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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 31 33
Rank change year-on-year -21 +2 -7
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,916 1,728 2,264
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.78% 5.79% 5.16%
As % of the Operating Systems category 39.63% 41.51% 38.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,187 1,122 1,466
10th Percentile £349 £370 £340
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £548
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.11% -4.78%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £540
% change year-on-year -1.60% -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 38 136
10th Percentile £36.75 £47.52 £46.63
25th Percentile £43.81 £55.00 £57.19
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 £71.50 - -
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 4,835 4,163 5,888
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 13.94% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,095 2,720 3,881
10th Percentile £190 £200 £188
25th Percentile £317 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.43% -2.21% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £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 332 206 428
10th Percentile £14.60 £15.42 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.24 £21.95 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +37.77% -9.22% -44.96%
75th Percentile £64.06 £40.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.20 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.88 £18.87 £25.25
% change year-on-year +47.75% -25.27% -32.67%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -27 1,606 £513 -6.82% 623
UK excluding London -16 1,133 £492 -1.60% 535
London -50 561 £548 -4.78% 146
Work from Home -33 498 £500 -2.44% 253
North of England -16 301 £484 -5.17% 108
South East -7 298 £513 -2.38% 169
South West -8 167 £538 -10.42% 117
Yorkshire -18 155 £500 -6.98% 26
Midlands -19 146 £474 -5.25% 45
North West -26 132 £469 +16.67% 66
West Midlands -19 126 £469 -6.20% 21
East of England -16 98 £475 +0.26% 81
Scotland -28 91 £475 +0.32% 13
Wales +3 26 £465 +64.60% 8
East Midlands -18 17 £530 +17.78% 24
North East -28 15 £446 -6.54% 16
Northern Ireland +2 12 £425 +30.77% 10

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 (2.45%) Apache
3 30 (1.57%) nginx
4 26 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (1.10%) Tomcat
7 18 (0.94%) WebLogic
8 17 (0.89%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.63%) SAS
9 12 (0.63%) WebSphere
10 11 (0.57%) CICS
11 10 (0.52%) OpenStack
12 9 (0.47%) NetWeaver
13 8 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 7 (0.37%) IIS
15 6 (0.31%) JBoss
15 6 (0.31%) SharePoint
15 6 (0.31%) TPMS
15 6 (0.31%) WebSphere Application Server
16 5 (0.26%) CMS
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 (0.57%) 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%) BusinessWorks
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
1 546 (28.50%) AWS
2 390 (20.35%) Azure
3 152 (7.93%) GitHub
4 125 (6.52%) GCP
5 106 (5.53%) OpenShift
6 87 (4.54%) GitHub Actions
7 82 (4.28%) Amazon S3
8 80 (4.18%) Amazon EC2
9 65 (3.39%) Entra ID
10 64 (3.34%) Amazon EKS
10 64 (3.34%) Azure DevOps
11 61 (3.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 55 (2.87%) Serverless
13 47 (2.45%) IaaS
14 46 (2.40%) AWS CloudFormation
15 45 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
16 44 (2.30%) Microsoft 365
17 43 (2.24%) PaaS
17 43 (2.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 39 (2.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 182 (9.50%) Firewall
2 139 (7.25%) DNS
3 85 (4.44%) TCP/IP
4 74 (3.86%) VPN
5 68 (3.55%) Network Security
5 68 (3.55%) SAN
6 51 (2.66%) DHCP
7 47 (2.45%) WAN
8 39 (2.04%) SSL
9 37 (1.93%) LAN
9 37 (1.93%) SNMP
