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 6 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 31 34
Rank change year-on-year -20 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,886 1,774 2,183
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.96% 6.05% 5.06%
As % of the Operating Systems category 40.27% 43.34% 37.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,182 1,115 1,437
10th Percentile £335 £375 £330
25th Percentile £403 £440 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £638
90th Percentile £700 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £525 £543
% change year-on-year -6.67% -3.23% +0.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 54 105
10th Percentile £29.98 £40.50 £30.88
25th Percentile £43.81 £55.09 £50.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.74 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £65.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year -3.61% +4.80% -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 4,683 4,093 5,764
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.83% 13.96% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,035 2,689 3,886
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -6.84%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £588
90th Percentile £655 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £432 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -3.94% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 184 394
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.09 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +97.18% +9.13% -42.66%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.88 £22.50
% change year-on-year +107.65% +1.67% -24.11%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -22 1,579 £513 -6.82% 863
UK excluding London -15 1,130 £490 -6.67% 728
London -45 539 £550 -6.78% 226
Work from Home -27 480 £500 -4.76% 340
South East -1 320 £500 -9.09% 238
North of England -13 280 £475 -12.64% 130
South West -12 157 £550 -8.33% 121
Midlands -13 155 £525 +5.00% 77
Yorkshire -23 150 £455 -17.27% 45
West Midlands -2 137 £513 -4.52% 41
North West -19 120 £485 -6.78% 64
Scotland -19 96 £450 -3.74% 38
East of England -11 91 £475 -3.06% 105
Wales -4 21 £465 -20.65% 29
Northern Ireland +11 16 £425 +30.77% 7
East Midlands -31 16 £530 +16.61% 36
North East -22 10 £413 -21.43% 22

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 (4.40%) Confluence
2 49 (2.60%) Apache
3 33 (1.75%) nginx
4 27 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
5 23 (1.22%) Apache Spark
6 22 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.90%) Tomcat
8 15 (0.80%) WebLogic
9 14 (0.74%) SAS
10 13 (0.69%) OpenStack
10 13 (0.69%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.58%) CICS
12 9 (0.48%) TPMS
13 6 (0.32%) JBoss
13 6 (0.32%) NetWeaver
13 6 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 6 (0.32%) SharePoint
13 6 (0.32%) WebSphere Application Server
14 4 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.16%) CMS
Applications
1 26 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.37%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.16%) Simulink
6 3 (0.16%) Weka
7 1 (0.053%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.053%) InDesign
7 1 (0.053%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 8 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.11%) Actimize
5 2 (0.11%) BusinessWorks
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 Applications
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.053%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.053%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 532 (28.21%) AWS
2 375 (19.88%) Azure
3 173 (9.17%) GitHub
4 127 (6.73%) OpenShift
5 107 (5.67%) GCP
6 96 (5.09%) GitHub Actions
7 92 (4.88%) Amazon EC2
8 84 (4.45%) Amazon S3
9 80 (4.24%) AWS CloudFormation
10 77 (4.08%) Amazon EKS
11 72 (3.82%) Serverless
12 68 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
13 61 (3.23%) AWS Lambda
14 56 (2.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 54 (2.86%) Amazon ECS
16 47 (2.49%) IaaS
17 44 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
18 42 (2.23%) Entra ID
19 39 (2.07%) PaaS
20 38 (2.01%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 181 (9.60%) Firewall
