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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 37 24
Rank change year-on-year +3 -13 -4
Contract jobs citing Linux 345 184 382
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.22% 5.35% 7.31%
As % of the Operating Systems category 41.62% 31.56% 41.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 142 257
10th Percentile £358 £364 £355
25th Percentile £423 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £516 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.34% -2.69% +3.41%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £647 - £647
England median daily rate £525 £537 £548
% change year-on-year -2.23% -1.92% -4.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 5 22
10th Percentile £31.07 £32.94 £35.18
25th Percentile £43.81 £51.06 £57.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £55.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -21.43% +17.89%
75th Percentile £64.55 £58.75 -
90th Percentile £67.47 - £74.88
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -3.70% +3.85%

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 829 583 921
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.55% 16.95% 17.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 547 402 593
10th Percentile £204 £193 £205
25th Percentile £356 £303 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £489 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +2.95% +5.56%
75th Percentile £574 £600 £595
90th Percentile £638 £650 £650
England median daily rate £463 £460 £475
% change year-on-year +0.54% -3.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 50 55
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.03 £16.32
25th Percentile £20.50 £16.95 £18.00
Median hourly rate £36.97 £18.87 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +95.92% -62.26% -9.09%
75th Percentile £53.75 £28.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £66.44 £61.18 £72.25
England median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +41.30% -8.00% -41.18%

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 25 July 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 25 July 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 25 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
Thames Valley +14 192 £518 +3.50% 58
Hampshire -13 109 £550 - 71
Berkshire -18 81 £437 -8.00% 16
Buckinghamshire +10 68 £536 +1.50% 12
Oxfordshire +11 43 £525 +44.83% 30
Surrey -16 30 £208 -56.32% 27
West Sussex -22 8 £425 -20.93% 4
Middlesex - 4 £198 - 2
East Sussex - 2 £459 - 2
Isle of Wight - 1 - - 1
Sussex - 1 - - 1
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 15 (4.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (2.61%) Apache
3 7 (2.03%) nginx
4 6 (1.74%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.74%) Confluence
4 6 (1.74%) OpenStack
5 4 (1.16%) WebSphere
5 4 (1.16%) WebSphere Application Server
6 3 (0.87%) IIS
6 3 (0.87%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.58%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.58%) JBoss
7 2 (0.58%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.58%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.58%) WebSphere Portal
8 1 (0.29%) Appian
8 1 (0.29%) Oracle Service Bus
8 1 (0.29%) SAS
8 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.16%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (0.87%) Houdini
2 3 (0.87%) NUKE
3 2 (0.58%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.29%) CINEMA 4D
4 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 89 (25.80%) Azure
2 76 (22.03%) AWS
3 33 (9.57%) Entra ID
4 20 (5.80%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (3.77%) Azure Sentinel
5 13 (3.77%) OpenShift
6 12 (3.48%) GCP
6 12 (3.48%) SaaS
7 9 (2.61%) GitHub
7 9 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.32%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (2.03%) IaaS
9 7 (2.03%) PaaS
10 6 (1.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (1.45%) Amazon EKS
11 5 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (1.16%) Serverless
13 3 (0.87%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 3 (0.87%) Cloudflare
13 3 (0.87%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 38 (11.01%) DNS
