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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 +6
Contract jobs citing DevOps 247 189 282
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 10.11% 11.48% 10.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.85% 12.38% 11.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 170 135 199
10th Percentile £381 £400 £425
25th Percentile £417 £452 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £575 £588
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% -2.21% +6.91%
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% -0.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 22
10th Percentile £74.36 - £56.65
25th Percentile £77.88 - £57.89
Median hourly rate £82.00 - £80.00
75th Percentile £89.38 - £86.66
90th Percentile £99.20 - £87.53
South East median hourly rate £67.50 - £76.53
% change year-on-year - - +16.62%

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 2,085 1,527 2,449
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 85.38% 92.71% 89.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,371 897 1,453
10th Percentile £270 £262 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £588 £615 £600
90th Percentile £650 £661 £675
South East median daily rate £500 £501 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% +0.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 44 157
10th Percentile £15.88 £20.49 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £41.25 £20.17
Median hourly rate £29.61 £58.25 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -49.17% +28.84% +12.43%
75th Percentile £82.25 £64.95 £62.54
90th Percentile £97.50 £79.16 £81.11
South East median hourly rate £25.15 £43.94 £45.21
% change year-on-year -42.76% -2.81% +0.47%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -1 210 £492 -14.43% 36
Buckinghamshire -3 29 £550 -6.38% 25
Oxfordshire -9 8 £513 - 15
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 12 (4.86%) SharePoint
2 10 (4.05%) Confluence
3 8 (3.24%) GeoServer
3 8 (3.24%) Smallworld
4 4 (1.62%) OpenStack
4 4 (1.62%) Palantir Foundry
5 3 (1.21%) Anypoint
5 3 (1.21%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.81%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.81%) CMS
6 2 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.40%) Apache
7 1 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.40%) IIS
Applications
1 10 (4.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.40%) CPLEX
3 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.62%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.40%) Maximo
2 1 (0.40%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 189 (76.52%) Azure
2 105 (42.51%) Azure DevOps
3 82 (33.20%) AWS
4 48 (19.43%) GCP
5 30 (12.15%) GitHub
6 25 (10.12%) Entra ID
7 24 (9.72%) Power Platform
8 23 (9.31%) SaaS
9 20 (8.10%) Azure Monitor
10 19 (7.69%) IaaS
11 17 (6.88%) Azure AKS
12 16 (6.48%) GitHub Actions
13 15 (6.07%) OCI
14 14 (5.67%) Microsoft 365
14 14 (5.67%) OpenShift
15 13 (5.26%) Azure Key Vault
15 13 (5.26%) PaaS
16 12 (4.86%) Serverless
17 8 (3.24%) Azure Functions
17 8 (3.24%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.64%) DNS
2 8 (3.24%) Firewall
3 5 (2.02%) Network Security
4 4 (1.62%) BGP
4 4 (1.62%) IPsec
4 4 (1.62%) LAN
4 4 (1.62%) MPLS
4 4 (1.62%) MQTT
4 4 (1.62%) SD-WAN
4 4 (1.62%) WAN
5 3 (1.21%) VPN
6 2 (0.81%) 2G
6 2 (0.81%) 5G
6 2 (0.81%) LTE
6 2 (0.81%) Mobile Backhaul
6 2 (0.81%) SSL
6 2 (0.81%) VoIP
7 1 (0.40%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (8.50%) Power BI
2 9 (3.64%) GIS
2 9 (3.64%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (3.24%) Azure SQL Database
3 8 (3.24%) Geospatial Data
3 8 (3.24%) NoSQL
3 8 (3.24%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 8 (3.24%) QGIS
4 6 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (2.02%) Metadata
5 5 (2.02%) Tableau
6 4 (1.62%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.62%) SQL Server
7 3 (1.21%) Delta Lake
7 3 (1.21%) MySQL
7 3 (1.21%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.21%) Parquet
8 2 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.81%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 30 (12.15%) Jenkins
2 25 (10.12%) JIRA
3 24 (9.72%) Git
4 6 (2.43%) GitLab
5 5 (2.02%) HP UFT
5 5 (2.02%) JUnit
6 4 (1.62%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.62%) Selenium
6 4 (1.62%) Storybook
7 3 (1.21%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.21%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.81%) Balsamiq
8 2 (0.81%) Jaeger
8 2 (0.81%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.40%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.40%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.40%) Mockito
9 1 (0.40%) Postman
9 1 (0.40%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 95 (38.46%) Social Skills
2 37 (14.98%) Analytical Skills
3 28 (11.34%) Documentation Skills
4 19 (7.69%) Public Sector
5 12 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
6 10 (4.05%) Finance
7 9 (3.64%) Billing
8 8 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (2.83%) Marketing
9 7 (2.83%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.62%) Law
10 4 (1.62%) Retail
11 3 (1.21%) Electronics
11 3 (1.21%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.40%) Advertising
