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 17 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 31 32
Rank change year-on-year -23 +1 -6
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,887 1,724 2,227
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.75% 5.81% 5.11%
As % of the Operating Systems category 39.52% 41.50% 38.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,160 1,112 1,444
10th Percentile £347 £373 £340
25th Percentile £413 £429 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £540
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -1.85% -6.09%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £538
% change year-on-year -1.60% -6.98% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 37 133
10th Percentile £37.13 £46.34 £46.40
25th Percentile £43.81 £55.00 £56.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% - -
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.41 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% - -

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 4,775 4,154 5,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.49% 14.00% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,052 2,705 3,843
10th Percentile £189 £200 £188
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.54% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 331 209 420
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.31 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.13 £17.44 £15.85
Median hourly rate £29.48 £21.90 £23.98
Median % change year-on-year +34.61% -8.65% -49.53%
75th Percentile £64.38 £41.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.23 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.94 £18.87 £25.25
% change year-on-year +48.07% -25.27% -37.02%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -27 1,580 £511 -7.18% 1,261
UK excluding London -16 1,120 £492 -1.60% 1,295
London -49 552 £528 -8.66% 241
Work from Home -32 481 £500 -3.85% 1,000
North of England -15 297 £480 -7.65% 241
South East -5 287 £513 -2.38% 321
South West -5 167 £538 -10.42% 155
Yorkshire -19 152 £500 -6.98% 73
Midlands -20 146 £474 -5.25% 137
North West -20 131 £469 +10.35% 115
West Midlands -15 126 £469 -6.20% 62
East of England -9 96 £475 +0.53% 198
Scotland -28 95 £475 - 138
Wales +3 26 £465 +55.00% 53
East Midlands -21 17 £530 +17.78% 75
North East -26 15 £446 -6.54% 53
Northern Ireland +4 12 £425 +30.77% 75

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 85 (4.50%) Confluence
2 48 (2.54%) Apache
3 31 (1.64%) nginx
4 28 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
5 21 (1.11%) Tomcat
6 19 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 16 (0.85%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.64%) SAS
9 12 (0.64%) WebSphere
10 11 (0.58%) CICS
11 10 (0.53%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.48%) NetWeaver
13 8 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.37%) IIS
15 6 (0.32%) JBoss
15 6 (0.32%) SharePoint
15 6 (0.32%) TPMS
15 6 (0.32%) WebSphere Application Server
16 5 (0.26%) CMS
Applications
1 19 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.16%) Simulink
5 2 (0.11%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.053%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.053%) InDesign
6 1 (0.053%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.053%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.053%) Weka
Business Applications
1 11 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.16%) Actimize
3 3 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.11%) BusinessWorks
4 2 (0.11%) FLEXCUBE
4 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.11%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.053%) Cloudability
5 1 (0.053%) Odoo
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.053%) Shopify
5 1 (0.053%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 536 (28.40%) AWS
2 394 (20.88%) Azure
3 156 (8.27%) GitHub
4 127 (6.73%) GCP
5 104 (5.51%) OpenShift
6 88 (4.66%) GitHub Actions
7 81 (4.29%) Amazon S3
8 78 (4.13%) Amazon EC2
9 66 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (3.44%) Amazon EKS
11 60 (3.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 56 (2.97%) Entra ID
13 54 (2.86%) Serverless
14 47 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
15 45 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
