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 8 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 32 33
Rank change year-on-year -21 +1 -7
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,981 1,817 2,303
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.80% 5.69% 5.34%
As % of the Operating Systems category 39.32% 41.71% 38.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,234 1,165 1,482
10th Percentile £350 £368 £340
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -6.52%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 48 142
10th Percentile £34.65 £41.25 £48.00
25th Percentile £51.25 £53.94 £58.13
Median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.87% - -
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.32 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 5,038 4,356 5,914
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 13.64% 13.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,226 2,821 3,872
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £461
% change year-on-year - -2.44% +0.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 224 432
10th Percentile £15.30 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.70 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £25.13
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -8.46% -40.88%
75th Percentile £63.75 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £65.93 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £19.07 £35.58
% change year-on-year +35.13% -46.41% +20.01%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 8 July 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 -24 1,667 £513 -4.65% 827
UK excluding London -17 1,182 £500 - 675
London -56 578 £530 -7.83% 247
Work from Home -32 523 £500 -2.44% 455
South East -6 330 £513 -2.38% 202
North of England -17 309 £480 -4.00% 131
South West -5 172 £540 -6.09% 126
Midlands -9 153 £475 - 58
North West -20 147 £475 +18.16% 81
Yorkshire -19 145 £500 -4.76% 33
West Midlands -11 130 £474 -4.77% 28
Scotland -26 100 £475 -2.06% 34
East of England -15 91 £475 -2.31% 90
Wales +1 28 £465 +64.60% 16
North East -22 22 £406 -14.92% 18
East Midlands -9 20 £528 +16.06% 30
Northern Ireland +1 6 - - 29

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 83 (4.19%) Confluence
2 49 (2.47%) Apache
3 31 (1.56%) nginx
4 29 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
5 25 (1.26%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (1.06%) Tomcat
7 19 (0.96%) WebLogic
8 18 (0.91%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.61%) OpenStack
10 11 (0.56%) CICS
10 11 (0.56%) SAS
11 9 (0.45%) NetWeaver
11 9 (0.45%) WebSphere
12 8 (0.40%) IIS
12 8 (0.40%) JBoss
13 6 (0.30%) SharePoint
13 6 (0.30%) WebSphere Application Server
14 5 (0.25%) CloudStack
14 5 (0.25%) CMS
15 4 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 22 (1.11%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.15%) Simulink
5 1 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.050%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.050%) Houdini
5 1 (0.050%) InDesign
5 1 (0.050%) NUKE
5 1 (0.050%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.050%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.050%) Weka
Business Applications
1 11 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.15%) Actimize
3 3 (0.15%) FLEXCUBE
4 2 (0.10%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.050%) Cloudability
5 1 (0.050%) Odoo
5 1 (0.050%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.050%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.050%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.050%) Shopify
5 1 (0.050%) SunGard Martini
5 1 (0.050%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 589 (29.73%) AWS
2 419 (21.15%) Azure
3 157 (7.93%) GitHub
4 138 (6.97%) GCP
5 116 (5.86%) OpenShift
6 92 (4.64%) GitHub Actions
7 91 (4.59%) Amazon S3
8 88 (4.44%) Amazon EC2
9 72 (3.63%) Entra ID
10 68 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
11 64 (3.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 61 (3.08%) Amazon EKS
13 59 (2.98%) Serverless
14 53 (2.68%) AWS CloudFormation
15 49 (2.47%) AWS Lambda
16 48 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
16 48 (2.42%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 47 (2.37%) IaaS
18 43 (2.17%) SaaS
