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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 355 239 282
Rank change year-on-year -116 +43 -27
Contract jobs citing Open Source 295 320 324
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 1.11% 0.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.72% 1.22% 0.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 138 202 212
10th Percentile £400 £400 £356
25th Percentile £478 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £570
Median % change year-on-year - -3.51% -5.00%
75th Percentile £644 £638 £675
90th Percentile £791 £838 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £585
% change year-on-year +6.38% -19.66% +0.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 12
10th Percentile - - £20.23
25th Percentile £61.25 - £21.71
Median hourly rate £62.50 - £26.97
75th Percentile £63.75 - £61.35
90th Percentile - - £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £55.00

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 40,852 26,213 36,586
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.38% 91.03% 85.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,586 16,831 23,574
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.74% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,418 1,066 2,483
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.13 £27.59 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +52.71% -23.47% -0.22%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +73.72% -33.82% +8.57%

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 25 May 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
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 25 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 -142 231 £550 -4.35% 174
London -117 122 £600 - 103
UK excluding London -104 108 £500 +6.38% 86
Work from Home -69 107 £550 -8.33% 68
North of England -82 25 £475 +2.15% 14
West Midlands -51 20 £475 -5.00% 1
Midlands -57 20 £475 -5.00% 5
Scotland -10 18 £675 +28.57% 2
South West -17 18 £550 +34.15% 20
North West -43 15 £450 -2.70% 11
South East -62 15 £338 -32.50% 31
East of England -26 13 £550 +52.49% 12
Yorkshire -58 9 £497 - 3

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 17 (5.76%) Confluence
2 8 (2.71%) Apache
2 8 (2.71%) Appian
2 8 (2.71%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.69%) SAS
4 4 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.36%) nginx
4 4 (1.36%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.02%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.68%) Liferay
6 2 (0.68%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 3 (1.02%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.68%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.68%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 150 (50.85%) AWS
2 83 (28.14%) Azure
3 41 (13.90%) GCP
3 41 (13.90%) GitHub
4 36 (12.20%) Amazon S3
5 28 (9.49%) Serverless
6 24 (8.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 22 (7.46%) Amazon EC2
8 20 (6.78%) Azure AI
9 18 (6.10%) GitHub Actions
10 17 (5.76%) AWS Lambda
11 13 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (4.41%) Google Gemini
11 13 (4.41%) Route 53
12 12 (4.07%) Amazon SQS
13 11 (3.73%) Anthropic Claude
13 11 (3.73%) AWS KMS
14 10 (3.39%) Azure Cognitive Services
15 9 (3.05%) Azure Data Factory
15 9 (3.05%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 10 (3.39%) Firewall
2 7 (2.37%) Reverse Proxy
3 6 (2.03%) SNMP
4 5 (1.69%) DNS
4 5 (1.69%) WAN
5 3 (1.02%) Intrusion Detection
5 3 (1.02%) Network Security
6 2 (0.68%) DHCP
6 2 (0.68%) NaaS
7 1 (0.34%) 5G
7 1 (0.34%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.34%) LTE
7 1 (0.34%) NAS
7 1 (0.34%) NGFW
7 1 (0.34%) SAN
7 1 (0.34%) SSH