13 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.40%) Health Technology
13 1 (0.40%) Legal
Job Titles
1 38 (15.38%) Architect
2 36 (14.57%) Analyst
3 28 (11.34%) Azure Engineer
4 27 (10.93%) DevOps Engineer
5 22 (8.91%) Senior
6 19 (7.69%) Developer
7 17 (6.88%) Test Analyst
8 14 (5.67%) Lead
9 13 (5.26%) Cloud Engineer
10 12 (4.86%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 12 (4.86%) Solutions Architect
11 10 (4.05%) Oracle Analyst
12 9 (3.64%) Senior DevOps
12 9 (3.64%) Senior DevOps Engineer
13 8 (3.24%) Business Analyst
13 8 (3.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 8 (3.24%) Platform Engineer
14 7 (2.83%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
14 7 (2.83%) Full-Stack Developer
14 7 (2.83%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (10.12%) ADO
2 23 (9.31%) LDAP
2 23 (9.31%) REST
3 16 (6.48%) .NET
4 12 (4.86%) ARM Templates
5 11 (4.45%) React
6 10 (4.05%) CSS
7 9 (3.64%) SOAP
8 8 (3.24%) HTML
8 8 (3.24%) OAuth
8 8 (3.24%) RESTful
9 7 (2.83%) .NET Core
9 7 (2.83%) JSON
10 6 (2.43%) .NET Framework
10 6 (2.43%) Middleware
10 6 (2.43%) SailPoint
10 6 (2.43%) SAML
11 5 (2.02%) OpenID
11 5 (2.02%) Spring
11 5 (2.02%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 28 (11.34%) Cloud Native
2 10 (4.05%) Product Ownership
3 9 (3.64%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (3.24%) Security Posture
5 7 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (2.02%) Data Centre
7 5 (2.02%) Onboarding
7 5 (2.02%) PKI
8 4 (1.62%) Linux Command Line
8 4 (1.62%) Operational Technology
9 3 (1.21%) Algorithms
9 3 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (1.21%) Replication
9 3 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.81%) IoT
10 2 (0.81%) Management Information System
10 2 (0.81%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 34 (13.77%) Linux
2 13 (5.26%) Windows
3 5 (2.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.40%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (50.20%) CI/CD
2 76 (30.77%) Agile
3 69 (27.94%) Problem-Solving
4 39 (15.79%) Analytics
4 39 (15.79%) Infrastructure as Code
5 37 (14.98%) Cybersecurity
6 36 (14.57%) DevSecOps
7 32 (12.96%) Containerisation
8 27 (10.93%) Microservices
8 27 (10.93%) SIEM
9 26 (10.53%) AI
9 26 (10.53%) Root Cause Analysis
9 26 (10.53%) Stakeholder Management
10 24 (9.72%) Business Intelligence
10 24 (9.72%) Test Automation
11 22 (8.91%) Machine Learning
12 20 (8.10%) Migration
12 20 (8.10%) Scrum
13 19 (7.69%) Observability
13 19 (7.69%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 84 (34.01%) Python
2 58 (23.48%) PowerShell
3 37 (14.98%) SQL
4 28 (11.34%) JavaScript
5 27 (10.93%) Bash
6 20 (8.10%) Java
7 16 (6.48%) C#
8 14 (5.67%) Bicep
9 11 (4.45%) TypeScript
10 6 (2.43%) BeanShell
11 5 (2.02%) PHP
11 5 (2.02%) Shell Script
11 5 (2.02%) VBScript
12 3 (1.21%) DataWeave
12 3 (1.21%) Go
12 3 (1.21%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.81%) Groovy
13 2 (0.81%) R
14 1 (0.40%) Jython
14 1 (0.40%) X++
Qualifications
1 73 (29.55%) Security Cleared
2 57 (23.08%) SC Cleared
3 24 (9.72%) CISSP
4 22 (8.91%) CISM
5 14 (5.67%) Degree
6 9 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 8 (3.24%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (3.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (3.24%) DV Cleared
8 7 (2.83%) RHCE
9 4 (1.62%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.62%) CCIE
9 4 (1.62%) CCNP
9 4 (1.62%) JNCIE
9 4 (1.62%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.62%) OCP
9 4 (1.62%) Oracle Certification
10 3 (1.21%) ISTQB
10 3 (1.21%) MCSE
10 3 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (13.77%) NIST
2 32 (12.96%) GDPR
3 26 (10.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (7.69%) QA
5 14 (5.67%) Data Quality
6 12 (4.86%) NCSC
7 4 (1.62%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.62%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.62%) PMO
8 2 (0.81%) GRC
8 2 (0.81%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.40%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.40%) SOC 2
System Software
1 44 (17.81%) Active Directory
2 31 (12.55%) Docker
3 6 (2.43%) VMware NSX
3 6 (2.43%) vSphere
4 5 (2.02%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 52 (21.05%) Terraform
2 47 (19.03%) Kubernetes
3 25 (10.12%) Ansible
4 11 (4.45%) Grafana
4 11 (4.45%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.43%) Argo
5 6 (2.43%) vCenter Server
6 3 (1.21%) CloudHub
6 3 (1.21%) Data Guard
6 3 (1.21%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 3 (1.21%) Oracle RMAN
6 3 (1.21%) Podman
6 3 (1.21%) Proxmox
6 3 (1.21%) Rancher
6 3 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.81%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.81%) Istio
7 2 (0.81%) logstash
7 2 (0.81%) systemd
8 1 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 27 (10.93%) Microsoft
1 27 (10.93%) Oracle
2 23 (9.31%) BeyondTrust
2 23 (9.31%) CyberArk
3 17 (6.88%) Red Hat
4 12 (4.86%) Databricks
5 11 (4.45%) VMware
6 9 (3.64%) ESRI
7 8 (3.24%) Intergraph
7 8 (3.24%) MuleSoft
7 8 (3.24%) Salesforce
7 8 (3.24%) ServiceNow
7 8 (3.24%) Splunk
8 6 (2.43%) Pure Storage
9 4 (1.62%) AppDynamics
9 4 (1.62%) BiZZdesign
9 4 (1.62%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.62%) Foundry
9 4 (1.62%) Palantir
9 4 (1.62%) Zscaler