Kubernetes Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Kubernetes (k8s)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Kubernetes skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 83 87
Rank change year-on-year -34 +4 -23
Permanent jobs citing Kubernetes 1,071 1,159 1,983
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 1.50% 3.43% 2.71%
As % of the Systems Management category 33.18% 33.77% 34.25%
Number of salaries quoted 868 542 1,305
10th Percentile £46,250 £47,500 £44,250
25th Percentile £53,750 £56,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £70,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £79,813 £84,250 £85,000
90th Percentile £94,125 £98,474 £93,750
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £77,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +3.23% +3.33%

All Systems Management Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 3,228 3,432 5,789
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.51% 10.15% 7.91%
Number of salaries quoted 2,536 1,769 3,977
10th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £42,161 £39,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £57,500 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year - +6.48% -10.00%
75th Percentile £73,750 £73,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £87,500 £85,000
UK median annual salary £63,373 £65,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -2.50% +4.00% -7.41%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Kubernetes relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Kubernetes
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Kubernetes.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Kubernetes in the UK excluding London

Kubernetes
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Kubernetes within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 July 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
South East +10 321 £63,750 -5.56% 139
North of England -19 290 £67,500 -10.00% 120
South West -7 215 £57,500 -20.13% 73
North West -24 174 £71,500 -4.67% 76
Midlands -49 104 £62,500 -7.41% 56
North East -5 65 £60,000 - 18
West Midlands -57 65 £65,000 -3.70% 46
East of England -7 63 £72,500 +31.82% 16
Yorkshire -60 51 £70,000 -9.68% 26
Wales -28 48 £68,750 +1.85% 14
East Midlands -52 38 £60,000 -4.00% 10
Scotland -67 34 £59,283 -20.82% 29
Isle of Man +3 3 £35,000 +1.45% 10
Northern Ireland -65 3 £67,500 +22.73% 24
Kubernetes
UK

Kubernetes
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 22 (2.05%) Confluence
2 15 (1.40%) OpenStack
3 13 (1.21%) IIS
4 12 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
5 11 (1.03%) Apache
6 9 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 9 (0.84%) Apache Spark
7 7 (0.65%) OpenEdge
8 5 (0.47%) nginx
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.19%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.093%) Apache Qpid
10 1 (0.093%) JBoss
10 1 (0.093%) Mendix
10 1 (0.093%) Red Hat Fuse
10 1 (0.093%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (0.19%) Lightworks
2 1 (0.093%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 595 (55.56%) Azure
2 513 (47.90%) AWS
3 269 (25.12%) GitHub
4 191 (17.83%) GCP
5 145 (13.54%) GitHub Copilot
6 106 (9.90%) Serverless
7 96 (8.96%) Azure AKS
8 93 (8.68%) GitHub Actions
9 90 (8.40%) Azure DevOps
10 84 (7.84%) AWS CloudFormation
11 82 (7.66%) Amazon EKS
12 72 (6.72%) Azure AI
13 63 (5.88%) OpenShift
14 56 (5.23%) Amazon EC2
15 50 (4.67%) SaaS
16 49 (4.58%) IaaS
17 45 (4.20%) AWS Lambda
18 43 (4.01%) Amazon ECS
19 42 (3.92%) Amazon S3
20 40 (3.73%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 58 (5.42%) Firewall
2 49 (4.58%) DNS
3 37 (3.45%) VPN
4 22 (2.05%) Network Security
5 21 (1.96%) MQTT
6 20 (1.87%) Internet
7 13 (1.21%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.84%) SAN
8 9 (0.84%) VLAN
8 9 (0.84%) WAN
8 9 (0.84%) Wireshark
9 8 (0.75%) iSCSI
9 8 (0.75%) Remote Desktop
9 8 (0.75%) Software-Defined Networking
10 6 (0.56%) ATM
10 6 (0.56%) BGP