19 42 (2.12%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 182 (9.19%) Firewall
2 156 (7.87%) DNS
3 86 (4.34%) TCP/IP
4 77 (3.89%) VPN
5 74 (3.74%) Network Security
6 73 (3.69%) SAN
7 59 (2.98%) DHCP
8 49 (2.47%) WAN
9 37 (1.87%) SSL
10 36 (1.82%) LAN
11 33 (1.67%) SNMP
11 33 (1.67%) VSAN
12 31 (1.56%) HTTP
13 30 (1.51%) SSH
14 27 (1.36%) NAS
15 25 (1.26%) VLAN
16 24 (1.21%) Ethernet
17 21 (1.06%) IPsec
18 19 (0.96%) BGP
19 18 (0.91%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (5.86%) PostgreSQL
1 116 (5.86%) SQL Server
2 84 (4.24%) Oracle Database
3 77 (3.89%) MySQL
4 71 (3.58%) Relational Database
5 66 (3.33%) MongoDB
6 57 (2.88%) Amazon RDS
7 41 (2.07%) Elasticsearch
8 39 (1.97%) Amazon Aurora
9 29 (1.46%) DynamoDB
9 29 (1.46%) NoSQL
10 26 (1.31%) RDBMS
11 21 (1.06%) Big Data
12 20 (1.01%) SAP HANA
13 19 (0.96%) KDB
14 17 (0.86%) Sybase ASE
15 16 (0.81%) DataStage
15 16 (0.81%) Oracle Database 12c
16 15 (0.76%) Db2
16 15 (0.76%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 217 (10.95%) Jenkins
2 196 (9.89%) GitLab
3 168 (8.48%) Git
4 152 (7.67%) JIRA
5 33 (1.67%) Maven
6 31 (1.56%) Mockito
6 31 (1.56%) SonarQube
7 22 (1.11%) Bitbucket
8 21 (1.06%) Eclipse
9 19 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
10 18 (0.91%) Artifactory
11 17 (0.86%) JUnit
12 15 (0.76%) Visual Studio
13 14 (0.71%) DbUnit
13 14 (0.71%) Rational Rhapsody
14 13 (0.66%) jMock
15 11 (0.56%) Bitbucket Server
16 10 (0.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
17 9 (0.45%) Cucumber
18 8 (0.40%) TeamCity
General
1 401 (20.24%) Social Skills
2 276 (13.93%) Finance
3 203 (10.25%) Public Sector
4 169 (8.53%) Analytical Skills
5 135 (6.81%) Banking
6 75 (3.79%) Documentation Skills
7 38 (1.92%) Military
8 29 (1.46%) Front Office
9 28 (1.41%) Investment Banking
10 26 (1.31%) Retail
10 26 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 24 (1.21%) Legal
12 21 (1.06%) Law
13 19 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 19 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 18 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
15 17 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 17 (0.86%) Manufacturing
15 17 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
16 11 (0.56%) Police
Job Titles
1 254 (12.82%) Senior
2 206 (10.40%) Developer
3 192 (9.69%) DevOps Engineer
3 192 (9.69%) Linux Engineer
4 151 (7.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 121 (6.11%) Software Engineer
6 102 (5.15%) Architect
7 97 (4.90%) Analyst
8 83 (4.19%) Lead
9 77 (3.89%) Java Developer
10 69 (3.48%) Platform Engineer
11 66 (3.33%) AWS Engineer
11 66 (3.33%) Consultant
12 62 (3.13%) Support Engineer
13 59 (2.98%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 56 (2.83%) Administrator
14 56 (2.83%) Cloud Engineer
15 52 (2.62%) Security Engineer
16 51 (2.57%) Site Engineer
17 50 (2.52%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (4.90%) Kafka
2 91 (4.59%) REST
3 76 (3.84%) Middleware
4 75 (3.79%) Elastic Stack
5 54 (2.73%) Spring
6 50 (2.52%) LDAP
7 49 (2.47%) Spring Boot
8 46 (2.32%) Web Services
9 45 (2.27%) RESTful
10 43 (2.17%) Node.js
11 41 (2.07%) .NET
12 31 (1.56%) ActiveMQ
13 28 (1.41%) YAML
14 27 (1.36%) JSON
14 27 (1.36%) React
14 27 (1.36%) SOAP
15 26 (1.31%) AngularJS
16 23 (1.16%) XML
17 21 (1.06%) Django
18 20 (1.01%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 139 (7.02%) Data Centre
2 126 (6.36%) Cloud Native
3 98 (4.95%) Onboarding
4 91 (4.59%) Linux Command Line
5 77 (3.89%) Distributed Systems
6 76 (3.84%) PKI
7 68 (3.43%) Replication
8 61 (3.08%) Management Information System
9 57 (2.88%) Public Cloud
10 55 (2.78%) Security Posture
11 52 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
12 49 (2.47%) Hybrid Cloud
13 37 (1.87%) Product Ownership
14 29 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
15 28 (1.41%) Embedded Systems
15 28 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
16 27 (1.36%) Clustering
16 27 (1.36%) Enterprise Storage
16 27 (1.36%) Operational Technology
17 24 (1.21%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 748 (37.76%) Windows
2 410 (20.70%) Unix
3 320 (16.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 192 (9.69%) Windows Server
5 102 (5.15%) Ubuntu
6 68 (3.43%) AIX
7 57 (2.88%) Solaris
8 40 (2.02%) CentOS
9 29 (1.46%) VMS
10 28 (1.41%) Embedded Linux
