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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 31 34
Rank change year-on-year -19 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,897 1,719 2,225
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.78% 5.80% 5.11%
As % of the Operating Systems category 39.67% 41.48% 38.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,166 1,107 1,442
10th Percentile £345 £374 £340
25th Percentile £413 £432 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £540
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% -0.93% -6.09%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £500 £538
% change year-on-year -1.40% -6.98% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 37 133
10th Percentile £37.50 £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 £71.32 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.82 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -3.36% - -

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 4,782 4,144 5,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 13.99% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,050 2,701 3,844
10th Percentile £189 £200 £188
25th Percentile £315 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -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 335 206 420
10th Percentile £14.70 £15.28 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £15.85
Median hourly rate £28.00 £22.00 £23.98
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -8.24% -49.53%
75th Percentile £63.75 £41.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.14 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.69 £18.87 £25.25
% change year-on-year +46.74% -25.27% -40.59%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -26 1,590 £510 -7.27% 905
UK excluding London -17 1,128 £493 -1.40% 704
London -48 558 £525 -8.70% 283
Work from Home -32 482 £500 -3.85% 344
North of England -12 300 £480 -7.65% 121
South East -6 291 £515 -1.90% 220
South West -8 165 £538 -10.42% 122
Yorkshire -20 153 £500 -6.98% 26
Midlands -18 146 £473 -5.50% 63
North West -20 133 £469 +10.35% 73
West Midlands -17 126 £468 -6.35% 31
Scotland -21 98 £500 +5.26% 37
East of England -14 96 £475 +0.53% 115
Wales +2 26 £465 -16.29% 15
East Midlands -24 17 £530 +17.78% 32
North East -27 15 £446 -6.54% 22
Northern Ireland +3 12 £425 +30.77% 26

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 (4.48%) Confluence
2 48 (2.53%) Apache
3 31 (1.63%) nginx
4 28 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (1.16%) Tomcat
6 19 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 16 (0.84%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.63%) SAS
9 12 (0.63%) WebSphere
10 11 (0.58%) CICS
11 10 (0.53%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.47%) NetWeaver
13 8 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.37%) IIS
14 7 (0.37%) 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 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.47%) 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 4 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.16%) Actimize
5 2 (0.11%) BusinessWorks
5 2 (0.11%) FLEXCUBE
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.053%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.053%) Odoo
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.053%) Shopify
6 1 (0.053%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 539 (28.41%) AWS
2 394 (20.77%) Azure
3 158 (8.33%) GitHub
4 127 (6.69%) GCP
5 105 (5.54%) OpenShift
6 88 (4.64%) GitHub Actions
7 81 (4.27%) Amazon S3
8 78 (4.11%) Amazon EC2
9 68 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (3.43%) Amazon EKS
11 60 (3.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 56 (2.95%) Entra ID
13 54 (2.85%) Serverless
14 47 (2.48%) Microsoft 365
15 45 (2.37%) AWS CloudFormation
15 45 (2.37%) IaaS
16 44 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
16 44 (2.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 41 (2.16%) PaaS
18 37 (1.95%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 185 (9.75%) Firewall
2 146 (7.70%) DNS
