Docker Contract Job Trends

Docker
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Docker skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 23 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 46 68
Rank change year-on-year +4 +22 -21
Contract jobs citing Docker 1,995 1,326 1,334
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.91% 4.34% 3.00%
As % of the System Software category 42.41% 34.66% 26.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,372 906 972
10th Percentile £375 £400 £413
25th Percentile £431 £465 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +0.92% -9.17%
75th Percentile £623 £675 £644
90th Percentile £713 £810 £721
UK excluding London median daily rate £508 £510 £507
% change year-on-year -0.49% +0.69% -7.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 5 16
10th Percentile £43.56 - £53.38
25th Percentile £56.75 £25.25 £61.81
Median hourly rate £65.00 £27.50 £65.75
Median % change year-on-year +136.36% -58.17% -6.07%
75th Percentile £79.00 £62.50 £73.06
90th Percentile £89.60 £82.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 - £67.95
% change year-on-year - - +8.72%

All System Software Skills
UK

Docker falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,704 3,826 5,016
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.57% 12.54% 11.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,225 2,507 3,416
10th Percentile £205 £205 £190
25th Percentile £400 £381 £323
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £485
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +7.22% -7.62%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £473 £450
% change year-on-year +0.53% +5.00% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 143 89 239
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.44 £14.06
25th Percentile £20.66 £21.25 £17.69
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% -18.75% -
75th Percentile £71.27 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £84.20 £78.50 £76.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £37.50 £43.75
% change year-on-year +11.84% -14.29% +68.27%

Docker
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Docker relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Docker job vacancy trend in the UK

Docker
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Docker.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Docker

Docker
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Docker over the 6 months to 23 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Docker in the UK

Docker
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Docker.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Docker

Docker
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Docker over the 6 months to 23 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Docker in the UK

Docker
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Docker within the UK over the 6 months to 23 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
England +7 1,729 £525 -8.70% 624
London +3 888 £550 -8.33% 252
UK excluding London +12 817 £508 -0.49% 458
Work from Home 0 620 £525 -4.55% 395
North of England +13 343 £488 -2.50% 120
Midlands +38 227 £525 +5.00% 59
West Midlands +34 209 £530 +0.95% 43
North West +17 154 £475 -5.00% 70
Yorkshire +3 151 £500 -4.76% 33
South West -5 100 £550 -8.33% 85
South East -12 99 £513 +13.89% 143
Scotland -3 49 £401 -8.60% 16
North East -5 45 £478 +4.37% 17
East of England -18 31 £563 +12.55% 26
East Midlands -20 17 £424 -4.59% 16
Wales -8 11 £511 -7.09% 12
Northern Ireland +3 7 - - 4

