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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 323 255 285
Rank change year-on-year -68 +30 -20
Contract jobs citing Open Source 324 297 343
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 1.01% 0.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.81% 1.12% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 205 225
10th Percentile £400 £400 £363
25th Percentile £472 £456 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £568 £570
Median % change year-on-year -3.17% -0.35% -5.00%
75th Percentile £644 £663 £675
90th Percentile £775 £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 39,853 26,632 37,270
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.47% 90.92% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,078 17,168 24,015
10th Percentile £319 £306 £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 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +1.46% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,383 1,080 2,442
10th Percentile £14.84 £14.63 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.83
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -19.06% -0.47%
75th Percentile £67.13 £61.69 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.40 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.57 £37.50
% change year-on-year +59.59% -26.48% +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 4 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 4 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 -95 259 £550 -8.33% 184
London -72 141 £615 +2.50% 105
Work from Home -47 121 £550 -8.33% 87
UK excluding London -75 114 £500 +5.82% 87
North of England -56 28 £450 -3.23% 21
Scotland -16 19 £663 +33.17% 5
South East -49 19 £400 -20.00% 22
South West -19 18 £525 -16.00% 16
West Midlands -51 18 £475 +10.08% 6
Midlands -68 18 £475 +10.08% 7
North West -35 17 £450 -2.96% 10
East of England -31 13 £550 +37.50% 18
Yorkshire -41 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 (5.25%) Confluence
2 10 (3.09%) Apache
3 8 (2.47%) Appian
3 8 (2.47%) 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 (0.93%) 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 (0.93%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.62%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 165 (50.93%) AWS
2 82 (25.31%) Azure
3 43 (13.27%) GitHub
4 40 (12.35%) GCP
5 35 (10.80%) Amazon S3
6 30 (9.26%) Serverless
7 22 (6.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 20 (6.17%) Amazon EC2
8 20 (6.17%) Azure AI
9 18 (5.56%) GitHub Actions
10 17 (5.25%) AWS Lambda
11 14 (4.32%) Google Gemini
12 13 (4.01%) Anthropic Claude
12 13 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (3.40%) Amazon SageMaker
13 11 (3.40%) Route 53
14 10 (3.09%) Amazon SQS
14 10 (3.09%) Azure Cognitive Services
14 10 (3.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 9 (2.78%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.32%) Firewall
2 7 (2.16%) Reverse Proxy
3 6 (1.85%) DNS
3 6 (1.85%) SNMP
3 6 (1.85%) WAN
4 4 (1.23%) DHCP
5 3 (0.93%) 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 47 (14.51%) PostgreSQL
2 46 (14.20%) Apache Cassandra
3 20 (6.17%) DynamoDB
4 17 (5.25%) Amazon RDS
5 16 (4.94%) SQL Server
6 15 (4.63%) BigQuery
7 13 (4.01%) MongoDB
7 13 (4.01%) Pinecone
8 10 (3.09%) NoSQL
9 9 (2.78%) Amazon Athena
9 9 (2.78%) Amazon Aurora
9 9 (2.78%) Amazon Redshift
9 9 (2.78%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (2.47%) Redis
11 7 (2.16%) Amazon QuickSight
11 7 (2.16%) Data Lake
11 7 (2.16%) Metadata
12 6 (1.85%) Power BI
12 6 (1.85%) Relational Database
13 5 (1.54%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 58 (17.90%) Git
2 32 (9.88%) GitLab
3 23 (7.10%) Jenkins
4 22 (6.79%) JUnit
5 21 (6.48%) JIRA
6 17 (5.25%) SonarQube
7 12 (3.70%) Sonatype Nexus
8 11 (3.40%) MLflow
9 9 (2.78%) Bitbucket Server
9 9 (2.78%) DbUnit
9 9 (2.78%) jMock
9 9 (2.78%) Maven
9 9 (2.78%) Mockito
10 8 (2.47%) IntelliJ
11 6 (1.85%) CircleCI
11 6 (1.85%) Gradle
12 5 (1.54%) Artifactory
13 4 (1.23%) PowerDesigner
14 3 (0.93%) Cucumber
14 3 (0.93%) Jasmine
General
1 67 (20.68%) Social Skills
2 66 (20.37%) Finance
3 47 (14.51%) Public Sector
4 22 (6.79%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.79%) Banking
5 19 (5.86%) Legal
6 8 (2.47%) Retail
7 7 (2.16%) Front Office
7 7 (2.16%) Law
8 6 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.54%) Military
10 3 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.93%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (0.93%) Publishing
10 3 (0.93%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.62%) Billing
11 2 (0.62%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.62%) Marketing
