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 3 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 28 50
Rank change year-on-year -27 +22 -1
Contract jobs citing Linux 284 243 155
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 3.76% 6.16% 3.75%
As % of the Operating Systems category 32.91% 38.57% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 173 165 106
10th Percentile £358 £318 £350
25th Percentile £413 £367 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £476 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.04% -13.45% +4.76%
75th Percentile £615 £597 £622
90th Percentile £650 £685 £688
England median daily rate £525 £525 £548
% change year-on-year - -4.11% -4.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 4
10th Percentile £18.90 - -
25th Percentile £23.36 - £47.00
Median hourly rate £36.67 £70.00 £50.75
Median % change year-on-year -47.61% +37.93% +91.51%
75th Percentile £49.06 - £62.33
90th Percentile £49.63 - £73.29
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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 863 630 519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 11.42% 15.97% 12.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 580 421 336
10th Percentile £181 £180 £186
25th Percentile £237 £295 £310
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -11.11% +2.27%
75th Percentile £525 £538 £589
90th Percentile £616 £621 £800
England median daily rate £466 £451 £475
% change year-on-year +3.39% -5.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 23 55
10th Percentile £14.40 £13.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £16.90 £15.73 £11.01
Median hourly rate £19.00 £18.21 £16.81
Median % change year-on-year +4.37% +8.33% -21.14%
75th Percentile £48.75 £18.87 £20.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £19.77 £26.92
England median hourly rate £32.50 £24.25 £39.50
% change year-on-year +34.02% -38.61% -7.06%

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 3 September 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 3 September 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 3 September 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 -25 144 £497 +24.25% 121
Yorkshire -26 120 £508 -0.05% 49
North East -21 27 £470 -18.26% 35
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 15 (5.28%) Confluence
2 4 (1.41%) Apache
2 4 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.06%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.06%) WebSphere
4 2 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.70%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.70%) nginx
4 2 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.70%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.35%) CICS
5 1 (0.35%) CMS
5 1 (0.35%) SAS
5 1 (0.35%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (3.17%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.35%) Odoo
2 1 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.35%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 102 (35.92%) AWS
2 83 (29.23%) Azure
3 50 (17.61%) GCP
4 30 (10.56%) GitHub
5 20 (7.04%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (6.69%) OpenShift
7 18 (6.34%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 18 (6.34%) OCI
8 14 (4.93%) Amazon EKS
9 13 (4.58%) Amazon ECS
9 13 (4.58%) AWS CloudFormation
9 13 (4.58%) Serverless
10 12 (4.23%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (4.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 11 (3.87%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (3.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 9 (3.17%) Azure Monitor
13 9 (3.17%) Entra ID
14 8 (2.82%) AWS KMS
15 7 (2.46%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 29 (10.21%) Firewall
2 16 (5.63%) DNS
2 16 (5.63%) Network Security
3 15 (5.28%) SAN
4 8 (2.82%) TCP/IP
4 8 (2.82%) VSAN
5 6 (2.11%) 3GPP
5 6 (2.11%) DHCP
5 6 (2.11%) RTP
5 6 (2.11%) Wireshark
6 5 (1.76%) NAS
6 5 (1.76%) SD-WAN
6 5 (1.76%) VPN
6 5 (1.76%) WAN
