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 27 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 356 238 291
Rank change year-on-year -118 +53 -25
Contract jobs citing Open Source 292 318 324
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 1.11% 0.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.71% 1.22% 0.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 134 201 212
10th Percentile £400 £400 £356
25th Percentile £478 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £570
Median % change year-on-year - -3.51% -5.00%
75th Percentile £648 £638 £675
90th Percentile £800 £838 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £585
% change year-on-year +6.38% -19.66% +0.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 12
10th Percentile - - £20.23
25th Percentile - - £21.71
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £26.97
75th Percentile - - £61.35
90th Percentile - - £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £55.00

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 41,181 26,010 36,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 91.03% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,765 16,696 23,578
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,462 1,066 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 -150 229 £550 -4.35% 233
London -114 119 £600 - 155
UK excluding London -106 109 £500 +6.38% 94
Work from Home -81 103 £550 -4.35% 90
North of England -74 24 £485 +4.25% 14
West Midlands -50 20 £475 -5.00% 1
Midlands -66 20 £475 -5.00% 3
South West -16 19 £550 +34.15% 18
Scotland -10 18 £675 +28.57% 3
South East -60 16 £400 -20.00% 35
North West -42 14 £450 -2.70% 12
East of England -23 13 £550 +52.49% 17
Yorkshire -50 9 £497 - 2

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 (5.82%) Confluence
2 8 (2.74%) Apache
2 8 (2.74%) Appian
2 8 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.71%) SAS
4 4 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.37%) nginx
4 4 (1.37%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.03%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.68%) Liferay
6 2 (0.68%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 3 (1.03%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.68%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.68%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 147 (50.34%) AWS
2 82 (28.08%) Azure
3 43 (14.73%) GCP
4 40 (13.70%) GitHub
5 33 (11.30%) Amazon S3
6 26 (8.90%) Serverless
7 23 (7.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 20 (6.85%) Amazon EC2
8 20 (6.85%) Azure AI
9 17 (5.82%) GitHub Actions
10 15 (5.14%) AWS Lambda
11 14 (4.79%) Google Gemini
12 13 (4.45%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (4.45%) Route 53
13 12 (4.11%) Amazon SQS
14 11 (3.77%) Anthropic Claude
14 11 (3.77%) AWS KMS
14 11 (3.77%) Vertex AI
15 10 (3.42%) Azure Cognitive Services
16 9 (3.08%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 10 (3.42%) Firewall
2 7 (2.40%) Reverse Proxy
3 6 (2.05%) SNMP
4 5 (1.71%) DNS
4 5 (1.71%) WAN
5 3 (1.03%) Intrusion Detection
5 3 (1.03%) Network Security
6 2 (0.68%) DHCP
6 2 (0.68%) NaaS
7 1 (0.34%) 5G
7 1 (0.34%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.34%) LTE
7 1 (0.34%) NAS
7 1 (0.34%) NGFW
7 1 (0.34%) SAN
7 1 (0.34%) SSH
7 1 (0.34%) SSL
7 1 (0.34%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.34%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (15.07%) PostgreSQL
2 38 (13.01%) Apache Cassandra
3 20 (6.85%) DynamoDB
4 18 (6.16%) Amazon RDS
5 15 (5.14%) BigQuery
6 13 (4.45%) MongoDB
7 11 (3.77%) Amazon Aurora
7 11 (3.77%) Pinecone
7 11 (3.77%) SQL Server
8 9 (3.08%) Amazon Athena
8 9 (3.08%) Amazon Redshift
8 9 (3.08%) NoSQL
9 8 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
10 7 (2.40%) Amazon QuickSight
11 6 (2.05%) Data Lake
11 6 (2.05%) Metadata
11 6 (2.05%) Redis
11 6 (2.05%) Relational Database
12 5 (1.71%) Big Data
12 5 (1.71%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 60 (20.55%) Git
2 30 (10.27%) GitLab
3 25 (8.56%) Jenkins
4 24 (8.22%) JUnit
5 20 (6.85%) JIRA
6 18 (6.16%) SonarQube
7 12 (4.11%) Sonatype Nexus
8 11 (3.77%) Bitbucket Server
8 11 (3.77%) DbUnit
8 11 (3.77%) jMock
8 11 (3.77%) Maven
8 11 (3.77%) MLflow
8 11 (3.77%) Mockito
9 8 (2.74%) IntelliJ
10 6 (2.05%) CircleCI
10 6 (2.05%) Gradle
11 5 (1.71%) Artifactory
12 4 (1.37%) PowerDesigner
13 3 (1.03%) Cucumber
14 2 (0.68%) Hudson
General
1 63 (21.58%) Social Skills
2 60 (20.55%) Finance
3 46 (15.75%) Public Sector
4 23 (7.88%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (6.85%) Banking
6 18 (6.16%) Legal
7 8 (2.74%) Retail
8 7 (2.40%) Law
9 6 (2.05%) Front Office
9 6 (2.05%) Military
10 5 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (1.03%) Publishing
12 3 (1.03%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.68%) Billing
13 2 (0.68%) Marketing
13 2 (0.68%) Police
14 1 (0.34%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 77 (26.37%) Developer
2 56 (19.18%) Senior
3 55 (18.84%) Architect
4 31 (10.62%) Senior Developer
5 29 (9.93%) Software Engineer
5 29 (9.93%) Solutions Architect
6 27 (9.25%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 22 (7.53%) Data Engineer
8 21 (7.19%) AWS Architect
9 16 (5.48%) Cloud Engineer
10 14 (4.79%) AWS Solution Architect
10 14 (4.79%) Consultant
10 14 (4.79%) Java Developer
