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 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 41 43
Rank change year-on-year -1 +2 -24
Contract jobs citing Linux 272 155 192
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 5.60% 4.58% 4.10%
As % of the Operating Systems category 36.86% 30.33% 29.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 196 84 115
10th Percentile £313 £356 £315
25th Percentile £400 £454 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £558 £500
Median % change year-on-year -12.38% +11.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £642 £588
90th Percentile £688 £750 £621
England median daily rate £510 £551 £550
% change year-on-year -7.44% +0.18% -6.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 5 12
10th Percentile - £43.10 -
25th Percentile - £47.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £63.79 £44.82
Median % change year-on-year -34.25% +42.33% -0.41%
75th Percentile - £80.59 £51.09
90th Percentile £61.33 £83.70 £63.75
England median hourly rate £63.14 £66.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year -5.06% +10.83% -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 738 511 662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 15.21% 15.11% 14.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 531 295 429
10th Percentile £138 £163 £163
25th Percentile £190 £233 £256
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £370 £400 £424
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% -5.66% -0.93%
75th Percentile £500 £560 £525
90th Percentile £613 £645 £588
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 21 44
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £16.34
25th Percentile £18.87 £16.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.50 £18.75 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -14.77% -7.37%
75th Percentile £41.94 £29.00 £46.13
90th Percentile £68.70 £68.18 £76.38
England median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £32.00
% change year-on-year -52.38% +64.06% +28.00%

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 16 January 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 16 January 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 16 January 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 +3 169 £500 -18.70% 42
North West -9 97 £453 -17.64% 66
North East -16 12 £550 +8.64% 29
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 20 (7.35%) Apache
2 13 (4.78%) JBoss
2 13 (4.78%) WebSphere
3 11 (4.04%) IIS
3 11 (4.04%) WebSphere Application Server
4 10 (3.68%) iPlanet
4 10 (3.68%) TPMS
5 7 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (2.21%) OpenStack
6 6 (2.21%) SharePoint
7 4 (1.47%) Tomcat
8 3 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (1.10%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.74%) CICS
10 1 (0.37%) CMS
10 1 (0.37%) Confluence
10 1 (0.37%) Documentum
10 1 (0.37%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 11 (4.04%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.37%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 99 (36.40%) AWS
2 62 (22.79%) GCP
3 42 (15.44%) Azure
4 35 (12.87%) Serverless
5 33 (12.13%) OpenShift
6 26 (9.56%) GitHub
7 17 (6.25%) GitHub Actions
8 14 (5.15%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (4.04%) Amazon EC2
9 11 (4.04%) Google Workspace
10 9 (3.31%) AWS KMS
10 9 (3.31%) Entra ID
11 8 (2.94%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (2.94%) IaaS
11 8 (2.94%) PaaS
11 8 (2.94%) SaaS
12 7 (2.57%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (2.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 6 (2.21%) Amazon S3
14 4 (1.47%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 71 (26.10%) Firewall
2 18 (6.62%) Network Security
3 14 (5.15%) SNMP
3 14 (5.15%) SSL
4 13 (4.78%) TCP/IP
5 12 (4.41%) DNS
6 10 (3.68%) Kerberos
