Red Hat Contract Job Trends

Red Hat
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of Red Hat products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Red Hat over the 6 months leading up to 18 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within Red Hat, Inc.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 360 290 252
Rank change year-on-year -70 -38 -39
Contract jobs citing Red Hat 352 286 358
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.87% 0.92%
As % of the Vendors category 1.57% 1.84% 2.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 187 245
10th Percentile £400 £363 £356
25th Percentile £425 £418 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £511
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.74% -11.21%
75th Percentile £600 £599 £588
90th Percentile £703 £656 £682
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £506 £520
% change year-on-year -2.57% -2.64% -4.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 11 8
10th Percentile £62.50 - £62.30
25th Percentile £62.75 - £70.63
Median hourly rate £70.00 £68.00 £74.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -8.11% +40.95%
75th Percentile - - £74.58
90th Percentile - - £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £68.00 £74.00
% change year-on-year +2.94% -8.11% +40.95%

All Vendors
UK

Red Hat falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 22,363 15,539 16,952
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.75% 47.27% 43.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,844 9,486 10,594
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £610 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.41% -4.23% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,149 808 821
10th Percentile £14.56 £14.61 £13.50
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -10.18% -30.86%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.12 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.27 £21.35 £27.50
% change year-on-year +41.81% -22.38% -17.76%

Red Hat
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Red Hat relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Red Hat job vacancy trend in the UK

Red Hat
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Red Hat.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Red Hat

Red Hat
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Red Hat over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Red Hat in the UK

Red Hat
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Red Hat.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Red Hat

Red Hat
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Red Hat within the UK over the 6 months to 18 August 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 -82 304 £510 -2.86% 289
UK excluding London -54 237 £493 -2.57% 264
Work from Home -68 103 £500 -6.89% 252
North of England -45 90 £493 -1.35% 89
South East -51 81 £480 -9.18% 16
London -65 79 £563 -2.17% 119
South West -28 37 £525 +5.00% 21
North West -38 34 £475 +20.87% 48
North East -20 28 £511 -7.05% 40
Yorkshire -38 28 £500 -2.44% 1
Midlands -56 17 £488 -9.22% 48
East of England -17 14 £350 -4.76% 3
West Midlands -46 14 £480 -11.93% 48
Scotland -15 13 £450 -15.85% 45
East Midlands -22 3 £488 +2.63%
Wales -20 1 £475 -