2 34 (9.86%) Firewall
3 20 (5.80%) DHCP
4 18 (5.22%) VPN
5 15 (4.35%) Network Security
6 14 (4.06%) TCP/IP
6 14 (4.06%) WAN
7 13 (3.77%) SSH
7 13 (3.77%) VSAN
8 12 (3.48%) LAN
9 10 (2.90%) Cisco ASA
9 10 (2.90%) Cisco Firepower
10 9 (2.61%) SSL
11 8 (2.32%) SAN
12 7 (2.03%) Wireless
12 7 (2.03%) Wireshark
13 6 (1.74%) Cisco Nexus
13 6 (1.74%) LTE
13 6 (1.74%) Software-Defined Radio
13 6 (1.74%) VoLTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (9.28%) SQL Server
2 16 (4.64%) Oracle Database
3 14 (4.06%) MySQL
4 7 (2.03%) DataStage
4 7 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (2.03%) Relational Database
5 6 (1.74%) Oracle Database 12c
6 5 (1.45%) Oracle Database 11g
7 4 (1.16%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.58%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (0.58%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.58%) Oracle Database 10g
8 2 (0.58%) Redis
8 2 (0.58%) Vitess
9 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.29%) Metadata
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.29%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 21 (6.09%) JIRA
2 18 (5.22%) GitLab
3 13 (3.77%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.90%) Git
5 7 (2.03%) Eclipse
6 6 (1.74%) MLflow
7 5 (1.45%) Maven
8 4 (1.16%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (1.16%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.16%) Jaeger
8 4 (1.16%) SonarQube
8 4 (1.16%) Subversion
9 3 (0.87%) Android Studio
9 3 (0.87%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.87%) Xcode
10 2 (0.58%) Introscope
10 2 (0.58%) JUnit
10 2 (0.58%) Robot Framework
11 1 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.29%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 52 (15.07%) Social Skills
2 36 (10.43%) Public Sector
3 27 (7.83%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (5.51%) Documentation Skills
5 15 (4.35%) Military
6 10 (2.90%) Finance
7 7 (2.03%) Retail
8 6 (1.74%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.16%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.16%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (1.16%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.58%) Law
10 2 (0.58%) Legal
11 1 (0.29%) Automotive
11 1 (0.29%) Electronics
11 1 (0.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.29%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 50 (14.49%) Linux Engineer
2 47 (13.62%) Senior
3 42 (12.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 23 (6.67%) Architect
4 23 (6.67%) Developer
5 22 (6.38%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 19 (5.51%) Platform Engineer
7 15 (4.35%) Linux Infrastructure Engineer
8 14 (4.06%) Network Engineer
9 13 (3.77%) Cloud Engineer
10 12 (3.48%) DBA
10 12 (3.48%) Software Engineer
10 12 (3.48%) Support Engineer
10 12 (3.48%) Technical Architect
11 11 (3.19%) Analyst
11 11 (3.19%) Citrix Engineer
11 11 (3.19%) Citrix Infrastructure Engineer
11 11 (3.19%) Technical Engineer
11 11 (3.19%) Technical Support
11 11 (3.19%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (4.06%) Kafka
2 12 (3.48%) YAML
3 8 (2.32%) LDAP
3 8 (2.32%) Middleware
4 7 (2.03%) ARM Templates
4 7 (2.03%) Yocto
5 6 (1.74%) .NET
5 6 (1.74%) Keycloak
5 6 (1.74%) Loki
6 5 (1.45%) GraphQL
6 5 (1.45%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (1.16%) 802.1X
7 4 (1.16%) CSS
7 4 (1.16%) gRPC
7 4 (1.16%) LAMP
7 4 (1.16%) Protocol Buffers
7 4 (1.16%) React
7 4 (1.16%) RESTful
7 4 (1.16%) Web Services
7 4 (1.16%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 44 (12.75%) Onboarding
2 22 (6.38%) PKI
3 19 (5.51%) Hybrid Cloud
4 18 (5.22%) Public Cloud
5 17 (4.93%) Management Information System
6 16 (4.64%) Product Ownership
7 15 (4.35%) Data Centre
8 10 (2.90%) Cloud Native
8 10 (2.90%) Operational Technology
9 9 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (2.61%) SCADA
9 9 (2.61%) Security Posture
10 8 (2.32%) Device Driver
10 8 (2.32%) Embedded Systems
11 7 (2.03%) Replication
12 6 (1.74%) Cyber Defence
12 6 (1.74%) MicroBlaze
12 6 (1.74%) RISC-V
13 5 (1.45%) ARM Cortex
13 5 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 156 (45.22%) Windows
2 68 (19.71%) Unix
3 51 (14.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 46 (13.33%) Windows Server
