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 22 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 30 23
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 -4
Contract jobs citing Linux 347 197 355
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.18% 5.58% 7.43%
As % of the Operating Systems category 43.21% 32.89% 42.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 251 146 241
10th Percentile £313 £261 £350
25th Percentile £425 £418 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £597 £608
90th Percentile £638 £600 £645
England median daily rate £525 £525 £548
% change year-on-year - -4.11% -5.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 5 20
10th Percentile £43.81 £32.94 £34.13
25th Percentile £50.63 £51.06 £58.66
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -21.43% +12.00%
75th Percentile £67.47 £58.75 -
90th Percentile £71.43 - £70.38
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -3.70% +8.00%

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 803 599 837
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.99% 16.97% 17.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 536 421 554
10th Percentile £204 £190 £203
25th Percentile £361 £250 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £490 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.84% +4.26% +10.59%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £589
90th Percentile £638 £650 £643
England median daily rate £469 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +4.22% -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 54 42
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £16.32
25th Percentile £20.50 £16.95 £23.50
Median hourly rate £43.13 £18.87 £55.13
Median % change year-on-year +128.56% -65.77% +0.23%
75th Percentile £60.00 £28.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.47 £58.75 -
England median hourly rate £34.68 £24.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +44.48% -31.43% -12.50%

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 22 August 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 22 August 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 22 August 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 +15 183 £518 +8.95% 63
Hampshire -7 111 £550 +2.33% 44
Berkshire -7 79 £440 -2.22% 27
Buckinghamshire +8 62 £560 +5.96% 10
Oxfordshire +6 42 £525 +44.83% 26
Surrey -15 38 £455 +35.32% 24
West Sussex -16 8 £425 -22.73% 8
Middlesex -18 4 £198 - 1
East Sussex - 1 £459 - 7
Isle of Wight - 1 - - 2
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 9 (2.59%) Apache
2 8 (2.31%) Confluence
2 8 (2.31%) nginx
3 6 (1.73%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.73%) OpenStack
4 4 (1.15%) WebSphere
4 4 (1.15%) WebSphere Application Server
5 3 (0.86%) IIS
5 3 (0.86%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.58%) IBM HTTP Server
6 2 (0.58%) JBoss
6 2 (0.58%) Oracle HTTP Server
6 2 (0.58%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.58%) WebSphere Portal
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Service Bus
7 1 (0.29%) SAS
7 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (0.86%) Houdini
2 3 (0.86%) 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
1 100 (28.82%) Azure
2 73 (21.04%) AWS
3 35 (10.09%) Entra ID
4 21 (6.05%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (5.19%) OpenShift
6 14 (4.03%) Azure Monitor
6 14 (4.03%) Azure Sentinel
7 11 (3.17%) GCP
7 11 (3.17%) SaaS
8 9 (2.59%) IaaS
9 8 (2.31%) GitHub
10 7 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (2.02%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (2.02%) PaaS
11 5 (1.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (1.44%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 4 (1.15%) Cloudflare
12 4 (1.15%) Serverless
13 3 (0.86%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 44 (12.68%) DNS
2 41 (11.82%) Firewall
3 29 (8.36%) DHCP
4 23 (6.63%) VPN
5 22 (6.34%) TCP/IP
6 16 (4.61%) LAN
6 16 (4.61%) WAN
7 15 (4.32%) Network Security