2 126 (6.68%) DNS
3 100 (5.30%) TCP/IP
4 73 (3.87%) VPN
5 66 (3.50%) Network Security
6 55 (2.92%) SAN
7 46 (2.44%) WAN
8 39 (2.07%) DHCP
9 38 (2.01%) HTTP
10 37 (1.96%) LAN
11 36 (1.91%) SSH
11 36 (1.91%) VSAN
12 31 (1.64%) SNMP
13 30 (1.59%) SSL
14 24 (1.27%) Ethernet
15 21 (1.11%) Wireless
16 20 (1.06%) NAS
17 18 (0.95%) BGP
18 17 (0.90%) Kerberos
19 15 (0.80%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (6.47%) PostgreSQL
2 111 (5.89%) SQL Server
3 73 (3.87%) MySQL
4 65 (3.45%) Relational Database
5 63 (3.34%) Amazon RDS
5 63 (3.34%) Oracle Database
6 62 (3.29%) MongoDB
7 43 (2.28%) Elasticsearch
8 33 (1.75%) Amazon Aurora
9 30 (1.59%) NoSQL
10 22 (1.17%) Big Data
10 22 (1.17%) DynamoDB
11 19 (1.01%) KDB
12 18 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
13 16 (0.85%) DB2
13 16 (0.85%) Kdb+
13 16 (0.85%) SAP HANA
14 13 (0.69%) Data Lake
14 13 (0.69%) Hadoop
15 11 (0.58%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 208 (11.03%) Jenkins
2 174 (9.23%) Git
3 170 (9.01%) GitLab
4 142 (7.53%) JIRA
5 32 (1.70%) Maven
6 26 (1.38%) JUnit
6 26 (1.38%) Sonatype Nexus
7 25 (1.33%) Bitbucket
7 25 (1.33%) Eclipse
7 25 (1.33%) SonarQube
8 24 (1.27%) Mockito
9 16 (0.85%) Artifactory
9 16 (0.85%) Visual Studio
10 14 (0.74%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.69%) Jaeger
11 13 (0.69%) Rational Rhapsody
12 11 (0.58%) DbUnit
12 11 (0.58%) jMock
13 9 (0.48%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 9 (0.48%) Selenium
General
1 404 (21.42%) Social Skills
2 271 (14.37%) Finance
3 185 (9.81%) Public Sector
4 151 (8.01%) Analytical Skills
5 103 (5.46%) Banking
6 72 (3.82%) Documentation Skills
7 48 (2.55%) Military
8 26 (1.38%) Financial Institution
9 25 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
10 22 (1.17%) Front Office
11 21 (1.11%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.11%) Telecoms
12 20 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (1.06%) Retail
13 19 (1.01%) Investment Banking
14 18 (0.95%) Law
15 15 (0.80%) Manufacturing
16 14 (0.74%) Legal
16 14 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
17 13 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 231 (12.25%) Senior
2 213 (11.29%) Developer
3 175 (9.28%) DevOps Engineer
4 140 (7.42%) Linux Engineer
5 132 (7.00%) Software Engineer
6 117 (6.20%) Architect
7 108 (5.73%) Analyst
8 101 (5.36%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 96 (5.09%) Lead
10 82 (4.35%) Java Developer
11 76 (4.03%) Administrator
12 73 (3.87%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 66 (3.50%) Site Engineer
14 65 (3.45%) AWS Engineer
15 60 (3.18%) Platform Engineer
16 52 (2.76%) Security Engineer
17 51 (2.70%) Consultant
18 50 (2.65%) AWS DevOps
19 44 (2.33%) Embedded Engineer
20 43 (2.28%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (5.83%) Kafka
2 87 (4.61%) REST
3 78 (4.14%) Elastic Stack
4 70 (3.71%) Middleware
5 57 (3.02%) Node.js
6 51 (2.70%) LDAP
7 49 (2.60%) Spring
8 46 (2.44%) Spring Boot
9 41 (2.17%) Web Services
10 35 (1.86%) .NET
10 35 (1.86%) RESTful
11 31 (1.64%) XML
11 31 (1.64%) YAML
12 27 (1.43%) JSON
13 26 (1.38%) AngularJS
14 23 (1.22%) ActiveMQ
14 23 (1.22%) React
14 23 (1.22%) SOAP
15 22 (1.17%) CSS
16 20 (1.06%) Flash
Miscellaneous
1 132 (7.00%) Data Centre
2 99 (5.25%) Cloud Native
3 75 (3.98%) Linux Command Line
4 73 (3.87%) Onboarding
5 67 (3.55%) Management Information System
6 64 (3.39%) Distributed Systems
7 55 (2.92%) PKI
8 53 (2.81%) Replication
9 49 (2.60%) Hybrid Cloud
10 45 (2.39%) Public Cloud
11 41 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
12 36 (1.91%) Product Ownership
13 34 (1.80%) Security Posture
14 30 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
14 30 (1.59%) Enterprise Storage
15 29 (1.54%) Security Operations Centre
16 27 (1.43%) Embedded Systems
17 24 (1.27%) Operational Technology
18 23 (1.22%) SCADA
19 22 (1.17%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 720 (38.18%) Windows
2 365 (19.35%) Unix
3 269 (14.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 168 (8.91%) Windows Server
5 85 (4.51%) Ubuntu
6 51 (2.70%) AIX
7 41 (2.17%) CentOS
8 36 (1.91%) Solaris
9 34 (1.80%) VMS
10 33 (1.75%) Embedded Linux
11 30 (1.59%) Android
12 23 (1.22%) Windows Server 2016
13 21 (1.11%) Mac OS
