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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 278 265
Rank change year-on-year -20 -13 -8
Contract jobs citing Open Source 366 262 385
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.90% 0.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.97% 1.00% 1.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 191 253
10th Percentile £354 £400 £357
25th Percentile £450 £456 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £675
90th Percentile £805 £838 £785
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £590
% change year-on-year - -15.25% +9.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 4
10th Percentile - £32.90 £58.04
25th Percentile £15.25 £43.25 £66.35
Median hourly rate £15.50 £60.50 £71.93
Median % change year-on-year -74.38% -15.89% -4.09%
75th Percentile £39.75 £77.75 £74.36
90th Percentile £54.15 £88.10 £76.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.50 - £71.93

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 37,825 26,281 38,283
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.77% 90.55% 86.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,952 17,099 24,858
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,225 950 2,347
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.83
25th Percentile £18.75 £20.49 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -1.54% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £57.91
90th Percentile £76.40 £77.22 £71.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.50 £31.64 £31.50
% change year-on-year -3.60% +0.44% -13.10%

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 March 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 27 March 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 27 March 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 -52 299 £552 -8.08% 149
London -56 158 £600 -6.80% 78
UK excluding London -52 131 £500 - 93
Work from Home -23 128 £550 -8.33% 59
North of England -49 36 £450 -2.70% 21
South East -34 28 £500 - 20
Scotland +3 23 £675 +28.57% 10
South West -10 20 £365 -41.60% 12
North West -21 20 £450 -2.70% 9
West Midlands -51 15 £475 +10.08% 5
Midlands -66 15 £475 +10.08% 6
Yorkshire -46 13 £525 -1.50% 8
East of England -34 9 £550 +37.50% 21
North East -13 3 - - 4

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 15 (4.10%) Apache
2 13 (3.55%) Confluence
3 11 (3.01%) Apache Spark
4 8 (2.19%) Appian
5 6 (1.64%) JBoss
5 6 (1.64%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.37%) OpenStack
6 5 (1.37%) SharePoint
7 4 (1.09%) nginx
8 3 (0.82%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.82%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.82%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.55%) Liferay
9 2 (0.55%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.27%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.27%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.27%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.27%) Oracle Coherence
10 1 (0.27%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.55%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.27%) Magento
2 1 (0.27%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 178 (48.63%) AWS
2 86 (23.50%) Azure
3 41 (11.20%) GitHub
4 34 (9.29%) GCP
5 25 (6.83%) Amazon S3
6 24 (6.56%) Serverless
7 21 (5.74%) GitHub Actions
8 20 (5.46%) Azure AI
9 15 (4.10%) Amazon EC2
10 13 (3.55%) Anthropic Claude
10 13 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (3.01%) AWS Lambda
11 11 (3.01%) Azure Cognitive Services
12 10 (2.73%) Amazon SageMaker
12 10 (2.73%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (2.73%) CloudFront
12 10 (2.73%) Google Gemini
13 9 (2.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 9 (2.46%) Azure Cognitive Search
14 8 (2.19%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 16 (4.37%) Firewall
2 7 (1.91%) DNS
3 6 (1.64%) DHCP
4 5 (1.37%) Reverse Proxy
4 5 (1.37%) WAN
5 3 (0.82%) VLAN
