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 6 January 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
6 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 285 249 191
Rank change year-on-year -36 -58 +53
Contract jobs citing Red Hat 337 315 563
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 0.98% 1.32%
As % of the Vendors category 1.96% 2.14% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 221 195 433
10th Percentile £393 £413 £388
25th Percentile £450 £464 £466
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.57% +4.55% -
75th Percentile £588 £675 £650
90th Percentile £670 £810 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £550 £528
% change year-on-year -6.82% +4.27% +0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 6 3
10th Percentile £46.25 £63.70 £20.56
25th Percentile £50.00 £69.50 £20.66
Median hourly rate £66.50 £74.22 £22.28
Median % change year-on-year -10.40% +233.20% -69.49%
75th Percentile £78.63 £102.61 £24.45
90th Percentile £87.95 £112.00 £24.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £71.00 £22.28
% change year-on-year -8.46% +218.74% -69.49%

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 17,163 14,721 18,865
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.50% 45.73% 44.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,021 8,733 11,968
10th Percentile £300 £285 £253
25th Percentile £410 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £715 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 802 431 653
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.96 £19.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.35 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.89% -38.54% +63.30%
75th Percentile £46.75 £60.38 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £25.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -14.00% -45.51% +91.17%

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 6 January 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Red Hat over the 6 months to 6 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Red Hat in the UK

Red Hat
Top 17 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 6 January 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 -27 300 £525 -8.70% 63
UK excluding London -11 244 £513 -6.82% 53
Work from Home +8 100 £513 - 27
South East +17 80 £503 -12.61% 23
London -65 70 £530 -11.67% 15
North of England -20 68 £525 +1.45% 13
South West -4 46 £612 +1.92% 6
Yorkshire -38 37 £525 +1.94% 4
Midlands -28 23 £450 -18.33% 6
North East +6 18 £550 - 4
North West -27 16 £550 +10.00% 5
West Midlands -31 15 £563 -0.66% 4
East of England -15 14 £454 -11.84% 7
Scotland -11 10 £500 -8.59%
East Midlands -16 8 £420 -7.18% 2
Northern Ireland - 6 £375 -
Wales - 3 - - 2

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 19 (5.64%) Apache
2 18 (5.34%) Confluence
3 12 (3.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (2.08%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.48%) Tomcat
6 4 (1.19%) JBoss
6 4 (1.19%) nginx
7 3 (0.89%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.89%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.59%) Appian
8 2 (0.59%) Camunda
9 1 (0.30%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.30%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 8 (2.37%) Maximo
2 1 (0.30%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 109 (32.34%) OpenShift
2 70 (20.77%) AWS
3 67 (19.88%) Azure
4 41 (12.17%) GitHub
5 27 (8.01%) GCP
6 16 (4.75%) Amazon EC2
7 14 (4.15%) Amazon S3
8 11 (3.26%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (2.97%) Amazon EKS
9 10 (2.97%) CloudBees
10 8 (2.37%) Azure AKS
10 8 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (2.37%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 8 (2.37%) Azure Monitor
10 8 (2.37%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (2.37%) Cloud Computing
10 8 (2.37%) IaaS
10 8 (2.37%) SaaS
11 7 (2.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.78%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 31 (9.20%) DNS
2 25 (7.42%) Firewall
3 18 (5.34%) TCP/IP
