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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 48 67
Rank change year-on-year +10 +19 -22
Contract jobs citing Docker 1,981 1,325 1,359
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.25% 4.24% 3.07%
As % of the System Software category 43.40% 35.05% 26.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,372 899 996
10th Percentile £375 £400 £413
25th Percentile £439 £480 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £573 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.30% +4.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £650
90th Percentile £720 £810 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £510 £514
% change year-on-year +0.49% -0.78% -10.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 5 19
10th Percentile £49.40 - £46.65
25th Percentile £61.25 £25.25 £61.63
Median hourly rate £66.50 £27.50 £66.50
Median % change year-on-year +141.82% -58.65% -5.00%
75th Percentile £79.75 £62.50 £76.53
90th Percentile £92.30 £82.00 £76.82
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 - £67.27
% change year-on-year - - +5.51%

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 4,565 3,780 5,220
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.10% 12.08% 11.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,116 2,438 3,583
10th Percentile £213 £200 £190
25th Percentile £400 £368 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £495
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +3.54% -5.71%
75th Percentile £596 £625 £600
90th Percentile £695 £713 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £450
% change year-on-year +2.48% +3.00% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 91 235
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.00 £14.67
25th Percentile £20.82 £21.36 £19.04
Median hourly rate £41.94 £29.00 £49.88
Median % change year-on-year +44.62% -41.86% +29.56%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.50 £66.62
90th Percentile £90.95 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.50 £37.50 £51.25
% change year-on-year +56.00% -26.83% +132.95%

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 26 January 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 26 January 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 26 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
England +10 1,709 £525 -8.70% 1,117
London +2 893 £550 -8.33% 298
UK excluding London +18 816 £513 +0.49% 962
Work from Home +6 620 £525 -4.55% 510
North of England +14 341 £477 -4.65% 195
Midlands +55 221 £532 +6.40% 118
West Midlands +50 208 £537 +2.29% 47
North West +26 162 £450 -10.00% 103
Yorkshire +6 142 £500 -4.76% 67
South West -2 98 £650 +8.33% 154
South East -19 91 £513 +13.89% 325
Scotland +8 69 £475 +5.56% 30
North East 0 43 £475 -9.74% 25
East of England -3 30 £594 +7.95% 104
East Midlands -18 13 £413 -6.98% 69
Wales -6 10 £511 -9.16% 36
Northern Ireland -3 7 - - 17

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 88 (4.44%) Confluence
2 70 (3.53%) SAS
3 59 (2.98%) Apache Airflow
4 55 (2.78%) Apache Spark
5 50 (2.52%) Apache
6 48 (2.42%) nginx
7 23 (1.16%) OpenStack
8 18 (0.91%) JBoss
9 13 (0.66%) IIS
10 12 (0.61%) Appian
10 12 (0.61%) WebLogic
11 11 (0.56%) Jupyter
12 10 (0.50%) Camunda
13 9 (0.45%) WebSphere
14 8 (0.40%) iPlanet
14 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
14 8 (0.40%) WebSphere Application Server
15 5 (0.25%) Drupal
15 5 (0.25%) Ethereum
15 5 (0.25%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.25%) Weka
3 3 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.10%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.050%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.050%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.050%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.050%) Actimize
2 1 (0.050%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.050%) Endur
2 1 (0.050%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.050%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,155 (58.30%) AWS
2 761 (38.41%) Azure
3 462 (23.32%) GitHub
4 431 (21.76%) GCP
5 303 (15.30%) Serverless
6 287 (14.49%) GitHub Actions
7 228 (11.51%) Amazon S3
8 225 (11.36%) Azure DevOps
9 208 (10.50%) AWS CloudFormation
10 199 (10.05%) AWS Lambda
11 197 (9.94%) Amazon EC2
12 183 (9.24%) Amazon EKS
13 174 (8.78%) Amazon ECS
14 163 (8.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 132 (6.66%) OpenShift
16 114 (5.75%) Azure AKS
