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 13 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 10 17
Rank change year-on-year -2 +7 +1
Contract jobs citing DevOps 231 217 232
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 11.07% 12.32% 9.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.88% 13.66% 10.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 160 194
10th Percentile £400 £409 £425
25th Percentile £423 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% - +9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £656 £663
90th Percentile £652 £688 £700
South East median daily rate £525 £600 £555
% change year-on-year -12.50% +8.11% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 4
10th Percentile £77.10 - £71.31
25th Percentile £80.25 - £73.28
Median hourly rate £86.00 - £77.21
75th Percentile £97.63 - £83.74
90th Percentile £102.35 - £84.86
South East median hourly rate £47.50 - £76.10
% change year-on-year - - +26.83%

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 1,793 1,588 2,203
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 85.91% 90.18% 91.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,188 916 1,413
10th Percentile £268 £255 £213
25th Percentile £400 £406 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% +4.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £600
90th Percentile £650 £673 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £510 £517
% change year-on-year -1.96% -1.35% +2.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 45 102
10th Percentile £15.62 £21.98 £19.03
25th Percentile £18.87 £38.00 £25.44
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £50.39
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% +12.61% +89.27%
75th Percentile £58.00 £63.00 £64.20
90th Percentile £94.75 £67.30 £72.33
South East median hourly rate £23.58 £42.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -44.53% -22.73% +22.22%

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 13 January 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 13 January 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 13 January 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 -1 196 £496 -17.33% 98
Buckinghamshire -1 22 £550 -4.35% 24
Oxfordshire -3 13 £538 - 26
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 15 (6.49%) SharePoint
2 9 (3.90%) Confluence
3 8 (3.46%) GeoServer
3 8 (3.46%) Smallworld
4 6 (2.60%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.30%) Anypoint
6 2 (0.87%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.87%) CMS
6 2 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.87%) nginx
7 1 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.43%) Apache
7 1 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.43%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.43%) Camunda
7 1 (0.43%) Drupal
7 1 (0.43%) Gunicorn
7 1 (0.43%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.73%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.43%) Maximo
2 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 176 (76.19%) Azure
2 96 (41.56%) Azure DevOps
3 78 (33.77%) AWS
4 45 (19.48%) GCP
5 32 (13.85%) GitHub
6 25 (10.82%) SaaS
7 22 (9.52%) Power Platform
8 20 (8.66%) IaaS
9 19 (8.23%) Entra ID
10 17 (7.36%) Azure AKS
11 15 (6.49%) GitHub Actions
11 15 (6.49%) Microsoft 365
12 14 (6.06%) Azure Monitor
12 14 (6.06%) PaaS
13 12 (5.19%) OpenShift
13 12 (5.19%) Serverless
14 10 (4.33%) OCI
15 8 (3.46%) Azure Key Vault
16 7 (3.03%) Azure Functions
16 7 (3.03%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.90%) DNS
2 6 (2.60%) BGP
2 6 (2.60%) Firewall
2 6 (2.60%) LAN
2 6 (2.60%) MPLS
2 6 (2.60%) WAN
3 4 (1.73%) Network Security
4 3 (1.30%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.87%) 2G
5 2 (0.87%) 5G
5 2 (0.87%) LTE
5 2 (0.87%) Mobile Backhaul
5 2 (0.87%) SSL
5 2 (0.87%) VoIP
5 2 (0.87%) VPN
6 1 (0.43%) IPsec
6 1 (0.43%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (8.23%) Power BI
2 9 (3.90%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (3.46%) Geospatial Data
3 8 (3.46%) GIS
3 8 (3.46%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 8 (3.46%) QGIS
4 7 (3.03%) Metadata
5 6 (2.60%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (2.60%) NoSQL
6 5 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.73%) MySQL
8 3 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (1.30%) Delta Lake
8 3 (1.30%) Oracle Database
8 3 (1.30%) SQL Server
9 2 (0.87%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.87%) Redis
9 2 (0.87%) Spatial Data
9 2 (0.87%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (13.42%) JIRA
2 27 (11.69%) Jenkins
3 20 (8.66%) Git
4 6 (2.60%) Bitbucket
5 5 (2.16%) GitLab
5 5 (2.16%) Selenium
6 3 (1.30%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.30%) HP UFT
6 3 (1.30%) JUnit
6 3 (1.30%) Storybook
7 2 (0.87%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.87%) NUnit
7 2 (0.87%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.43%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.43%) JMeter
8 1 (0.43%) Mocha
8 1 (0.43%) MSTest
8 1 (0.43%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.43%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.43%) WebDriver
General
1 87 (37.66%) Social Skills
2 35 (15.15%) Analytical Skills
3 21 (9.09%) Documentation Skills
4 15 (6.49%) Public Sector
5 12 (5.19%) Finance
6 9 (3.90%) Billing
6 9 (3.90%) Retail
7 8 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (3.03%) Telecoms
