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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 335 256 293
Rank change year-on-year -79 +37 -25
Contract jobs citing Open Source 325 298 343
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.68% 1.02% 0.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.81% 1.12% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 204 225
10th Percentile £400 £400 £363
25th Percentile £474 £456 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £554 £570
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% -2.89% -5.00%
75th Percentile £645 £666 £675
90th Percentile £794 £838 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £473 £598
% change year-on-year +5.82% -20.92% +8.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 7
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £61.25 - £25.99
Median hourly rate £62.50 £95.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.21% +72.73% -26.67%
75th Percentile £63.75 - £72.90
90th Percentile - - £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £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 40,206 26,654 37,276
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.43% 90.92% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,270 17,186 24,018
10th Percentile £320 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £482 £500
% change year-on-year +1.09% -3.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,411 1,084 2,441
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.64 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.88 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -19.33% +0.42%
75th Percentile £67.25 £61.69 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.70 £37.50
% change year-on-year +58.84% -26.13% +7.14%

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 6 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 6 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 -91 260 £550 -8.33% 201
London -68 142 £615 +2.50% 118
Work from Home -59 121 £550 -8.33% 93
UK excluding London -82 114 £500 +5.82% 101
North of England -55 28 £450 -3.23% 18
Scotland -8 19 £663 +33.17% 6
South East -45 19 £400 -20.00% 37
South West -19 18 £525 -16.00% 18
West Midlands -46 18 £475 +10.08% 5
Midlands -67 18 £475 +10.08% 6
North West -40 17 £450 -2.96% 7
East of England -29 13 £550 +37.50% 17
Yorkshire -51 10 £485 - 8

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 (5.23%) Confluence
2 10 (3.08%) Apache
3 8 (2.46%) Appian
3 8 (2.46%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.54%) Apache Spark
4 5 (1.54%) SAS
5 4 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (1.23%) nginx
5 4 (1.23%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.92%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.62%) JBoss
7 2 (0.62%) Liferay
7 2 (0.62%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.62%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.31%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 3 (0.92%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.62%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 167 (51.38%) AWS
2 81 (24.92%) Azure
3 43 (13.23%) GitHub
4 40 (12.31%) GCP
5 37 (11.38%) Amazon S3
6 30 (9.23%) Serverless
7 22 (6.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 20 (6.15%) Amazon EC2
8 20 (6.15%) Azure AI
9 18 (5.54%) GitHub Actions
10 17 (5.23%) AWS Lambda
11 14 (4.31%) Google Gemini
12 13 (4.00%) Anthropic Claude
12 13 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (3.38%) Amazon SageMaker
13 11 (3.38%) Route 53
14 10 (3.08%) Amazon SQS
14 10 (3.08%) Azure Cognitive Services
14 10 (3.08%) Azure Data Factory
15 9 (2.77%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.31%) Firewall
2 7 (2.15%) Reverse Proxy
3 6 (1.85%) DNS
3 6 (1.85%) SNMP
3 6 (1.85%) WAN
4 4 (1.23%) DHCP
5 3 (0.92%) Network Security
6 2 (0.62%) NaaS
6 2 (0.62%) SSH
6 2 (0.62%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.62%) VLAN
