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 25 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 39 40 40
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 -21
Contract jobs citing Linux 275 152 199
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 5.75% 4.28% 4.31%
As % of the Operating Systems category 37.72% 29.23% 30.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 202 85 118
10th Percentile £313 £356 £313
25th Percentile £397 £453 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -12.73% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £648 £588
90th Percentile £680 £750 £629
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -5.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 5 11
10th Percentile - £43.10 £21.25
25th Percentile - £47.00 £29.40
Median hourly rate £41.94 £63.79 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -34.25% +39.03% +1.96%
75th Percentile £58.10 £80.59 £55.31
90th Percentile £67.80 £83.70 £63.75
England median hourly rate £63.75 £66.50 £62.17
% change year-on-year -4.14% +6.96% -4.35%

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 729 520 659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 15.25% 14.63% 14.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 527 294 423
10th Percentile £150 £163 £164
25th Percentile £200 £231 £257
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -5.88% -5.56%
75th Percentile £500 £550 £535
90th Percentile £612 £639 £600
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 31 49
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £16.85
25th Percentile £18.87 £16.13 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £18.75 £21.31
Median % change year-on-year +14.45% -12.01% -5.29%
75th Percentile £56.42 £24.18 £45.88
90th Percentile £70.00 £51.00 £66.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £56.20 £32.50
% change year-on-year -55.25% +72.92% +30.00%

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 25 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025. 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 +11 171 £489 -21.65% 97
North West -12 100 £465 -11.43% 123
North East -10 10 £550 +8.64% 25
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 (7.27%) Apache
2 16 (5.82%) JBoss
3 15 (5.45%) WebSphere
4 11 (4.00%) IIS
4 11 (4.00%) WebSphere Application Server
5 10 (3.64%) iPlanet
6 7 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (2.55%) TPMS
7 6 (2.18%) OpenStack
7 6 (2.18%) SharePoint
8 4 (1.45%) Tomcat
9 3 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (1.09%) Apache Spark
10 2 (0.73%) CICS
11 1 (0.36%) CMS
11 1 (0.36%) Confluence
11 1 (0.36%) Documentum
11 1 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 11 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.36%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 105 (38.18%) AWS
2 69 (25.09%) GCP
3 45 (16.36%) Azure
4 39 (14.18%) Serverless
5 36 (13.09%) OpenShift
6 26 (9.45%) GitHub
7 17 (6.18%) GitHub Actions
8 14 (5.09%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (4.00%) Google Workspace
10 10 (3.64%) IaaS
10 10 (3.64%) PaaS
10 10 (3.64%) SaaS
11 9 (3.27%) Amazon EC2
11 9 (3.27%) AWS KMS
11 9 (3.27%) Entra ID
12 8 (2.91%) AWS Lambda
13 7 (2.55%) Amazon ECS
14 5 (1.82%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 4 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
15 4 (1.45%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 72 (26.18%) Firewall
2 19 (6.91%) Network Security
3 18 (6.55%) DNS
4 14 (5.09%) SSL
4 14 (5.09%) TCP/IP
5 11 (4.00%) SNMP
6 10 (3.64%) Kerberos
7 8 (2.91%) VPN
8 7 (2.55%) SSH
8 7 (2.55%) VLAN
9 6 (2.18%) BGP
9 6 (2.18%) SAN
9 6 (2.18%) Software-Defined Networking
9 6 (2.18%) WebEx
10 5 (1.82%) NAS
11 4 (1.45%) HTTP
12 3 (1.09%) DHCP
