Linux Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Linux
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring Linux skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 29 37
Rank change year-on-year -10 +8 -13
Contract jobs citing Linux 294 197 198
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 4.91% 6.17% 4.17%
As % of the Operating Systems category 40.22% 38.25% 26.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 202 122 137
10th Percentile £355 £351 £350
25th Percentile £400 £393 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £550 £495
Median % change year-on-year -11.64% +11.11% -9.79%
75th Percentile £550 £635 £582
90th Percentile £657 £750 £643
England median daily rate £518 £550 £540
% change year-on-year -5.91% +1.85% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 10
10th Percentile - £46.44 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £55.35 £21.25
Median hourly rate £45.97 £75.40 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year -39.03% +57.07% +20.60%
75th Percentile £68.20 £83.18 -
90th Percentile £74.26 £84.74 £63.88
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% +8.33% -7.69%

All Operating Systems
North of England

Linux falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring operating system skills in the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 731 515 746
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 12.21% 16.14% 15.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 507 340 503
10th Percentile £135 £163 £163
25th Percentile £195 £220 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £423
Median % change year-on-year - -5.33% -11.05%
75th Percentile £507 £558 £531
90th Percentile £613 £638 £650
England median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 17 79
10th Percentile £17.22 £16.25 -
25th Percentile £21.33 £17.25 £10.95
Median hourly rate £41.94 £18.21 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +130.38% +13.78% -41.82%
75th Percentile £66.75 £23.14 £19.63
90th Percentile £116.06 £57.14 £25.25
England median hourly rate £27.50 £25.08 £21.00
% change year-on-year +9.67% +19.40% -27.59%

Linux
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Linux relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

Linux job vacancy trend in the North of England

Linux
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Linux.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Linux

Linux
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Linux in the North of England over the 6 months to 12 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Linux in the North of England

Linux
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Linux.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Linux

Linux
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Linux in the North of England over the 6 months to 12 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Linux in the North of England

Linux
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Linux within the North of England region over the 6 months to 12 April 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Yorkshire -18 151 £464 -15.64% 41
North West -6 132 £503 -4.19% 58
North East -19 13 £550 +4.76% 27
Linux
England

