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 24 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 30 36
Rank change year-on-year -12 +6 -9
Contract jobs citing Linux 287 205 204
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 4.73% 6.25% 4.27%
As % of the Operating Systems category 39.26% 37.89% 27.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 125 143
10th Percentile £353 £350 £350
25th Percentile £400 £393 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £485
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +13.40% -7.62%
75th Percentile £542 £625 £583
90th Percentile £650 £750 £635
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 11
10th Percentile £28.94 £46.44 -
25th Percentile - £55.35 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £75.40 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.37% +57.07% +20.60%
75th Percentile £47.99 £83.18 £55.88
90th Percentile £62.13 £84.74 £65.00
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £61.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% +6.56% -6.15%

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 731 541 736
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 12.05% 16.49% 15.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 504 348 502
10th Percentile £142 £163 £165
25th Percentile £203 £213 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year - -5.88% -10.53%
75th Percentile £500 £550 £537
90th Percentile £613 £638 £650
England median daily rate £450 £475 £460
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.26% -10.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 18 80
10th Percentile £16.15 £15.28 -
25th Percentile £22.29 £16.69 £10.95
Median hourly rate £41.94 £18.10 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +131.68% +13.14% -44.25%
75th Percentile £70.00 £19.69 £20.38
90th Percentile £178.75 £53.23 £27.53
England median hourly rate £41.94 £24.66 £22.00
% change year-on-year +70.07% +12.09% -37.14%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -19 157 £463 -15.86% 24
North West -15 119 £489 -6.01% 29
North East -17 11 £456 -13.10% 20
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 13 (4.53%) Confluence
2 9 (3.14%) CICS
3 8 (2.79%) TPMS
4 5 (1.74%) Apache
5 3 (1.05%) nginx
6 1 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.35%) CMS
6 1 (0.35%) JBoss
6 1 (0.35%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.35%) Tomcat
Applications
1 11 (3.83%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.35%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.35%) Odoo
1 1 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 82 (28.57%) AWS
2 50 (17.42%) Azure
3 46 (16.03%) OpenShift
4 35 (12.20%) GCP
5 24 (8.36%) GitHub
6 13 (4.53%) Serverless
6 13 (4.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 11 (3.83%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (3.48%) Amazon EC2
8 10 (3.48%) Amazon S3
9 9 (3.14%) Amazon ECS
9 9 (3.14%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.79%) Amazon EKS
10 8 (2.79%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (2.79%) Google Workspace
11 6 (2.09%) Amazon EventBridge
11 6 (2.09%) IaaS
12 5 (1.74%) Amazon SQS
12 5 (1.74%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 5 (1.74%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 63 (21.95%) Firewall
2 23 (8.01%) DNS
3 22 (7.67%) SAN
4 17 (5.92%) Network Security
5 16 (5.57%) TCP/IP
6 14 (4.88%) SSL
7 9 (3.14%) VSAN
8 8 (2.79%) SNMP
8 8 (2.79%) SSH
9 7 (2.44%) NAS
9 7 (2.44%) VPN
10 6 (2.09%) HTTP
11 4 (1.39%) DHCP
11 4 (1.39%) iSCSI
12 3 (1.05%) 3GPP
12 3 (1.05%) RTP
12 3 (1.05%) VLAN
12 3 (1.05%) Wireshark
13 2 (0.70%) Reverse Proxy
14 1 (0.35%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (7.32%) MongoDB
2 20 (6.97%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (4.88%) NoSQL
4 13 (4.53%) SQL Server
5 9 (3.14%) DataStage