6 5 (1.76%) Wireless
7 4 (1.41%) iSCSI
8 3 (1.06%) Fibre Channel
8 3 (1.06%) FTP
8 3 (1.06%) SSL
8 3 (1.06%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (9.86%) Oracle Database
2 17 (5.99%) RDBMS
2 17 (5.99%) Relational Database
3 15 (5.28%) Oracle Exadata
4 12 (4.23%) NoSQL
5 11 (3.87%) MongoDB
6 8 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
7 7 (2.46%) SQL Server
8 6 (2.11%) DynamoDB
8 6 (2.11%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (2.11%) Oracle Database 12c
9 5 (1.76%) Sybase ASE
10 4 (1.41%) Data Lake
11 3 (1.06%) Amazon Aurora
11 3 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (1.06%) Big Data
11 3 (1.06%) BusinessObjects
11 3 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (1.06%) Power BI
12 2 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 39 (13.73%) Git
2 26 (9.15%) GitLab
3 24 (8.45%) JIRA
4 19 (6.69%) Jenkins
5 9 (3.17%) Mockito
6 7 (2.46%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (2.11%) TeamCity
8 5 (1.76%) SonarQube
9 4 (1.41%) Cucumber
10 3 (1.06%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.70%) Burp Suite
11 2 (0.70%) Gatling
11 2 (0.70%) Gradle
11 2 (0.70%) LoadRunner
11 2 (0.70%) Maven
11 2 (0.70%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.70%) Toad
12 1 (0.35%) Claude Code
12 1 (0.35%) Hudson
12 1 (0.35%) Jaeger
General
1 59 (20.77%) Social Skills
2 56 (19.72%) Finance
3 27 (9.51%) Banking
4 23 (8.10%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (8.10%) Public Sector
5 10 (3.52%) Legal
6 6 (2.11%) Military
7 5 (1.76%) Aviation
7 5 (1.76%) Fire and Rescue
7 5 (1.76%) Police
8 4 (1.41%) Corporate Banking
8 4 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.41%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.41%) Law
8 4 (1.41%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.35%) Electronics
10 1 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.35%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 46 (16.20%) Senior
2 31 (10.92%) Linux Engineer
3 28 (9.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 26 (9.15%) Developer
5 22 (7.75%) DevOps Engineer
5 22 (7.75%) Security Engineer
6 18 (6.34%) Cloud Engineer
6 18 (6.34%) Consultant
7 16 (5.63%) DBA
7 16 (5.63%) Unix Engineer
8 13 (4.58%) Java Developer
8 13 (4.58%) Lead
9 12 (4.23%) Senior Developer
10 11 (3.87%) AWS Engineer
10 11 (3.87%) Cloud Security Engineer
10 11 (3.87%) Security Consultant
11 10 (3.52%) Platform Engineer
11 10 (3.52%) Software Engineer
11 10 (3.52%) Support Engineer
11 10 (3.52%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (34.86%) Terraform
2 15 (5.28%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 14 (4.93%) Kafka
4 13 (4.58%) .NET
5 11 (3.87%) REST
6 9 (3.17%) ActiveMQ
6 9 (3.17%) JAX-RS
7 8 (2.82%) JSON
7 8 (2.82%) YAML
8 7 (2.46%) ARM Templates
8 7 (2.46%) Middleware
8 7 (2.46%) Redfish
9 6 (2.11%) .NET Core
9 6 (2.11%) Django
9 6 (2.11%) RabbitMQ
10 4 (1.41%) Azure Blueprints
10 4 (1.41%) LDAP
10 4 (1.41%) Node.js
10 4 (1.41%) RESTful
10 4 (1.41%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (12.32%) Cloud Native
2 26 (9.15%) Data Centre
3 22 (7.75%) Linux Command Line
4 18 (6.34%) Security Posture
5 17 (5.99%) Public Cloud
5 17 (5.99%) Replication
6 15 (5.28%) PKI
7 14 (4.93%) Legacy Systems
8 13 (4.58%) Management Information System
9 12 (4.23%) Hybrid Cloud
10 11 (3.87%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (3.87%) Distributed Systems
11 9 (3.17%) Mainframe
12 8 (2.82%) Enterprise Cloud
13 6 (2.11%) Cloud Security Posture
13 6 (2.11%) Onboarding
14 5 (1.76%) Enterprise Storage
14 5 (1.76%) Private Cloud
14 5 (1.76%) Robotics
15 4 (1.41%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 90 (31.69%) Windows
2 69 (24.30%) Unix
3 63 (22.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 27 (9.51%) AIX
5 25 (8.80%) Windows Server
6 20 (7.04%) Solaris
7 8 (2.82%) Oracle Linux
7 8 (2.82%) Ubuntu
7 8 (2.82%) VMS
8 6 (2.11%) CentOS
9 5 (1.76%) HPUX
9 5 (1.76%) SUSE
9 5 (1.76%) zOS
