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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 427 248 322
Rank change year-on-year -179 +74 -66
Contract jobs citing Open Source 277 356 243
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 1.07% 0.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.59% 1.19% 0.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 159 127
10th Percentile £361 £363 £319
25th Percentile £431 £426 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% +5.00% -13.04%
75th Percentile £623 £616 £625
90th Percentile £739 £728 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £488
% change year-on-year +2.80% +2.56% -11.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 13
10th Percentile - - £20.12
25th Percentile £13.09 £51.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.67 £56.50 £25.36
Median % change year-on-year -22.71% +122.79% +19.34%
75th Percentile £76.75 £61.25 £27.00
90th Percentile £80.80 - £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 46,826 30,024 32,246
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.73% 90.50% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,144 18,679 19,408
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,407 1,886 1,245
10th Percentile £13.64 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.07 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -8.14%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 14 October 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 -207 191 £514 -2.10% 947
UK excluding London -118 117 £514 +2.80% 327
Work from Home -85 104 £500 +2.04% 422
London -166 92 £549 +0.32% 670
North of England -78 36 £510 +3.45% 75
South West -16 25 £550 -4.35% 32
Scotland -31 23 £525 - 45
South East -75 16 £350 -38.05% 61
Yorkshire -40 15 £513 -2.38% 23
East of England -21 11 £551 -0.36% 61
North East -34 11 £425 - 15
North West -58 10 £675 +50.00% 37
West Midlands -48 9 £450 -10.10% 20
Midlands -54 9 £450 -10.10% 24

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 14 (5.05%) Confluence
2 10 (3.61%) SharePoint
3 9 (3.25%) Apache
4 8 (2.89%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (2.89%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.17%) SAS
6 5 (1.81%) Apache Superset
7 2 (0.72%) CMS
8 1 (0.36%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.36%) Drupal
8 1 (0.36%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.36%) IIS
8 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.36%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.36%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.36%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 116 (41.88%) AWS
2 76 (27.44%) Azure
3 47 (16.97%) GCP
4 46 (16.61%) GitHub
5 29 (10.47%) GitHub Actions
6 19 (6.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 16 (5.78%) Amazon EKS
7 16 (5.78%) Amazon S3
8 15 (5.42%) IaaS
8 15 (5.42%) Serverless
9 11 (3.97%) Anthropic Claude
10 10 (3.61%) Vertex AI
11 9 (3.25%) Amazon Bedrock
12 8 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (2.89%) Azure Monitor
13 7 (2.53%) Amazon EC2
13 7 (2.53%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 7 (2.53%) Power Platform
14 6 (2.17%) Datadog
14 6 (2.17%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.53%) Intrusion Detection
2 6 (2.17%) HTTPS
2 6 (2.17%) SNMP
3 4 (1.44%) DNS
3 4 (1.44%) Network Security
4 3 (1.08%) SSH
4 3 (1.08%) SSL
5 2 (0.72%) 4G
5 2 (0.72%) Asterisk PBX
5 2 (0.72%) Broadband
5 2 (0.72%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.72%) HTTP
5 2 (0.72%) Internet
5 2 (0.72%) RTCP
5 2 (0.72%) RTP
5 2 (0.72%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.72%) VoIP
