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 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 39 42
Rank change year-on-year 0 +3 -22
Contract jobs citing Linux 298 173 198
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 5.61% 5.25% 4.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 38.85% 31.92% 27.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 210 99 122
10th Percentile £349 £350 £313
25th Percentile £401 £401 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £550 £495
Median % change year-on-year -10.55% +11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £624 £582
90th Percentile £688 £740 £622
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 5 12
10th Percentile - £43.10 -
25th Percentile - £47.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £63.79 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.25% +32.89% +7.43%
75th Percentile £66.18 £80.59 £51.94
90th Percentile £74.26 £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 767 542 725
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 14.45% 16.44% 14.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 537 331 480
10th Percentile £142 £163 £160
25th Percentile £190 £233 £230
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £399 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -0.25% - -11.11%
75th Percentile £500 £538 £500
90th Percentile £622 £625 £586
England median daily rate £450 £471 £454
% change year-on-year -4.51% +3.80% -12.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 21 61
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £15.50
25th Percentile £17.59 £16.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.75 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.13% +4.17% -33.54%
75th Percentile £51.60 £29.00 £25.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.18 £63.75
England median hourly rate £22.50 £38.00 £25.22
% change year-on-year -40.79% +50.70% -8.31%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -8 168 £500 -13.04% 36
North West -10 120 £475 -5.00% 77
North East -20 15 £538 +10.26% 24
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 (4.36%) Apache
2 11 (3.69%) TPMS
3 8 (2.68%) JBoss
4 6 (2.01%) CICS
4 6 (2.01%) IIS
4 6 (2.01%) iPlanet
4 6 (2.01%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (2.01%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.01%) WebSphere
4 6 (2.01%) WebSphere Application Server
5 5 (1.68%) Confluence
5 5 (1.68%) OpenStack
6 3 (1.01%) nginx
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.34%) CMS
7 1 (0.34%) Documentum
7 1 (0.34%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 11 (3.69%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 99 (33.22%) AWS
2 56 (18.79%) GCP
3 43 (14.43%) Azure
4 39 (13.09%) OpenShift
5 34 (11.41%) Serverless
6 27 (9.06%) GitHub
7 13 (4.36%) Amazon EC2
7 13 (4.36%) AWS CloudFormation
7 13 (4.36%) GitHub Actions
8 12 (4.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 11 (3.69%) Google Workspace
10 10 (3.36%) AWS Lambda
10 10 (3.36%) Entra ID
11 9 (3.02%) Amazon S3
11 9 (3.02%) AWS KMS
12 7 (2.35%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (2.35%) Amazon EKS
13 6 (2.01%) SaaS
14 5 (1.68%) IaaS
14 5 (1.68%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 81 (27.18%) Firewall
2 21 (7.05%) Network Security
3 19 (6.38%) DNS
4 18 (6.04%) SSL
4 18 (6.04%) TCP/IP
5 15 (5.03%) SNMP
6 11 (3.69%) SSH
6 11 (3.69%) VPN
7 9 (3.02%) VLAN
8 7 (2.35%) BGP
8 7 (2.35%) Kerberos
9 6 (2.01%) SAN
9 6 (2.01%) Software-Defined Networking
9 6 (2.01%) WebEx
10 4 (1.34%) DHCP
10 4 (1.34%) HTTP
10 4 (1.34%) NAS
11 2 (0.67%) Reverse Proxy
11 2 (0.67%) VSAN
