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 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 139 225
Rank change year-on-year +24 +86 -46
Contract jobs citing GitLab 874 594 455
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.41% 1.88% 1.06%
As % of the Development Applications category 16.52% 14.08% 8.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 654 402 346
10th Percentile £375 £363 £413
25th Percentile £425 £450 £476
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £550 £558
Median % change year-on-year -7.05% -1.35% -5.91%
75th Percentile £588 £672 £645
90th Percentile £675 £730 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 5 1
10th Percentile £46.02 £65.60 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £74.00 £58.75
Median hourly rate £57.50 £74.44 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.76% +24.07% +9.09%
75th Percentile £66.50 £87.50 £61.25
90th Percentile £82.50 £92.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £74.44 £60.00
% change year-on-year -22.76% +24.07% +9.09%

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 5,290 4,220 5,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.60% 13.39% 12.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,625 2,653 3,763
10th Percentile £340 £331 £363
25th Percentile £406 £410 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -6.51% -3.15%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £513
% change year-on-year -0.42% -6.93% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 72 200
10th Percentile £39.00 £28.88 £44.26
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +5.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £77.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.15 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -

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 12 January 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 12 January 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 12 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
England +7 714 £520 -8.45% 337
UK excluding London +36 439 £500 - 298
London -9 286 £525 -12.50% 68
Work from Home +15 235 £500 -8.59% 180
North of England 0 203 £500 - 68
North West -6 88 £413 -15.38% 29
Yorkshire +10 86 £513 +2.50% 31
Midlands +19 84 £525 +10.06% 32
West Midlands +26 76 £530 +8.28% 16
South East -10 56 £500 - 82
South West +8 42 £525 -27.34% 52
Scotland +19 37 £418 -4.57% 14
North East -9 33 £508 -3.33% 8
East of England -4 25 £478 +27.47% 41
East Midlands -15 8 £400 +30.08% 15
Northern Ireland -1 5 - - 4
Wales -2 5 £435 -18.12% 12

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 59 (6.75%) Confluence
2 35 (4.00%) Apache Airflow
3 28 (3.20%) SAS
4 23 (2.63%) Apache
5 18 (2.06%) Apache Spark
6 14 (1.60%) OpenStack
7 13 (1.49%) nginx
8 7 (0.80%) Appian
9 6 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.46%) CMS
10 4 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.34%) Ethereum
11 3 (0.34%) Hyperledger
12 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.23%) Mule
12 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
13 1 (0.11%) Documentum
13 1 (0.11%) MQSeries
13 1 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.11%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 3 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
1 3 (0.34%) SAP BRIM
2 2 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.11%) Actimize
3 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.11%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.11%) SAP CO
3 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
Cloud Services
1 532 (60.87%) AWS
2 247 (28.26%) GitHub
3 241 (27.57%) Azure
4 171 (19.57%) GitHub Actions
5 168 (19.22%) GCP
6 154 (17.62%) Serverless
7 126 (14.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 123 (14.07%) Amazon S3
9 115 (13.16%) Amazon EKS
10 113 (12.93%) AWS CloudFormation
11 111 (12.70%) Amazon EC2
12 109 (12.47%) AWS Lambda
13 85 (9.73%) OpenShift
13 85 (9.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 84 (9.61%) Azure DevOps
