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 11 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 368 229 299
Rank change year-on-year -139 +70 -34
Contract jobs citing Open Source 293 343 325
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 1.17% 0.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.69% 1.28% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 207 216
10th Percentile £400 £400 £363
25th Percentile £475 £448 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £570
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -7.89% -5.00%
75th Percentile £650 £606 £675
90th Percentile £800 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £588
% change year-on-year +5.26% -19.15% +2.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 13
10th Percentile - - £20.34
25th Percentile - - £21.25
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £26.97
75th Percentile - - £57.50
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 42,291 26,731 37,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.76% 91.01% 85.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,385 16,984 23,772
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,541 1,182 2,587
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.28 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.14% -25.26% +1.39%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.16
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 -151 224 £550 - 145
London -121 120 £600 - 70
UK excluding London -107 108 £500 +5.26% 94
Work from Home -93 105 £550 -4.35% 84
North of England -84 22 £500 +7.82% 22
Scotland -25 20 £675 +28.57% 2
West Midlands -50 19 £472 -5.60% 4
Midlands -63 19 £472 -5.60% 5
South West -11 18 £538 +9.14% 16
South East -64 17 £430 -14.10% 30
East of England -18 13 £550 +52.49% 15
Yorkshire -48 11 £506 - 6
North West -50 10 £415 -10.27% 15

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 (5.80%) Confluence
2 8 (2.73%) Apache
2 8 (2.73%) Appian
2 8 (2.73%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.71%) SAS
4 4 (1.37%) nginx
4 4 (1.37%) OpenStack
5 3 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.68%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.34%) Liferay
7 1 (0.34%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.02%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 143 (48.81%) AWS
2 85 (29.01%) Azure
3 48 (16.38%) GCP
4 41 (13.99%) GitHub
5 32 (10.92%) Amazon S3
6 26 (8.87%) Serverless
7 25 (8.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 22 (7.51%) Amazon EC2
9 20 (6.83%) Azure AI
9 20 (6.83%) GitHub Actions
10 17 (5.80%) AWS Lambda
11 13 (4.44%) Anthropic Claude
11 13 (4.44%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (4.44%) Google Gemini
11 13 (4.44%) Route 53
12 12 (4.10%) Amazon SQS
12 12 (4.10%) Vertex AI
13 11 (3.75%) AWS KMS
14 10 (3.41%) Azure Cognitive Services
15 9 (3.07%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.07%) Firewall
2 7 (2.39%) Reverse Proxy
3 6 (2.05%) SNMP
4 5 (1.71%) DNS
4 5 (1.71%) WAN
5 3 (1.02%) Intrusion Detection
5 3 (1.02%) 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%) MQTT
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 46 (15.70%) PostgreSQL
2 32 (10.92%) Apache Cassandra
3 20 (6.83%) Amazon RDS
4 17 (5.80%) DynamoDB
5 15 (5.12%) BigQuery
6 14 (4.78%) MongoDB
7 11 (3.75%) Amazon Aurora
7 11 (3.75%) Pinecone
7 11 (3.75%) SQL Server
8 9 (3.07%) Amazon Athena
8 9 (3.07%) Amazon Redshift
9 8 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
9 8 (2.73%) NoSQL
9 8 (2.73%) Relational Database
10 7 (2.39%) Amazon QuickSight
11 6 (2.05%) Data Lake
11 6 (2.05%) Metadata
12 5 (1.71%) Apache Iceberg
12 5 (1.71%) Pentaho
12 5 (1.71%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 60 (20.48%) Git
2 33 (11.26%) GitLab
3 26 (8.87%) JUnit
4 25 (8.53%) Jenkins
5 18 (6.14%) JIRA
5 18 (6.14%) SonarQube
6 14 (4.78%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (3.75%) Bitbucket Server
7 11 (3.75%) DbUnit
7 11 (3.75%) jMock
7 11 (3.75%) Maven
7 11 (3.75%) MLflow
7 11 (3.75%) Mockito
8 8 (2.73%) CircleCI
8 8 (2.73%) Gradle
8 8 (2.73%) IntelliJ
9 5 (1.71%) Artifactory
10 4 (1.37%) PowerDesigner
11 2 (0.68%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.68%) JMeter
General
1 65 (22.18%) Social Skills
2 60 (20.48%) Finance
3 45 (15.36%) Public Sector
4 21 (7.17%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (7.17%) Legal
5 20 (6.83%) Banking
6 11 (3.75%) Law
7 8 (2.73%) Retail
8 6 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (2.05%) Military
9 5 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.71%) Front Office
10 3 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.02%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.68%) Billing
11 2 (0.68%) Marketing
11 2 (0.68%) Police
11 2 (0.68%) Publishing
12 1 (0.34%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 74 (25.26%) Developer
2 57 (19.45%) Architect
3 54 (18.43%) Senior
4 31 (10.58%) Senior Developer
5 30 (10.24%) Solutions Architect
6 28 (9.56%) Software Engineer
7 26 (8.87%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 24 (8.19%) AWS Architect
9 22 (7.51%) Data Engineer
10 16 (5.46%) AWS Solution Architect
10 16 (5.46%) Cloud Engineer
11 14 (4.78%) Consultant
11 14 (4.78%) Java Developer