15 45 (2.38%) IaaS
16 44 (2.33%) AWS Lambda
16 44 (2.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 41 (2.17%) PaaS
18 36 (1.91%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 183 (9.70%) Firewall
2 141 (7.47%) DNS
3 86 (4.56%) TCP/IP
4 78 (4.13%) VPN
5 67 (3.55%) Network Security
5 67 (3.55%) SAN
6 53 (2.81%) DHCP
7 48 (2.54%) WAN
8 41 (2.17%) SSL
9 39 (2.07%) LAN
10 37 (1.96%) SNMP
11 34 (1.80%) SSH
12 31 (1.64%) VSAN
13 30 (1.59%) HTTP
14 26 (1.38%) NAS
15 22 (1.17%) Ethernet
16 21 (1.11%) VLAN
17 19 (1.01%) IPsec
18 18 (0.95%) BGP
19 17 (0.90%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (6.04%) SQL Server
2 110 (5.83%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (4.03%) Oracle Database
4 72 (3.82%) MySQL
5 67 (3.55%) Relational Database
6 61 (3.23%) MongoDB
7 49 (2.60%) Amazon RDS
8 42 (2.23%) Elasticsearch
9 38 (2.01%) Amazon Aurora
10 26 (1.38%) DynamoDB
10 26 (1.38%) NoSQL
11 20 (1.06%) Big Data
11 20 (1.06%) SAP HANA
12 18 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
12 18 (0.95%) RDBMS
13 17 (0.90%) Db2
13 17 (0.90%) KDB
14 15 (0.79%) Sybase ASE
15 14 (0.74%) Kdb+
15 14 (0.74%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 209 (11.08%) Jenkins
2 178 (9.43%) GitLab
3 165 (8.74%) Git
4 147 (7.79%) JIRA
5 31 (1.64%) Maven
5 31 (1.64%) SonarQube
6 26 (1.38%) Mockito
7 21 (1.11%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.95%) Bitbucket
8 18 (0.95%) JUnit
9 17 (0.90%) Artifactory
9 17 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
10 14 (0.74%) DbUnit
10 14 (0.74%) Rational Rhapsody
10 14 (0.74%) Visual Studio
11 13 (0.69%) jMock
12 11 (0.58%) Bitbucket Server
12 11 (0.58%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.48%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 8 (0.42%) Cucumber
General
1 384 (20.35%) Social Skills
2 271 (14.36%) Finance
3 197 (10.44%) Public Sector
4 161 (8.53%) Analytical Skills
5 130 (6.89%) Banking
6 82 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
7 43 (2.28%) Military
8 25 (1.32%) Front Office
8 25 (1.32%) Telecoms
9 24 (1.27%) Retail
10 23 (1.22%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.17%) Aerospace
12 21 (1.11%) Financial Institution
12 21 (1.11%) Law
13 20 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
14 19 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 18 (0.95%) Legal
16 17 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
17 15 (0.79%) Manufacturing
18 12 (0.64%) Police
Job Titles
1 244 (12.93%) Senior
2 192 (10.17%) Developer
3 188 (9.96%) Linux Engineer
4 174 (9.22%) DevOps Engineer
5 136 (7.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 126 (6.68%) Software Engineer
7 102 (5.41%) Analyst
8 96 (5.09%) Architect
9 91 (4.82%) Lead
10 74 (3.92%) Java Developer
11 69 (3.66%) Administrator
12 67 (3.55%) AWS Engineer
13 65 (3.44%) Consultant
14 57 (3.02%) Platform Engineer
15 56 (2.97%) Support Engineer
16 53 (2.81%) Site Reliability Engineer
17 51 (2.70%) Security Engineer
18 47 (2.49%) AWS DevOps
19 46 (2.44%) Embedded Engineer
19 46 (2.44%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (4.56%) Kafka
2 82 (4.35%) Middleware
2 82 (4.35%) REST
3 68 (3.60%) Elastic Stack
4 50 (2.65%) LDAP
4 50 (2.65%) Spring
4 50 (2.65%) Spring Boot
5 46 (2.44%) Web Services
6 44 (2.33%) Node.js
6 44 (2.33%) RESTful
7 40 (2.12%) .NET
8 29 (1.54%) YAML
9 26 (1.38%) ActiveMQ
9 26 (1.38%) SOAP
10 25 (1.32%) AngularJS
10 25 (1.32%) JSON
11 23 (1.22%) XML
12 22 (1.17%) React
13 20 (1.06%) Flash
14 19 (1.01%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 151 (8.00%) Data Centre
2 112 (5.94%) Cloud Native
3 84 (4.45%) Onboarding
4 80 (4.24%) Linux Command Line
5 71 (3.76%) Management Information System
5 71 (3.76%) PKI
6 67 (3.55%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (3.34%) Replication
8 50 (2.65%) Public Cloud
9 49 (2.60%) Hybrid Cloud
9 49 (2.60%) Security Posture
10 48 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
11 36 (1.91%) Product Ownership
12 31 (1.64%) Enterprise Storage
13 30 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
14 28 (1.48%) Embedded Systems
14 28 (1.48%) Security Operations Centre
15 26 (1.38%) Cyber Threat
15 26 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
16 25 (1.32%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 725 (38.42%) Windows
2 383 (20.30%) Unix
