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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 416 255 319
Rank change year-on-year -161 +64 -56
Contract jobs citing Open Source 273 351 243
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 1.07% 0.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.59% 1.18% 0.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 147 158 127
10th Percentile £408 £363 £319
25th Percentile £441 £426 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% +5.00% -13.04%
75th Percentile £623 £613 £625
90th Percentile £745 £729 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £488
% change year-on-year +4.50% +2.56% -11.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 13
10th Percentile - - £20.12
25th Percentile £13.09 £51.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.67 £56.50 £25.36
Median % change year-on-year -22.71% +122.79% +19.34%
75th Percentile £76.75 £61.25 £27.00
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 46,512 29,792 32,258
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.69% 90.47% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,938 18,529 19,417
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 £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,382 1,881 1,250
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.54 £65.14 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.83%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -207 187 £529 +0.71% 965
UK excluding London -99 115 £523 +4.50% 332
Work from Home -84 104 £500 +2.04% 423
London -145 90 £565 +3.29% 682
North of England -63 36 £510 +3.45% 76
South West -14 25 £550 -4.35% 36
Scotland -33 23 £525 - 44
Yorkshire -39 15 £513 -2.38% 21
South East -80 14 £350 -38.05% 60
East of England -17 11 £551 -0.36% 61
North East -33 11 £425 - 15
North West -57 10 £675 +50.00% 40
Midlands -46 9 £450 -10.10% 25
West Midlands -51 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 (4.76%) Confluence
2 10 (3.66%) SharePoint
3 9 (3.30%) Apache
4 8 (2.93%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (2.93%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.20%) SAS
6 5 (1.83%) 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 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.37%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 116 (42.49%) AWS
2 76 (27.84%) Azure
3 46 (16.85%) GCP
4 43 (15.75%) GitHub
5 27 (9.89%) GitHub Actions
6 18 (6.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 16 (5.86%) Amazon S3
8 15 (5.49%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (5.49%) IaaS
8 15 (5.49%) Serverless
9 11 (4.03%) Anthropic Claude
10 10 (3.66%) Vertex AI
11 9 (3.30%) Amazon Bedrock
12 8 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (2.93%) Azure Monitor
13 7 (2.56%) Amazon EC2
13 7 (2.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 7 (2.56%) Power Platform
14 6 (2.20%) Google Gemini
14 6 (2.20%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.56%) Intrusion Detection
2 6 (2.20%) HTTPS
2 6 (2.20%) SNMP
3 4 (1.47%) DNS
3 4 (1.47%) Network Security
4 3 (1.10%) SSH
4 3 (1.10%) SSL
5 2 (0.73%) 4G
5 2 (0.73%) Asterisk PBX
5 2 (0.73%) Broadband
5 2 (0.73%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.73%) HTTP
5 2 (0.73%) Internet
5 2 (0.73%) RTCP
5 2 (0.73%) RTP
5 2 (0.73%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.73%) VoIP
5 2 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.73%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.37%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.49%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (4.76%) Amazon RDS
3 10 (3.66%) DynamoDB
4 9 (3.30%) MongoDB
5 8 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.93%) Trino
6 7 (2.56%) Apache Iceberg
6 7 (2.56%) Big Data
6 7 (2.56%) Data Lake
6 7 (2.56%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.20%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (1.83%) Amazon Athena
8 5 (1.83%) BigQuery
8 5 (1.83%) BusinessObjects
8 5 (1.83%) Pentaho
8 5 (1.83%) Power BI
9 4 (1.47%) Amazon Aurora
9 4 (1.47%) Redis
10 3 (1.10%) Apache Cassandra
10 3 (1.10%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 44 (16.12%) Git
2 27 (9.89%) Jenkins
3 19 (6.96%) GitLab
4 14 (5.13%) JIRA
5 9 (3.30%) JMeter
6 7 (2.56%) Cypress.io
6 7 (2.56%) JUnit
6 7 (2.56%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (2.20%) CircleCI
7 6 (2.20%) Cucumber
7 6 (2.20%) Postman
8 5 (1.83%) Gradle
9 4 (1.47%) Bitbucket Server
9 4 (1.47%) Claude Code
9 4 (1.47%) DbUnit
9 4 (1.47%) jMock
9 4 (1.47%) Maven
9 4 (1.47%) MLflow
9 4 (1.47%) Mockito
9 4 (1.47%) SonarQube
General
1 77 (28.21%) Social Skills
2 42 (15.38%) Finance
3 39 (14.29%) Public Sector
4 15 (5.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 14 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (4.76%) Legal
7 12 (4.40%) Banking
8 8 (2.93%) Law
8 8 (2.93%) Telecoms
9 6 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (2.20%) Retail
10 5 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.47%) Military
12 3 (1.10%) Publishing
13 2 (0.73%) Documentation Skills
13 2 (0.73%) Front Office
13 2 (0.73%) Polish Language
13 2 (0.73%) Public Speaking
14 1 (0.37%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 58 (21.25%) Senior
2 52 (19.05%) Developer
3 40 (14.65%) Architect
4 24 (8.79%) Solutions Architect
5 23 (8.42%) AWS Architect
6 20 (7.33%) Software Developer
