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 29 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 31 34
Rank change year-on-year -20 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,896 1,757 2,192
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.03% 6.02% 5.06%
As % of the Operating Systems category 40.38% 43.17% 37.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,196 1,111 1,442
10th Percentile £335 £373 £333
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 £643
90th Percentile £700 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £531 £540
% change year-on-year -8.66% -1.67% +0.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 121 54 104
10th Percentile £27.88 £40.50 £27.56
25th Percentile £43.81 £55.09 £48.00
Median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.87% +7.44% -6.92%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.53 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £65.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year -3.61% +8.26% -6.92%

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 4,695 4,070 5,775
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.97% 13.95% 13.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,059 2,682 3,885
10th Percentile £185 £200 £184
25th Percentile £313 £319 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -6.93%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £591
90th Percentile £660 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 327 178 394
10th Percentile £15.98 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.93 £18.13 £15.31
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.45% +9.91% -43.59%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £59.88
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +96.10% +9.52% -30.00%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 -23 1,590 £518 -5.91% 654
UK excluding London -15 1,117 £485 -8.66% 548
London -47 555 £550 -6.78% 174
Work from Home -25 487 £500 -4.76% 245
South East -7 308 £500 -9.09% 188
North of England -15 287 £475 -13.64% 78
Midlands -8 157 £480 -4.00% 62
Yorkshire -21 157 £460 -16.36% 28
South West -15 155 £540 -10.00% 87
West Midlands 0 137 £475 -11.55% 28
North West -11 120 £485 -4.88% 33
Scotland -20 93 £450 -3.74% 32
East of England -13 91 £475 -3.06% 90
East Midlands -38 18 £525 +15.51% 34
Wales -5 17 £465 -20.65% 15
Northern Ireland +12 15 £425 +30.77% 13
North East -18 10 £413 -21.43% 17

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 99 (5.22%) Confluence
2 48 (2.53%) Apache
2 48 (2.53%) nginx
3 29 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.37%) Apache Spark
5 23 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.90%) Tomcat
7 16 (0.84%) WebLogic
8 15 (0.79%) SAS
9 13 (0.69%) OpenStack
9 13 (0.69%) WebSphere
10 11 (0.58%) CICS
11 10 (0.53%) TPMS
12 6 (0.32%) JBoss
12 6 (0.32%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 6 (0.32%) SharePoint
12 6 (0.32%) WebSphere Application Server
13 4 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.21%) CMS
Applications
1 32 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.37%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.21%) Weka
6 3 (0.16%) Simulink
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 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
3 3 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.11%) BusinessWorks
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 Applications
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.053%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.053%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 554 (29.22%) AWS
2 366 (19.30%) Azure
3 176 (9.28%) GitHub
4 125 (6.59%) OpenShift
5 105 (5.54%) GCP
6 98 (5.17%) Amazon EC2
7 92 (4.85%) AWS CloudFormation
8 91 (4.80%) GitHub Actions
9 90 (4.75%) Amazon S3
10 80 (4.22%) Serverless
11 74 (3.90%) Amazon EKS
12 68 (3.59%) AWS Lambda
13 66 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
14 58 (3.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 58 (3.06%) Amazon ECS
15 41 (2.16%) IaaS
15 41 (2.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 38 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
17 35 (1.85%) SaaS