3 93 (4.90%) TCP/IP
4 80 (4.22%) VPN
5 68 (3.58%) Network Security
6 66 (3.48%) SAN
7 52 (2.74%) DHCP
8 48 (2.53%) WAN
9 40 (2.11%) SSL
10 39 (2.06%) LAN
11 36 (1.90%) SNMP
12 34 (1.79%) SSH
13 31 (1.63%) VSAN
14 29 (1.53%) HTTP
15 26 (1.37%) NAS
16 23 (1.21%) Ethernet
17 21 (1.11%) VLAN
18 19 (1.00%) IPsec
19 18 (0.95%) BGP
20 17 (0.90%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (6.11%) SQL Server
2 112 (5.90%) PostgreSQL
3 74 (3.90%) Oracle Database
4 73 (3.85%) MySQL
5 68 (3.58%) Relational Database
6 61 (3.22%) MongoDB
7 49 (2.58%) Amazon RDS
8 43 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
9 38 (2.00%) Amazon Aurora
10 26 (1.37%) DynamoDB
10 26 (1.37%) NoSQL
11 20 (1.05%) Big Data
11 20 (1.05%) 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
1 210 (11.07%) Jenkins
2 178 (9.38%) GitLab
3 166 (8.75%) Git
4 148 (7.80%) JIRA
5 32 (1.69%) Maven
6 31 (1.63%) SonarQube
7 26 (1.37%) Mockito
8 22 (1.16%) Eclipse
9 19 (1.00%) JUnit
10 18 (0.95%) Bitbucket
10 18 (0.95%) Sonatype Nexus
11 17 (0.90%) Artifactory
12 14 (0.74%) DbUnit
12 14 (0.74%) Rational Rhapsody
12 14 (0.74%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.69%) jMock
14 11 (0.58%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.58%) Jaeger
15 9 (0.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 8 (0.42%) Cucumber
General
1 386 (20.35%) Social Skills
2 272 (14.34%) Finance
3 197 (10.38%) Public Sector
4 165 (8.70%) Analytical Skills
5 129 (6.80%) Banking
6 81 (4.27%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (2.21%) Military
8 25 (1.32%) Front Office
8 25 (1.32%) Telecoms
9 24 (1.27%) Retail
10 23 (1.21%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.16%) Aerospace
11 22 (1.16%) Financial Institution
12 21 (1.11%) Law
13 20 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
14 19 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 18 (0.95%) Legal
16 17 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
17 15 (0.79%) Manufacturing
18 12 (0.63%) Police
Job Titles
1 249 (13.13%) Senior
2 197 (10.38%) Developer
3 187 (9.86%) Linux Engineer
4 174 (9.17%) DevOps Engineer
5 134 (7.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 127 (6.69%) Software Engineer
7 109 (5.75%) Analyst
8 95 (5.01%) Architect
9 94 (4.96%) Lead
10 75 (3.95%) Java Developer
11 69 (3.64%) Administrator
12 67 (3.53%) AWS Engineer
13 65 (3.43%) Consultant
14 57 (3.00%) Platform Engineer
14 57 (3.00%) Support Engineer
15 55 (2.90%) Site Reliability Engineer
16 53 (2.79%) Security Engineer
17 49 (2.58%) Senior Developer
18 47 (2.48%) AWS DevOps
18 47 (2.48%) Site Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (4.59%) Kafka
2 84 (4.43%) REST
3 81 (4.27%) Middleware
4 69 (3.64%) Elastic Stack
5 51 (2.69%) Spring
5 51 (2.69%) Spring Boot
6 50 (2.64%) LDAP
7 46 (2.42%) Web Services
8 44 (2.32%) Node.js
8 44 (2.32%) RESTful
9 42 (2.21%) .NET
10 29 (1.53%) YAML
11 27 (1.42%) SOAP
12 26 (1.37%) ActiveMQ
12 26 (1.37%) AngularJS
13 25 (1.32%) JSON
14 23 (1.21%) React
14 23 (1.21%) XML
15 20 (1.05%) Flash
16 19 (1.00%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 151 (7.96%) Data Centre
2 112 (5.90%) Cloud Native
3 84 (4.43%) Onboarding
4 79 (4.16%) Linux Command Line
5 73 (3.85%) Management Information System
6 71 (3.74%) PKI
7 67 (3.53%) Distributed Systems
8 63 (3.32%) Replication
9 50 (2.64%) Public Cloud
9 50 (2.64%) Security Posture
10 49 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
10 49 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
11 37 (1.95%) Product Ownership
12 33 (1.74%) Security Operations Centre
13 31 (1.63%) Enterprise Storage
14 30 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
15 28 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
15 28 (1.48%) Embedded Systems
16 26 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
17 25 (1.32%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 730 (38.48%) Windows
2 383 (20.19%) Unix
3 293 (15.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 188 (9.91%) Windows Server
5 104 (5.48%) Ubuntu
6 58 (3.06%) AIX
7 50 (2.64%) Solaris
8 42 (2.21%) CentOS