6 10 (3.68%) SSH
7 8 (2.94%) VPN
8 7 (2.57%) VLAN
9 6 (2.21%) BGP
9 6 (2.21%) Software-Defined Networking
9 6 (2.21%) WebEx
10 4 (1.47%) HTTP
11 3 (1.10%) DHCP
12 2 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 2 (0.74%) NAS
12 2 (0.74%) VSAN
13 1 (0.37%) Multicast
13 1 (0.37%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (12.50%) NoSQL
2 31 (11.40%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (9.19%) Oracle Database
4 22 (8.09%) MongoDB
5 21 (7.72%) SQL Server
6 9 (3.31%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.84%) Amazon RDS
7 5 (1.84%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (1.84%) MySQL
8 3 (1.10%) Apache Hive
8 3 (1.10%) DynamoDB
8 3 (1.10%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.10%) HBase
9 1 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.37%) GIS
9 1 (0.37%) Oracle Database 10g
9 1 (0.37%) Oracle Database 11g
9 1 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (0.37%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.37%) Redis
Development Applications
1 73 (26.84%) Jenkins
2 47 (17.28%) GitLab
3 36 (13.24%) Git
4 19 (6.99%) Liquibase
5 18 (6.62%) Mockito
6 14 (5.15%) Sonatype Nexus
7 13 (4.78%) JIRA
8 11 (4.04%) Bitbucket Server
8 11 (4.04%) CA Release Automation
9 8 (2.94%) CircleCI
9 8 (2.94%) Jaeger
10 4 (1.47%) Bitbucket
11 3 (1.10%) Rational DOORS
12 2 (0.74%) Gradle
12 2 (0.74%) Maven
12 2 (0.74%) Octopus Deploy
13 1 (0.37%) Artifactory
13 1 (0.37%) Eclipse
13 1 (0.37%) JUnit
13 1 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
General
1 90 (33.09%) Social Skills
2 71 (26.10%) Finance
3 43 (15.81%) Banking
4 32 (11.76%) Public Sector
5 28 (10.29%) Financial Institution
6 22 (8.09%) Analytical Skills
7 19 (6.99%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.57%) Legal
9 4 (1.47%) Games
10 3 (1.10%) Law
11 2 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.74%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.37%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.37%) Private Banking
12 1 (0.37%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 50 (18.38%) Senior
2 43 (15.81%) Developer
3 31 (11.40%) Java Developer
4 27 (9.93%) DevOps Engineer
4 27 (9.93%) Platform Engineer
5 26 (9.56%) Software Engineer
6 21 (7.72%) Lead
7 20 (7.35%) Cloud Engineer
8 19 (6.99%) AWS Engineer
9 16 (5.88%) Senior Developer
9 16 (5.88%) Senior Java Developer
10 15 (5.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 14 (5.15%) GCP Engineer
12 12 (4.41%) IT Engineer
12 12 (4.41%) IT Support
12 12 (4.41%) IT Support Engineer
12 12 (4.41%) Support Engineer
13 11 (4.04%) Administrator
14 10 (3.68%) Cryptography Engineer
14 10 (3.68%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (14.34%) Elastic Stack
2 34 (12.50%) REST
3 29 (10.66%) Kafka
4 28 (10.29%) RESTful
5 18 (6.62%) ActiveMQ
5 18 (6.62%) JAX-RS
6 13 (4.78%) LDAP
6 13 (4.78%) OAuth
7 11 (4.04%) OpenID
7 11 (4.04%) SAML
7 11 (4.04%) Spring Boot
8 10 (3.68%) FastAPI
8 10 (3.68%) Middleware
9 9 (3.31%) OpenTelemetry
10 8 (2.94%) Node.js
11 7 (2.57%) YAML
12 6 (2.21%) Spring
12 6 (2.21%) XMPP
13 5 (1.84%) AngularJS
14 3 (1.10%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 33 (12.13%) Distributed Systems
2 28 (10.29%) Public Cloud
3 26 (9.56%) Cloud Native
4 15 (5.51%) Data Centre
4 15 (5.51%) Product Ownership
5 14 (5.15%) Onboarding
6 9 (3.31%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (2.57%) Management Information System
7 7 (2.57%) NHS
8 5 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.47%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.10%) Security Posture
11 2 (0.74%) Derivative
11 2 (0.74%) Enterprise Cloud
11 2 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.74%) Legacy Applications
11 2 (0.74%) PKI
11 2 (0.74%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 97 (35.66%) Windows
2 57 (20.96%) Unix