Docker
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 94 (4.71%) Confluence
2 63 (3.16%) SAS
3 59 (2.96%) Apache Airflow
4 58 (2.91%) Apache Spark
5 46 (2.31%) Apache
6 38 (1.90%) nginx
7 21 (1.05%) OpenStack
8 14 (0.70%) JBoss
8 14 (0.70%) WebLogic
9 13 (0.65%) Appian
10 12 (0.60%) Camunda
11 10 (0.50%) Jupyter
12 9 (0.45%) IIS
12 9 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
13 8 (0.40%) Tomcat
13 8 (0.40%) WebSphere
14 5 (0.25%) Drupal
14 5 (0.25%) Ethereum
14 5 (0.25%) Hyperledger
14 5 (0.25%) iPlanet
Applications
1 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.25%) Weka
3 4 (0.20%) Chatbot
3 4 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.15%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 2 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.050%) CPLEX
6 1 (0.050%) Maya
6 1 (0.050%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.050%) Notion
6 1 (0.050%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.050%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.050%) Actimize
2 1 (0.050%) Endur
2 1 (0.050%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.050%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,162 (58.25%) AWS
2 780 (39.10%) Azure
3 476 (23.86%) GitHub
4 432 (21.65%) GCP
5 300 (15.04%) GitHub Actions
6 294 (14.74%) Serverless
7 236 (11.83%) Azure DevOps
8 220 (11.03%) Amazon S3
9 202 (10.13%) AWS CloudFormation
10 193 (9.67%) Amazon EKS
11 185 (9.27%) AWS Lambda
12 184 (9.22%) Amazon EC2
13 173 (8.67%) Amazon ECS
14 149 (7.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 114 (5.71%) OpenShift
16 112 (5.61%) Azure AKS
17 90 (4.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 61 (3.06%) Datadog
19 60 (3.01%) Azure Monitor
20 56 (2.81%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 109 (5.46%) Firewall
2 75 (3.76%) DNS
3 46 (2.31%) TCP/IP
4 39 (1.95%) VPN
5 33 (1.65%) SSL
6 32 (1.60%) Network Security
7 30 (1.50%) HTTP
8 18 (0.90%) DHCP
9 12 (0.60%) Kerberos
10 10 (0.50%) VLAN
11 8 (0.40%) BGP
11 8 (0.40%) SMTP
11 8 (0.40%) SNMP
12 6 (0.30%) HTTPS
12 6 (0.30%) Radio Access Network
13 5 (0.25%) 3GPP
13 5 (0.25%) AMQP
13 5 (0.25%) FTP
13 5 (0.25%) Software-Defined Networking
13 5 (0.25%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 291 (14.59%) PostgreSQL
2 207 (10.38%) NoSQL
3 139 (6.97%) MongoDB
4 133 (6.67%) Amazon RDS
4 133 (6.67%) Relational Database
5 106 (5.31%) SQL Server
6 83 (4.16%) Apache Cassandra
7 68 (3.41%) MySQL
8 65 (3.26%) DynamoDB
8 65 (3.26%) Elasticsearch
9 54 (2.71%) Redis
10 40 (2.01%) Big Data
11 37 (1.85%) BigQuery
11 37 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
12 34 (1.70%) Amazon Aurora
12 34 (1.70%) Data Lake
13 33 (1.65%) Azure SQL Database
14 32 (1.60%) Pentaho
15 31 (1.55%) Power BI
16 29 (1.45%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 558 (27.97%) Jenkins
2 493 (24.71%) Git
3 424 (21.25%) GitLab
4 209 (10.48%) JIRA
5 100 (5.01%) JUnit
6 83 (4.16%) Selenium
7 56 (2.81%) SonarQube
8 51 (2.56%) Bitbucket
9 50 (2.51%) Cucumber
10 48 (2.41%) Maven
11 47 (2.36%) MLflow
12 39 (1.95%) Mockito
13 36 (1.80%) Postman
14 35 (1.75%) Cypress.io
14 35 (1.75%) Liquibase
15 32 (1.60%) JMeter
16 30 (1.50%) Sonatype Nexus
17 29 (1.45%) Gradle
18 28 (1.40%) REST Assured
19 27 (1.35%) Gatling
General
1 521 (26.12%) Social Skills
2 335 (16.79%) Finance
3 293 (14.69%) Public Sector
4 186 (9.32%) Banking
5 177 (8.87%) Analytical Skills
6 35 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.60%) Financial Institution
8 26 (1.30%) Investment Banking
9 23 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 23 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
10 21 (1.05%) Front Office
11 19 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
12 16 (0.80%) Military
12 16 (0.80%) Retail
13 15 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (0.60%) Telecoms
15 10 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
16 8 (0.40%) Law
16 8 (0.40%) Marketing
17 6 (0.30%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 557 (27.92%) Developer
2 357 (17.89%) Senior
3 274 (13.73%) DevOps Engineer
4 160 (8.02%) Java Developer
5 149 (7.47%) Software Engineer
6 129 (6.47%) Architect
7 128 (6.42%) Lead
8 127 (6.37%) AWS Engineer
9 122 (6.12%) Senior Developer
10 121 (6.07%) Python Developer
11 105 (5.26%) Full-Stack Developer
12 90 (4.51%) Data Engineer
13 78 (3.91%) AWS DevOps
14 77 (3.86%) Cloud Engineer
14 77 (3.86%) Platform Engineer
15 70 (3.51%) AWS DevOps Engineer
16 63 (3.16%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 57 (2.86%) Senior DevOps
17 57 (2.86%) Senior DevOps Engineer
18 56 (2.81%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 312 (15.64%) Kafka
2 290 (14.54%) Spring
3 280 (14.04%) REST
4 260 (13.03%) RESTful
5 254 (12.73%) Spring Boot
6 245 (12.28%) Node.js
7 243 (12.18%) React
8 142 (7.12%) .NET
9 124 (6.22%) Elastic Stack
10 120 (6.02%) AngularJS
11 117 (5.86%) FastAPI
12 95 (4.76%) HTML
13 89 (4.46%) OAuth
14 87 (4.36%) PyTorch
15 80 (4.01%) gRPC
16 78 (3.91%) GraphQL
17 77 (3.86%) CSS
17 77 (3.86%) OpenTelemetry
18 75 (3.76%) Playwright
19 71 (3.56%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 373 (18.70%) Cloud Native
2 182 (9.12%) Distributed Systems
3 65 (3.26%) Product Ownership
4 56 (2.81%) Public Cloud
5 43 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
