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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 314 272 267
Rank change year-on-year -42 -5 -9
Contract jobs citing Open Source 349 269 382
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.78% 0.93% 0.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.91% 1.02% 1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 197 250
10th Percentile £350 £400 £362
25th Percentile £432 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £805 £838 £776
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £585
% change year-on-year -5.00% -14.53% +8.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 4
10th Percentile - £32.90 £58.04
25th Percentile £15.25 £43.25 £66.35
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 £74.36
90th Percentile £54.15 £88.10 £76.99
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 38,313 26,307 38,195
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.58% 90.51% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,289 17,086 24,815
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,251 967 2,341
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.24 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.94% -1.54% -11.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.85 £31.08 £31.65
% change year-on-year +12.13% -1.80% -12.39%

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 2 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 2 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Open Source in the UK

Open Source
Top 14 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 2 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 -63 284 £550 -8.33% 149
London -61 148 £625 - 78
UK excluding London -60 125 £475 -5.00% 93
Work from Home -29 122 £550 -8.33% 59
North of England -49 36 £450 -2.70% 21
South East -41 25 £413 -17.50% 20
Scotland +3 20 £663 +40.96% 10
South West -13 20 £365 -41.60% 12
North West -23 20 £450 -2.70% 9
West Midlands -54 16 £475 +10.08% 5
Midlands -62 16 £475 +10.08% 6
Yorkshire -47 13 £525 - 8
East of England -34 8 £525 +16.67% 21
North East -14 3 - - 4

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 (4.30%) Apache
2 11 (3.15%) Apache Spark
2 11 (3.15%) Confluence
3 8 (2.29%) Appian
4 6 (1.72%) JBoss
4 6 (1.72%) WebLogic
5 5 (1.43%) OpenStack
5 5 (1.43%) SharePoint
6 4 (1.15%) nginx
7 3 (0.86%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.57%) Liferay
8 2 (0.57%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.29%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.29%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.29%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 1 (0.29%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.57%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.29%) Magento
2 1 (0.29%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 173 (49.57%) AWS
2 83 (23.78%) Azure
3 41 (11.75%) GitHub
4 33 (9.46%) GCP
5 26 (7.45%) Amazon S3
6 24 (6.88%) Serverless
7 20 (5.73%) Azure AI
7 20 (5.73%) GitHub Actions
8 16 (4.58%) Amazon EC2
9 14 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
10 13 (3.72%) Anthropic Claude
11 11 (3.15%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (2.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 10 (2.87%) Amazon SageMaker
12 10 (2.87%) Azure Cognitive Services
12 10 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (2.87%) Google Gemini
13 9 (2.58%) CloudFront
13 9 (2.58%) Route 53
14 8 (2.29%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.01%) Firewall
2 7 (2.01%) DNS
3 6 (1.72%) DHCP
4 5 (1.43%) Reverse Proxy
4 5 (1.43%) WAN
5 3 (0.86%) VLAN
6 2 (0.57%) Internet
6 2 (0.57%) NaaS
6 2 (0.57%) SSH
6 2 (0.57%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.29%) 5G
7 1 (0.29%) InfiniBand
