Most Popular Cloud Providers For Running Kubernetes

Kubernetes is the most popular container orchestration platform in the world right now, and its popularity doesn’t seem to be waning anytime soon.

It even ranked highest in our Best Container Orchestration tools and services list released last year.

Thus, if you are familiar with Kubernetes or have hands-on experience using it, you can apply for a host of cloud engineering positions (DevOps Engineer, Platform Engineer, SRE, etc.).

You will also need experience or at least familiarity with the infrastructure that hosts Kubernetes.

The question then is: Where are companies hosting their infrastructure? Where are Kubernetes clusters being deployed?

The best way to find answers to the above questions (and more) is to analyse a solid set of accurate data.

Kube Careers recently published their State of the Kubernetes jobs report for Q1 2024, an extensive quarterly report which evaluates hundreds of Kubernetes jobs to understand the trends and direction of the Kubernetes job market.

Before we dive into the report’s details, it’s crucial to highlight that Kube Careers strictly lists positions meeting the following criteria:

1. Require expertise in Kubernetes.
2. Offer a clear salary range.
3. Are directly posted by the companies themselves, not through recruitment agencies.

Shall we start?

Do Job Descriptions Reveal Infrastructure Location?

9 out of 10 times!

Kube Careers published 332 jobs in Q1 2024, of which 290 (88%) revealed their infrastructure location.

Which is the most popular infrastructure location, then? Where are the Kubernetes clusters being deployed?

AWS leads the chart when it comes to hosting Kubernetes Cluster..

Do note that in Q1 2024, almost all jobs that mentioned their infrastructure location mentioned more than one host!

Here are the key takeaways from the analysis:

• AWS is the preferred infrastructure location for most companies, with more than 45% mentions.
• Next in preference are GCP and Azure, with 23% and 18% representation.
• On-premise and Generic Multicloud rounded the popularity list with 8% and 3% mentions.

Most of the on-premise mentions weren’t specific.

Of all the job descriptions that revealed on-premise as their company’s infrastructure location, only 37.5% specified it.

The specifications were, 22.5% of the on-premise infrastructure resides at Datacenters while 15% of it residess in Baremetal.

Has AWS always been the infrastructure location of choice?

Let’s find out.

An analysis of the data from the last four quarters reveals interesting insights:

• AWS has always been the top choice for infrastructure location. Over the last four quarters, on average, 65% of the Infrastructure preference was for AWS.
• At a distance from AWS but closer to each other, GCP and Azure take the second and the third spot, with average mentions of 34% and 29%. As for others, On-premise mentions averaged at 10% and generic multi-cloud mentions averaged 5% over the last four quarters.

Over the last year, companies have rarely specified on-premise infrastructure locations

Over the past four quarters:

• On average, 68% of the times, companies haven’t specified their on-premise location in job descriptions.
• Datacenters have been the on-premise location of choice 20% of the times, while Baremetal has been the choice 10% of the time.

Conclusion

AWS is the preferred Infrastructure choice for most companies, so if you have experience with AWS or have completed AWS certifications, you will find it easier to land your next Kubernetes job.

Experience with GCP and Azure will also prove beneficial since these are the second most popular preferences for infrastructure locations.