15 74 (8.47%) Amazon ECS
16 38 (4.35%) Azure AKS
17 31 (3.55%) Datadog
18 26 (2.97%) Route 53
19 23 (2.63%) Amazon ELB
Communications & Networking
1 62 (7.09%) Firewall
2 49 (5.61%) DNS
3 43 (4.92%) VPN
4 33 (3.78%) TCP/IP
5 22 (2.52%) Network Security
6 20 (2.29%) SSL
7 6 (0.69%) Kerberos
8 5 (0.57%) BGP
8 5 (0.57%) OpenLDAP
8 5 (0.57%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.57%) WAN
9 4 (0.46%) HTTP
9 4 (0.46%) VXLAN
10 3 (0.34%) DHCP
10 3 (0.34%) Ethernet VPN
10 3 (0.34%) FTP
10 3 (0.34%) Multicast
10 3 (0.34%) OSPF
10 3 (0.34%) Reverse Proxy
10 3 (0.34%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 92 (10.53%) PostgreSQL
2 79 (9.04%) MongoDB
3 78 (8.92%) NoSQL
4 72 (8.24%) Amazon RDS
5 32 (3.66%) Data Lake
6 28 (3.20%) DynamoDB
7 25 (2.86%) Redis
8 24 (2.75%) MySQL
9 21 (2.40%) Relational Database
10 19 (2.17%) Amazon Athena
10 19 (2.17%) SQL Server
11 16 (1.83%) Big Data
12 15 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
13 14 (1.60%) Apache Cassandra
14 13 (1.49%) Oracle Database
15 12 (1.37%) Power BI
16 11 (1.26%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 10 (1.14%) BigQuery
18 8 (0.92%) Delta Lake
19 7 (0.80%) Aerospike
Development Applications
1 426 (48.74%) Jenkins
2 217 (24.83%) Git
3 126 (14.42%) JIRA
4 83 (9.50%) Selenium
5 61 (6.98%) Cucumber
6 56 (6.41%) JUnit
7 36 (4.12%) Maven
7 36 (4.12%) Postman
8 35 (4.00%) Artifactory
9 33 (3.78%) SonarQube
10 32 (3.66%) Cypress.io
11 31 (3.55%) Gradle
12 30 (3.43%) Bitbucket
13 28 (3.20%) JMeter
13 28 (3.20%) Sonatype Nexus
14 26 (2.97%) REST Assured
15 25 (2.86%) Liquibase
16 24 (2.75%) CircleCI
17 20 (2.29%) Gatling
18 14 (1.60%) Mockito
General
1 222 (25.40%) Social Skills
2 143 (16.36%) Finance
3 119 (13.62%) Public Sector
4 96 (10.98%) Banking
5 62 (7.09%) Analytical Skills
6 24 (2.75%) Financial Institution
7 22 (2.52%) Telecoms
8 18 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
9 13 (1.49%) Military
10 12 (1.37%) Aerospace
11 9 (1.03%) Investment Banking
12 8 (0.92%) Games
13 7 (0.80%) Retail
13 7 (0.80%) Retail Banking
14 6 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
15 4 (0.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 3 (0.34%) Front Office
16 3 (0.34%) Law
16 3 (0.34%) Local Government
16 3 (0.34%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 210 (24.03%) DevOps Engineer
2 167 (19.11%) Developer
3 149 (17.05%) Senior
4 94 (10.76%) AWS Engineer
5 69 (7.89%) AWS DevOps
6 68 (7.78%) Lead
7 62 (7.09%) Software Engineer
8 58 (6.64%) AWS DevOps Engineer
9 54 (6.18%) Java Developer
10 45 (5.15%) Cloud Engineer
11 44 (5.03%) Senior DevOps
11 44 (5.03%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 42 (4.81%) Test Engineer
13 41 (4.69%) Architect
14 38 (4.35%) Data Engineer
15 34 (3.89%) Automation Engineer
15 34 (3.89%) Senior Developer
16 30 (3.43%) GCP Engineer
17 28 (3.20%) Platform Engineer
18 25 (2.86%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (17.16%) REST
2 131 (14.99%) Kafka
3 99 (11.33%) Elastic Stack
3 99 (11.33%) Spring
4 95 (10.87%) Spring Boot
5 93 (10.64%) Node.js
6 89 (10.18%) RESTful
7 52 (5.95%) React
8 42 (4.81%) Playwright
9 37 (4.23%) JSON
10 33 (3.78%) PySpark
11 32 (3.66%) OpenTelemetry
12 31 (3.55%) pytest
12 31 (3.55%) RabbitMQ
13 30 (3.43%) HTML
14 27 (3.09%) OpenID
15 25 (2.86%) Jest
16 24 (2.75%) LDAP
16 24 (2.75%) OAuth
17 22 (2.52%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 130 (14.87%) Cloud Native
2 72 (8.24%) Distributed Systems
3 45 (5.15%) Product Ownership
3 45 (5.15%) Public Cloud
4 25 (2.86%) Onboarding
5 15 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
5 15 (1.72%) Private Cloud
6 14 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (1.49%) Data Centre
7 13 (1.49%) Linux Command Line
7 13 (1.49%) PKI
8 10 (1.14%) Algorithms
9 9 (1.03%) Synthetic Data
10 8 (0.92%) Legacy Applications
10 8 (0.92%) Security Posture
11 7 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (0.80%) Distributed Computing
11 7 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (0.69%) Mobile App
