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 23 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 30 37
Rank change year-on-year -11 +7 0
Contract jobs citing Linux 325 219 197
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 4.50% 5.71% 4.43%
As % of the Operating Systems category 39.68% 37.44% 30.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 152 130
10th Percentile £358 £340 £375
25th Percentile £404 £372 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year -2.30% -2.72% -2.10%
75th Percentile £611 £590 £619
90th Percentile £650 £673 £664
England median daily rate £520 £528 £540
% change year-on-year -1.52% -2.22% -7.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 8
10th Percentile £25.03 - £47.70
25th Percentile £38.67 - £48.00
Median hourly rate £48.75 £70.00 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.36% +44.33% +115.56%
75th Percentile £56.07 - £58.44
90th Percentile £66.98 - £69.68
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -3.70% +3.85%

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 819 585 651
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 11.33% 15.26% 14.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 538 383 424
10th Percentile £181 £183 £178
25th Percentile £255 £265 £296
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £429 £400 £438
Median % change year-on-year +7.24% -8.57% -2.78%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £569
90th Percentile £630 £612 £700
England median daily rate £463 £463 £475
% change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 20 79
10th Percentile £16.62 £13.00 -
25th Percentile £17.25 £13.90 £10.95
Median hourly rate £21.32 £17.47 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.04% +9.19% -26.44%
75th Percentile £43.56 £18.87 £19.59
90th Percentile £178.75 £19.75 £35.60
England median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £24.75
% change year-on-year +41.30% -7.07% -41.76%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -12 167 £485 +20.52% 67
Yorkshire -18 142 £500 -4.76% 24
North East -22 22 £480 +0.52% 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 21 (6.46%) Confluence
2 9 (2.77%) CICS
3 3 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.92%) nginx
4 2 (0.62%) Apache
4 2 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.62%) OpenStack
4 2 (0.62%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.62%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.31%) CMS
5 1 (0.31%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.15%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.31%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.31%) Odoo
2 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.31%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 107 (32.92%) AWS
2 77 (23.69%) Azure
3 49 (15.08%) GCP
4 41 (12.62%) OpenShift
5 28 (8.62%) GitHub
6 17 (5.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 17 (5.23%) OCI
6 17 (5.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (3.69%) Amazon EKS
8 11 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (2.77%) Amazon ECS
9 9 (2.77%) AWS CloudFormation
9 9 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (2.77%) Serverless
10 8 (2.46%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (2.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
12 6 (1.85%) Amazon S3
13 5 (1.54%) Entra ID
13 5 (1.54%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 43 (13.23%) Firewall
2 25 (7.69%) SAN
3 18 (5.54%) DNS
4 17 (5.23%) Network Security
5 12 (3.69%) TCP/IP
6 9 (2.77%) VSAN
7 7 (2.15%) NAS
7 7 (2.15%) VPN
8 6 (1.85%) 3GPP
8 6 (1.85%) RTP
8 6 (1.85%) SSL
8 6 (1.85%) Wireshark
9 4 (1.23%) iSCSI
10 3 (0.92%) DHCP
10 3 (0.92%) FTP
10 3 (0.92%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.92%) WAN
10 3 (0.92%) Wireless
11 2 (0.62%) Intrusion Detection
11 2 (0.62%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (8.62%) Oracle Database
2 20 (6.15%) MongoDB