7 1 (0.29%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.29%) LTE
7 1 (0.29%) NAS
7 1 (0.29%) Network Security
7 1 (0.29%) NGFW
7 1 (0.29%) RTP
7 1 (0.29%) Spanning Tree
7 1 (0.29%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (16.91%) Apache Cassandra
2 49 (14.04%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (5.44%) MongoDB
3 19 (5.44%) NoSQL
4 17 (4.87%) SQL Server
5 13 (3.72%) DynamoDB
6 12 (3.44%) Pinecone
6 12 (3.44%) Redis
7 11 (3.15%) BigQuery
8 10 (2.87%) Amazon RDS
9 8 (2.29%) Metadata
9 8 (2.29%) Relational Database
10 7 (2.01%) Amazon Aurora
10 7 (2.01%) Big Data
11 6 (1.72%) Flink
12 5 (1.43%) Amazon QuickSight
12 5 (1.43%) GIS
12 5 (1.43%) Oracle Database
12 5 (1.43%) RDBMS
13 4 (1.15%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 53 (15.19%) Git
2 25 (7.16%) GitLab
2 25 (7.16%) Jenkins
3 22 (6.30%) JUnit
4 16 (4.58%) JIRA
5 11 (3.15%) MLflow
5 11 (3.15%) SonarQube
6 8 (2.29%) IntelliJ
6 8 (2.29%) Maven
7 7 (2.01%) Bitbucket Server
7 7 (2.01%) DbUnit
7 7 (2.01%) Gradle
7 7 (2.01%) jMock
7 7 (2.01%) Mockito
7 7 (2.01%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (1.72%) CircleCI
8 6 (1.72%) Mocha
9 5 (1.43%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.43%) Selenium
10 4 (1.15%) ESLint
General
1 65 (18.62%) Finance
1 65 (18.62%) Social Skills
2 49 (14.04%) Public Sector
3 29 (8.31%) Banking
4 26 (7.45%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (4.30%) Legal
6 12 (3.44%) Front Office
7 9 (2.58%) Investment Banking
8 7 (2.01%) Retail
9 6 (1.72%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.72%) Publishing
10 5 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.15%) Telecoms
12 3 (0.86%) Marketing
12 3 (0.86%) Military
12 3 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.57%) Billing
13 2 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 109 (31.23%) Developer
2 81 (23.21%) Senior
3 59 (16.91%) Architect
4 51 (14.61%) Senior Developer
5 38 (10.89%) Software Engineer
6 27 (7.74%) Solutions Architect
7 24 (6.88%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 18 (5.16%) AWS Architect
9 15 (4.30%) Data Engineer
9 15 (4.30%) Python Developer
10 14 (4.01%) Android Developer
11 13 (3.72%) AWS Solution Architect
12 12 (3.44%) Java Developer
13 11 (3.15%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 11 (3.15%) Cloud Engineer
13 11 (3.15%) Platform Engineer
14 10 (2.87%) Automation Engineer
14 10 (2.87%) Consultant
14 10 (2.87%) GCP Engineer
15 9 (2.58%) Integration Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (29.51%) Kafka
2 66 (18.91%) gRPC
3 49 (14.04%) REST
4 36 (10.32%) React
5 35 (10.03%) Node.js
6 29 (8.31%) RESTful
7 27 (7.74%) Spring
8 23 (6.59%) AngularJS
9 22 (6.30%) .NET
9 22 (6.30%) LangChain
9 22 (6.30%) Web Services
10 21 (6.02%) Spring Boot
11 20 (5.73%) HTML
12 16 (4.58%) CSS
13 15 (4.30%) PyTorch
14 14 (4.01%) Android Jetpack
14 14 (4.01%) Hugging Face
14 14 (4.01%) Jetpack Compose
15 13 (3.72%) Jest
15 13 (3.72%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 80 (22.92%) Distributed Systems
2 34 (9.74%) Cloud Native
3 21 (6.02%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.87%) AI Agents
4 10 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (2.58%) Distributed Computing
5 9 (2.58%) Legacy Code
6 8 (2.29%) Equities
6 8 (2.29%) Fat Client
6 8 (2.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 8 (2.29%) Low-Code
6 8 (2.29%) Onboarding
6 8 (2.29%) PKI
6 8 (2.29%) Thin Client
7 7 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (2.01%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.72%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.72%) Hedge funds
8 6 (1.72%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 50 (14.33%) Linux
2 23 (6.59%) Android
3 18 (5.16%) Windows
4 9 (2.58%) Unix
5 8 (2.29%) Windows 7
