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 3 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 421 256 305
Rank change year-on-year -165 +49 -41
Contract jobs citing Open Source 262 350 268
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 1.08% 0.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.58% 1.19% 0.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 173 156
10th Percentile £413 £365 £334
25th Percentile £466 £425 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £531
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -1.18% -11.46%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £639
90th Percentile £755 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £497 £575
% change year-on-year +5.24% -13.65% +2.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 10
10th Percentile £30.76 - £20.12
25th Percentile £57.27 £51.75 £20.40
Median hourly rate £76.50 £56.50 £21.68
Median % change year-on-year +35.40% +160.61% +2.02%
75th Percentile £80.50 £61.25 £27.96
90th Percentile £83.20 - £30.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.00 - £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 45,377 29,398 32,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,769 18,279 20,543
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.49%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,906 1,760 1,592
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.73 £17.30 £18.69
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.03 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.58 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +88.14% -47.37% +14.67%

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 3 September 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 3 September 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 3 September 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 -210 183 £550 +3.58% 1,120
UK excluding London -113 100 £523 +5.24% 374
Work from Home -87 99 £514 -6.55% 510
London -145 96 £600 - 853
North of England -67 28 £495 +1.23% 58
South West -19 24 £550 +46.67% 48
Scotland -38 19 £525 +5.00% 61
Yorkshire -39 15 £500 -1.77% 17
East of England -10 12 £552 - 85
West Midlands -45 11 £459 -8.20% 21
Midlands -47 11 £459 -8.20% 25
South East -77 9 £459 -16.16% 63
North West -57 7 £638 +29.57% 34
North East -40 6 £425 -8.60% 8

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 14 (5.34%) Confluence
2 11 (4.20%) Apache
3 7 (2.67%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (2.67%) Apache Spark
3 7 (2.67%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.29%) SAS
5 4 (1.53%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.38%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.38%) CMS
6 1 (0.38%) Drupal
6 1 (0.38%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.38%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (1.15%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.76%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.38%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 121 (46.18%) AWS
2 70 (26.72%) Azure
3 54 (20.61%) GCP
4 41 (15.65%) GitHub
5 22 (8.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 22 (8.40%) Amazon S3
5 22 (8.40%) GitHub Actions
6 20 (7.63%) Serverless
7 14 (5.34%) Vertex AI
8 13 (4.96%) IaaS
9 12 (4.58%) Amazon EC2
9 12 (4.58%) Amazon EKS
9 12 (4.58%) AWS Lambda
10 9 (3.44%) Google Gemini
11 8 (3.05%) Amazon Bedrock
11 8 (3.05%) Anthropic Claude
11 8 (3.05%) SaaS
12 7 (2.67%) Amazon SQS
12 7 (2.67%) Azure Monitor
12 7 (2.67%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.67%) Intrusion Detection
2 6 (2.29%) HTTPS
2 6 (2.29%) SNMP
3 5 (1.91%) DNS
4 4 (1.53%) SSH
4 4 (1.53%) SSL
5 3 (1.15%) Firewall
5 3 (1.15%) Network Security
6 2 (0.76%) 4G
6 2 (0.76%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (0.76%) HTTP
