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 8 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 11 11
Rank change year-on-year -8 0 +2
Contract jobs citing DevOps 279 209 244
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 8.46% 12.60% 10.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.49% 13.67% 12.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 197 128 171
10th Percentile £358 £325 £450
25th Percentile £425 £405 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £481 £605
Median % change year-on-year +3.90% -20.45% +0.83%
75th Percentile £600 £550 £650
90th Percentile £675 £625 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £595
% change year-on-year +5.00% -15.97% -0.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 2 11
10th Percentile £66.53 £35.98 £61.60
25th Percentile £72.91 £44.56 £81.82
Median hourly rate £81.96 £60.75 £87.46
Median % change year-on-year +34.91% -30.54% +15.58%
75th Percentile £91.21 £77.56 -
90th Percentile £104.00 £86.53 -
South East median hourly rate £67.50 £60.75 £87.46
% change year-on-year +11.11% -30.54% +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 2,660 1,529 1,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 80.68% 92.16% 84.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,688 915 1,119
10th Percentile £318 £300 £263
25th Percentile £415 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -0.97%
75th Percentile £600 £598 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £515
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -0.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 260 109 112
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £14.50
25th Percentile £31.25 £15.12 £22.50
Median hourly rate £75.90 £24.00 £55.04
Median % change year-on-year +216.25% -56.39% +10.08%
75th Percentile £87.36 £46.30 £65.25
90th Percentile £104.00 £80.00 £85.65
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £21.41 £57.35
% change year-on-year +156.89% -62.67% +14.70%

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 8 August 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 8 August 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 8 August 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 -9 201 £500 - 75
Buckinghamshire -4 72 £492 +31.20% 23
Oxfordshire -21 6 £800 +52.38% 31
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 (4.30%) Confluence
2 5 (1.79%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.79%) OpenStack
2 5 (1.79%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.43%) WebSphere
3 4 (1.43%) WebSphere Application Server
4 3 (1.08%) IIS
5 2 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.72%) IBM HTTP Server
5 2 (0.72%) JBoss
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle HTTP Server
5 2 (0.72%) WebSphere Portal
6 1 (0.36%) Apache
6 1 (0.36%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.36%) CIMPLICITY
6 1 (0.36%) CMS
6 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.36%) Predix
6 1 (0.36%) Smallworld
Applications
1 7 (2.51%) CPLEX
2 6 (2.15%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.72%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.08%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.36%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.36%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 211 (75.63%) Azure
2 123 (44.09%) Azure DevOps
3 76 (27.24%) AWS
4 40 (14.34%) GCP
5 29 (10.39%) Power Platform
6 27 (9.68%) Entra ID
7 26 (9.32%) Azure Monitor
8 25 (8.96%) GitHub
9 23 (8.24%) GitHub Actions
10 19 (6.81%) OpenShift
11 15 (5.38%) Azure AKS
12 14 (5.02%) Azure Key Vault
13 10 (3.58%) SaaS
14 9 (3.23%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (2.87%) Azure App Service
15 8 (2.87%) IaaS
15 8 (2.87%) OCI
15 8 (2.87%) PaaS
16 7 (2.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 7 (2.51%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 25 (8.96%) Firewall
2 21 (7.53%) DNS
3 15 (5.38%) TCP/IP
3 15 (5.38%) VPN
4 13 (4.66%) Network Security
5 12 (4.30%) DHCP
6 11 (3.94%) LAN
6 11 (3.94%) WAN
7 9 (3.23%) BGP
8 8 (2.87%) MPLS
9 7 (2.51%) SD-WAN
10 5 (1.79%) SSH
11 4 (1.43%) OSPF
12 3 (1.08%) HTTP
12 3 (1.08%) SSL
13 2 (0.72%) Internet
13 2 (0.72%) Software-Defined Networking
13 2 (0.72%) VXLAN
14 1 (0.36%) 5G
14 1 (0.36%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (7.17%) NoSQL
2 18 (6.45%) Power BI
3 12 (4.30%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (3.58%) Azure SQL Database
4 10 (3.58%) SQL Server
5 9 (3.23%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (2.51%) MongoDB
7 6 (2.15%) Metadata
7 6 (2.15%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.15%) Tableau
8 5 (1.79%) Big Data
9 4 (1.43%) DocumentDB
9 4 (1.43%) Parquet
10 2 (0.72%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.72%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.72%) Spark SQL
11 1 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
11 1 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
11 1 (0.36%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.36%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 37 (13.26%) Git
2 27 (9.68%) Jenkins
3 23 (8.24%) JIRA
4 18 (6.45%) GitLab
5 5 (1.79%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.43%) Jaeger
6 4 (1.43%) NUnit
7 3 (1.08%) Selenium
7 3 (1.08%) SpecFlow
7 3 (1.08%) TeamCity
7 3 (1.08%) WebDriver
8 2 (0.72%) Balsamiq
8 2 (0.72%) Introscope
8 2 (0.72%) JMeter
8 2 (0.72%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.72%) Mockito
8 2 (0.72%) MSTest
8 2 (0.72%) NeoLoad
8 2 (0.72%) tSQLt
8 2 (0.72%) Visual Studio
General
1 78 (27.96%) Social Skills
2 34 (12.19%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (9.32%) Finance
4 25 (8.96%) Aerospace
5 20 (7.17%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.66%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (3.23%) Billing
8 8 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (2.15%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.43%) Military
