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 30 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 82 66
Rank change year-on-year -3 -16 -42
Permanent jobs citing Kubernetes 224 224 214
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 1.73% 4.30% 2.85%
As % of the Systems Management category 43.50% 21.83% 42.04%
Number of salaries quoted 169 70 80
10th Percentile £47,500 £51,200 £42,500
25th Percentile £57,500 £57,500 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £67,500 £62,750
Median % change year-on-year +7.41% +7.57% -16.33%
75th Percentile £88,750 £80,000 £75,313
90th Percentile £97,500 £89,100 £87,550
England median annual salary £71,500 £77,500 £77,500
% change year-on-year -7.74% - +3.33%

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 515 1,026 509
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 3.98% 19.72% 6.77%
Number of salaries quoted 374 202 239
10th Percentile £32,825 £26,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,625 £33,125 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £48,720 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +23.15% -2.56% -23.08%
75th Percentile £76,882 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £81,250 £77,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -0.83% -6.92% -

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 30 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 30 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 -6 185 £75,000 +11.11% 157
Lancashire +5 15 £52,130 -13.83% 7
Merseyside -10 12 £95,000 +46.15% 8
Cheshire -56 10 £62,500 -10.71% 11
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 (2.23%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.79%) Apache
2 4 (1.79%) OpenStack
3 2 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.89%) Confluence
4 1 (0.45%) IIS
Applications
1 1 (0.45%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 144 (64.29%) AWS
2 77 (34.38%) Azure
3 50 (22.32%) GitHub
4 44 (19.64%) GCP
5 40 (17.86%) Serverless
6 31 (13.84%) AWS CloudFormation
7 21 (9.38%) GitHub Actions
7 21 (9.38%) OpenShift
8 20 (8.93%) AWS Lambda
9 15 (6.70%) Amazon ECS
10 13 (5.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 13 (5.80%) Datadog
11 12 (5.36%) Azure AKS
11 12 (5.36%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (5.36%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 12 (5.36%) SaaS
12 11 (4.91%) GitHub Copilot
13 10 (4.46%) Amazon EKS
14 9 (4.02%) Amazon SQS
15 8 (3.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.79%) Firewall
2 3 (1.34%) AMQP
2 3 (1.34%) DNS
2 3 (1.34%) Network Security
2 3 (1.34%) Software-Defined Networking
3 1 (0.45%) DHCP
3 1 (0.45%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (12.50%) MongoDB
2 19 (8.48%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (4.46%) Amazon RDS
3 10 (4.46%) NoSQL
4 7 (3.13%) DynamoDB
5 6 (2.68%) Azure SQL Database
6 5 (2.23%) Elasticsearch
6 5 (2.23%) Neo4j
7 4 (1.79%) Big Data
8 3 (1.34%) Chroma
8 3 (1.34%) Cloudera CDH
8 3 (1.34%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.34%) Pinecone
8 3 (1.34%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.89%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.89%) Redis
9 2 (0.89%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.45%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 34 (15.18%) Git
2 31 (13.84%) GitLab
3 30 (13.39%) Jenkins
4 9 (4.02%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 6 (2.68%) JIRA
6 5 (2.23%) Cypress.io
7 4 (1.79%) Artifactory
7 4 (1.79%) Bitbucket
7 4 (1.79%) Cucumber
7 4 (1.79%) Robot Framework
7 4 (1.79%) Vagrant
7 4 (1.79%) Vite
8 3 (1.34%) Postman
8 3 (1.34%) Selenium
9 2 (0.89%) Mocha
10 1 (0.45%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.45%) Gemini Tracker
10 1 (0.45%) Maven
10 1 (0.45%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 33 (14.73%) Social Skills
2 19 (8.48%) Public Sector
3 12 (5.36%) Publishing
4 10 (4.46%) Finance
5 7 (3.13%) Advertising
6 6 (2.68%) Aerospace
6 6 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.79%) Analytical Skills
8 2 (0.89%) Manufacturing
8 2 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.89%) Retail
9 1 (0.45%) Front Office
9 1 (0.45%) iGaming
Job Titles
1 70 (31.25%) DevOps Engineer
2 60 (26.79%) Senior
3 35 (15.63%) Developer
4 34 (15.18%) Software Engineer
5 32 (14.29%) Cloud Engineer
6 31 (13.84%) Lead
7 19 (8.48%) Principal Engineer
8 18 (8.04%) Platform Engineer
9 15 (6.70%) Senior Software Engineer
10 14 (6.25%) Architect
11 13 (5.80%) Senior DevOps
11 13 (5.80%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 12 (5.36%) Cloud Native Engineer
