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

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 31 34
Rank change year-on-year -19 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Linux 1,894 1,750 2,191
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.96% 5.96% 5.09%
As % of the Operating Systems category 40.31% 42.55% 38.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,181 1,105 1,443
10th Percentile £326 £375 £334
25th Percentile £403 £440 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £610 £650 £645
90th Percentile £688 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £525 £543
% change year-on-year -7.81% -3.31% +0.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 121 51 109
10th Percentile £33.68 £40.50 £34.25
25th Percentile £43.81 £55.19 £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.87% +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.68 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £65.25 £62.50
% change year-on-year -3.24% +4.40% -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 4,699 4,113 5,729
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.83% 14.00% 13.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,044 2,701 3,874
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.50% -8.24%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £694 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -4.44% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 320 182 390
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.41 £12.73
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.87 £15.31
Median hourly rate £47.50 £23.40 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +102.99% +6.36% -42.86%
75th Percentile £67.25 £61.16 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +111.11% - -23.21%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -26 1,583 £513 -6.82% 863
UK excluding London -13 1,137 £484 -7.81% 688
London -48 540 £550 -6.78% 235
Work from Home -25 486 £500 -4.76% 307
South East -5 317 £500 -9.09% 244
North of England -12 282 £475 -11.63% 118
Midlands -14 158 £525 +5.00% 83
South West -11 157 £546 -8.96% 113
Yorkshire -24 150 £460 -16.36% 38
West Midlands -3 139 £501 -6.80% 41
North West -18 122 £484 -3.20% 58
Scotland -17 98 £450 -4.20% 23
East of England -9 93 £475 -1.55% 99
Wales +2 23 £465 -20.65% 14
East Midlands -35 17 £528 +16.06% 42
Northern Ireland +10 15 £425 +30.77% 7
North East -20 10 £413 -21.43% 23

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 81 (4.28%) Confluence
2 50 (2.64%) Apache
3 31 (1.64%) nginx
4 26 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (1.16%) Apache Spark
6 21 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
7 19 (1.00%) Tomcat
8 15 (0.79%) OpenStack
8 15 (0.79%) WebLogic
9 14 (0.74%) SAS
10 13 (0.69%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.58%) CICS
12 8 (0.42%) TPMS
13 7 (0.37%) JBoss
14 6 (0.32%) NetWeaver
14 6 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 6 (0.32%) WebSphere Application Server
15 5 (0.26%) SharePoint
16 4 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.21%) CMS
Applications
1 23 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (0.37%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.16%) Simulink
5 3 (0.16%) Weka
6 2 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
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 4 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.16%) Actimize
4 3 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
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
1 535 (28.25%) AWS
2 379 (20.01%) Azure
3 173 (9.13%) GitHub
4 127 (6.71%) OpenShift
5 105 (5.54%) GCP
6 98 (5.17%) GitHub Actions
7 92 (4.86%) Amazon EC2
8 85 (4.49%) Amazon S3
9 77 (4.07%) Amazon EKS
9 77 (4.07%) AWS CloudFormation
10 73 (3.85%) Serverless
11 69 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
12 62 (3.27%) AWS Lambda
13 57 (3.01%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 53 (2.80%) Amazon ECS
15 49 (2.59%) IaaS
16 42 (2.22%) Entra ID
16 42 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
17 40 (2.11%) PaaS
18 39 (2.06%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 181 (9.56%) Firewall
2 130 (6.86%) DNS
3 102 (5.39%) TCP/IP