3 17 (5.23%) Relational Database
4 16 (4.92%) RDBMS
5 14 (4.31%) NoSQL
5 14 (4.31%) SQL Server
6 13 (4.00%) Oracle Exadata
7 12 (3.69%) PostgreSQL
8 9 (2.77%) DataStage
8 9 (2.77%) Elasticsearch
9 6 (1.85%) Db2
9 6 (1.85%) Oracle Database 12c
10 5 (1.54%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.54%) Sybase ASE
11 3 (0.92%) Amazon Aurora
11 3 (0.92%) BusinessObjects
12 2 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
12 2 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
12 2 (0.62%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.62%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 34 (10.46%) GitLab
1 34 (10.46%) JIRA
2 32 (9.85%) Jenkins
3 31 (9.54%) Git
4 15 (4.62%) Mockito
5 6 (1.85%) TeamCity
6 4 (1.23%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.92%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.92%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.92%) Liquibase
8 2 (0.62%) Burp Suite
8 2 (0.62%) Gatling
8 2 (0.62%) Gradle
8 2 (0.62%) Jaeger
8 2 (0.62%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.62%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.62%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.62%) Toad
9 1 (0.31%) Hudson
General
1 73 (22.46%) Social Skills
2 69 (21.23%) Finance
3 34 (10.46%) Banking
4 32 (9.85%) Public Sector
5 20 (6.15%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (2.46%) Legal
8 5 (1.54%) Aviation
8 5 (1.54%) Fire and Rescue
8 5 (1.54%) Police
9 4 (1.23%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.23%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.23%) Military
10 3 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.92%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.62%) Advertising
11 2 (0.62%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.31%) Law
12 1 (0.31%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 49 (15.08%) Senior
2 35 (10.77%) Developer
3 31 (9.54%) Linux Engineer
4 26 (8.00%) DevOps Engineer
4 26 (8.00%) Security Engineer
5 25 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 23 (7.08%) Java Developer
7 18 (5.54%) Software Engineer
8 17 (5.23%) Consultant
9 16 (4.92%) Cloud Engineer
9 16 (4.92%) DBA
10 14 (4.31%) Unix Engineer
11 13 (4.00%) Senior Developer
12 12 (3.69%) Data Centre Engineer
12 12 (3.69%) Platform Engineer
12 12 (3.69%) Senior Java Developer
13 11 (3.38%) Security Consultant
14 10 (3.08%) Analyst
15 9 (2.77%) Infrastructure Designer
15 9 (2.77%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.85%) Kafka
2 16 (4.92%) Middleware
3 15 (4.62%) JAX-RS
4 14 (4.31%) ActiveMQ
5 13 (4.00%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 13 (4.00%) REST
6 11 (3.38%) LDAP
7 10 (3.08%) Redfish
8 9 (2.77%) .NET
9 8 (2.46%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (1.85%) .NET Core
10 6 (1.85%) RabbitMQ
10 6 (1.85%) YAML
11 5 (1.54%) JSON
11 5 (1.54%) OpenTelemetry
11 5 (1.54%) RESTful
11 5 (1.54%) XML
12 4 (1.23%) Flash
13 3 (0.92%) OpenID
13 3 (0.92%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 39 (12.00%) Data Centre
2 36 (11.08%) Cloud Native
3 30 (9.23%) Linux Command Line
4 28 (8.62%) Security Posture
5 19 (5.85%) Replication
6 17 (5.23%) Mainframe
7 16 (4.92%) Public Cloud
8 15 (4.62%) Hybrid Cloud
8 15 (4.62%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
9 13 (4.00%) Management Information System
10 12 (3.69%) Cloud Security Posture
10 12 (3.69%) Distributed Systems
11 11 (3.38%) PKI
12 9 (2.77%) BYOD
12 9 (2.77%) VSAM
13 7 (2.15%) Enterprise Storage
14 6 (1.85%) Enterprise Cloud
15 5 (1.54%) FlexPod
15 5 (1.54%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 109 (33.54%) Windows
2 90 (27.69%) Unix
3 75 (23.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 39 (12.00%) AIX
5 26 (8.00%) Solaris
5 26 (8.00%) Windows Server
6 13 (4.00%) Mac OS X
7 12 (3.69%) VMS
8 8 (2.46%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (2.46%) Ubuntu
9 7 (2.15%) CoreOS
10 6 (1.85%) CentOS
