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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 431 255 317
Rank change year-on-year -176 +62 -63
Contract jobs citing Open Source 265 361 262
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 1.09% 0.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.57% 1.21% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 142 176 136
10th Percentile £413 £355 £331
25th Percentile £452 £427 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.24% - -8.70%
75th Percentile £617 £600 £625
90th Percentile £755 £716 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +4.47% -1.60% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 14
10th Percentile - - £20.12
25th Percentile £13.09 £51.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £13.34 £56.50 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year -76.39% +120.02% +20.85%
75th Percentile £77.50 £61.25 £27.72
90th Percentile £81.40 - £27.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £13.34 - £25.36

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 46,295 29,870 32,935
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,040 18,573 20,019
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,185 1,844 1,407
10th Percentile £13.72 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +1.18%

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 September 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 25 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Open Source in the UK

Open Source
Top 14 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 September 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 -207 187 £550 +4.76% 1,166
UK excluding London -120 110 £514 +4.47% 411
Work from Home -90 105 £514 -4.28% 467
London -170 90 £588 -2.08% 851
North of England -68 34 £475 -1.55% 84
South West -21 23 £550 -4.35% 51
Scotland -42 19 £524 +4.75% 64
Yorkshire -38 15 £497 -5.29% 24
East of England -20 14 £552 - 89
South East -80 13 £405 -26.45% 67
West Midlands -40 10 £450 -10.10% 19
Midlands -47 10 £450 -10.10% 24
North West -65 10 £675 +43.62% 49
North East -38 9 £425 -8.60% 11

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 12 (4.53%) Confluence
2 10 (3.77%) Apache
3 9 (3.40%) SharePoint
4 8 (3.02%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (3.02%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.26%) SAS
6 5 (1.89%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.38%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.38%) CMS
7 1 (0.38%) Drupal
7 1 (0.38%) GeoServer
7 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.38%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.38%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.75%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.38%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 115 (43.40%) AWS
2 70 (26.42%) Azure
3 52 (19.62%) GCP
4 43 (16.23%) GitHub
5 26 (9.81%) GitHub Actions
6 20 (7.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 20 (7.55%) Amazon S3
7 17 (6.42%) Serverless
8 15 (5.66%) Amazon EKS
9 14 (5.28%) Vertex AI
10 13 (4.91%) IaaS
11 11 (4.15%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (3.77%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (3.77%) Anthropic Claude
13 9 (3.40%) Google Gemini
14 8 (3.02%) Amazon Bedrock
15 7 (2.64%) Azure Monitor
15 7 (2.64%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 7 (2.64%) Power Platform
16 6 (2.26%) LangSmith
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.64%) Intrusion Detection
2 6 (2.26%) HTTPS
2 6 (2.26%) SNMP
3 4 (1.51%) DNS
3 4 (1.51%) Network Security
4 3 (1.13%) Firewall
4 3 (1.13%) SSH
4 3 (1.13%) SSL
5 2 (0.75%) Asterisk PBX
5 2 (0.75%) Broadband
5 2 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.75%) HTTP
5 2 (0.75%) Internet
