Linux Contract Job Trends in the South East

Linux
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Linux skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 30 19
Rank change year-on-year +5 -11 +10
Contract jobs citing Linux 297 217 380
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.84% 6.52% 7.57%
As % of the Operating Systems category 41.77% 37.74% 38.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 215 135 258
10th Percentile £204 £353 £313
25th Percentile £360 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £538 £613 £599
90th Percentile £635 £675 £660
England median daily rate £510 £551 £550
% change year-on-year -7.44% +0.18% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 12 36
10th Percentile - £55.11 £42.30
25th Percentile £12.50 £60.81 £55.00
Median hourly rate £16.00 £62.50 £64.00
Median % change year-on-year -74.40% -2.34% +10.82%
75th Percentile £48.75 £65.51 £70.47
90th Percentile £76.05 £70.83 £76.53
England median hourly rate £63.14 £66.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year -5.06% +10.83% -7.69%

All Operating Systems
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 711 575 995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 16.37% 17.27% 19.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 395 673
10th Percentile £190 £200 £165
25th Percentile £255 £263 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -13.75%
75th Percentile £539 £567 £575
90th Percentile £638 £645 £638
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -6.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 26 73
10th Percentile £12.50 £22.50 £19.40
25th Percentile £15.56 £33.50 £30.00
Median hourly rate £20.79 £57.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -63.52% -0.87% +191.14%
75th Percentile £48.75 £63.44 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.13 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -52.38% +75.00% +20.00%

Linux
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Linux relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Linux job vacancy trend in the South East

Linux
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Linux.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Linux

Linux
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Linux in the South East over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Linux in the South East

Linux
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Linux.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Linux

Linux
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Linux in the South East over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Linux in the South East

Linux
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Linux within the South East region over the 6 months to 13 January 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
Thames Valley +13 135 £441 -7.11% 137
Berkshire +10 115 £425 -6.39% 96
Hampshire -6 89 £500 -13.04% 54
Surrey +3 51 £208 -58.50% 36
Buckinghamshire +1 14 £600 +41.18% 16
Sussex - 9 - - 2
West Sussex -5 6 £513 -29.31% 18
Oxfordshire -12 6 £388 -24.39% 25
Middlesex - 5 - - 8
East Sussex - 3 - - 13
Linux
England