7 1 (0.34%) SSL
7 1 (0.34%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.34%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (14.92%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (13.56%) Apache Cassandra
3 21 (7.12%) DynamoDB
4 19 (6.44%) Amazon RDS
5 15 (5.08%) BigQuery
6 13 (4.41%) MongoDB
7 11 (3.73%) Amazon Aurora
7 11 (3.73%) Pinecone
7 11 (3.73%) SQL Server
8 9 (3.05%) Amazon Athena
8 9 (3.05%) Amazon Redshift
8 9 (3.05%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (3.05%) NoSQL
9 7 (2.37%) Amazon QuickSight
10 6 (2.03%) Data Lake
10 6 (2.03%) Metadata
10 6 (2.03%) Relational Database
11 5 (1.69%) Big Data
11 5 (1.69%) RDBMS
11 5 (1.69%) Redis
Development Applications
1 60 (20.34%) Git
2 30 (10.17%) GitLab
3 26 (8.81%) Jenkins
4 24 (8.14%) JUnit
5 20 (6.78%) JIRA
6 18 (6.10%) SonarQube
7 12 (4.07%) Sonatype Nexus
8 11 (3.73%) Bitbucket Server
8 11 (3.73%) DbUnit
8 11 (3.73%) jMock
8 11 (3.73%) Maven
8 11 (3.73%) Mockito
9 10 (3.39%) MLflow
10 8 (2.71%) IntelliJ
11 6 (2.03%) CircleCI
11 6 (2.03%) Gradle
12 5 (1.69%) Artifactory
13 4 (1.36%) PowerDesigner
14 3 (1.02%) Cucumber
15 2 (0.68%) Hudson
General
1 63 (21.36%) Social Skills
2 60 (20.34%) Finance
3 47 (15.93%) Public Sector
4 23 (7.80%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (6.44%) Banking
5 19 (6.44%) Legal
6 8 (2.71%) Retail
7 7 (2.37%) Law
8 6 (2.03%) Front Office
8 6 (2.03%) Military
9 5 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.02%) Publishing
10 3 (1.02%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.68%) Billing
11 2 (0.68%) Marketing
11 2 (0.68%) Police
12 1 (0.34%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 78 (26.44%) Developer
2 58 (19.66%) Senior
3 55 (18.64%) Architect
4 32 (10.85%) Senior Developer
5 29 (9.83%) Software Engineer
5 29 (9.83%) Solutions Architect
6 26 (8.81%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 22 (7.46%) Data Engineer
8 21 (7.12%) AWS Architect
9 15 (5.08%) Cloud Engineer
10 14 (4.75%) AWS Solution Architect
10 14 (4.75%) Consultant
10 14 (4.75%) Java Developer
11 12 (4.07%) Python Developer
11 12 (4.07%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (3.73%) Lead
13 10 (3.39%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (3.39%) Cloud Architect
13 10 (3.39%) GCP Engineer
14 9 (3.05%) Android Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (24.75%) Kafka
2 42 (14.24%) gRPC
2 42 (14.24%) REST
3 32 (10.85%) RESTful
4 28 (9.49%) Node.js
4 28 (9.49%) Spring
4 28 (9.49%) Spring Boot
5 27 (9.15%) React
6 25 (8.47%) AngularJS
7 24 (8.14%) Web Services
8 20 (6.78%) LangChain
9 17 (5.76%) .NET
10 16 (5.42%) Hugging Face
11 15 (5.08%) OpenTelemetry
11 15 (5.08%) PyTorch
12 14 (4.75%) TensorFlow
13 13 (4.41%) Android Jetpack
13 13 (4.41%) Jetpack Compose
14 12 (4.07%) Django
14 12 (4.07%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 61 (20.68%) Distributed Systems
2 44 (14.92%) Cloud Native
3 20 (6.78%) Product Ownership
4 10 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (3.05%) AI Agents
6 8 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.71%) Low-Code
6 8 (2.71%) Onboarding
7 7 (2.37%) Legacy Code
8 6 (2.03%) Data Centre
8 6 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (2.03%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
9 5 (1.69%) Mobile App
10 4 (1.36%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.02%) Clustering
11 3 (1.02%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 3 (1.02%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 3 (1.02%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 46 (15.59%) Linux
2 15 (5.08%) Android
3 6 (2.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (1.36%) Debian
4 4 (1.36%) Rocky
4 4 (1.36%) Ubuntu
4 4 (1.36%) Unix
