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 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 12 13
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +6
Contract jobs citing DevOps 238 193 284
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 10.40% 11.65% 10.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.20% 12.64% 11.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 161 142 208
10th Percentile £400 £408 £425
25th Percentile £425 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% -4.17% +9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £663
90th Percentile £670 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 19
10th Percentile £77.10 - £56.62
25th Percentile £80.25 - £56.65
Median hourly rate £86.00 - £78.74
75th Percentile £97.63 - £86.32
90th Percentile £102.35 - £87.53
South East median hourly rate £50.00 - £75.77
% change year-on-year - - +36.51%

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 1,951 1,527 2,453
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 85.23% 92.15% 89.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,297 887 1,484
10th Percentile £269 £262 £213
25th Percentile £394 £405 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% +0.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £620 £600
90th Percentile £650 £663 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £503 £509
% change year-on-year -0.50% -1.28% +1.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 41 151
10th Percentile £15.64 £26.00 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £42.88 £20.17
Median hourly rate £25.84 £61.50 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -57.98% +36.02% +44.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.73 £62.77
90th Percentile £97.50 £77.19 £79.78
South East median hourly rate £25.11 £43.94 £47.50
% change year-on-year -42.85% -7.49% +5.56%

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 11 February 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 11 February 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 11 February 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 -1 203 £500 -13.04% 31
Buckinghamshire -5 23 £575 -2.13% 21
Oxfordshire -5 12 £550 - 18
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 (5.88%) SharePoint
2 8 (3.36%) GeoServer
2 8 (3.36%) Smallworld
3 7 (2.94%) Confluence
4 6 (2.52%) OpenStack
5 4 (1.68%) Palantir Foundry
6 3 (1.26%) Anypoint
6 3 (1.26%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.84%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.42%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.42%) Apache
8 1 (0.42%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.42%) Camunda
8 1 (0.42%) CMS
8 1 (0.42%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (3.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.42%) CPLEX
3 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.68%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.42%) Maximo
2 1 (0.42%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 187 (78.57%) Azure
2 98 (41.18%) Azure DevOps
3 85 (35.71%) AWS
4 49 (20.59%) GCP
5 27 (11.34%) GitHub
6 24 (10.08%) SaaS
7 23 (9.66%) Entra ID
7 23 (9.66%) Power Platform
8 19 (7.98%) IaaS
9 18 (7.56%) Azure AKS
9 18 (7.56%) Azure Monitor
10 16 (6.72%) Microsoft 365
11 13 (5.46%) GitHub Actions
11 13 (5.46%) OpenShift
11 13 (5.46%) PaaS
12 12 (5.04%) Serverless
13 11 (4.62%) Azure Key Vault
13 11 (4.62%) OCI
14 8 (3.36%) Azure Functions
14 8 (3.36%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.78%) DNS
2 8 (3.36%) Firewall
3 6 (2.52%) BGP
3 6 (2.52%) LAN
3 6 (2.52%) MPLS
3 6 (2.52%) WAN
4 5 (2.10%) Network Security
5 3 (1.26%) IPsec
5 3 (1.26%) MQTT
5 3 (1.26%) SD-WAN
5 3 (1.26%) VPN
6 2 (0.84%) 2G
6 2 (0.84%) 5G
6 2 (0.84%) LTE
6 2 (0.84%) Mobile Backhaul
6 2 (0.84%) SSL
6 2 (0.84%) VoIP
7 1 (0.42%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (8.40%) Power BI
2 9 (3.78%) GIS
2 9 (3.78%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (3.36%) Azure SQL Database
3 8 (3.36%) Geospatial Data
3 8 (3.36%) NoSQL
3 8 (3.36%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 8 (3.36%) QGIS
4 6 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (2.10%) Metadata
6 4 (1.68%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (1.68%) SQL Server
7 3 (1.26%) Delta Lake
7 3 (1.26%) MySQL
7 3 (1.26%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.84%) Parquet
8 2 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.84%) Star Schema
8 2 (0.84%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 28 (11.76%) Jenkins
2 24 (10.08%) JIRA
3 21 (8.82%) Git
4 5 (2.10%) HP UFT
4 5 (2.10%) JUnit
5 4 (1.68%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.68%) GitLab
5 4 (1.68%) Selenium
5 4 (1.68%) Storybook
6 3 (1.26%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.84%) ScriptRunner
7 2 (0.84%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.42%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.42%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.42%) JMeter
8 1 (0.42%) Maven
8 1 (0.42%) Mockito
8 1 (0.42%) NUnit
8 1 (0.42%) Postman
8 1 (0.42%) SonarQube
General
1 94 (39.50%) Social Skills
2 39 (16.39%) Analytical Skills
3 27 (11.34%) Documentation Skills
4 18 (7.56%) Public Sector
5 10 (4.20%) Finance
5 10 (4.20%) Organisational Skills
6 9 (3.78%) Billing
7 8 (3.36%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.94%) Retail
8 7 (2.94%) Telecoms
