Kubernetes Job Trends in the South West

Kubernetes (k8s)
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Kubernetes skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 52 25
Rank change year-on-year -12 -27 +20
Permanent jobs citing Kubernetes 128 178 383
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 2.52% 4.29% 8.07%
As % of the Systems Management category 42.67% 42.89% 44.53%
Number of salaries quoted 110 113 291
10th Percentile £42,500 £47,500 £45,000
25th Percentile £48,750 £57,500 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% +7.69% +5.26%
75th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £92,250 £91,934
England median annual salary £75,000 £80,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year -6.25% +6.67% -5.44%

All Systems Management Skills
South 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 South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 300 415 860
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 5.90% 10.01% 18.12%
Number of salaries quoted 243 261 657
10th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £31,475
25th Percentile £36,375 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -
75th Percentile £72,500 £77,500 £72,433
90th Percentile £83,750 £87,500 £84,056
England median annual salary £62,500 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -10.71% +7.69% -3.70%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in the South West

Kubernetes
Salary Trend in the South West

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in the South West over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Kubernetes in the South West

Kubernetes
Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Kubernetes within the South West region over the 6 months to 14 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Gloucestershire +2 36 £67,500 +3.85% 39
Bristol -25 28 £75,000 -3.23% 29
Somerset - 20 £45,000 - 20
Devon +8 14 £60,000 +4.35% 21
Dorset -1 10 £70,000 +27.27% 20
Wiltshire +7 4 £77,500 +37.78% 22
Cornwall - 3 - - 15
Kubernetes
England

