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 24 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 16 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 +7
Contract jobs citing DevOps 247 158 284
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 8.91% 10.35% 10.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.56% 11.08% 11.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 178 116 186
10th Percentile £381 £388 £425
25th Percentile £413 £415 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £600
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -10.42% +9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £672
90th Percentile £670 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £550 £551
% change year-on-year -4.55% -0.09% -4.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 26
10th Percentile £74.36 £35.98 £56.65
25th Percentile £77.88 £44.56 £61.60
Median hourly rate £82.00 £60.75 £83.63
Median % change year-on-year +34.98% -27.36% +5.61%
75th Percentile £89.38 £77.56 £87.35
90th Percentile £99.20 £86.53 £87.53
South East median hourly rate £67.50 £60.75 £78.90
% change year-on-year +11.11% -23.00% +42.16%

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 2,338 1,426 2,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 84.34% 93.45% 88.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,537 870 1,437
10th Percentile £280 £300 £213
25th Percentile £400 £412 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -
75th Percentile £594 £625 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £503 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.47% +2.00% -0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 55 177
10th Percentile £15.91 £14.20 £14.76
25th Percentile £19.49 £22.18 £19.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £46.30 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +40.39% +8.94% -12.19%
75th Percentile £85.43 £62.84 £63.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £76.51 £85.41
South East median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +10.77% -18.75% -11.11%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 -3 203 £492 -6.29% 32
Buckinghamshire -3 37 £550 -4.35% 34
Oxfordshire -7 7 £513 - 23
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 13 (5.26%) SharePoint
2 11 (4.45%) Confluence
3 8 (3.24%) GeoServer
3 8 (3.24%) Smallworld
4 4 (1.62%) IIS
5 3 (1.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (1.21%) Anypoint
5 3 (1.21%) ArcGIS
5 3 (1.21%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.81%) CMS
6 2 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.81%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.40%) Apache
7 1 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.40%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.40%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 1 (0.40%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.40%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.40%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 10 (4.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.62%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.81%) CPLEX
4 2 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.62%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.40%) Maximo
2 1 (0.40%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 192 (77.73%) Azure
2 106 (42.91%) Azure DevOps
3 76 (30.77%) AWS
4 49 (19.84%) GCP
5 29 (11.74%) GitHub
6 27 (10.93%) Entra ID
7 26 (10.53%) Power Platform
8 20 (8.10%) Azure Monitor
9 19 (7.69%) SaaS
10 18 (7.29%) GitHub Actions
11 16 (6.48%) Microsoft 365
12 15 (6.07%) OCI
13 14 (5.67%) IaaS
13 14 (5.67%) OpenShift
13 14 (5.67%) Serverless
14 12 (4.86%) Azure Key Vault
15 11 (4.45%) Azure AKS
15 11 (4.45%) Azure Functions
16 10 (4.05%) PaaS
17 7 (2.83%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 14 (5.67%) Firewall
2 13 (5.26%) DNS
3 8 (3.24%) Network Security
3 8 (3.24%) SD-WAN
4 6 (2.43%) LAN
4 6 (2.43%) WAN
5 5 (2.02%) VPN
6 4 (1.62%) BGP
6 4 (1.62%) IPsec
6 4 (1.62%) MQTT
6 4 (1.62%) SSL
7 3 (1.21%) 5G
7 3 (1.21%) DHCP
7 3 (1.21%) MPLS
7 3 (1.21%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.81%) 2G
8 2 (0.81%) Internet
8 2 (0.81%) Mobile Backhaul
8 2 (0.81%) OSPF
8 2 (0.81%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (8.91%) Power BI
2 9 (3.64%) GIS
3 8 (3.24%) Geospatial Data
3 8 (3.24%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 8 (3.24%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (3.24%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (3.24%) QGIS
4 7 (2.83%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (2.43%) NoSQL
6 5 (2.02%) Metadata
6 5 (2.02%) Tableau
7 4 (1.62%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (1.62%) SQL Server
8 3 (1.21%) Delta Lake
8 3 (1.21%) MySQL
8 3 (1.21%) Oracle Database
8 3 (1.21%) Parquet
8 3 (1.21%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.81%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 32 (12.96%) Jenkins
2 30 (12.15%) JIRA
3 27 (10.93%) Git
4 9 (3.64%) GitLab
5 6 (2.43%) JUnit
6 5 (2.02%) Bitbucket
6 5 (2.02%) HP UFT
7 4 (1.62%) Storybook
7 4 (1.62%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.21%) Cucumber
8 3 (1.21%) Jaeger
8 3 (1.21%) Selenium
9 2 (0.81%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.81%) Mockito
9 2 (0.81%) Postman
9 2 (0.81%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.40%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 92 (37.25%) Social Skills
2 37 (14.98%) Analytical Skills
3 30 (12.15%) Documentation Skills
4 29 (11.74%) Public Sector
5 13 (5.26%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (4.86%) Finance
7 8 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.83%) Marketing
8 7 (2.83%) Telecoms