11 2 (0.62%) Police
Job Titles
1 85 (26.23%) Developer
2 65 (20.06%) Senior
3 60 (18.52%) Architect
4 36 (11.11%) Senior Developer
4 36 (11.11%) Software Engineer
5 29 (8.95%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 28 (8.64%) Solutions Architect
7 22 (6.79%) Data Engineer
8 21 (6.48%) AWS Architect
9 15 (4.63%) Cloud Engineer
9 15 (4.63%) Consultant
10 14 (4.32%) AWS Solution Architect
10 14 (4.32%) Python Developer
11 12 (3.70%) Java Developer
11 12 (3.70%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (3.40%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 11 (3.40%) Lead
13 10 (3.09%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (3.09%) Cloud Architect
13 10 (3.09%) GCP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (25.31%) Kafka
2 51 (15.74%) gRPC
3 42 (12.96%) REST
4 31 (9.57%) RESTful
5 29 (8.95%) Node.js
6 27 (8.33%) React
6 27 (8.33%) Spring
6 27 (8.33%) Spring Boot
7 25 (7.72%) LangChain
8 24 (7.41%) AngularJS
8 24 (7.41%) Web Services
9 20 (6.17%) .NET
10 18 (5.56%) PyTorch
11 17 (5.25%) Hugging Face
12 16 (4.94%) TensorFlow
13 15 (4.63%) OpenTelemetry
14 12 (3.70%) Android Jetpack
14 12 (3.70%) Django
14 12 (3.70%) Jetpack Compose
15 11 (3.40%) Faiss
Miscellaneous
1 69 (21.30%) Distributed Systems
2 44 (13.58%) Cloud Native
3 21 (6.48%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.70%) AI Agents
5 10 (3.09%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.78%) Legacy Code
6 9 (2.78%) Onboarding
7 8 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (2.47%) Low-Code
8 7 (2.16%) 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 (0.93%) Clustering
12 3 (0.93%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 49 (15.12%) Linux
2 16 (4.94%) Android
3 12 (3.70%) 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 (0.93%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.62%) VMS
8 2 (0.62%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (30.25%) Software Engineering
2 92 (28.40%) CI/CD
3 87 (26.85%) AI
4 86 (26.54%) Microservices
5 72 (22.22%) Agile
6 68 (20.99%) DevOps
7 64 (19.75%) Containerisation
8 60 (18.52%) LLM
9 49 (15.12%) Machine Learning
9 49 (15.12%) Stakeholder Management
10 47 (14.51%) Generative AI
11 45 (13.89%) Data Pipeline
12 44 (13.58%) Infrastructure as Code
13 42 (12.96%) Observability
14 38 (11.73%) Problem-Solving
15 36 (11.11%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 28 (8.64%) Prompt Engineering
16 28 (8.64%) TDD
17 27 (8.33%) Computer Science
17 27 (8.33%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 144 (44.44%) Python
2 64 (19.75%) Go
3 59 (18.21%) Java
4 51 (15.74%) SQL
5 22 (6.79%) C#
5 22 (6.79%) TypeScript
6 21 (6.48%) Bash
7 20 (6.17%) JavaScript
8 15 (4.63%) Kotlin
9 10 (3.09%) Ruby
10 7 (2.16%) PowerShell
11 6 (1.85%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.85%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.23%) C++
12 4 (1.23%) Delphi
12 4 (1.23%) PHP
13 3 (0.93%) Scala
14 2 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.31%) Bicep
15 1 (0.31%) Swift
Qualifications
1 94 (29.01%) Security Cleared
2 71 (21.91%) SC Cleared
3 30 (9.26%) Degree
4 14 (4.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (4.01%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (4.01%) DV Cleared
6 7 (2.16%) Master's Degree
7 4 (1.23%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.23%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.23%) PhD
8 2 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.31%) CEH
9 1 (0.31%) CISM
9 1 (0.31%) CISSP
9 1 (0.31%) GCIA
9 1 (0.31%) GIAC
9 1 (0.31%) ISEB
9 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.31%) MPhil
9 1 (0.31%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.25%) QA
2 11 (3.40%) Data Quality
3 9 (2.78%) Accessibility
4 4 (1.23%) NIST
4 4 (1.23%) WCAG
5 3 (0.93%) 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 (33.33%) Docker
2 12 (3.70%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.47%) Postfix
4 5 (1.54%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.23%) Ceph
5 4 (1.23%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.93%) 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 (30.86%) Kubernetes
2 45 (13.89%) Terraform
3 38 (11.73%) Grafana
4 32 (9.88%) Prometheus
5 17 (5.25%) Ansible
6 10 (3.09%) 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 (8.33%) Google
2 26 (8.02%) OpenAI
3 25 (7.72%) Microsoft
4 19 (5.86%) Dynatrace
5 13 (4.01%) Splunk
6 12 (3.70%) Oracle
7 9 (2.78%) Atlassian
7 9 (2.78%) Jaspersoft
7 9 (2.78%) UiPath
8 8 (2.47%) Automation Anywhere
9 7 (2.16%) Checkmarx
9 7 (2.16%) 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