7 19 (6.96%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 18 (6.59%) Software Engineer
9 16 (5.86%) AWS Solution Architect
10 14 (5.13%) Analyst
10 14 (5.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 13 (4.76%) Senior Developer
11 13 (4.76%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 12 (4.40%) Consultant
12 12 (4.40%) Platform Engineer
13 11 (4.03%) Cyber Threat Analyst
13 11 (4.03%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
13 11 (4.03%) Data Engineer
13 11 (4.03%) Integration Engineer
13 11 (4.03%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (17.95%) Terraform
2 35 (12.82%) Kafka
3 31 (11.36%) REST
4 16 (5.86%) LangChain
4 16 (5.86%) RESTful
5 12 (4.40%) LangGraph
6 11 (4.03%) Playwright
6 11 (4.03%) PyTorch
6 11 (4.03%) React
7 10 (3.66%) Android Jetpack
7 10 (3.66%) eBPF
7 10 (3.66%) Jetpack Compose
8 9 (3.30%) LlamaIndex
8 9 (3.30%) SOAP
9 8 (2.93%) AngularJS
9 8 (2.93%) Node.js
9 8 (2.93%) OpenTelemetry
9 8 (2.93%) Play Framework
9 8 (2.93%) TensorFlow
10 7 (2.56%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 45 (16.48%) Cloud Native
2 28 (10.26%) Distributed Systems
3 23 (8.42%) AI Agents
4 21 (7.69%) Cyber Threat
5 19 (6.96%) Private Cloud
6 13 (4.76%) Management Information System
7 12 (4.40%) Mobile App
8 10 (3.66%) Self-Motivation
9 9 (3.30%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (3.30%) Product Ownership
9 9 (3.30%) Security Posture
9 9 (3.30%) Virtual Team
10 8 (2.93%) Blog
10 8 (2.93%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (2.56%) Data Structures
12 6 (2.20%) Legacy Applications
12 6 (2.20%) LIMS
12 6 (2.20%) Linux Command Line
13 5 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
13 5 (1.83%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 63 (23.08%) Linux
2 16 (5.86%) Unix
3 12 (4.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 11 (4.03%) Android
4 11 (4.03%) Windows
5 5 (1.83%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.73%) Debian
6 2 (0.73%) Rocky
6 2 (0.73%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
7 1 (0.37%) CentOS
7 1 (0.37%) macOS
7 1 (0.37%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (41.76%) CI/CD
2 72 (26.37%) AI
3 71 (26.01%) Software Engineering
4 70 (25.64%) Agile
5 66 (24.18%) DevOps
6 57 (20.88%) Test Automation
7 54 (19.78%) Observability
8 52 (19.05%) Infrastructure as Code
9 43 (15.75%) Containerisation
10 37 (13.55%) Event-Driven
11 36 (13.19%) Microservices
12 35 (12.82%) Platform Engineering
12 35 (12.82%) Stakeholder Management
13 34 (12.45%) LLM
14 33 (12.09%) Problem-Solving
15 32 (11.72%) Continuous Integration
15 32 (11.72%) Cybersecurity
15 32 (11.72%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 30 (10.99%) Continuous Improvement
16 30 (10.99%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 100 (36.63%) Python
2 48 (17.58%) Java
3 30 (10.99%) SQL
4 18 (6.59%) Perl
5 17 (6.23%) Bash
5 17 (6.23%) JavaScript
6 15 (5.49%) Go
7 14 (5.13%) C++
7 14 (5.13%) Scala
8 13 (4.76%) Kotlin
8 13 (4.76%) TypeScript
9 11 (4.03%) C
10 6 (2.20%) MUMPS
11 4 (1.47%) C#
11 4 (1.47%) Objective-C
11 4 (1.47%) PowerShell
11 4 (1.47%) Shell Script
11 4 (1.47%) Swift
12 2 (0.73%) Ruby
12 2 (0.73%) Rust
Qualifications
1 95 (34.80%) Security Cleared
2 72 (26.37%) SC Cleared
3 25 (9.16%) Degree
4 18 (6.59%) DV Cleared
5 17 (6.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.30%) CISSP
7 8 (2.93%) AWS Certification
7 8 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.93%) CISM
8 6 (2.20%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.83%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.73%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.73%) CEH
10 2 (0.73%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.73%) GIAC
10 2 (0.73%) LFCS
10 2 (0.73%) OSCP
10 2 (0.73%) RHCE
10 2 (0.73%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.59%) Accessibility
2 11 (4.03%) QA
3 7 (2.56%) GDPR
3 7 (2.56%) WCAG
4 4 (1.47%) Disclosure Scotland
4 4 (1.47%) NCSC
5 3 (1.10%) Data Quality
5 3 (1.10%) GRC
5 3 (1.10%) NIST
6 2 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.73%) PMO
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
System Software
1 56 (20.51%) Docker
2 15 (5.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (3.30%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (1.47%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (1.10%) Ceph
5 3 (1.10%) Firmware
5 3 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.10%) Postfix
6 2 (0.73%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 70 (25.64%) Kubernetes
2 34 (12.45%) Ansible
3 33 (12.09%) Grafana
4 21 (7.69%) Prometheus
5 9 (3.30%) Progress Chef
5 9 (3.30%) Puppet
6 4 (1.47%) Cilium
7 2 (0.73%) Control-M
7 2 (0.73%) Docker Swarm
7 2 (0.73%) Istio
7 2 (0.73%) Kibana
7 2 (0.73%) linkerd
7 2 (0.73%) Salt
7 2 (0.73%) 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 26 (9.52%) Google
2 22 (8.06%) Splunk
3 21 (7.69%) Microsoft
4 18 (6.59%) SaltStack
5 17 (6.23%) OpenAI
6 16 (5.86%) VMware
7 14 (5.13%) Dynatrace
8 12 (4.40%) Oracle
9 10 (3.66%) Red Hat
10 7 (2.56%) Cribl.io
10 7 (2.56%) Databricks
11 6 (2.20%) Informatica
11 6 (2.20%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.83%) Denodo
13 4 (1.47%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.47%) Black Duck
13 4 (1.47%) Foundry
13 4 (1.47%) Jaspersoft
13 4 (1.47%) Mistral
14 3 (1.10%) ServiceNow