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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 318 262 273
Rank change year-on-year -56 +11 -16
Contract jobs citing Open Source 339 294 356
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.73% 1.00% 0.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.86% 1.10% 0.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 164 206 230
10th Percentile £363 £400 £374
25th Percentile £450 £457 £452
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £644 £675 £675
90th Percentile £775 £838 £758
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £473 £591
% change year-on-year +2.59% -20.08% +7.50%
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 39,506 26,799 37,659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.73% 90.79% 86.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,946 17,322 24,335
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.72% -0.05% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £487 £500
% change year-on-year -0.36% -2.65% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,360 1,068 2,432
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £29.07 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.60% -16.94% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £58.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.86 £28.00 £35.58
% change year-on-year +49.48% -21.29% -4.62%

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 25 April 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 25 April 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 -80 273 £550 -8.33% 94
London -80 148 £600 - 47
Work from Home -36 122 £550 -8.33% 119
UK excluding London -62 119 £485 +2.59% 56
North of England -60 32 £450 -3.23% 11
North West -34 20 £450 -2.96% 6
Scotland -1 19 £663 +33.17% 1
South West -25 19 £500 -20.00% 9
West Midlands -47 18 £475 +10.08% 5
Midlands -55 18 £475 +10.08% 5
South East -59 18 £338 -32.50% 20
East of England -34 13 £550 +37.50% 12
Yorkshire -52 11 £485 - 3

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 13 (3.83%) Confluence
2 12 (3.54%) Apache
3 8 (2.36%) Appian
4 7 (2.06%) Apache Spark
4 7 (2.06%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.47%) OpenStack
6 4 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (1.18%) JBoss
6 4 (1.18%) nginx
6 4 (1.18%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.88%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.59%) Liferay
8 2 (0.59%) SAS
8 2 (0.59%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.29%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 3 (0.88%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.59%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.29%) Magento
2 1 (0.29%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 171 (50.44%) AWS
2 82 (24.19%) Azure
3 42 (12.39%) GitHub
4 41 (12.09%) GCP
5 33 (9.73%) Amazon S3
6 28 (8.26%) Serverless
7 20 (5.90%) Amazon EC2
7 20 (5.90%) Azure AI
8 18 (5.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 18 (5.31%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (4.42%) AWS Lambda
10 14 (4.13%) Google Gemini
11 13 (3.83%) Anthropic Claude
11 13 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (3.24%) Amazon SageMaker
12 11 (3.24%) Route 53
13 10 (2.95%) Amazon SQS
13 10 (2.95%) Azure Cognitive Services
13 10 (2.95%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (2.65%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.13%) Firewall
2 7 (2.06%) Reverse Proxy
3 6 (1.77%) DNS
3 6 (1.77%) WAN
4 5 (1.47%) DHCP
4 5 (1.47%) SNMP
5 3 (0.88%) VLAN
6 2 (0.59%) NaaS
6 2 (0.59%) Network Security
6 2 (0.59%) SSH
6 2 (0.59%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.29%) 5G
7 1 (0.29%) InfiniBand
