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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 31 33
Rank change year-on-year -22 +2 -7
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,913 1,742 2,262
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.77% 5.81% 5.18%
As % of the Operating Systems category 39.52% 41.70% 38.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,188 1,124 1,462
10th Percentile £343 £371 £340
25th Percentile £413 £425 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £529 £540
Median % change year-on-year -5.53% -1.99% -6.09%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £540
% change year-on-year -2.00% -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 39 141
10th Percentile £36.23 £48.70 £48.00
25th Percentile £43.81 £55.00 £57.50
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 £71.80 - -
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 4,840 4,177 5,870
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.53% 13.94% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,094 2,721 3,863
10th Percentile £190 £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 £455
% change year-on-year - -1.10% -1.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 331 209 434
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.47 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.00 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -9.02% -47.43%
75th Percentile £64.38 £41.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.23 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.08 £18.87 £27.50
% change year-on-year +43.51% -31.38% -30.56%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -25 1,607 £511 -7.18% 593
UK excluding London -18 1,130 £490 -2.00% 493
London -51 562 £538 -6.93% 159
Work from Home -29 499 £500 -3.15% 232
North of England -15 299 £484 -6.88% 98
South East -4 298 £513 -4.21% 160
South West -7 169 £538 -10.42% 87
Yorkshire -20 153 £500 -6.98% 24
Midlands -12 148 £474 -5.25% 46
North West -23 132 £469 +16.67% 59
West Midlands -19 128 £469 -6.20% 21
East of England -12 96 £475 - 85
Scotland -34 88 £450 -4.96% 13
Wales +3 27 £465 +64.60% 9
East Midlands -18 17 £530 +17.78% 25
North East -28 15 £446 -6.54% 15
Northern Ireland -1 11 £425 +30.77% 12

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 (4.44%) Confluence
2 47 (2.46%) Apache
3 30 (1.57%) nginx
4 27 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
5 23 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (1.10%) Tomcat
7 18 (0.94%) Apache Spark
8 16 (0.84%) WebLogic
9 12 (0.63%) SAS
10 11 (0.58%) CICS
11 10 (0.52%) OpenStack
11 10 (0.52%) WebSphere
12 9 (0.47%) NetWeaver
13 7 (0.37%) IIS
14 6 (0.31%) JBoss
14 6 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 6 (0.31%) SharePoint
14 6 (0.31%) WebSphere Application Server
15 5 (0.26%) CMS
16 4 (0.21%) TPMS
Applications
1 19 (0.99%) 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 (0.10%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.052%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.052%) InDesign
6 1 (0.052%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.052%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.052%) Weka
Business Applications
1 11 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.16%) Actimize
3 3 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.10%) FLEXCUBE
4 2 (0.10%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.10%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.10%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.052%) Cloudability
5 1 (0.052%) Odoo
5 1 (0.052%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.052%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.052%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.052%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.052%) Shopify
5 1 (0.052%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 550 (28.75%) AWS
2 396 (20.70%) Azure
3 152 (7.95%) GitHub
4 126 (6.59%) GCP
5 106 (5.54%) OpenShift
6 88 (4.60%) GitHub Actions
7 83 (4.34%) Amazon S3
8 81 (4.23%) Amazon EC2
9 66 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
10 65 (3.40%) Entra ID
11 63 (3.29%) Amazon EKS
12 60 (3.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 55 (2.88%) Serverless
14 49 (2.56%) AWS CloudFormation
15 46 (2.40%) IaaS