17 104 (5.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 66 (3.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
19 64 (3.23%) Datadog
20 50 (2.52%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 133 (6.71%) Firewall
2 88 (4.44%) DNS
3 51 (2.57%) TCP/IP
4 47 (2.37%) VPN
5 42 (2.12%) SSL
6 35 (1.77%) HTTP
6 35 (1.77%) Network Security
7 16 (0.81%) DHCP
7 16 (0.81%) SMTP
8 15 (0.76%) Kerberos
9 14 (0.71%) SSH
10 13 (0.66%) FTP
11 10 (0.50%) VLAN
12 8 (0.40%) BGP
12 8 (0.40%) IMAP
12 8 (0.40%) OpenLDAP
12 8 (0.40%) SNMP
13 6 (0.30%) HTTPS
13 6 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
14 5 (0.25%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 274 (13.83%) PostgreSQL
2 207 (10.45%) NoSQL
3 134 (6.76%) MongoDB
4 132 (6.66%) Amazon RDS
5 128 (6.46%) Relational Database
6 104 (5.25%) SQL Server
7 82 (4.14%) Apache Cassandra
8 71 (3.58%) MySQL
9 68 (3.43%) Elasticsearch
10 61 (3.08%) DynamoDB
11 60 (3.03%) Redis
12 46 (2.32%) Amazon Aurora
13 41 (2.07%) Big Data
14 39 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
14 39 (1.97%) Pentaho
15 38 (1.92%) BigQuery
16 35 (1.77%) Data Lake
17 33 (1.67%) Power BI
18 30 (1.51%) Oracle Database
19 28 (1.41%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 584 (29.48%) Jenkins
2 510 (25.74%) Git
3 414 (20.90%) GitLab
4 211 (10.65%) JIRA
5 85 (4.29%) JUnit
6 73 (3.69%) Selenium
7 72 (3.63%) SonarQube
8 48 (2.42%) Bitbucket
9 46 (2.32%) Maven
10 44 (2.22%) Cypress.io
11 42 (2.12%) Cucumber
12 41 (2.07%) Sonatype Nexus
13 39 (1.97%) Postman
14 34 (1.72%) Gradle
15 33 (1.67%) Liquibase
15 33 (1.67%) MLflow
15 33 (1.67%) Mockito
16 26 (1.31%) CircleCI
17 25 (1.26%) JMeter
18 22 (1.11%) REST Assured
General
1 517 (26.10%) Social Skills
2 328 (16.56%) Finance
3 287 (14.49%) Public Sector
4 207 (10.45%) Banking
5 151 (7.62%) Analytical Skills
6 39 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (1.72%) Financial Institution
8 28 (1.41%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
10 25 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
11 21 (1.06%) Front Office
11 21 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 18 (0.91%) Telecoms
13 15 (0.76%) Military
14 14 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
15 11 (0.56%) Retail
16 10 (0.50%) Law
17 6 (0.30%) Digital Healthcare
17 6 (0.30%) Games
17 6 (0.30%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 544 (27.46%) Developer
2 343 (17.31%) Senior
3 276 (13.93%) DevOps Engineer
4 150 (7.57%) Java Developer
4 150 (7.57%) Software Engineer
5 132 (6.66%) AWS Engineer
6 121 (6.11%) Senior Developer
7 120 (6.06%) Architect
8 111 (5.60%) Lead
9 109 (5.50%) Python Developer
10 98 (4.95%) Full-Stack Developer
11 84 (4.24%) AWS DevOps
12 81 (4.09%) Data Engineer
12 81 (4.09%) Platform Engineer
13 76 (3.84%) AWS DevOps Engineer
14 70 (3.53%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 68 (3.43%) Cloud Engineer
16 62 (3.13%) Site Reliability Engineer
17 54 (2.73%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 52 (2.62%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 307 (15.50%) Kafka
2 274 (13.83%) REST
3 273 (13.78%) Spring
4 265 (13.38%) RESTful
5 249 (12.57%) Spring Boot
6 243 (12.27%) React
7 241 (12.17%) Node.js
8 133 (6.71%) .NET
9 128 (6.46%) Elastic Stack
10 120 (6.06%) AngularJS
11 109 (5.50%) FastAPI
12 104 (5.25%) HTML
13 95 (4.80%) OAuth
14 86 (4.34%) PyTorch
15 85 (4.29%) GraphQL
15 85 (4.29%) gRPC
16 79 (3.99%) JSON
17 77 (3.89%) CSS
18 70 (3.53%) TensorFlow
19 67 (3.38%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 376 (18.98%) Cloud Native
2 172 (8.68%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (2.73%) Product Ownership
3 54 (2.73%) Public Cloud
4 36 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
5 33 (1.67%) Algorithms
5 33 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
6 30 (1.51%) Management Information System
6 30 (1.51%) Replication
7 29 (1.46%) AI Agents
7 29 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
8 27 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
9 24 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
9 24 (1.21%) Onboarding
10 21 (1.06%) Data Centre
11 19 (0.96%) Life Science
11 19 (0.96%) PKI
12 18 (0.91%) Genomics
12 18 (0.91%) Hedge funds
12 18 (0.91%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 410 (20.70%) Linux
2 121 (6.11%) Windows
3 92 (4.64%) Unix
4 40 (2.02%) Windows Server
5 35 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 26 (1.31%) VMS
7 21 (1.06%) Ubuntu
8 15 (0.76%) Amazon Linux
9 10 (0.50%) CentOS
10 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.15%) Android
