Linux Contract Job Trends

Linux
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Linux skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 31 34
Rank change year-on-year -20 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,866 1,731 2,190
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.93% 5.93% 5.09%
As % of the Operating Systems category 40.17% 42.45% 38.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,161 1,095 1,442
10th Percentile £326 £375 £334
25th Percentile £404 £440 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -5.42%
75th Percentile £613 £646 £638
90th Percentile £694 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -6.67% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 121 49 111
10th Percentile £33.68 £40.50 £35.00
25th Percentile £43.81 £55.00 £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.87% +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.68 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £65.25 £62.50
% change year-on-year -3.24% +4.40% -3.85%

All Operating Systems
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 4,645 4,078 5,733
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.78% 13.97% 13.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,004 2,680 3,878
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% +1.60% -7.43%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £652 £690 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £433 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -3.89% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 320 181 392
10th Percentile £15.99 £15.33 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.79 £15.44
Median hourly rate £47.50 £23.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +106.52% +4.55% -42.86%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +115.91% -2.22% -23.21%

Linux
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Linux job vacancy trend in the UK

Linux
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Linux
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Linux over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Linux in the UK

Linux
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Linux
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Linux over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Linux in the UK

Linux
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 Linux within the UK over the 6 months to 12 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
England -25 1,558 £513 -6.82% 854
UK excluding London -13 1,121 £490 -6.67% 702
London -46 530 £550 -6.78% 220
Work from Home -26 482 £500 -4.76% 322
South East -4 312 £500 -9.09% 249
North of England -19 274 £475 -9.52% 116
Midlands -8 157 £525 +5.00% 81
South West -11 155 £546 -8.96% 113
Yorkshire -21 148 £460 -16.36% 34
West Midlands -5 138 £513 -4.52% 40
North West -21 116 £485 -3.00% 60
Scotland -19 95 £450 -4.20% 29
East of England -11 93 £475 -1.55% 105
Wales +3 24 £465 -20.65% 15
East Midlands -34 17 £528 +16.06% 41
Northern Ireland +13 15 £425 +30.77% 7
North East -20 10 £413 -21.43% 24

