GitLab Contract Job Trends

GitLab
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring GitLab skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 132 241
Rank change year-on-year +17 +109 -47
Contract jobs citing GitLab 952 600 447
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.35% 1.96% 1.01%
As % of the Development Applications category 16.97% 14.35% 8.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 708 405 335
10th Percentile £380 £361 £400
25th Percentile £418 £440 £464
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £555
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -0.90% -7.50%
75th Percentile £575 £650 £650
90th Percentile £669 £730 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £524
% change year-on-year - -4.49% -3.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 4 3
10th Percentile £39.53 £64.33 £43.75
25th Percentile £52.50 £70.83 £49.38
Median hourly rate £55.00 £79.72 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.01% +32.87% +14.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £89.38 £69.38
90th Percentile £82.60 £92.75 £74.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £79.72 £67.50
% change year-on-year -31.01% +18.10% +28.57%

All Development Application Skills
UK

GitLab falls under the Development Applications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring development application skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for development application skills 5,611 4,180 5,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.83% 13.63% 12.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,836 2,661 3,710
10th Percentile £340 £331 £362
25th Percentile £405 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £623 £630
90th Percentile £688 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 65 218
10th Percentile £29.50 £25.65 £39.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £48.00 £48.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +5.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £75.00
90th Percentile £82.60 £79.39 £85.68
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +4.00%

GitLab
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing GitLab relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

GitLab job vacancy trend in the UK

GitLab
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GitLab.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GitLab

GitLab
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing GitLab over the 6 months to 18 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for GitLab in the UK

GitLab
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GitLab.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GitLab

GitLab
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing GitLab over the 6 months to 18 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for GitLab in the UK

GitLab
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing GitLab within the UK over the 6 months to 18 February 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
England +9 788 £510 -9.33% 215
UK excluding London +38 475 £500 - 159
London -16 327 £525 -9.48% 79
Work from Home +8 250 £475 -10.38% 103
North of England +8 235 £488 -5.34% 35
North West +8 113 £433 -8.84% 17
Midlands +13 94 £506 +6.08% 21
Yorkshire +11 92 £506 -20.59% 14
West Midlands +9 85 £525 +8.70% 18
South East -21 48 £500 -13.04% 63
South West +7 47 £523 -16.40% 20
Scotland +19 38 £447 +4.26% 3
North East -6 37 £488 -6.25% 4
East of England -9 22 £485 -1.77% 18
East Midlands -17 9 £400 +28.62% 3
Northern Ireland +2 6 - -
Wales -2 5 £435 -16.35% 3