11 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.15%) Solaris
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.10%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.10%) Rocky
12 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.050%) Alpine Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,397 (70.52%) CI/CD
2 1,104 (55.73%) DevOps
3 1,048 (52.90%) Containerisation
4 772 (38.97%) Agile
5 652 (32.91%) Microservices
6 602 (30.39%) Infrastructure as Code
7 488 (24.63%) Problem-Solving
8 385 (19.43%) Software Engineering
9 383 (19.33%) Test Automation
10 318 (16.05%) Observability
11 267 (13.48%) AI
12 229 (11.56%) Full-Stack Development
13 207 (10.45%) Continuous Improvement
14 205 (10.35%) Mentoring
15 202 (10.20%) Machine Learning
16 197 (9.94%) Analytics
17 194 (9.79%) Scrum
18 186 (9.39%) Data Pipeline
19 167 (8.43%) DevSecOps
19 167 (8.43%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 959 (48.41%) Python
2 551 (27.81%) Java
3 468 (23.62%) SQL
4 277 (13.98%) Bash
5 228 (11.51%) JavaScript
6 213 (10.75%) TypeScript
7 196 (9.89%) Go
8 151 (7.62%) PowerShell
9 146 (7.37%) C#
10 67 (3.38%) Shell Script
11 58 (2.93%) Bicep
12 48 (2.42%) C++
13 47 (2.37%) Scala
14 45 (2.27%) Groovy
15 43 (2.17%) Ruby
16 34 (1.72%) Rust
17 31 (1.56%) Perl
18 29 (1.46%) PHP
19 17 (0.86%) C
19 17 (0.86%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 613 (30.94%) Security Cleared
2 496 (25.04%) SC Cleared
3 195 (9.84%) Degree
4 127 (6.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 98 (4.95%) AWS Certification
6 82 (4.14%) DV Cleared
7 71 (3.58%) Azure Certification
8 54 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
9 48 (2.42%) Master's Degree
10 40 (2.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 16 (0.81%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 16 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.66%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (0.66%) ISTQB
13 11 (0.56%) CISSP
14 9 (0.45%) AWS Certified Developer
15 8 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 8 (0.40%) MCP
15 8 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
16 7 (0.35%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (5.55%) QA
2 66 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 65 (3.28%) Accessibility
4 33 (1.67%) GDPR
5 26 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 25 (1.26%) WCAG
7 20 (1.01%) ISO 20022
7 20 (1.01%) NIST
7 20 (1.01%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.96%) NCSC
9 16 (0.81%) PSD2
10 13 (0.66%) SEPA
11 11 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (0.45%) SLA
13 8 (0.40%) HIPAA
14 7 (0.35%) HL7
15 6 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 4 (0.20%) EU AI Act
16 4 (0.20%) SOC 2
17 3 (0.15%) MiFID
System Software
1 60 (3.03%) Active Directory
2 55 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (1.01%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 20 (1.01%) vSphere
4 15 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (0.66%) Squid
6 12 (0.61%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.50%) KVM
8 9 (0.45%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.45%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.40%) Dovecot
9 8 (0.40%) Lustre
9 8 (0.40%) Postfix
9 8 (0.40%) Tivoli Directory Server
9 8 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
9 8 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.30%) GPFS
10 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
11 5 (0.25%) HDFS
11 5 (0.25%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 1,452 (73.30%) Kubernetes
2 711 (35.89%) Terraform
3 306 (15.45%) Grafana
4 302 (15.24%) Ansible
5 266 (13.43%) Prometheus
6 69 (3.48%) Puppet
7 62 (3.13%) Argo
8 49 (2.47%) Progress Chef
9 46 (2.32%) Kibana
10 30 (1.51%) Podman
11 24 (1.21%) Nessus
12 23 (1.16%) Packer
13 22 (1.11%) Istio
14 18 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
15 17 (0.86%) Consul
16 16 (0.81%) Docker Swarm
17 15 (0.76%) Proxmox
18 14 (0.71%) Control-M
18 14 (0.71%) logstash
19 12 (0.61%) IBM Guardium
Vendors
1 195 (9.84%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.77%) Google
3 147 (7.42%) Oracle
4 136 (6.87%) Splunk
5 62 (3.13%) Databricks
5 62 (3.13%) VMware
6 49 (2.47%) Red Hat
7 46 (2.32%) OpenAI
8 38 (1.92%) Denodo
8 38 (1.92%) Talend
9 36 (1.82%) Dynatrace
10 33 (1.67%) Palo Alto
11 32 (1.62%) F5
12 29 (1.46%) AppDynamics
13 25 (1.26%) CheckPoint
13 25 (1.26%) ServiceNow
14 18 (0.91%) Atlassian
14 18 (0.91%) Cisco
15 17 (0.86%) IBM
16 14 (0.71%) Confluent