9 6 (2.60%) Marketing
9 6 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.30%) Electronics
10 3 (1.30%) Law
10 3 (1.30%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.43%) Banking
12 1 (0.43%) Digital Healthcare
12 1 (0.43%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.43%) Health Technology
12 1 (0.43%) Legal
Job Titles
1 37 (16.02%) Architect
2 28 (12.12%) Analyst
3 26 (11.26%) DevOps Engineer
4 24 (10.39%) Azure Engineer
4 24 (10.39%) Senior
5 15 (6.49%) Cloud Engineer
6 14 (6.06%) Developer
7 13 (5.63%) Test Analyst
8 11 (4.76%) Lead
8 11 (4.76%) Solutions Architect
9 10 (4.33%) Azure DevOps Engineer
10 9 (3.90%) Senior DevOps
10 9 (3.90%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 8 (3.46%) Project Manager
12 7 (3.03%) Business Analyst
13 6 (2.60%) AWS Engineer
13 6 (2.60%) Delivery Manager
13 6 (2.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 6 (2.60%) Integration Manager
13 6 (2.60%) IP Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (12.12%) ADO
2 20 (8.66%) REST
3 18 (7.79%) LDAP
4 13 (5.63%) .NET
5 8 (3.46%) ARM Templates
5 8 (3.46%) RESTful
6 7 (3.03%) Middleware
6 7 (3.03%) React
6 7 (3.03%) SOAP
7 6 (2.60%) CSS
7 6 (2.60%) GraphQL
7 6 (2.60%) HTML
7 6 (2.60%) NETCONF
7 6 (2.60%) SailPoint
7 6 (2.60%) YANG
8 5 (2.16%) .NET Core
8 5 (2.16%) Node.js
8 5 (2.16%) OAuth
8 5 (2.16%) OAuth2
9 4 (1.73%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 27 (11.69%) Cloud Native
2 9 (3.90%) Hybrid Cloud
3 8 (3.46%) Legacy Systems
3 8 (3.46%) Onboarding
3 8 (3.46%) Product Ownership
4 6 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (2.60%) Security Posture
4 6 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
5 5 (2.16%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.16%) PKI
6 4 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.73%) Linux Command Line
6 4 (1.73%) Smart Meter
7 3 (1.30%) Operational Technology
7 3 (1.30%) Replication
8 2 (0.87%) Algorithms
8 2 (0.87%) IoT
8 2 (0.87%) Mainframe
8 2 (0.87%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.43%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 31 (13.42%) Linux
2 9 (3.90%) Windows
3 4 (1.73%) Unix
4 3 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (49.35%) CI/CD
2 78 (33.77%) Agile
3 62 (26.84%) Problem-Solving
4 34 (14.72%) Analytics
4 34 (14.72%) Cybersecurity
5 30 (12.99%) Infrastructure as Code
6 29 (12.55%) DevSecOps
7 28 (12.12%) Containerisation
8 27 (11.69%) Microservices
9 25 (10.82%) SIEM
10 24 (10.39%) Stakeholder Management
11 23 (9.96%) AI
11 23 (9.96%) Test Automation
12 21 (9.09%) Business Intelligence
13 19 (8.23%) Roadmaps
13 19 (8.23%) Scrum
14 18 (7.79%) Migration
14 18 (7.79%) Validation
15 16 (6.93%) Continuous Improvement
15 16 (6.93%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 75 (32.47%) Python
2 49 (21.21%) PowerShell
3 37 (16.02%) SQL
4 25 (10.82%) Bash
5 22 (9.52%) JavaScript
6 21 (9.09%) Java
7 16 (6.93%) C#
8 11 (4.76%) Bicep
9 8 (3.46%) TypeScript
10 6 (2.60%) BeanShell
11 5 (2.16%) PHP
11 5 (2.16%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.73%) Search Processing Language
13 3 (1.30%) DataWeave
13 3 (1.30%) VBScript
14 2 (0.87%) Groovy
14 2 (0.87%) R
14 2 (0.87%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.43%) Rust
15 1 (0.43%) Scala
Qualifications
1 55 (23.81%) Security Cleared
2 41 (17.75%) SC Cleared
3 19 (8.23%) CISSP
4 17 (7.36%) CISM
5 14 (6.06%) Degree
6 9 (3.90%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (3.03%) Azure Certification
7 7 (3.03%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (2.60%) CCIE
8 6 (2.60%) DV Cleared
8 6 (2.60%) JNCIE
9 5 (2.16%) AWS Certification
9 5 (2.16%) RHCE
10 4 (1.73%) Master's Degree
11 3 (1.30%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.30%) OCP
11 3 (1.30%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 2 (0.87%) GCIA
12 2 (0.87%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (12.12%) GDPR
2 23 (9.96%) NIST
3 21 (9.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 20 (8.66%) QA
5 13 (5.63%) Data Quality
6 6 (2.60%) NCSC
7 5 (2.16%) HIPAA
7 5 (2.16%) PMO
8 4 (1.73%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 17025
9 1 (0.43%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.43%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 34 (14.72%) Active Directory
2 31 (13.42%) Docker
3 6 (2.60%) VMware NSX
3 6 (2.60%) vSphere
4 5 (2.16%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 54 (23.38%) Terraform
2 44 (19.05%) Kubernetes
3 33 (14.29%) Ansible
4 7 (3.03%) Grafana
5 6 (2.60%) Argo
5 6 (2.60%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.60%) vCenter Server
6 3 (1.30%) CloudHub
6 3 (1.30%) Data Guard
6 3 (1.30%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 3 (1.30%) Oracle RMAN
6 3 (1.30%) Podman
6 3 (1.30%) Proxmox
7 2 (0.87%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.87%) logstash
7 2 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.87%) systemd
8 1 (0.43%) Puppet
Vendors
1 23 (9.96%) Oracle
2 18 (7.79%) BeyondTrust
2 18 (7.79%) CyberArk
3 15 (6.49%) Microsoft
4 14 (6.06%) Red Hat
5 13 (5.63%) Salesforce
6 12 (5.19%) Splunk
7 10 (4.33%) Databricks
8 8 (3.46%) ESRI
8 8 (3.46%) Intergraph
8 8 (3.46%) MuleSoft
9 7 (3.03%) ServiceNow
9 7 (3.03%) VMware
10 6 (2.60%) Pure Storage
11 4 (1.73%) AppDynamics
11 4 (1.73%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.73%) Foundry
11 4 (1.73%) Google
11 4 (1.73%) Palantir
12 3 (1.30%) SAP