12 12 (5.36%) Principal DevOps Engineer
13 11 (4.91%) Java Developer
13 11 (4.91%) Lead DevOps
13 11 (4.91%) Lead DevOps Engineer
13 11 (4.91%) Senior Developer
14 10 (4.46%) AWS Engineer
15 9 (4.02%) Senior Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (58.48%) Terraform
2 60 (26.79%) Spring
3 56 (25.00%) Spring Boot
4 46 (20.54%) React
5 33 (14.73%) Kafka
6 23 (10.27%) Node.js
7 17 (7.59%) AngularJS
8 16 (7.14%) .NET
9 14 (6.25%) RESTful
9 14 (6.25%) Vue
10 12 (5.36%) FastAPI
10 12 (5.36%) REST
11 10 (4.46%) RabbitMQ
12 8 (3.57%) LangChain
12 8 (3.57%) OpenTelemetry
13 7 (3.13%) CSS
13 7 (3.13%) Django
13 7 (3.13%) OpenAPI
13 7 (3.13%) Swagger
14 6 (2.68%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 76 (33.93%) Cloud Native
2 21 (9.38%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (5.36%) Media Streaming
3 12 (5.36%) Podcast
4 10 (4.46%) Greenfield Project
5 7 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (2.23%) AI Agents
7 4 (1.79%) Product Ownership
7 4 (1.79%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.34%) Cloud Security Posture
8 3 (1.34%) Life Science
8 3 (1.34%) Social Media
9 2 (0.89%) Enterprise Cloud
9 2 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.89%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.89%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.45%) Culture of Ownership
10 1 (0.45%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.45%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.45%) Online Gambling
Operating Systems
1 35 (15.63%) Linux
2 11 (4.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 8 (3.57%) CentOS
4 6 (2.68%) Windows
5 4 (1.79%) Ubuntu
6 3 (1.34%) Debian
7 2 (0.89%) Unix
8 1 (0.45%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (71.88%) CI/CD
2 148 (66.07%) DevOps
3 114 (50.89%) Infrastructure as Code
4 105 (46.88%) Containerisation
5 89 (39.73%) Agile
6 63 (28.13%) AI
7 60 (26.79%) Observability
8 59 (26.34%) Mentoring
8 59 (26.34%) Software Engineering
9 56 (25.00%) Platform Engineering
10 54 (24.11%) Microservices
11 51 (22.77%) Continuous Improvement
12 48 (21.43%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 42 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
14 35 (15.63%) Event-Driven
15 26 (11.61%) Cloud Security
15 26 (11.61%) Scrum
16 24 (10.71%) TDD
17 23 (10.27%) Code Quality
18 22 (9.82%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 94 (41.96%) Python
2 77 (34.38%) Java
3 43 (19.20%) TypeScript
4 40 (17.86%) Bash
5 29 (12.95%) JavaScript
6 24 (10.71%) PowerShell
7 22 (9.82%) SQL
8 18 (8.04%) Go
9 16 (7.14%) C#
10 11 (4.91%) Bicep
11 5 (2.23%) Rust
12 4 (1.79%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.79%) Scala
13 3 (1.34%) C++
14 2 (0.89%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.45%) C
15 1 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.45%) Objective-C
15 1 (0.45%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.45%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 75 (33.48%) Security Cleared
2 46 (20.54%) DV Cleared
3 39 (17.41%) SC Cleared
4 10 (4.46%) AWS Certification
5 8 (3.57%) Azure Certification
6 6 (2.68%) Degree
7 4 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.89%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.45%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 1 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.79%) PCI DSS
3 3 (1.34%) QA
3 3 (1.34%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.45%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.45%) Data Quality
System Software
1 135 (60.27%) Docker
2 5 (2.23%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (1.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.34%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.34%) Ceph
5 2 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.89%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 65 (29.02%) Ansible
2 21 (9.38%) Prometheus
3 20 (8.93%) Grafana
4 13 (5.80%) Argo
5 12 (5.36%) Istio
6 11 (4.91%) Progress Chef
6 11 (4.91%) Puppet
7 8 (3.57%) linkerd
8 4 (1.79%) Packer
9 3 (1.34%) Check_MK
9 3 (1.34%) Podman
9 3 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.89%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.45%) Opsview
Vendors
1 18 (8.04%) Google
2 17 (7.59%) Microsoft
3 6 (2.68%) HubSpot
3 6 (2.68%) OpenAI
3 6 (2.68%) Red Hat
4 5 (2.23%) VMware
5 4 (1.79%) Mistral
5 4 (1.79%) YouTube
6 3 (1.34%) Databricks
6 3 (1.34%) Dell
6 3 (1.34%) Dynatrace
6 3 (1.34%) SaltStack
6 3 (1.34%) Splunk
7 1 (0.45%) CrowdStrike
7 1 (0.45%) New Relic
7 1 (0.45%) Oracle
7 1 (0.45%) Pega
7 1 (0.45%) Percona
7 1 (0.45%) WSO2