Linux
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 79 (4.23%) Confluence
2 47 (2.52%) Apache
3 29 (1.55%) nginx
4 26 (1.39%) Microsoft Exchange
5 21 (1.13%) Apache Spark
6 20 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
7 19 (1.02%) Tomcat
8 15 (0.80%) WebLogic
9 14 (0.75%) SAS
10 13 (0.70%) OpenStack
10 13 (0.70%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.59%) CICS
12 8 (0.43%) TPMS
13 7 (0.38%) JBoss
14 6 (0.32%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 6 (0.32%) WebSphere Application Server
15 5 (0.27%) SharePoint
16 4 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.21%) CMS
Applications
1 22 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.38%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.16%) Simulink
6 2 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.054%) InDesign
7 1 (0.054%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.054%) Weka
Business Applications
1 8 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.16%) Actimize
4 3 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.11%) BusinessWorks
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.054%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.054%) Odoo
6 1 (0.054%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.054%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.054%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.054%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.054%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.054%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.054%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 524 (28.08%) AWS
2 378 (20.26%) Azure
3 168 (9.00%) GitHub
4 124 (6.65%) OpenShift
5 102 (5.47%) GCP
6 95 (5.09%) GitHub Actions
7 87 (4.66%) Amazon EC2
8 83 (4.45%) Amazon S3
9 72 (3.86%) Amazon EKS
10 71 (3.80%) AWS CloudFormation
10 71 (3.80%) Serverless
11 70 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
12 60 (3.22%) AWS Lambda
13 57 (3.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 48 (2.57%) Amazon ECS
15 45 (2.41%) IaaS
16 42 (2.25%) Microsoft 365
17 41 (2.20%) Entra ID
18 39 (2.09%) PaaS
19 38 (2.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 175 (9.38%) Firewall
2 129 (6.91%) DNS
3 101 (5.41%) TCP/IP
4 73 (3.91%) VPN
5 61 (3.27%) Network Security
6 56 (3.00%) SAN
7 46 (2.47%) WAN
8 41 (2.20%) DHCP
9 39 (2.09%) LAN
10 36 (1.93%) VSAN
11 35 (1.88%) HTTP
11 35 (1.88%) SSH
12 30 (1.61%) SNMP
13 29 (1.55%) SSL
14 27 (1.45%) Ethernet
15 22 (1.18%) NAS
16 20 (1.07%) Wireless
17 18 (0.96%) BGP
17 18 (0.96%) Kerberos
18 15 (0.80%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (6.22%) PostgreSQL
2 108 (5.79%) SQL Server
3 72 (3.86%) MySQL
4 66 (3.54%) Relational Database
5 63 (3.38%) Oracle Database
6 62 (3.32%) MongoDB
7 57 (3.05%) Amazon RDS
8 43 (2.30%) Elasticsearch
9 35 (1.88%) Amazon Aurora
10 28 (1.50%) NoSQL
11 22 (1.18%) DynamoDB
12 20 (1.07%) Big Data
13 19 (1.02%) KDB
14 18 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
15 17 (0.91%) SAP HANA
16 16 (0.86%) DB2
16 16 (0.86%) Kdb+
17 12 (0.64%) Data Lake
18 11 (0.59%) Hadoop
18 11 (0.59%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 202 (10.83%) Jenkins
2 168 (9.00%) GitLab
3 166 (8.90%) Git
4 137 (7.34%) JIRA
5 31 (1.66%) Maven
6 28 (1.50%) Eclipse
7 25 (1.34%) SonarQube
8 24 (1.29%) Mockito
9 23 (1.23%) JUnit
10 21 (1.13%) Sonatype Nexus
11 20 (1.07%) Bitbucket
12 19 (1.02%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.75%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.75%) Rational Rhapsody
14 13 (0.70%) Jaeger
15 11 (0.59%) Cucumber
15 11 (0.59%) DbUnit
15 11 (0.59%) jMock
16 9 (0.48%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 9 (0.48%) Selenium
General
1 386 (20.69%) Social Skills
2 257 (13.77%) Finance
3 186 (9.97%) Public Sector
4 143 (7.66%) Analytical Skills
5 104 (5.57%) Banking
6 71 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (2.68%) Military
8 26 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
9 25 (1.34%) Financial Institution
10 23 (1.23%) Aerospace
10 23 (1.23%) Telecoms
11 22 (1.18%) Front Office
12 20 (1.07%) Retail
13 19 (1.02%) Investment Banking
13 19 (1.02%) Law
14 17 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
15 15 (0.80%) Legal
16 14 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 14 (0.75%) Manufacturing
17 11 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 230 (12.33%) Senior
2 206 (11.04%) Developer
3 172 (9.22%) DevOps Engineer
4 146 (7.82%) Linux Engineer
5 139 (7.45%) Software Engineer
6 117 (6.27%) Architect
7 107 (5.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 104 (5.57%) Analyst
9 96 (5.14%) Lead
10 77 (4.13%) Java Developer
11 75 (4.02%) Administrator
12 71 (3.80%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 64 (3.43%) AWS Engineer
14 62 (3.32%) Site Engineer
15 61 (3.27%) Platform Engineer
16 51 (2.73%) Consultant
16 51 (2.73%) Security Engineer
17 47 (2.52%) AWS DevOps
18 46 (2.47%) Embedded Engineer
19 44 (2.36%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (5.52%) Kafka
2 83 (4.45%) REST
3 78 (4.18%) Elastic Stack
4 70 (3.75%) Middleware
5 55 (2.95%) LDAP
5 55 (2.95%) Node.js
6 46 (2.47%) Spring Boot
6 46 (2.47%) Web Services
7 45 (2.41%) Spring
8 36 (1.93%) RESTful
9 35 (1.88%) .NET
10 33 (1.77%) YAML
11 31 (1.66%) XML
12 27 (1.45%) JSON
13 26 (1.39%) AngularJS