5 9 (3.14%) Oracle Database
6 8 (2.79%) Relational Database
7 7 (2.44%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (2.09%) DB2
8 6 (2.09%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.39%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (1.39%) Oracle Database 12c
10 3 (1.05%) Amazon Aurora
10 3 (1.05%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.70%) Apache Cassandra
12 1 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
12 1 (0.35%) InfluxDB
12 1 (0.35%) Oracle Exadata
12 1 (0.35%) SAP HANA
12 1 (0.35%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 34 (11.85%) Jenkins
2 27 (9.41%) JIRA
3 26 (9.06%) GitLab
4 16 (5.57%) Git
5 12 (4.18%) Mockito
6 9 (3.14%) Jaeger
7 4 (1.39%) Liquibase
8 3 (1.05%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.05%) CircleCI
8 3 (1.05%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (1.05%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.70%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.35%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.35%) Gradle
10 1 (0.35%) Hudson
10 1 (0.35%) JUnit
10 1 (0.35%) Maven
General
1 88 (30.66%) Social Skills
2 69 (24.04%) Finance
3 30 (10.45%) Public Sector
4 27 (9.41%) Banking
5 21 (7.32%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (5.92%) Analytical Skills
7 10 (3.48%) Financial Institution
7 10 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.39%) Legal
10 3 (1.05%) Aviation
10 3 (1.05%) Fire and Rescue
10 3 (1.05%) Law
10 3 (1.05%) Police
11 2 (0.70%) Advertising
11 2 (0.70%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.35%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.35%) Military
12 1 (0.35%) Private Banking
12 1 (0.35%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 38 (13.24%) Senior
2 30 (10.45%) Developer
3 22 (7.67%) DevOps Engineer
4 20 (6.97%) Java Developer
5 17 (5.92%) Software Engineer
6 16 (5.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 16 (5.57%) Lead
6 16 (5.57%) Security Engineer
7 14 (4.88%) Linux Engineer
7 14 (4.88%) Platform Engineer
8 11 (3.83%) Analyst
8 11 (3.83%) AWS Engineer
9 10 (3.48%) Data Centre Engineer
10 9 (3.14%) Administrator
10 9 (3.14%) Designer
10 9 (3.14%) Infrastructure Designer
10 9 (3.14%) IT Engineer
11 8 (2.79%) Cloud Engineer
11 8 (2.79%) IT Support
11 8 (2.79%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.36%) Kafka
2 18 (6.27%) Middleware
3 14 (4.88%) Elastic Stack
4 12 (4.18%) JAX-RS
4 12 (4.18%) OpenTelemetry
5 11 (3.83%) ActiveMQ
5 11 (3.83%) REST
6 10 (3.48%) LDAP
7 9 (3.14%) .NET
7 9 (3.14%) Spring Boot
7 9 (3.14%) YAML
8 8 (2.79%) Redfish
9 4 (1.39%) RESTful
10 3 (1.05%) .NET Core
10 3 (1.05%) Lambda Expressions
10 3 (1.05%) SOAP
10 3 (1.05%) WebSockets
10 3 (1.05%) XML
11 2 (0.70%) Hugging Face
11 2 (0.70%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 35 (12.20%) Data Centre
2 24 (8.36%) Cloud Native
3 17 (5.92%) Distributed Systems
3 17 (5.92%) Security Posture
4 16 (5.57%) Hybrid Cloud
4 16 (5.57%) Linux Command Line
5 13 (4.53%) Management Information System
6 12 (4.18%) Data Protection Act
6 12 (4.18%) Mainframe
7 10 (3.48%) Cloud Security Posture
8 9 (3.14%) BYOD
8 9 (3.14%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (3.14%) VSAM
9 8 (2.79%) Replication
10 6 (2.09%) Onboarding
10 6 (2.09%) Product Ownership
10 6 (2.09%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.74%) Enterprise Storage
11 5 (1.74%) FlexPod
12 4 (1.39%) EMC VMAX
Operating Systems
1 111 (38.68%) Windows
2 71 (24.74%) Unix
3 54 (18.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 25 (8.71%) Windows Server
5 23 (8.01%) AIX
6 15 (5.23%) Solaris
6 15 (5.23%) Ubuntu
7 12 (4.18%) Mac OS X
7 12 (4.18%) VMS
8 10 (3.48%) CentOS
9 7 (2.44%) CoreOS
9 7 (2.44%) Oracle Linux
10 5 (1.74%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (1.39%) HPUX
11 4 (1.39%) SUSE
12 3 (1.05%) Amazon Linux
