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 7 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 16 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing DevOps 252 151 292
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 8.75% 9.88% 10.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.50% 10.58% 11.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 183 106 190
10th Percentile £381 £367 £448
25th Percentile £417 £410 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £594
Median % change year-on-year - -15.82% +5.60%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £672
90th Percentile £670 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 2 28
10th Percentile £74.52 £35.98 £56.65
25th Percentile £79.31 £44.56 £61.60
Median hourly rate £81.75 £60.75 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year +34.57% -27.48% +5.78%
75th Percentile £86.56 £77.56 £87.46
90th Percentile £98.15 £86.53 £87.53
South East median hourly rate £63.73 £60.75 £83.63
% change year-on-year +4.91% -27.36% +50.69%

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 2,400 1,427 2,477
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 83.30% 93.33% 88.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,585 864 1,403
10th Percentile £300 £300 £213
25th Percentile £403 £409 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% +0.10% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £600
90th Percentile £654 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £513 £505 £500
% change year-on-year +1.59% +0.90% -0.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 52 182
10th Percentile £16.18 £14.20 £15.52
25th Percentile £20.37 £16.94 £19.44
Median hourly rate £75.00 £45.65 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +64.29% +4.34% -10.16%
75th Percentile £85.50 £62.24 £63.22
90th Percentile £95.00 £74.70 £83.94
South East median hourly rate £41.56 £28.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +48.41% -37.78% -5.26%

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 7 April 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 7 April 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 7 April 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 -3 196 £496 -0.80% 43
Buckinghamshire +5 49 £550 +29.41% 31
Oxfordshire -11 7 £513 - 25
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 (5.56%) SharePoint
2 12 (4.76%) Confluence
3 4 (1.59%) IIS
4 3 (1.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (1.19%) Anypoint
4 3 (1.19%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.79%) CMS
5 2 (0.79%) GeoServer
5 2 (0.79%) IBM HTTP Server
5 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.79%) OpenStack
5 2 (0.79%) Oracle HTTP Server
5 2 (0.79%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.79%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.79%) WebSphere Application Server
5 2 (0.79%) WebSphere Portal
6 1 (0.40%) Apache
6 1 (0.40%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 10 (3.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.59%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.79%) CPLEX
4 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.40%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (1.59%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.40%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 201 (79.76%) Azure
2 115 (45.63%) Azure DevOps
3 79 (31.35%) AWS
4 49 (19.44%) GCP
5 32 (12.70%) GitHub
6 31 (12.30%) Power Platform
7 28 (11.11%) Entra ID
8 22 (8.73%) Azure Monitor
8 22 (8.73%) GitHub Actions
9 21 (8.33%) SaaS
10 16 (6.35%) Microsoft 365
11 15 (5.95%) IaaS
11 15 (5.95%) OCI
12 14 (5.56%) OpenShift
12 14 (5.56%) Serverless
13 13 (5.16%) Azure Key Vault
14 11 (4.37%) Azure AKS
14 11 (4.37%) Azure Functions
14 11 (4.37%) PaaS
15 7 (2.78%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 17 (6.75%) Firewall
2 15 (5.95%) DNS
3 8 (3.17%) Network Security
3 8 (3.17%) SD-WAN
4 6 (2.38%) LAN
4 6 (2.38%) VPN
4 6 (2.38%) WAN
5 5 (1.98%) SSL
6 4 (1.59%) BGP
6 4 (1.59%) IPsec
6 4 (1.59%) MQTT
6 4 (1.59%) TCP/IP
7 3 (1.19%) 5G
7 3 (1.19%) DHCP
7 3 (1.19%) MPLS
8 2 (0.79%) HTTP
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 26 (10.32%) Power BI
2 8 (3.17%) Oracle BI Publisher
2 8 (3.17%) Oracle Reports
2 8 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (2.38%) Azure SQL Database
3 6 (2.38%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.38%) Tableau
4 5 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (1.98%) NoSQL
5 4 (1.59%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.19%) Delta Lake
6 3 (1.19%) GIS
6 3 (1.19%) MySQL
6 3 (1.19%) Oracle Database
6 3 (1.19%) Parquet
6 3 (1.19%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.79%) Geospatial Data
7 2 (0.79%) Metadata
7 2 (0.79%) QGIS
7 2 (0.79%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 34 (13.49%) Jenkins
2 31 (12.30%) JIRA
3 26 (10.32%) Git
4 10 (3.97%) GitLab
5 6 (2.38%) JUnit
6 5 (1.98%) HP UFT
7 4 (1.59%) Bitbucket
7 4 (1.59%) Selenium
7 4 (1.59%) Storybook
7 4 (1.59%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.19%) Cucumber
8 3 (1.19%) Jaeger
9 2 (0.79%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.79%) Introscope
9 2 (0.79%) Mockito
9 2 (0.79%) Postman
9 2 (0.79%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.40%) JMeter
10 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 88 (34.92%) Social Skills
2 35 (13.89%) Analytical Skills
3 31 (12.30%) Documentation Skills
