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 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 425 251 329
Rank change year-on-year -174 +78 -80
Contract jobs citing Open Source 270 358 248
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 1.08% 0.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.59% 1.19% 0.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 162 127
10th Percentile £413 £360 £319
25th Percentile £452 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £504 £501
Median % change year-on-year +4.02% +0.46% -12.84%
75th Percentile £623 £613 £622
90th Percentile £746 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £524 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +4.75% - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 14
10th Percentile - - £20.12
25th Percentile £13.09 £51.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.67 £56.50 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year -22.71% +120.02% +20.85%
75th Percentile £76.75 £61.25 £27.72
90th Percentile £80.80 - £27.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £13.34 - £25.36

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 46,102 30,004 32,672
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.46% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,718 18,629 19,703
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,326 1,885 1,303
10th Percentile £13.58 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.52 £65.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.25
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.02% -2.94%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -195 185 £533 +2.01% 1,341
UK excluding London -108 115 £524 +4.75% 423
Work from Home -89 104 £500 +4.17% 524
London -162 88 £565 -0.53% 982
North of England -66 38 £500 +1.63% 92
South West -13 24 £550 -4.35% 41
Scotland -34 23 £525 - 63
Yorkshire -35 17 £510 -2.86% 30
South East -74 13 £405 -28.41% 79
East of England -20 11 £552 -0.18% 86
North East -30 11 £425 - 15
North West -61 10 £675 +43.62% 47
Midlands -45 9 £450 -10.10% 29
West Midlands -46 9 £450 -10.10% 21

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 13 (4.81%) Confluence
2 10 (3.70%) SharePoint
3 9 (3.33%) Apache
4 8 (2.96%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (2.96%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.22%) SAS
6 5 (1.85%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.37%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.37%) CMS
7 1 (0.37%) Drupal
7 1 (0.37%) GeoServer
7 1 (0.37%) IIS
7 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.37%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.37%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.37%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 114 (42.22%) AWS
2 75 (27.78%) Azure
3 50 (18.52%) GCP
4 42 (15.56%) GitHub
5 25 (9.26%) GitHub Actions
6 18 (6.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 16 (5.93%) Amazon S3
8 15 (5.56%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (5.56%) IaaS
8 15 (5.56%) Serverless
9 13 (4.81%) Vertex AI
10 11 (4.07%) Anthropic Claude
11 10 (3.70%) Google Gemini
12 9 (3.33%) Amazon Bedrock
13 8 (2.96%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (2.59%) Amazon EC2
14 7 (2.59%) Azure Monitor
14 7 (2.59%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 7 (2.59%) Power Platform
15 6 (2.22%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.59%) Intrusion Detection
2 6 (2.22%) HTTPS
2 6 (2.22%) SNMP
3 4 (1.48%) DNS
3 4 (1.48%) Network Security
4 3 (1.11%) SSH
4 3 (1.11%) SSL
5 2 (0.74%) 4G
5 2 (0.74%) Asterisk PBX
5 2 (0.74%) Broadband
5 2 (0.74%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.74%) HTTP
5 2 (0.74%) Internet