4 4 (1.36%) Windows
5 3 (1.02%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.68%) VMS
6 2 (0.68%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (30.51%) CI/CD
2 81 (27.46%) Microservices
2 81 (27.46%) Software Engineering
3 77 (26.10%) AI
4 70 (23.73%) Agile
5 67 (22.71%) DevOps
6 62 (21.02%) Containerisation
7 53 (17.97%) LLM
8 50 (16.95%) Stakeholder Management
9 43 (14.58%) Infrastructure as Code
10 42 (14.24%) Data Pipeline
11 41 (13.90%) Machine Learning
12 40 (13.56%) Generative AI
13 38 (12.88%) Observability
14 35 (11.86%) Problem-Solving
15 34 (11.53%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 29 (9.83%) TDD
17 28 (9.49%) Continuous Integration
17 28 (9.49%) Event-Driven
18 26 (8.81%) Prompt Engineering
Programming Languages
1 128 (43.39%) Python
2 54 (18.31%) Go
2 54 (18.31%) Java
3 46 (15.59%) SQL
4 21 (7.12%) JavaScript
5 20 (6.78%) TypeScript
6 19 (6.44%) Bash
7 18 (6.10%) C#
8 14 (4.75%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.37%) Ruby
10 6 (2.03%) PL/SQL
10 6 (2.03%) PowerShell
10 6 (2.03%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.02%) C++
12 2 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.68%) Scala
13 1 (0.34%) Bicep
13 1 (0.34%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.34%) R
13 1 (0.34%) Swift
Qualifications
1 88 (29.83%) Security Cleared
2 69 (23.39%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.47%) Degree
4 12 (4.07%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (3.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.05%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.69%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.69%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.02%) CISM
8 3 (1.02%) CISSP
8 3 (1.02%) Master's Degree
8 3 (1.02%) PhD
9 2 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.34%) CEH
10 1 (0.34%) GCIA
10 1 (0.34%) GIAC
10 1 (0.34%) ISEB
10 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.34%) MPhil
10 1 (0.34%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.42%) QA
2 10 (3.39%) Accessibility
2 10 (3.39%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.36%) NIST
3 4 (1.36%) WCAG
4 3 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.34%) GDPR
5 1 (0.34%) GRC
5 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 42001
5 1 (0.34%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.34%) SLA
5 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 99 (33.56%) Docker
2 9 (3.05%) Active Directory
2 9 (3.05%) Postfix
3 5 (1.69%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (1.36%) Oracle RAC
5 3 (1.02%) Ceph
6 2 (0.68%) ISA Server
6 2 (0.68%) Oracle Clusterware
7 1 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.34%) KVM
7 1 (0.34%) Squid
7 1 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 91 (30.85%) Kubernetes
2 40 (13.56%) Terraform
3 36 (12.20%) Grafana
4 29 (9.83%) Prometheus
5 16 (5.42%) Ansible
6 10 (3.39%) Istio
7 6 (2.03%) Argo
8 4 (1.36%) Data Guard
8 4 (1.36%) Oracle RMAN
8 4 (1.36%) Puppet
8 4 (1.36%) Salt
9 2 (0.68%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.68%) Rancher
9 2 (0.68%) WMI
10 1 (0.34%) CASB
10 1 (0.34%) Control-M
10 1 (0.34%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.34%) Knative
10 1 (0.34%) MOM
10 1 (0.34%) QRadar
Vendors
1 27 (9.15%) Google
2 26 (8.81%) OpenAI
3 21 (7.12%) Microsoft
4 18 (6.10%) Dynatrace
5 12 (4.07%) Oracle
5 12 (4.07%) Splunk
6 11 (3.73%) Atlassian
6 11 (3.73%) Jaspersoft
7 9 (3.05%) UiPath
8 8 (2.71%) Automation Anywhere
9 7 (2.37%) Checkmarx
10 5 (1.69%) Cribl.io
10 5 (1.69%) Denodo
10 5 (1.69%) Informatica
11 4 (1.36%) Fortinet
11 4 (1.36%) IBM
11 4 (1.36%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.36%) VMware
12 3 (1.02%) Confluent
12 3 (1.02%) Sonatype