4 13 (3.86%) SAN
5 10 (2.97%) Internet
5 10 (2.97%) VLAN
6 9 (2.67%) VPN
7 8 (2.37%) VSAN
8 6 (1.78%) BGP
8 6 (1.78%) DKIM
8 6 (1.78%) DMARC
8 6 (1.78%) SMTP
8 6 (1.78%) Software-Defined Networking
8 6 (1.78%) SSL
8 6 (1.78%) WebEx
9 5 (1.48%) DHCP
9 5 (1.48%) Network Security
10 4 (1.19%) HTTP
11 3 (0.89%) NAS
11 3 (0.89%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.01%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (4.15%) MongoDB
3 12 (3.56%) Oracle Database
4 8 (2.37%) MySQL
4 8 (2.37%) Redis
5 7 (2.08%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.08%) Elasticsearch
6 6 (1.78%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.19%) Amazon Aurora
7 4 (1.19%) MariaDB
7 4 (1.19%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.89%) Apache Cassandra
8 3 (0.89%) Hadoop
8 3 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.59%) Big Data
9 2 (0.59%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.59%) GIS
9 2 (0.59%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.59%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.59%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 57 (16.91%) Jenkins
2 49 (14.54%) GitLab
3 37 (10.98%) Git
4 22 (6.53%) JIRA
5 14 (4.15%) Artifactory
6 13 (3.86%) SonarQube
7 10 (2.97%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (1.48%) Cucumber
8 5 (1.48%) Gradle
8 5 (1.48%) Maven
8 5 (1.48%) Mockito
8 5 (1.48%) Subversion
8 5 (1.48%) TeamCity
9 3 (0.89%) Oracle APEX
9 3 (0.89%) Poetry
9 3 (0.89%) PyCharm
9 3 (0.89%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.59%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.59%) Robot Framework
10 2 (0.59%) Selenium
General
1 77 (22.85%) Social Skills
2 31 (9.20%) Public Sector
3 21 (6.23%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (5.93%) Finance
5 18 (5.34%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (3.56%) Aerospace
7 7 (2.08%) Banking
7 7 (2.08%) Financial Institution
7 7 (2.08%) Legal
8 5 (1.48%) Manufacturing
9 3 (0.89%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.30%) Automotive
11 1 (0.30%) Aviation
11 1 (0.30%) Back Office
11 1 (0.30%) Front Office
11 1 (0.30%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.30%) Law
Job Titles
1 46 (13.65%) DevOps Engineer
2 36 (10.68%) Administrator
3 35 (10.39%) Architect
4 33 (9.79%) Developer
5 25 (7.42%) Linux Engineer
6 22 (6.53%) Senior
6 22 (6.53%) Software Engineer
7 20 (5.93%) Platform Engineer
8 19 (5.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 19 (5.64%) Support Engineer
9 17 (5.04%) Linux Administrator
10 15 (4.45%) Automation Engineer
10 15 (4.45%) Full-Stack Developer
11 14 (4.15%) Lead
12 13 (3.86%) Systems Administrator
13 12 (3.56%) Data Engineer
13 12 (3.56%) Product Engineer
13 12 (3.56%) Products Support Engineer
13 12 (3.56%) Software Support Engineer
14 10 (2.97%) Data Protection Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.82%) YAML
2 22 (6.53%) AngularJS
3 21 (6.23%) React
4 20 (5.93%) REST
4 20 (5.93%) Spring
5 19 (5.64%) Middleware
6 18 (5.34%) CSS
6 18 (5.34%) HTML
6 18 (5.34%) Keycloak
6 18 (5.34%) Node.js
7 15 (4.45%) Elastic Stack
8 12 (3.56%) Apache NiFi
8 12 (3.56%) Kafka
8 12 (3.56%) Vue
9 11 (3.26%) ARM Templates
9 11 (3.26%) Loki
10 10 (2.97%) JSON
11 9 (2.67%) LDAP
11 9 (2.67%) Spring Boot
12 8 (2.37%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 42 (12.46%) Cloud Native
2 27 (8.01%) Product Ownership
3 18 (5.34%) Onboarding
4 17 (5.04%) Hybrid Cloud
5 16 (4.75%) Data Centre
6 14 (4.15%) Enterprise Software
7 11 (3.26%) Clustering
8 8 (2.37%) Hedge funds
8 8 (2.37%) Management Information System
8 8 (2.37%) Virtual Team
9 7 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (2.08%) Private Cloud
10 5 (1.48%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.48%) PKI
11 4 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.19%) Replication
12 3 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.89%) Cyber Defence
13 2 (0.59%) Enterprise Storage
13 2 (0.59%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 225 (66.77%) Linux
