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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 285 293 268
Rank change year-on-year +8 -25 -37
Contract jobs citing Open Source 365 263 390
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 0.85% 0.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.05% 0.95% 1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 175 232
10th Percentile £350 £362 £350
25th Percentile £413 £456 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £575 £570
Median % change year-on-year -7.39% +0.88% -4.92%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £655
90th Percentile £775 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £568
% change year-on-year -10.00% -11.89% +8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 6 14
10th Percentile - £25.43 -
25th Percentile £15.25 £25.63 £19.99
Median hourly rate £15.50 £26.25 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year -40.95% +23.53% -61.36%
75th Percentile £39.75 £26.88 £22.52
90th Percentile £54.15 £61.00 £68.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.50 £26.50 £71.93
% change year-on-year -41.51% -63.16% -

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 34,716 27,671 39,074
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.89% 89.53% 87.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,993 16,979 25,588
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £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 £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.43% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,102 844 2,136
10th Percentile £14.55 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.28
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -2.35% -1.12%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.29
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.41% -13.00% +7.69%

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 15 February 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 15 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Open Source in the UK

Open Source
Top 15 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 15 February 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 -13 304 £550 -4.35% 139
London -14 148 £625 -3.85% 34
UK excluding London -21 138 £450 -10.00% 104
Work from Home +16 132 £525 -16.00% 94
North of England -29 46 £430 -7.03% 36
South East -16 32 £550 +10.00% 23
North West -14 23 £409 -11.62% 15
Scotland +5 22 £663 +26.19% 6
Yorkshire -47 20 £513 -3.85% 15
South West -12 17 £380 -39.20% 18
West Midlands -39 14 £440 -20.00% 3
Midlands -53 14 £440 -12.00% 5
East of England -27 6 £552 +71.97% 11
North East -12 3 - - 6
Wales -3 1 - - 5

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 (4.66%) Apache
2 12 (3.29%) Appian
3 11 (3.01%) JBoss
3 11 (3.01%) WebLogic
4 9 (2.47%) Apache Spark
5 8 (2.19%) Confluence
6 5 (1.37%) OpenStack
7 4 (1.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 4 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (1.10%) nginx
8 3 (0.82%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.82%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.55%) Liferay
9 2 (0.55%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.27%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.27%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.27%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.27%) Oracle Coherence
10 1 (0.27%) Oracle Spatial
10 1 (0.27%) SharePoint
Applications
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
1 164 (44.93%) AWS
2 80 (21.92%) Azure
3 43 (11.78%) GitHub
4 26 (7.12%) GCP
4 26 (7.12%) GitHub Actions
5 21 (5.75%) Azure AI
6 18 (4.93%) Serverless
7 17 (4.66%) Amazon S3
8 13 (3.56%) Amazon Bedrock
8 13 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (3.56%) Cloud Computing
9 12 (3.29%) Anthropic Claude
9 12 (3.29%) CloudFront
10 10 (2.74%) Amazon SageMaker
10 10 (2.74%) Google Gemini