3 33 (12.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 32 (11.76%) Windows Server
5 22 (8.09%) Mac OS X
6 8 (2.94%) CentOS
6 8 (2.94%) Ubuntu
7 4 (1.47%) Solaris
8 3 (1.10%) Amazon Linux
9 2 (0.74%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.74%) VMS
9 2 (0.74%) zOS
10 1 (0.37%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (44.49%) DevOps
2 120 (44.12%) CI/CD
3 85 (31.25%) Containerisation
4 73 (26.84%) Problem-Solving
5 67 (24.63%) Agile
5 67 (24.63%) Infrastructure as Code
6 66 (24.26%) Microservices
7 56 (20.59%) Cybersecurity
8 50 (18.38%) Observability
9 40 (14.71%) Root Cause Analysis
9 40 (14.71%) Test Automation
10 39 (14.34%) Infrastructure Automation
11 34 (12.50%) Computer Science
11 34 (12.50%) Cryptography
11 34 (12.50%) Software Engineering
12 32 (11.76%) Data Security
12 32 (11.76%) High Availability
13 31 (11.40%) Task Automation
14 30 (11.03%) Platform Engineering
15 29 (10.66%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 142 (52.21%) Python
2 70 (25.74%) Bash
3 69 (25.37%) Java
4 40 (14.71%) PowerShell
5 34 (12.50%) Go
6 28 (10.29%) SQL
7 27 (9.93%) Shell Script
8 22 (8.09%) Perl
9 14 (5.15%) Groovy
10 13 (4.78%) Ruby
11 12 (4.41%) PHP
12 10 (3.68%) Rust
13 6 (2.21%) C++
14 4 (1.47%) C#
15 3 (1.10%) Delphi
15 3 (1.10%) JavaScript
15 3 (1.10%) Search Processing Language
16 2 (0.74%) C
16 2 (0.74%) PL/SQL
17 1 (0.37%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 66 (24.26%) Security Cleared
2 53 (19.49%) SC Cleared
3 36 (13.24%) Degree
4 24 (8.82%) Computer Science Degree
4 24 (8.82%) Master's Degree
5 18 (6.62%) AWS Certification
6 16 (5.88%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (3.68%) FFIEC
8 8 (2.94%) CCDP
8 8 (2.94%) CCNA
8 8 (2.94%) CCNP
8 8 (2.94%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (2.57%) RHCE
10 5 (1.84%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 5 (1.84%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 5 (1.84%) CISM
10 5 (1.84%) CISSP
11 4 (1.47%) CompTIA Security+
12 3 (1.10%) AWS Certified Developer
13 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.41%) GDPR
2 11 (4.04%) NIST
3 10 (3.68%) GLBA
3 10 (3.68%) PCI DSS
4 6 (2.21%) SLA
5 3 (1.10%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.10%) SOC 2
6 2 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 98 (36.03%) Docker
2 30 (11.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (10.66%) Active Directory
4 10 (3.68%) Oracle RAC
5 9 (3.31%) vSphere
6 8 (2.94%) Tivoli Directory Server
7 6 (2.21%) KVM
8 5 (1.84%) Hyper-V
9 3 (1.10%) HDFS
9 3 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.74%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.37%) Ceph
11 1 (0.37%) Firmware
11 1 (0.37%) NFS
11 1 (0.37%) QEMU
11 1 (0.37%) SRDF
11 1 (0.37%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.37%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.37%) Xen
Systems Management
1 108 (39.71%) Kubernetes
2 89 (32.72%) Ansible
3 85 (31.25%) Terraform
4 66 (24.26%) Grafana
5 53 (19.49%) Prometheus
6 13 (4.78%) Progress Chef
6 13 (4.78%) Puppet
7 11 (4.04%) CA Single Sign-On
8 10 (3.68%) CA Wily
8 10 (3.68%) Data Guard
8 10 (3.68%) yum
9 8 (2.94%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (2.94%) Tivoli
10 7 (2.57%) Kiali
11 6 (2.21%) NetBackup
11 6 (2.21%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (1.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (1.84%) EMC NetWorker
12 5 (1.84%) Packer
13 4 (1.47%) Podman
Vendors
1 70 (25.74%) Splunk
2 50 (18.38%) Oracle
3 42 (15.44%) Microsoft
4 40 (14.71%) VMware
5 32 (11.76%) Google
6 28 (10.29%) Red Hat
7 20 (7.35%) AppDynamics
8 13 (4.78%) Cisco
9 12 (4.41%) IBM
10 11 (4.04%) Broadcom
11 9 (3.31%) Citrix
11 9 (3.31%) Thales
12 7 (2.57%) CyberArk
12 7 (2.57%) F5
13 6 (2.21%) Veritas
14 5 (1.84%) Palo Alto
15 4 (1.47%) EMC
15 4 (1.47%) Juniper
15 4 (1.47%) ServiceNow
16 3 (1.10%) NetApp