Red Hat
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 20 (5.68%) nginx
2 13 (3.69%) JBoss
3 12 (3.41%) Apache
3 12 (3.41%) Tomcat
4 11 (3.13%) Confluence
5 7 (1.99%) SharePoint
6 5 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (1.14%) WebSphere
7 4 (1.14%) WebSphere Application Server
8 3 (0.85%) IIS
8 3 (0.85%) SAS
8 3 (0.85%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.57%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.57%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.57%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.28%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.28%) Oracle Coherence
10 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 124 (35.23%) OpenShift
2 80 (22.73%) AWS
3 73 (20.74%) Azure
4 34 (9.66%) GitHub
5 32 (9.09%) GCP
6 22 (6.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 18 (5.11%) AWS CloudFormation
7 18 (5.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 15 (4.26%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (3.41%) Amazon EC2
9 12 (3.41%) Amazon EKS
9 12 (3.41%) Serverless
10 11 (3.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 9 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
11 9 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
12 8 (2.27%) AWS CloudTrail
12 8 (2.27%) AWS KMS
12 8 (2.27%) Entra ID
13 7 (1.99%) Amazon S3
13 7 (1.99%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 45 (12.78%) DNS
2 42 (11.93%) Firewall
3 24 (6.82%) SAN
4 16 (4.55%) TCP/IP
5 15 (4.26%) DHCP
6 11 (3.13%) Kerberos
7 10 (2.84%) SSL
8 9 (2.56%) BGP
8 9 (2.56%) VPN
9 8 (2.27%) HTTP
10 7 (1.99%) Ethernet VPN
10 7 (1.99%) NX-OS
10 7 (1.99%) VoIP
10 7 (1.99%) VXLAN
10 7 (1.99%) WAN
11 6 (1.70%) OpenVPN
11 6 (1.70%) SSH
11 6 (1.70%) VLAN
12 5 (1.42%) NAS
12 5 (1.42%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.68%) SQL Server
2 13 (3.69%) Oracle Database
3 12 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
5 7 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
5 7 (1.99%) MySQL
5 7 (1.99%) SAP HANA
6 6 (1.70%) Big Data
6 6 (1.70%) Hadoop
7 4 (1.14%) Oracle Database 12c
8 3 (0.85%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.85%) GIS
9 2 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.57%) CockroachDB
9 2 (0.57%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.28%) Data Mining
10 1 (0.28%) Dremio
10 1 (0.28%) MariaDB
10 1 (0.28%) Metadata
10 1 (0.28%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 48 (13.64%) Jenkins
2 40 (11.36%) SonarQube
3 27 (7.67%) Git
4 24 (6.82%) GitLab
5 12 (3.41%) JIRA
6 6 (1.70%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.85%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.85%) Toad
8 2 (0.57%) Gatling
8 2 (0.57%) Introscope
8 2 (0.57%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.57%) Selenium
9 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.28%) Maven
9 1 (0.28%) PVCS
9 1 (0.28%) Subversion
General
1 68 (19.32%) Social Skills
2 44 (12.50%) Finance
3 30 (8.52%) Public Sector
4 27 (7.67%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (6.82%) Banking
6 20 (5.68%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (2.27%) Aerospace
8 7 (1.99%) Military
9 5 (1.42%) Financial Institution
9 5 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 3 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.85%) Retail
11 2 (0.57%) Aviation
11 2 (0.57%) Law
11 2 (0.57%) Legal
11 2 (0.57%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.28%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.28%) Publishing
12 1 (0.28%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 60 (17.05%) Linux Engineer
2 40 (11.36%) Architect
3 34 (9.66%) Senior
4 28 (7.95%) Developer
5 27 (7.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 21 (5.97%) Administrator
6 21 (5.97%) DevOps Engineer
6 21 (5.97%) Platform Engineer
7 20 (5.68%) Security Engineer
8 19 (5.40%) Cloud Engineer
9 16 (4.55%) Java Developer
9 16 (4.55%) Software Engineer
10 15 (4.26%) Analyst
10 15 (4.26%) Java Engineer
11 14 (3.98%) Lead
11 14 (3.98%) Linux Administrator
11 14 (3.98%) Solutions Architect
12 13 (3.69%) Systems Engineer
13 11 (3.13%) Linux Systems Engineer
14 10 (2.84%) Asset Management Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (10.51%) AngularJS
2 36 (10.23%) Quarkus
3 15 (4.26%) YAML
4 13 (3.69%) REST
5 10 (2.84%) JSON
5 10 (2.84%) Kafka
5 10 (2.84%) Middleware
6 9 (2.56%) Elastic Stack
6 9 (2.56%) Node.js
7 8 (2.27%) Express.js
7 8 (2.27%) LDAP
8 5 (1.42%) ARM Templates
8 5 (1.42%) OpenTelemetry
9 4 (1.14%) boto
9 4 (1.14%) CSS
9 4 (1.14%) EJB
9 4 (1.14%) HTML
9 4 (1.14%) Jakarta EE
9 4 (1.14%) LAMP
9 4 (1.14%) React
Miscellaneous
1 47 (13.35%) Cloud Native
2 34 (9.66%) Data Centre
3 21 (5.97%) Hybrid Cloud
4 19 (5.40%) Management Information System
