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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 424 248 329
Rank change year-on-year -176 +81 -73
Contract jobs citing Open Source 269 353 251
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 1.07% 0.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.58% 1.18% 0.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 158 128
10th Percentile £413 £363 £319
25th Percentile £452 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £522 £501
Median % change year-on-year +0.34% +4.28% -12.94%
75th Percentile £623 £613 £623
90th Percentile £746 £729 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £524 £500 £488
% change year-on-year +4.75% +2.56% -11.36%
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 46,195 29,974 32,629
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.49% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,749 18,609 19,667
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 3,350 1,884 1,294
10th Percentile £13.54 £14.35 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.16
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.38% -8.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £73.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.35% -2.35%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -208 184 £533 +1.43% 1,375
UK excluding London -98 113 £524 +4.75% 478
Work from Home -88 102 £500 - 557
London -154 89 £565 +0.44% 971
North of England -76 36 £510 +5.15% 101
South West -10 25 £550 -4.35% 48
Scotland -28 23 £525 - 69
Yorkshire -32 15 £513 -2.38% 33
South East -82 13 £405 -28.41% 86
North East -32 11 £425 - 18
East of England -28 10 £551 -0.36% 98
North West -59 10 £675 +50.00% 50
Midlands -45 9 £450 -10.10% 41
West Midlands -47 9 £450 -10.10% 30

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 (4.83%) Confluence
2 10 (3.72%) SharePoint
3 9 (3.35%) Apache
4 8 (2.97%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (2.97%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.23%) SAS
6 5 (1.86%) 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 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.37%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 114 (42.38%) AWS
2 76 (28.25%) Azure
3 46 (17.10%) GCP
4 42 (15.61%) GitHub
5 26 (9.67%) GitHub Actions
6 18 (6.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 16 (5.95%) Amazon S3
8 15 (5.58%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (5.58%) IaaS
8 15 (5.58%) Serverless
9 11 (4.09%) Anthropic Claude
10 10 (3.72%) Vertex AI
11 9 (3.35%) Amazon Bedrock
12 8 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (2.97%) Azure Monitor
13 7 (2.60%) Amazon EC2
13 7 (2.60%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 7 (2.60%) Power Platform
14 6 (2.23%) Google Gemini
14 6 (2.23%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.60%) Intrusion Detection
2 6 (2.23%) HTTPS
2 6 (2.23%) SNMP
3 4 (1.49%) DNS
3 4 (1.49%) Network Security
4 3 (1.12%) SSH
4 3 (1.12%) 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 (5.58%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (4.83%) Amazon RDS
3 10 (3.72%) DynamoDB
4 9 (3.35%) MongoDB
5 8 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.97%) Trino
6 7 (2.60%) Apache Iceberg
6 7 (2.60%) Big Data
6 7 (2.60%) Data Lake
6 7 (2.60%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.23%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (1.86%) Amazon Athena
8 5 (1.86%) BigQuery
8 5 (1.86%) BusinessObjects
8 5 (1.86%) Pentaho
8 5 (1.86%) Power BI
9 4 (1.49%) Amazon Aurora
9 4 (1.49%) Redis
10 3 (1.12%) Apache Cassandra
10 3 (1.12%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 44 (16.36%) Git
2 27 (10.04%) Jenkins
3 19 (7.06%) GitLab
4 14 (5.20%) JIRA
5 9 (3.35%) JMeter
6 7 (2.60%) Cypress.io
6 7 (2.60%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (2.23%) Cucumber
7 6 (2.23%) JUnit
7 6 (2.23%) Postman
8 5 (1.86%) CircleCI
9 4 (1.49%) Bitbucket Server
9 4 (1.49%) Claude Code
9 4 (1.49%) DbUnit
9 4 (1.49%) Gradle
9 4 (1.49%) jMock
9 4 (1.49%) Maven
9 4 (1.49%) MLflow
9 4 (1.49%) Mockito
9 4 (1.49%) SonarQube
General
1 77 (28.62%) Social Skills
2 42 (15.61%) Finance
3 39 (14.50%) Public Sector
4 15 (5.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 14 (5.20%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (4.83%) Legal
7 12 (4.46%) Banking
8 8 (2.97%) Law
9 7 (2.60%) Telecoms
10 6 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (2.23%) Retail
11 5 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.49%) Military
13 3 (1.12%) Publishing
14 2 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
14 2 (0.74%) Front Office
14 2 (0.74%) Polish Language
14 2 (0.74%) Public Speaking
15 1 (0.37%) Investment Banking
15 1 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 58 (21.56%) Senior
2 51 (18.96%) Developer
3 38 (14.13%) Architect
4 23 (8.55%) Solutions Architect
5 22 (8.18%) AWS Architect
6 19 (7.06%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 19 (7.06%) Software Developer