9 33 (1.74%) Embedded Linux
10 28 (1.48%) VMS
11 24 (1.27%) Windows Server 2019
12 21 (1.11%) Android
13 19 (1.00%) Debian
13 19 (1.00%) SUSE
13 19 (1.00%) Windows Server 2016
14 16 (0.84%) Mac OS
15 13 (0.69%) Mac OS X
16 12 (0.63%) Oracle Linux
16 12 (0.63%) Windows 10
16 12 (0.63%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 521 (27.46%) CI/CD
2 451 (23.77%) DevOps
3 356 (18.77%) Agile
4 285 (15.02%) Infrastructure as Code
5 282 (14.87%) Problem-Solving
6 243 (12.81%) Containerisation
7 199 (10.49%) Software Engineering
8 195 (10.28%) Migration
9 192 (10.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 179 (9.44%) Observability
11 165 (8.70%) Continuous Improvement
12 157 (8.28%) High Availability
13 155 (8.17%) Performance Tuning
13 155 (8.17%) SIEM
14 143 (7.54%) Root Cause Analysis
15 135 (7.12%) ITIL
16 132 (6.96%) Incident Response
17 131 (6.91%) Test Automation
18 129 (6.80%) Cybersecurity
19 125 (6.59%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 621 (32.74%) Python
2 322 (16.97%) SQL
3 281 (14.81%) Bash
3 281 (14.81%) PowerShell
4 245 (12.92%) Java
5 148 (7.80%) Shell Script
6 119 (6.27%) C++
7 93 (4.90%) JavaScript
8 62 (3.27%) Perl
9 58 (3.06%) C
9 58 (3.06%) C#
10 52 (2.74%) PL/SQL
11 47 (2.48%) Go
12 23 (1.21%) Rust
13 22 (1.16%) TypeScript
14 21 (1.11%) Ada
15 20 (1.05%) MATLAB
16 19 (1.00%) Search Processing Language
17 18 (0.95%) Ruby
18 15 (0.79%) PHP
Qualifications
1 722 (38.06%) Security Cleared
2 534 (28.15%) SC Cleared
3 208 (10.96%) DV Cleared
4 189 (9.96%) Degree
5 68 (3.58%) BPSS Clearance
5 68 (3.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 64 (3.37%) AWS Certification
7 62 (3.27%) CISSP
8 53 (2.79%) Cisco Certification
9 47 (2.48%) CompTIA Security+
10 40 (2.11%) Azure Certification
11 35 (1.85%) RHCE
12 24 (1.27%) CCNP
13 23 (1.21%) CCNA
14 22 (1.16%) CISM
15 21 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
16 19 (1.00%) CompTIA CySA+
17 16 (0.84%) GIAC
18 15 (0.79%) Oracle Certification
19 14 (0.74%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (4.74%) NIST
2 81 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 55 (2.90%) QA
4 46 (2.42%) SLA
5 27 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials
6 26 (1.37%) GDPR
7 22 (1.16%) NCSC
8 19 (1.00%) PCI DSS
9 14 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
10 12 (0.63%) HIPAA
11 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 10 (0.53%) Data Quality
12 10 (0.53%) GRC
13 9 (0.47%) SOC 2
14 7 (0.37%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.32%) GLBA
15 6 (0.32%) ISO 31000
16 5 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 5 (0.26%) DICOM
16 5 (0.26%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 317 (16.71%) Docker
2 222 (11.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 203 (10.70%) Active Directory
4 76 (4.01%) Virtual Machines
5 67 (3.53%) Hyper-V
6 65 (3.43%) vSphere
7 64 (3.37%) VMware ESXi
8 52 (2.74%) NFS
9 48 (2.53%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.95%) Firmware
11 30 (1.58%) KVM
12 27 (1.42%) 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 (0.47%) BitLocker
17 8 (0.42%) Squid
18 7 (0.37%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 392 (20.66%) Ansible
2 369 (19.45%) Kubernetes
3 350 (18.45%) Terraform
4 170 (8.96%) Grafana
5 144 (7.59%) Prometheus
6 75 (3.95%) Puppet
7 51 (2.69%) Progress Chef
8 41 (2.16%) vCenter Server
9 37 (1.95%) Oracle RMAN
10 30 (1.58%) Podman
11 27 (1.42%) Nagios
11 27 (1.42%) Packer
12 25 (1.32%) Red Hat Satellite
12 25 (1.32%) ZABBIX
13 24 (1.27%) vRealize
14 23 (1.21%) Data Guard
14 23 (1.21%) Kibana
15 22 (1.16%) Argo
15 22 (1.16%) Tivoli
16 20 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 295 (15.55%) VMware
2 275 (14.50%) Oracle
3 254 (13.39%) Microsoft
4 218 (11.49%) Red Hat
5 176 (9.28%) Splunk
6 120 (6.33%) Cisco
7 106 (5.59%) IBM
8 88 (4.64%) ServiceNow
9 57 (3.00%) Google
10 55 (2.90%) CyberArk
11 54 (2.85%) Palo Alto
12 39 (2.06%) F5
12 39 (2.06%) SolarWinds
13 38 (2.00%) SAP
14 34 (1.79%) Citrix
15 33 (1.74%) BeyondTrust
15 33 (1.74%) HP
15 33 (1.74%) NVIDIA
16 32 (1.69%) Dell
17 29 (1.53%) Sybase