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Kubernetes freelance projects & contracts in Germany 2026

7.1% of the analysed German IT freelance listings name Kubernetes – 3,695 projects, rank 6 of the 60 most requested IT skills. In October 2026 it was 6.3% (−0.3 percentage points from the month before). Kubernetes is asked for most often in DevOps / Platform Engineer projects: they make up 37% of the engineering projects with Kubernetes.

By . Data: 52,106 listings on German IT freelance project boards, May 2026 – October 2026. Published , last updated .

Is Kubernetes required or nice to have?

70% of the listings with Kubernetes name it as a required skill. That is about the median of the skills of this overview (69%). 20% name it as nice to have, 9.3% without a clear mark.

Kubernetes demand by month

Share of listings with Kubernetes per month of first publication, with the number of projects under each month; months with fewer than 1,000 projects are left out. Single months fluctuate.

  1. June 2026604 of 7,653 projects7.9%
  2. July 2026837 of 9,884 projects8.5%
  3. August 2026670 of 10,216 projects6.6%
  4. September 2026721 of 10,958 projects6.6%
  5. October 2026817 of 13,054 projects6.3%

Skills asked for together with Kubernetes

The 15 skills that listings with Kubernetes name most often besides it, as a share of those projects. Blue: typical for Kubernetes, i.e. asked for at least 3 times as often as in projects overall; the tick shows the share across all projects.

Under each skill: its share across all projects.

  1. CI/CDall projects 9.2%49%
  2. Dockerall projects 4.8%43%
  3. Javaall projects 6.6%38%
  4. Spring Bootall projects 3.7%29%
  5. REST APIsall projects 7.3%28%
  6. Pythonall projects 6.9%23%
  7. AWSall projects 4.1%23%
  8. Grafanaall projects 2.2%23%
  9. Helmall projects 1.7%22%
  10. DevOpsall projects 4%22%
  11. Microservicesall projects 2.9%22%
  12. Linuxall projects 4.7%22%
  13. GitLab CI/CDall projects 2.5%21%
  14. Scrumall projects 8.1%21%
  15. Gitall projects 5.1%21%

Typical for Kubernetes – asked for at least 3 times as often as in projects overall – are Helm (22%), Grafana (23%), Docker (43%), GitLab CI/CD (21%), Spring Boot (29%), Microservices (22%).

Frequent anyway and often part of it here: Scrum (21%).

Roles asking for Kubernetes

89% of the projects with Kubernetes are engineering projects (3,297 projects) – projects that build software or technical systems; the rest are e.g. consulting, project management or IT operations. The bars show the roles with the most of those projects and their share of them; 4.1% fit none of the major roles. Under each role: how many of its projects name Kubernetes, and how often as required.

  1. DevOps / Platform Engineerin 60% of the role's projects · required 87%37%
  2. Java Backend Developerin 48% of the role's projects · required 64%18%
  3. Java Fullstack Developerin 46% of the role's projects · required 81%11%
  4. ML / AI Engineerin 18% of the role's projects · required 64%4.7%
  5. Cloud Solution Architectin 34% of the role's projects · required 76%4.5%
  6. Security Engineerin 14% of the role's projects · required 57%4.4%
  7. Python Developerin 25% of the role's projects · required 79%2.8%
  8. React Developerin 21% of the role's projects · required 43%2.6%

Skills related to Kubernetes

Skills of this overview that are asked for together with Kubernetes much more often than chance would predict.

How to use the data

If Kubernetes is in your profile, the blue skills often belong with it – name them if you have them. Projectmatch automatically matches new projects against your profile and shows for each project which of the required skills your profile covers. Browse current Kubernetes projects or try it now.

All skills compared: Most in-demand IT skills in German freelance projects. Which skills form clusters: Which skills belong together? Which skills are in particular demand in Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt and other cities: IT freelance projects by city.

Method

An AI model reads the requested skills from each project description, and a project's role from its title and skills; the figures are updated monthly. Details: method of the IT skills analysis.