11 24 (1.21%) SUSE
11 24 (1.21%) Windows Server 2019
12 19 (0.96%) Android
13 16 (0.81%) Mac OS
13 16 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
14 15 (0.76%) Debian
14 15 (0.76%) Mac OS X
14 15 (0.76%) Oracle Linux
15 14 (0.71%) Windows 10
16 13 (0.66%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 561 (28.32%) CI/CD
2 480 (24.23%) DevOps
3 361 (18.22%) Agile
4 327 (16.51%) Infrastructure as Code
5 296 (14.94%) Problem-Solving
6 268 (13.53%) Containerisation
7 217 (10.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 215 (10.85%) Migration
9 205 (10.35%) Software Engineering
10 182 (9.19%) Observability
11 180 (9.09%) High Availability
12 178 (8.99%) Continuous Improvement
13 164 (8.28%) Performance Tuning
14 159 (8.03%) Root Cause Analysis
15 156 (7.87%) ITIL
16 146 (7.37%) SIEM
17 145 (7.32%) Platform Engineering
18 133 (6.71%) Microservices
18 133 (6.71%) Test Automation
19 131 (6.61%) AI
Programming Languages
1 667 (33.67%) Python
2 331 (16.71%) SQL
3 318 (16.05%) Bash
4 304 (15.35%) PowerShell
5 247 (12.47%) Java
6 144 (7.27%) Shell Script
7 117 (5.91%) C++
8 90 (4.54%) JavaScript
9 66 (3.33%) C
10 61 (3.08%) C#
11 56 (2.83%) Perl
12 53 (2.68%) PL/SQL
13 51 (2.57%) Go
14 23 (1.16%) Ada
15 22 (1.11%) TypeScript
16 20 (1.01%) Rust
16 20 (1.01%) Search Processing Language
17 18 (0.91%) Bicep
18 16 (0.81%) PHP
19 15 (0.76%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 775 (39.12%) Security Cleared
2 579 (29.23%) SC Cleared
3 216 (10.90%) DV Cleared
4 178 (8.99%) Degree
5 70 (3.53%) BPSS Clearance
6 69 (3.48%) AWS Certification
7 57 (2.88%) Cisco Certification
7 57 (2.88%) CISSP
8 53 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
9 43 (2.17%) Azure Certification
10 34 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
11 30 (1.51%) RHCE
12 27 (1.36%) CCNA
13 24 (1.21%) CCNP
14 20 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
15 18 (0.91%) CISM
16 16 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.81%) GIAC
16 16 (0.81%) Oracle Certification
17 14 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (4.39%) NIST
2 83 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (2.93%) QA
4 41 (2.07%) SLA
5 24 (1.21%) NCSC
6 21 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
6 21 (1.06%) GDPR
7 20 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
8 17 (0.86%) PCI DSS
9 13 (0.66%) Data Quality
10 12 (0.61%) HIPAA
11 11 (0.56%) GRC
12 10 (0.50%) SOC 2
13 9 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.35%) ISO 20022
14 7 (0.35%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.30%) ISO 31000
16 5 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 4 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 4 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 338 (17.06%) Docker
2 228 (11.51%) Active Directory
2 228 (11.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (4.75%) Virtual Machines
4 71 (3.58%) VMware ESXi
5 70 (3.53%) vSphere
6 69 (3.48%) Hyper-V
7 53 (2.68%) VMware NSX
8 49 (2.47%) NFS
9 36 (1.82%) Firmware
10 35 (1.77%) Oracle RAC
11 32 (1.62%) KVM
12 21 (1.06%) Postfix
13 17 (0.86%) GPFS
14 11 (0.56%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 10 (0.50%) Ceph
15 10 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.40%) BitLocker
17 7 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
17 7 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 415 (20.95%) Ansible
2 406 (20.49%) Kubernetes
3 404 (20.39%) Terraform
4 173 (8.73%) Grafana
5 151 (7.62%) Prometheus
6 72 (3.63%) Puppet
7 55 (2.78%) Progress Chef
8 47 (2.37%) vCenter Server
9 46 (2.32%) Oracle RMAN
10 32 (1.62%) Data Guard
11 29 (1.46%) Packer
12 28 (1.41%) Nagios
13 27 (1.36%) Red Hat Satellite
14 26 (1.31%) ZABBIX
15 22 (1.11%) Argo
15 22 (1.11%) Tivoli
15 22 (1.11%) vRealize
16 21 (1.06%) Kibana
17 20 (1.01%) Podman
18 19 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 304 (15.35%) VMware
2 284 (14.34%) Oracle
3 271 (13.68%) Microsoft
4 221 (11.16%) Red Hat
5 163 (8.23%) Splunk
6 124 (6.26%) Cisco
7 109 (5.50%) IBM
8 91 (4.59%) ServiceNow
9 66 (3.33%) Google
10 65 (3.28%) CyberArk
11 48 (2.42%) Palo Alto
12 44 (2.22%) SolarWinds
13 41 (2.07%) BeyondTrust
14 40 (2.02%) SAP
15 38 (1.92%) F5
16 35 (1.77%) Citrix
16 35 (1.77%) HP
17 33 (1.67%) NetApp
18 32 (1.62%) Sybase
19 29 (1.46%) Dynatrace