6 2 (0.76%) Reverse Proxy
6 2 (0.76%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.76%) WAN
7 1 (0.38%) Broadband
7 1 (0.38%) RTCP
7 1 (0.38%) RTP
7 1 (0.38%) VoIP
7 1 (0.38%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.38%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.16%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (6.11%) Amazon RDS
3 12 (4.58%) DynamoDB
3 12 (4.58%) MongoDB
4 9 (3.44%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (3.05%) Amazon Redshift
5 8 (3.05%) Big Data
5 8 (3.05%) BigQuery
5 8 (3.05%) Data Lake
6 7 (2.67%) Amazon Athena
6 7 (2.67%) Amazon QuickSight
6 7 (2.67%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.29%) Amazon Aurora
7 6 (2.29%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (1.91%) Apache Iceberg
8 5 (1.91%) BusinessObjects
8 5 (1.91%) Pentaho
8 5 (1.91%) Power BI
8 5 (1.91%) Redis
8 5 (1.91%) Trino
Development Applications
1 55 (20.99%) Git
2 24 (9.16%) Jenkins
3 21 (8.02%) GitLab
4 15 (5.73%) JIRA
4 15 (5.73%) JUnit
5 13 (4.96%) SonarQube
6 10 (3.82%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (2.67%) IntelliJ
8 6 (2.29%) Bitbucket Server
8 6 (2.29%) DbUnit
8 6 (2.29%) JMeter
8 6 (2.29%) jMock
8 6 (2.29%) Maven
8 6 (2.29%) Mockito
9 5 (1.91%) Cucumber
10 4 (1.53%) Cypress.io
11 3 (1.15%) LoadRunner
11 3 (1.15%) Postman
11 3 (1.15%) PowerDesigner
11 3 (1.15%) Selenium
General
1 67 (25.57%) Social Skills
2 41 (15.65%) Finance
3 37 (14.12%) Public Sector
4 19 (7.25%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (5.73%) Banking
6 14 (5.34%) Legal
7 10 (3.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (3.82%) Law
8 5 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.91%) Military
9 4 (1.53%) Front Office
9 4 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (1.53%) Retail
10 3 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.15%) Publishing
11 2 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.76%) Police
11 2 (0.76%) Polish Language
11 2 (0.76%) Public Speaking
11 2 (0.76%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 50 (19.08%) Architect
2 49 (18.70%) Senior
3 47 (17.94%) Developer
4 27 (10.31%) Solutions Architect
5 24 (9.16%) AWS Architect
6 20 (7.63%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 17 (6.49%) AWS Solution Architect
8 16 (6.11%) Senior Developer
8 16 (6.11%) Software Engineer
9 15 (5.73%) Analyst
10 13 (4.96%) Consultant
10 13 (4.96%) Data Engineer
11 12 (4.58%) Software Developer
11 12 (4.58%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 11 (4.20%) Cyber Threat Analyst
12 11 (4.20%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
13 10 (3.82%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (3.82%) Cloud Engineer
13 10 (3.82%) Platform Engineer
14 9 (3.44%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (18.32%) Terraform
2 43 (16.41%) Kafka
3 31 (11.83%) REST
4 15 (5.73%) LangChain
4 15 (5.73%) Spring
4 15 (5.73%) Spring Boot
5 14 (5.34%) React
5 14 (5.34%) RESTful
6 12 (4.58%) Node.js
6 12 (4.58%) PyTorch
7 11 (4.20%) LangGraph
7 11 (4.20%) SOAP
8 10 (3.82%) OpenTelemetry
8 10 (3.82%) TensorFlow
9 9 (3.44%) eBPF
10 8 (3.05%) Android Jetpack
10 8 (3.05%) gRPC
10 8 (3.05%) Jetpack Compose
10 8 (3.05%) Playwright
11 7 (2.67%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 47 (17.94%) Cloud Native
2 25 (9.54%) Distributed Systems
3 23 (8.78%) AI Agents
4 20 (7.63%) Cyber Threat
5 12 (4.58%) Private Cloud
6 11 (4.20%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (3.44%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (3.44%) Management Information System
7 9 (3.44%) Product Ownership
8 8 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (2.67%) Data Structures
9 7 (2.67%) Mobile App
10 6 (2.29%) Blog
10 6 (2.29%) Legacy Applications
10 6 (2.29%) LIMS