5 2 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (0.72%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.36%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.42%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (4.69%) Amazon RDS
3 10 (3.61%) DynamoDB
4 9 (3.25%) MongoDB
5 8 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.89%) Relational Database
5 8 (2.89%) Trino
6 7 (2.53%) Apache Iceberg
6 7 (2.53%) Big Data
6 7 (2.53%) Data Lake
7 6 (2.17%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (1.81%) Amazon Athena
8 5 (1.81%) BigQuery
8 5 (1.81%) BusinessObjects
8 5 (1.81%) Pentaho
8 5 (1.81%) Power BI
9 4 (1.44%) Amazon Aurora
9 4 (1.44%) Redis
10 3 (1.08%) Geospatial Data
10 3 (1.08%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 44 (15.88%) Git
2 28 (10.11%) Jenkins
3 20 (7.22%) GitLab
4 15 (5.42%) JIRA
5 9 (3.25%) JMeter
6 8 (2.89%) CircleCI
6 8 (2.89%) JUnit
6 8 (2.89%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (2.53%) Cypress.io
8 6 (2.17%) Cucumber
8 6 (2.17%) Postman
9 5 (1.81%) Claude Code
9 5 (1.81%) Gradle
9 5 (1.81%) XCTest
9 5 (1.81%) XCUITest
10 4 (1.44%) Bitbucket Server
10 4 (1.44%) DbUnit
10 4 (1.44%) jMock
10 4 (1.44%) Mockito
10 4 (1.44%) SonarQube
General
1 79 (28.52%) Social Skills
2 45 (16.25%) Finance
3 39 (14.08%) Public Sector
4 15 (5.42%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (5.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 13 (4.69%) Legal
6 12 (4.33%) Banking
7 8 (2.89%) Law
7 8 (2.89%) Telecoms
8 6 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (2.17%) Retail
9 5 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.44%) Military
11 3 (1.08%) Publishing
12 2 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.72%) Front Office
12 2 (0.72%) Polish Language
12 2 (0.72%) Public Speaking
13 1 (0.36%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.36%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 58 (20.94%) Senior
2 52 (18.77%) Developer
3 40 (14.44%) Architect
4 24 (8.66%) Solutions Architect
5 23 (8.30%) AWS Architect
6 20 (7.22%) Software Developer
7 19 (6.86%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 18 (6.50%) Software Engineer
9 16 (5.78%) AWS Solution Architect
10 14 (5.05%) Analyst
10 14 (5.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 13 (4.69%) Platform Engineer
11 13 (4.69%) Senior Developer
11 13 (4.69%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 12 (4.33%) Consultant
13 11 (3.97%) Cyber Threat Analyst
13 11 (3.97%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
13 11 (3.97%) Data Engineer
13 11 (3.97%) Integration Engineer
13 11 (3.97%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (18.05%) Terraform
2 35 (12.64%) Kafka
3 33 (11.91%) REST
4 16 (5.78%) LangChain
4 16 (5.78%) RESTful
5 12 (4.33%) LangGraph
6 11 (3.97%) Android Jetpack
6 11 (3.97%) Jetpack Compose
6 11 (3.97%) Playwright
6 11 (3.97%) PyTorch
6 11 (3.97%) React
7 10 (3.61%) eBPF
8 9 (3.25%) LlamaIndex
8 9 (3.25%) OpenTelemetry
8 9 (3.25%) SOAP
9 8 (2.89%) AngularJS
9 8 (2.89%) Node.js
9 8 (2.89%) Play Framework
9 8 (2.89%) TensorFlow
10 7 (2.53%) RAML
Miscellaneous
1 46 (16.61%) Cloud Native
2 29 (10.47%) Distributed Systems
3 24 (8.66%) AI Agents
4 21 (7.58%) Cyber Threat
5 19 (6.86%) Private Cloud
6 14 (5.05%) Mobile App
7 13 (4.69%) Management Information System
8 12 (4.33%) Virtual Team
9 11 (3.97%) Product Ownership
10 10 (3.61%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (3.25%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (3.25%) Security Posture
12 8 (2.89%) Blog
12 8 (2.89%) Data Protection Act
13 7 (2.53%) Data Structures
14 6 (2.17%) Legacy Applications
14 6 (2.17%) LIMS
14 6 (2.17%) Linux Command Line
15 5 (1.81%) Onboarding
15 5 (1.81%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 64 (23.10%) Linux
2 16 (5.78%) Unix