11 12 (4.11%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (3.77%) Python Developer
13 10 (3.42%) Android Developer
13 10 (3.42%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (3.42%) Cloud Architect
13 10 (3.42%) GCP Engineer
13 10 (3.42%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (24.32%) Kafka
2 43 (14.73%) REST
3 40 (13.70%) gRPC
4 31 (10.62%) RESTful
5 27 (9.25%) Node.js
5 27 (9.25%) React
5 27 (9.25%) Spring
5 27 (9.25%) Spring Boot
6 24 (8.22%) AngularJS
7 23 (7.88%) Web Services
8 21 (7.19%) LangChain
9 16 (5.48%) .NET
9 16 (5.48%) Hugging Face
9 16 (5.48%) PyTorch
10 15 (5.14%) OpenTelemetry
10 15 (5.14%) TensorFlow
11 14 (4.79%) Android Jetpack
11 14 (4.79%) Jetpack Compose
12 12 (4.11%) Django
12 12 (4.11%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 59 (20.21%) Distributed Systems
2 45 (15.41%) Cloud Native
3 20 (6.85%) Product Ownership
4 13 (4.45%) AI Agents
5 10 (3.42%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.74%) Low-Code
6 8 (2.74%) Onboarding
7 7 (2.40%) Legacy Code
8 6 (2.05%) Data Centre
8 6 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (2.05%) Mobile App
8 6 (2.05%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.71%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.37%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.03%) Clustering
11 3 (1.03%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 3 (1.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 3 (1.03%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 46 (15.75%) Linux
2 16 (5.48%) Android
3 6 (2.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (1.37%) Debian
4 4 (1.37%) Rocky
4 4 (1.37%) Ubuntu
4 4 (1.37%) Unix
4 4 (1.37%) Windows
5 3 (1.03%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.68%) VMS
6 2 (0.68%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (31.16%) CI/CD
2 81 (27.74%) Microservices
3 79 (27.05%) Software Engineering
4 78 (26.71%) AI
5 70 (23.97%) Agile
6 65 (22.26%) DevOps
7 60 (20.55%) Containerisation
8 55 (18.84%) LLM
9 50 (17.12%) Stakeholder Management
10 43 (14.73%) Machine Learning
11 42 (14.38%) Infrastructure as Code
12 40 (13.70%) Data Pipeline
12 40 (13.70%) Generative AI
12 40 (13.70%) Observability
13 35 (11.99%) Problem-Solving
13 35 (11.99%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
14 29 (9.93%) Event-Driven
15 28 (9.59%) Continuous Integration
15 28 (9.59%) TDD
16 26 (8.90%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 127 (43.49%) Python
2 53 (18.15%) Java
3 51 (17.47%) Go
4 44 (15.07%) SQL
5 20 (6.85%) JavaScript
6 18 (6.16%) Bash
6 18 (6.16%) TypeScript
7 17 (5.82%) C#
8 15 (5.14%) Kotlin
9 6 (2.05%) PL/SQL
9 6 (2.05%) PowerShell
9 6 (2.05%) Ruby
9 6 (2.05%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.03%) C++
10 3 (1.03%) Scala
11 2 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.34%) Bicep
12 1 (0.34%) Groovy
12 1 (0.34%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.34%) R
Qualifications
1 86 (29.45%) Security Cleared
2 67 (22.95%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.56%) Degree
4 12 (4.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (3.77%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.08%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.71%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.71%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.03%) CISM
8 3 (1.03%) CISSP
8 3 (1.03%) Master's Degree
8 3 (1.03%) PhD
9 2 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.34%) CEH
10 1 (0.34%) GCIA
10 1 (0.34%) GIAC
10 1 (0.34%) ISEB
10 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.34%) MPhil
10 1 (0.34%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.48%) QA
2 10 (3.42%) Accessibility
2 10 (3.42%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.37%) NIST
3 4 (1.37%) WCAG
4 3 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.34%) GDPR
5 1 (0.34%) GRC
5 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 42001
5 1 (0.34%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 101 (34.59%) Docker
2 9 (3.08%) Active Directory
2 9 (3.08%) Postfix
3 5 (1.71%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (1.37%) Oracle RAC
5 3 (1.03%) Ceph
6 2 (0.68%) ISA Server
6 2 (0.68%) Oracle Clusterware
7 1 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.34%) KVM
7 1 (0.34%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.34%) Squid
7 1 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 94 (32.19%) Kubernetes
2 39 (13.36%) Terraform
3 34 (11.64%) Grafana
4 27 (9.25%) Prometheus
5 16 (5.48%) Ansible
6 10 (3.42%) Istio
7 6 (2.05%) Argo
8 4 (1.37%) Data Guard
8 4 (1.37%) Oracle RMAN
8 4 (1.37%) Puppet
8 4 (1.37%) Salt
9 2 (0.68%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.68%) Rancher
9 2 (0.68%) WMI
10 1 (0.34%) CASB
10 1 (0.34%) Control-M
10 1 (0.34%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.34%) Knative
10 1 (0.34%) MOM
10 1 (0.34%) QRadar
Vendors
1 28 (9.59%) Google
2 27 (9.25%) OpenAI
3 22 (7.53%) Microsoft
4 18 (6.16%) Dynatrace
5 13 (4.45%) Splunk
6 12 (4.11%) Oracle
7 11 (3.77%) Atlassian
7 11 (3.77%) Jaspersoft
8 8 (2.74%) Automation Anywhere
8 8 (2.74%) UiPath
9 7 (2.40%) Checkmarx
10 5 (1.71%) Cribl.io
10 5 (1.71%) Denodo
10 5 (1.71%) Informatica
11 4 (1.37%) Fortinet
11 4 (1.37%) IBM
11 4 (1.37%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.37%) VMware
12 3 (1.03%) Black Duck
12 3 (1.03%) Sonatype