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 1 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 137 236
Rank change year-on-year +15 +99 -40
Contract jobs citing GitLab 939 594 450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.10% 2.05% 1.02%
As % of the Development Applications category 16.10% 14.64% 8.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 682 396 319
10th Percentile £382 £365 £405
25th Percentile £416 £438 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £529 £563
Median % change year-on-year -5.44% -6.00% -6.25%
75th Percentile £575 £626 £650
90th Percentile £656 £721 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £500 £540
% change year-on-year -2.55% -7.41% -0.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 3 7
10th Percentile £39.53 £64.59 £40.00
25th Percentile £52.50 £71.48 £48.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £82.96 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.70% +33.81% +27.18%
75th Percentile £65.00 £88.98 £75.97
90th Percentile £82.60 £92.59 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £82.96 £74.44
% change year-on-year -33.70% +11.45% +41.79%

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 5,833 4,058 5,184
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.06% 13.97% 11.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,914 2,719 3,533
10th Percentile £343 £338 £358
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £580 £603 £627
90th Percentile £686 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -2.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 72 182
10th Percentile £39.53 £25.33 £35.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £49.50 £45.88
Median hourly rate £67.50 £62.50 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% +0.81% +0.81%
75th Percentile £76.75 £75.06 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.67 £82.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +5.47% +2.40% +1.63%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 +6 782 £500 -7.15% 210
UK excluding London +24 472 £487 -2.55% 163
London -25 327 £525 -4.55% 56
Work from Home +2 254 £475 -8.65% 99
North of England -12 201 £500 -4.76% 49
Midlands +10 112 £480 +0.63% 19
North West -5 102 £450 -11.74% 16
West Midlands +11 100 £490 - 12
Yorkshire -8 81 £500 -13.04% 14
South East -29 58 £500 -21.57% 39
South West +9 52 £500 +8.70% 36
Scotland +18 37 £404 -7.24% 6
North East -11 26 £463 -4.39% 19
East of England -11 23 £477 +5.89% 12
East Midlands -22 12 £402 +29.99% 7
Northern Ireland +1 3 - -
Wales -10 2 £488 +14.71% 4

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 69 (7.35%) Confluence
2 43 (4.58%) SAS
3 31 (3.30%) Apache Airflow
4 25 (2.66%) Apache
5 19 (2.02%) Apache Spark
6 18 (1.92%) nginx
7 16 (1.70%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.43%) CICS
8 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.32%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.21%) CMS
10 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.21%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
11 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.11%) FileNet
11 1 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
1 3 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
2 1 (0.11%) Actimize
2 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.11%) SAP Hybris
2 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 580 (61.77%) AWS
2 317 (33.76%) GitHub
3 281 (29.93%) Azure
4 212 (22.58%) GitHub Actions
5 174 (18.53%) GCP
6 173 (18.42%) Serverless
7 137 (14.59%) Amazon S3
8 134 (14.27%) AWS Lambda
9 127 (13.53%) Amazon EKS
10 118 (12.57%) AWS CloudFormation
11 113 (12.03%) Amazon EC2
12 104 (11.08%) Azure DevOps
13 101 (10.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 90 (9.58%) OpenShift
15 76 (8.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 73 (7.77%) Amazon ECS
17 32 (3.41%) Azure AKS
18 26 (2.77%) Amazon SQS
19 24 (2.56%) Datadog
19 24 (2.56%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 49 (5.22%) Firewall
2 32 (3.41%) DNS
3 29 (3.09%) VPN
4 20 (2.13%) TCP/IP
5 17 (1.81%) Network Security