12 13 (4.44%) Lead
13 12 (4.10%) Senior Data Engineer
14 11 (3.75%) Android Developer
14 11 (3.75%) Python Developer
15 10 (3.41%) AWS Engineer
15 10 (3.41%) Cloud Architect
15 10 (3.41%) GCP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (23.21%) Kafka
2 45 (15.36%) REST
3 33 (11.26%) gRPC
4 31 (10.58%) RESTful
5 28 (9.56%) React
6 24 (8.19%) Spring
6 24 (8.19%) Spring Boot
7 23 (7.85%) Node.js
8 22 (7.51%) Web Services
9 21 (7.17%) AngularJS
9 21 (7.17%) LangChain
10 17 (5.80%) Android Jetpack
10 17 (5.80%) Jetpack Compose
11 16 (5.46%) .NET
11 16 (5.46%) Hugging Face
11 16 (5.46%) PyTorch
11 16 (5.46%) TensorFlow
12 15 (5.12%) OpenTelemetry
13 12 (4.10%) Django
13 12 (4.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 55 (18.77%) Distributed Systems
2 48 (16.38%) Cloud Native
3 16 (5.46%) AI Agents
3 16 (5.46%) Product Ownership
4 10 (3.41%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (3.07%) Mobile App
6 8 (2.73%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.73%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.73%) Low-Code
6 8 (2.73%) Virtual Team
7 7 (2.39%) Legacy Code
8 6 (2.05%) Data Centre
8 6 (2.05%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.05%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.71%) Cyber Threat
9 5 (1.71%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.02%) Clustering
10 3 (1.02%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 2 (0.68%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 46 (15.70%) Linux
2 19 (6.48%) Android
3 5 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (1.37%) Debian
4 4 (1.37%) Rocky
4 4 (1.37%) Ubuntu
4 4 (1.37%) Unix
5 3 (1.02%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.02%) Windows
6 2 (0.68%) VMS
7 1 (0.34%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (33.45%) CI/CD
2 83 (28.33%) AI
3 75 (25.60%) Microservices
3 75 (25.60%) Software Engineering
4 70 (23.89%) Agile
5 67 (22.87%) DevOps
6 61 (20.82%) Containerisation
7 58 (19.80%) LLM
8 50 (17.06%) Stakeholder Management
9 47 (16.04%) Infrastructure as Code
10 43 (14.68%) Machine Learning
11 42 (14.33%) Generative AI
11 42 (14.33%) Observability
12 38 (12.97%) Data Pipeline
13 37 (12.63%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
14 33 (11.26%) Event-Driven
15 31 (10.58%) Problem-Solving
16 27 (9.22%) Event-Driven Architecture
17 26 (8.87%) Continuous Integration
17 26 (8.87%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 129 (44.03%) Python
2 53 (18.09%) Java
3 44 (15.02%) Go
4 43 (14.68%) SQL
5 21 (7.17%) JavaScript
6 19 (6.48%) Bash
7 18 (6.14%) Kotlin
7 18 (6.14%) TypeScript
8 17 (5.80%) C#
9 6 (2.05%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.71%) PL/SQL
10 5 (1.71%) PowerShell
11 4 (1.37%) Ruby
12 3 (1.02%) C++
12 3 (1.02%) Scala
13 2 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.34%) Bicep
14 1 (0.34%) Groovy
14 1 (0.34%) Objective-C
14 1 (0.34%) Swift
Qualifications
1 85 (29.01%) Security Cleared
2 69 (23.55%) SC Cleared
3 28 (9.56%) Degree
4 13 (4.44%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (4.44%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (2.73%) DV Cleared
6 7 (2.39%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.71%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (1.02%) CISM
9 3 (1.02%) CISSP
10 2 (0.68%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.68%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.68%) PhD
11 1 (0.34%) CEH
11 1 (0.34%) GCIA
11 1 (0.34%) GIAC
11 1 (0.34%) ISEB
11 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.34%) MPhil
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.46%) QA
2 12 (4.10%) Accessibility
3 10 (3.41%) Data Quality
4 6 (2.05%) WCAG
5 4 (1.37%) NIST
6 3 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.68%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.68%) GRC
8 1 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.34%) GDPR
8 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 1 (0.34%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 99 (33.79%) Docker
2 9 (3.07%) Postfix
3 8 (2.73%) Active Directory
4 5 (1.71%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.02%) Ceph
5 3 (1.02%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.68%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.34%) KVM
7 1 (0.34%) Oracle Clusterware
7 1 (0.34%) Squid
7 1 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 91 (31.06%) Kubernetes
2 44 (15.02%) Terraform
3 33 (11.26%) Grafana
4 28 (9.56%) Prometheus
5 18 (6.14%) Ansible
6 10 (3.41%) Istio
7 6 (2.05%) Argo
8 4 (1.37%) Puppet
8 4 (1.37%) Salt
9 3 (1.02%) Data Guard
9 3 (1.02%) Oracle RMAN
10 2 (0.68%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.68%) Rancher
11 1 (0.34%) CASB
11 1 (0.34%) Control-M
11 1 (0.34%) HAProxy
11 1 (0.34%) MOM
11 1 (0.34%) QRadar
11 1 (0.34%) WMI
Vendors
1 31 (10.58%) Google
2 30 (10.24%) OpenAI
3 23 (7.85%) Microsoft
4 18 (6.14%) Dynatrace
5 13 (4.44%) Oracle
6 11 (3.75%) Atlassian
6 11 (3.75%) Jaspersoft
6 11 (3.75%) Splunk
7 8 (2.73%) Automation Anywhere
7 8 (2.73%) UiPath
8 7 (2.39%) Checkmarx
9 5 (1.71%) Black Duck
9 5 (1.71%) Cribl.io
9 5 (1.71%) Denodo
9 5 (1.71%) Informatica
10 4 (1.37%) Fortinet
10 4 (1.37%) IBM
10 4 (1.37%) ServiceNow
11 3 (1.02%) Confluent
11 3 (1.02%) Sonatype