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 23 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 400 250 302
Rank change year-on-year -150 +52 -27
Contract jobs citing Open Source 271 360 309
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 1.10% 0.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.60% 1.22% 0.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 200 195
10th Percentile £431 £394 £363
25th Percentile £500 £448 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £523 £570
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -8.33% -5.00%
75th Percentile £668 £600 £675
90th Percentile £765 £702 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £492 £600
% change year-on-year +5.59% -18.00% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 11
10th Percentile - - £20.12
25th Percentile - - £20.68
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £21.86
75th Percentile - - £27.96
90th Percentile - - £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £20.24

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 44,826 29,510 35,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.34% 85.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,532 22,551
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,642 1,578 2,152
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.46 £17.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -36.33% -7.06%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.94 £62.76
90th Percentile £83.00 £69.13 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.45%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -192 197 £550 - 321
London -131 108 £615 +2.50% 237
Work from Home -104 102 £550 - 158
UK excluding London -122 100 £520 +5.59% 156
North of England -81 24 £511 +5.96% 26
South West -24 19 £550 +34.15% 22
Scotland -23 18 £738 +47.50% 10
West Midlands -52 16 £469 -6.20% 5
Midlands -55 16 £469 -6.20% 7
Yorkshire -46 15 £505 +2.43% 9
East of England -18 12 £552 +38.00% 21
South East -81 12 £500 - 29
North West -54 8 £525 +6.71% 13

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 (6.27%) Confluence
2 10 (3.69%) Apache
3 8 (2.95%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.21%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (2.21%) Apache Spark
4 6 (2.21%) SAS
5 3 (1.11%) Apache Superset
5 3 (1.11%) Appian
5 3 (1.11%) nginx
5 3 (1.11%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.37%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (1.11%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 126 (46.49%) AWS
2 76 (28.04%) Azure
3 52 (19.19%) GCP
4 30 (11.07%) GitHub
5 29 (10.70%) Amazon S3
6 27 (9.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 23 (8.49%) Serverless
8 19 (7.01%) Amazon EC2
9 15 (5.54%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (4.43%) Amazon SQS
10 12 (4.43%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (4.43%) Vertex AI
11 11 (4.06%) AWS KMS
11 11 (4.06%) Azure AI
11 11 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (4.06%) Route 53
12 10 (3.69%) Anthropic Claude
12 10 (3.69%) Google Gemini
12 10 (3.69%) SaaS
13 8 (2.95%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.58%) SNMP
2 6 (2.21%) Reverse Proxy
3 5 (1.85%) Firewall
4 3 (1.11%) Intrusion Detection
4 3 (1.11%) Network Security
4 3 (1.11%) WAN
5 2 (0.74%) 4G
5 2 (0.74%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.74%) DNS
5 2 (0.74%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.74%) NaaS
6 1 (0.37%) 5G
6 1 (0.37%) LTE
6 1 (0.37%) MQTT
6 1 (0.37%) NAS
6 1 (0.37%) NGFW
6 1 (0.37%) SAN
6 1 (0.37%) SSH
6 1 (0.37%) SSL
6 1 (0.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (14.39%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (8.12%) Amazon RDS
3 18 (6.64%) DynamoDB
4 16 (5.90%) Apache Cassandra
5 13 (4.80%) MongoDB
6 11 (4.06%) Amazon Aurora
6 11 (4.06%) BigQuery
7 10 (3.69%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (3.32%) Amazon Redshift
8 9 (3.32%) Big Data
9 8 (2.95%) Amazon Athena
9 8 (2.95%) Data Lake
9 8 (2.95%) Relational Database
10 6 (2.21%) Amazon QuickSight
10 6 (2.21%) Pinecone
11 5 (1.85%) Apache Iceberg
11 5 (1.85%) Flink
11 5 (1.85%) Metadata
11 5 (1.85%) NoSQL
11 5 (1.85%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 57 (21.03%) Git
2 24 (8.86%) GitLab
3 23 (8.49%) JUnit
4 22 (8.12%) Jenkins
5 18 (6.64%) JIRA
5 18 (6.64%) SonarQube
6 14 (5.17%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (4.06%) Bitbucket Server
7 11 (4.06%) DbUnit
7 11 (4.06%) jMock
7 11 (4.06%) Maven
7 11 (4.06%) Mockito
8 8 (2.95%) IntelliJ
9 6 (2.21%) MLflow
10 5 (1.85%) CircleCI
10 5 (1.85%) Gradle
10 5 (1.85%) PowerDesigner
11 4 (1.48%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.74%) Flyway
12 2 (0.74%) Liquibase
General
1 66 (24.35%) Social Skills
2 52 (19.19%) Finance
3 38 (14.02%) Public Sector
4 22 (8.12%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (7.75%) Banking
6 20 (7.38%) Legal
7 11 (4.06%) Law
8 6 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (2.21%) Military
9 4 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.48%) Front Office
9 4 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.48%) Retail
10 3 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.74%) Billing
11 2 (0.74%) Police
11 2 (0.74%) Public Speaking
11 2 (0.74%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.37%) Automotive
12 1 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 62 (22.88%) Architect
2 54 (19.93%) Developer
3 42 (15.50%) Senior
4 33 (12.18%) Solutions Architect