10 33 (1.72%) SSH
11 31 (1.62%) VSAN
12 30 (1.57%) HTTP
13 26 (1.36%) NAS
14 23 (1.20%) Ethernet
15 22 (1.15%) VLAN
16 19 (0.99%) IPsec
17 17 (0.89%) BGP
17 17 (0.89%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.85%) SQL Server
2 107 (5.58%) PostgreSQL
3 76 (3.97%) Oracle Database
4 72 (3.76%) MySQL
5 65 (3.39%) Relational Database
6 62 (3.24%) MongoDB
7 49 (2.56%) Amazon RDS
8 43 (2.24%) Elasticsearch
9 38 (1.98%) Amazon Aurora
10 27 (1.41%) DynamoDB
10 27 (1.41%) NoSQL
11 20 (1.04%) Big Data
11 20 (1.04%) SAP HANA
12 18 (0.94%) RDBMS
13 17 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
13 17 (0.89%) Db2
13 17 (0.89%) KDB
14 15 (0.78%) Sybase ASE
15 14 (0.73%) Kdb+
15 14 (0.73%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 211 (11.01%) Jenkins
2 189 (9.86%) GitLab
3 163 (8.51%) Git
4 150 (7.83%) 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 (0.57%) Bitbucket Server
15 10 (0.52%) Jaeger
16 9 (0.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 9 (0.47%) Cucumber
General
1 386 (20.15%) Social Skills
2 273 (14.25%) Finance
3 195 (10.18%) Public Sector
4 164 (8.56%) Analytical Skills
5 129 (6.73%) Banking
6 82 (4.28%) Documentation Skills
7 42 (2.19%) Military
8 25 (1.30%) Front Office
8 25 (1.30%) Telecoms
9 24 (1.25%) Retail
10 23 (1.20%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.15%) Aerospace
12 21 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
13 20 (1.04%) Financial Institution
13 20 (1.04%) Law
13 20 (1.04%) Legal
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
1 243 (12.68%) Senior
2 190 (9.92%) Linux Engineer
3 189 (9.86%) Developer
4 184 (9.60%) DevOps Engineer
5 138 (7.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 129 (6.73%) Software Engineer
7 102 (5.32%) Analyst
8 98 (5.11%) Architect
9 90 (4.70%) Lead
10 71 (3.71%) Java Developer
11 69 (3.60%) AWS Engineer
12 67 (3.50%) Consultant
13 66 (3.44%) Administrator
14 60 (3.13%) Platform Engineer
15 57 (2.97%) Support Engineer
16 55 (2.87%) Site Reliability Engineer
17 50 (2.61%) AWS DevOps
17 50 (2.61%) Security Engineer
18 47 (2.45%) AWS DevOps Engineer
18 47 (2.45%) Site Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (4.49%) Kafka
2 82 (4.28%) Middleware
2 82 (4.28%) REST
3 69 (3.60%) Elastic Stack
4 52 (2.71%) LDAP
5 50 (2.61%) Spring
6 49 (2.56%) Spring Boot
7 46 (2.40%) Web Services
8 44 (2.30%) Node.js
8 44 (2.30%) RESTful
9 38 (1.98%) .NET
10 31 (1.62%) YAML
11 27 (1.41%) ActiveMQ
12 26 (1.36%) SOAP
13 25 (1.30%) AngularJS
14 24 (1.25%) JSON
15 23 (1.20%) React
16 22 (1.15%) XML
17 20 (1.04%) Flash
17 20 (1.04%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 149 (7.78%) Data Centre
2 115 (6.00%) Cloud Native
3 88 (4.59%) Onboarding
4 84 (4.38%) Linux Command Line
5 71 (3.71%) Management Information System
5 71 (3.71%) PKI
6 67 (3.50%) Distributed Systems
7 64 (3.34%) Replication
8 51 (2.66%) Public Cloud
9 50 (2.61%) Security Posture
10 49 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
11 48 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
12 37 (1.93%) Product Ownership
13 29 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
13 29 (1.51%) Embedded Systems
13 29 (1.51%) Enterprise Storage
14 27 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
15 26 (1.36%) Security Operations Centre
16 25 (1.30%) Clustering
17 24 (1.25%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 734 (38.31%) Windows
2 389 (20.30%) Unix
3 304 (15.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 186 (9.71%) Windows Server
5 106 (5.53%) Ubuntu
6 59 (3.08%) AIX
7 51 (2.66%) Solaris
8 43 (2.24%) CentOS
9 33 (1.72%) Embedded Linux
10 29 (1.51%) VMS
11 24 (1.25%) Windows Server 2019
12 20 (1.04%) Android
12 20 (1.04%) SUSE
13 19 (0.99%) Debian
14 18 (0.94%) Windows Server 2016
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
1 528 (27.56%) CI/CD