16 45 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
17 44 (2.30%) Microsoft 365
17 44 (2.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 42 (2.20%) PaaS
19 39 (2.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 180 (9.41%) Firewall
2 134 (7.00%) DNS
3 80 (4.18%) TCP/IP
4 73 (3.82%) VPN
5 68 (3.55%) Network Security
5 68 (3.55%) SAN
6 51 (2.67%) DHCP
7 47 (2.46%) WAN
8 37 (1.93%) LAN
8 37 (1.93%) SSL
9 35 (1.83%) SNMP
10 31 (1.62%) VSAN
11 30 (1.57%) HTTP
11 30 (1.57%) SSH
12 26 (1.36%) NAS
13 24 (1.25%) Ethernet
14 22 (1.15%) VLAN
15 19 (0.99%) IPsec
16 17 (0.89%) BGP
16 17 (0.89%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (5.80%) SQL Server
2 108 (5.65%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.97%) Oracle Database
4 74 (3.87%) MySQL
5 65 (3.40%) Relational Database
6 62 (3.24%) MongoDB
7 50 (2.61%) Amazon RDS
8 42 (2.20%) Elasticsearch
9 38 (1.99%) Amazon Aurora
10 28 (1.46%) NoSQL
11 27 (1.41%) DynamoDB
12 21 (1.10%) Big Data
13 20 (1.05%) SAP HANA
14 18 (0.94%) KDB
14 18 (0.94%) RDBMS
15 17 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
16 16 (0.84%) Sybase ASE
17 15 (0.78%) Db2
17 15 (0.78%) Kdb+
18 14 (0.73%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 212 (11.08%) Jenkins
2 190 (9.93%) GitLab
3 159 (8.31%) Git
4 150 (7.84%) JIRA
5 32 (1.67%) Maven
6 31 (1.62%) SonarQube
7 27 (1.41%) Mockito
8 21 (1.10%) Eclipse
9 19 (0.99%) Bitbucket
10 17 (0.89%) Artifactory
10 17 (0.89%) JUnit
10 17 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
11 15 (0.78%) Visual Studio
12 14 (0.73%) DbUnit
12 14 (0.73%) Rational Rhapsody
13 13 (0.68%) jMock
14 11 (0.58%) Bitbucket Server
15 10 (0.52%) Jaeger
16 9 (0.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 9 (0.47%) Cucumber
General
1 385 (20.13%) Social Skills
2 273 (14.27%) Finance
3 194 (10.14%) Public Sector
4 164 (8.57%) Analytical Skills
5 129 (6.74%) Banking
6 80 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
7 43 (2.25%) Military
8 26 (1.36%) Retail
9 25 (1.31%) Front Office
10 24 (1.25%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.15%) Aerospace
11 22 (1.15%) Legal
11 22 (1.15%) Telecoms
12 21 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
13 20 (1.05%) Financial Institution
13 20 (1.05%) Law
14 19 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 18 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
16 15 (0.78%) Manufacturing
17 12 (0.63%) Police
Job Titles
1 241 (12.60%) Senior
2 190 (9.93%) Linux Engineer
3 188 (9.83%) Developer
4 184 (9.62%) DevOps Engineer
5 134 (7.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 126 (6.59%) Software Engineer
7 99 (5.18%) Analyst
7 99 (5.18%) Architect
8 88 (4.60%) Lead
9 70 (3.66%) Java Developer
10 68 (3.55%) AWS Engineer
11 67 (3.50%) Consultant
12 66 (3.45%) Administrator
13 61 (3.19%) Platform Engineer
14 57 (2.98%) Support Engineer
15 56 (2.93%) Site Reliability Engineer
16 50 (2.61%) Security Engineer
17 49 (2.56%) AWS DevOps
18 48 (2.51%) Site Engineer
19 46 (2.40%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (4.60%) Kafka
2 85 (4.44%) REST
3 82 (4.29%) Middleware
4 69 (3.61%) Elastic Stack
5 53 (2.77%) LDAP
6 50 (2.61%) Spring
7 49 (2.56%) Spring Boot
8 44 (2.30%) RESTful
8 44 (2.30%) Web Services
9 43 (2.25%) Node.js
10 39 (2.04%) .NET
11 31 (1.62%) YAML
12 27 (1.41%) ActiveMQ
13 26 (1.36%) React
14 25 (1.31%) AngularJS
15 24 (1.25%) SOAP
16 23 (1.20%) JSON
17 20 (1.05%) Flash
17 20 (1.05%) Keycloak
18 19 (0.99%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 150 (7.84%) Data Centre
2 116 (6.06%) Cloud Native
3 88 (4.60%) Onboarding
4 86 (4.50%) Linux Command Line
5 71 (3.71%) Management Information System
6 70 (3.66%) PKI
7 69 (3.61%) Distributed Systems
8 65 (3.40%) Replication
9 52 (2.72%) Security Posture
10 51 (2.67%) Public Cloud
11 49 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
12 48 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.93%) Product Ownership
14 29 (1.52%) Embedded Systems
15 28 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
15 28 (1.46%) Enterprise Storage
16 27 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
17 25 (1.31%) Clustering
18 24 (1.25%) Legacy Applications
18 24 (1.25%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 730 (38.16%) Windows
2 390 (20.39%) Unix
3 306 (16.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 186 (9.72%) Windows Server