GitLab
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 61 (6.41%) Confluence
2 29 (3.05%) Apache Airflow
2 29 (3.05%) SAS
3 21 (2.21%) Apache
4 18 (1.89%) nginx
4 18 (1.89%) OpenStack
5 15 (1.58%) Apache Spark
6 6 (0.63%) Appian
7 4 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.32%) CMS
8 3 (0.32%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.32%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.21%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.11%) CICS
10 1 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.11%) Documentum
10 1 (0.11%) FileNet
10 1 (0.11%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.11%) Luigi
Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
1 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
2 2 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.11%) Actimize
3 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.11%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.11%) SAP CO
3 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
Cloud Services
1 583 (61.24%) AWS
2 270 (28.36%) GitHub
3 263 (27.63%) Azure
4 184 (19.33%) GitHub Actions
5 175 (18.38%) GCP
6 164 (17.23%) Serverless
7 133 (13.97%) Amazon S3
8 124 (13.03%) Amazon EKS
9 118 (12.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 118 (12.39%) Amazon EC2
10 117 (12.29%) AWS Lambda
11 113 (11.87%) AWS CloudFormation
12 91 (9.56%) Azure DevOps
13 89 (9.35%) OpenShift
14 86 (9.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 81 (8.51%) Amazon ECS
16 32 (3.36%) Azure AKS
17 26 (2.73%) Datadog
18 23 (2.42%) Route 53
19 22 (2.31%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 62 (6.51%) Firewall
2 46 (4.83%) DNS
3 42 (4.41%) VPN
4 32 (3.36%) TCP/IP
5 25 (2.63%) Network Security
6 15 (1.58%) SSL
7 7 (0.74%) Reverse Proxy
8 6 (0.63%) Kerberos
8 6 (0.63%) WAN
9 5 (0.53%) HTTP
9 5 (0.53%) Multicast
9 5 (0.53%) SD-WAN
10 4 (0.42%) BGP
10 4 (0.42%) SAN
11 3 (0.32%) DHCP
11 3 (0.32%) Ethernet VPN
11 3 (0.32%) FTP
11 3 (0.32%) NAS
11 3 (0.32%) VSAN
11 3 (0.32%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (10.29%) PostgreSQL
2 79 (8.30%) MongoDB
3 76 (7.98%) NoSQL
4 70 (7.35%) Amazon RDS
5 31 (3.26%) Relational Database
6 30 (3.15%) Data Lake
7 29 (3.05%) DynamoDB
8 26 (2.73%) MySQL
9 24 (2.52%) Redis
10 23 (2.42%) Amazon Athena
11 21 (2.21%) Big Data
11 21 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
12 19 (2.00%) SQL Server
13 16 (1.68%) Oracle Database
13 16 (1.68%) Power BI
14 14 (1.47%) Apache Cassandra
15 12 (1.26%) Delta Lake
16 11 (1.16%) BigQuery
16 11 (1.16%) DocumentDB
16 11 (1.16%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 471 (49.47%) Jenkins
2 220 (23.11%) Git
3 137 (14.39%) JIRA
4 99 (10.40%) Selenium
5 72 (7.56%) Cucumber
6 69 (7.25%) JUnit
7 50 (5.25%) Postman
8 38 (3.99%) REST Assured
9 37 (3.89%) JMeter
10 33 (3.47%) Maven
11 32 (3.36%) Gatling
11 32 (3.36%) SonarQube
12 31 (3.26%) Artifactory
12 31 (3.26%) Bitbucket
13 28 (2.94%) Cypress.io
14 27 (2.84%) CircleCI
14 27 (2.84%) Gradle
15 26 (2.73%) Sonatype Nexus
16 23 (2.42%) Liquibase
17 21 (2.21%) Mockito
General
1 247 (25.95%) Social Skills
2 155 (16.28%) Finance
3 149 (15.65%) Public Sector
4 105 (11.03%) Banking
5 70 (7.35%) Analytical Skills
6 25 (2.63%) Financial Institution
7 21 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (1.68%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.47%) Military
10 11 (1.16%) Investment Banking
11 10 (1.05%) Aerospace
11 10 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (1.05%) Retail
12 8 (0.84%) Retail Banking
13 7 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.63%) Games
15 5 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
16 3 (0.32%) Corporate Banking
16 3 (0.32%) Law
16 3 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 231 (24.26%) DevOps Engineer
2 192 (20.17%) Developer
3 149 (15.65%) Senior
4 103 (10.82%) AWS Engineer
5 79 (8.30%) AWS DevOps
6 75 (7.88%) Lead
7 66 (6.93%) AWS DevOps Engineer
8 57 (5.99%) Java Developer
9 56 (5.88%) Software Engineer
10 50 (5.25%) Test Engineer
11 48 (5.04%) Cloud Engineer
12 47 (4.94%) Architect
13 45 (4.73%) Data Engineer
13 45 (4.73%) Senior DevOps
13 45 (4.73%) Senior DevOps Engineer
14 35 (3.68%) Platform Engineer
15 30 (3.15%) Full-Stack Developer
15 30 (3.15%) GCP Engineer
15 30 (3.15%) Senior Developer
16 26 (2.73%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (16.07%) REST
2 137 (14.39%) Kafka
3 127 (13.34%) Spring
4 114 (11.97%) Spring Boot
5 102 (10.71%) Elastic Stack
6 101 (10.61%) RESTful
7 96 (10.08%) Node.js
8 68 (7.14%) React
9 61 (6.41%) Playwright
10 37 (3.89%) HTML
10 37 (3.89%) PySpark
11 36 (3.78%) OpenTelemetry
12 33 (3.47%) RabbitMQ
13 32 (3.36%) JSON
14 31 (3.26%) OpenID
15 30 (3.15%) Jest
15 30 (3.15%) pytest
16 29 (3.05%) LDAP
17 28 (2.94%) YAML
18 27 (2.84%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 152 (15.97%) Cloud Native
2 75 (7.88%) Distributed Systems
3 50 (5.25%) Public Cloud
4 46 (4.83%) Product Ownership
5 28 (2.94%) Onboarding