12 3 (1.05%) Mac OS
12 3 (1.05%) zOS
13 1 (0.35%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.35%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (30.31%) CI/CD
1 87 (30.31%) DevOps
2 64 (22.30%) Problem-Solving
3 51 (17.77%) Infrastructure as Code
4 49 (17.07%) Observability
5 45 (15.68%) Agile
6 40 (13.94%) Microservices
7 39 (13.59%) Containerisation
8 38 (13.24%) Migration
9 36 (12.54%) Roadmaps
10 35 (12.20%) Test Automation
11 33 (11.50%) Cybersecurity
12 30 (10.45%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (10.10%) Root Cause Analysis
14 26 (9.06%) Infrastructure Automation
14 26 (9.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 25 (8.71%) Data Protection
16 23 (8.01%) Platform Engineering
17 22 (7.67%) Mentoring
17 22 (7.67%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 110 (38.33%) Python
2 52 (18.12%) Bash
3 49 (17.07%) Java
3 49 (17.07%) SQL
4 43 (14.98%) PowerShell
5 15 (5.23%) Rust
6 14 (4.88%) Go
6 14 (4.88%) Shell Script
7 13 (4.53%) Ruby
8 12 (4.18%) JavaScript
9 10 (3.48%) Perl
10 9 (3.14%) C#
10 9 (3.14%) COBOL
11 8 (2.79%) TypeScript
12 7 (2.44%) PHP
13 3 (1.05%) Delphi
13 3 (1.05%) JCL
13 3 (1.05%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.70%) C
14 2 (0.70%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 50 (17.42%) Security Cleared
2 35 (12.20%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.71%) Degree
4 22 (7.67%) CISSP
5 15 (5.23%) RHCE
6 13 (4.53%) CompTIA Security+
7 12 (4.18%) AWS Certification
8 8 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (2.79%) FFIEC
9 7 (2.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 6 (2.09%) DV Cleared
10 6 (2.09%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (2.09%) OCP
10 6 (2.09%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (1.74%) Azure Certification
11 5 (1.74%) CISM
11 5 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.74%) MCSA
11 5 (1.74%) MCSE
12 3 (1.05%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.23%) GDPR
2 11 (3.83%) NIST
3 10 (3.48%) PCI DSS
4 9 (3.14%) HIPAA
5 8 (2.79%) GLBA
6 7 (2.44%) SLA
7 5 (1.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 5 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (1.39%) GRC
9 3 (1.05%) QA
9 3 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.35%) GxP
10 1 (0.35%) SOC 2
System Software
1 60 (20.91%) Docker
2 43 (14.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (12.20%) Virtual Machines
4 19 (6.62%) Active Directory
5 18 (6.27%) vSphere
6 17 (5.92%) Hyper-V
6 17 (5.92%) KVM
7 13 (4.53%) Firmware
8 12 (4.18%) NFS
8 12 (4.18%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (2.79%) VMware NSX
10 3 (1.05%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.70%) Ceph
11 2 (0.70%) GPFS
11 2 (0.70%) SRDF
12 1 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.35%) QEMU
12 1 (0.35%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.35%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 1 (0.35%) zsh
Systems Management
1 86 (29.97%) Ansible
2 79 (27.53%) Kubernetes
2 79 (27.53%) Terraform
3 39 (13.59%) Grafana
4 30 (10.45%) Prometheus
5 12 (4.18%) Puppet
5 12 (4.18%) vCenter Server
6 8 (2.79%) Dell DRAC
6 8 (2.79%) Kiali
6 8 (2.79%) Packer
6 8 (2.79%) Progress Chef
7 7 (2.44%) PowerCLI
8 6 (2.09%) IBM BigFix
8 6 (2.09%) Nessus
9 5 (1.74%) Argo
9 5 (1.74%) CASB
9 5 (1.74%) Oracle RMAN
9 5 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.74%) SnapMirror
9 5 (1.74%) vRealize
Vendors
1 53 (18.47%) VMware
2 38 (13.24%) Red Hat
2 38 (13.24%) Splunk
3 31 (10.80%) Microsoft
4 25 (8.71%) Oracle
5 22 (7.67%) IBM
6 20 (6.97%) Google
7 11 (3.83%) CyberArk
7 11 (3.83%) ServiceNow
8 8 (2.79%) Cisco
8 8 (2.79%) Dell
8 8 (2.79%) HP
8 8 (2.79%) Thales
9 7 (2.44%) Broadcom
9 7 (2.44%) NetApp
10 6 (2.09%) Remedy
10 6 (2.09%) Tenable
11 5 (1.74%) Varonis
12 4 (1.39%) Dynatrace
13 3 (1.05%) AppDynamics