5 106 (5.54%) Ubuntu
6 60 (3.14%) AIX
7 50 (2.61%) Solaris
8 43 (2.25%) CentOS
9 32 (1.67%) Embedded Linux
10 26 (1.36%) VMS
11 24 (1.25%) Windows Server 2019
12 21 (1.10%) SUSE
13 20 (1.05%) Android
14 18 (0.94%) Windows Server 2016
15 16 (0.84%) Debian
15 16 (0.84%) Mac OS
16 13 (0.68%) Mac OS X
17 12 (0.63%) Oracle Linux
17 12 (0.63%) Windows 10
17 12 (0.63%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 533 (27.86%) CI/CD
2 463 (24.20%) DevOps
3 359 (18.77%) Agile
4 294 (15.37%) Infrastructure as Code
5 283 (14.79%) Problem-Solving
6 247 (12.91%) Containerisation
7 204 (10.66%) Software Engineering
8 197 (10.30%) Migration
9 191 (9.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 173 (9.04%) Observability
11 171 (8.94%) Continuous Improvement
12 162 (8.47%) High Availability
13 160 (8.36%) Performance Tuning
14 145 (7.58%) ITIL
15 143 (7.48%) Root Cause Analysis
16 142 (7.42%) SIEM
17 128 (6.69%) Platform Engineering
17 128 (6.69%) Test Automation
18 127 (6.64%) Configuration Management
19 126 (6.59%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 630 (32.93%) Python
2 317 (16.57%) SQL
3 290 (15.16%) Bash
4 281 (14.69%) PowerShell
5 235 (12.28%) Java
6 148 (7.74%) Shell Script
7 119 (6.22%) C++
8 90 (4.70%) JavaScript
9 61 (3.19%) Perl
10 59 (3.08%) C
10 59 (3.08%) C#
11 49 (2.56%) PL/SQL
12 47 (2.46%) Go
13 22 (1.15%) Ada
13 22 (1.15%) Rust
14 20 (1.05%) MATLAB
14 20 (1.05%) TypeScript
15 19 (0.99%) Search Processing Language
16 17 (0.89%) Ruby
17 16 (0.84%) PHP
Qualifications
1 734 (38.37%) Security Cleared
2 543 (28.38%) SC Cleared
3 203 (10.61%) DV Cleared
4 180 (9.41%) Degree
5 67 (3.50%) BPSS Clearance
6 64 (3.35%) AWS Certification
7 59 (3.08%) CISSP
8 57 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
9 53 (2.77%) Cisco Certification
10 40 (2.09%) Azure Certification
11 36 (1.88%) CompTIA Security+
11 36 (1.88%) RHCE
12 24 (1.25%) CCNA
13 23 (1.20%) CCNP
14 20 (1.05%) CISM
14 20 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.84%) GIAC
16 15 (0.78%) Oracle Certification
17 14 (0.73%) OCP
18 13 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (4.65%) NIST
2 84 (4.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (2.77%) QA
4 44 (2.30%) SLA
5 24 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 23 (1.20%) GDPR
6 23 (1.20%) NCSC
7 17 (0.89%) PCI DSS
8 15 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
9 12 (0.63%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.58%) GRC
10 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (0.52%) Data Quality
11 10 (0.52%) SOC 2
12 7 (0.37%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.31%) ISO 31000
14 5 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 5 (0.26%) DICOM
14 5 (0.26%) ISO 20022
15 4 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 321 (16.78%) Docker
2 225 (11.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 213 (11.13%) Active Directory
4 84 (4.39%) Virtual Machines
5 67 (3.50%) vSphere
6 65 (3.40%) VMware ESXi
7 64 (3.35%) Hyper-V
8 52 (2.72%) NFS
9 48 (2.51%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.88%) Firmware
11 33 (1.73%) KVM
12 28 (1.46%) Oracle RAC
13 21 (1.10%) GPFS
13 21 (1.10%) Postfix
14 11 (0.58%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 10 (0.52%) Ceph
15 10 (0.52%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.42%) BitLocker
17 7 (0.37%) Squid
17 7 (0.37%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 400 (20.91%) Ansible
2 373 (19.50%) Kubernetes
3 366 (19.13%) Terraform
4 166 (8.68%) Grafana
5 142 (7.42%) Prometheus
6 74 (3.87%) Puppet
7 51 (2.67%) Progress Chef
8 41 (2.14%) vCenter Server
9 39 (2.04%) Oracle RMAN
10 32 (1.67%) Red Hat Satellite
11 28 (1.46%) Packer
12 27 (1.41%) Nagios
13 26 (1.36%) Podman
14 25 (1.31%) Data Guard
14 25 (1.31%) ZABBIX
15 24 (1.25%) vRealize
16 22 (1.15%) Kibana
16 22 (1.15%) Tivoli
17 21 (1.10%) Argo
18 19 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 303 (15.84%) VMware
2 272 (14.22%) Oracle
3 256 (13.38%) Microsoft
4 228 (11.92%) Red Hat
5 157 (8.21%) Splunk
6 122 (6.38%) Cisco
7 106 (5.54%) IBM
8 90 (4.70%) ServiceNow
9 60 (3.14%) CyberArk
9 60 (3.14%) Google
10 51 (2.67%) Palo Alto
11 41 (2.14%) SolarWinds
12 40 (2.09%) SAP
13 38 (1.99%) BeyondTrust
13 38 (1.99%) F5
14 33 (1.73%) HP
15 32 (1.67%) Citrix
15 32 (1.67%) Dell
16 30 (1.57%) NVIDIA
16 30 (1.57%) Sybase