6 2 (0.55%) Internet
6 2 (0.55%) NaaS
6 2 (0.55%) SSH
6 2 (0.55%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.27%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.27%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.27%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.27%) LAN
7 1 (0.27%) Network Security
7 1 (0.27%) NGFW
7 1 (0.27%) RTP
7 1 (0.27%) SAN
7 1 (0.27%) SNMP
7 1 (0.27%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (17.76%) Apache Cassandra
2 49 (13.39%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (5.74%) MongoDB
3 21 (5.74%) NoSQL
4 17 (4.64%) SQL Server
5 12 (3.28%) DynamoDB
5 12 (3.28%) Pinecone
5 12 (3.28%) Redis
6 11 (3.01%) BigQuery
7 10 (2.73%) Relational Database
8 9 (2.46%) Amazon RDS
9 8 (2.19%) Metadata
10 7 (1.91%) Big Data
11 6 (1.64%) Amazon Aurora
11 6 (1.64%) Flink
12 5 (1.37%) DB2
12 5 (1.37%) GIS
12 5 (1.37%) Oracle Database
12 5 (1.37%) RDBMS
13 4 (1.09%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 52 (14.21%) Git
2 27 (7.38%) GitLab
3 26 (7.10%) Jenkins
4 22 (6.01%) JUnit
5 18 (4.92%) JIRA
6 12 (3.28%) MLflow
7 9 (2.46%) SonarQube
8 7 (1.91%) Gradle
8 7 (1.91%) IntelliJ
8 7 (1.91%) Maven
8 7 (1.91%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (1.64%) Bitbucket Server
9 6 (1.64%) CircleCI
9 6 (1.64%) DbUnit
9 6 (1.64%) jMock
9 6 (1.64%) Mocha
9 6 (1.64%) Mockito
10 5 (1.37%) Cucumber
10 5 (1.37%) Selenium
11 4 (1.09%) ESLint
General
1 74 (20.22%) Social Skills
2 67 (18.31%) Finance
3 50 (13.66%) Public Sector
4 30 (8.20%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (8.20%) Banking
5 15 (4.10%) Legal
6 13 (3.55%) Front Office
7 11 (3.01%) Investment Banking
8 7 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (1.91%) Retail
9 6 (1.64%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.64%) Publishing
10 5 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.37%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.09%) Marketing
12 3 (0.82%) Military
13 2 (0.55%) Billing
Job Titles
1 117 (31.97%) Developer
2 85 (23.22%) Senior
3 61 (16.67%) Architect
4 54 (14.75%) Senior Developer
5 38 (10.38%) Software Engineer
6 28 (7.65%) Solutions Architect
7 24 (6.56%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 17 (4.64%) AWS Architect
9 15 (4.10%) Android Developer
10 14 (3.83%) Data Engineer
10 14 (3.83%) Python Developer
11 13 (3.55%) Java Developer
12 12 (3.28%) AWS Solution Architect
12 12 (3.28%) Platform Engineer
13 11 (3.01%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 11 (3.01%) Cloud Engineer
13 11 (3.01%) Consultant
14 10 (2.73%) Automation Engineer
14 10 (2.73%) Senior Platform Engineer
15 9 (2.46%) GCP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (30.05%) Kafka
2 71 (19.40%) gRPC
3 50 (13.66%) REST
4 36 (9.84%) React
5 34 (9.29%) Node.js
6 29 (7.92%) RESTful
7 27 (7.38%) Spring
8 22 (6.01%) .NET
8 22 (6.01%) AngularJS
8 22 (6.01%) LangChain
8 22 (6.01%) Web Services
9 21 (5.74%) HTML
10 19 (5.19%) Spring Boot
11 17 (4.64%) CSS
12 16 (4.37%) PyTorch
13 15 (4.10%) Android Jetpack
13 15 (4.10%) Jetpack Compose
14 14 (3.83%) Android SDK
14 14 (3.83%) Hugging Face
14 14 (3.83%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 81 (22.13%) Distributed Systems
2 32 (8.74%) Cloud Native
3 21 (5.74%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.73%) AI Agents
4 10 (2.73%) Equities
4 10 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (2.46%) Distributed Computing
5 9 (2.46%) Fat Client
5 9 (2.46%) Legacy Code
5 9 (2.46%) PKI
5 9 (2.46%) Thin Client
6 8 (2.19%) Data Centre
6 8 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 8 (2.19%) Low-Code
6 8 (2.19%) Onboarding
6 8 (2.19%) Security Posture
7 7 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.91%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.64%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 53 (14.48%) Linux
2 24 (6.56%) Android
3 20 (5.46%) Windows
4 9 (2.46%) Unix
4 9 (2.46%) Windows 7