5 2 (0.74%) RTCP
5 2 (0.74%) RTP
5 2 (0.74%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.74%) VoIP
5 2 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.74%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.37%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.56%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (4.81%) Amazon RDS
3 10 (3.70%) DynamoDB
4 9 (3.33%) MongoDB
5 8 (2.96%) BigQuery
5 8 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.96%) Trino
6 7 (2.59%) Apache Iceberg
6 7 (2.59%) Big Data
6 7 (2.59%) Data Lake
6 7 (2.59%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.22%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (1.85%) Amazon Athena
8 5 (1.85%) BusinessObjects
8 5 (1.85%) Pentaho
8 5 (1.85%) Power BI
8 5 (1.85%) Redis
9 4 (1.48%) Amazon Aurora
10 3 (1.11%) Pinecone
10 3 (1.11%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 45 (16.67%) Git
2 27 (10.00%) Jenkins
3 19 (7.04%) GitLab
4 14 (5.19%) JIRA
5 9 (3.33%) JMeter
6 7 (2.59%) Cypress.io
6 7 (2.59%) JUnit
6 7 (2.59%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (2.22%) Cucumber
7 6 (2.22%) Postman
8 5 (1.85%) SonarQube
9 4 (1.48%) Bitbucket Server
9 4 (1.48%) CircleCI
9 4 (1.48%) DbUnit
9 4 (1.48%) jMock
9 4 (1.48%) Maven
9 4 (1.48%) MLflow
9 4 (1.48%) Mockito
10 3 (1.11%) Claude Code
10 3 (1.11%) ScalaTest
General
1 77 (28.52%) Social Skills
2 39 (14.44%) Finance
2 39 (14.44%) Public Sector
3 15 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (5.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 13 (4.81%) Legal
5 12 (4.44%) Banking
6 8 (2.96%) Law
7 7 (2.59%) Telecoms
8 6 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (2.22%) Retail
9 5 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.48%) Military
11 3 (1.11%) Publishing
12 2 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.74%) Front Office
12 2 (0.74%) Polish Language
12 2 (0.74%) Public Speaking
13 1 (0.37%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 57 (21.11%) Senior
2 51 (18.89%) Developer
3 38 (14.07%) Architect
4 23 (8.52%) Solutions Architect
5 22 (8.15%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 22 (8.15%) AWS Architect
6 19 (7.04%) Software Developer
7 18 (6.67%) Software Engineer
8 16 (5.93%) AWS Solution Architect
9 14 (5.19%) Analyst
9 14 (5.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 13 (4.81%) Senior Developer
10 13 (4.81%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
11 12 (4.44%) Consultant
11 12 (4.44%) Platform Engineer
12 11 (4.07%) Cyber Threat Analyst
12 11 (4.07%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 11 (4.07%) Data Engineer
12 11 (4.07%) Integration Engineer
12 11 (4.07%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (17.78%) Terraform
2 33 (12.22%) Kafka
3 30 (11.11%) REST
4 17 (6.30%) LangChain
5 14 (5.19%) PyTorch
5 14 (5.19%) RESTful
6 13 (4.81%) LangGraph
7 12 (4.44%) React
8 11 (4.07%) Playwright
8 11 (4.07%) TensorFlow
9 10 (3.70%) eBPF
10 9 (3.33%) LlamaIndex
10 9 (3.33%) SOAP
11 8 (2.96%) Android Jetpack
11 8 (2.96%) AngularJS
11 8 (2.96%) Node.js
11 8 (2.96%) OpenTelemetry
11 8 (2.96%) Play Framework
11 8 (2.96%) Spring
11 8 (2.96%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 43 (15.93%) Cloud Native
2 27 (10.00%) Distributed Systems
3 24 (8.89%) AI Agents
4 21 (7.78%) Cyber Threat
5 19 (7.04%) Private Cloud
6 12 (4.44%) Management Information System
7 10 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (3.33%) Mobile App
8 9 (3.33%) Security Posture
9 8 (2.96%) Blog
9 8 (2.96%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (2.96%) Product Ownership
9 8 (2.96%) Virtual Team
10 7 (2.59%) Data Structures
11 6 (2.22%) Legacy Applications
11 6 (2.22%) LIMS
11 6 (2.22%) Linux Command Line
