Skill Spotlight

Kubernetes: Market Demand & Career Impact (2026)

Live data on Kubernetes demand across 6 categories, salary ranges and which companies are hiring.

Updated Apr 24, 20262 min read

1,388

Active Listings

5

Companies Hiring

6

Categories

Demand by Category

Number of active listings mentioning this skill

Top Roles Hiring

Roles most commonly requiring this skill

Full Stack Developer359
DevOps Engineer139
SRE50
ML Engineer37
Security Engineer33

Top Companies Hiring

Companies with the most active listings for this skill

Commonly Paired With

Skills most frequently appearing alongside this one

Seniority Distribution

Experience levels most in demand for this skill

Salary Signal

Approximate salary range for roles requiring this skill

$69k25th
$123kMedian
$187k75th
$69k$187k

Updated April 24, 2026 · Based on 1,388 job listings · Primary category signal: DevOps & Infrastructure (14.7%)

Demand by Role Category

CategoryDemand %Trend (30d)Listings
DevOps & Infrastructure14.7%↓ 46.9pp475
Software Engineering4.7%↓ 11.1pp391
AI & Machine Learning4.6%↓ 7.7pp103
Security4.5%↓ 22.5pp59
Data & Analytics0.8%↓ 4.7pp43
Product & Design0.2%↓ 1.6pp4

Who's Asking for Kubernetes?

Top roles: Full Stack Developer (359), DevOps Engineer (139), SRE (50), ML Engineer (37), Security Engineer (33)

Top companies: affirm (60), databricks (41), anthropic (38), cloudflare (36), scaleai (36)

Seniority breakdown: senior: 56.5% · mid: 42.1% · entry: 1.4%

Commonly Paired With

Skills that appear alongside Kubernetes most frequently:

  • AWS — 51.1% co-occurrence
  • Docker — 35.2% co-occurrence
  • Python — 32.6% co-occurrence
  • Scala — 29.4% co-occurrence
  • CI/CD — 27.5% co-occurrence
  • Terraform — 24.2% co-occurrence
  • Azure — 22.9% co-occurrence
  • SQL — 21.9% co-occurrence

Salary Signal

For roles requiring Kubernetes, published pay clusters around a $122,625 median, spanning $69,095 (25th percentile) to $186,516 (75th percentile), with top-end listings reaching $369,367.

Based on 336 listings with published compensation.

Trend

Hiring demand for Kubernetes softened meaningfully: 14.7% demand after a 46.9pp drop in 30 days, mainly in DevOps & Infrastructure roles.

Frequently Asked Questions

How in demand is Kubernetes right now?

Current demand for Kubernetes is anchored by DevOps & Infrastructure at 14.7%. Across 1,388 indexed listings, its month-over-month shift is -46.9 percentage points. This suggests the market is cooling, though not necessarily collapsing.

What salary can I expect if I know Kubernetes?

Our current compensation sample (336 listings) places Kubernetes at a $122,625 median and an interquartile band from $69,095 to $186,516.

What skills pair well with Kubernetes?

The most common companions to Kubernetes are AWS, Docker and Python. Hiring teams frequently bundle these skills in the same role scope, so learning them together usually improves interview fit.


Data sourced from 1,388 active job listings via Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby. Updated weekly. About our data & methodology.

Data Integrity

Weekly refresh

About this data

Demand and salary figures are sourced from job listings indexed via the Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby APIs. Aggregates are refreshed weekly and represent directional market signals, not a full census of all open roles.

1,388 indexed listingsLast updated April 24, 2026

Last updated: April 24, 2026 · Methodology & limitations

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