7 17 (6.32%) Software Engineer
8 16 (5.95%) AWS Solution Architect
9 14 (5.20%) Analyst
9 14 (5.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 13 (4.83%) Senior Developer
10 13 (4.83%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
11 12 (4.46%) Consultant
11 12 (4.46%) Platform Engineer
12 11 (4.09%) Cyber Threat Analyst
12 11 (4.09%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 11 (4.09%) Data Engineer
12 11 (4.09%) Integration Engineer
12 11 (4.09%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (18.22%) Terraform
2 33 (12.27%) Kafka
3 30 (11.15%) REST
4 16 (5.95%) LangChain
4 16 (5.95%) RESTful
5 12 (4.46%) LangGraph
6 11 (4.09%) Playwright
6 11 (4.09%) PyTorch
6 11 (4.09%) React
7 10 (3.72%) eBPF
8 9 (3.35%) Android Jetpack
8 9 (3.35%) Jetpack Compose
8 9 (3.35%) LlamaIndex
8 9 (3.35%) SOAP
9 8 (2.97%) AngularJS
9 8 (2.97%) Node.js
9 8 (2.97%) OpenTelemetry
9 8 (2.97%) Play Framework
9 8 (2.97%) TensorFlow
10 7 (2.60%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 45 (16.73%) Cloud Native
2 28 (10.41%) Distributed Systems
3 23 (8.55%) AI Agents
4 21 (7.81%) Cyber Threat
5 19 (7.06%) Private Cloud
6 12 (4.46%) Management Information System
6 12 (4.46%) Mobile App
7 10 (3.72%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (3.35%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (3.35%) Product Ownership
8 9 (3.35%) Security Posture
9 8 (2.97%) Blog
9 8 (2.97%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (2.97%) Virtual Team
10 7 (2.60%) Data Structures
11 6 (2.23%) Legacy Applications
11 6 (2.23%) LIMS
11 6 (2.23%) Linux Command Line
12 5 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
12 5 (1.86%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 63 (23.42%) Linux
2 16 (5.95%) Unix
3 12 (4.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 11 (4.09%) Windows
5 10 (3.72%) Android
6 4 (1.49%) 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
1 114 (42.38%) CI/CD
2 71 (26.39%) AI
3 70 (26.02%) Agile
3 70 (26.02%) Software Engineering
4 66 (24.54%) DevOps
5 57 (21.19%) Test Automation
6 54 (20.07%) Observability
7 52 (19.33%) Infrastructure as Code
8 43 (15.99%) Containerisation
9 36 (13.38%) Event-Driven
9 36 (13.38%) Microservices
10 35 (13.01%) Platform Engineering
11 34 (12.64%) LLM
11 34 (12.64%) Stakeholder Management
12 33 (12.27%) Problem-Solving
13 32 (11.90%) Cybersecurity
14 31 (11.52%) Continuous Integration
14 31 (11.52%) Event-Driven Architecture
15 30 (11.15%) Continuous Improvement
15 30 (11.15%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 100 (37.17%) Python
2 46 (17.10%) Java
3 30 (11.15%) SQL
4 18 (6.69%) Perl
5 17 (6.32%) Bash
5 17 (6.32%) JavaScript
6 15 (5.58%) Go
7 14 (5.20%) C++
7 14 (5.20%) Scala
8 13 (4.83%) TypeScript
9 12 (4.46%) Kotlin
10 11 (4.09%) C
11 6 (2.23%) MUMPS
12 4 (1.49%) C#
12 4 (1.49%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.49%) Shell Script
13 3 (1.12%) Objective-C
13 3 (1.12%) Swift
14 2 (0.74%) Bicep
14 2 (0.74%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 93 (34.57%) Security Cleared
2 70 (26.02%) SC Cleared
3 24 (8.92%) Degree
4 18 (6.69%) DV Cleared
5 16 (5.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.35%) CISSP
7 8 (2.97%) AWS Certification
7 8 (2.97%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.97%) CISM
8 6 (2.23%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.86%) Master's Degree
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%) RHCE
10 2 (0.74%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.69%) Accessibility
2 11 (4.09%) QA
3 7 (2.60%) GDPR
3 7 (2.60%) WCAG
4 4 (1.49%) Disclosure Scotland
4 4 (1.49%) NCSC
5 3 (1.12%) Data Quality
5 3 (1.12%) GRC
5 3 (1.12%) NIST
6 2 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.74%) PMO
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
System Software
1 56 (20.82%) Docker
2 15 (5.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (3.35%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (1.49%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (1.12%) Ceph
5 3 (1.12%) Firmware
5 3 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.12%) Postfix
6 2 (0.74%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 70 (26.02%) Kubernetes
2 34 (12.64%) Ansible
3 33 (12.27%) Grafana
4 21 (7.81%) Prometheus
5 9 (3.35%) Progress Chef
5 9 (3.35%) Puppet
6 4 (1.49%) Cilium
7 2 (0.74%) Control-M
7 2 (0.74%) Docker Swarm
7 2 (0.74%) Istio
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 26 (9.67%) Google
2 22 (8.18%) Splunk
3 21 (7.81%) Microsoft
4 18 (6.69%) SaltStack
5 17 (6.32%) OpenAI
6 16 (5.95%) VMware
7 14 (5.20%) Dynatrace
8 12 (4.46%) Oracle
9 10 (3.72%) Red Hat
10 7 (2.60%) Cribl.io
10 7 (2.60%) Databricks
11 6 (2.23%) Informatica
11 6 (2.23%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.86%) Denodo
13 4 (1.49%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.49%) Black Duck
13 4 (1.49%) Foundry
13 4 (1.49%) Jaspersoft
13 4 (1.49%) Mistral
14 3 (1.12%) IBM