11 9 (2.47%) Azure Cognitive Services
11 9 (2.47%) Azure Data Factory
11 9 (2.47%) Vertex AI
12 8 (2.19%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (2.19%) Azure Cognitive Search
Communications & Networking
1 16 (4.38%) Firewall
2 6 (1.64%) DHCP
2 6 (1.64%) DNS
3 5 (1.37%) Internet
4 4 (1.10%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (0.82%) VLAN
5 3 (0.82%) WAN
6 2 (0.55%) Ethernet
6 2 (0.55%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.27%) 5G
7 1 (0.27%) InfiniBand
7 1 (0.27%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.27%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.27%) LTE
7 1 (0.27%) NAS
7 1 (0.27%) Radio Access Network
7 1 (0.27%) SNMP
7 1 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
7 1 (0.27%) Spanning Tree
7 1 (0.27%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (17.81%) Apache Cassandra
2 39 (10.68%) PostgreSQL
3 26 (7.12%) MongoDB
4 21 (5.75%) NoSQL
5 20 (5.48%) Relational Database
6 17 (4.66%) SQL Server
7 13 (3.56%) DB2
7 13 (3.56%) Pinecone
7 13 (3.56%) Redis
8 11 (3.01%) BigQuery
9 9 (2.47%) Metadata
10 7 (1.92%) DynamoDB
11 6 (1.64%) Couchbase
12 5 (1.37%) Weaviate
13 4 (1.10%) Data Hub
13 4 (1.10%) GIS
13 4 (1.10%) RDBMS
14 3 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.82%) Big Data
14 3 (0.82%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 42 (11.51%) Git
2 32 (8.77%) GitLab
3 29 (7.95%) JUnit
4 25 (6.85%) Jenkins
5 14 (3.84%) MLflow
5 14 (3.84%) Selenium
6 13 (3.56%) JIRA
7 9 (2.47%) Eclipse
7 9 (2.47%) IntelliJ
8 8 (2.19%) Cucumber
8 8 (2.19%) Gradle
9 7 (1.92%) CircleCI
10 6 (1.64%) Mocha
10 6 (1.64%) SonarQube
11 4 (1.10%) Cypress.io
11 4 (1.10%) ESLint
11 4 (1.10%) Robot Framework
12 3 (0.82%) Hardhat
12 3 (0.82%) Hudson
12 3 (0.82%) Jasmine
General
1 83 (22.74%) Social Skills
2 63 (17.26%) Finance
3 44 (12.05%) Public Sector
4 39 (10.68%) Analytical Skills
5 34 (9.32%) Banking
6 19 (5.21%) Investment Banking
7 16 (4.38%) Front Office
8 12 (3.29%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (2.47%) Legal
9 9 (2.47%) Marketing
10 8 (2.19%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.92%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.64%) Financial Institution
12 6 (1.64%) Publishing
12 6 (1.64%) Retail
13 5 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.82%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.82%) Military
Job Titles
1 133 (36.44%) Developer
2 90 (24.66%) Senior
3 57 (15.62%) Senior Developer
4 44 (12.05%) Architect
5 36 (9.86%) Software Engineer
6 26 (7.12%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 19 (5.21%) Solutions Architect
8 18 (4.93%) Android Developer
9 16 (4.38%) Java Developer
10 15 (4.11%) Platform Engineer
11 13 (3.56%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 13 (3.56%) Lead
12 12 (3.29%) Investment Banking Java Developer
12 12 (3.29%) Python Developer
12 12 (3.29%) SQL Developer
13 11 (3.01%) Data Scientist
14 10 (2.74%) Automation Engineer
14 10 (2.74%) Senior Platform Engineer
15 9 (2.47%) AWS Architect
15 9 (2.47%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (29.04%) Kafka
2 72 (19.73%) gRPC
3 48 (13.15%) REST
4 36 (9.86%) React
5 34 (9.32%) Spring
6 28 (7.67%) HTML
7 26 (7.12%) Node.js
8 24 (6.58%) LangChain
8 24 (6.58%) RESTful
9 21 (5.75%) PyTorch
10 20 (5.48%) .NET
11 19 (5.21%) CSS
12 18 (4.93%) HTML5
12 18 (4.93%) Web Services
13 17 (4.66%) Android Jetpack
13 17 (4.66%) AngularJS
13 17 (4.66%) Hugging Face
13 17 (4.66%) Jetpack Compose
13 17 (4.66%) JSON
13 17 (4.66%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 66 (18.08%) Distributed Systems
2 23 (6.30%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.93%) Equities
4 16 (4.38%) Product Ownership
5 13 (3.56%) Data Structures
6 12 (3.29%) Distributed Computing
6 12 (3.29%) PKI
7 11 (3.01%) Fat Client
7 11 (3.01%) Thin Client
8 10 (2.74%) AI Agents
8 10 (2.74%) Legacy Code
8 10 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (2.47%) Onboarding
