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 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 29 21
Rank change year-on-year -1 -8 -2
Contract jobs citing Linux 323 181 401
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.43% 6.08% 7.34%
As % of the Operating Systems category 42.39% 35.42% 41.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 134 273
10th Percentile £228 £413 £355
25th Percentile £401 £463 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +3.77% +0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £655 £663 £638
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 11 23
10th Percentile £18.44 £45.00 £35.35
25th Percentile £43.81 £51.78 £53.13
Median hourly rate £47.54 £57.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.32% -8.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £53.75 £62.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £74.75
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% - -

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 762 511 970
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.80% 17.18% 17.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 522 365 640
10th Percentile £200 £195 £200
25th Percentile £350 £318 £285
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £463
Median % change year-on-year -2.66% +5.51% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £663 £650
England median daily rate £450 £468 £470
% change year-on-year -3.74% -0.53% -8.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 35 58
10th Percentile £15.37 £14.20 £15.96
25th Percentile £23.11 £16.95 £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.50 £28.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +69.64% -41.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £53.75 £58.72 £63.44
90th Percentile £62.40 £62.50 £73.75
England median hourly rate £42.50 £21.28 £22.00
% change year-on-year +99.72% -3.27% -42.11%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 +8 194 £463 -4.05% 73
Berkshire -4 99 £403 -19.50% 30
Hampshire -14 86 £550 -4.35% 69
Buckinghamshire +11 64 £550 +30.80% 17
Surrey -1 33 £208 -58.50% 31
Oxfordshire +6 31 £450 -18.18% 26
East Sussex - 4 £459 - 2
Sussex - 2 - -
West Sussex -16 1 £700 +30.23% 6
Isle of Wight - 1 - -
Middlesex - 1 £198 - 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 17 (5.26%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (1.86%) OpenStack
3 4 (1.24%) Apache
3 4 (1.24%) WebSphere
3 4 (1.24%) WebSphere Application Server
4 3 (0.93%) Confluence
5 2 (0.62%) Appian
5 2 (0.62%) IBM HTTP Server
5 2 (0.62%) JBoss
5 2 (0.62%) Oracle HTTP Server
5 2 (0.62%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.62%) WebSphere Portal
6 1 (0.31%) IIS
6 1 (0.31%) nginx
6 1 (0.31%) SAS
6 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
1 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 69 (21.36%) Azure
2 61 (18.89%) AWS
3 23 (7.12%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (6.19%) Entra ID
5 17 (5.26%) OpenShift
5 17 (5.26%) SaaS
6 13 (4.02%) GCP
6 13 (4.02%) GitHub
7 12 (3.72%) GitHub Actions
8 11 (3.41%) Amazon EKS
9 10 (3.10%) IaaS
10 9 (2.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (2.79%) PaaS
11 6 (1.86%) Amazon EC2
11 6 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (1.86%) Azure Sentinel
11 6 (1.86%) Cloud Computing
11 6 (1.86%) Sauce Labs
12 5 (1.55%) Amazon ECS
12 5 (1.55%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 26 (8.05%) DNS
2 21 (6.50%) Firewall
3 17 (5.26%) TCP/IP
4 15 (4.64%) WAN
5 13 (4.02%) LAN
6 12 (3.72%) VSAN
7 9 (2.79%) SAN
8 8 (2.48%) Wireless
8 8 (2.48%) Wireshark
9 7 (2.17%) Network Security
9 7 (2.17%) Software-Defined Radio
9 7 (2.17%) SSH
10 6 (1.86%) 5G
10 6 (1.86%) Diameter Protocol
10 6 (1.86%) LTE
10 6 (1.86%) Radio Access Network
10 6 (1.86%) VoLTE
10 6 (1.86%) VoWiFi
10 6 (1.86%) VPN
11 5 (1.55%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (8.67%) SQL Server
2 24 (7.43%) MySQL
3 20 (6.19%) Relational Database
4 14 (4.33%) Oracle Database
