Open Source Contract Job Trends

Open Source
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Open Source skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 320 275 271
Rank change year-on-year -45 -4 -8
Contract jobs citing Open Source 339 286 371
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 0.98% 0.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.87% 1.08% 0.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 207 241
10th Percentile £350 £400 £363
25th Percentile £443 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £580
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -0.86% -3.33%
75th Percentile £648 £675 £675
90th Percentile £791 £838 £758
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £595
% change year-on-year - -20.17% +8.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 5
10th Percentile - £32.90 £36.59
25th Percentile £15.25 £43.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £15.50 £60.50 £71.93
Median % change year-on-year -74.38% -15.89% -4.09%
75th Percentile £39.75 £77.75 £72.90
90th Percentile £54.15 £88.10 £76.41
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.50 - £71.93

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Open Source falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 39,056 26,574 37,868
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.05% 90.71% 86.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,707 17,203 24,522
10th Percentile £316 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £635 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £488 £500
% change year-on-year - -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,310 1,024 2,401
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.93 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.51 £15.89
Median hourly rate £37.16 £30.45 £33.55
Median % change year-on-year +22.04% -9.24% -7.45%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £57.83
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £29.00 £33.07
% change year-on-year +31.90% -12.29% -8.47%

Open Source
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Open Source relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Open Source job vacancy trend in the UK

Open Source
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Open Source.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Open Source

Open Source
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Open Source over the 6 months to 16 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Open Source in the UK

Open Source
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Open Source.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Open Source

Open Source
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Open Source over the 6 months to 16 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Open Source in the UK

Open Source
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Open Source within the UK over the 6 months to 16 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 -60 275 £550 -8.33% 138
London -62 147 £600 -2.04% 71
UK excluding London -62 119 £475 - 76
Work from Home -52 118 £550 -8.33% 63
North of England -60 32 £450 -3.23% 19
South East -45 21 £400 -20.00% 19
South West -12 20 £365 -40.16% 14
North West -28 20 £450 -2.70% 10
Scotland -2 19 £663 +40.96% 4
West Midlands -48 17 £475 +12.56% 6
Midlands -64 17 £475 +12.56% 6
Yorkshire -48 11 £475 - 7
East of England -34 10 £550 +37.50% 15