3 12 (4.33%) Android
3 12 (4.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 11 (3.97%) Windows
5 6 (2.17%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.72%) Debian
6 2 (0.72%) Rocky
6 2 (0.72%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.36%) Amazon Linux
7 1 (0.36%) CentOS
7 1 (0.36%) macOS
7 1 (0.36%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (41.88%) CI/CD
2 74 (26.71%) AI
3 72 (25.99%) Agile
3 72 (25.99%) Software Engineering
4 67 (24.19%) DevOps
5 57 (20.58%) Test Automation
6 56 (20.22%) Observability
7 53 (19.13%) Infrastructure as Code
8 44 (15.88%) Containerisation
9 37 (13.36%) Event-Driven
10 36 (13.00%) Microservices
10 36 (13.00%) Platform Engineering
10 36 (13.00%) Stakeholder Management
11 34 (12.27%) Continuous Integration
11 34 (12.27%) LLM
12 33 (11.91%) Problem-Solving
13 32 (11.55%) Cybersecurity
13 32 (11.55%) Event-Driven Architecture
14 31 (11.19%) Continuous Improvement
15 30 (10.83%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 102 (36.82%) Python
2 48 (17.33%) Java
3 31 (11.19%) SQL
4 18 (6.50%) Perl
5 17 (6.14%) Bash
5 17 (6.14%) JavaScript
6 15 (5.42%) Go
7 14 (5.05%) C++
7 14 (5.05%) Kotlin
7 14 (5.05%) Scala
8 13 (4.69%) TypeScript
9 11 (3.97%) C
10 6 (2.17%) MUMPS
11 5 (1.81%) Objective-C
11 5 (1.81%) Swift
12 4 (1.44%) C#
12 4 (1.44%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.44%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.72%) Ruby
13 2 (0.72%) Rust
Qualifications
1 95 (34.30%) Security Cleared
2 72 (25.99%) SC Cleared
3 27 (9.75%) Degree
4 19 (6.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (6.50%) DV Cleared
6 9 (3.25%) CISSP
7 8 (2.89%) AWS Certification
7 8 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.89%) CISM
8 6 (2.17%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.81%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.72%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.72%) CEH
10 2 (0.72%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.72%) GIAC
10 2 (0.72%) GSEC
10 2 (0.72%) LFCS
10 2 (0.72%) OSCP
10 2 (0.72%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.50%) Accessibility
2 13 (4.69%) QA
3 7 (2.53%) GDPR
3 7 (2.53%) WCAG
4 4 (1.44%) Disclosure Scotland
4 4 (1.44%) NCSC
5 3 (1.08%) Data Quality
5 3 (1.08%) GRC
5 3 (1.08%) NIST
6 2 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.72%) PMO
7 1 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 57 (20.58%) Docker
2 15 (5.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (3.25%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (1.44%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (1.08%) Ceph
5 3 (1.08%) Firmware
5 3 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.08%) Postfix
6 2 (0.72%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 72 (25.99%) Kubernetes
2 35 (12.64%) Ansible
2 35 (12.64%) Grafana
3 22 (7.94%) Prometheus
4 9 (3.25%) Progress Chef
4 9 (3.25%) Puppet
5 4 (1.44%) Cilium
6 2 (0.72%) Control-M
6 2 (0.72%) Docker Swarm
6 2 (0.72%) Istio
6 2 (0.72%) Kibana
6 2 (0.72%) linkerd
6 2 (0.72%) Salt
6 2 (0.72%) systemd
7 1 (0.36%) Argo
7 1 (0.36%) QRadar
7 1 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.36%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 27 (9.75%) Google
2 23 (8.30%) Microsoft
3 22 (7.94%) Splunk
4 18 (6.50%) SaltStack
5 17 (6.14%) OpenAI
6 16 (5.78%) VMware
7 14 (5.05%) Dynatrace
8 12 (4.33%) Oracle
9 10 (3.61%) Red Hat
10 7 (2.53%) Cribl.io
10 7 (2.53%) Databricks
11 6 (2.17%) Informatica
11 6 (2.17%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.81%) Denodo
13 4 (1.44%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.44%) Black Duck
13 4 (1.44%) Foundry
13 4 (1.44%) Jaspersoft
13 4 (1.44%) Mistral
14 3 (1.08%) IBM