4 74 (3.91%) VPN
5 65 (3.43%) Network Security
6 54 (2.85%) SAN
7 46 (2.43%) WAN
8 42 (2.22%) DHCP
9 39 (2.06%) LAN
10 38 (2.01%) HTTP
11 36 (1.90%) VSAN
12 35 (1.85%) SSH
13 30 (1.58%) SNMP
14 29 (1.53%) SSL
15 26 (1.37%) Ethernet
16 20 (1.06%) NAS
16 20 (1.06%) Wireless
17 18 (0.95%) BGP
17 18 (0.95%) Kerberos
18 15 (0.79%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (6.49%) PostgreSQL
2 112 (5.91%) SQL Server
3 72 (3.80%) MySQL
4 66 (3.48%) Oracle Database
4 66 (3.48%) Relational Database
5 62 (3.27%) Amazon RDS
5 62 (3.27%) MongoDB
6 43 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
7 35 (1.85%) Amazon Aurora
8 30 (1.58%) NoSQL
9 22 (1.16%) DynamoDB
10 21 (1.11%) Big Data
11 19 (1.00%) Data Warehouse
11 19 (1.00%) KDB
12 17 (0.90%) SAP HANA
13 16 (0.84%) DB2
13 16 (0.84%) Kdb+
14 13 (0.69%) Data Lake
15 12 (0.63%) Hadoop
16 11 (0.58%) Redis
Development Applications
1 208 (10.98%) Jenkins
2 172 (9.08%) Git
3 171 (9.03%) GitLab
4 141 (7.44%) JIRA
5 31 (1.64%) Maven
6 27 (1.43%) Eclipse
7 26 (1.37%) JUnit
7 26 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
8 25 (1.32%) SonarQube
9 24 (1.27%) Mockito
10 23 (1.21%) Bitbucket
11 18 (0.95%) Visual Studio
12 14 (0.74%) Artifactory
12 14 (0.74%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.74%) Rational Rhapsody
13 13 (0.69%) Jaeger
14 11 (0.58%) DbUnit
14 11 (0.58%) jMock
15 9 (0.48%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 9 (0.48%) Selenium
General
1 396 (20.91%) Social Skills
2 272 (14.36%) Finance
3 187 (9.87%) Public Sector
4 149 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
5 106 (5.60%) Banking
6 73 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
7 49 (2.59%) Military
8 26 (1.37%) Financial Institution
9 25 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
10 22 (1.16%) Aerospace
10 22 (1.16%) Front Office
10 22 (1.16%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.11%) Retail
12 19 (1.00%) Investment Banking
12 19 (1.00%) Law
13 17 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
14 15 (0.79%) Legal
15 14 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 14 (0.74%) Manufacturing
16 11 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 231 (12.20%) Senior
2 212 (11.19%) Developer
3 175 (9.24%) DevOps Engineer
4 143 (7.55%) Linux Engineer
5 138 (7.29%) Software Engineer
6 117 (6.18%) Architect
7 106 (5.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 105 (5.54%) Analyst
9 96 (5.07%) Lead
10 80 (4.22%) Java Developer
11 78 (4.12%) Administrator
12 72 (3.80%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 65 (3.43%) AWS Engineer
13 65 (3.43%) Site Engineer
14 61 (3.22%) Platform Engineer
15 53 (2.80%) Consultant
16 52 (2.75%) Security Engineer
17 48 (2.53%) AWS DevOps
18 45 (2.38%) Embedded Engineer
19 44 (2.32%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (5.70%) Kafka
2 87 (4.59%) REST
3 77 (4.07%) Elastic Stack
4 70 (3.70%) Middleware
5 56 (2.96%) Node.js
6 55 (2.90%) LDAP
7 48 (2.53%) Spring
8 46 (2.43%) Spring Boot
9 45 (2.38%) Web Services
10 36 (1.90%) RESTful
11 35 (1.85%) .NET
12 32 (1.69%) YAML
13 31 (1.64%) XML
14 27 (1.43%) JSON
15 26 (1.37%) AngularJS
16 23 (1.21%) ActiveMQ
16 23 (1.21%) React
16 23 (1.21%) SOAP
17 22 (1.16%) CSS
18 21 (1.11%) Flash
Miscellaneous
1 134 (7.07%) Data Centre
2 104 (5.49%) Cloud Native
3 77 (4.07%) Linux Command Line
4 73 (3.85%) Onboarding
5 68 (3.59%) Management Information System
6 65 (3.43%) Distributed Systems
7 58 (3.06%) PKI
8 55 (2.90%) Replication
9 49 (2.59%) Hybrid Cloud
10 47 (2.48%) Public Cloud
11 41 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
12 35 (1.85%) Product Ownership
13 34 (1.80%) Security Posture
14 32 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
15 30 (1.58%) Enterprise Storage
16 29 (1.53%) Security Operations Centre
17 28 (1.48%) Embedded Systems
18 24 (1.27%) Operational Technology
19 23 (1.21%) Clustering
19 23 (1.21%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 725 (38.28%) Windows
2 367 (19.38%) Unix
3 275 (14.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 171 (9.03%) Windows Server
5 87 (4.59%) Ubuntu
6 52 (2.75%) AIX
7 42 (2.22%) CentOS
8 38 (2.01%) Solaris
9 34 (1.80%) Embedded Linux
10 32 (1.69%) VMS
11 30 (1.58%) Android