12 5 (1.85%) Onboarding
12 5 (1.85%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 63 (23.33%) Linux
2 16 (5.93%) Unix
3 12 (4.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 11 (4.07%) Windows
5 9 (3.33%) Android
6 3 (1.11%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.74%) Debian
7 2 (0.74%) Rocky
7 2 (0.74%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
8 1 (0.37%) CentOS
8 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.37%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (42.96%) CI/CD
2 74 (27.41%) AI
3 71 (26.30%) Software Engineering
4 69 (25.56%) Agile
5 66 (24.44%) DevOps
6 57 (21.11%) Observability
7 55 (20.37%) Test Automation
8 52 (19.26%) Infrastructure as Code
9 45 (16.67%) Containerisation
10 40 (14.81%) Microservices
11 38 (14.07%) LLM
12 36 (13.33%) Event-Driven
13 35 (12.96%) Platform Engineering
14 34 (12.59%) Machine Learning
14 34 (12.59%) Stakeholder Management
15 32 (11.85%) Cybersecurity
15 32 (11.85%) Problem-Solving
16 31 (11.48%) Event-Driven Architecture
17 30 (11.11%) Continuous Integration
18 29 (10.74%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 103 (38.15%) Python
2 45 (16.67%) Java
3 29 (10.74%) SQL
4 18 (6.67%) Perl
5 17 (6.30%) Bash
5 17 (6.30%) JavaScript
6 15 (5.56%) Go
7 14 (5.19%) C++
7 14 (5.19%) TypeScript
8 13 (4.81%) Scala
9 11 (4.07%) C
10 10 (3.70%) Kotlin
11 6 (2.22%) MUMPS
12 4 (1.48%) C#
12 4 (1.48%) Shell Script
13 3 (1.11%) PowerShell
14 2 (0.74%) Bicep
14 2 (0.74%) Objective-C
14 2 (0.74%) Ruby
14 2 (0.74%) Rust
Qualifications
1 94 (34.81%) Security Cleared
2 70 (25.93%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.52%) Degree
4 18 (6.67%) DV Cleared
5 15 (5.56%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.33%) CISSP
7 8 (2.96%) AWS Certification
7 8 (2.96%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.96%) CISM
8 6 (2.22%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.85%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.74%) CEH
10 2 (0.74%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.74%) GIAC
10 2 (0.74%) GSEC
10 2 (0.74%) LFCS
10 2 (0.74%) OSCP
10 2 (0.74%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.67%) Accessibility
2 10 (3.70%) QA
3 7 (2.59%) GDPR
3 7 (2.59%) WCAG
4 4 (1.48%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.48%) Disclosure Scotland
4 4 (1.48%) NCSC
5 3 (1.11%) GRC
5 3 (1.11%) NIST
6 2 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.74%) PMO
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 58 (21.48%) Docker
2 15 (5.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (3.33%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (1.48%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (1.11%) Ceph
5 3 (1.11%) Firmware
5 3 (1.11%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.11%) Postfix
6 2 (0.74%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 72 (26.67%) Kubernetes
2 34 (12.59%) Ansible
3 33 (12.22%) Grafana
4 24 (8.89%) Prometheus
5 9 (3.33%) Progress Chef
5 9 (3.33%) Puppet
6 4 (1.48%) Cilium
6 4 (1.48%) Istio
7 2 (0.74%) Control-M
7 2 (0.74%) Docker Swarm
7 2 (0.74%) Kibana
7 2 (0.74%) linkerd
7 2 (0.74%) Salt
7 2 (0.74%) systemd
8 1 (0.37%) Argo
8 1 (0.37%) QRadar
8 1 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.37%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 27 (10.00%) Google
2 22 (8.15%) Splunk
3 20 (7.41%) Microsoft
4 18 (6.67%) SaltStack
5 17 (6.30%) Dynatrace
5 17 (6.30%) OpenAI
6 16 (5.93%) VMware
7 12 (4.44%) Oracle
8 10 (3.70%) Red Hat
9 7 (2.59%) Cribl.io
9 7 (2.59%) Databricks
10 6 (2.22%) Informatica
10 6 (2.22%) InterSystems
11 5 (1.85%) Denodo
12 4 (1.48%) Atlassian
12 4 (1.48%) Black Duck
12 4 (1.48%) Foundry
12 4 (1.48%) Jaspersoft
12 4 (1.48%) Mistral
13 3 (1.11%) IBM