13 2 (0.73%) HTTPS
13 2 (0.73%) VSAN
14 1 (0.36%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (13.09%) NoSQL
2 31 (11.27%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (9.09%) Oracle Database
4 22 (8.00%) MongoDB
4 22 (8.00%) SQL Server
5 12 (4.36%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.82%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (1.82%) Apache Cassandra
6 5 (1.82%) MySQL
7 3 (1.09%) Apache Hive
7 3 (1.09%) DynamoDB
7 3 (1.09%) Hadoop
7 3 (1.09%) HBase
7 3 (1.09%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.36%) Oracle Database 10g
9 1 (0.36%) Oracle Database 11g
9 1 (0.36%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.36%) Redis
Development Applications
1 82 (29.82%) Jenkins
2 52 (18.91%) GitLab
3 42 (15.27%) Git
4 23 (8.36%) Liquibase
5 18 (6.55%) Mockito
6 17 (6.18%) Sonatype Nexus
7 15 (5.45%) JIRA
8 13 (4.73%) Bitbucket Server
8 13 (4.73%) CA Release Automation
9 8 (2.91%) CircleCI
10 5 (1.82%) Bitbucket
11 4 (1.45%) Jaeger
12 3 (1.09%) Rational DOORS
12 3 (1.09%) SonarQube
12 3 (1.09%) TeamCity
13 2 (0.73%) Gradle
13 2 (0.73%) Maven
13 2 (0.73%) Octopus Deploy
14 1 (0.36%) Artifactory
14 1 (0.36%) Eclipse
General
1 87 (31.64%) Social Skills
2 75 (27.27%) Finance
3 50 (18.18%) Banking
4 31 (11.27%) Public Sector
5 28 (10.18%) Financial Institution
6 19 (6.91%) Analytical Skills
7 10 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.55%) Legal
9 4 (1.45%) Games
10 3 (1.09%) Law
11 2 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.73%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.36%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.36%) Private Banking
12 1 (0.36%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 46 (16.73%) Senior
2 42 (15.27%) Developer
3 32 (11.64%) Java Developer
4 31 (11.27%) DevOps Engineer
5 28 (10.18%) Platform Engineer
6 25 (9.09%) Software Engineer
7 20 (7.27%) AWS Engineer
7 20 (7.27%) Cloud Engineer
8 16 (5.82%) Senior Developer
8 16 (5.82%) Senior Java Developer
9 15 (5.45%) Lead
9 15 (5.45%) Linux Engineer
10 14 (5.09%) GCP Engineer
11 12 (4.36%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 12 (4.36%) IT Engineer
11 12 (4.36%) IT Support
11 12 (4.36%) IT Support Engineer
11 12 (4.36%) Support Engineer
12 10 (3.64%) Administrator
12 10 (3.64%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (16.73%) Elastic Stack
2 38 (13.82%) REST
3 32 (11.64%) RESTful
4 25 (9.09%) Kafka
5 18 (6.55%) ActiveMQ
5 18 (6.55%) JAX-RS
6 16 (5.82%) LDAP
7 13 (4.73%) OAuth
8 11 (4.00%) Middleware
8 11 (4.00%) OpenID
8 11 (4.00%) SAML
9 10 (3.64%) FastAPI
9 10 (3.64%) Spring Boot
10 8 (2.91%) Node.js
11 6 (2.18%) Spring
11 6 (2.18%) XMPP
12 5 (1.82%) AngularJS
12 5 (1.82%) OpenTelemetry
13 3 (1.09%) Spring Batch
13 3 (1.09%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 33 (12.00%) Distributed Systems
2 30 (10.91%) Cloud Native
2 30 (10.91%) Public Cloud
3 15 (5.45%) Product Ownership
4 13 (4.73%) Onboarding
5 12 (4.36%) Data Centre
6 9 (3.27%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (2.55%) NHS
8 6 (2.18%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.82%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.45%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.45%) Private Cloud
11 3 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (1.09%) Cloud Security Posture
12 2 (0.73%) Cyber Threat
12 2 (0.73%) Derivative
12 2 (0.73%) Enterprise Cloud
12 2 (0.73%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 100 (36.36%) Windows
2 60 (21.82%) Unix
3 33 (12.00%) Windows Server
4 30 (10.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (8.00%) Mac OS X
6 4 (1.45%) Solaris
6 4 (1.45%) VMS
7 3 (1.09%) Amazon Linux
8 2 (0.73%) CentOS