Open Source
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 15 (4.42%) Apache
2 11 (3.24%) Confluence
3 9 (2.65%) Apache Spark
4 8 (2.36%) Appian
5 6 (1.77%) JBoss
5 6 (1.77%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.47%) OpenStack
6 5 (1.47%) SharePoint
7 4 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (1.18%) nginx
8 3 (0.88%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.59%) Liferay
9 2 (0.59%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.29%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 3 (0.88%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.29%) Magento
2 1 (0.29%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 166 (48.97%) AWS
2 76 (22.42%) Azure
3 43 (12.68%) GitHub
4 41 (12.09%) GCP
5 30 (8.85%) Amazon S3
6 26 (7.67%) Serverless
7 20 (5.90%) Azure AI
8 19 (5.60%) Amazon EC2
8 19 (5.60%) GitHub Actions
9 14 (4.13%) Google Gemini
10 13 (3.83%) Anthropic Claude
10 13 (3.83%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (3.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 11 (3.24%) Amazon SageMaker
12 10 (2.95%) Azure Cognitive Services
12 10 (2.95%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (2.95%) Route 53
13 9 (2.65%) Amazon SQS
13 9 (2.65%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 15 (4.42%) Firewall
2 7 (2.06%) Reverse Proxy
3 6 (1.77%) DNS
3 6 (1.77%) WAN
4 5 (1.47%) DHCP
5 3 (0.88%) VLAN
6 2 (0.59%) Internet
6 2 (0.59%) NaaS
6 2 (0.59%) SSH
6 2 (0.59%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.29%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.29%) InfiniBand
7 1 (0.29%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.29%) LAN
7 1 (0.29%) LTE
7 1 (0.29%) NAS
7 1 (0.29%) Network Security
7 1 (0.29%) SAN
7 1 (0.29%) Spanning Tree
7 1 (0.29%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (15.93%) Apache Cassandra
2 50 (14.75%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (5.01%) MongoDB
4 16 (4.72%) SQL Server
5 15 (4.42%) BigQuery
6 14 (4.13%) DynamoDB
7 12 (3.54%) NoSQL
7 12 (3.54%) Pinecone
8 11 (3.24%) Amazon RDS
9 8 (2.36%) Amazon Aurora
9 8 (2.36%) Metadata
10 7 (2.06%) Amazon QuickSight
10 7 (2.06%) Big Data
10 7 (2.06%) Redis
10 7 (2.06%) Relational Database
11 6 (1.77%) Flink
11 6 (1.77%) RDBMS
12 5 (1.47%) Amazon Redshift
13 4 (1.18%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (1.18%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 58 (17.11%) Git
2 27 (7.96%) GitLab
3 25 (7.37%) Jenkins
3 25 (7.37%) JUnit
4 16 (4.72%) JIRA
4 16 (4.72%) SonarQube
5 12 (3.54%) IntelliJ
6 11 (3.24%) MLflow
7 8 (2.36%) Bitbucket Server
7 8 (2.36%) DbUnit
7 8 (2.36%) jMock
7 8 (2.36%) Maven
7 8 (2.36%) Mockito
8 7 (2.06%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (1.77%) CircleCI
9 6 (1.77%) Gradle
10 5 (1.47%) Artifactory
10 5 (1.47%) Selenium
11 4 (1.18%) Eclipse
11 4 (1.18%) PowerDesigner
General
1 65 (19.17%) Social Skills
2 64 (18.88%) Finance
3 48 (14.16%) Public Sector
4 27 (7.96%) Banking
5 25 (7.37%) Analytical Skills
6 15 (4.42%) Legal
7 10 (2.95%) Front Office
8 7 (2.06%) Retail
9 6 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.77%) Publishing
10 5 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.47%) Investment Banking
10 5 (1.47%) Military
11 4 (1.18%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.88%) Law
12 3 (0.88%) Marketing
12 3 (0.88%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.59%) Police
13 2 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 101 (29.79%) Developer
2 69 (20.35%) Senior
3 62 (18.29%) Architect
4 43 (12.68%) Senior Developer
5 37 (10.91%) Software Engineer
6 28 (8.26%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 28 (8.26%) Solutions Architect
7 21 (6.19%) AWS Architect
8 17 (5.01%) Data Engineer
9 15 (4.42%) Cloud Engineer
9 15 (4.42%) Python Developer
10 14 (4.13%) Android Developer
10 14 (4.13%) AWS Solution Architect
11 12 (3.54%) Java Developer
12 11 (3.24%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 11 (3.24%) Lead
13 10 (2.95%) Automation Engineer
13 10 (2.95%) Cloud Architect
13 10 (2.95%) Consultant
13 10 (2.95%) GCP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (28.02%) Kafka
2 59 (17.40%) gRPC
3 50 (14.75%) REST
4 32 (9.44%) React
5 30 (8.85%) RESTful
5 30 (8.85%) Spring
6 28 (8.26%) Node.js
7 26 (7.67%) Spring Boot
8 24 (7.08%) LangChain
9 23 (6.78%) AngularJS
9 23 (6.78%) Web Services
10 21 (6.19%) .NET
11 18 (5.31%) PyTorch
12 17 (5.01%) Hugging Face
13 16 (4.72%) TensorFlow
14 14 (4.13%) Android Jetpack
14 14 (4.13%) Jetpack Compose
15 13 (3.83%) Android SDK
15 13 (3.83%) SOAP
