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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 401 231 297
Rank change year-on-year -170 +66 -27
Contract jobs citing Open Source 270 364 315
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 1.12% 0.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.60% 1.24% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 132 203 200
10th Percentile £426 £400 £352
25th Percentile £499 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £570
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -7.89% -2.56%
75th Percentile £668 £603 £675
90th Percentile £773 £716 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £489 £600
% change year-on-year +5.22% -18.58% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 11
10th Percentile - - £20.12
25th Percentile - - £20.68
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £21.86
75th Percentile - - £27.96
90th Percentile - - £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £20.24

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 44,805 29,397 36,049
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.38% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,846 18,489 23,062
10th Percentile £325 £300 £303
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,636 1,550 2,325
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.34 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.65 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.75 £70.00 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.12
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.18% -4.70%

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 17 July 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 17 July 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 -193 198 £550 - 387
London -149 107 £615 +2.50% 157
Work from Home -98 104 £550 -2.22% 347
UK excluding London -123 100 £514 +5.22% 351
North of England -86 23 £510 +6.25% 76
South West -30 18 £550 +34.15% 31
Scotland -28 17 £738 +47.50% 34
West Midlands -51 17 £469 -6.20% 11
Midlands -57 17 £469 -6.20% 32
Yorkshire -39 15 £505 +3.27% 28
East of England -13 13 £551 +37.75% 34
South East -75 13 £480 -4.10% 76
North West -60 7 £488 -0.91% 39

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 (6.30%) Confluence
2 10 (3.70%) Apache
3 8 (2.96%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.22%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (2.22%) Apache Spark
4 6 (2.22%) SAS
5 4 (1.48%) Appian
6 3 (1.11%) Apache Superset
6 3 (1.11%) nginx
6 3 (1.11%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.37%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (1.11%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 131 (48.52%) AWS
2 79 (29.26%) Azure
3 52 (19.26%) GCP
4 32 (11.85%) GitHub
5 29 (10.74%) Amazon S3
6 26 (9.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 23 (8.52%) Serverless
8 19 (7.04%) Amazon EC2
9 15 (5.56%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (4.81%) Azure AI
10 13 (4.81%) GitHub Actions
11 12 (4.44%) Amazon SQS
11 12 (4.44%) Route 53
11 12 (4.44%) Vertex AI
12 11 (4.07%) Anthropic Claude
12 11 (4.07%) AWS KMS
13 10 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (3.70%) Google Gemini
13 10 (3.70%) SaaS
14 8 (2.96%) Amazon Bedrock
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.59%) SNMP
2 6 (2.22%) Firewall
2 6 (2.22%) Reverse Proxy
3 4 (1.48%) WAN
4 3 (1.11%) DNS
4 3 (1.11%) Intrusion Detection
4 3 (1.11%) Network Security
5 2 (0.74%) NaaS
6 1 (0.37%) 4G
6 1 (0.37%) 5G
6 1 (0.37%) Cisco IOS
6 1 (0.37%) DHCP
6 1 (0.37%) HTTPS
6 1 (0.37%) LTE
6 1 (0.37%) MQTT
6 1 (0.37%) NAS
6 1 (0.37%) NGFW