10 4 (1.41%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.70%) CoreOS
11 2 (0.70%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.70%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.70%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (36.27%) CI/CD
2 90 (31.69%) Infrastructure as Code
3 77 (27.11%) DevOps
4 68 (23.94%) Agile
5 48 (16.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 46 (16.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 46 (16.20%) Migration
6 46 (16.20%) Observability
7 42 (14.79%) Change Management
7 42 (14.79%) High Availability
8 38 (13.38%) Infrastructure Automation
9 37 (13.03%) Cloud Security
10 33 (11.62%) Performance Tuning
11 31 (10.92%) ITIL
12 30 (10.56%) Problem-Solving
13 29 (10.21%) Platform Engineering
13 29 (10.21%) Root Cause Analysis
13 29 (10.21%) Runbook
14 28 (9.86%) Disaster Recovery
14 28 (9.86%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 114 (40.14%) Python
2 79 (27.82%) Bash
3 77 (27.11%) PowerShell
4 48 (16.90%) Java
5 43 (15.14%) SQL
6 17 (5.99%) Shell Script
7 16 (5.63%) Bicep
8 12 (4.23%) C#
9 10 (3.52%) JavaScript
10 7 (2.46%) Go
11 5 (1.76%) JCL
12 4 (1.41%) Groovy
12 4 (1.41%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.41%) Kusto Query Language
12 4 (1.41%) Search Processing Language
13 3 (1.06%) Rust
13 3 (1.06%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.70%) C++
14 2 (0.70%) Perl
14 2 (0.70%) REXX
Qualifications
1 55 (19.37%) Security Cleared
2 45 (15.85%) SC Cleared
3 36 (12.68%) Degree
4 30 (10.56%) CISSP
5 20 (7.04%) Azure Certification
6 19 (6.69%) AWS Certification
7 7 (2.46%) CompTIA Security+
8 6 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (2.11%) CISM
8 6 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (2.11%) RHCE
9 5 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (1.41%) CEH
10 4 (1.41%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 3 (1.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (1.06%) Network+ Certification
11 3 (1.06%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (1.76%) HIPAA
2 5 (1.76%) NIST
3 4 (1.41%) GRC
3 4 (1.41%) SLA
4 3 (1.06%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.06%) QA
4 3 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.35%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 1 (0.35%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.35%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.35%) GDPR
5 1 (0.35%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 55 (19.37%) Docker
2 36 (12.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (10.92%) Virtual Machines
4 22 (7.75%) Active Directory
5 18 (6.34%) Oracle RAC
6 14 (4.93%) vSphere
7 13 (4.58%) KVM
7 13 (4.58%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (4.23%) NFS
9 11 (3.87%) Firmware
10 8 (2.82%) VMware NSX
11 7 (2.46%) Hyper-V
12 5 (1.76%) Time Sharing Option
13 4 (1.41%) Ceph
14 3 (1.06%) GPFS
14 3 (1.06%) Veritas Volume Manager
15 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 1 (0.35%) NetIQ eDirectory
15 1 (0.35%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 1 (0.35%) zsh
Systems Management
1 82 (28.87%) Ansible
2 76 (26.76%) Kubernetes
3 23 (8.10%) Oracle RMAN
4 22 (7.75%) Grafana
4 22 (7.75%) Prometheus
5 20 (7.04%) Progress Chef
6 19 (6.69%) Data Guard
7 8 (2.82%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 7 (2.46%) Dell DRAC
8 7 (2.46%) Packer
8 7 (2.46%) vCenter Server
9 6 (2.11%) Istio
9 6 (2.11%) PowerCLI
10 5 (1.76%) vMotion
10 5 (1.76%) vRealize
11 4 (1.41%) Argo
11 4 (1.41%) Oracle ZFS
11 4 (1.41%) Tivoli
12 3 (1.06%) Nagios
12 3 (1.06%) PowerBroker
Vendors
1 50 (17.61%) Oracle
2 41 (14.44%) Red Hat
3 40 (14.08%) Microsoft
4 39 (13.73%) VMware
5 23 (8.10%) Google
6 17 (5.99%) IBM
6 17 (5.99%) Splunk
7 16 (5.63%) Cisco
8 9 (3.17%) Dell
8 9 (3.17%) ServiceNow
9 7 (2.46%) Dynatrace
10 6 (2.11%) Broadcom
10 6 (2.11%) HP
11 5 (1.76%) AppDynamics
11 5 (1.76%) Brocade
11 5 (1.76%) Databricks
11 5 (1.76%) Juniper
11 5 (1.76%) Sybase
12 4 (1.41%) CyberArk
12 4 (1.41%) SAP