Linux
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 7 (2.36%) Mattermost
1 7 (2.36%) Skype for Business
2 4 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.67%) Apache
3 2 (0.67%) JBoss
4 1 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.34%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.34%) Confluence
4 1 (0.34%) Gunicorn
4 1 (0.34%) nginx
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint
Applications
1 22 (7.41%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (2.36%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.34%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 82 (27.61%) AWS
2 60 (20.20%) Azure
3 32 (10.77%) OpenShift
4 26 (8.75%) GitHub
5 22 (7.41%) SaaS
6 20 (6.73%) GCP
7 19 (6.40%) Sauce Labs
8 14 (4.71%) AWS CloudFormation
8 14 (4.71%) Google Workspace
9 13 (4.38%) Cloud Computing
9 13 (4.38%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (4.38%) IaaS
10 8 (2.69%) Amazon ECR
10 8 (2.69%) Microsoft 365
10 8 (2.69%) OCI
10 8 (2.69%) Serverless
11 7 (2.36%) Amazon EKS
11 7 (2.36%) AWS Lambda
12 6 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
12 6 (2.02%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 36 (12.12%) DNS
2 29 (9.76%) TCP/IP
3 22 (7.41%) Firewall
4 20 (6.73%) DHCP
5 18 (6.06%) Wireless
6 13 (4.38%) VLAN
7 9 (3.03%) SAN
8 8 (2.69%) Wireshark
9 7 (2.36%) LAN
9 7 (2.36%) Skype
9 7 (2.36%) WAN
10 6 (2.02%) Network Security
11 5 (1.68%) NAS
12 4 (1.35%) NFC
12 4 (1.35%) PPP
13 2 (0.67%) BGP
13 2 (0.67%) HTTP
13 2 (0.67%) SSL
13 2 (0.67%) VoIP
13 2 (0.67%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (11.45%) Relational Database
2 33 (11.11%) MySQL
3 17 (5.72%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (4.04%) Amazon RDS
5 11 (3.70%) NoSQL
6 10 (3.37%) SQL Server
7 9 (3.03%) Oracle Database
8 6 (2.02%) Amazon Redshift
8 6 (2.02%) Couchbase
9 3 (1.01%) Oracle Exadata
9 3 (1.01%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (1.01%) RDBMS
9 3 (1.01%) Redis
9 3 (1.01%) SAP HANA
10 2 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.34%) Big Data
11 1 (0.34%) Hadoop
11 1 (0.34%) Oracle Database 12c
11 1 (0.34%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 39 (13.13%) Jenkins
2 23 (7.74%) Eclipse
3 21 (7.07%) Git
4 20 (6.73%) Browser DevTools
5 19 (6.40%) Android Studio
5 19 (6.40%) Xcode
6 14 (4.71%) GitLab
7 10 (3.37%) Burp Suite
7 10 (3.37%) JIRA
7 10 (3.37%) JMeter
8 9 (3.03%) Cucumber
8 9 (3.03%) JUnit
8 9 (3.03%) Sonatype Nexus
9 8 (2.69%) Metasploit
10 7 (2.36%) Artifactory
11 4 (1.35%) Valgrind
12 2 (0.67%) Subversion
12 2 (0.67%) Visual Studio
13 1 (0.34%) LoadRunner
13 1 (0.34%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 96 (32.32%) Social Skills
2 30 (10.10%) Analytical Skills
3 19 (6.40%) Finance
4 17 (5.72%) Military
4 17 (5.72%) Public Sector
5 13 (4.38%) Organisational Skills
6 4 (1.35%) Banking
6 4 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (1.35%) Legal
7 3 (1.01%) Aerospace
8 2 (0.67%) Back Office
8 2 (0.67%) Front Office
9 1 (0.34%) Electronics
9 1 (0.34%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.34%) Law
9 1 (0.34%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (14.48%) Support Engineer
2 35 (11.78%) Technical Support
3 31 (10.44%) Architect
4 29 (9.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 27 (9.09%) Senior
6 25 (8.42%) Analyst
7 21 (7.07%) Technical Engineer
7 21 (7.07%) Technical Support Engineer
8 20 (6.73%) DevOps Engineer
8 20 (6.73%) UX Engineer
9 19 (6.40%) Infrastructure Support
9 19 (6.40%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
10 18 (6.06%) Tester
11 17 (5.72%) Software Engineer
12 16 (5.39%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
13 14 (4.71%) Developer
13 14 (4.71%) Infrastructure Architect
13 14 (4.71%) IT Support
14 12 (4.04%) Support Officer
15 11 (3.70%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (6.73%) Ajax
1 20 (6.73%) AngularJS
1 20 (6.73%) CSS
1 20 (6.73%) GraphQL
1 20 (6.73%) Kafka
1 20 (6.73%) React
2 14 (4.71%) Elastic Stack
3 11 (3.70%) XML
4 10 (3.37%) JSON
4 10 (3.37%) Loki
5 9 (3.03%) Spring
6 8 (2.69%) Hibernate
6 8 (2.69%) REST
7 7 (2.36%) Middleware
7 7 (2.36%) YAML
8 5 (1.68%) Web Services
9 3 (1.01%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 3 (1.01%) Swagger
10 2 (0.67%) Jinja
10 2 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 20 (6.73%) Cloud Native
1 20 (6.73%) Mobile App
2 14 (4.71%) Analytical Mindset
2 14 (4.71%) Replication
3 13 (4.38%) Enterprise Software
3 13 (4.38%) PKI
4 10 (3.37%) Security Operations Centre
5 8 (2.69%) Virtual Team
6 6 (2.02%) Onboarding
7 5 (1.68%) CAN bus