7 1 (0.31%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.31%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.31%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.31%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.31%) LAN
7 1 (0.31%) LTE
7 1 (0.31%) NGFW
7 1 (0.31%) SAN
7 1 (0.31%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (15.08%) PostgreSQL
2 46 (14.15%) Apache Cassandra
3 20 (6.15%) DynamoDB
4 17 (5.23%) Amazon RDS
5 16 (4.92%) SQL Server
6 15 (4.62%) BigQuery
7 13 (4.00%) MongoDB
7 13 (4.00%) Pinecone
8 10 (3.08%) NoSQL
9 9 (2.77%) Amazon Athena
9 9 (2.77%) Amazon Aurora
9 9 (2.77%) Amazon Redshift
9 9 (2.77%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (2.46%) Redis
10 8 (2.46%) Relational Database
11 7 (2.15%) Amazon QuickSight
11 7 (2.15%) Data Lake
11 7 (2.15%) Metadata
11 7 (2.15%) RDBMS
12 6 (1.85%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (17.85%) Git
2 32 (9.85%) GitLab
3 23 (7.08%) Jenkins
4 22 (6.77%) JUnit
5 21 (6.46%) JIRA
6 17 (5.23%) SonarQube
7 12 (3.69%) Sonatype Nexus
8 11 (3.38%) MLflow
9 9 (2.77%) Bitbucket Server
9 9 (2.77%) DbUnit
9 9 (2.77%) jMock
9 9 (2.77%) Maven
9 9 (2.77%) Mockito
10 8 (2.46%) IntelliJ
11 6 (1.85%) CircleCI
11 6 (1.85%) Gradle
12 5 (1.54%) Artifactory
13 4 (1.23%) PowerDesigner
14 3 (0.92%) Cucumber
14 3 (0.92%) Jasmine
General
1 68 (20.92%) Finance
2 66 (20.31%) Social Skills
3 47 (14.46%) Public Sector
4 22 (6.77%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.77%) Banking
5 19 (5.85%) Legal
6 9 (2.77%) Front Office
7 8 (2.46%) Retail
8 7 (2.15%) Law
9 5 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.54%) Military
10 3 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.92%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.92%) Publishing
10 3 (0.92%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.62%) Billing
11 2 (0.62%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.62%) Marketing
11 2 (0.62%) Police
11 2 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 87 (26.77%) Developer
2 65 (20.00%) Senior
3 60 (18.46%) Architect
4 36 (11.08%) Senior Developer
4 36 (11.08%) Software Engineer
5 28 (8.62%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 28 (8.62%) Solutions Architect
6 22 (6.77%) Data Engineer
7 21 (6.46%) AWS Architect
8 15 (4.62%) Cloud Engineer
8 15 (4.62%) Consultant
8 15 (4.62%) Python Developer
9 14 (4.31%) AWS Solution Architect
10 12 (3.69%) Java Developer
10 12 (3.69%) Senior Data Engineer
11 11 (3.38%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 11 (3.38%) Lead
12 10 (3.08%) AWS Engineer
12 10 (3.08%) Cloud Architect
12 10 (3.08%) GCP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (25.23%) Kafka
2 51 (15.69%) gRPC
3 44 (13.54%) REST
4 31 (9.54%) RESTful
5 29 (8.92%) Node.js
5 29 (8.92%) React
6 27 (8.31%) Spring
6 27 (8.31%) Spring Boot
7 25 (7.69%) LangChain
8 24 (7.38%) AngularJS
8 24 (7.38%) Web Services
9 20 (6.15%) .NET
10 18 (5.54%) PyTorch
11 17 (5.23%) Hugging Face
12 16 (4.92%) TensorFlow
13 15 (4.62%) OpenTelemetry
14 12 (3.69%) Android Jetpack
14 12 (3.69%) Django
14 12 (3.69%) Jetpack Compose
15 11 (3.38%) Faiss
Miscellaneous
1 69 (21.23%) Distributed Systems
2 44 (13.54%) Cloud Native
3 21 (6.46%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.69%) AI Agents
5 10 (3.08%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.77%) Legacy Code
6 9 (2.77%) Onboarding
7 8 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (2.46%) Low-Code
8 7 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.85%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.85%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.54%) Fat Client
10 5 (1.54%) PKI
10 5 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.54%) Thin Client
11 4 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 4 (1.23%) Management Information System
12 3 (0.92%) Clustering
12 3 (0.92%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 49 (15.08%) Linux
2 16 (4.92%) Android