14 20 (1.06%) Debian
14 20 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
15 13 (0.69%) Mac OS X
15 13 (0.69%) SUSE
16 10 (0.53%) Oracle Linux
17 9 (0.48%) Apple iOS
17 9 (0.48%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 547 (29.00%) CI/CD
2 446 (23.65%) DevOps
3 378 (20.04%) Agile
4 313 (16.60%) Problem-Solving
5 287 (15.22%) Infrastructure as Code
6 264 (14.00%) Containerisation
7 215 (11.40%) Software Engineering
8 182 (9.65%) Observability
9 166 (8.80%) Migration
10 155 (8.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 150 (7.95%) SIEM
12 144 (7.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 143 (7.58%) High Availability
14 140 (7.42%) Computer Science
15 139 (7.37%) Microservices
16 136 (7.21%) Performance Tuning
17 134 (7.10%) Cybersecurity
17 134 (7.10%) Incident Response
18 131 (6.95%) Platform Engineering
19 128 (6.79%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 643 (34.09%) Python
2 315 (16.70%) SQL
3 279 (14.79%) Java
4 264 (14.00%) PowerShell
5 263 (13.94%) Bash
6 157 (8.32%) Shell Script
7 125 (6.63%) C++
8 107 (5.67%) JavaScript
9 71 (3.76%) Perl
10 62 (3.29%) C#
11 56 (2.97%) C
12 47 (2.49%) Go
13 42 (2.23%) PL/SQL
14 32 (1.70%) Ruby
15 28 (1.48%) TypeScript
16 27 (1.43%) PHP
17 21 (1.11%) Ada
17 21 (1.11%) Rust
18 19 (1.01%) MATLAB
18 19 (1.01%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 735 (38.97%) Security Cleared
2 536 (28.42%) SC Cleared
3 210 (11.13%) DV Cleared
4 182 (9.65%) Degree
5 85 (4.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 83 (4.40%) Computer Science Degree
7 51 (2.70%) AWS Certification
8 49 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
9 45 (2.39%) CISSP
10 42 (2.23%) CompTIA Security+
11 36 (1.91%) RHCE
12 29 (1.54%) Azure Certification
13 25 (1.33%) CCNA
14 21 (1.11%) Oracle Certification
15 20 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
16 19 (1.01%) CCNP
17 18 (0.95%) OCP
18 17 (0.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 17 (0.90%) CompTIA CySA+
19 15 (0.80%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (4.40%) NIST
2 73 (3.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (2.81%) QA
4 41 (2.17%) SLA
5 33 (1.75%) GDPR
6 31 (1.64%) Cyber Essentials
7 24 (1.27%) NCSC
8 19 (1.01%) PCI DSS
9 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (0.53%) Data Quality
10 10 (0.53%) Disclosure Scotland
10 10 (0.53%) HIPAA
10 10 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 9 (0.48%) GLBA
11 9 (0.48%) GRC
12 8 (0.42%) Accessibility
13 6 (0.32%) ISO 31000
14 5 (0.27%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 5 (0.27%) DICOM
15 4 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 327 (17.34%) Docker
2 222 (11.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 178 (9.44%) Active Directory
4 79 (4.19%) Virtual Machines
5 70 (3.71%) Hyper-V
6 68 (3.61%) vSphere
7 61 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
8 41 (2.17%) NFS
9 39 (2.07%) Firmware
10 38 (2.01%) VMware NSX
11 26 (1.38%) KVM
12 25 (1.33%) GPFS
13 19 (1.01%) Postfix
14 18 (0.95%) Oracle RAC
15 15 (0.80%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 11 (0.58%) Ceph
17 9 (0.48%) Lustre
17 9 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
18 8 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
19 7 (0.37%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 407 (21.58%) Kubernetes
2 381 (20.20%) Ansible
3 372 (19.72%) Terraform
4 183 (9.70%) Grafana
5 142 (7.53%) Prometheus
6 76 (4.03%) Puppet
7 49 (2.60%) Progress Chef
8 42 (2.23%) vCenter Server
9 30 (1.59%) vRealize
10 29 (1.54%) Kibana
10 29 (1.54%) Oracle RMAN
11 28 (1.48%) Podman
12 26 (1.38%) Packer
13 24 (1.27%) Red Hat Satellite
14 23 (1.22%) ZABBIX
15 22 (1.17%) Argo
15 22 (1.17%) Nagios
16 20 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
16 20 (1.06%) Tivoli
17 18 (0.95%) Netcool
Vendors
1 299 (15.85%) VMware
2 270 (14.32%) Microsoft
3 254 (13.47%) Oracle
4 207 (10.98%) Red Hat
5 186 (9.86%) Splunk
6 105 (5.57%) Cisco
7 96 (5.09%) IBM
8 72 (3.82%) ServiceNow
9 46 (2.44%) CyberArk
10 44 (2.33%) Dell
10 44 (2.33%) Palo Alto
11 37 (1.96%) HP
12 36 (1.91%) Google
13 32 (1.70%) SolarWinds
14 29 (1.54%) NVIDIA
15 27 (1.43%) BeyondTrust
16 26 (1.38%) Atlassian
16 26 (1.38%) NetApp
17 24 (1.27%) SAP
18 23 (1.22%) F5