7 1 (0.29%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.29%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.29%) LAN
7 1 (0.29%) LTE
7 1 (0.29%) NAS
7 1 (0.29%) Spanning Tree
7 1 (0.29%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (14.75%) Apache Cassandra
2 49 (14.45%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (5.01%) DynamoDB
4 16 (4.72%) SQL Server
5 15 (4.42%) BigQuery
5 15 (4.42%) MongoDB
6 14 (4.13%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (3.83%) Pinecone
8 11 (3.24%) NoSQL
9 9 (2.65%) Amazon Aurora
10 8 (2.36%) Metadata
10 8 (2.36%) Redis
11 7 (2.06%) Amazon QuickSight
11 7 (2.06%) Amazon Redshift
11 7 (2.06%) Relational Database
12 6 (1.77%) Amazon Athena
12 6 (1.77%) Big Data
12 6 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (1.77%) RDBMS
13 5 (1.47%) Flink
Development Applications
1 59 (17.40%) Git
2 28 (8.26%) GitLab
3 24 (7.08%) Jenkins
3 24 (7.08%) JUnit
4 18 (5.31%) JIRA
5 17 (5.01%) SonarQube
6 11 (3.24%) MLflow
6 11 (3.24%) Sonatype Nexus
7 10 (2.95%) IntelliJ
8 9 (2.65%) Bitbucket Server
8 9 (2.65%) DbUnit
8 9 (2.65%) jMock
8 9 (2.65%) Maven
8 9 (2.65%) Mockito
9 6 (1.77%) CircleCI
9 6 (1.77%) Gradle
10 5 (1.47%) Artifactory
11 4 (1.18%) Cucumber
11 4 (1.18%) Cypress.io
11 4 (1.18%) PowerDesigner
General
1 69 (20.35%) Social Skills
2 67 (19.76%) Finance
3 48 (14.16%) Public Sector
4 25 (7.37%) Banking
5 24 (7.08%) Analytical Skills
6 18 (5.31%) Legal
7 9 (2.65%) Front Office
8 8 (2.36%) Retail
9 6 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.77%) Law
9 6 (1.77%) Publishing
10 5 (1.47%) Military
11 4 (1.18%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.88%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.88%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.59%) Billing
13 2 (0.59%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 95 (28.02%) Developer
2 67 (19.76%) Senior
3 62 (18.29%) Architect
4 40 (11.80%) Senior Developer
5 36 (10.62%) Software Engineer
6 29 (8.55%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 29 (8.55%) Solutions Architect
7 22 (6.49%) AWS Architect
8 19 (5.60%) Data Engineer
9 15 (4.42%) AWS Solution Architect
9 15 (4.42%) Cloud Engineer
9 15 (4.42%) Consultant
9 15 (4.42%) Python Developer
10 12 (3.54%) Android Developer
10 12 (3.54%) Java Developer
11 11 (3.24%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 11 (3.24%) Lead
12 10 (2.95%) Automation Engineer
12 10 (2.95%) Cloud Architect
12 10 (2.95%) GCP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (26.25%) Kafka
2 56 (16.52%) gRPC
3 46 (13.57%) REST
4 32 (9.44%) React
5 31 (9.14%) RESTful
6 30 (8.85%) Node.js
7 29 (8.55%) Spring
8 27 (7.96%) Spring Boot
9 25 (7.37%) LangChain
10 24 (7.08%) AngularJS
10 24 (7.08%) Web Services
11 21 (6.19%) .NET
12 18 (5.31%) PyTorch
13 17 (5.01%) Hugging Face
14 16 (4.72%) TensorFlow
15 14 (4.13%) OpenTelemetry
16 12 (3.54%) Android Jetpack
16 12 (3.54%) Django
16 12 (3.54%) Jetpack Compose
16 12 (3.54%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 72 (21.24%) Distributed Systems
2 41 (12.09%) Cloud Native
3 21 (6.19%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.54%) AI Agents
5 10 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.65%) Legacy Code
7 8 (2.36%) Low-Code
7 8 (2.36%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.06%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.77%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.77%) Mobile App
9 6 (1.77%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.47%) Distributed Computing
10 5 (1.47%) Fat Client
10 5 (1.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 5 (1.47%) PKI
10 5 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.47%) Thin Client
11 4 (1.18%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 48 (14.16%) Linux