5 16 (4.64%) Ubuntu
6 15 (4.35%) Embedded Linux
7 8 (2.32%) CentOS
7 8 (2.32%) Debian
7 8 (2.32%) Windows 10
8 5 (1.45%) Oracle Linux
8 5 (1.45%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 4 (1.16%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.87%) Android
10 3 (0.87%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.58%) Solaris
11 2 (0.58%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.29%) AIX
12 1 (0.29%) HPUX
12 1 (0.29%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (19.13%) CI/CD
2 50 (14.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 49 (14.20%) SIEM
4 48 (13.91%) ITIL
5 42 (12.17%) DevOps
6 38 (11.01%) Problem-Solving
7 37 (10.72%) Cybersecurity
8 36 (10.43%) Containerisation
9 35 (10.14%) Infrastructure as Code
9 35 (10.14%) Migration
9 35 (10.14%) Runbook
10 34 (9.86%) Agile
11 31 (8.99%) DevSecOps
11 31 (8.99%) ITSM
11 31 (8.99%) Platform Engineering
12 30 (8.70%) High Availability
13 28 (8.12%) Computer Science
13 28 (8.12%) Root Cause Analysis
14 26 (7.54%) Change Control
14 26 (7.54%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 109 (31.59%) Python
2 81 (23.48%) PowerShell
3 59 (17.10%) Bash
4 24 (6.96%) SQL
5 22 (6.38%) C
6 16 (4.64%) C++
6 16 (4.64%) Java
7 13 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 13 (3.77%) Shell Script
8 11 (3.19%) Perl
9 7 (2.03%) Bicep
10 6 (1.74%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.74%) Rust
11 5 (1.45%) Embedded C++
11 5 (1.45%) Go
12 4 (1.16%) Embedded C
13 3 (0.87%) Ada
13 3 (0.87%) Korn
13 3 (0.87%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.58%) Scala
Qualifications
1 213 (61.74%) Security Cleared
2 154 (44.64%) SC Cleared
3 79 (22.90%) DV Cleared
4 48 (13.91%) Degree
5 16 (4.64%) Cisco Certification
6 14 (4.06%) RHCE
7 13 (3.77%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (2.61%) AWS Certification
8 9 (2.61%) CCNP
8 9 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (2.03%) CISM
9 7 (2.03%) CISSP
9 7 (2.03%) RHCSA
10 6 (1.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (1.74%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (1.74%) CRISC
10 6 (1.74%) GIAC
10 6 (1.74%) LFCS
11 5 (1.45%) CCSE
11 5 (1.45%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (13.33%) NIST
2 34 (9.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (4.35%) Cyber Essentials
4 12 (3.48%) SLA
5 9 (2.61%) NCSC
6 6 (1.74%) GDPR
6 6 (1.74%) ISO 31000
7 5 (1.45%) GRC
7 5 (1.45%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.87%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.87%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.58%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.29%) DICOM
10 1 (0.29%) HL7
10 1 (0.29%) OpenSCAP
10 1 (0.29%) QA
System Software
1 88 (25.51%) Active Directory
2 51 (14.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (7.83%) Docker
4 26 (7.54%) VMware NSX
5 16 (4.64%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (3.48%) Hyper-V
7 10 (2.90%) Firmware
8 7 (2.03%) Oracle RAC
9 6 (1.74%) Embedded Firmware
10 5 (1.45%) vSphere
11 4 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
12 3 (0.87%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.87%) KVM
12 3 (0.87%) Postfix
12 3 (0.87%) UAG
13 1 (0.29%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 53 (15.36%) Ansible
2 49 (14.20%) Kubernetes
2 49 (14.20%) Terraform
3 18 (5.22%) Grafana
3 18 (5.22%) Prometheus
4 14 (4.06%) Puppet
5 12 (3.48%) Red Hat Satellite
6 11 (3.19%) Oracle RMAN
7 10 (2.90%) vCenter Server
8 8 (2.32%) Progress Chef
9 7 (2.03%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (2.03%) Rancher
9 7 (2.03%) SCCM
10 6 (1.74%) Data Guard
11 5 (1.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (1.45%) Packer
12 4 (1.16%) Istio
12 4 (1.16%) Podman
12 4 (1.16%) WSUS
13 3 (0.87%) SCOM
Vendors
1 87 (25.22%) VMware
2 68 (19.71%) Microsoft
3 50 (14.49%) Red Hat
4 47 (13.62%) Oracle
5 26 (7.54%) BeyondTrust
6 25 (7.25%) Cisco
6 25 (7.25%) CyberArk
7 19 (5.51%) ServiceNow
8 18 (5.22%) Citrix
9 15 (4.35%) Palo Alto
10 14 (4.06%) Splunk
11 12 (3.48%) IBM
12 10 (2.90%) NVIDIA
12 10 (2.90%) SolarWinds
13 7 (2.03%) Google
13 7 (2.03%) Nokia
14 6 (1.74%) BT
14 6 (1.74%) CheckPoint
14 6 (1.74%) Ericsson
14 6 (1.74%) Huawei