12 1 (0.34%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (11.07%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (10.40%) NoSQL
3 26 (8.72%) MongoDB
4 14 (4.70%) SQL Server
5 12 (4.03%) Oracle Database
6 7 (2.35%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.01%) DataStage
7 6 (2.01%) DB2
7 6 (2.01%) Elasticsearch
8 5 (1.68%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (1.68%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (1.68%) MySQL
9 3 (1.01%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.34%) Apache Hive
10 1 (0.34%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.34%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.34%) HBase
10 1 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
10 1 (0.34%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.34%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 70 (23.49%) Jenkins
2 54 (18.12%) GitLab
3 23 (7.72%) Git
4 19 (6.38%) Mockito
5 18 (6.04%) Liquibase
6 17 (5.70%) JIRA
7 10 (3.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (2.68%) Jaeger
9 6 (2.01%) Bitbucket Server
9 6 (2.01%) CA Release Automation
9 6 (2.01%) CircleCI
10 4 (1.34%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.67%) Gradle
11 2 (0.67%) Maven
11 2 (0.67%) Octopus Deploy
12 1 (0.34%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.34%) JUnit
General
1 92 (30.87%) Social Skills
2 81 (27.18%) Finance
3 42 (14.09%) Banking
4 39 (13.09%) Public Sector
5 27 (9.06%) Financial Institution
6 23 (7.72%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (7.38%) Analytical Skills
8 8 (2.68%) Legal
9 7 (2.35%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.01%) Games
11 3 (1.01%) Law
12 2 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.67%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.34%) Advertising
13 1 (0.34%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.34%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 56 (18.79%) Senior
2 45 (15.10%) Developer
3 33 (11.07%) DevOps Engineer
3 33 (11.07%) Java Developer
4 29 (9.73%) Platform Engineer
4 29 (9.73%) Software Engineer
5 23 (7.72%) Cloud Engineer
6 19 (6.38%) AWS Engineer
6 19 (6.38%) Lead
7 17 (5.70%) GCP Engineer
8 16 (5.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 16 (5.37%) Senior Developer
8 16 (5.37%) Senior Java Developer
9 13 (4.36%) Senior DevOps
9 13 (4.36%) Senior DevOps Engineer
10 12 (4.03%) Administrator
10 12 (4.03%) Senior Software Engineer
11 11 (3.69%) IT Support
11 11 (3.69%) IT Support Engineer
11 11 (3.69%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (13.09%) Elastic Stack
2 35 (11.74%) REST
3 31 (10.40%) Kafka
4 25 (8.39%) RESTful
5 19 (6.38%) JAX-RS
6 18 (6.04%) ActiveMQ
7 15 (5.03%) Middleware
8 12 (4.03%) LDAP
8 12 (4.03%) OpenTelemetry
8 12 (4.03%) Spring Boot
9 9 (3.02%) YAML
10 7 (2.35%) OAuth
11 6 (2.01%) OpenID
11 6 (2.01%) SAML
11 6 (2.01%) Spring
11 6 (2.01%) XMPP
12 4 (1.34%) Node.js
13 3 (1.01%) Lambda Expressions
13 3 (1.01%) Spring Batch
13 3 (1.01%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 35 (11.74%) Distributed Systems
2 33 (11.07%) Cloud Native
3 27 (9.06%) Public Cloud
4 24 (8.05%) Data Centre
5 17 (5.70%) Product Ownership
6 13 (4.36%) Security Posture
7 11 (3.69%) Hybrid Cloud
7 11 (3.69%) Management Information System
7 11 (3.69%) Onboarding
8 9 (3.02%) Linux Command Line
9 8 (2.68%) Cloud Security Posture
10 6 (2.01%) BYOD
10 6 (2.01%) Mainframe
10 6 (2.01%) VSAM
11 5 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (1.68%) NHS
12 4 (1.34%) Cyber Threat
13 3 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (1.01%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 110 (36.91%) Windows
2 77 (25.84%) Unix
3 44 (14.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 35 (11.74%) Windows Server