10 6 (2.29%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (1.91%) Security Operations Centre
11 5 (1.91%) Security Posture
12 4 (1.53%) Replication
12 4 (1.53%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 58 (22.14%) Linux
2 18 (6.87%) Unix
3 12 (4.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 10 (3.82%) Windows
5 9 (3.44%) Android
6 3 (1.15%) Debian
6 3 (1.15%) Rocky
6 3 (1.15%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.76%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (39.69%) CI/CD
2 70 (26.72%) Agile
3 66 (25.19%) AI
3 66 (25.19%) Software Engineering
4 63 (24.05%) DevOps
5 50 (19.08%) Infrastructure as Code
6 46 (17.56%) Observability
7 43 (16.41%) Containerisation
8 39 (14.89%) Microservices
8 39 (14.89%) Test Automation
9 38 (14.50%) Event-Driven
10 36 (13.74%) Stakeholder Management
11 35 (13.36%) LLM
12 32 (12.21%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 29 (11.07%) Cybersecurity
13 29 (11.07%) Data Pipeline
13 29 (11.07%) Machine Learning
14 28 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
15 27 (10.31%) Platform Engineering
16 25 (9.54%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 108 (41.22%) Python
2 48 (18.32%) Java
3 32 (12.21%) SQL
4 20 (7.63%) Bash
4 20 (7.63%) Go
5 15 (5.73%) JavaScript
5 15 (5.73%) TypeScript
6 13 (4.96%) C++
7 11 (4.20%) Perl
7 11 (4.20%) Scala
8 10 (3.82%) C
9 9 (3.44%) Kotlin
10 6 (2.29%) MUMPS
10 6 (2.29%) Shell Script
11 4 (1.53%) C#
12 3 (1.15%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.76%) Rust
14 1 (0.38%) Bicep
14 1 (0.38%) Objective-C
14 1 (0.38%) Swift
Qualifications
1 99 (37.79%) Security Cleared
2 72 (27.48%) SC Cleared
3 21 (8.02%) Degree
4 18 (6.87%) DV Cleared
5 12 (4.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.44%) CISSP
7 8 (3.05%) CISM
8 5 (1.91%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.15%) Azure Certification
10 3 (1.15%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.76%) CEH
11 2 (0.76%) GIAC
11 2 (0.76%) GSEC
11 2 (0.76%) LFCS
11 2 (0.76%) OSCP
11 2 (0.76%) RHCE
11 2 (0.76%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.34%) Accessibility
2 13 (4.96%) QA
3 7 (2.67%) GDPR
4 6 (2.29%) WCAG
5 4 (1.53%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (1.15%) Data Quality
6 3 (1.15%) GRC
6 3 (1.15%) NIST
7 1 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.38%) NCSC
System Software
1 59 (22.52%) Docker
2 10 (3.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.91%) Postfix
4 4 (1.53%) Hyper-V
4 4 (1.53%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (1.15%) Ceph
6 2 (0.76%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.76%) Firmware
6 2 (0.76%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.76%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.38%) Squid
Systems Management
1 62 (23.66%) Kubernetes
2 35 (13.36%) Grafana
3 28 (10.69%) Ansible
3 28 (10.69%) Prometheus
4 10 (3.82%) Puppet
5 8 (3.05%) Progress Chef
6 4 (1.53%) Istio
6 4 (1.53%) Salt
7 3 (1.15%) Cilium
8 2 (0.76%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (0.76%) Kibana
8 2 (0.76%) linkerd
9 1 (0.38%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.38%) Argo
9 1 (0.38%) Control-M
9 1 (0.38%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.38%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.38%) QRadar
9 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.38%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 27 (10.31%) Google
2 20 (7.63%) Microsoft
3 19 (7.25%) Splunk
4 17 (6.49%) Dynatrace
4 17 (6.49%) OpenAI
5 12 (4.58%) Oracle
6 11 (4.20%) SaltStack
7 10 (3.82%) Red Hat
7 10 (3.82%) VMware
8 7 (2.67%) Checkmarx
8 7 (2.67%) Cribl.io
9 6 (2.29%) Atlassian
9 6 (2.29%) Databricks
9 6 (2.29%) Informatica
9 6 (2.29%) InterSystems
9 6 (2.29%) Jaspersoft
10 5 (1.91%) Black Duck
10 5 (1.91%) Denodo
11 3 (1.15%) Confluent
11 3 (1.15%) Mistral