6 9 (0.96%) HTTP
7 8 (0.85%) Reverse Proxy
8 7 (0.75%) WAN
9 6 (0.64%) Kerberos
9 6 (0.64%) SD-WAN
10 5 (0.53%) Multicast
11 4 (0.43%) BGP
11 4 (0.43%) SAN
11 4 (0.43%) SSL
12 3 (0.32%) FTP
12 3 (0.32%) NAS
12 3 (0.32%) OSPF
12 3 (0.32%) VSAN
13 2 (0.21%) Calico
13 2 (0.21%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (11.18%) PostgreSQL
2 68 (7.24%) NoSQL
3 66 (7.03%) MongoDB
4 62 (6.60%) Amazon RDS
5 37 (3.94%) DynamoDB
5 37 (3.94%) Relational Database
6 30 (3.19%) Data Lake
6 30 (3.19%) MySQL
7 26 (2.77%) Amazon Athena
7 26 (2.77%) Data Warehouse
8 24 (2.56%) Redis
9 23 (2.45%) SQL Server
10 21 (2.24%) Big Data
11 19 (2.02%) Power BI
12 18 (1.92%) Oracle Database
13 17 (1.81%) Amazon Redshift
14 12 (1.28%) Delta Lake
14 12 (1.28%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 11 (1.17%) Apache Cassandra
15 11 (1.17%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 478 (50.91%) Jenkins
2 231 (24.60%) Git
3 136 (14.48%) JIRA
4 103 (10.97%) Selenium
5 85 (9.05%) JUnit
6 65 (6.92%) Cucumber
7 50 (5.32%) Postman
8 41 (4.37%) JMeter
9 40 (4.26%) Bitbucket
10 39 (4.15%) REST Assured
11 29 (3.09%) Artifactory
12 27 (2.88%) Gatling
13 26 (2.77%) Maven
13 26 (2.77%) Mockito
13 26 (2.77%) SonarQube
14 25 (2.66%) CircleCI
15 22 (2.34%) Cypress.io
15 22 (2.34%) Sonatype Nexus
16 20 (2.13%) Gradle
17 19 (2.02%) WebDriver
General
1 237 (25.24%) Social Skills
2 149 (15.87%) Public Sector
3 139 (14.80%) Finance
4 98 (10.44%) Banking
5 66 (7.03%) Analytical Skills
6 23 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (1.92%) Financial Institution
8 13 (1.38%) Aerospace
9 12 (1.28%) Investment Banking
10 10 (1.06%) Military
10 10 (1.06%) Retail
11 6 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (0.64%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.53%) Law
13 4 (0.43%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.43%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.43%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.32%) Corporate Banking
14 3 (0.32%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 200 (21.30%) DevOps Engineer
2 166 (17.68%) Developer
3 135 (14.38%) Senior
4 103 (10.97%) AWS Engineer
5 75 (7.99%) AWS DevOps
6 71 (7.56%) Lead
7 61 (6.50%) AWS DevOps Engineer
7 61 (6.50%) Data Engineer
8 56 (5.96%) Software Engineer
9 53 (5.64%) Java Developer
10 48 (5.11%) Architect
10 48 (5.11%) Test Engineer
11 45 (4.79%) Cloud Engineer
12 41 (4.37%) Platform Engineer
13 34 (3.62%) Senior DevOps
13 34 (3.62%) Senior DevOps Engineer
14 29 (3.09%) GCP Engineer
15 27 (2.88%) Tester
16 26 (2.77%) Java Engineer
17 25 (2.66%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (15.76%) REST
2 133 (14.16%) Kafka
3 129 (13.74%) Spring
4 111 (11.82%) Spring Boot
5 91 (9.69%) RESTful
6 90 (9.58%) Node.js
7 87 (9.27%) Elastic Stack
8 69 (7.35%) React
9 60 (6.39%) Playwright
10 42 (4.47%) pytest
11 40 (4.26%) PySpark
12 36 (3.83%) HTML
13 34 (3.62%) OpenTelemetry
14 33 (3.51%) RabbitMQ
14 33 (3.51%) YAML
15 31 (3.30%) LDAP
16 30 (3.19%) Jest
17 29 (3.09%) OpenID
18 28 (2.98%) JSON
18 28 (2.98%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 144 (15.34%) Cloud Native
2 77 (8.20%) Distributed Systems
3 53 (5.64%) Product Ownership
4 41 (4.37%) Public Cloud
5 25 (2.66%) Onboarding
6 18 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
7 17 (1.81%) Data Centre
8 12 (1.28%) Private Cloud
9 11 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (1.17%) Management Information System
10 10 (1.06%) Mainframe
11 8 (0.85%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (0.85%) DataPower
11 8 (0.85%) Distributed Architecture
11 8 (0.85%) Distributed Computing
11 8 (0.85%) Linux Command Line
11 8 (0.85%) NHS
12 7 (0.75%) Algorithms
12 7 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
12 7 (0.75%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 190 (20.23%) Linux
2 63 (6.71%) Windows
3 35 (3.73%) Unix
4 31 (3.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 13 (1.38%) Windows Server
6 10 (1.06%) CentOS
7 9 (0.96%) Android
7 9 (0.96%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.85%) VMS
9 6 (0.64%) zOS