3 294 (15.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 187 (9.91%) Windows Server
5 105 (5.56%) Ubuntu
6 58 (3.07%) AIX
7 50 (2.65%) Solaris
8 42 (2.23%) CentOS
9 33 (1.75%) Embedded Linux
10 29 (1.54%) VMS
11 24 (1.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 20 (1.06%) Android
13 19 (1.01%) Debian
13 19 (1.01%) SUSE
13 19 (1.01%) Windows Server 2016
14 15 (0.79%) Mac OS
15 13 (0.69%) Mac OS X
16 12 (0.64%) Oracle Linux
16 12 (0.64%) Windows 10
16 12 (0.64%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 520 (27.56%) CI/CD
2 449 (23.79%) DevOps
3 355 (18.81%) Agile
4 285 (15.10%) Infrastructure as Code
5 279 (14.79%) Problem-Solving
6 244 (12.93%) Containerisation
7 198 (10.49%) Software Engineering
8 195 (10.33%) Migration
9 193 (10.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 177 (9.38%) Observability
11 164 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
12 161 (8.53%) High Availability
13 157 (8.32%) Performance Tuning
14 148 (7.84%) SIEM
15 143 (7.58%) Root Cause Analysis
16 136 (7.21%) ITIL
17 127 (6.73%) Test Automation
18 125 (6.62%) Platform Engineering
19 124 (6.57%) Incident Response
19 124 (6.57%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 615 (32.59%) Python
2 319 (16.91%) SQL
3 281 (14.89%) Bash
4 280 (14.84%) PowerShell
5 241 (12.77%) Java
6 147 (7.79%) Shell Script
7 117 (6.20%) C++
8 92 (4.88%) JavaScript
9 61 (3.23%) Perl
10 58 (3.07%) C
11 57 (3.02%) C#
12 51 (2.70%) PL/SQL
13 47 (2.49%) Go
14 23 (1.22%) Rust
15 22 (1.17%) TypeScript
16 21 (1.11%) Ada
17 20 (1.06%) MATLAB
18 19 (1.01%) Search Processing Language
19 18 (0.95%) Ruby
20 15 (0.79%) PHP
Qualifications
1 717 (38.00%) Security Cleared
2 530 (28.09%) SC Cleared
3 204 (10.81%) DV Cleared
4 183 (9.70%) Degree
5 67 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 64 (3.39%) AWS Certification
7 63 (3.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 61 (3.23%) CISSP
9 54 (2.86%) Cisco Certification
10 42 (2.23%) CompTIA Security+
11 40 (2.12%) Azure Certification
12 35 (1.85%) RHCE
13 24 (1.27%) CCNA
13 24 (1.27%) CCNP
14 21 (1.11%) CISM
14 21 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.85%) GIAC
16 15 (0.79%) CompTIA CySA+
16 15 (0.79%) Oracle Certification
17 14 (0.74%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (4.77%) NIST
2 81 (4.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 55 (2.91%) QA
4 46 (2.44%) SLA
5 26 (1.38%) Cyber Essentials
5 26 (1.38%) GDPR
6 22 (1.17%) NCSC
7 19 (1.01%) PCI DSS
8 14 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
9 12 (0.64%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (0.53%) Data Quality
11 10 (0.53%) GRC
12 9 (0.48%) SOC 2
13 7 (0.37%) NIST 800
14 6 (0.32%) GLBA
14 6 (0.32%) ISO 31000
15 5 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 5 (0.26%) DICOM
15 5 (0.26%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 316 (16.75%) Docker
2 221 (11.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 204 (10.81%) Active Directory
4 78 (4.13%) Virtual Machines
5 67 (3.55%) Hyper-V
6 66 (3.50%) vSphere
7 64 (3.39%) VMware ESXi
8 52 (2.76%) NFS
9 48 (2.54%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.96%) Firmware
11 30 (1.59%) KVM
12 28 (1.48%) Oracle RAC
13 21 (1.11%) GPFS
13 21 (1.11%) Postfix
14 11 (0.58%) Microsoft App-V
14 11 (0.58%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 10 (0.53%) Ceph
16 9 (0.48%) BitLocker
17 8 (0.42%) Squid
18 7 (0.37%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 392 (20.77%) Ansible
2 368 (19.50%) Kubernetes
3 351 (18.60%) Terraform
4 169 (8.96%) Grafana
5 143 (7.58%) Prometheus
6 74 (3.92%) Puppet
7 51 (2.70%) Progress Chef
8 41 (2.17%) vCenter Server
9 38 (2.01%) Oracle RMAN
10 30 (1.59%) Podman
11 27 (1.43%) Nagios
11 27 (1.43%) Packer
12 25 (1.32%) Red Hat Satellite
12 25 (1.32%) ZABBIX
13 24 (1.27%) Data Guard
13 24 (1.27%) vRealize
14 22 (1.17%) Argo
14 22 (1.17%) Kibana
14 22 (1.17%) Tivoli
15 20 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 294 (15.58%) VMware
2 272 (14.41%) Oracle
3 254 (13.46%) Microsoft
4 219 (11.61%) Red Hat
5 168 (8.90%) Splunk
6 120 (6.36%) Cisco
7 106 (5.62%) IBM
8 87 (4.61%) ServiceNow
9 57 (3.02%) Google
10 55 (2.91%) CyberArk
11 53 (2.81%) Palo Alto
12 40 (2.12%) SolarWinds
13 39 (2.07%) F5
14 38 (2.01%) SAP
15 36 (1.91%) BeyondTrust
16 34 (1.80%) Citrix
17 33 (1.75%) HP
17 33 (1.75%) NVIDIA
18 32 (1.70%) Dell
19 29 (1.54%) Sybase