4 19 (5.40%) Security Posture
5 18 (5.11%) Clustering
6 15 (4.26%) Data Protection Act
7 11 (3.13%) Replication
8 9 (2.56%) Linux Command Line
8 9 (2.56%) Public Cloud
9 8 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (2.27%) Private Cloud
10 7 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.99%) Onboarding
10 7 (1.99%) Virtual Team
11 6 (1.70%) Legacy Applications
12 5 (1.42%) Enterprise Storage
12 5 (1.42%) PKI
13 4 (1.14%) Cloud Security Posture
13 4 (1.14%) EMC VMAX
Operating Systems
1 231 (65.63%) Linux
2 185 (52.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 76 (21.59%) Windows
4 36 (10.23%) Windows Server
5 28 (7.95%) Unix
6 18 (5.11%) Solaris
7 16 (4.55%) SUSE
8 15 (4.26%) Windows Server 2019
9 12 (3.41%) Ubuntu
10 11 (3.13%) AIX
10 11 (3.13%) CentOS
11 9 (2.56%) Oracle Linux
12 8 (2.27%) Windows Server 2008
13 7 (1.99%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (1.70%) Data ONTAP
14 6 (1.70%) VMS
15 5 (1.42%) CoreOS
15 5 (1.42%) HPUX
16 3 (0.85%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
17 2 (0.57%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (30.68%) CI/CD
1 108 (30.68%) DevOps
2 91 (25.85%) Agile
3 65 (18.47%) Test Automation
4 57 (16.19%) Containerisation
5 52 (14.77%) DevSecOps
5 52 (14.77%) Scrum
6 51 (14.49%) Infrastructure as Code
7 49 (13.92%) Migration
8 45 (12.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 45 (12.78%) Observability
8 45 (12.78%) Problem-Solving
9 44 (12.50%) ITIL
9 44 (12.50%) SDLC
9 44 (12.50%) Software Engineering
10 43 (12.22%) Continuous Improvement
11 40 (11.36%) Front End Development
11 40 (11.36%) Platform Engineering
12 39 (11.08%) Performance Tuning
13 37 (10.51%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 105 (29.83%) Python
2 79 (22.44%) Bash
3 69 (19.60%) Java
4 64 (18.18%) PowerShell
5 18 (5.11%) Shell Script
6 14 (3.98%) SQL
7 11 (3.13%) Bicep
7 11 (3.13%) Perl
8 9 (2.56%) JavaScript
9 7 (1.99%) C
10 6 (1.70%) C++
10 6 (1.70%) PL/SQL
11 4 (1.14%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.85%) Korn
13 2 (0.57%) Go
13 2 (0.57%) Groovy
13 2 (0.57%) Jython
13 2 (0.57%) R
13 2 (0.57%) Rust
14 1 (0.28%) ActionScript 2.0
Qualifications
1 152 (43.18%) Security Cleared
2 113 (32.10%) SC Cleared
3 33 (9.38%) DV Cleared
4 29 (8.24%) Degree
5 26 (7.39%) Azure Certification
6 24 (6.82%) RHCE
7 21 (5.97%) CISSP
8 20 (5.68%) AWS Certification
9 12 (3.41%) RHCSA
10 9 (2.56%) OCP
10 9 (2.56%) Oracle Certification
11 7 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
11 7 (1.99%) LFCS
12 6 (1.70%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (1.42%) CompTIA Security+
13 5 (1.42%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 4 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
14 4 (1.14%) LPIC
15 3 (0.85%) NCDA
15 3 (0.85%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (10.80%) QA
2 8 (2.27%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.99%) SLA
4 6 (1.70%) GRC
5 3 (0.85%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.57%) NCSC
6 2 (0.57%) NIST
6 2 (0.57%) PMO
7 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.28%) OpenSCAP
7 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 60 (17.05%) VMware Infrastructure
2 52 (14.77%) Docker
3 31 (8.81%) Active Directory
4 16 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (4.26%) NFS
5 15 (4.26%) vSphere
6 11 (3.13%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (2.84%) Hyper-V
8 9 (2.56%) Oracle RAC
8 9 (2.56%) VMware NSX
9 6 (1.70%) Corosync
10 4 (1.14%) Squid
10 4 (1.14%) SRDF
11 3 (0.85%) Ceph
11 3 (0.85%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.85%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (0.85%) Postfix
11 3 (0.85%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 2 (0.57%) KVM
12 2 (0.57%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 130 (36.93%) Kubernetes
2 102 (28.98%) Ansible
3 83 (23.58%) Terraform
4 56 (15.91%) Argo
5 37 (10.51%) Grafana
6 29 (8.24%) Progress Chef
7 27 (7.67%) Red Hat Satellite
8 25 (7.10%) Puppet
9 23 (6.53%) Prometheus
10 15 (4.26%) Failover Clustering
10 15 (4.26%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (2.84%) vCenter Server
12 9 (2.56%) Oracle RMAN
12 9 (2.56%) Podman
13 8 (2.27%) NetBackup
14 7 (1.99%) Pacemaker
15 6 (1.70%) SELinux
15 6 (1.70%) SnapMirror
16 5 (1.42%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
16 5 (1.42%) Packer
Vendors
1 81 (23.01%) VMware
2 66 (18.75%) Microsoft
3 54 (15.34%) Oracle
4 38 (10.80%) Cisco
5 25 (7.10%) Google
6 24 (6.82%) IBM
7 17 (4.83%) SAP
7 17 (4.83%) ServiceNow
8 11 (3.13%) NetApp
8 11 (3.13%) Pure Storage
9 10 (2.84%) Dell
9 10 (2.84%) SaltStack
10 9 (2.56%) Splunk
11 8 (2.27%) MathWorks
11 8 (2.27%) Siemens
11 8 (2.27%) Veritas
12 6 (1.70%) Commvault
12 6 (1.70%) HP
13 5 (1.42%) EMC
14 4 (1.14%) Brocade