6 1 (0.37%) SAN
6 1 (0.37%) SSH
6 1 (0.37%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (15.19%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (7.78%) Amazon RDS
3 18 (6.67%) Apache Cassandra
4 17 (6.30%) DynamoDB
5 14 (5.19%) MongoDB
6 11 (4.07%) Amazon Aurora
6 11 (4.07%) BigQuery
7 9 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
8 8 (2.96%) Amazon Athena
8 8 (2.96%) Amazon Redshift
8 8 (2.96%) Big Data
8 8 (2.96%) Relational Database
9 7 (2.59%) Data Lake
9 7 (2.59%) Pinecone
10 6 (2.22%) Amazon QuickSight
10 6 (2.22%) SQL Server
11 5 (1.85%) Apache Iceberg
11 5 (1.85%) BusinessObjects
11 5 (1.85%) Metadata
11 5 (1.85%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 57 (21.11%) Git
2 24 (8.89%) GitLab
3 23 (8.52%) JUnit
4 21 (7.78%) Jenkins
5 18 (6.67%) JIRA
5 18 (6.67%) SonarQube
6 14 (5.19%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (4.07%) Bitbucket Server
7 11 (4.07%) DbUnit
7 11 (4.07%) jMock
7 11 (4.07%) Maven
7 11 (4.07%) Mockito
8 8 (2.96%) IntelliJ
9 7 (2.59%) MLflow
10 6 (2.22%) CircleCI
11 5 (1.85%) Gradle
11 5 (1.85%) PowerDesigner
12 4 (1.48%) Artifactory
13 2 (0.74%) Cucumber
13 2 (0.74%) Liquibase
General
1 65 (24.07%) Social Skills
2 54 (20.00%) Finance
3 37 (13.70%) Public Sector
4 22 (8.15%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (7.78%) Banking
6 20 (7.41%) Legal
7 11 (4.07%) Law
8 7 (2.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (2.22%) Military
10 4 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.48%) Front Office
11 3 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.11%) Retail
12 2 (0.74%) Billing
12 2 (0.74%) Police
12 2 (0.74%) Public Speaking
12 2 (0.74%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.37%) Automotive
13 1 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 61 (22.59%) Architect
2 57 (21.11%) Developer
3 44 (16.30%) Senior
4 33 (12.22%) Solutions Architect
5 26 (9.63%) AWS Architect
6 25 (9.26%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 21 (7.78%) Data Engineer
7 21 (7.78%) Software Engineer
8 20 (7.41%) Senior Developer
9 19 (7.04%) AWS Solution Architect
10 14 (5.19%) Consultant
10 14 (5.19%) Java Developer
11 12 (4.44%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (4.07%) Cloud Engineer
13 10 (3.70%) Analyst
13 10 (3.70%) Lead
14 9 (3.33%) Android Developer
14 9 (3.33%) AWS Engineer
14 9 (3.33%) Cloud Architect
15 7 (2.59%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (22.59%) Kafka
2 42 (15.56%) REST
3 24 (8.89%) RESTful
4 20 (7.41%) gRPC
5 19 (7.04%) LangChain
5 19 (7.04%) React
5 19 (7.04%) Spring
5 19 (7.04%) Spring Boot
6 18 (6.67%) Node.js
7 16 (5.93%) AngularJS
8 15 (5.56%) PyTorch
8 15 (5.56%) Web Services
9 14 (5.19%) Android Jetpack
9 14 (5.19%) Hugging Face
9 14 (5.19%) Jetpack Compose
9 14 (5.19%) SOAP
9 14 (5.19%) TensorFlow
10 12 (4.44%) .NET
11 11 (4.07%) ActiveMQ
11 11 (4.07%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 45 (16.67%) Distributed Systems
2 43 (15.93%) Cloud Native
3 19 (7.04%) AI Agents
4 11 (4.07%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (3.70%) Cyber Threat
5 10 (3.70%) Data Protection Act
5 10 (3.70%) Product Ownership
5 10 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (3.33%) Mobile App
7 8 (2.96%) Management Information System
8 7 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (2.22%) Data Centre
9 6 (2.22%) Security Posture
10 5 (1.85%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.85%) Virtual Team
11 4 (1.48%) Legacy Code
11 4 (1.48%) Low-Code
12 3 (1.11%) Clustering
12 3 (1.11%) Cyber Kill Chain
13 2 (0.74%) 3D Graphics
Operating Systems
1 48 (17.78%) Linux
2 16 (5.93%) Android
3 6 (2.22%) Unix