4 29 (11.51%) Public Sector
5 15 (5.95%) Finance
6 13 (5.16%) Organisational Skills
7 8 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.78%) Marketing
8 7 (2.78%) Telecoms
9 4 (1.59%) Billing
9 4 (1.59%) Retail
10 3 (1.19%) Electronics
10 3 (1.19%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.79%) Law
12 1 (0.40%) Advertising
12 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.40%) Legal
12 1 (0.40%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 37 (14.68%) Architect
2 32 (12.70%) DevOps Engineer
3 30 (11.90%) Analyst
3 30 (11.90%) Azure Engineer
4 27 (10.71%) Developer
5 26 (10.32%) Senior
6 17 (6.75%) Azure DevOps Engineer
6 17 (6.75%) Test Analyst
7 15 (5.95%) Lead
8 14 (5.56%) Cloud Engineer
9 11 (4.37%) Senior DevOps
9 11 (4.37%) Senior DevOps Engineer
10 10 (3.97%) Oracle Analyst
10 10 (3.97%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (3.57%) Platform Engineer
12 8 (3.17%) Full-Stack Developer
12 8 (3.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 8 (3.17%) Project Manager
12 8 (3.17%) Test Engineer
13 6 (2.38%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (9.92%) LDAP
2 22 (8.73%) REST
3 19 (7.54%) .NET
4 15 (5.95%) ADO
5 14 (5.56%) React
6 11 (4.37%) ARM Templates
6 11 (4.37%) OAuth
7 10 (3.97%) CSS
7 10 (3.97%) RESTful
7 10 (3.97%) SOAP
8 9 (3.57%) .NET Core
9 8 (3.17%) .NET Framework
9 8 (3.17%) Middleware
10 7 (2.78%) HTML
10 7 (2.78%) JSON
10 7 (2.78%) SAML
11 5 (1.98%) Entity Framework
11 5 (1.98%) OpenID
11 5 (1.98%) Spring
11 5 (1.98%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (11.11%) Cloud Native
2 11 (4.37%) Enterprise Software
2 11 (4.37%) Product Ownership
3 8 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (2.78%) Security Posture
5 6 (2.38%) Operational Technology
5 6 (2.38%) Public Cloud
6 5 (1.98%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (1.98%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.59%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.59%) PKI
7 4 (1.59%) Virtual Team
8 3 (1.19%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.79%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 33 (13.10%) Linux
2 21 (8.33%) Windows
3 7 (2.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.79%) Oracle Linux
4 2 (0.79%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
4 2 (0.79%) Unix
5 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (52.78%) CI/CD
2 84 (33.33%) Agile
3 77 (30.56%) Problem-Solving
4 48 (19.05%) Infrastructure as Code
5 46 (18.25%) Cybersecurity
6 40 (15.87%) DevSecOps
7 33 (13.10%) Containerisation
8 32 (12.70%) Analytics
9 31 (12.30%) Root Cause Analysis
10 29 (11.51%) Business Intelligence
10 29 (11.51%) Microservices
11 28 (11.11%) SIEM
11 28 (11.11%) Stakeholder Management
12 25 (9.92%) ITIL
13 24 (9.52%) Test Automation
14 22 (8.73%) Migration
14 22 (8.73%) Observability
15 21 (8.33%) Scrum
16 20 (7.94%) Data Modelling
16 20 (7.94%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 83 (32.94%) Python
2 60 (23.81%) PowerShell
3 36 (14.29%) SQL
4 30 (11.90%) JavaScript
5 29 (11.51%) Bash
6 20 (7.94%) C#
7 17 (6.75%) Java
8 15 (5.95%) Bicep
9 13 (5.16%) TypeScript
10 5 (1.98%) Go
10 5 (1.98%) PHP
10 5 (1.98%) VBScript
11 4 (1.59%) T-SQL
12 3 (1.19%) BeanShell
12 3 (1.19%) DataWeave
12 3 (1.19%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.79%) C++
13 2 (0.79%) Groovy
13 2 (0.79%) Perl
13 2 (0.79%) R
Qualifications
1 100 (39.68%) Security Cleared
2 79 (31.35%) SC Cleared
3 26 (10.32%) CISSP
4 24 (9.52%) CISM
5 15 (5.95%) DV Cleared
6 13 (5.16%) Degree
7 12 (4.76%) Azure Certification
8 7 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (2.78%) RHCE
9 5 (1.98%) CCNP
9 5 (1.98%) MCSE
9 5 (1.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.98%) PMP
10 4 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (1.59%) OCP
10 4 (1.59%) Oracle Certification
10 4 (1.59%) PMI Certification
11 3 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (1.19%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.19%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (15.08%) NIST
2 35 (13.89%) GDPR
3 30 (11.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (7.14%) QA
5 16 (6.35%) NCSC
6 8 (3.17%) Data Quality
7 4 (1.59%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.59%) GRC
7 4 (1.59%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.59%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.59%) PMO
8 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
System Software
1 45 (17.86%) Active Directory
2 29 (11.51%) Docker
3 8 (3.17%) VMware NSX
4 6 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.38%) vSphere
5 3 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 52 (20.63%) Terraform
2 41 (16.27%) Kubernetes
3 21 (8.33%) Ansible
4 13 (5.16%) Grafana
4 13 (5.16%) 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%) Rancher
8 2 (0.79%) CA Wily
8 2 (0.79%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.79%) Podman
8 2 (0.79%) Proxmox
8 2 (0.79%) systemd
8 2 (0.79%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 41 (16.27%) Microsoft
2 29 (11.51%) Oracle
3 25 (9.92%) BeyondTrust
3 25 (9.92%) CyberArk
4 19 (7.54%) Red Hat
5 15 (5.95%) VMware
6 14 (5.56%) ServiceNow
7 10 (3.97%) Databricks
8 9 (3.57%) Splunk
9 6 (2.38%) AppDynamics
9 6 (2.38%) Pure Storage
10 5 (1.98%) BiZZdesign
11 4 (1.59%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.59%) Google
11 4 (1.59%) Zscaler
12 3 (1.19%) Adobe
12 3 (1.19%) ESRI
12 3 (1.19%) HP
12 3 (1.19%) MuleSoft
12 3 (1.19%) SAP