12 23 (1.21%) Windows Server 2016
13 22 (1.16%) Mac OS
14 21 (1.11%) Debian
14 21 (1.11%) Windows Server 2019
15 14 (0.74%) SUSE
16 13 (0.69%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.53%) Oracle Linux
17 10 (0.53%) Windows 10
17 10 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 546 (28.83%) CI/CD
2 446 (23.55%) DevOps
3 374 (19.75%) Agile
4 311 (16.42%) Problem-Solving
5 286 (15.10%) Infrastructure as Code
6 267 (14.10%) Containerisation
7 220 (11.62%) Software Engineering
8 183 (9.66%) Observability
9 168 (8.87%) Migration
10 160 (8.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 152 (8.03%) SIEM
12 146 (7.71%) High Availability
13 144 (7.60%) Continuous Improvement
14 140 (7.39%) Microservices
14 140 (7.39%) Performance Tuning
15 139 (7.34%) Computer Science
16 136 (7.18%) Incident Response
17 133 (7.02%) Platform Engineering
17 133 (7.02%) Root Cause Analysis
18 132 (6.97%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 645 (34.05%) Python
2 318 (16.79%) SQL
3 277 (14.63%) Java
4 266 (14.04%) PowerShell
5 264 (13.94%) Bash
6 161 (8.50%) Shell Script
7 129 (6.81%) C++
8 110 (5.81%) JavaScript
9 73 (3.85%) Perl
10 65 (3.43%) C#
11 57 (3.01%) C
12 49 (2.59%) Go
13 45 (2.38%) PL/SQL
14 33 (1.74%) Ruby
15 27 (1.43%) PHP
15 27 (1.43%) TypeScript
16 22 (1.16%) Rust
17 21 (1.11%) Ada
18 20 (1.06%) MATLAB
19 19 (1.00%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 731 (38.60%) Security Cleared
2 534 (28.19%) SC Cleared
3 210 (11.09%) DV Cleared
4 180 (9.50%) Degree
5 83 (4.38%) BPSS Clearance
6 81 (4.28%) Computer Science Degree
7 52 (2.75%) AWS Certification
8 50 (2.64%) Cisco Certification
9 45 (2.38%) CISSP
10 42 (2.22%) CompTIA Security+
11 36 (1.90%) RHCE
12 28 (1.48%) Azure Certification
13 25 (1.32%) CCNA
14 20 (1.06%) CCNP
15 19 (1.00%) Oracle Certification
16 18 (0.95%) OCP
17 17 (0.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 17 (0.90%) CompTIA CySA+
18 16 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
19 15 (0.79%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (4.38%) NIST
2 72 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 54 (2.85%) QA
4 43 (2.27%) SLA
5 30 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials
5 30 (1.58%) GDPR
6 24 (1.27%) NCSC
7 18 (0.95%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
8 11 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.53%) Data Quality
9 10 (0.53%) HIPAA
9 10 (0.53%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.48%) GRC
11 8 (0.42%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.42%) GLBA
12 6 (0.32%) ISO 31000
13 5 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 5 (0.26%) DICOM
13 5 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 326 (17.21%) Docker
2 221 (11.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 182 (9.61%) Active Directory
4 80 (4.22%) Virtual Machines
5 71 (3.75%) Hyper-V
6 69 (3.64%) vSphere
7 62 (3.27%) VMware ESXi
8 44 (2.32%) NFS
9 39 (2.06%) Firmware
9 39 (2.06%) VMware NSX
10 27 (1.43%) KVM
11 26 (1.37%) GPFS
12 20 (1.06%) Postfix
13 18 (0.95%) Oracle RAC
14 16 (0.84%) Slurm Workload Manager
15 11 (0.58%) Ceph
16 9 (0.48%) Lustre
16 9 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
17 8 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
18 7 (0.37%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 406 (21.44%) Kubernetes
2 384 (20.27%) Ansible
3 361 (19.06%) Terraform
4 181 (9.56%) Grafana
5 141 (7.44%) Prometheus
6 75 (3.96%) Puppet
7 49 (2.59%) Progress Chef
8 42 (2.22%) vCenter Server
9 31 (1.64%) vRealize
10 30 (1.58%) Kibana
11 29 (1.53%) Oracle RMAN
12 28 (1.48%) Podman
13 25 (1.32%) Red Hat Satellite
14 24 (1.27%) Nagios
14 24 (1.27%) ZABBIX
15 23 (1.21%) Argo
15 23 (1.21%) Packer
16 21 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
17 20 (1.06%) Tivoli
18 18 (0.95%) Netcool
Vendors
1 300 (15.84%) VMware
2 265 (13.99%) Microsoft
3 255 (13.46%) Oracle
4 211 (11.14%) Red Hat
5 187 (9.87%) Splunk
6 106 (5.60%) Cisco
7 98 (5.17%) IBM
8 73 (3.85%) ServiceNow
9 46 (2.43%) CyberArk
10 45 (2.38%) Palo Alto
11 42 (2.22%) Dell
12 37 (1.95%) HP
13 34 (1.80%) Google
14 31 (1.64%) SolarWinds
15 30 (1.58%) NVIDIA
16 27 (1.43%) BeyondTrust
17 25 (1.32%) F5
17 25 (1.32%) NetApp
17 25 (1.32%) SAP
18 24 (1.27%) Atlassian