16 12 (3.54%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 73 (21.53%) Distributed Systems
2 35 (10.32%) Cloud Native
3 21 (6.19%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.54%) AI Agents
5 10 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.65%) Legacy Code
7 8 (2.36%) Low-Code
7 8 (2.36%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.06%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (2.06%) Distributed Computing
9 6 (1.77%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.77%) Fat Client
9 6 (1.77%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 6 (1.77%) Mobile App
9 6 (1.77%) PKI
9 6 (1.77%) Thin Client
9 6 (1.77%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (1.18%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 47 (13.86%) Linux
2 23 (6.78%) Android
3 13 (3.83%) Windows
4 9 (2.65%) Unix
5 6 (1.77%) Apple iOS
5 6 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.77%) Windows 7
6 4 (1.18%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.88%) Debian
7 3 (0.88%) Rocky
8 2 (0.59%) VMS
8 2 (0.59%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.29%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (30.97%) Software Engineering
2 95 (28.02%) Microservices
3 92 (27.14%) CI/CD
4 86 (25.37%) AI
5 72 (21.24%) Agile
6 65 (19.17%) DevOps
7 63 (18.58%) Containerisation
8 60 (17.70%) LLM
9 51 (15.04%) Infrastructure as Code
9 51 (15.04%) Machine Learning
10 50 (14.75%) Problem-Solving
11 47 (13.86%) Generative AI
12 43 (12.68%) Stakeholder Management
13 40 (11.80%) Data Pipeline
14 35 (10.32%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
15 33 (9.73%) Observability
16 31 (9.14%) Test Automation
17 30 (8.85%) Computer Science
17 30 (8.85%) TDD
18 28 (8.26%) Prompt Engineering
Programming Languages
1 145 (42.77%) Python
2 74 (21.83%) Java
3 72 (21.24%) Go
4 50 (14.75%) SQL
5 26 (7.67%) TypeScript
6 24 (7.08%) C#
7 23 (6.78%) JavaScript
8 19 (5.60%) Kotlin
9 17 (5.01%) Bash
10 11 (3.24%) Ruby
11 10 (2.95%) Scala
12 7 (2.06%) PowerShell
13 6 (1.77%) PL/SQL
13 6 (1.77%) Shell Script
14 4 (1.18%) C++
14 4 (1.18%) Delphi
14 4 (1.18%) PHP
15 2 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
16 1 (0.29%) Groovy
16 1 (0.29%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 85 (25.07%) Security Cleared
2 60 (17.70%) SC Cleared
3 34 (10.03%) Degree
4 15 (4.42%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (4.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (3.83%) DV Cleared
7 9 (2.65%) Master's Degree
8 6 (1.77%) PhD
9 4 (1.18%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.18%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.29%) ISEB
11 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.29%) MPhil
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (5.90%) QA
2 12 (3.54%) Accessibility
3 11 (3.24%) Data Quality
4 5 (1.47%) WCAG
5 4 (1.18%) NIST
6 3 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.59%) GDPR
7 2 (0.59%) GPG for Computer-Based Electronic Evidence
7 2 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 17025
7 2 (0.59%) ISO17020
8 1 (0.29%) GRC
8 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.29%) SLA
8 1 (0.29%) SOC 2
System Software
1 121 (35.69%) Docker
2 14 (4.13%) Active Directory
3 7 (2.06%) Postfix
4 5 (1.47%) Ceph
4 5 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.18%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.88%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.88%) KVM
7 2 (0.59%) Oracle Clusterware
8 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.29%) iptables
8 1 (0.29%) Lustre
8 1 (0.29%) NFS
8 1 (0.29%) QEMU
8 1 (0.29%) Samba
8 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.29%) Squid
8 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 111 (32.74%) Kubernetes
2 38 (11.21%) Terraform
3 30 (8.85%) Grafana
3 30 (8.85%) Prometheus
4 14 (4.13%) Ansible
5 10 (2.95%) Istio
6 8 (2.36%) Puppet
7 6 (1.77%) Argo
7 6 (1.77%) WMI
8 4 (1.18%) Data Guard
8 4 (1.18%) Oracle RMAN
8 4 (1.18%) Salt
9 2 (0.59%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.59%) HAProxy
9 2 (0.59%) Knative
9 2 (0.59%) Rancher
10 1 (0.29%) CASB
10 1 (0.29%) MOM
10 1 (0.29%) SELinux
Vendors
1 31 (9.14%) Google
2 26 (7.67%) Microsoft
3 25 (7.37%) OpenAI
4 10 (2.95%) Atlassian
5 9 (2.65%) Dynatrace
5 9 (2.65%) UiPath
6 8 (2.36%) Automation Anywhere
6 8 (2.36%) Jaspersoft
6 8 (2.36%) Splunk
6 8 (2.36%) VMware
7 7 (2.06%) Checkmarx
7 7 (2.06%) Oracle
8 5 (1.47%) Confluent
8 5 (1.47%) Databricks
8 5 (1.47%) Red Hat
9 4 (1.18%) Cloudera
9 4 (1.18%) Fortinet
9 4 (1.18%) IBM
9 4 (1.18%) ServiceNow
9 4 (1.18%) webMethods