6 16 (1.68%) Data Centre
6 16 (1.68%) Hybrid Cloud
7 15 (1.58%) Private Cloud
8 12 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (1.26%) PKI
9 11 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
10 9 (0.95%) Management Information System
10 9 (0.95%) Security Posture
11 8 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (0.84%) Synthetic Data
11 8 (0.84%) Virtual Team
12 7 (0.74%) Algorithms
12 7 (0.74%) Legacy Applications
12 7 (0.74%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 203 (21.32%) Linux
2 60 (6.30%) Windows
3 32 (3.36%) Unix
4 30 (3.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (1.79%) Windows Server
6 11 (1.16%) CentOS
7 10 (1.05%) Android
7 10 (1.05%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.84%) VMS
9 4 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.32%) Solaris
10 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.32%) zOS
11 1 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.11%) Debian
11 1 (0.11%) Rocky
11 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (80.46%) CI/CD
2 586 (61.55%) DevOps
3 376 (39.50%) Infrastructure as Code
4 353 (37.08%) Agile
5 346 (36.34%) Containerisation
6 276 (28.99%) Test Automation
7 207 (21.74%) Microservices
8 177 (18.59%) Problem-Solving
9 167 (17.54%) Observability
10 132 (13.87%) Software Engineering
11 115 (12.08%) Continuous Improvement
12 114 (11.97%) Scrum
13 96 (10.08%) Analytics
14 83 (8.72%) DevSecOps
14 83 (8.72%) Platform Engineering
15 79 (8.30%) TDD
16 76 (7.98%) Infrastructure Automation
17 71 (7.46%) Data Pipeline
18 70 (7.35%) Test Strategy
19 68 (7.14%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 427 (44.85%) Python
2 288 (30.25%) Java
3 163 (17.12%) Bash
4 151 (15.86%) SQL
5 111 (11.66%) JavaScript
6 89 (9.35%) Go
7 85 (8.93%) TypeScript
8 77 (8.09%) PowerShell
9 51 (5.36%) Shell Script
10 21 (2.21%) C#
11 18 (1.89%) Ruby
12 16 (1.68%) Kotlin
13 13 (1.37%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.05%) Perl
14 10 (1.05%) Rust
15 9 (0.95%) Groovy
16 8 (0.84%) Bicep
16 8 (0.84%) Scala
17 7 (0.74%) Korn
17 7 (0.74%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 338 (35.50%) Security Cleared
2 272 (28.57%) SC Cleared
3 61 (6.41%) Degree
4 53 (5.57%) Computer Science Degree
5 49 (5.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (4.41%) AWS Certification
7 32 (3.36%) Master's Degree
8 28 (2.94%) DV Cleared
9 21 (2.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 14 (1.47%) CISSP
11 13 (1.37%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 13 (1.37%) CISM
12 10 (1.05%) Oracle Certification
13 9 (0.95%) OCA
14 7 (0.74%) AWS Certified Developer
15 6 (0.63%) Azure Certification
16 5 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
17 4 (0.42%) ISTQB
18 3 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
18 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (12.92%) QA
2 59 (6.20%) Accessibility
3 22 (2.31%) WCAG
4 21 (2.21%) Data Quality
4 21 (2.21%) GDPR
5 20 (2.10%) NIST
6 17 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 14 (1.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 14 (1.47%) SLA
8 12 (1.26%) NCSC
9 6 (0.63%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.42%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.21%) HL7
12 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.11%) IEC 61508
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 20022
12 1 (0.11%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.11%) MiFID
12 1 (0.11%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.11%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 424 (44.54%) Docker
2 24 (2.52%) Active Directory
3 13 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
4 12 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (0.84%) Virtual Servers
6 4 (0.42%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 3 (0.32%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.32%) vSphere
8 2 (0.21%) HDFS
8 2 (0.21%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.11%) Squid
9 1 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 498 (52.31%) Kubernetes
2 453 (47.58%) Terraform
3 242 (25.42%) Grafana
4 224 (23.53%) Ansible
5 195 (20.48%) Prometheus
6 51 (5.36%) Argo
7 21 (2.21%) Podman
8 18 (1.89%) Istio
8 18 (1.89%) Puppet
9 17 (1.79%) Kibana
9 17 (1.79%) Progress Chef
10 12 (1.26%) Fluentd
10 12 (1.26%) Packer
11 9 (0.95%) Red Hat Satellite
12 8 (0.84%) Karpenter
13 7 (0.74%) Check_MK
13 7 (0.74%) Sysdig
14 6 (0.63%) linkerd
14 6 (0.63%) Nagios
15 5 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 104 (10.92%) Splunk
2 74 (7.77%) Microsoft
3 65 (6.83%) Oracle
4 47 (4.94%) Google
4 47 (4.94%) Red Hat
5 34 (3.57%) VMware
6 27 (2.84%) ServiceNow
7 23 (2.42%) Databricks
8 18 (1.89%) Dynatrace
9 17 (1.79%) F5
9 17 (1.79%) Salesforce
10 16 (1.68%) CheckPoint
10 16 (1.68%) Palo Alto
11 15 (1.58%) Atlassian
11 15 (1.58%) Cisco
11 15 (1.58%) Veracode
12 14 (1.47%) Cribl.io
13 11 (1.16%) IBM
14 8 (0.84%) Adobe
15 7 (0.74%) SAP