5 2 (0.75%) Reverse Proxy
5 2 (0.75%) RTCP
5 2 (0.75%) RTP
5 2 (0.75%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.75%) VoIP
5 2 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.75%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (6.79%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (5.28%) Amazon RDS
3 11 (4.15%) DynamoDB
4 10 (3.77%) MongoDB
5 8 (3.02%) Amazon Redshift
5 8 (3.02%) BigQuery
5 8 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (3.02%) Relational Database
5 8 (3.02%) Trino
6 7 (2.64%) Amazon Athena
6 7 (2.64%) Apache Iceberg
6 7 (2.64%) Big Data
6 7 (2.64%) Data Lake
7 6 (2.26%) Amazon QuickSight
8 5 (1.89%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (1.89%) BusinessObjects
8 5 (1.89%) Pentaho
8 5 (1.89%) Power BI
8 5 (1.89%) Redis
9 3 (1.13%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 54 (20.38%) Git
2 24 (9.06%) Jenkins
3 21 (7.92%) GitLab
4 13 (4.91%) JIRA
5 12 (4.53%) JUnit
6 10 (3.77%) SonarQube
7 7 (2.64%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (2.26%) Cucumber
8 6 (2.26%) JMeter
9 5 (1.89%) Bitbucket Server
9 5 (1.89%) DbUnit
9 5 (1.89%) IntelliJ
9 5 (1.89%) jMock
9 5 (1.89%) Maven
9 5 (1.89%) Mockito
10 4 (1.51%) CircleCI
10 4 (1.51%) Cypress.io
10 4 (1.51%) MLflow
11 3 (1.13%) LoadRunner
11 3 (1.13%) Selenium
General
1 74 (27.92%) Social Skills
2 41 (15.47%) Public Sector
3 38 (14.34%) Finance
4 17 (6.42%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (5.28%) Banking
6 13 (4.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (4.53%) Legal
8 10 (3.77%) Law
9 6 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (2.26%) Military
9 6 (2.26%) Retail
10 5 (1.89%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (1.13%) Front Office
12 3 (1.13%) Publishing
13 2 (0.75%) Documentation Skills
13 2 (0.75%) Police
13 2 (0.75%) Polish Language
13 2 (0.75%) Public Speaking
14 1 (0.38%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 55 (20.75%) Senior
2 51 (19.25%) Developer
3 41 (15.47%) Architect
4 23 (8.68%) AWS Architect
5 22 (8.30%) Solutions Architect
6 21 (7.92%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 17 (6.42%) Software Developer
7 17 (6.42%) Software Engineer
8 16 (6.04%) AWS Solution Architect
9 14 (5.28%) Analyst
9 14 (5.28%) Senior Developer
10 13 (4.91%) Data Engineer
11 12 (4.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 12 (4.53%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 11 (4.15%) Consultant
12 11 (4.15%) Cyber Threat Analyst
12 11 (4.15%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 11 (4.15%) Platform Engineer
13 10 (3.77%) Cloud Engineer
14 9 (3.40%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (19.25%) Terraform
2 36 (13.58%) Kafka
3 31 (11.70%) REST
4 16 (6.04%) LangChain
5 14 (5.28%) PyTorch
5 14 (5.28%) RESTful
6 13 (4.91%) LangGraph
6 13 (4.91%) React
7 12 (4.53%) Spring
7 12 (4.53%) Spring Boot
8 11 (4.15%) TensorFlow
9 10 (3.77%) eBPF
9 10 (3.77%) Node.js
9 10 (3.77%) SOAP
10 9 (3.40%) OpenTelemetry
11 8 (3.02%) Android Jetpack
11 8 (3.02%) AngularJS
11 8 (3.02%) Jetpack Compose
11 8 (3.02%) Play Framework
11 8 (3.02%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 44 (16.60%) Cloud Native
2 24 (9.06%) AI Agents
3 23 (8.68%) Distributed Systems
4 20 (7.55%) Cyber Threat
5 16 (6.04%) Private Cloud
6 11 (4.15%) Management Information System
7 10 (3.77%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (3.40%) Product Ownership
8 9 (3.40%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (3.02%) Blog
9 8 (3.02%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (3.02%) Mobile App
10 7 (2.64%) Data Structures
10 7 (2.64%) Security Posture
11 6 (2.26%) Legacy Applications
11 6 (2.26%) LIMS
11 6 (2.26%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (2.26%) Virtual Team
12 5 (1.89%) Replication
