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 19 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 19 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	68	30	53
Rank change year-on-year	-38	+23	-8
Contract jobs citing Linux	270	265	145
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England	3.52%	6.32%	3.56%
As % of the Operating Systems category	31.65%	39.20%	28.16%
Number of daily rates quoted	168	186	85
10^th Percentile	£361	£318	£360
25^th Percentile	£418	£372	£450
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£500	£476	£550
Median % change year-on-year	+5.15%	-13.55%	+6.02%
75^th Percentile	£615	£599	£625
90^th Percentile	£650	£682	£695
England median daily rate	£525	£520	£550
% change year-on-year	+1.01%	-5.50%	-1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted	6	2	5
10^th Percentile	£18.27	£44.75	-
25^th Percentile	£21.70	£48.96	£47.00
Median hourly rate	£25.42	£55.97	£52.50
Median % change year-on-year	-54.58%	+6.61%	+133.33%
75^th Percentile	£41.80	£62.99	£68.18
90^th Percentile	£47.94	£67.19	£75.62
England median hourly rate	£65.00	£65.00	£67.50
% change year-on-year	-	-3.70%	+8.00%

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.

	6 months to 19 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills	853	676	515
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England	11.12%	16.12%	12.63%
Number of daily rates quoted	573	472	289
10^th Percentile	£185	£163	£178
25^th Percentile	£282	£220	£275
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£443	£400	£440
Median % change year-on-year	+10.75%	-9.09%	-
75^th Percentile	£530	£525	£550
90^th Percentile	£615	£619	£628
England median daily rate	£465	£450	£475
% change year-on-year	+3.33%	-5.26%	-5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted	40	27	40
10^th Percentile	£13.95	£13.00	£15.22
25^th Percentile	£16.80	£15.50	£16.19
Median hourly rate	£18.25	£18.87	£17.78
Median % change year-on-year	-3.29%	+6.12%	-16.55%
75^th Percentile	£31.78	£21.38	£24.18
90^th Percentile	£95.00	£34.03	£51.00
England median hourly rate	£32.29	£23.00	£60.00
% change year-on-year	+40.39%	-61.67%	+30.78%

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 Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

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 19 October 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.

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 19 October 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 19 October 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
North West	-31	135	£488	+21.04%	114
Yorkshire	-37	110	£525	+5.00%	70
North East	-15	33	£480	-10.70%	36
Linux England

Linux Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England

For the 6 months to 19 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Linux also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the North of England region with a requirement for Linux.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Python	42.6%	115
2	CI/CD	39.6%	107
3	Terraform	38.1%	103
4	AWS	36.7%	99
5	Infrastructure as Code	35.2%	95
6	Kubernetes	29.3%	79
6	Windows	29.3%	79
8	Azure	28.1%	76
9	DevOps	27.8%	75
10	Bash	27.4%	74
11	Ansible	25.9%	70
12	PowerShell	24.8%	67
12	Unix	24.8%	67
14	Agile	22.2%	60
14	Red Hat Enterprise Linux	22.2%	60
16	Security Cleared	21.1%	57
17	Infrastructure Engineering	20.4%	55
18	GCP	19.3%	52
19	Observability	18.9%	51
20	Docker	18.1%	49
21	Git	17.4%	47
22	SC Cleared	16.7%	45
23	Continuous Improvement	16.3%	44
23	Java	16.3%	44
25	Microsoft	15.9%	43
25	Migration	15.9%	43
27	Change Management	15.2%	41
27	Oracle	15.2%	41
29	Infrastructure Automation	14.4%	39
30	Cloud Security	14.1%	38

Linux Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Operating Systems

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Windows	29.3%	79
2	Unix	24.8%	67
3	Red Hat Enterprise Linux	22.2%	60
4	Windows Server	8.9%	24
5	AIX	7.8%	21
6	Solaris	6.3%	17
7	CentOS	3.0%	8
8	macOS	1.9%	5
8	Ubuntu	1.9%	5
8	VMS	1.9%	5
11	zOS	1.5%	4
12	HPUX	0.7%	2
12	OpenVMS	0.7%	2
12	Oracle Linux	0.7%	2
12	SUSE	0.7%	2
12	Windows Server 2019	0.7%	2
17	Check Point GAiA	0.4%	1
17	CoreOS	0.4%	1
17	SUSE Linux Enterprise Server	0.4%	1
17	Windows Server 2003	0.4%	1