5 26 (9.59%) AWS Architect
6 24 (8.86%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 21 (7.75%) Data Engineer
8 20 (7.38%) Software Engineer
9 19 (7.01%) AWS Solution Architect
10 18 (6.64%) Senior Developer
11 14 (5.17%) Consultant
11 14 (5.17%) Java Developer
12 13 (4.80%) Analyst
13 12 (4.43%) Senior Data Engineer
14 11 (4.06%) Cloud Engineer
15 10 (3.69%) Cyber Threat Analyst
15 10 (3.69%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
15 10 (3.69%) Lead
15 10 (3.69%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
16 9 (3.32%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (21.77%) Kafka
2 40 (14.76%) REST
3 22 (8.12%) RESTful
4 20 (7.38%) Spring
4 20 (7.38%) Spring Boot
5 19 (7.01%) LangChain
5 19 (7.01%) React
6 18 (6.64%) gRPC
6 18 (6.64%) Node.js
7 15 (5.54%) AngularJS
8 14 (5.17%) Android Jetpack
8 14 (5.17%) Jetpack Compose
8 14 (5.17%) PyTorch
8 14 (5.17%) SOAP
8 14 (5.17%) Web Services
9 13 (4.80%) Hugging Face
9 13 (4.80%) TensorFlow
10 11 (4.06%) ActiveMQ
10 11 (4.06%) Hibernate
10 11 (4.06%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 44 (16.24%) Cloud Native
1 44 (16.24%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (6.64%) AI Agents
3 13 (4.80%) Cyber Threat
4 11 (4.06%) Enterprise Software
4 11 (4.06%) Self-Motivation
5 10 (3.69%) Data Protection Act
5 10 (3.69%) Product Ownership
6 9 (3.32%) Mobile App
7 8 (2.95%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.21%) Data Centre
8 6 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (2.21%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.85%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.48%) Data Structures
10 4 (1.48%) Virtual Team
11 3 (1.11%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 3 (1.11%) Legacy Code
11 3 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
11 3 (1.11%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 51 (18.82%) Linux
2 16 (5.90%) Android
3 7 (2.58%) Unix
4 6 (2.21%) Windows
5 4 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.11%) Apple iOS
6 3 (1.11%) Debian
6 3 (1.11%) Rocky
6 3 (1.11%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.37%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (32.84%) CI/CD
2 75 (27.68%) AI
3 65 (23.99%) DevOps
4 63 (23.25%) Agile
5 61 (22.51%) Software Engineering
6 53 (19.56%) Microservices
7 52 (19.19%) LLM
8 49 (18.08%) Stakeholder Management
9 48 (17.71%) Containerisation
10 44 (16.24%) Infrastructure as Code
11 41 (15.13%) Event-Driven
12 40 (14.76%) Observability
13 36 (13.28%) Machine Learning
14 35 (12.92%) Data Pipeline
15 34 (12.55%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 33 (12.18%) Problem-Solving
17 28 (10.33%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
18 26 (9.59%) Generative AI
19 25 (9.23%) Performance Optimisation
20 23 (8.49%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 118 (43.54%) Python
2 55 (20.30%) Java
3 38 (14.02%) SQL
4 30 (11.07%) Go
5 17 (6.27%) Bash
6 16 (5.90%) Kotlin
7 14 (5.17%) JavaScript
7 14 (5.17%) TypeScript
8 10 (3.69%) C#
9 7 (2.58%) C++
10 6 (2.21%) Shell Script
11 4 (1.48%) PowerShell
11 4 (1.48%) Scala
12 3 (1.11%) MUMPS
12 3 (1.11%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.37%) C
13 1 (0.37%) Groovy
13 1 (0.37%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.37%) Ruby
13 1 (0.37%) Rust
Qualifications
1 92 (33.95%) Security Cleared
2 67 (24.72%) SC Cleared
3 30 (11.07%) Degree
4 15 (5.54%) DV Cleared
5 14 (5.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (2.21%) AWS Certification
7 6 (2.21%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.85%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.11%) CISM
9 3 (1.11%) CISSP
9 3 (1.11%) PhD
10 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.37%) GCIA
11 1 (0.37%) GIAC
11 1 (0.37%) ISEB
11 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.37%) MPhil
11 1 (0.37%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.17%) QA
2 7 (2.58%) Accessibility
3 6 (2.21%) Data Quality
4 5 (1.85%) NIST
5 4 (1.48%) GDPR
5 4 (1.48%) WCAG
6 3 (1.11%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (1.11%) GRC
6 3 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (0.37%) NCSC
7 1 (0.37%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
System Software
1 71 (26.20%) Docker
2 9 (3.32%) Postfix
3 3 (1.11%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.74%) Ceph
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.74%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.37%) Squid
Systems Management
1 65 (23.99%) Kubernetes
2 41 (15.13%) Terraform
3 33 (12.18%) Grafana
4 29 (10.70%) Prometheus
5 19 (7.01%) Ansible
6 4 (1.48%) Puppet
7 3 (1.11%) Istio
7 3 (1.11%) Salt
8 2 (0.74%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.74%) Data Guard
8 2 (0.74%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (0.74%) Oracle RMAN
8 2 (0.74%) Rancher
9 1 (0.37%) Argo
9 1 (0.37%) CASB
9 1 (0.37%) Control-M
9 1 (0.37%) MOM
9 1 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.37%) QRadar
9 1 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (9.96%) Google
2 25 (9.23%) Microsoft
3 23 (8.49%) OpenAI
4 19 (7.01%) Dynatrace
5 13 (4.80%) Oracle
5 13 (4.80%) Splunk
6 11 (4.06%) Atlassian
6 11 (4.06%) Jaspersoft
7 7 (2.58%) Checkmarx
8 6 (2.21%) Cribl.io
8 6 (2.21%) Informatica
9 5 (1.85%) Black Duck
9 5 (1.85%) Denodo
9 5 (1.85%) IBM
9 5 (1.85%) ServiceNow
10 3 (1.11%) Automation Anywhere
10 3 (1.11%) Confluent
10 3 (1.11%) Fortinet
10 3 (1.11%) Sonatype
10 3 (1.11%) UiPath