Linux
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 10 (3.40%) Confluence
2 9 (3.06%) CICS
3 8 (2.72%) TPMS
4 6 (2.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (2.04%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.70%) OpenStack
6 4 (1.36%) Apache
7 3 (1.02%) nginx
8 1 (0.34%) JBoss
8 1 (0.34%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 12 (4.08%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.34%) Odoo
1 1 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 80 (27.21%) AWS
2 48 (16.33%) Azure
3 43 (14.63%) OpenShift
4 37 (12.59%) GCP
5 22 (7.48%) GitHub
6 12 (4.08%) Serverless
6 12 (4.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 10 (3.40%) Amazon EC2
7 10 (3.40%) Entra ID
8 9 (3.06%) Amazon S3
8 9 (3.06%) AWS CloudFormation
8 9 (3.06%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (3.06%) Google Workspace
9 8 (2.72%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (2.38%) Amazon ECS
10 7 (2.38%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (2.04%) IaaS
12 5 (1.70%) Amazon EventBridge
12 5 (1.70%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 5 (1.70%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 77 (26.19%) Firewall
2 21 (7.14%) DNS
2 21 (7.14%) Network Security
3 20 (6.80%) SAN
4 17 (5.78%) TCP/IP
5 13 (4.42%) SSL
6 12 (4.08%) SNMP
7 11 (3.74%) VPN
8 9 (3.06%) VLAN
8 9 (3.06%) VSAN
9 8 (2.72%) SSH
10 7 (2.38%) BGP
10 7 (2.38%) NAS
11 6 (2.04%) Software-Defined Networking
11 6 (2.04%) WebEx
12 5 (1.70%) HTTP
13 4 (1.36%) DHCP
13 4 (1.36%) iSCSI
14 2 (0.68%) Reverse Proxy
14 2 (0.68%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (6.80%) MongoDB
1 20 (6.80%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (4.08%) NoSQL
3 11 (3.74%) SQL Server
4 10 (3.40%) Oracle Database
5 9 (3.06%) DataStage
6 7 (2.38%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (2.38%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.04%) DB2
8 5 (1.70%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.36%) Oracle Database 12c
10 3 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
11 2 (0.68%) MySQL
11 2 (0.68%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.34%) Apache Cassandra
12 1 (0.34%) Data Lake
12 1 (0.34%) DocumentDB
12 1 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
12 1 (0.34%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 34 (11.56%) Jenkins
2 27 (9.18%) GitLab
3 23 (7.82%) JIRA
4 15 (5.10%) Git
5 12 (4.08%) Mockito
6 8 (2.72%) Jaeger
7 4 (1.36%) Liquibase
8 3 (1.02%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.68%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.68%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.68%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.34%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.34%) Gradle
10 1 (0.34%) Hudson
10 1 (0.34%) JUnit
10 1 (0.34%) Maven
General
1 86 (29.25%) Social Skills
2 67 (22.79%) Finance
3 31 (10.54%) Public Sector
4 27 (9.18%) Banking
5 23 (7.82%) Analytical Skills
6 21 (7.14%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (3.40%) Financial Institution
7 10 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (3.40%) Legal
8 6 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.02%) Law
10 2 (0.68%) Advertising
10 2 (0.68%) Aviation
10 2 (0.68%) Fire and Rescue
10 2 (0.68%) Investment Banking
10 2 (0.68%) Police
10 2 (0.68%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.34%) Games
11 1 (0.34%) Military
11 1 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 37 (12.59%) Senior
2 30 (10.20%) Platform Engineer
3 29 (9.86%) Developer
4 21 (7.14%) DevOps Engineer
5 19 (6.46%) Software Engineer
6 18 (6.12%) Java Developer
7 15 (5.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 15 (5.10%) Security Engineer
8 14 (4.76%) Lead
8 14 (4.76%) Linux Engineer
9 10 (3.40%) Administrator
9 10 (3.40%) AWS Engineer
9 10 (3.40%) IT Engineer
10 9 (3.06%) Analyst
10 9 (3.06%) Designer
10 9 (3.06%) Infrastructure Designer
10 9 (3.06%) IT Support
10 9 (3.06%) IT Support Engineer
10 9 (3.06%) Support Engineer
10 9 (3.06%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (7.82%) Kafka
2 17 (5.78%) Middleware
3 15 (5.10%) Elastic Stack
4 12 (4.08%) JAX-RS
5 11 (3.74%) ActiveMQ
5 11 (3.74%) OpenTelemetry
5 11 (3.74%) REST
6 10 (3.40%) LDAP
7 9 (3.06%) Spring Boot
7 9 (3.06%) YAML
8 7 (2.38%) .NET
9 6 (2.04%) Redfish
9 6 (2.04%) XMPP
10 5 (1.70%) RESTful
11 3 (1.02%) Lambda Expressions
11 3 (1.02%) WebSockets
12 2 (0.68%) .NET Core
12 2 (0.68%) Hugging Face
12 2 (0.68%) LangChain
12 2 (0.68%) vLLM
Miscellaneous
1 36 (12.24%) Data Centre
2 22 (7.48%) Cloud Native
3 18 (6.12%) Product Ownership
4 17 (5.78%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (5.44%) Security Posture
6 15 (5.10%) Hybrid Cloud
7 13 (4.42%) Linux Command Line