8 11 (3.17%) Software-Defined Radio
8 11 (3.17%) VSAN
8 11 (3.17%) Wireless
9 10 (2.88%) Cisco ASA
9 10 (2.88%) Cisco Firepower
9 10 (2.88%) SSH
10 9 (2.59%) SSL
11 8 (2.31%) SAN
12 7 (2.02%) LTE
13 6 (1.73%) Diameter Protocol
13 6 (1.73%) VoLTE
13 6 (1.73%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.20%) SQL Server
2 18 (5.19%) Oracle Database
3 11 (3.17%) MySQL
4 7 (2.02%) DataStage
5 5 (1.44%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (1.15%) Oracle Database 11g
6 4 (1.15%) Oracle Database 12c
6 4 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.58%) Electronic Patient Records
7 2 (0.58%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.58%) Oracle Database 10g
7 2 (0.58%) Redis
7 2 (0.58%) Vitess
8 1 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.29%) Metadata
8 1 (0.29%) Pentaho
8 1 (0.29%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 25 (7.20%) JIRA
2 22 (6.34%) GitLab
3 14 (4.03%) Git
3 14 (4.03%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.73%) MLflow
5 5 (1.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 5 (1.44%) Bitbucket
5 5 (1.44%) Eclipse
6 4 (1.15%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.86%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.86%) Browser DevTools
7 3 (0.86%) Jaeger
7 3 (0.86%) Xcode
8 2 (0.58%) Introscope
8 2 (0.58%) Maven
8 2 (0.58%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.58%) Subversion
9 1 (0.29%) MSI
9 1 (0.29%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
General
1 55 (15.85%) Social Skills
2 31 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
3 28 (8.07%) Public Sector
4 19 (5.48%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (2.88%) Finance
6 9 (2.59%) Aerospace
7 8 (2.31%) Military
8 7 (2.02%) Retail
9 5 (1.44%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.15%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.15%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.29%) Automotive
11 1 (0.29%) Electronics
11 1 (0.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.29%) Legal
Job Titles
1 50 (14.41%) Linux Engineer
2 47 (13.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 45 (12.97%) Senior
4 25 (7.20%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 23 (6.63%) Architect
5 23 (6.63%) Platform Engineer
6 18 (5.19%) Developer
7 16 (4.61%) Embedded Engineer
7 16 (4.61%) Linux Infrastructure Engineer
7 16 (4.61%) Software Engineer
8 15 (4.32%) Cloud Engineer
8 15 (4.32%) Support Engineer
9 12 (3.46%) Analyst
10 11 (3.17%) Azure Engineer
10 11 (3.17%) Citrix Engineer
10 11 (3.17%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 11 (3.17%) Network Engineer
10 11 (3.17%) Technical Engineer
10 11 (3.17%) Technical Support
10 11 (3.17%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (17.00%) Terraform
2 14 (4.03%) Kafka
3 12 (3.46%) ARM Templates
3 12 (3.46%) Yocto
4 11 (3.17%) YAML
5 10 (2.88%) Middleware
6 8 (2.31%) LDAP
7 6 (1.73%) Keycloak
8 5 (1.44%) GraphQL
8 5 (1.44%) Loki
9 4 (1.15%) .NET
9 4 (1.15%) gRPC
9 4 (1.15%) OpenTelemetry
9 4 (1.15%) OpenTofu
9 4 (1.15%) Protocol Buffers
9 4 (1.15%) RESTful
10 3 (0.86%) AngularJS
10 3 (0.86%) CSS
10 3 (0.86%) React
10 3 (0.86%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 46 (13.26%) Onboarding
2 25 (7.20%) Hybrid Cloud
3 23 (6.63%) PKI
4 16 (4.61%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.61%) Public Cloud
5 15 (4.32%) Device Driver
5 15 (4.32%) Embedded Systems
6 13 (3.75%) Cloud Native
6 13 (3.75%) Product Ownership
7 10 (2.88%) MicroBlaze
7 10 (2.88%) Operational Technology
7 10 (2.88%) RISC-V
8 9 (2.59%) Data Centre
8 9 (2.59%) SCADA
9 8 (2.31%) Enterprise Cloud
10 7 (2.02%) ARM Cortex
10 7 (2.02%) Replication
10 7 (2.02%) Security Posture
11 6 (1.73%) Cyber Defence
12 4 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 161 (46.40%) Windows
2 64 (18.44%) Unix
3 52 (14.99%) Windows Server
4 50 (14.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (6.34%) Embedded Linux
6 19 (5.48%) Ubuntu
7 13 (3.75%) Windows 10
8 12 (3.46%) CentOS