12 5 (1.89%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 61 (23.02%) Linux
2 18 (6.79%) Unix
3 12 (4.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 10 (3.77%) Windows
5 9 (3.40%) Android
6 3 (1.13%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.75%) Debian
7 2 (0.75%) Rocky
7 2 (0.75%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (43.02%) CI/CD
2 72 (27.17%) AI
3 71 (26.79%) Software Engineering
4 67 (25.28%) Agile
5 64 (24.15%) DevOps
6 56 (21.13%) Infrastructure as Code
7 55 (20.75%) Observability
8 47 (17.74%) Containerisation
8 47 (17.74%) Test Automation
9 41 (15.47%) Microservices
10 37 (13.96%) Event-Driven
10 37 (13.96%) LLM
11 34 (12.83%) Stakeholder Management
12 33 (12.45%) Machine Learning
13 32 (12.08%) Event-Driven Architecture
14 31 (11.70%) Cybersecurity
15 30 (11.32%) Data Pipeline
15 30 (11.32%) Platform Engineering
15 30 (11.32%) Problem-Solving
16 27 (10.19%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 107 (40.38%) Python
2 48 (18.11%) Java
3 31 (11.70%) SQL
4 19 (7.17%) Bash
5 16 (6.04%) Go
6 15 (5.66%) Perl
6 15 (5.66%) TypeScript
7 13 (4.91%) C++
7 13 (4.91%) JavaScript
7 13 (4.91%) Scala
8 11 (4.15%) C
9 9 (3.40%) Kotlin
10 6 (2.26%) MUMPS
11 5 (1.89%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.13%) C#
13 2 (0.75%) Bicep
13 2 (0.75%) Objective-C
13 2 (0.75%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.75%) Ruby
13 2 (0.75%) Rust
Qualifications
1 96 (36.23%) Security Cleared
2 71 (26.79%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.68%) Degree
4 18 (6.79%) DV Cleared
5 14 (5.28%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.40%) CISSP
7 8 (3.02%) CISM
8 6 (2.26%) AWS Certification
8 6 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (1.89%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.51%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.75%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.75%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.75%) GIAC
11 2 (0.75%) GSEC
11 2 (0.75%) LFCS
11 2 (0.75%) OSCP
11 2 (0.75%) RHCE
11 2 (0.75%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.04%) Accessibility
2 12 (4.53%) QA
3 7 (2.64%) GDPR
3 7 (2.64%) WCAG
4 4 (1.51%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.51%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (1.13%) GRC
5 3 (1.13%) NIST
6 2 (0.75%) NCSC
6 2 (0.75%) PMO
7 1 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 62 (23.40%) Docker
2 13 (4.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (2.64%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (1.51%) Postfix
5 3 (1.13%) Ceph
5 3 (1.13%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.75%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.75%) Firmware
6 2 (0.75%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.75%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 72 (27.17%) Kubernetes
2 37 (13.96%) Grafana
3 34 (12.83%) Ansible
4 28 (10.57%) Prometheus
5 11 (4.15%) Puppet
6 9 (3.40%) Progress Chef
7 4 (1.51%) Cilium
7 4 (1.51%) Istio
7 4 (1.51%) Salt
8 2 (0.75%) Control-M
8 2 (0.75%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (0.75%) Kibana
8 2 (0.75%) linkerd
8 2 (0.75%) systemd
9 1 (0.38%) Argo
9 1 (0.38%) QRadar
9 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.38%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 28 (10.57%) Google
2 22 (8.30%) Microsoft
2 22 (8.30%) Splunk
3 17 (6.42%) Dynatrace
3 17 (6.42%) OpenAI
4 15 (5.66%) SaltStack
5 13 (4.91%) VMware
6 12 (4.53%) Oracle
7 10 (3.77%) Red Hat
8 7 (2.64%) Cribl.io
8 7 (2.64%) Databricks
9 6 (2.26%) Informatica
9 6 (2.26%) InterSystems
10 5 (1.89%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.89%) Checkmarx
10 5 (1.89%) Denodo
10 5 (1.89%) Jaspersoft
11 4 (1.51%) Black Duck
11 4 (1.51%) Foundry
11 4 (1.51%) Mistral