5 25 (8.39%) Mac OS X
6 12 (4.03%) AIX
7 10 (3.36%) Ubuntu
8 9 (3.02%) CentOS
9 8 (2.68%) Solaris
10 5 (1.68%) VMS
11 3 (1.01%) Amazon Linux
11 3 (1.01%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.67%) CoreOS
12 2 (0.67%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (40.94%) CI/CD
1 122 (40.94%) DevOps
2 80 (26.85%) Containerisation
3 76 (25.50%) Problem-Solving
4 71 (23.83%) Infrastructure as Code
4 71 (23.83%) Microservices
5 62 (20.81%) Agile
6 57 (19.13%) Cybersecurity
7 54 (18.12%) Observability
8 45 (15.10%) Infrastructure Automation
9 44 (14.77%) Test Automation
10 42 (14.09%) Root Cause Analysis
11 36 (12.08%) Software Engineering
12 35 (11.74%) Computer Science
12 35 (11.74%) Cryptography
12 35 (11.74%) Data Security
13 34 (11.41%) Platform Engineering
14 32 (10.74%) High Availability
15 30 (10.07%) TDD
16 28 (9.40%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 141 (47.32%) Python
2 75 (25.17%) Bash
3 69 (23.15%) Java
4 50 (16.78%) PowerShell
5 38 (12.75%) SQL
6 35 (11.74%) Go
7 24 (8.05%) Perl
8 16 (5.37%) Shell Script
9 15 (5.03%) Ruby
9 15 (5.03%) Rust
10 9 (3.02%) Groovy
11 8 (2.68%) JavaScript
11 8 (2.68%) PHP
12 7 (2.35%) TypeScript
13 6 (2.01%) COBOL
14 4 (1.34%) C#
15 3 (1.01%) Delphi
16 2 (0.67%) C
16 2 (0.67%) Search Processing Language
17 1 (0.34%) C++
Qualifications
1 72 (24.16%) Security Cleared
2 54 (18.12%) SC Cleared
3 40 (13.42%) Degree
4 23 (7.72%) Computer Science Degree
4 23 (7.72%) Master's Degree
5 20 (6.71%) AWS Certification
6 14 (4.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (4.70%) CISSP
7 11 (3.69%) FFIEC
8 10 (3.36%) CCNA
8 10 (3.36%) CCNP
8 10 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (3.36%) CompTIA Security+
9 9 (3.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 9 (3.02%) CCDP
9 9 (3.02%) RHCE
10 7 (2.35%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (2.01%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 6 (2.01%) CISM
12 5 (1.68%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.37%) GDPR
2 12 (4.03%) NIST
3 11 (3.69%) GLBA
3 11 (3.69%) PCI DSS
4 7 (2.35%) SLA
5 4 (1.34%) HIPAA
6 3 (1.01%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.34%) GxP
8 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 96 (32.21%) Docker
2 35 (11.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (9.73%) Active Directory
4 19 (6.38%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (4.70%) KVM
6 12 (4.03%) Hyper-V
6 12 (4.03%) vSphere
7 5 (1.68%) Tivoli Directory Server
8 4 (1.34%) Firmware
9 3 (1.01%) NFS
9 3 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.34%) Ceph
11 1 (0.34%) HDFS
11 1 (0.34%) QEMU
11 1 (0.34%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 115 (38.59%) Kubernetes
2 99 (33.22%) Terraform
3 89 (29.87%) Ansible
4 61 (20.47%) Grafana
5 52 (17.45%) Prometheus
6 11 (3.69%) Progress Chef
6 11 (3.69%) Puppet
7 9 (3.02%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (2.68%) Kiali
8 8 (2.68%) vCenter Server
9 7 (2.35%) CA Single Sign-On
9 7 (2.35%) Packer
10 6 (2.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (2.01%) CA Wily
10 6 (2.01%) IBM BigFix
11 5 (1.68%) CASB
11 5 (1.68%) EMC NetWorker
11 5 (1.68%) Nessus
11 5 (1.68%) Tivoli
12 4 (1.34%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 70 (23.49%) Splunk
2 48 (16.11%) VMware
3 40 (13.42%) Microsoft
4 38 (12.75%) Red Hat
5 34 (11.41%) Google
6 26 (8.72%) Oracle
7 19 (6.38%) IBM
8 12 (4.03%) Cisco
9 11 (3.69%) AppDynamics
10 10 (3.36%) Citrix
10 10 (3.36%) CyberArk
10 10 (3.36%) Thales
11 6 (2.01%) Broadcom
11 6 (2.01%) Remedy
11 6 (2.01%) ServiceNow
12 5 (1.68%) F5
12 5 (1.68%) Palo Alto
12 5 (1.68%) Tenable
13 4 (1.34%) Juniper
13 4 (1.34%) NetApp