12 3 (1.08%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.08%) Publishing
13 2 (0.72%) Legal
13 2 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.36%) Advertising
14 1 (0.36%) Health Technology
14 1 (0.36%) Local Government
14 1 (0.36%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 44 (15.77%) DevOps Engineer
2 43 (15.41%) Developer
3 39 (13.98%) Senior
4 37 (13.26%) Azure Engineer
5 30 (10.75%) Architect
6 27 (9.68%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 25 (8.96%) Lead
8 22 (7.89%) Analyst
9 19 (6.81%) Cloud Engineer
10 16 (5.73%) Platform Engineer
11 14 (5.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 12 (4.30%) Data Engineer
13 11 (3.94%) .NET Developer
13 11 (3.94%) Consultant
13 11 (3.94%) Project Manager
14 10 (3.58%) Business Analyst
15 9 (3.23%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 8 (2.87%) Senior Manager
16 8 (2.87%) Senior Project Manager
16 8 (2.87%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (12.19%) REST
2 30 (10.75%) .NET
3 21 (7.53%) OAuth
4 18 (6.45%) RESTful
5 15 (5.38%) ARM Templates
5 15 (5.38%) SAML
6 14 (5.02%) React
7 13 (4.66%) .NET Framework
8 12 (4.30%) Entity Framework
9 11 (3.94%) .NET Core
9 11 (3.94%) SOAP
9 11 (3.94%) Swagger
10 10 (3.58%) OpenAPI
11 9 (3.23%) Kafka
11 9 (3.23%) LDAP
11 9 (3.23%) OpenID
11 9 (3.23%) RabbitMQ
12 8 (2.87%) Flask
12 8 (2.87%) Pandas
12 8 (2.87%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 33 (11.83%) Cloud Native
2 27 (9.68%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (4.66%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (4.66%) Enterprise Software
4 12 (4.30%) Onboarding
5 9 (3.23%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.51%) Algorithms
6 7 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (2.51%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.51%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.79%) Management Information System
7 5 (1.79%) Operational Technology
7 5 (1.79%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.79%) Virtual Team
8 4 (1.43%) ARM Cortex
8 4 (1.43%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.08%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (1.08%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 32 (11.47%) Linux
2 23 (8.24%) Windows
3 13 (4.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 12 (4.30%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle Linux
5 2 (0.72%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
5 2 (0.72%) Unix
6 1 (0.36%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (50.54%) CI/CD
2 100 (35.84%) Agile
3 67 (24.01%) Infrastructure as Code
4 54 (19.35%) Analytics
4 54 (19.35%) Problem-Solving
5 41 (14.70%) Cybersecurity
6 40 (14.34%) Stakeholder Management
7 37 (13.26%) Containerisation
8 34 (12.19%) Continuous Improvement
8 34 (12.19%) Platform Engineering
9 33 (11.83%) ITIL
10 31 (11.11%) Test Automation
10 31 (11.11%) Validation
11 30 (10.75%) Data Modelling
12 27 (9.68%) Microservices
12 27 (9.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 26 (9.32%) DevSecOps
13 26 (9.32%) Migration
13 26 (9.32%) Root Cause Analysis
14 25 (8.96%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 85 (30.47%) Python
2 55 (19.71%) SQL
3 53 (19.00%) PowerShell
4 33 (11.83%) Bash
5 25 (8.96%) C#
6 23 (8.24%) Bicep
7 21 (7.53%) JavaScript
8 15 (5.38%) Java
9 9 (3.23%) TypeScript
10 7 (2.51%) Go
11 5 (1.79%) X++
12 4 (1.43%) Kusto Query Language
12 4 (1.43%) Perl
13 3 (1.08%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.72%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.72%) BeanShell
14 2 (0.72%) Jython
14 2 (0.72%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.36%) Magik
15 1 (0.36%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 136 (48.75%) Security Cleared
2 113 (40.50%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.89%) Degree
4 18 (6.45%) Azure Certification
4 18 (6.45%) DV Cleared
5 17 (6.09%) CISSP
6 15 (5.38%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (4.66%) AWS Certification
8 10 (3.58%) CISM
9 8 (2.87%) RHCE
10 7 (2.51%) CCIE
10 7 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (1.79%) CCNP
11 5 (1.79%) JNCIE
11 5 (1.79%) PMP
12 4 (1.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 4 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (1.43%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.53%) QA
2 19 (6.81%) NIST
3 17 (6.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 16 (5.73%) GDPR
5 13 (4.66%) Data Quality
6 10 (3.58%) NCSC
7 8 (2.87%) GRC
8 6 (2.15%) PCI DSS
9 3 (1.08%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.72%) SLA
11 1 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.36%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.36%) OpenSCAP
11 1 (0.36%) PMO
11 1 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 36 (12.90%) Docker
2 29 (10.39%) Active Directory
3 9 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (2.51%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (2.15%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.72%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 67 (24.01%) Terraform
2 60 (21.51%) Kubernetes
3 33 (11.83%) Ansible
4 13 (4.66%) Grafana
5 9 (3.23%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.15%) Istio
7 5 (1.79%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (1.43%) Rancher
8 4 (1.43%) SCCM
8 4 (1.43%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.72%) CA Wily
9 2 (0.72%) CASB
9 2 (0.72%) SCOM
9 2 (0.72%) Tivoli
10 1 (0.36%) Packer
10 1 (0.36%) QRadar
10 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 76 (27.24%) Microsoft
2 18 (6.45%) Oracle
2 18 (6.45%) ServiceNow
3 16 (5.73%) Red Hat
4 13 (4.66%) Google
4 13 (4.66%) VMware
5 10 (3.58%) Databricks
6 7 (2.51%) BeyondTrust
6 7 (2.51%) CyberArk
7 6 (2.15%) AppDynamics
7 6 (2.15%) Salesforce
7 6 (2.15%) Splunk
8 5 (1.79%) Cisco
8 5 (1.79%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.43%) CrowdStrike
9 4 (1.43%) IBM
9 4 (1.43%) SAP
10 3 (1.08%) MuleSoft
11 2 (0.72%) Adobe
11 2 (0.72%) Citrix