9 9 (2.47%) Virtual Team
10 8 (2.19%) Low-Code
10 8 (2.19%) Mobile App
11 7 (1.92%) Data Centre
11 7 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.64%) Cyber Threat
12 6 (1.64%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 54 (14.79%) Linux
2 27 (7.40%) Android
3 24 (6.58%) Windows
4 17 (4.66%) Unix
5 11 (3.01%) Windows 7
6 8 (2.19%) Apple iOS
7 7 (1.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.82%) CentOS
8 3 (0.82%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.55%) VMS
10 1 (0.27%) Debian
10 1 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.27%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (33.15%) Software Engineering
2 104 (28.49%) Microservices
3 90 (24.66%) CI/CD
4 88 (24.11%) AI
5 87 (23.84%) Agile
6 76 (20.82%) Problem-Solving
7 59 (16.16%) DevOps
7 59 (16.16%) Machine Learning
8 58 (15.89%) LLM
9 50 (13.70%) Containerisation
10 48 (13.15%) Generative AI
11 47 (12.88%) Infrastructure as Code
12 36 (9.86%) Data Pipeline
12 36 (9.86%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
12 36 (9.86%) Test Automation
13 34 (9.32%) Clean Code
14 32 (8.77%) Computer Science
14 32 (8.77%) Performance Tuning
15 31 (8.49%) Continuous Integration
16 30 (8.22%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 163 (44.66%) Python
2 87 (23.84%) Go
3 77 (21.10%) Java
4 62 (16.99%) SQL
5 36 (9.86%) JavaScript
6 32 (8.77%) TypeScript
7 26 (7.12%) C#
8 23 (6.30%) Kotlin
9 15 (4.11%) Bash
9 15 (4.11%) Shell Script
10 14 (3.84%) Scala
11 13 (3.56%) Ruby
12 10 (2.74%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.10%) Delphi
13 4 (1.10%) PHP
13 4 (1.10%) PL/SQL
13 4 (1.10%) Solidity
14 3 (0.82%) C
14 3 (0.82%) C++
14 3 (0.82%) Swift
Qualifications
1 74 (20.27%) Security Cleared
2 45 (12.33%) SC Cleared
3 39 (10.68%) Degree
4 21 (5.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (5.48%) DV Cleared
6 14 (3.84%) BPSS Clearance
7 13 (3.56%) Master's Degree
8 8 (2.19%) PhD
9 3 (0.82%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.55%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.55%) GPEN
10 2 (0.55%) GWAPT
10 2 (0.55%) OSCP
11 1 (0.27%) CCIP
11 1 (0.27%) CCSAS
11 1 (0.27%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.27%) GXPN
11 1 (0.27%) MPhil
11 1 (0.27%) OSCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.21%) Accessibility
2 12 (3.29%) QA
3 10 (2.74%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.74%) WCAG
4 9 (2.47%) NIST
5 7 (1.92%) GDPR
6 5 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.82%) NCSC
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%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 134 (36.71%) Docker
2 17 (4.66%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (1.10%) Ceph
5 3 (0.82%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.82%) KVM
5 3 (0.82%) QEMU
6 2 (0.55%) Oracle Clusterware
6 2 (0.55%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.27%) Firmware
7 1 (0.27%) iptables
7 1 (0.27%) Lustre
7 1 (0.27%) NFS
7 1 (0.27%) Postfix
7 1 (0.27%) Samba
7 1 (0.27%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.27%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 126 (34.52%) Kubernetes
2 36 (9.86%) Terraform
3 26 (7.12%) Prometheus
4 24 (6.58%) Grafana
5 14 (3.84%) Ansible
6 12 (3.29%) Puppet
7 11 (3.01%) WMI
8 8 (2.19%) Istio
9 7 (1.92%) Argo
10 3 (0.82%) HAProxy
11 2 (0.55%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.55%) Knative
11 2 (0.55%) Oracle RMAN
12 1 (0.27%) MOM
12 1 (0.27%) Rancher
12 1 (0.27%) Salt
12 1 (0.27%) SELinux
Vendors
1 35 (9.59%) Microsoft
2 27 (7.40%) Google
3 23 (6.30%) OpenAI
4 16 (4.38%) VMware
5 12 (3.29%) Sybase
6 10 (2.74%) Oracle
7 9 (2.47%) UiPath
7 9 (2.47%) webMethods
8 8 (2.19%) Automation Anywhere
8 8 (2.19%) Splunk
9 7 (1.92%) Atlassian
9 7 (1.92%) Red Hat
10 6 (1.64%) SAP
11 5 (1.37%) Cisco
11 5 (1.37%) Databricks
11 5 (1.37%) Foundry
12 4 (1.10%) Adobe
12 4 (1.10%) Veracode
12 4 (1.10%) Xamarin
13 3 (0.82%) Computacenter