9 4 (1.62%) Billing
9 4 (1.62%) Retail
10 3 (1.21%) Electronics
10 3 (1.21%) Law
10 3 (1.21%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.40%) Advertising
12 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.40%) Health Technology
12 1 (0.40%) Legal
12 1 (0.40%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 39 (15.79%) Architect
2 31 (12.55%) Analyst
3 26 (10.53%) DevOps Engineer
4 25 (10.12%) Azure Engineer
4 25 (10.12%) Developer
4 25 (10.12%) Senior
5 17 (6.88%) Test Analyst
6 15 (6.07%) Lead
7 12 (4.86%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 12 (4.86%) Cloud Engineer
8 11 (4.45%) Solutions Architect
9 10 (4.05%) Oracle Analyst
10 9 (3.64%) Platform Engineer
10 9 (3.64%) Senior DevOps
10 9 (3.64%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 8 (3.24%) Full-Stack Developer
11 8 (3.24%) Project Manager
12 7 (2.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (2.83%) Test Engineer
13 6 (2.43%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (10.12%) LDAP
2 23 (9.31%) REST
3 16 (6.48%) ADO
4 15 (6.07%) .NET
5 13 (5.26%) React
6 11 (4.45%) ARM Templates
6 11 (4.45%) CSS
6 11 (4.45%) OAuth
7 10 (4.05%) RESTful
7 10 (4.05%) SOAP
8 8 (3.24%) .NET Framework
8 8 (3.24%) HTML
8 8 (3.24%) JSON
9 7 (2.83%) .NET Core
9 7 (2.83%) Middleware
9 7 (2.83%) SAML
10 5 (2.02%) Entity Framework
10 5 (2.02%) GraphQL
10 5 (2.02%) OpenID
10 5 (2.02%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 25 (10.12%) Cloud Native
2 10 (4.05%) Enterprise Software
2 10 (4.05%) Product Ownership
3 8 (3.24%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (2.83%) Security Posture
5 6 (2.43%) Data Centre
5 6 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (2.02%) Onboarding
6 5 (2.02%) Operational Technology
6 5 (2.02%) PKI
7 4 (1.62%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.21%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (1.21%) Replication
8 3 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.81%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.81%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.81%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 34 (13.77%) Linux
2 20 (8.10%) Windows
3 6 (2.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
4 1 (0.40%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
4 1 (0.40%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (49.39%) CI/CD
2 80 (32.39%) Agile
3 76 (30.77%) Problem-Solving
4 43 (17.41%) Cybersecurity
5 40 (16.19%) Infrastructure as Code
6 38 (15.38%) Analytics
6 38 (15.38%) DevSecOps
7 32 (12.96%) Containerisation
8 30 (12.15%) Root Cause Analysis
9 28 (11.34%) SIEM
10 27 (10.93%) Microservices
11 26 (10.53%) Stakeholder Management
12 25 (10.12%) Business Intelligence
12 25 (10.12%) Migration
13 24 (9.72%) AI
14 22 (8.91%) Scrum
15 21 (8.50%) ITIL
15 21 (8.50%) Machine Learning
15 21 (8.50%) Observability
16 20 (8.10%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 83 (33.60%) Python
2 59 (23.89%) PowerShell
3 35 (14.17%) SQL
4 31 (12.55%) JavaScript
5 28 (11.34%) Bash
6 18 (7.29%) Java
7 16 (6.48%) C#
8 12 (4.86%) Bicep
9 11 (4.45%) TypeScript
10 5 (2.02%) Go
10 5 (2.02%) PHP
10 5 (2.02%) VBScript
11 4 (1.62%) T-SQL
12 3 (1.21%) BeanShell
12 3 (1.21%) DataWeave
12 3 (1.21%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.81%) C++
13 2 (0.81%) Groovy
13 2 (0.81%) Jython
13 2 (0.81%) R
Qualifications
1 90 (36.44%) Security Cleared
2 67 (27.13%) SC Cleared
3 26 (10.53%) CISSP
4 24 (9.72%) CISM
5 18 (7.29%) Degree
6 11 (4.45%) Azure Certification
7 10 (4.05%) DV Cleared
8 8 (3.24%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (2.83%) RHCE
10 5 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (2.02%) PMP
11 4 (1.62%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.62%) OCP
11 4 (1.62%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.62%) PMI Certification
12 3 (1.21%) CCNP
12 3 (1.21%) ISTQB
12 3 (1.21%) MCSE
12 3 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (1.21%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (14.57%) NIST
2 35 (14.17%) GDPR
3 29 (11.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (7.29%) QA
5 14 (5.67%) Data Quality
6 12 (4.86%) NCSC
7 4 (1.62%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.62%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.62%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.62%) PMO
8 3 (1.21%) GRC
9 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
System Software
1 45 (18.22%) Active Directory
2 30 (12.15%) Docker
3 6 (2.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.43%) VMware NSX
3 6 (2.43%) vSphere
4 4 (1.62%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 44 (17.81%) Terraform
2 42 (17.00%) Kubernetes
3 21 (8.50%) Ansible
4 13 (5.26%) Grafana
4 13 (5.26%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.43%) Argo
5 6 (2.43%) vCenter Server
6 4 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (1.21%) CloudHub
7 3 (1.21%) Data Guard
7 3 (1.21%) Istio
7 3 (1.21%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 3 (1.21%) Oracle RMAN
7 3 (1.21%) Podman
7 3 (1.21%) Proxmox
7 3 (1.21%) Rancher
8 2 (0.81%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.81%) systemd
9 1 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.40%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 33 (13.36%) Microsoft
2 28 (11.34%) Oracle
3 25 (10.12%) BeyondTrust
3 25 (10.12%) CyberArk
4 18 (7.29%) Red Hat
5 14 (5.67%) ServiceNow
6 13 (5.26%) VMware
7 11 (4.45%) Databricks
8 9 (3.64%) ESRI
9 8 (3.24%) Intergraph
10 7 (2.83%) Splunk
11 6 (2.43%) Pure Storage
12 5 (2.02%) AppDynamics
12 5 (2.02%) BiZZdesign
12 5 (2.02%) Zscaler
13 4 (1.62%) Dynatrace
13 4 (1.62%) Google
13 4 (1.62%) MuleSoft
14 3 (1.21%) OpenAI
14 3 (1.21%) Salesforce