Kubernetes
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 4 (3.13%) Apache
1 4 (3.13%) IIS
2 2 (1.56%) Confluence
3 1 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.78%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.78%) Apache Superset
3 1 (0.78%) JBoss
3 1 (0.78%) OpenStack
Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 72 (56.25%) Azure
2 69 (53.91%) AWS
3 22 (17.19%) GitHub
4 20 (15.63%) Serverless
5 19 (14.84%) Amazon S3
5 19 (14.84%) GCP
6 18 (14.06%) Azure DevOps
6 18 (14.06%) GitHub Actions
7 17 (13.28%) AWS Lambda
8 11 (8.59%) OpenShift
9 10 (7.81%) Azure AKS
10 8 (6.25%) Amazon EC2
10 8 (6.25%) Amazon ECS
11 5 (3.91%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (3.13%) Azure Stack
12 4 (3.13%) Entra ID
12 4 (3.13%) SaaS
13 3 (2.34%) Amazon EKS
13 3 (2.34%) Amazon SQS
14 2 (1.56%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 9 (7.03%) Firewall
2 7 (5.47%) VPN
3 5 (3.91%) AMQP
3 5 (3.91%) DNS
3 5 (3.91%) VLAN
4 4 (3.13%) Broadband
4 4 (3.13%) Cisco IOS
4 4 (3.13%) DHCP
4 4 (3.13%) IPsec
4 4 (3.13%) VoIP
4 4 (3.13%) Wireless
5 1 (0.78%) Internet
5 1 (0.78%) Network Security
5 1 (0.78%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (9.38%) Amazon RDS
2 10 (7.81%) NoSQL
3 9 (7.03%) SQL Server
4 7 (5.47%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (5.47%) Relational Database
5 6 (4.69%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (4.69%) InfluxDB
5 6 (4.69%) Neo4j
6 3 (2.34%) CockroachDB
7 2 (1.56%) Big Data
7 2 (1.56%) Geospatial Data
7 2 (1.56%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.78%) Couchbase
8 1 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.78%) DB2
8 1 (0.78%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.78%) MySQL
8 1 (0.78%) Redis
8 1 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 24 (18.75%) Jenkins
2 10 (7.81%) GitLab
3 6 (4.69%) Git
4 5 (3.91%) Cypress.io
5 4 (3.13%) Cucumber
5 4 (3.13%) JUnit
6 3 (2.34%) Gradle
6 3 (2.34%) Maven
6 3 (2.34%) Selenium
6 3 (2.34%) Subversion
6 3 (2.34%) TeamCity
6 3 (2.34%) TestNG
7 2 (1.56%) Checkstyle
7 2 (1.56%) CircleCI
7 2 (1.56%) ESLint
7 2 (1.56%) JIRA
7 2 (1.56%) Mockito
7 2 (1.56%) Robot Framework
7 2 (1.56%) SonarQube
7 2 (1.56%) TestRail
General
1 26 (20.31%) Social Skills
2 18 (14.06%) Public Sector
3 17 (13.28%) Finance
4 6 (4.69%) Electronics
4 6 (4.69%) Manufacturing
4 6 (4.69%) Marketing
4 6 (4.69%) Telecoms
5 5 (3.91%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (3.13%) Aerospace
7 2 (1.56%) Games
7 2 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.56%) Retail
8 1 (0.78%) Banking
8 1 (0.78%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.78%) Law
8 1 (0.78%) Military
8 1 (0.78%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 24 (18.75%) Software Engineer
2 23 (17.97%) Developer
3 19 (14.84%) Senior
4 15 (11.72%) DevOps Engineer
5 13 (10.16%) Platform Engineer
6 11 (8.59%) Lead
7 9 (7.03%) Software Developer
8 8 (6.25%) IT Engineer
9 7 (5.47%) Architect
9 7 (5.47%) Java Developer
10 6 (4.69%) Azure Engineer
10 6 (4.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 6 (4.69%) Senior Software Engineer
11 5 (3.91%) DevSecOps Engineer
11 5 (3.91%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 5 (3.91%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
11 5 (3.91%) Senior Developer
11 5 (3.91%) Test Engineer
12 4 (3.13%) 3rd Line Support
12 4 (3.13%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (19.53%) React
2 24 (18.75%) Spring
3 19 (14.84%) Spring Boot
4 18 (14.06%) .NET
5 17 (13.28%) .NET Core
6 11 (8.59%) AngularJS
6 11 (8.59%) YAML
7 9 (7.03%) RESTful
8 7 (5.47%) REST
9 6 (4.69%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (4.69%) MERN Stack
10 5 (3.91%) Node.js
10 5 (3.91%) RabbitMQ
11 4 (3.13%) Kafka
12 3 (2.34%) .NET Framework
12 3 (2.34%) Entity Framework
12 3 (2.34%) OAuth
12 3 (2.34%) OAuth2
12 3 (2.34%) OpenAPI
12 3 (2.34%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 30 (23.44%) Cloud Native
2 6 (4.69%) Legacy Systems
3 4 (3.13%) Clustering
3 4 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (3.13%) Linux Command Line
3 4 (3.13%) Private Cloud
4 3 (2.34%) Data Centre
4 3 (2.34%) Onboarding
4 3 (2.34%) Over-the-Top Content
4 3 (2.34%) Video\Live Streaming
5 2 (1.56%) Blockchain
5 2 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.56%) Management Information System
5 2 (1.56%) Product Ownership
5 2 (1.56%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.78%) CUDA
6 1 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
6 1 (0.78%) Data Fabric
6 1 (0.78%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 29 (22.66%) Linux
2 14 (10.94%) Windows
3 11 (8.59%) Windows Server
4 5 (3.91%) Ubuntu
5 4 (3.13%) Debian
5 4 (3.13%) Mac OS
6 3 (2.34%) CentOS
6 3 (2.34%) Rocky
6 3 (2.34%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.78%) Unix
7 1 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (57.81%) CI/CD
2 68 (53.13%) Containerisation
3 66 (51.56%) DevOps
4 46 (35.94%) Infrastructure as Code
5 43 (33.59%) Agile
5 43 (33.59%) Software Engineering
6 27 (21.09%) Continuous Improvement
7 26 (20.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 20 (15.63%) Collaborative Culture
9 17 (13.28%) Full-Stack Development
9 17 (13.28%) Mentoring
10 16 (12.50%) Test Automation
11 15 (11.72%) Microservices
11 15 (11.72%) Platform Engineering
12 14 (10.94%) AI
13 13 (10.16%) Coaching
13 13 (10.16%) Problem-Solving
13 13 (10.16%) Scrum
14 9 (7.03%) Deployment Automation
14 9 (7.03%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 59 (46.09%) Python
2 46 (35.94%) Java
3 24 (18.75%) SQL
4 23 (17.97%) Bash
5 20 (15.63%) JavaScript
5 20 (15.63%) TypeScript
6 18 (14.06%) PowerShell
7 17 (13.28%) Bicep
8 15 (11.72%) C#
9 10 (7.81%) Go
10 7 (5.47%) C
11 6 (4.69%) Kotlin
12 3 (2.34%) Elixir
12 3 (2.34%) Erlang
12 3 (2.34%) Scala
12 3 (2.34%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.78%) Delphi
13 1 (0.78%) PHP
13 1 (0.78%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 47 (36.72%) Security Cleared
2 37 (28.91%) DV Cleared
3 23 (17.97%) SC Cleared
4 7 (5.47%) Azure Certification
5 5 (3.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 4 (3.13%) ACMT
7 3 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (2.34%) Degree
7 3 (2.34%) Network+ Certification
8 2 (1.56%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.56%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 2 (1.56%) ISTQB
8 2 (1.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 2 (1.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.78%) CCNA
9 1 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (8.59%) QA
2 4 (3.13%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.56%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.56%) NCSC
4 1 (0.78%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.78%) GDPR
4 1 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 85 (66.41%) Docker
2 7 (5.47%) Hyper-V
3 6 (4.69%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (3.91%) Active Directory
4 5 (3.91%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (2.34%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.78%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.78%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 35 (27.34%) Terraform
2 21 (16.41%) Ansible
3 14 (10.94%) Grafana
4 10 (7.81%) Prometheus
5 5 (3.91%) vCenter Server
6 4 (3.13%) Argo
6 4 (3.13%) Autotask
6 4 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (3.13%) Progress Chef
7 3 (2.34%) Docker Swarm
7 3 (2.34%) Rancher
7 3 (2.34%) yum
8 2 (1.56%) Puppet
9 1 (0.78%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 12 (9.38%) Microsoft
2 9 (7.03%) Google
2 9 (7.03%) Oracle
2 9 (7.03%) Red Hat
3 6 (4.69%) SAP
4 5 (3.91%) Cisco
4 5 (3.91%) Splunk
4 5 (3.91%) VMware
5 4 (3.13%) Apple
5 4 (3.13%) Datto
5 4 (3.13%) Sophos
5 4 (3.13%) Veeam
6 3 (2.34%) Dell
7 2 (1.56%) Guidewire
8 1 (0.78%) Databricks
8 1 (0.78%) Fortinet
8 1 (0.78%) New Relic
8 1 (0.78%) NVIDIA
8 1 (0.78%) Palo Alto