4 5 (1.85%) Windows
5 4 (1.48%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.11%) Debian
6 3 (1.11%) Rocky
6 3 (1.11%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.37%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (33.33%) CI/CD
2 76 (28.15%) AI
3 65 (24.07%) DevOps
4 63 (23.33%) Agile
4 63 (23.33%) Software Engineering
5 57 (21.11%) Microservices
6 53 (19.63%) LLM
7 49 (18.15%) Stakeholder Management
8 47 (17.41%) Containerisation
9 44 (16.30%) Infrastructure as Code
10 41 (15.19%) Event-Driven
11 40 (14.81%) Observability
12 38 (14.07%) Machine Learning
13 36 (13.33%) Data Pipeline
14 34 (12.59%) Event-Driven Architecture
15 32 (11.85%) Problem-Solving
16 28 (10.37%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 27 (10.00%) Generative AI
18 25 (9.26%) Performance Optimisation
19 24 (8.89%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 120 (44.44%) Python
2 56 (20.74%) Java
3 39 (14.44%) SQL
4 31 (11.48%) Go
5 17 (6.30%) Bash
5 17 (6.30%) JavaScript
6 16 (5.93%) Kotlin
6 16 (5.93%) TypeScript
7 13 (4.81%) C#
8 6 (2.22%) C++
8 6 (2.22%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.85%) PowerShell
10 4 (1.48%) Scala
11 3 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.74%) MUMPS
12 2 (0.74%) Objective-C
12 2 (0.74%) Swift
13 1 (0.37%) Bicep
13 1 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.37%) Rust
Qualifications
1 87 (32.22%) Security Cleared
2 66 (24.44%) SC Cleared
3 31 (11.48%) Degree
4 15 (5.56%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (4.07%) DV Cleared
6 7 (2.59%) AWS Certification
6 7 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (2.22%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.85%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (1.11%) CISM
9 3 (1.11%) CISSP
9 3 (1.11%) PhD
10 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.37%) CEH
11 1 (0.37%) GCIA
11 1 (0.37%) GIAC
11 1 (0.37%) ISEB
11 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.37%) MPhil
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.19%) QA
2 7 (2.59%) Accessibility
3 6 (2.22%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.48%) GDPR
4 4 (1.48%) NIST
4 4 (1.48%) WCAG
5 3 (1.11%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (1.11%) GRC
5 3 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.37%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 1 (0.37%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
System Software
1 74 (27.41%) Docker
2 9 (3.33%) Postfix
3 4 (1.48%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.74%) Ceph
5 2 (0.74%) Oracle RAC
5 2 (0.74%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.74%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.37%) Squid
Systems Management
1 67 (24.81%) Kubernetes
2 41 (15.19%) Terraform
3 33 (12.22%) Grafana
4 28 (10.37%) Prometheus
5 19 (7.04%) Ansible
6 4 (1.48%) Puppet
7 3 (1.11%) Istio
7 3 (1.11%) Salt
8 2 (0.74%) Amdocs OSS
8 2 (0.74%) Data Guard
8 2 (0.74%) Oracle RMAN
8 2 (0.74%) Rancher
9 1 (0.37%) Argo
9 1 (0.37%) CASB
9 1 (0.37%) Control-M
9 1 (0.37%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.37%) MOM
9 1 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.37%) QRadar
9 1 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (10.00%) Google
2 26 (9.63%) Microsoft
2 26 (9.63%) OpenAI
3 19 (7.04%) Dynatrace
4 13 (4.81%) Oracle
4 13 (4.81%) Splunk
5 11 (4.07%) Atlassian
5 11 (4.07%) Jaspersoft
6 7 (2.59%) Checkmarx
7 6 (2.22%) Cribl.io
8 5 (1.85%) Black Duck
8 5 (1.85%) Denodo
8 5 (1.85%) IBM
8 5 (1.85%) Informatica
8 5 (1.85%) ServiceNow
9 4 (1.48%) Automation Anywhere
9 4 (1.48%) UiPath
10 3 (1.11%) Confluent
10 3 (1.11%) Foundry
10 3 (1.11%) Sonatype