6 38 (1.90%) Algorithms
7 36 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
8 35 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
8 35 (1.75%) Management Information System
9 28 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
10 24 (1.20%) AI Agents
10 24 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
11 23 (1.15%) Onboarding
12 21 (1.05%) Data Structures
13 20 (1.00%) NHS
13 20 (1.00%) PKI
14 19 (0.95%) Replication
15 18 (0.90%) Distributed Computing
15 18 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
16 17 (0.85%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 411 (20.60%) Linux
2 114 (5.71%) Windows
3 79 (3.96%) Unix
4 38 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (1.10%) VMS
7 17 (0.85%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.50%) CentOS
9 9 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
10 8 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.30%) Android
12 5 (0.25%) Solaris
12 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
13 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
14 3 (0.15%) Rocky
15 2 (0.10%) Debian
16 1 (0.050%) Alpine Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,434 (71.88%) CI/CD
2 1,105 (55.39%) DevOps
3 1,090 (54.64%) Containerisation
4 768 (38.50%) Agile
5 679 (34.04%) Microservices
6 610 (30.58%) Infrastructure as Code
7 487 (24.41%) Problem-Solving
8 393 (19.70%) Test Automation
9 370 (18.55%) Software Engineering
10 353 (17.69%) Observability
11 271 (13.58%) AI
12 233 (11.68%) Full-Stack Development
13 220 (11.03%) Continuous Improvement
14 213 (10.68%) Analytics
15 205 (10.28%) Mentoring
16 204 (10.23%) Machine Learning
17 203 (10.18%) Scrum
18 202 (10.13%) Data Pipeline
19 167 (8.37%) TDD
20 162 (8.12%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 950 (47.62%) Python
2 544 (27.27%) Java
3 489 (24.51%) SQL
4 259 (12.98%) Bash
5 233 (11.68%) JavaScript
6 209 (10.48%) TypeScript
7 200 (10.03%) Go
8 151 (7.57%) C#
9 142 (7.12%) PowerShell
10 62 (3.11%) Bicep
11 57 (2.86%) Shell Script
12 46 (2.31%) Scala
13 44 (2.21%) Ruby
14 41 (2.06%) C++
15 31 (1.55%) Rust
16 29 (1.45%) Groovy
17 27 (1.35%) PHP
18 20 (1.00%) Kotlin
18 20 (1.00%) Perl
19 13 (0.65%) C
Qualifications
1 642 (32.18%) Security Cleared
2 519 (26.02%) SC Cleared
3 197 (9.87%) Degree
4 129 (6.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 104 (5.21%) AWS Certification
6 89 (4.46%) DV Cleared
7 81 (4.06%) Azure Certification
8 61 (3.06%) BPSS Clearance
9 55 (2.76%) Master's Degree
10 43 (2.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 19 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
12 15 (0.75%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 14 (0.70%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.70%) ISTQB
13 14 (0.70%) TOGAF Certification
14 13 (0.65%) CISSP
15 11 (0.55%) AWS Certified Developer
16 8 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 7 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 7 (0.35%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (5.26%) QA
2 74 (3.71%) Accessibility
3 69 (3.46%) Data Quality
4 38 (1.90%) GDPR
5 29 (1.45%) WCAG
6 23 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (1.00%) ISO 20022
8 19 (0.95%) PCI DSS
9 18 (0.90%) NIST
10 15 (0.75%) NCSC
10 15 (0.75%) PSD2
11 11 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 10 (0.50%) SEPA
13 9 (0.45%) SLA
14 8 (0.40%) HIPAA
15 7 (0.35%) HL7
16 6 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
17 3 (0.15%) MiFID
17 3 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 58 (2.91%) Active Directory
2 56 (2.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (1.05%) vSphere
4 20 (1.00%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (0.90%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 12 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (0.50%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.45%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.40%) Lustre
9 8 (0.40%) Postfix
9 8 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
10 7 (0.35%) Squid
10 7 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.30%) GPFS
11 6 (0.30%) KVM
12 5 (0.25%) NDS
12 5 (0.25%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 5 (0.25%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 4 (0.20%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 1,475 (73.93%) Kubernetes
2 712 (35.69%) Terraform
3 309 (15.49%) Grafana
4 280 (14.04%) Prometheus
5 276 (13.83%) Ansible
6 67 (3.36%) Puppet
7 65 (3.26%) Argo
8 44 (2.21%) Progress Chef
9 41 (2.06%) Kibana
10 32 (1.60%) Podman
11 27 (1.35%) Nessus
12 25 (1.25%) Packer
13 23 (1.15%) Control-M
14 22 (1.10%) Istio
15 21 (1.05%) IBM Guardium
16 18 (0.90%) Consul
16 18 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
17 16 (0.80%) Docker Swarm
18 13 (0.65%) logstash
19 12 (0.60%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 205 (10.28%) Microsoft
2 135 (6.77%) Splunk
3 134 (6.72%) Google
4 126 (6.32%) Oracle
5 72 (3.61%) Databricks
6 60 (3.01%) VMware
7 48 (2.41%) Red Hat
8 45 (2.26%) OpenAI
9 39 (1.95%) Dynatrace
10 32 (1.60%) Denodo
10 32 (1.60%) Talend
11 24 (1.20%) Atlassian
11 24 (1.20%) F5
12 23 (1.15%) AppDynamics
12 23 (1.15%) Palo Alto
13 22 (1.10%) Tenable
14 19 (0.95%) IBM
14 19 (0.95%) ServiceNow
15 15 (0.75%) CheckPoint
15 15 (0.75%) Cisco