12 6 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 179 (20.48%) Linux
2 54 (6.18%) Windows
3 27 (3.09%) Unix
4 22 (2.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (1.83%) Windows Server
6 10 (1.14%) Android
6 10 (1.14%) Apple iOS
6 10 (1.14%) CentOS
7 7 (0.80%) VMS
8 3 (0.34%) Solaris
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.23%) zOS
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 702 (80.32%) CI/CD
2 551 (63.04%) DevOps
3 362 (41.42%) Infrastructure as Code
4 325 (37.19%) Containerisation
5 320 (36.61%) Agile
6 244 (27.92%) Test Automation
7 194 (22.20%) Microservices
8 157 (17.96%) Problem-Solving
9 150 (17.16%) Observability
10 136 (15.56%) Software Engineering
11 104 (11.90%) Scrum
12 90 (10.30%) Continuous Improvement
13 89 (10.18%) Infrastructure Automation
14 83 (9.50%) DevSecOps
15 82 (9.38%) Analytics
16 78 (8.92%) Migration
17 77 (8.81%) High Availability
18 70 (8.01%) Data Pipeline
19 67 (7.67%) Platform Engineering
20 66 (7.55%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 420 (48.05%) Python
2 245 (28.03%) Java
3 173 (19.79%) Bash
4 139 (15.90%) SQL
5 103 (11.78%) JavaScript
6 98 (11.21%) Go
7 79 (9.04%) PowerShell
8 69 (7.89%) TypeScript
9 44 (5.03%) Shell Script
10 21 (2.40%) C#
11 16 (1.83%) Kotlin
12 15 (1.72%) Ruby
13 14 (1.60%) PL/SQL
14 12 (1.37%) Perl
15 10 (1.14%) Rust
16 9 (1.03%) C
16 9 (1.03%) C++
16 9 (1.03%) Groovy
17 7 (0.80%) Korn
18 6 (0.69%) PHP
Qualifications
1 295 (33.75%) Security Cleared
2 235 (26.89%) SC Cleared
3 61 (6.98%) Degree
4 54 (6.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 38 (4.35%) AWS Certification
5 38 (4.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 36 (4.12%) Master's Degree
7 35 (4.00%) DV Cleared
8 22 (2.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 13 (1.49%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 11 (1.26%) CISSP
10 11 (1.26%) Oracle Certification
11 10 (1.14%) CISM
11 10 (1.14%) OCA
12 6 (0.69%) AWS Certified Developer
13 5 (0.57%) Azure Certification
14 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
15 3 (0.34%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
15 3 (0.34%) CCNP
15 3 (0.34%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (13.73%) QA
2 44 (5.03%) Accessibility
3 22 (2.52%) GDPR
4 19 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (2.17%) WCAG
5 17 (1.95%) NIST
6 14 (1.60%) NCSC
7 13 (1.49%) SLA
8 12 (1.37%) Data Quality
8 12 (1.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 7 (0.80%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.46%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.23%) HL7
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%) MISRA
12 1 (0.11%) MISRA C
12 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
System Software
1 389 (44.51%) Docker
2 23 (2.63%) Active Directory
3 15 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.92%) Virtual Servers
5 7 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.34%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.34%) vSphere
7 2 (0.23%) HDFS
8 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.11%) KVM
8 1 (0.11%) Squid
Systems Management
1 467 (53.43%) Kubernetes
2 434 (49.66%) Terraform
3 240 (27.46%) Ansible
4 232 (26.54%) Grafana
5 184 (21.05%) Prometheus
6 46 (5.26%) Argo
7 24 (2.75%) Istio
8 21 (2.40%) Puppet
9 19 (2.17%) Podman
10 17 (1.95%) Progress Chef
11 13 (1.49%) Fluentd
11 13 (1.49%) Kibana
11 13 (1.49%) Packer
12 10 (1.14%) linkerd
12 10 (1.14%) NetBackup
13 7 (0.80%) Karpenter
13 7 (0.80%) Rancher
13 7 (0.80%) Sysdig
14 6 (0.69%) Proxmox
14 6 (0.69%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 108 (12.36%) Splunk
2 73 (8.35%) Microsoft
3 65 (7.44%) Oracle
4 49 (5.61%) Red Hat
5 46 (5.26%) Google
6 35 (4.00%) VMware
7 28 (3.20%) Dynatrace
8 23 (2.63%) Databricks
9 21 (2.40%) Palo Alto
10 20 (2.29%) CheckPoint
10 20 (2.29%) ServiceNow
11 19 (2.17%) F5
12 18 (2.06%) Atlassian
13 16 (1.83%) Cisco
14 13 (1.49%) Cribl.io
15 11 (1.26%) Commvault
15 11 (1.26%) IBM
15 11 (1.26%) Veritas
16 8 (0.92%) Veracode
17 7 (0.80%) SAP