11 5 (1.54%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (1.54%) HPUX
11 5 (1.54%) SUSE
11 5 (1.54%) zOS
12 3 (0.92%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.62%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (30.46%) CI/CD
2 87 (26.77%) DevOps
3 73 (22.46%) Agile
4 68 (20.92%) Infrastructure as Code
5 56 (17.23%) Migration
6 44 (13.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 42 (12.92%) Problem-Solving
8 41 (12.62%) Test Automation
9 40 (12.31%) Change Management
10 38 (11.69%) Continuous Improvement
10 38 (11.69%) Observability
11 37 (11.38%) Cloud Security
11 37 (11.38%) Performance Tuning
12 36 (11.08%) Infrastructure Automation
13 35 (10.77%) Roadmaps
14 34 (10.46%) Containerisation
15 33 (10.15%) ITIL
15 33 (10.15%) Microservices
16 32 (9.85%) High Availability
17 28 (8.62%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 124 (38.15%) Python
2 77 (23.69%) Bash
3 68 (20.92%) PowerShell
4 53 (16.31%) Java
5 49 (15.08%) SQL
6 18 (5.54%) Shell Script
7 15 (4.62%) JavaScript
8 11 (3.38%) Go
9 10 (3.08%) Bicep
10 9 (2.77%) C#
10 9 (2.77%) COBOL
10 9 (2.77%) Rust
11 8 (2.46%) TypeScript
12 5 (1.54%) JCL
13 4 (1.23%) Kotlin
14 3 (0.92%) Perl
15 2 (0.62%) C
15 2 (0.62%) C++
15 2 (0.62%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.62%) REXX
Qualifications
1 60 (18.46%) Security Cleared
2 41 (12.62%) SC Cleared
3 34 (10.46%) Degree
4 33 (10.15%) CISSP
5 23 (7.08%) AWS Certification
6 17 (5.23%) Azure Certification
7 13 (4.00%) CompTIA Security+
8 9 (2.77%) DV Cleared
9 8 (2.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 8 (2.46%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (2.15%) RHCE
11 6 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.85%) OCP
11 6 (1.85%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (1.54%) MCSA
12 5 (1.54%) MCSE
13 4 (1.23%) CISM
14 3 (0.92%) CEH
14 3 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.77%) HIPAA
2 6 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (1.54%) California Consumer Privacy Act
3 5 (1.54%) GDPR
3 5 (1.54%) NIST
4 4 (1.23%) GRC
5 3 (0.92%) PCI DSS
5 3 (0.92%) QA
5 3 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 3 (0.92%) SLA
6 1 (0.31%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.31%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.31%) GxP
6 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.31%) WCAG
System Software
1 64 (19.69%) Docker
2 49 (15.08%) Virtual Machines
2 49 (15.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (7.08%) KVM
4 19 (5.85%) Active Directory
4 19 (5.85%) NFS
4 19 (5.85%) vSphere
5 16 (4.92%) Oracle RAC
6 15 (4.62%) Hyper-V
7 14 (4.31%) Firmware
8 12 (3.69%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (2.46%) VMware NSX
10 5 (1.54%) Time Sharing Option
11 4 (1.23%) GPFS
12 3 (0.92%) Ceph
12 3 (0.92%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 2 (0.62%) SRDF
14 1 (0.31%) Embedded Firmware
14 1 (0.31%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 1 (0.31%) zsh
Systems Management
1 99 (30.46%) Terraform
2 97 (29.85%) Ansible
3 83 (25.54%) Kubernetes
4 22 (6.77%) Prometheus
5 21 (6.46%) Grafana
5 21 (6.46%) Oracle RMAN
5 21 (6.46%) Progress Chef
6 17 (5.23%) Data Guard
7 11 (3.38%) vCenter Server
8 10 (3.08%) Dell DRAC
9 8 (2.46%) Packer
9 8 (2.46%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 7 (2.15%) PowerCLI
10 7 (2.15%) vRealize
11 6 (1.85%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.85%) Nessus
12 5 (1.54%) Argo
12 5 (1.54%) CASB
12 5 (1.54%) Puppet
12 5 (1.54%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 57 (17.54%) VMware
2 50 (15.38%) Red Hat
3 48 (14.77%) Oracle
4 35 (10.77%) Microsoft
5 32 (9.85%) IBM
6 26 (8.00%) Google
7 16 (4.92%) Cisco
7 16 (4.92%) Splunk
8 13 (4.00%) ServiceNow
9 10 (3.08%) CyberArk
10 9 (2.77%) Broadcom
10 9 (2.77%) Dell
10 9 (2.77%) HP
11 8 (2.46%) Dynatrace
12 7 (2.15%) Tenable
13 6 (1.85%) NetApp
13 6 (1.85%) Remedy
14 5 (1.54%) Brocade
14 5 (1.54%) Sybase
14 5 (1.54%) Varonis