10 6 (0.56%) Multicast
10 6 (0.56%) tcpdump
11 5 (0.47%) DHCP
11 5 (0.47%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (17.09%) MongoDB
2 134 (12.51%) Azure SQL Database
3 107 (9.99%) PostgreSQL
4 71 (6.63%) Elasticsearch
5 62 (5.79%) NoSQL
6 56 (5.23%) MySQL
7 45 (4.20%) SQL Server
8 32 (2.99%) Relational Database
9 28 (2.61%) Amazon RDS
10 21 (1.96%) Redis
11 15 (1.40%) DynamoDB
12 9 (0.84%) InfluxDB
13 7 (0.65%) Neo4j
14 6 (0.56%) Big Data
14 6 (0.56%) GIS
14 6 (0.56%) Pinecone
15 5 (0.47%) Flink
15 5 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
15 5 (0.47%) Looker
15 5 (0.47%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 195 (18.21%) Git
2 138 (12.89%) GitLab
3 128 (11.95%) Jenkins
4 40 (3.73%) JIRA
5 30 (2.80%) JUnit
6 21 (1.96%) Mockito
6 21 (1.96%) Selenium
7 19 (1.77%) Cucumber
8 18 (1.68%) SonarQube
9 17 (1.59%) Subversion
10 16 (1.49%) Bitbucket
11 14 (1.31%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 13 (1.21%) Cypress.io
12 13 (1.21%) Maven
13 12 (1.12%) Artifactory
13 12 (1.12%) Robot Framework
14 11 (1.03%) JMeter
15 9 (0.84%) Eclipse
15 9 (0.84%) Octopus Deploy
16 7 (0.65%) TestRail
General
1 177 (16.53%) Social Skills
2 109 (10.18%) Finance
3 88 (8.22%) Public Sector
4 51 (4.76%) Analytical Skills
5 41 (3.83%) Aerospace
6 40 (3.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 39 (3.64%) Advertising
8 32 (2.99%) Law
9 21 (1.96%) Retail
10 20 (1.87%) Marketing
11 18 (1.68%) Manufacturing
12 14 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
12 14 (1.31%) Games
13 13 (1.21%) Automotive
14 12 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.56%) Spanish Language
16 5 (0.47%) Banking
17 4 (0.37%) Aviation
17 4 (0.37%) Legal
18 3 (0.28%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 296 (27.64%) Developer
2 219 (20.45%) Senior
3 194 (18.11%) DevOps Engineer
4 142 (13.26%) .NET Developer
5 122 (11.39%) Software Engineer
6 104 (9.71%) Cloud Engineer
7 94 (8.78%) Lead
8 79 (7.38%) Azure Engineer
9 69 (6.44%) Platform Engineer
10 67 (6.26%) Senior Developer
11 63 (5.88%) Java Developer
12 52 (4.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 51 (4.76%) Principal Engineer
14 46 (4.30%) Architect
15 39 (3.64%) Full-Stack Developer
16 38 (3.55%) Senior DevOps
17 37 (3.45%) Software Developer
18 36 (3.36%) Senior Software Engineer
19 33 (3.08%) Cloud Platform Engineer
20 30 (2.80%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 228 (21.29%) .NET
2 164 (15.31%) .NET Core
3 139 (12.98%) ASP.NET
4 137 (12.79%) ASP.NET Core
5 131 (12.23%) React
6 128 (11.95%) Spring
7 115 (10.74%) Node.js
8 113 (10.55%) Spring Boot
9 107 (9.99%) RESTful
10 103 (9.62%) HTML
11 100 (9.34%) CSS
12 99 (9.24%) REST
13 93 (8.68%) AngularJS
14 85 (7.94%) Kafka
15 83 (7.75%) Vue
16 72 (6.72%) ML.NET
17 58 (5.42%) RabbitMQ
18 46 (4.30%) .NET Framework
19 42 (3.92%) ARM Templates
20 41 (3.83%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 223 (20.82%) Cloud Native
2 99 (9.24%) Distributed Systems
3 46 (4.30%) Product Ownership
4 40 (3.73%) Hybrid Cloud
5 34 (3.17%) Greenfield Project
6 23 (2.15%) Onboarding
7 20 (1.87%) Digital TV
7 20 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
8 16 (1.49%) Public Cloud
9 15 (1.40%) Algorithms
9 15 (1.40%) Data Structures
9 15 (1.40%) Private Cloud
10 14 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
11 13 (1.21%) AI Agents
11 13 (1.21%) Data Centre
11 13 (1.21%) Renewable Energy
12 12 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.12%) Management Information System
13 10 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
13 10 (0.93%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 263 (24.56%) Linux
2 84 (7.84%) Windows
3 45 (4.20%) CentOS
3 45 (4.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 42 (3.92%) Ubuntu
5 38 (3.55%) Windows Server
6 18 (1.68%) Debian
7 11 (1.03%) Unix
8 8 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) AIX
11 3 (0.28%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.28%) Rocky
12 1 (0.093%) Android