2 21 (6.19%) Android
3 12 (3.54%) Windows
4 7 (2.06%) Unix
5 6 (1.77%) Apple iOS
5 6 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (1.47%) Windows 7
7 4 (1.18%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.88%) Debian
8 3 (0.88%) Rocky
9 2 (0.59%) VMS
9 2 (0.59%) Windows Server
10 1 (0.29%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (30.09%) Software Engineering
2 95 (28.02%) CI/CD
3 93 (27.43%) Microservices
4 88 (25.96%) AI
5 75 (22.12%) Agile
6 69 (20.35%) DevOps
7 64 (18.88%) Containerisation
8 61 (17.99%) LLM
9 51 (15.04%) Machine Learning
10 48 (14.16%) Infrastructure as Code
11 47 (13.86%) Generative AI
12 46 (13.57%) Stakeholder Management
13 45 (13.27%) Problem-Solving
14 44 (12.98%) Data Pipeline
15 39 (11.50%) Observability
16 36 (10.62%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 29 (8.55%) TDD
17 29 (8.55%) Test Automation
18 28 (8.26%) Prompt Engineering
19 27 (7.96%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 146 (43.07%) Python
2 68 (20.06%) Go
2 68 (20.06%) Java
3 51 (15.04%) SQL
4 26 (7.67%) TypeScript
5 23 (6.78%) C#
6 22 (6.49%) JavaScript
7 21 (6.19%) Bash
8 17 (5.01%) Kotlin
9 11 (3.24%) Ruby
10 7 (2.06%) Scala
11 6 (1.77%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.77%) PowerShell
11 6 (1.77%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.18%) C++
12 4 (1.18%) Delphi
12 4 (1.18%) PHP
13 2 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.29%) Bicep
14 1 (0.29%) Perl
Qualifications
1 90 (26.55%) Security Cleared
2 67 (19.76%) SC Cleared
3 29 (8.55%) Degree
4 14 (4.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.83%) DV Cleared
6 8 (2.36%) Master's Degree
7 5 (1.47%) AWS Certification
7 5 (1.47%) Azure Certification
7 5 (1.47%) PhD
8 2 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.29%) ISEB
9 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.29%) MPhil
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.31%) QA
2 12 (3.54%) Accessibility
3 11 (3.24%) Data Quality
4 7 (2.06%) WCAG
5 4 (1.18%) NIST
6 3 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.59%) GDPR
8 1 (0.29%) GRC
8 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.29%) SLA
8 1 (0.29%) SOC 2
System Software
1 116 (34.22%) Docker
2 13 (3.83%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.36%) Postfix
4 5 (1.47%) Ceph
4 5 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.18%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.88%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.88%) KVM
7 2 (0.59%) Oracle Clusterware
8 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.29%) iptables
8 1 (0.29%) Lustre
8 1 (0.29%) NFS
8 1 (0.29%) QEMU
8 1 (0.29%) Samba
8 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.29%) Squid
8 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 106 (31.27%) Kubernetes
2 44 (12.98%) Terraform
3 36 (10.62%) Grafana
4 33 (9.73%) Prometheus
5 17 (5.01%) Ansible
6 10 (2.95%) Istio
7 6 (1.77%) Argo
7 6 (1.77%) Puppet
8 5 (1.47%) WMI
9 4 (1.18%) Data Guard
9 4 (1.18%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (1.18%) Salt
10 2 (0.59%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.59%) HAProxy
10 2 (0.59%) Knative
10 2 (0.59%) Rancher
11 1 (0.29%) CASB
11 1 (0.29%) MOM
11 1 (0.29%) SELinux
Vendors
1 29 (8.55%) Google
2 26 (7.67%) OpenAI
3 24 (7.08%) Microsoft
4 15 (4.42%) Dynatrace
5 12 (3.54%) Splunk
6 9 (2.65%) Atlassian
6 9 (2.65%) Jaspersoft
6 9 (2.65%) Oracle
6 9 (2.65%) UiPath
7 8 (2.36%) Automation Anywhere
8 7 (2.06%) Checkmarx
8 7 (2.06%) VMware
9 5 (1.47%) Databricks
10 4 (1.18%) Confluent
10 4 (1.18%) Cribl.io
10 4 (1.18%) Fortinet
10 4 (1.18%) IBM
10 4 (1.18%) Red Hat
10 4 (1.18%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.18%) Xamarin