Kubernetes Job Trends in the North West

Kubernetes (k8s)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Kubernetes skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 74 73
Rank change year-on-year -16 -1 -49
Permanent jobs citing Kubernetes 199 236 227
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 1.63% 4.55% 2.77%
As % of the Systems Management category 42.07% 23.41% 45.22%
Number of salaries quoted 163 82 88
10th Percentile £44,500 £52,500 £42,500
25th Percentile £57,500 £57,500 £50,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £68,750 £62,750
Median % change year-on-year +5.45% +9.56% -16.33%
75th Percentile £87,824 £86,875 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,250 £106,700 £85,000
England median annual salary £70,039 £78,810 £77,500
% change year-on-year -11.13% +1.69% +2.42%

All Systems Management Skills
North West

Kubernetes falls under the Systems Management category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring systems management skills in the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 473 1,008 502
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 3.87% 19.44% 6.14%
Number of salaries quoted 362 192 269
10th Percentile £31,025 £25,775 £30,001
25th Percentile £38,750 £33,125 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,808 £57,500 £48,256
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% +19.16% -28.51%
75th Percentile £75,020 £73,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £88,625 £76,250
England median annual salary £60,000 £62,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -3.85%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Kubernetes relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in the North West

Kubernetes
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Kubernetes.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in the North West over the 6 months to 2 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Kubernetes in the North West

Kubernetes
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Kubernetes within the North West region over the 6 months to 2 September 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Manchester -12 162 £72,500 +3.57% 165
Lancashire +3 14 £51,065 -15.60% 15
Merseyside -10 12 £95,000 - 4
Cheshire -49 10 £62,500 +4.17% 7
Kubernetes
England