3 12 (3.69%) Windows
4 6 (1.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.54%) Unix
5 5 (1.54%) Windows 7
6 4 (1.23%) Debian
6 4 (1.23%) Rocky
6 4 (1.23%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.92%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.62%) VMS
8 2 (0.62%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (30.15%) Software Engineering
2 92 (28.31%) CI/CD
3 86 (26.46%) AI
3 86 (26.46%) Microservices
4 72 (22.15%) Agile
5 67 (20.62%) DevOps
6 64 (19.69%) Containerisation
7 59 (18.15%) LLM
8 49 (15.08%) Machine Learning
9 48 (14.77%) Stakeholder Management
10 46 (14.15%) Generative AI
11 44 (13.54%) Data Pipeline
11 44 (13.54%) Infrastructure as Code
12 42 (12.92%) Observability
13 38 (11.69%) Problem-Solving
14 36 (11.08%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
15 28 (8.62%) Prompt Engineering
15 28 (8.62%) TDD
16 27 (8.31%) Computer Science
16 27 (8.31%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 146 (44.92%) Python
2 64 (19.69%) Go
3 59 (18.15%) Java
4 51 (15.69%) SQL
5 24 (7.38%) TypeScript
6 22 (6.77%) C#
7 21 (6.46%) Bash
8 20 (6.15%) JavaScript
9 15 (4.62%) Kotlin
10 10 (3.08%) Ruby
11 7 (2.15%) PowerShell
12 6 (1.85%) PL/SQL
12 6 (1.85%) Shell Script
13 4 (1.23%) C++
13 4 (1.23%) Delphi
13 4 (1.23%) PHP
14 3 (0.92%) Scala
15 2 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
16 1 (0.31%) Bicep
16 1 (0.31%) Swift
Qualifications
1 93 (28.62%) Security Cleared
2 71 (21.85%) SC Cleared
3 30 (9.23%) Degree
4 14 (4.31%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (4.00%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (3.69%) DV Cleared
7 7 (2.15%) Master's Degree
8 4 (1.23%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.23%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.23%) PhD
9 2 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.31%) CEH
10 1 (0.31%) CISM
10 1 (0.31%) CISSP
10 1 (0.31%) GCIA
10 1 (0.31%) GIAC
10 1 (0.31%) ISEB
10 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.31%) MPhil
10 1 (0.31%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.23%) QA
2 11 (3.38%) Data Quality
3 9 (2.77%) Accessibility
4 4 (1.23%) NIST
4 4 (1.23%) WCAG
5 3 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.31%) GDPR
6 1 (0.31%) GRC
6 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 1 (0.31%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.31%) SLA
6 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 108 (33.23%) Docker
2 12 (3.69%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.46%) Postfix
4 5 (1.54%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.23%) Ceph
5 4 (1.23%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.92%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.62%) KVM
7 2 (0.62%) Oracle Clusterware
8 1 (0.31%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.31%) iptables
8 1 (0.31%) Lustre
8 1 (0.31%) NFS
8 1 (0.31%) Samba
8 1 (0.31%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.31%) Squid
8 1 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 100 (30.77%) Kubernetes
2 45 (13.85%) Terraform
3 38 (11.69%) Grafana
4 32 (9.85%) Prometheus
5 17 (5.23%) Ansible
6 10 (3.08%) Istio
7 6 (1.85%) Argo
8 5 (1.54%) WMI
9 4 (1.23%) Data Guard
9 4 (1.23%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (1.23%) Puppet
9 4 (1.23%) Salt
10 2 (0.62%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.62%) HAProxy
10 2 (0.62%) Knative
10 2 (0.62%) Rancher
11 1 (0.31%) CASB
11 1 (0.31%) MOM
11 1 (0.31%) QRadar
11 1 (0.31%) SELinux
Vendors
1 27 (8.31%) Google
2 26 (8.00%) OpenAI
3 24 (7.38%) Microsoft
4 19 (5.85%) Dynatrace
5 13 (4.00%) Splunk
6 12 (3.69%) Oracle
7 9 (2.77%) Atlassian
7 9 (2.77%) Jaspersoft
7 9 (2.77%) UiPath
8 8 (2.46%) Automation Anywhere
9 7 (2.15%) Checkmarx
9 7 (2.15%) VMware
10 5 (1.54%) Cribl.io
10 5 (1.54%) Denodo
10 5 (1.54%) Informatica
11 4 (1.23%) Databricks
11 4 (1.23%) Fortinet
11 4 (1.23%) IBM
11 4 (1.23%) Red Hat
11 4 (1.23%) ServiceNow