10 5 (0.53%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.32%) Debian
11 3 (0.32%) Rocky
11 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.21%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.21%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.11%) AIX
13 1 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
13 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 751 (79.98%) CI/CD
2 551 (58.68%) DevOps
3 358 (38.13%) Agile
4 350 (37.27%) Infrastructure as Code
5 341 (36.32%) Containerisation
6 284 (30.24%) Test Automation
7 193 (20.55%) Microservices
8 170 (18.10%) Observability
8 170 (18.10%) Problem-Solving
9 128 (13.63%) Scrum
10 125 (13.31%) Continuous Improvement
11 116 (12.35%) Software Engineering
12 102 (10.86%) Platform Engineering
13 101 (10.76%) Analytics
14 83 (8.84%) Data Pipeline
15 82 (8.73%) TDD
16 76 (8.09%) DevSecOps
17 75 (7.99%) Test Strategy
18 67 (7.14%) ETL
19 66 (7.03%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 413 (43.98%) Python
2 273 (29.07%) Java
3 176 (18.74%) SQL
4 153 (16.29%) Bash
5 98 (10.44%) JavaScript
6 86 (9.16%) TypeScript
7 78 (8.31%) PowerShell
8 67 (7.14%) Go
9 48 (5.11%) Shell Script
10 20 (2.13%) C#
11 19 (2.02%) Kotlin
12 17 (1.81%) Bicep
12 17 (1.81%) Ruby
13 15 (1.60%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.06%) Scala
15 9 (0.96%) Groovy
15 9 (0.96%) MATLAB
15 9 (0.96%) Perl
16 8 (0.85%) C++
17 7 (0.75%) PHP
Qualifications
1 365 (38.87%) Security Cleared
2 304 (32.37%) SC Cleared
3 54 (5.75%) Degree
4 47 (5.01%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (4.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 41 (4.37%) AWS Certification
7 28 (2.98%) DV Cleared
8 22 (2.34%) Master's Degree
9 19 (2.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 15 (1.60%) Azure Certification
11 14 (1.49%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 11 (1.17%) CISSP
13 10 (1.06%) CISM
14 8 (0.85%) Oracle Certification
15 7 (0.75%) OCA
16 6 (0.64%) ISTQB
17 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
17 4 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
18 3 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 3 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (12.46%) QA
2 55 (5.86%) Accessibility
3 31 (3.30%) Data Quality
4 20 (2.13%) GDPR
4 20 (2.13%) WCAG
5 18 (1.92%) SLA
6 15 (1.60%) NIST
7 13 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 13 (1.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 8 (0.85%) NCSC
9 6 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.43%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.21%) HL7
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
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%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 407 (43.34%) Docker
2 26 (2.77%) Active Directory
3 13 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.64%) Virtual Servers
6 5 (0.53%) HDFS
7 4 (0.43%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 2 (0.21%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.21%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.21%) vSphere
9 1 (0.11%) iptables
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.11%) Squid
9 1 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.11%) zsh
Systems Management
1 483 (51.44%) Kubernetes
2 419 (44.62%) Terraform
3 236 (25.13%) Grafana
4 198 (21.09%) Prometheus
5 196 (20.87%) Ansible
6 58 (6.18%) Argo
7 22 (2.34%) Istio
8 21 (2.24%) Puppet
9 20 (2.13%) Podman
10 19 (2.02%) Progress Chef
11 16 (1.70%) Kibana
12 11 (1.17%) Red Hat Satellite
13 10 (1.06%) Packer
14 9 (0.96%) Check_MK
14 9 (0.96%) linkerd
15 8 (0.85%) Fluentd
15 8 (0.85%) Karpenter
16 7 (0.75%) Sysdig
17 6 (0.64%) Nagios
18 5 (0.53%) Rancher
Vendors
1 89 (9.48%) Splunk
2 74 (7.88%) Oracle
3 72 (7.67%) Microsoft
4 46 (4.90%) Red Hat
5 44 (4.69%) Google
6 35 (3.73%) VMware
7 34 (3.62%) Databricks
8 32 (3.41%) ServiceNow
9 20 (2.13%) Informatica
9 20 (2.13%) Salesforce
10 16 (1.70%) Dynatrace
11 14 (1.49%) Talend
12 13 (1.38%) IBM
13 11 (1.17%) Atlassian
13 11 (1.17%) Veracode
14 10 (1.06%) Cribl.io
15 8 (0.85%) AppDynamics
15 8 (0.85%) Cisco
16 7 (0.75%) Adobe
16 7 (0.75%) SAP