Kubernetes
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 5 (2.51%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.51%) Apache Spark
3 2 (1.01%) Apache
4 1 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 1 (0.50%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 127 (63.82%) AWS
2 73 (36.68%) Azure
3 44 (22.11%) GitHub
4 42 (21.11%) GCP
5 35 (17.59%) Serverless
6 32 (16.08%) AWS CloudFormation
7 20 (10.05%) OpenShift
8 19 (9.55%) GitHub Actions
9 18 (9.05%) AWS Lambda
10 16 (8.04%) Amazon ECS
11 14 (7.04%) Datadog
12 13 (6.53%) SaaS
13 12 (6.03%) Amazon EKS
13 12 (6.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 11 (5.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 11 (5.53%) Azure AKS
14 11 (5.53%) GitHub Copilot
15 10 (5.03%) Amazon SQS
15 10 (5.03%) Azure DevOps
16 9 (4.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.01%) Firewall
2 3 (1.51%) Network Security
2 3 (1.51%) Software-Defined Networking
3 2 (1.01%) AMQP
4 1 (0.50%) DNS
4 1 (0.50%) HTTP
4 1 (0.50%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (12.06%) MongoDB
2 20 (10.05%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (5.53%) NoSQL
4 9 (4.52%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (4.02%) DynamoDB
6 6 (3.02%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (2.51%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (2.51%) Neo4j
8 4 (2.01%) Relational Database
9 3 (1.51%) Big Data
9 3 (1.51%) Chroma
9 3 (1.51%) Pinecone
9 3 (1.51%) SQL Server
10 2 (1.01%) Amazon Aurora
10 2 (1.01%) Cloudera CDH
10 2 (1.01%) Hadoop
10 2 (1.01%) Redis
11 1 (0.50%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.50%) Data Warehouse
11 1 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 32 (16.08%) Git
2 28 (14.07%) Jenkins
3 27 (13.57%) GitLab
4 8 (4.02%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (2.51%) Cypress.io
6 4 (2.01%) Bitbucket
6 4 (2.01%) Cucumber
6 4 (2.01%) Robot Framework
6 4 (2.01%) Vite
7 3 (1.51%) Postman
7 3 (1.51%) Selenium
8 2 (1.01%) Claude Code
8 2 (1.01%) JIRA
8 2 (1.01%) Mocha
9 1 (0.50%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.50%) Gemini Tracker
9 1 (0.50%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.50%) JUnit
9 1 (0.50%) Maven
9 1 (0.50%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 21 (10.55%) Social Skills
2 15 (7.54%) Public Sector
3 10 (5.03%) Finance
4 7 (3.52%) Advertising
5 5 (2.51%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.01%) Aerospace
6 4 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.01%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (1.01%) Publishing
7 2 (1.01%) Retail
8 1 (0.50%) Front Office
8 1 (0.50%) iGaming
Job Titles
1 63 (31.66%) DevOps Engineer
2 49 (24.62%) Senior
3 36 (18.09%) Developer
4 33 (16.58%) Cloud Engineer
5 26 (13.07%) Lead
6 24 (12.06%) Software Engineer
7 17 (8.54%) Platform Engineer
7 17 (8.54%) Principal Engineer
8 13 (6.53%) Architect
8 13 (6.53%) Java Developer
9 11 (5.53%) Cloud Native Engineer
9 11 (5.53%) Senior Developer
9 11 (5.53%) Senior DevOps
9 11 (5.53%) Senior DevOps Engineer
10 10 (5.03%) Lead Developer
10 10 (5.03%) Principal DevOps Engineer
10 10 (5.03%) Senior Java Developer
11 9 (4.52%) Senior Software Engineer
12 8 (4.02%) Cloud Architect
12 8 (4.02%) Lead DevOps
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (60.30%) Terraform
2 43 (21.61%) Spring
3 41 (20.60%) Spring Boot
4 30 (15.08%) React
5 25 (12.56%) Node.js
6 20 (10.05%) Kafka
7 19 (9.55%) .NET
8 16 (8.04%) AngularJS
8 16 (8.04%) RESTful
9 14 (7.04%) Vue
10 12 (6.03%) REST
11 11 (5.53%) FastAPI
12 9 (4.52%) OpenTelemetry
12 9 (4.52%) RabbitMQ
13 8 (4.02%) LangChain
14 7 (3.52%) CSS
15 6 (3.02%) ASP.NET
15 6 (3.02%) Django
15 6 (3.02%) Hibernate
15 6 (3.02%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 68 (34.17%) Cloud Native
2 25 (12.56%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (5.03%) Greenfield Project
4 9 (4.52%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (2.51%) AI Agents
6 4 (2.01%) Enterprise Cloud
6 4 (2.01%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.51%) Cloud Security Posture
7 3 (1.51%) Life Science
7 3 (1.51%) Product Ownership
7 3 (1.51%) Social Media
8 2 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.01%) Media Streaming
8 2 (1.01%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.01%) Podcast
8 2 (1.01%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (0.50%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.50%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.50%) Online Gambling
9 1 (0.50%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 30 (15.08%) Linux
2 8 (4.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (3.02%) CentOS
4 4 (2.01%) Windows
5 2 (1.01%) Debian
5 2 (1.01%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.50%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (72.86%) CI/CD
2 127 (63.82%) DevOps
3 106 (53.27%) Infrastructure as Code
4 93 (46.73%) Containerisation
5 69 (34.67%) Agile
6 57 (28.64%) Platform Engineering
7 53 (26.63%) AI
8 47 (23.62%) Microservices
8 47 (23.62%) Observability
8 47 (23.62%) Software Engineering
9 44 (22.11%) Mentoring
9 44 (22.11%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 38 (19.10%) Continuous Improvement
11 36 (18.09%) Problem-Solving
12 23 (11.56%) Event-Driven
12 23 (11.56%) TDD
13 21 (10.55%) Cloud Security
14 19 (9.55%) Collaborative Culture
14 19 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
14 19 (9.55%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 82 (41.21%) Python
2 59 (29.65%) Java
3 34 (17.09%) Bash
4 31 (15.58%) TypeScript
5 28 (14.07%) JavaScript
6 23 (11.56%) SQL
7 19 (9.55%) PowerShell
8 18 (9.05%) C#
9 17 (8.54%) Go
10 9 (4.52%) Bicep
11 4 (2.01%) Kotlin
11 4 (2.01%) Rust
11 4 (2.01%) Scala
12 3 (1.51%) C++
13 2 (1.01%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.50%) C
14 1 (0.50%) Objective-C
14 1 (0.50%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.50%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 65 (32.66%) Security Cleared
2 37 (18.59%) DV Cleared
3 34 (17.09%) SC Cleared
4 7 (3.52%) AWS Certification
4 7 (3.52%) Azure Certification
4 7 (3.52%) Degree
5 4 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.01%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 1 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.51%) PCI DSS
2 3 (1.51%) QA
2 3 (1.51%) SOC 2
3 1 (0.50%) Accessibility
System Software
1 126 (63.32%) Docker
2 4 (2.01%) Virtual Machines
2 4 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.51%) Ceph
4 2 (1.01%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.01%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.50%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 59 (29.65%) Ansible
2 19 (9.55%) Prometheus
3 18 (9.05%) Grafana
4 12 (6.03%) Argo
4 12 (6.03%) Istio
5 9 (4.52%) Puppet
6 8 (4.02%) linkerd
7 7 (3.52%) Progress Chef
8 3 (1.51%) Check_MK
8 3 (1.51%) Podman
8 3 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.50%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 17 (8.54%) Google
2 14 (7.04%) Microsoft
3 7 (3.52%) HubSpot
4 6 (3.02%) OpenAI
5 5 (2.51%) Red Hat
5 5 (2.51%) VMware
6 4 (2.01%) Mistral
7 3 (1.51%) Dell
7 3 (1.51%) Dynatrace
7 3 (1.51%) Splunk
8 2 (1.01%) Databricks
8 2 (1.01%) Pega
8 2 (1.01%) SaltStack
8 2 (1.01%) WSO2
9 1 (0.50%) New Relic
9 1 (0.50%) Oracle
9 1 (0.50%) Percona
9 1 (0.50%) YouTube