2 162 (48.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 57 (16.91%) Windows
4 38 (11.28%) Ubuntu
5 33 (9.79%) Windows Server
6 29 (8.61%) CentOS
7 26 (7.72%) Unix
8 12 (3.56%) Solaris
9 6 (1.78%) Oracle Linux
10 5 (1.48%) OpenVMS
11 4 (1.19%) Debian
11 4 (1.19%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.89%) AIX
12 3 (0.89%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.89%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.59%) VMS
13 2 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (42.73%) CI/CD
2 127 (37.69%) DevOps
3 80 (23.74%) Containerisation
4 71 (21.07%) Problem-Solving
5 54 (16.02%) Infrastructure as Code
6 50 (14.84%) Software Engineering
7 46 (13.65%) Agile
7 46 (13.65%) Migration
8 43 (12.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 36 (10.68%) Configuration Management
10 35 (10.39%) RBAC
11 34 (10.09%) ITIL
12 33 (9.79%) DevSecOps
13 32 (9.50%) High Availability
13 32 (9.50%) Platform Engineering
14 31 (9.20%) Continuous Improvement
15 30 (8.90%) Scrum
16 28 (8.31%) Microservices
17 27 (8.01%) ITSM
18 26 (7.72%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 142 (42.14%) Python
2 99 (29.38%) Bash
3 47 (13.95%) Shell Script
4 41 (12.17%) PowerShell
5 34 (10.09%) Java
5 34 (10.09%) JavaScript
5 34 (10.09%) Perl
6 29 (8.61%) SQL
7 16 (4.75%) C
8 14 (4.15%) Ruby
9 13 (3.86%) C++
9 13 (3.86%) TypeScript
10 12 (3.56%) Ada
11 8 (2.37%) Bicep
12 5 (1.48%) MATLAB
13 4 (1.19%) C#
13 4 (1.19%) Go
13 4 (1.19%) Groovy
13 4 (1.19%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.59%) R
Qualifications
1 167 (49.55%) Security Cleared
2 134 (39.76%) SC Cleared
3 37 (10.98%) DV Cleared
4 22 (6.53%) Degree
5 18 (5.34%) RHCE
6 14 (4.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (3.26%) Azure Certification
7 11 (3.26%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (2.67%) CCDP
8 9 (2.67%) CCNA
8 9 (2.67%) CCNP
8 9 (2.67%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (2.67%) CISSP
8 9 (2.67%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 8 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.37%) CISM
10 6 (1.78%) RHCSA
11 4 (1.19%) OCP
11 4 (1.19%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.89%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (5.93%) QA
2 11 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (3.26%) NIST
3 9 (2.67%) GDPR
3 9 (2.67%) NIST 800
4 7 (2.08%) NCSC
5 5 (1.48%) SLA
6 4 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.30%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.30%) HL7
System Software
1 57 (16.91%) Docker
2 56 (16.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (9.20%) Active Directory
4 24 (7.12%) vSphere
5 12 (3.56%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (3.56%) VMware NSX
6 10 (2.97%) KVM
7 6 (1.78%) Dovecot
7 6 (1.78%) Postfix
8 5 (1.48%) NFS
8 5 (1.48%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (1.19%) Veritas File System
9 4 (1.19%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.89%) Hyper-V
10 3 (0.89%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.59%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.30%) Ceph
12 1 (0.30%) GPFS
12 1 (0.30%) HDFS
12 1 (0.30%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 141 (41.84%) Ansible
2 139 (41.25%) Kubernetes
3 77 (22.85%) Terraform
4 55 (16.32%) Argo
5 41 (12.17%) Red Hat Satellite
6 37 (10.98%) Grafana
7 35 (10.39%) Prometheus
8 21 (6.23%) Puppet
9 18 (5.34%) Istio
10 16 (4.75%) vCenter Server
11 14 (4.15%) NetBackup
12 13 (3.86%) Podman
13 11 (3.26%) Progress Chef
14 10 (2.97%) Kustomize
15 7 (2.08%) Check_MK
15 7 (2.08%) Data Guard
15 7 (2.08%) EMC NetWorker
15 7 (2.08%) EMC VPLEX
16 6 (1.78%) SCOM
16 6 (1.78%) WSUS
Vendors
1 108 (32.05%) VMware
2 34 (10.09%) Microsoft
3 30 (8.90%) Splunk
4 24 (7.12%) Cisco
5 21 (6.23%) Oracle
6 19 (5.64%) Dell
7 17 (5.04%) Commvault
8 13 (3.86%) IBM
9 12 (3.56%) Veritas
10 10 (2.97%) Citrix
11 8 (2.37%) EMC
11 8 (2.37%) NVIDIA
11 8 (2.37%) Pure Storage
12 7 (2.08%) Broadcom
12 7 (2.08%) Brocade
12 7 (2.08%) Isilon
13 6 (1.78%) Google
14 5 (1.48%) CyberArk
14 5 (1.48%) Qualys
15 4 (1.19%) SaltStack