5 10 (3.10%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (2.17%) Amazon RDS
7 5 (1.55%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (1.24%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (1.24%) Redis
9 3 (0.93%) Oracle Database 11g
10 2 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
10 2 (0.62%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.62%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.62%) Vitess
11 1 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
11 1 (0.31%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.31%) Oracle Exadata
11 1 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 1 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (4.95%) Jenkins
2 13 (4.02%) JIRA
3 12 (3.72%) Git
4 11 (3.41%) GitLab
5 10 (3.10%) Eclipse
6 6 (1.86%) Android Studio
6 6 (1.86%) Browser DevTools
6 6 (1.86%) Xcode
7 5 (1.55%) Maven
8 4 (1.24%) Jaeger
8 4 (1.24%) Subversion
9 2 (0.62%) Burp Suite
9 2 (0.62%) Introscope
9 2 (0.62%) JUnit
9 2 (0.62%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.31%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.31%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.31%) Mockito
10 1 (0.31%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 46 (14.24%) Social Skills
2 34 (10.53%) Public Sector
3 21 (6.50%) Military
4 17 (5.26%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (4.33%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (2.48%) Finance
7 7 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.55%) Manufacturing
8 5 (1.55%) Retail
9 4 (1.24%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.93%) Law
10 3 (0.93%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.62%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.31%) Advertising
12 1 (0.31%) Back Office
12 1 (0.31%) Electronics
12 1 (0.31%) Front Office
12 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.31%) Legal
12 1 (0.31%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 39 (12.07%) Linux Engineer
2 37 (11.46%) Senior
3 31 (9.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 27 (8.36%) Architect
5 24 (7.43%) Analyst
6 22 (6.81%) Technical Support
7 19 (5.88%) Software Engineer
7 19 (5.88%) Support Engineer
8 18 (5.57%) DevOps Engineer
9 16 (4.95%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 15 (4.64%) DBA
10 15 (4.64%) Technical Architect
11 14 (4.33%) Technical Engineer
11 14 (4.33%) Technical Support Engineer
12 13 (4.02%) Developer
13 12 (3.72%) Lead
13 12 (3.72%) Tester
14 11 (3.41%) Network Engineer
14 11 (3.41%) Oracle DBA
15 10 (3.10%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.72%) Middleware
2 11 (3.41%) XML
2 11 (3.41%) YAML
3 8 (2.48%) .NET
3 8 (2.48%) GraphQL
3 8 (2.48%) JSON
3 8 (2.48%) Kafka
3 8 (2.48%) Loki
4 7 (2.17%) CSS
4 7 (2.17%) Elastic Stack
4 7 (2.17%) React
4 7 (2.17%) Yocto
5 6 (1.86%) Ajax
5 6 (1.86%) AngularJS
6 5 (1.55%) Keycloak
6 5 (1.55%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (1.24%) Web Services
8 3 (0.93%) LDAP
8 3 (0.93%) Oracle GoldenGate
8 3 (0.93%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 28 (8.67%) Onboarding
2 17 (5.26%) Data Centre
2 17 (5.26%) PKI
2 17 (5.26%) Public Cloud
3 12 (3.72%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.72%) Hybrid Cloud
3 12 (3.72%) Management Information System
4 11 (3.41%) Security Operations Centre
5 9 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (2.79%) Security Posture
6 8 (2.48%) Cyberattack
6 8 (2.48%) Operational Technology
6 8 (2.48%) Product Ownership
7 7 (2.17%) Device Driver
7 7 (2.17%) Embedded Systems
7 7 (2.17%) SCADA
8 6 (1.86%) Cyber Defence
8 6 (1.86%) MicroBlaze
8 6 (1.86%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.86%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 158 (48.92%) Windows
2 65 (20.12%) Unix
3 42 (13.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 38 (11.76%) Windows Server
5 16 (4.95%) Ubuntu
6 11 (3.41%) Embedded Linux
7 9 (2.79%) Debian
8 8 (2.48%) Windows Server 2016
9 6 (1.86%) Android
10 5 (1.55%) CentOS