9 9 (2.59%) Debian
10 7 (2.02%) Mac OS
10 7 (2.02%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.86%) Android
12 3 (0.86%) Solaris
12 3 (0.86%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.58%) AIX
13 2 (0.58%) HPUX
13 2 (0.58%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.29%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (19.02%) CI/CD
2 55 (15.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 52 (14.99%) ITIL
4 49 (14.12%) DevOps
5 46 (13.26%) SIEM
6 45 (12.97%) Agile
7 43 (12.39%) Infrastructure as Code
8 41 (11.82%) Cybersecurity
9 39 (11.24%) Problem-Solving
10 38 (10.95%) Containerisation
10 38 (10.95%) Platform Engineering
11 34 (9.80%) ITSM
11 34 (9.80%) Runbook
12 33 (9.51%) Migration
13 32 (9.22%) Continuous Improvement
14 31 (8.93%) Software Engineering
15 28 (8.07%) Computer Science
15 28 (8.07%) DevSecOps
15 28 (8.07%) Root Cause Analysis
16 25 (7.20%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 109 (31.41%) Python
2 90 (25.94%) PowerShell
3 65 (18.73%) Bash
4 27 (7.78%) C
5 22 (6.34%) C++
6 20 (5.76%) SQL
7 14 (4.03%) Shell Script
8 12 (3.46%) Bicep
8 12 (3.46%) Java
9 11 (3.17%) JavaScript
10 10 (2.88%) Perl
11 7 (2.02%) Embedded C++
12 6 (1.73%) Embedded C
12 6 (1.73%) PL/SQL
13 4 (1.15%) Go
13 4 (1.15%) Rust
14 2 (0.58%) C#
14 2 (0.58%) Scala
14 2 (0.58%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.58%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 209 (60.23%) Security Cleared
2 152 (43.80%) SC Cleared
3 79 (22.77%) DV Cleared
4 46 (13.26%) Degree
5 13 (3.75%) Cisco Certification
6 12 (3.46%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (3.17%) RHCE
8 7 (2.02%) AWS Certification
8 7 (2.02%) CISM
8 7 (2.02%) CISSP
9 6 (1.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 6 (1.73%) CCNP
9 6 (1.73%) CESG Certified Professional
9 6 (1.73%) CRISC
9 6 (1.73%) GIAC
9 6 (1.73%) ISTQB
9 6 (1.73%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 5 (1.44%) CCSM
10 5 (1.44%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (11.53%) NIST
2 31 (8.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.46%) SLA
4 11 (3.17%) Cyber Essentials
5 8 (2.31%) NCSC
6 6 (1.73%) ISO 31000
7 5 (1.44%) GDPR
7 5 (1.44%) JSP 440
8 4 (1.15%) GRC
8 4 (1.15%) PCI DSS
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%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.29%) OpenSCAP
10 1 (0.29%) QA
System Software
1 85 (24.50%) Active Directory
2 47 (13.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (8.65%) Docker
4 23 (6.63%) VMware NSX
5 16 (4.61%) Firmware
5 16 (4.61%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (4.32%) Hyper-V
7 11 (3.17%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (2.02%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (1.44%) vSphere
10 4 (1.15%) KVM
10 4 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.86%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.86%) Postfix
11 3 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 2 (0.58%) UAG
12 2 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 60 (17.29%) Kubernetes
2 54 (15.56%) Ansible
3 18 (5.19%) Grafana
3 18 (5.19%) Prometheus
4 14 (4.03%) Puppet
5 10 (2.88%) SCCM
5 10 (2.88%) vCenter Server
6 9 (2.59%) Oracle RMAN
6 9 (2.59%) Red Hat Satellite
7 8 (2.31%) Progress Chef
8 7 (2.02%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (1.73%) Packer
9 6 (1.73%) Rancher
9 6 (1.73%) WSUS
10 5 (1.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (1.44%) Data Guard
10 5 (1.44%) Istio
10 5 (1.44%) SCOM
11 4 (1.15%) Argo
11 4 (1.15%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 80 (23.05%) VMware
2 76 (21.90%) Microsoft
3 48 (13.83%) Oracle
4 44 (12.68%) Red Hat
5 24 (6.92%) CyberArk
6 22 (6.34%) BeyondTrust
7 21 (6.05%) ServiceNow
8 20 (5.76%) Cisco
9 19 (5.48%) Citrix
10 17 (4.90%) Splunk
11 14 (4.03%) Palo Alto
12 12 (3.46%) IBM
13 11 (3.17%) SolarWinds
14 8 (2.31%) CrowdStrike
14 8 (2.31%) Google
14 8 (2.31%) NVIDIA
15 7 (2.02%) Atlassian
15 7 (2.02%) Nokia
16 6 (1.73%) Ericsson
16 6 (1.73%) Huawei