7 5 (1.68%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.68%) Management Information System
8 4 (1.35%) Cyber Threat
8 4 (1.35%) Cyberattack
8 4 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
8 4 (1.35%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.35%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.35%) Smartcard
9 3 (1.01%) Clustering
10 2 (0.67%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 146 (49.16%) Windows
2 57 (19.19%) Unix
3 40 (13.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 19 (6.40%) Android
5 15 (5.05%) Windows Server
6 12 (4.04%) Ubuntu
7 10 (3.37%) Kali Linux
8 7 (2.36%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (1.68%) Mac OS
10 4 (1.35%) CentOS
10 4 (1.35%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (1.01%) Debian
12 2 (0.67%) SUSE
12 2 (0.67%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.34%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.34%) Solaris
13 1 (0.34%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (29.63%) CI/CD
2 65 (21.89%) DevOps
3 46 (15.49%) Agile
3 46 (15.49%) Problem-Solving
4 43 (14.48%) ITIL
5 37 (12.46%) Containerisation
5 37 (12.46%) Infrastructure as Code
5 37 (12.46%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 33 (11.11%) OO
7 25 (8.42%) Continuous Improvement
8 24 (8.08%) User Experience
9 23 (7.74%) Observability
9 23 (7.74%) Software Engineering
10 22 (7.41%) Computer Science
10 22 (7.41%) DevSecOps
10 22 (7.41%) High Availability
10 22 (7.41%) Incident Response
10 22 (7.41%) Performance Tuning
10 22 (7.41%) SIEM
11 21 (7.07%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 117 (39.39%) Python
2 56 (18.86%) Java
3 51 (17.17%) Bash
4 50 (16.84%) PowerShell
5 44 (14.81%) SQL
6 41 (13.80%) JavaScript
7 39 (13.13%) Perl
8 15 (5.05%) Shell Script
9 14 (4.71%) C#
10 13 (4.38%) C++
11 5 (1.68%) C
11 5 (1.68%) Embedded C++
12 4 (1.35%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.35%) Search Processing Language
13 3 (1.01%) Go
13 3 (1.01%) MATLAB
14 2 (0.67%) Ada
14 2 (0.67%) Assembly Language
15 1 (0.34%) Delphi
15 1 (0.34%) PHP
Qualifications
1 149 (50.17%) Security Cleared
2 88 (29.63%) SC Cleared
3 58 (19.53%) DV Cleared
4 25 (8.42%) Degree
5 20 (6.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (4.71%) Azure Certification
7 12 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (3.70%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (3.70%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (3.37%) CEH
9 10 (3.37%) CISSP
10 9 (3.03%) OSCP
11 8 (2.69%) GPEN
12 7 (2.36%) AWS Certification
12 7 (2.36%) GCFA
12 7 (2.36%) GCIH
12 7 (2.36%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (2.36%) RHCE
13 5 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (1.68%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.37%) QA
2 9 (3.03%) GDPR
2 9 (3.03%) NIST
3 7 (2.36%) HIPAA
4 6 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.35%) SOC 2
6 2 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.34%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.34%) Def Stans
7 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 17025
7 1 (0.34%) SLA
System Software
1 57 (19.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (11.11%) Docker
3 21 (7.07%) Active Directory
3 21 (7.07%) vSphere
4 17 (5.72%) Hyper-V
5 12 (4.04%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (2.69%) VMware NSX
7 4 (1.35%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (1.01%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.67%) Firmware
9 2 (0.67%) KVM
10 1 (0.34%) GPFS
10 1 (0.34%) NDS
10 1 (0.34%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.34%) NFS
Systems Management
1 70 (23.57%) Ansible
2 59 (19.87%) Kubernetes
3 53 (17.85%) Terraform
4 25 (8.42%) Grafana
5 23 (7.74%) Prometheus
6 18 (6.06%) Argo
7 14 (4.71%) Red Hat Satellite
8 13 (4.38%) Progress Chef
9 11 (3.70%) vCenter Server
10 10 (3.37%) Nmap
11 9 (3.03%) Puppet
12 8 (2.69%) Kustomize
12 8 (2.69%) SCOM
13 7 (2.36%) HP SiteScope
13 7 (2.36%) Sysdig
14 6 (2.02%) Data Guard
14 6 (2.02%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 6 (2.02%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (2.02%) Podman
14 6 (2.02%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 86 (28.96%) VMware
2 80 (26.94%) Microsoft
3 58 (19.53%) Red Hat
4 48 (16.16%) Splunk
5 45 (15.15%) Oracle
6 20 (6.73%) ServiceNow
7 9 (3.03%) Cisco
8 7 (2.36%) IBM
8 7 (2.36%) Remedy
9 6 (2.02%) Confluent
9 6 (2.02%) CrowdStrike
9 6 (2.02%) Pure Storage
10 5 (1.68%) Google
10 5 (1.68%) NetApp
11 4 (1.35%) ArcSight
11 4 (1.35%) MuleSoft
11 4 (1.35%) SAP
11 4 (1.35%) Zscaler
12 3 (1.01%) CyberArk
12 3 (1.01%) Mellanox