11 4 (1.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.62%) Kali Linux
12 2 (0.62%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.62%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.62%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.62%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.31%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (20.74%) CI/CD
2 55 (17.03%) DevOps
3 52 (16.10%) SIEM
4 46 (14.24%) Agile
5 41 (12.69%) Problem-Solving
6 40 (12.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 35 (10.84%) ITIL
8 33 (10.22%) Computer Science
9 31 (9.60%) Cybersecurity
10 30 (9.29%) Containerisation
11 29 (8.98%) High Availability
12 26 (8.05%) Infrastructure as Code
12 26 (8.05%) Runbook
13 25 (7.74%) Software Engineering
14 23 (7.12%) Migration
15 22 (6.81%) Incident Response
15 22 (6.81%) Root Cause Analysis
16 21 (6.50%) Change Control
16 21 (6.50%) ITSM
16 21 (6.50%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 94 (29.10%) Python
2 56 (17.34%) PowerShell
3 33 (10.22%) Bash
4 29 (8.98%) SQL
5 27 (8.36%) Java
6 25 (7.74%) JavaScript
7 22 (6.81%) Perl
8 14 (4.33%) C
8 14 (4.33%) C++
8 14 (4.33%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.55%) Go
9 5 (1.55%) Rust
10 4 (1.24%) Embedded C++
10 4 (1.24%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.93%) Ada
11 3 (0.93%) C#
11 3 (0.93%) Embedded C
11 3 (0.93%) Korn
11 3 (0.93%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.62%) Scala
Qualifications
1 205 (63.47%) Security Cleared
2 136 (42.11%) SC Cleared
3 83 (25.70%) DV Cleared
4 48 (14.86%) Degree
5 24 (7.43%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (4.64%) Cisco Certification
7 14 (4.33%) RHCE
8 9 (2.79%) CCNP
9 8 (2.48%) CISSP
9 8 (2.48%) GIAC
9 8 (2.48%) ISTQB
9 8 (2.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 6 (1.86%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (1.86%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (1.86%) CISM
10 6 (1.86%) CRISC
10 6 (1.86%) SANS
11 5 (1.55%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (1.55%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (10.53%) NIST
2 25 (7.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (4.33%) Cyber Essentials
4 11 (3.41%) SLA
5 9 (2.79%) NCSC
6 8 (2.48%) GDPR
7 6 (1.86%) ISO 31000
8 5 (1.55%) PCI DSS
9 4 (1.24%) GRC
9 4 (1.24%) QA
10 3 (0.93%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.93%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.31%) Data Quality
11 1 (0.31%) DICOM
11 1 (0.31%) HL7
11 1 (0.31%) OpenSCAP
System Software
1 56 (17.34%) Active Directory
2 47 (14.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (5.57%) VMware NSX
4 14 (4.33%) Docker
5 10 (3.10%) Firmware
6 9 (2.79%) Hyper-V
7 8 (2.48%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (2.48%) vSphere
8 6 (1.86%) Embedded Firmware
8 6 (1.86%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.93%) UAG
11 1 (0.31%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.31%) Dovecot
11 1 (0.31%) Postfix
11 1 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 44 (13.62%) Ansible
2 38 (11.76%) Kubernetes
3 34 (10.53%) Terraform
4 21 (6.50%) Grafana
5 20 (6.19%) Prometheus
6 13 (4.02%) Oracle RMAN
7 10 (3.10%) Red Hat Satellite
8 9 (2.79%) Puppet
9 8 (2.48%) Data Guard
9 8 (2.48%) vCenter Server
10 7 (2.17%) Rancher
11 6 (1.86%) Argo
11 6 (1.86%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 5 (1.55%) WSUS
13 4 (1.24%) Istio
13 4 (1.24%) Nessus
14 3 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.93%) Podman
14 3 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
15 2 (0.62%) Packer
Vendors
1 80 (24.77%) VMware
2 62 (19.20%) Microsoft
3 61 (18.89%) Red Hat
4 48 (14.86%) Oracle
5 29 (8.98%) Splunk
6 19 (5.88%) BeyondTrust
7 17 (5.26%) Cisco
7 17 (5.26%) CyberArk
8 16 (4.95%) Citrix
9 10 (3.10%) Palo Alto
10 9 (2.79%) ServiceNow
11 8 (2.48%) NVIDIA
12 7 (2.17%) MuleSoft
13 6 (1.86%) BT
13 6 (1.86%) Ericsson
13 6 (1.86%) Fortinet
13 6 (1.86%) Huawei
13 6 (1.86%) Nokia
14 5 (1.55%) Atlassian
14 5 (1.55%) CheckPoint