18 33 (1.74%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 194 (10.23%) Firewall
2 131 (6.91%) DNS
3 101 (5.33%) TCP/IP
4 73 (3.85%) VPN
5 66 (3.48%) Network Security
6 56 (2.95%) SAN
7 46 (2.43%) WAN
8 39 (2.06%) DHCP
8 39 (2.06%) SSH
9 38 (2.00%) HTTP
9 38 (2.00%) LAN
10 37 (1.95%) VSAN
11 32 (1.69%) SSL
12 27 (1.42%) SNMP
13 24 (1.27%) Ethernet
14 22 (1.16%) NAS
15 21 (1.11%) Wireless
16 17 (0.90%) BGP
16 17 (0.90%) Kerberos
17 15 (0.79%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (7.12%) PostgreSQL
2 106 (5.59%) SQL Server
3 69 (3.64%) Amazon RDS
4 68 (3.59%) MySQL
5 66 (3.48%) MongoDB
6 65 (3.43%) Relational Database
7 64 (3.38%) Oracle Database
8 43 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
9 38 (2.00%) NoSQL
10 33 (1.74%) Amazon Aurora
11 25 (1.32%) Big Data
12 24 (1.27%) DynamoDB
13 20 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
13 20 (1.05%) KDB
14 19 (1.00%) Kdb+
15 16 (0.84%) DB2
15 16 (0.84%) Hadoop
16 15 (0.79%) SAP HANA
17 14 (0.74%) Data Lake
18 12 (0.63%) Tick Data
Development Applications
1 216 (11.39%) Jenkins
2 190 (10.02%) Git
3 171 (9.02%) GitLab
4 160 (8.44%) JIRA
5 34 (1.79%) Bitbucket
6 32 (1.69%) Maven
7 28 (1.48%) Sonatype Nexus
8 27 (1.42%) JUnit
9 25 (1.32%) Mockito
9 25 (1.32%) SonarQube
10 24 (1.27%) Eclipse
11 16 (0.84%) Visual Studio
12 15 (0.79%) Artifactory
12 15 (0.79%) Cucumber
13 13 (0.69%) Jaeger
13 13 (0.69%) Rational Rhapsody
14 11 (0.58%) DbUnit
14 11 (0.58%) jMock
15 10 (0.53%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 9 (0.47%) Selenium
General
1 415 (21.89%) Social Skills
2 277 (14.61%) Finance
3 195 (10.28%) Public Sector
4 153 (8.07%) Analytical Skills
5 108 (5.70%) Banking
6 72 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (2.48%) Military
8 26 (1.37%) Financial Institution
8 26 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
9 21 (1.11%) Aerospace
9 21 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (1.11%) Telecoms
10 19 (1.00%) Investment Banking
11 18 (0.95%) Front Office
11 18 (0.95%) Retail
12 16 (0.84%) Law
13 14 (0.74%) Manufacturing
13 14 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
14 13 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 12 (0.63%) Legal
Job Titles
1 226 (11.92%) Senior
2 219 (11.55%) Developer
3 173 (9.12%) DevOps Engineer
4 137 (7.23%) Linux Engineer
5 134 (7.07%) Software Engineer
6 120 (6.33%) Architect
7 110 (5.80%) Analyst
8 100 (5.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 96 (5.06%) Lead
10 86 (4.54%) Java Developer
11 80 (4.22%) Administrator
12 71 (3.74%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 67 (3.53%) AWS Engineer
13 67 (3.53%) Site Engineer
14 60 (3.16%) Platform Engineer
15 53 (2.80%) Security Engineer
16 51 (2.69%) AWS DevOps
17 49 (2.58%) Consultant
18 44 (2.32%) Embedded Engineer
19 42 (2.22%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (5.80%) Kafka
2 83 (4.38%) REST
3 77 (4.06%) Elastic Stack
4 70 (3.69%) Middleware
5 59 (3.11%) Node.js
6 50 (2.64%) Spring
7 48 (2.53%) LDAP
8 46 (2.43%) Spring Boot
9 40 (2.11%) Web Services
10 36 (1.90%) RESTful
11 35 (1.85%) .NET
12 31 (1.64%) XML
13 30 (1.58%) YAML
14 27 (1.42%) JSON
15 25 (1.32%) AngularJS
16 24 (1.27%) ActiveMQ
16 24 (1.27%) SOAP
17 22 (1.16%) React
18 21 (1.11%) CSS
18 21 (1.11%) Flash
Miscellaneous
1 127 (6.70%) Data Centre
2 105 (5.54%) Cloud Native
3 75 (3.96%) Linux Command Line
4 66 (3.48%) Management Information System
5 64 (3.38%) Onboarding
6 62 (3.27%) Distributed Systems
7 56 (2.95%) PKI
7 56 (2.95%) Replication
8 50 (2.64%) Hybrid Cloud
9 47 (2.48%) Public Cloud
10 41 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
11 35 (1.85%) Product Ownership
12 33 (1.74%) Security Posture
13 30 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
14 29 (1.53%) Enterprise Storage
14 29 (1.53%) Security Operations Centre
15 27 (1.42%) Embedded Systems
16 23 (1.21%) Clustering
17 22 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
17 22 (1.16%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 709 (37.39%) Windows
2 363 (19.15%) Unix
3 274 (14.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 172 (9.07%) Windows Server
5 86 (4.54%) Ubuntu
6 49 (2.58%) AIX
7 41 (2.16%) CentOS
8 39 (2.06%) Solaris
9 35 (1.85%) VMS
10 33 (1.74%) Embedded Linux