9 6 (2.52%) Marketing
10 4 (1.68%) Law
11 3 (1.26%) Electronics
11 3 (1.26%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.42%) Health Technology
13 1 (0.42%) Legal
Job Titles
1 41 (17.23%) Architect
2 29 (12.18%) Analyst
3 27 (11.34%) DevOps Engineer
4 26 (10.92%) Azure Engineer
5 22 (9.24%) Senior
6 17 (7.14%) Developer
7 14 (5.88%) Cloud Engineer
7 14 (5.88%) Test Analyst
8 13 (5.46%) Solutions Architect
9 11 (4.62%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 10 (4.20%) Lead
11 9 (3.78%) Senior DevOps
11 9 (3.78%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 7 (2.94%) Business Analyst
12 7 (2.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (2.94%) Oracle Analyst
13 6 (2.52%) Delivery Manager
13 6 (2.52%) Integration Manager
13 6 (2.52%) Project Manager
13 6 (2.52%) Site Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (10.08%) ADO
2 23 (9.66%) LDAP
3 22 (9.24%) REST
4 15 (6.30%) .NET
5 10 (4.20%) ARM Templates
6 9 (3.78%) CSS
6 9 (3.78%) React
7 7 (2.94%) HTML
7 7 (2.94%) RESTful
7 7 (2.94%) SOAP
8 6 (2.52%) .NET Core
8 6 (2.52%) JSON
8 6 (2.52%) Middleware
8 6 (2.52%) NETCONF
8 6 (2.52%) SailPoint
8 6 (2.52%) YANG
9 5 (2.10%) GraphQL
9 5 (2.10%) OAuth
9 5 (2.10%) SAML
9 5 (2.10%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 28 (11.76%) Cloud Native
2 8 (3.36%) Hybrid Cloud
2 8 (3.36%) Product Ownership
3 7 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
3 7 (2.94%) Onboarding
4 6 (2.52%) Security Posture
5 5 (2.10%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (2.10%) PKI
5 5 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.68%) Linux Command Line
7 3 (1.26%) Algorithms
7 3 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.26%) Operational Technology
7 3 (1.26%) Replication
7 3 (1.26%) Smart Meter
8 2 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.84%) IoT
8 2 (0.84%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.84%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 32 (13.45%) Linux
2 12 (5.04%) Windows
3 4 (1.68%) Unix
4 3 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (50.42%) CI/CD
2 71 (29.83%) Agile
2 71 (29.83%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (16.39%) Cybersecurity
4 36 (15.13%) Analytics
5 35 (14.71%) Infrastructure as Code
6 34 (14.29%) DevSecOps
7 31 (13.03%) Containerisation
8 30 (12.61%) SIEM
9 29 (12.18%) Microservices
10 26 (10.92%) AI
10 26 (10.92%) Stakeholder Management
11 24 (10.08%) Test Automation
12 22 (9.24%) Business Intelligence
13 20 (8.40%) Machine Learning
13 20 (8.40%) Roadmaps
13 20 (8.40%) Scrum
14 19 (7.98%) Migration
15 18 (7.56%) Mentoring
15 18 (7.56%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 82 (34.45%) Python
2 57 (23.95%) PowerShell
3 38 (15.97%) SQL
4 25 (10.50%) Bash
4 25 (10.50%) JavaScript
5 19 (7.98%) Java
6 16 (6.72%) C#
7 12 (5.04%) Bicep
8 11 (4.62%) TypeScript
9 6 (2.52%) BeanShell
10 5 (2.10%) PHP
10 5 (2.10%) Shell Script
10 5 (2.10%) VBScript
11 4 (1.68%) Search Processing Language
12 3 (1.26%) DataWeave
12 3 (1.26%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.84%) Groovy
13 2 (0.84%) R
14 1 (0.42%) Jython
14 1 (0.42%) X++
Qualifications
1 65 (27.31%) Security Cleared
2 49 (20.59%) SC Cleared
3 24 (10.08%) CISSP
4 22 (9.24%) CISM
5 10 (4.20%) Cisco Certification
5 10 (4.20%) Degree
6 8 (3.36%) Azure Certification
7 7 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.94%) DV Cleared
8 6 (2.52%) CCIE
8 6 (2.52%) JNCIE
9 5 (2.10%) AWS Certification
9 5 (2.10%) RHCE
10 4 (1.68%) CCNP
10 4 (1.68%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.68%) OCP
10 4 (1.68%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (1.26%) MCSE
11 3 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (1.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (13.87%) NIST
2 29 (12.18%) GDPR
3 26 (10.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (7.56%) QA
5 14 (5.88%) Data Quality
6 11 (4.62%) NCSC
7 5 (2.10%) HIPAA
8 4 (1.68%) PMO
8 4 (1.68%) SOC 2
9 3 (1.26%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.42%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.42%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 42 (17.65%) Active Directory
2 30 (12.61%) Docker
3 6 (2.52%) VMware NSX
3 6 (2.52%) vSphere
4 5 (2.10%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 52 (21.85%) Terraform
2 42 (17.65%) Kubernetes
3 30 (12.61%) Ansible
4 8 (3.36%) Grafana
4 8 (3.36%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.52%) Argo
5 6 (2.52%) vCenter Server
6 3 (1.26%) CloudHub
6 3 (1.26%) Data Guard
6 3 (1.26%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 3 (1.26%) Oracle RMAN
6 3 (1.26%) Podman
6 3 (1.26%) Proxmox
6 3 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.84%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.84%) logstash
7 2 (0.84%) systemd
8 1 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.42%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 25 (10.50%) Oracle
2 24 (10.08%) Microsoft
3 23 (9.66%) BeyondTrust
3 23 (9.66%) CyberArk
4 15 (6.30%) Red Hat
5 12 (5.04%) Databricks
6 11 (4.62%) Splunk
6 11 (4.62%) VMware
7 9 (3.78%) ESRI
8 8 (3.36%) Intergraph
8 8 (3.36%) MuleSoft
8 8 (3.36%) Salesforce
9 6 (2.52%) Pure Storage
10 5 (2.10%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.68%) AppDynamics
11 4 (1.68%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.68%) Foundry
11 4 (1.68%) Google
11 4 (1.68%) Palantir
11 4 (1.68%) Zscaler