2 460 (24.01%) DevOps
3 358 (18.68%) Agile
4 290 (15.14%) Infrastructure as Code
5 281 (14.67%) Problem-Solving
6 246 (12.84%) Containerisation
7 205 (10.70%) Software Engineering
8 197 (10.28%) Migration
9 195 (10.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 176 (9.19%) Observability
11 171 (8.92%) Continuous Improvement
12 163 (8.51%) High Availability
13 159 (8.30%) Performance Tuning
14 145 (7.57%) SIEM
15 143 (7.46%) ITIL
15 143 (7.46%) Root Cause Analysis
16 128 (6.68%) Platform Engineering
17 126 (6.58%) Configuration Management
17 126 (6.58%) Microservices
17 126 (6.58%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 625 (32.62%) Python
2 316 (16.49%) SQL
3 286 (14.93%) Bash
4 280 (14.61%) PowerShell
5 236 (12.32%) Java
6 147 (7.67%) Shell Script
7 120 (6.26%) C++
8 90 (4.70%) JavaScript
9 61 (3.18%) Perl
10 59 (3.08%) C
11 58 (3.03%) C#
12 49 (2.56%) PL/SQL
13 46 (2.40%) Go
14 22 (1.15%) Ada
14 22 (1.15%) Rust
15 21 (1.10%) TypeScript
16 20 (1.04%) MATLAB
17 19 (0.99%) Search Processing Language
18 17 (0.89%) Ruby
19 16 (0.84%) PHP
Qualifications
1 734 (38.31%) Security Cleared
2 543 (28.34%) SC Cleared
3 207 (10.80%) DV Cleared
4 183 (9.55%) Degree
5 68 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 64 (3.34%) AWS Certification
7 60 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
8 59 (3.08%) CISSP
9 52 (2.71%) Cisco Certification
10 40 (2.09%) Azure Certification
11 39 (2.04%) CompTIA Security+
12 35 (1.83%) RHCE
13 23 (1.20%) CCNA
13 23 (1.20%) CCNP
14 20 (1.04%) CISM
14 20 (1.04%) Microsoft Certification
15 16 (0.84%) GIAC
16 15 (0.78%) Oracle Certification
17 14 (0.73%) OCP
18 13 (0.68%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (4.75%) NIST
2 84 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 54 (2.82%) QA
4 45 (2.35%) SLA
5 25 (1.30%) GDPR
6 24 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
7 23 (1.20%) NCSC
8 19 (0.99%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
10 12 (0.63%) HIPAA
11 11 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 10 (0.52%) Data Quality
12 10 (0.52%) GRC
12 10 (0.52%) SOC 2
13 7 (0.37%) NIST 800
14 6 (0.31%) GLBA
14 6 (0.31%) ISO 31000
15 5 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 5 (0.26%) DICOM
15 5 (0.26%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 318 (16.60%) Docker
2 227 (11.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 211 (11.01%) Active Directory
4 83 (4.33%) Virtual Machines
5 67 (3.50%) vSphere
6 66 (3.44%) VMware ESXi
7 64 (3.34%) Hyper-V
8 52 (2.71%) NFS
9 48 (2.51%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.93%) Firmware
11 33 (1.72%) KVM
12 28 (1.46%) Oracle RAC
13 21 (1.10%) GPFS
13 21 (1.10%) Postfix
14 11 (0.57%) Microsoft App-V
14 11 (0.57%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 10 (0.52%) Ceph
16 9 (0.47%) BitLocker
17 7 (0.37%) Squid
17 7 (0.37%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 404 (21.09%) Ansible
2 370 (19.31%) Kubernetes
3 361 (18.84%) Terraform
4 167 (8.72%) Grafana
5 142 (7.41%) Prometheus
6 76 (3.97%) Puppet
7 51 (2.66%) Progress Chef
8 42 (2.19%) vCenter Server
9 39 (2.04%) Oracle RMAN
10 31 (1.62%) Red Hat Satellite
11 30 (1.57%) Podman
12 28 (1.46%) Packer
13 27 (1.41%) Nagios
14 25 (1.30%) Data Guard
14 25 (1.30%) ZABBIX
15 24 (1.25%) vRealize
16 22 (1.15%) Argo
16 22 (1.15%) Kibana
16 22 (1.15%) Tivoli
17 19 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 303 (15.81%) VMware
2 273 (14.25%) Oracle
3 255 (13.31%) Microsoft
4 226 (11.80%) Red Hat
5 163 (8.51%) Splunk
6 120 (6.26%) Cisco
7 108 (5.64%) IBM
8 89 (4.65%) ServiceNow
9 59 (3.08%) CyberArk
10 58 (3.03%) Google
11 51 (2.66%) Palo Alto
12 41 (2.14%) SolarWinds
13 39 (2.04%) SAP
14 38 (1.98%) BeyondTrust
14 38 (1.98%) F5
15 33 (1.72%) Citrix
15 33 (1.72%) HP
16 32 (1.67%) Dell
16 32 (1.67%) NVIDIA
17 29 (1.51%) Sybase