12 1 (0.093%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.093%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 680 (63.49%) CI/CD
2 488 (45.56%) DevOps
3 448 (41.83%) Agile
4 438 (40.90%) Containerisation
5 410 (38.28%) Infrastructure as Code
6 289 (26.98%) Microservices
7 235 (21.94%) Full-Stack Development
8 234 (21.85%) AI
9 230 (21.48%) Software Engineering
10 205 (19.14%) Observability
11 201 (18.77%) Continuous Improvement
12 200 (18.67%) Problem-Solving
13 173 (16.15%) Platform Engineering
14 163 (15.22%) Mentoring
15 143 (13.35%) Machine Learning
16 141 (13.17%) Scrum
17 128 (11.95%) TDD
17 128 (11.95%) Test Automation
18 118 (11.02%) Site Reliability Engineering
19 109 (10.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 407 (38.00%) Python
2 242 (22.60%) SQL
3 241 (22.50%) C#
4 229 (21.38%) Java
5 160 (14.94%) Bash
6 158 (14.75%) PowerShell
6 158 (14.75%) TypeScript
7 151 (14.10%) JavaScript
8 53 (4.95%) Bicep
9 52 (4.86%) Go
10 34 (3.17%) C++
11 26 (2.43%) PHP
12 23 (2.15%) Rust
13 19 (1.77%) Groovy
14 16 (1.49%) Shell Script
15 15 (1.40%) C
16 13 (1.21%) Perl
16 13 (1.21%) PL/SQL
17 12 (1.12%) Ruby
18 7 (0.65%) Scala
Qualifications
1 274 (25.58%) Security Cleared
2 152 (14.19%) SC Cleared
3 104 (9.71%) Degree
4 99 (9.24%) DV Cleared
5 67 (6.26%) Computer Science Degree
6 58 (5.42%) Azure Certification
7 30 (2.80%) AWS Certification
8 9 (0.84%) Master's Degree
9 8 (0.75%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (0.75%) RHCSA
10 7 (0.65%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 7 (0.65%) CISSP
10 7 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (0.65%) RHCE
11 5 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (0.47%) OSCP
12 4 (0.37%) CCNA
12 4 (0.37%) CISM
12 4 (0.37%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.28%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (6.07%) QA
2 32 (2.99%) Accessibility
3 22 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (1.68%) WCAG
5 16 (1.49%) PCI DSS
6 15 (1.40%) NIST
7 13 (1.21%) SOC 2
8 7 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (0.65%) NCSC
9 6 (0.56%) SLA
10 3 (0.28%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.28%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.19%) GDPR
11 2 (0.19%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.093%) GxP
12 1 (0.093%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.093%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 1 (0.093%) NIST 800
System Software
1 702 (65.55%) Docker
2 53 (4.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (2.61%) Active Directory
4 19 (1.77%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.40%) vSphere
6 12 (1.12%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.84%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 7 (0.65%) KVM
9 6 (0.56%) Firmware
9 6 (0.56%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.37%) Squid
11 3 (0.28%) iptables
11 3 (0.28%) Kamailio
11 3 (0.28%) Xen
12 2 (0.19%) Samba
13 1 (0.093%) Embedded Firmware
13 1 (0.093%) QEMU
13 1 (0.093%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 460 (42.95%) Terraform
2 217 (20.26%) Ansible
3 110 (10.27%) Grafana
4 84 (7.84%) Prometheus
5 50 (4.67%) Puppet
6 42 (3.92%) Argo
7 22 (2.05%) Kibana
7 22 (2.05%) Progress Chef
8 19 (1.77%) Istio
9 14 (1.31%) Nagios
10 13 (1.21%) vCenter Server
11 12 (1.12%) Podman
12 11 (1.03%) Packer
12 11 (1.03%) ZABBIX
13 10 (0.93%) Docker Swarm
13 10 (0.93%) Nessus
13 10 (0.93%) Rancher
14 9 (0.84%) linkerd
15 8 (0.75%) Proxmox
16 7 (0.65%) VxRail
Vendors
1 235 (21.94%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.00%) VMware
3 59 (5.51%) Google
4 52 (4.86%) Red Hat
5 38 (3.55%) Splunk
6 26 (2.43%) Dynatrace
7 23 (2.15%) Oracle
8 19 (1.77%) Facebook
9 13 (1.21%) OpenAI
10 12 (1.12%) Atlassian
11 11 (1.03%) Dell
12 9 (0.84%) AppDynamics
13 8 (0.75%) Databricks
13 8 (0.75%) IBM
13 8 (0.75%) Okta
13 8 (0.75%) Ping Identity
14 7 (0.65%) CrowdStrike
14 7 (0.65%) HubSpot
14 7 (0.65%) OneLogin
15 6 (0.56%) BeyondTrust