6 7 (2.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 4 (1.15%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.86%) Debian
9 3 (0.86%) Rocky
9 3 (0.86%) Windows Server
10 2 (0.57%) CentOS
10 2 (0.57%) VMS
11 1 (0.29%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (31.23%) Software Engineering
2 100 (28.65%) Microservices
3 88 (25.21%) CI/CD
4 82 (23.50%) AI
5 78 (22.35%) Agile
6 64 (18.34%) DevOps
7 58 (16.62%) Containerisation
8 57 (16.33%) LLM
9 52 (14.90%) Problem-Solving
10 48 (13.75%) Infrastructure as Code
10 48 (13.75%) Machine Learning
11 43 (12.32%) Generative AI
12 40 (11.46%) Data Pipeline
13 38 (10.89%) Stakeholder Management
14 32 (9.17%) Computer Science
14 32 (9.17%) Observability
15 31 (8.88%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
15 31 (8.88%) Test Automation
16 29 (8.31%) Clean Code
16 29 (8.31%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 150 (42.98%) Python
2 78 (22.35%) Go
3 74 (21.20%) Java
4 56 (16.05%) SQL
5 32 (9.17%) JavaScript
6 30 (8.60%) TypeScript
7 25 (7.16%) C#
8 19 (5.44%) Kotlin
9 15 (4.30%) Bash
10 11 (3.15%) Ruby
10 11 (3.15%) Scala
11 9 (2.58%) PowerShell
12 8 (2.29%) Shell Script
13 7 (2.01%) PL/SQL
14 4 (1.15%) C++
14 4 (1.15%) Delphi
14 4 (1.15%) PHP
15 2 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
16 1 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 1 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 85 (24.36%) Security Cleared
2 56 (16.05%) SC Cleared
3 36 (10.32%) Degree
4 17 (4.87%) DV Cleared
5 15 (4.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (4.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (3.15%) Master's Degree
7 8 (2.29%) PhD
8 4 (1.15%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.15%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.29%) CCIP
10 1 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.29%) ISEB
10 1 (0.29%) MPhil
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.87%) Accessibility
1 17 (4.87%) QA
2 10 (2.87%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.87%) WCAG
3 7 (2.01%) NIST
4 4 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.86%) GDPR
6 2 (0.57%) GPG for Computer-Based Electronic Evidence
6 2 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 17025
6 2 (0.57%) ISO17020
6 2 (0.57%) SLA
7 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.29%) GRC
7 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.29%) SOC 2
System Software
1 125 (35.82%) Docker
2 15 (4.30%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.72%) Postfix
4 5 (1.43%) Ceph
4 5 (1.43%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.15%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.86%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.86%) KVM
7 2 (0.57%) Oracle Clusterware
8 1 (0.29%) Firmware
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
1 113 (32.38%) Kubernetes
2 38 (10.89%) Terraform
3 30 (8.60%) Grafana
4 27 (7.74%) Prometheus
5 12 (3.44%) Ansible
6 8 (2.29%) Istio
6 8 (2.29%) WMI
7 6 (1.72%) Argo
7 6 (1.72%) Puppet
8 4 (1.15%) Data Guard
8 4 (1.15%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.86%) HAProxy
10 2 (0.57%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.57%) Knative
10 2 (0.57%) Rancher
10 2 (0.57%) Salt
11 1 (0.29%) CASB
11 1 (0.29%) MOM
11 1 (0.29%) SELinux
Vendors
1 28 (8.02%) Microsoft
2 27 (7.74%) Google
3 24 (6.88%) OpenAI
4 10 (2.87%) Splunk
4 10 (2.87%) VMware
5 9 (2.58%) Atlassian
5 9 (2.58%) Oracle
5 9 (2.58%) UiPath
6 8 (2.29%) Automation Anywhere
7 7 (2.01%) Jaspersoft
8 6 (1.72%) Dynatrace
9 5 (1.43%) Confluent
9 5 (1.43%) Databricks
9 5 (1.43%) Red Hat
10 4 (1.15%) Cloudera
10 4 (1.15%) IBM
10 4 (1.15%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.15%) webMethods
10 4 (1.15%) Xamarin
11 3 (0.86%) Infoblox