8 2 (0.73%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.73%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.73%) zOS
9 1 (0.36%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (42.18%) DevOps
2 115 (41.82%) CI/CD
3 92 (33.45%) Containerisation
4 74 (26.91%) Agile
5 71 (25.82%) Infrastructure as Code
5 71 (25.82%) Microservices
6 68 (24.73%) Problem-Solving
7 51 (18.55%) Cybersecurity
8 46 (16.73%) Observability
9 44 (16.00%) Infrastructure Automation
9 44 (16.00%) Root Cause Analysis
10 38 (13.82%) Test Automation
11 37 (13.45%) Software Engineering
12 36 (13.09%) Computer Science
12 36 (13.09%) High Availability
13 35 (12.73%) Cryptography
14 33 (12.00%) Continuous Integration
14 33 (12.00%) Data Security
14 33 (12.00%) Task Automation
15 31 (11.27%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 142 (51.64%) Python
2 70 (25.45%) Bash
3 67 (24.36%) Java
4 44 (16.00%) PowerShell
5 38 (13.82%) Go
6 29 (10.55%) Shell Script
7 26 (9.45%) SQL
8 19 (6.91%) Perl
9 14 (5.09%) Groovy
10 12 (4.36%) PHP
11 7 (2.55%) C++
11 7 (2.55%) Ruby
12 5 (1.82%) Rust
13 4 (1.45%) C#
14 3 (1.09%) C
14 3 (1.09%) Delphi
14 3 (1.09%) Search Processing Language
15 2 (0.73%) JavaScript
15 2 (0.73%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 61 (22.18%) Security Cleared
2 48 (17.45%) SC Cleared
3 38 (13.82%) Degree
4 30 (10.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (10.18%) Master's Degree
6 21 (7.64%) AWS Certification
7 16 (5.82%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (2.91%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 8 (2.91%) CCDP
8 8 (2.91%) CCNA
8 8 (2.91%) CCNP
8 8 (2.91%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (2.55%) FFIEC
10 6 (2.18%) CISSP
11 5 (1.82%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 5 (1.82%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (1.09%) CISM
13 3 (1.09%) MCSA
13 3 (1.09%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.27%) GDPR
2 8 (2.91%) NIST
3 7 (2.55%) GLBA
3 7 (2.55%) PCI DSS
4 6 (2.18%) SLA
5 3 (1.09%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.09%) SOC 2
6 2 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 102 (37.09%) Docker
2 36 (13.09%) Active Directory
3 34 (12.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (4.36%) vSphere
5 10 (3.64%) Oracle RAC
6 8 (2.91%) Tivoli Directory Server
7 5 (1.82%) KVM
7 5 (1.82%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (1.82%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (1.45%) Hyper-V
8 4 (1.45%) VMware NSX
9 3 (1.09%) HDFS
9 3 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.73%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.36%) Ceph
11 1 (0.36%) NFS
11 1 (0.36%) QEMU
11 1 (0.36%) SRDF
11 1 (0.36%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.36%) Xen
Systems Management
1 111 (40.36%) Kubernetes
2 87 (31.64%) Ansible
3 84 (30.55%) Terraform
4 66 (24.00%) Grafana
5 53 (19.27%) Prometheus
6 16 (5.82%) Progress Chef
7 11 (4.00%) CA Single Sign-On
8 10 (3.64%) CA Wily
8 10 (3.64%) Data Guard
8 10 (3.64%) yum
9 8 (2.91%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (2.91%) Tivoli
10 7 (2.55%) NetBackup
10 7 (2.55%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (2.55%) Puppet
11 5 (1.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (1.82%) EMC NetWorker
11 5 (1.82%) Packer
11 5 (1.82%) vCenter Server
11 5 (1.82%) vRealize
Vendors
1 73 (26.55%) Splunk
2 53 (19.27%) Oracle
3 47 (17.09%) Microsoft
4 46 (16.73%) VMware
5 37 (13.45%) Google
6 25 (9.09%) Red Hat
7 23 (8.36%) AppDynamics
8 15 (5.45%) Citrix
9 14 (5.09%) IBM
10 13 (4.73%) Cisco
11 12 (4.36%) F5
12 11 (4.00%) Broadcom
12 11 (4.00%) CyberArk
13 7 (2.55%) Veritas
14 6 (2.18%) Thales
15 5 (1.82%) Palo Alto
16 4 (1.45%) Cloudera
16 4 (1.45%) EMC
16 4 (1.45%) Juniper
16 4 (1.45%) ServiceNow