automation
16 27 (10.55%) SIEM
17 26 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 23 (8.98%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 78 (30.47%) Python
2 52 (20.31%) PowerShell
3 45 (17.58%) SQL
4 32 (12.50%) Bash
5 23 (8.98%) Bicep
6 19 (7.42%) C#
7 13 (5.08%) JavaScript
8 12 (4.69%) Java
9 8 (3.13%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (2.34%) TypeScript
11 5 (1.95%) X++
12 3 (1.17%) VBScript
13 2 (0.78%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.78%) BeanShell
13 2 (0.78%) Go
13 2 (0.78%) Magik
13 2 (0.78%) Perl
13 2 (0.78%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.78%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.39%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 130 (50.78%) Security Cleared
2 108 (42.19%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.98%) Degree
4 22 (8.59%) Azure Certification
5 17 (6.64%) CISSP
6 15 (5.86%) Cisco Certification
6 15 (5.86%) DV Cleared
7 13 (5.08%) AWS Certification
8 10 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (3.13%) CISM
10 7 (2.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 7 (2.73%) CCIE
11 6 (2.34%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (2.34%) RHCE
12 5 (1.95%) JNCIE
13 4 (1.56%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 4 (1.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (1.56%) CEH
13 4 (1.56%) CompTIA Security+
13 4 (1.56%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (7.81%) QA
2 17 (6.64%) Data Quality
3 16 (6.25%) NIST
4 15 (5.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 9 (3.52%) GDPR
6 8 (3.13%) NCSC
7 4 (1.56%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (1.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 4 (1.56%) GRC
8 3 (1.17%) SLA
9 2 (0.78%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.78%) Software Quality Assurance
10 1 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.39%) OpenSCAP
10 1 (0.39%) PMO
System Software
1 35 (13.67%) Docker
2 23 (8.98%) Active Directory
3 10 (3.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (2.73%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.39%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.39%) RACF
7 1 (0.39%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.39%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 63 (24.61%) Kubernetes
2 41 (16.02%) Ansible
3 10 (3.91%) Grafana
4 7 (2.73%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (1.95%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.56%) Istio
6 4 (1.56%) SCCM
7 2 (0.78%) CASB
7 2 (0.78%) Red Hat Satellite
7 2 (0.78%) SCOM
8 1 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.39%) Check_MK
8 1 (0.39%) Packer
8 1 (0.39%) Podman
8 1 (0.39%) QRadar
8 1 (0.39%) Rancher
8 1 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 88 (34.38%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.47%) Red Hat
3 13 (5.08%) Google
4 12 (4.69%) Databricks
4 12 (4.69%) VMware
5 9 (3.52%) Oracle
5 9 (3.52%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.73%) CyberArk
7 6 (2.34%) Salesforce
8 5 (1.95%) BeyondTrust
8 5 (1.95%) Dynatrace
8 5 (1.95%) SAP
9 4 (1.56%) AppDynamics
9 4 (1.56%) Cisco
9 4 (1.56%) CrowdStrike
9 4 (1.56%) Splunk
10 3 (1.17%) IBM
10 3 (1.17%) MuleSoft
11 1 (0.39%) Conga
11 1 (0.39%) Palo Alto