11 31 (1.64%) Android
12 25 (1.32%) Windows Server 2016
13 21 (1.11%) Mac OS
14 20 (1.05%) Debian
14 20 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
15 13 (0.69%) Mac OS X
15 13 (0.69%) SUSE
16 12 (0.63%) Oracle Linux
17 10 (0.53%) Windows 10
18 9 (0.47%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 536 (28.27%) CI/CD
2 447 (23.58%) DevOps
3 393 (20.73%) Agile
4 309 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
5 287 (15.14%) Infrastructure as Code
6 259 (13.66%) Containerisation
7 211 (11.13%) Software Engineering
8 178 (9.39%) Observability
9 168 (8.86%) Migration
10 154 (8.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 141 (7.44%) Microservices
12 140 (7.38%) Computer Science
12 140 (7.38%) Continuous Improvement
12 140 (7.38%) SIEM
13 136 (7.17%) Performance Tuning
14 134 (7.07%) High Availability
15 133 (7.01%) Incident Response
16 132 (6.96%) Test Automation
17 129 (6.80%) Cybersecurity
17 129 (6.80%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 639 (33.70%) Python
2 316 (16.67%) SQL
3 284 (14.98%) Java
4 263 (13.87%) Bash
5 254 (13.40%) PowerShell
6 164 (8.65%) Shell Script
7 126 (6.65%) C++
8 102 (5.38%) JavaScript
9 73 (3.85%) Perl
10 62 (3.27%) C#
11 56 (2.95%) C
12 43 (2.27%) Go
13 41 (2.16%) PL/SQL
14 37 (1.95%) Ruby
15 26 (1.37%) TypeScript
16 24 (1.27%) PHP
17 21 (1.11%) Ada
17 21 (1.11%) Rust
18 19 (1.00%) MATLAB
19 18 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 752 (39.66%) Security Cleared
2 557 (29.38%) SC Cleared
3 205 (10.81%) DV Cleared
4 173 (9.12%) Degree
5 91 (4.80%) BPSS Clearance
6 79 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
7 51 (2.69%) AWS Certification
8 43 (2.27%) CompTIA Security+
9 42 (2.22%) Cisco Certification
10 39 (2.06%) CISSP
11 34 (1.79%) RHCE
12 28 (1.48%) Azure Certification
13 25 (1.32%) CCNA
14 21 (1.11%) Oracle Certification
15 19 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
16 18 (0.95%) CCNP
16 18 (0.95%) OCP
17 17 (0.90%) CompTIA CySA+
18 15 (0.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 14 (0.74%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (4.06%) NIST
2 66 (3.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 50 (2.64%) QA
4 39 (2.06%) SLA
5 35 (1.85%) GDPR
6 24 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
7 22 (1.16%) NCSC
8 20 (1.05%) PCI DSS
9 13 (0.69%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (0.53%) Disclosure Scotland
11 10 (0.53%) GLBA
11 10 (0.53%) HIPAA
11 10 (0.53%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.47%) GRC
13 8 (0.42%) Accessibility
14 5 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 5 (0.26%) DICOM
15 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 345 (18.20%) Docker
2 227 (11.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 171 (9.02%) Active Directory
4 80 (4.22%) Virtual Machines
5 73 (3.85%) vSphere
6 70 (3.69%) Hyper-V
7 63 (3.32%) VMware ESXi
8 40 (2.11%) NFS
9 39 (2.06%) VMware NSX
10 38 (2.00%) Firmware
11 27 (1.42%) GPFS
12 26 (1.37%) KVM
13 19 (1.00%) Oracle RAC
13 19 (1.00%) Postfix
14 17 (0.90%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 11 (0.58%) Ceph
16 10 (0.53%) Lustre
17 8 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
18 7 (0.37%) BitLocker
18 7 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 421 (22.20%) Kubernetes
2 386 (20.36%) Terraform
3 376 (19.83%) Ansible
4 181 (9.55%) Grafana
5 141 (7.44%) Prometheus
6 71 (3.74%) Puppet
7 51 (2.69%) Progress Chef
8 43 (2.27%) vCenter Server
9 35 (1.85%) Packer
10 32 (1.69%) vRealize
11 30 (1.58%) Kibana
12 29 (1.53%) Podman
13 28 (1.48%) Oracle RMAN
14 27 (1.42%) Red Hat Satellite
15 23 (1.21%) Argo
16 19 (1.00%) Data Guard
16 19 (1.00%) SCCM
16 19 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
17 18 (0.95%) Nagios
17 18 (0.95%) Nessus
Vendors
1 304 (16.03%) VMware
2 269 (14.19%) Microsoft
3 256 (13.50%) Oracle
4 215 (11.34%) Red Hat
5 178 (9.39%) Splunk
6 106 (5.59%) Cisco
7 94 (4.96%) IBM
8 74 (3.90%) ServiceNow
9 46 (2.43%) Dell
10 44 (2.32%) CyberArk
10 44 (2.32%) Palo Alto
11 38 (2.00%) Google
12 33 (1.74%) Atlassian
12 33 (1.74%) HP
13 30 (1.58%) SolarWinds
14 28 (1.48%) NetApp
15 26 (1.37%) NVIDIA
16 24 (1.27%) BeyondTrust
16 24 (1.27%) F5
17 23 (1.21%) SAP