8 12 (4.08%) Mainframe
8 12 (4.08%) Management Information System
9 11 (3.74%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (3.06%) BYOD
10 9 (3.06%) Cloud Security Posture
10 9 (3.06%) VSAM
11 7 (2.38%) Public Cloud
11 7 (2.38%) Replication
12 6 (2.04%) Onboarding
13 5 (1.70%) FlexPod
13 5 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
14 4 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
14 4 (1.36%) EMC VMAX
Operating Systems
1 122 (41.50%) Windows
2 68 (23.13%) Unix
3 62 (21.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 35 (11.90%) Windows Server
5 19 (6.46%) AIX
6 14 (4.76%) Ubuntu
7 13 (4.42%) Solaris
8 12 (4.08%) Mac OS X
9 10 (3.40%) CentOS
9 10 (3.40%) VMS
10 5 (1.70%) CoreOS
10 5 (1.70%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (1.70%) Oracle Linux
11 3 (1.02%) Amazon Linux
11 3 (1.02%) Mac OS
11 3 (1.02%) zOS
12 2 (0.68%) HPUX
12 2 (0.68%) SUSE
13 1 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.34%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (31.29%) CI/CD
2 91 (30.95%) DevOps
3 74 (25.17%) Problem-Solving
4 54 (18.37%) Containerisation
4 54 (18.37%) Infrastructure as Code
5 51 (17.35%) Observability
6 42 (14.29%) Agile
7 40 (13.61%) Cybersecurity
8 39 (13.27%) Platform Engineering
9 38 (12.93%) Microservices
10 35 (11.90%) Migration
11 34 (11.56%) Roadmaps
12 32 (10.88%) Continuous Improvement
13 31 (10.54%) Infrastructure Automation
13 31 (10.54%) Test Automation
14 28 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 28 (9.52%) Root Cause Analysis
15 25 (8.50%) Data Protection
16 23 (7.82%) Software Engineering
17 22 (7.48%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 123 (41.84%) Python
2 70 (23.81%) Bash
3 56 (19.05%) PowerShell
4 45 (15.31%) Java
5 42 (14.29%) SQL
6 22 (7.48%) Perl
7 15 (5.10%) Rust
8 13 (4.42%) Go
8 13 (4.42%) Ruby
9 12 (4.08%) Shell Script
10 9 (3.06%) COBOL
10 9 (3.06%) JavaScript
11 8 (2.72%) TypeScript
12 7 (2.38%) C#
12 7 (2.38%) PHP
13 3 (1.02%) C
13 3 (1.02%) Delphi
13 3 (1.02%) JCL
14 2 (0.68%) C++
14 2 (0.68%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 65 (22.11%) Security Cleared
2 49 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 27 (9.18%) Degree
4 19 (6.46%) CISSP
5 12 (4.08%) AWS Certification
5 12 (4.08%) RHCE
6 11 (3.74%) CompTIA Security+
7 10 (3.40%) CCNA
7 10 (3.40%) CCNP
7 10 (3.40%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (3.06%) CCDP
9 8 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.72%) FFIEC
10 7 (2.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 6 (2.04%) DV Cleared
11 6 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (2.04%) OCP
11 6 (2.04%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (1.70%) MCSA
12 5 (1.70%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.76%) GDPR
2 10 (3.40%) NIST
3 9 (3.06%) PCI DSS
4 8 (2.72%) GLBA
4 8 (2.72%) SLA
5 7 (2.38%) HIPAA
6 4 (1.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 4 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (1.02%) QA
7 3 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.68%) GRC
9 1 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.34%) GxP
System Software
1 69 (23.47%) Docker
2 50 (17.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (11.22%) Virtual Machines
4 27 (9.18%) Active Directory
5 23 (7.82%) vSphere
6 16 (5.44%) Hyper-V
6 16 (5.44%) KVM
7 12 (4.08%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (3.74%) Firmware
8 11 (3.74%) NFS
9 8 (2.72%) VMware NSX
10 3 (1.02%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.68%) SRDF
12 1 (0.34%) Ceph
12 1 (0.34%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.34%) GPFS
12 1 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.34%) QEMU
12 1 (0.34%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 1 (0.34%) zsh
Systems Management
1 87 (29.59%) Kubernetes
2 83 (28.23%) Ansible
3 82 (27.89%) Terraform
4 37 (12.59%) Grafana
5 28 (9.52%) Prometheus
6 12 (4.08%) Puppet
6 12 (4.08%) vCenter Server
7 8 (2.72%) Kiali
7 8 (2.72%) Progress Chef
8 7 (2.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (2.38%) Packer
8 7 (2.38%) PowerCLI
9 6 (2.04%) Dell DRAC
9 6 (2.04%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (2.04%) Nessus
10 5 (1.70%) CASB
10 5 (1.70%) Oracle RMAN
10 5 (1.70%) SnapMirror
11 4 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
11 4 (1.36%) vRealize
Vendors
1 65 (22.11%) VMware
2 45 (15.31%) Red Hat
3 37 (12.59%) Splunk
4 36 (12.24%) Microsoft
5 22 (7.48%) Google
5 22 (7.48%) Oracle
6 21 (7.14%) IBM
7 17 (5.78%) Cisco
8 10 (3.40%) Citrix
8 10 (3.40%) CyberArk
9 8 (2.72%) Dell
9 8 (2.72%) ServiceNow
9 8 (2.72%) Thales
10 7 (2.38%) Broadcom
10 7 (2.38%) NetApp
11 6 (2.04%) HP
11 6 (2.04%) Remedy
11 6 (2.04%) Tenable
12 5 (1.70%) F5
12 5 (1.70%) Palo Alto