14 23 (1.23%) ActiveMQ
14 23 (1.23%) React
14 23 (1.23%) SOAP
15 22 (1.18%) CSS
16 21 (1.13%) Flash
Miscellaneous
1 135 (7.23%) Data Centre
2 102 (5.47%) Cloud Native
3 76 (4.07%) Linux Command Line
4 70 (3.75%) Onboarding
5 68 (3.64%) Management Information System
6 66 (3.54%) Distributed Systems
7 58 (3.11%) PKI
8 55 (2.95%) Replication
9 50 (2.68%) Hybrid Cloud
10 45 (2.41%) Public Cloud
11 41 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
12 35 (1.88%) Product Ownership
13 34 (1.82%) Security Posture
14 31 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
15 30 (1.61%) Enterprise Storage
16 29 (1.55%) Embedded Systems
16 29 (1.55%) Security Operations Centre
17 23 (1.23%) Clustering
17 23 (1.23%) Operational Technology
17 23 (1.23%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 716 (38.37%) Windows
2 361 (19.35%) Unix
3 275 (14.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 170 (9.11%) Windows Server
5 87 (4.66%) Ubuntu
6 52 (2.79%) AIX
7 42 (2.25%) CentOS
8 38 (2.04%) Solaris
9 35 (1.88%) Embedded Linux
10 31 (1.66%) VMS
11 29 (1.55%) Android
12 23 (1.23%) Windows Server 2016
13 21 (1.13%) Debian
13 21 (1.13%) Mac OS
13 21 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
14 14 (0.75%) SUSE
15 13 (0.70%) Mac OS X
16 10 (0.54%) Oracle Linux
16 10 (0.54%) Windows 10
16 10 (0.54%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (28.99%) CI/CD
2 441 (23.63%) DevOps
3 364 (19.51%) Agile
4 303 (16.24%) Problem-Solving
5 282 (15.11%) Infrastructure as Code
6 260 (13.93%) Containerisation
7 219 (11.74%) Software Engineering
8 180 (9.65%) Observability
9 168 (9.00%) Migration
10 161 (8.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 151 (8.09%) SIEM
12 147 (7.88%) High Availability
13 140 (7.50%) Continuous Improvement
13 140 (7.50%) Performance Tuning
14 138 (7.40%) Microservices
15 136 (7.29%) Computer Science
16 134 (7.18%) Incident Response
17 133 (7.13%) Platform Engineering
18 132 (7.07%) Root Cause Analysis
19 130 (6.97%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 629 (33.71%) Python
2 316 (16.93%) SQL
3 272 (14.58%) Java
4 261 (13.99%) PowerShell
5 258 (13.83%) Bash
6 161 (8.63%) Shell Script
7 129 (6.91%) C++
8 111 (5.95%) JavaScript
9 71 (3.80%) Perl
10 66 (3.54%) C#
11 57 (3.05%) C
12 49 (2.63%) Go
13 45 (2.41%) PL/SQL
14 31 (1.66%) Ruby
15 27 (1.45%) TypeScript
16 24 (1.29%) PHP
17 22 (1.18%) Rust
18 21 (1.13%) Ada
19 20 (1.07%) MATLAB
20 19 (1.02%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 726 (38.91%) Security Cleared
2 530 (28.40%) SC Cleared
3 208 (11.15%) DV Cleared
4 178 (9.54%) Degree
5 83 (4.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 79 (4.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 51 (2.73%) AWS Certification
7 51 (2.73%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (2.41%) CISSP
9 42 (2.25%) CompTIA Security+
10 36 (1.93%) RHCE
11 29 (1.55%) Azure Certification
12 25 (1.34%) CCNA
13 21 (1.13%) CCNP
14 19 (1.02%) Oracle Certification
15 18 (0.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 18 (0.96%) OCP
16 17 (0.91%) CompTIA CySA+
17 16 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
18 15 (0.80%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (4.39%) NIST
2 71 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (2.84%) QA
4 43 (2.30%) SLA
5 30 (1.61%) Cyber Essentials
5 30 (1.61%) GDPR
6 24 (1.29%) NCSC
7 18 (0.96%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
8 11 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.54%) Data Quality
9 10 (0.54%) HIPAA
10 9 (0.48%) GRC
10 9 (0.48%) NIST 800
11 8 (0.43%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.43%) GLBA
12 6 (0.32%) ISO 31000
13 5 (0.27%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 5 (0.27%) DICOM
13 5 (0.27%) SOC 2
System Software
1 314 (16.83%) Docker
2 220 (11.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 181 (9.70%) Active Directory
4 79 (4.23%) Virtual Machines
5 71 (3.80%) Hyper-V
6 70 (3.75%) vSphere
7 62 (3.32%) VMware ESXi
8 44 (2.36%) NFS
9 39 (2.09%) Firmware
9 39 (2.09%) VMware NSX
10 26 (1.39%) KVM
11 24 (1.29%) GPFS
12 20 (1.07%) Postfix
13 18 (0.96%) Oracle RAC
14 14 (0.75%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 11 (0.59%) Ceph
16 9 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
17 8 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
18 7 (0.38%) BitLocker
18 7 (0.38%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 396 (21.22%) Kubernetes
2 376 (20.15%) Ansible
3 355 (19.02%) Terraform
4 176 (9.43%) Grafana
5 142 (7.61%) Prometheus
6 71 (3.80%) Puppet
7 46 (2.47%) Progress Chef
8 42 (2.25%) vCenter Server
9 31 (1.66%) vRealize
10 30 (1.61%) Kibana
11 29 (1.55%) Oracle RMAN
12 28 (1.50%) Podman
13 25 (1.34%) Red Hat Satellite
14 24 (1.29%) Nagios
14 24 (1.29%) ZABBIX
15 23 (1.23%) Argo
16 21 (1.13%) Packer
17 20 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
17 20 (1.07%) Tivoli
18 18 (0.96%) Netcool
Vendors
1 297 (15.92%) VMware
2 260 (13.93%) Microsoft
3 251 (13.45%) Oracle
4 212 (11.36%) Red Hat
5 187 (10.02%) Splunk
6 106 (5.68%) Cisco
7 98 (5.25%) IBM
8 73 (3.91%) ServiceNow
9 45 (2.41%) CyberArk
10 43 (2.30%) Palo Alto
11 42 (2.25%) Dell
12 37 (1.98%) HP
13 33 (1.77%) Google
14 31 (1.66%) SolarWinds
15 30 (1.61%) NVIDIA
16 27 (1.45%) BeyondTrust
17 25 (1.34%) F5
17 25 (1.34%) NetApp
17 25 (1.34%) SAP
18 23 (1.23%) Citrix