5 8 (2.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (1.64%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.09%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.82%) Debian
8 3 (0.82%) Rocky
8 3 (0.82%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.55%) CentOS
9 2 (0.55%) VMS
10 1 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (30.60%) Software Engineering
2 105 (28.69%) Microservices
3 89 (24.32%) CI/CD
4 83 (22.68%) Agile
4 83 (22.68%) AI
5 61 (16.67%) DevOps
6 58 (15.85%) Containerisation
7 57 (15.57%) LLM
8 56 (15.30%) Problem-Solving
9 49 (13.39%) Infrastructure as Code
9 49 (13.39%) Machine Learning
10 43 (11.75%) Generative AI
11 41 (11.20%) Data Pipeline
12 39 (10.66%) Stakeholder Management
13 36 (9.84%) Computer Science
14 33 (9.02%) Test Automation
15 32 (8.74%) Observability
15 32 (8.74%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 30 (8.20%) Clean Code
17 29 (7.92%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 155 (42.35%) Python
2 83 (22.68%) Go
3 77 (21.04%) Java
4 58 (15.85%) SQL
5 33 (9.02%) JavaScript
6 30 (8.20%) TypeScript
7 25 (6.83%) C#
8 20 (5.46%) Kotlin
9 15 (4.10%) Bash
10 11 (3.01%) Ruby
10 11 (3.01%) Scala
11 9 (2.46%) PowerShell
11 9 (2.46%) Shell Script
12 7 (1.91%) PL/SQL
13 4 (1.09%) C++
13 4 (1.09%) Delphi
13 4 (1.09%) PHP
13 4 (1.09%) Solidity
14 2 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.27%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 90 (24.59%) Security Cleared
2 58 (15.85%) SC Cleared
3 41 (11.20%) Degree
4 20 (5.46%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (5.19%) DV Cleared
6 15 (4.10%) BPSS Clearance
7 13 (3.55%) Master's Degree
8 8 (2.19%) PhD
9 4 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.09%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.27%) CCIP
11 1 (0.27%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.27%) GPEN
11 1 (0.27%) GWAPT
11 1 (0.27%) ISEB
11 1 (0.27%) MPhil
11 1 (0.27%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.64%) Accessibility
2 16 (4.37%) QA
3 11 (3.01%) NIST
4 10 (2.73%) Data Quality
4 10 (2.73%) WCAG
5 8 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.91%) GDPR
7 5 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.55%) GPG for Computer-Based Electronic Evidence
8 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 17025
8 2 (0.55%) ISO17020
8 2 (0.55%) SLA
9 1 (0.27%) GRC
9 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.27%) SOC 2
System Software
1 131 (35.79%) Docker
2 16 (4.37%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.91%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (1.37%) Ceph
4 5 (1.37%) Postfix
5 4 (1.09%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.82%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.82%) KVM
7 2 (0.55%) Oracle Clusterware
8 1 (0.27%) Firmware
8 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.27%) iptables
8 1 (0.27%) Lustre
8 1 (0.27%) NFS
8 1 (0.27%) QEMU
8 1 (0.27%) Samba
8 1 (0.27%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.27%) Squid
8 1 (0.27%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 121 (33.06%) Kubernetes
2 38 (10.38%) Terraform
3 30 (8.20%) Grafana
4 27 (7.38%) Prometheus
5 13 (3.55%) Ansible
6 9 (2.46%) WMI
7 8 (2.19%) Istio
8 6 (1.64%) Argo
8 6 (1.64%) Puppet
9 4 (1.09%) Data Guard
9 4 (1.09%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (0.82%) HAProxy
11 2 (0.55%) Amdocs OSS
11 2 (0.55%) Knative
11 2 (0.55%) Rancher
11 2 (0.55%) Salt
12 1 (0.27%) CASB
12 1 (0.27%) MOM
12 1 (0.27%) SELinux
Vendors
1 33 (9.02%) Microsoft
2 27 (7.38%) Google
3 24 (6.56%) OpenAI
4 12 (3.28%) Oracle
5 11 (3.01%) VMware
6 10 (2.73%) Atlassian
6 10 (2.73%) Splunk
7 9 (2.46%) UiPath
8 8 (2.19%) Automation Anywhere
9 6 (1.64%) Dynatrace
9 6 (1.64%) Jaspersoft
9 6 (1.64%) Red Hat
10 5 (1.37%) Confluent
10 5 (1.37%) Databricks
10 5 (1.37%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.09%) Cloudera
11 4 (1.09%) IBM
11 4 (1.09%) Sybase
11 4 (1.09%) webMethods
11 4 (1.09%) Xamarin