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 15 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
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 281 252 186
Rank change year-on-year -29 -66 +60
Contract jobs citing Red Hat 335 313 542
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.90% 0.98% 1.28%
As % of the Vendors category 1.96% 2.15% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 195 419
10th Percentile £392 £413 £373
25th Percentile £450 £475 £467
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.57% +4.55% -
75th Percentile £583 £670 £650
90th Percentile £671 £810 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £551 £530
% change year-on-year -6.99% +3.96% +0.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 6 3
10th Percentile £46.25 £63.70 £20.56
25th Percentile £53.13 £69.50 £20.66
Median hourly rate £68.00 £74.22 £22.28
Median % change year-on-year -8.38% +233.20% -69.49%
75th Percentile £82.50 £102.61 £24.45
90th Percentile £90.00 £112.00 £24.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.50 £71.00 £22.28
% change year-on-year -9.16% +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 17,131 14,582 18,678
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.18% 45.80% 44.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,032 8,643 11,805
10th Percentile £300 £284 £255
25th Percentile £410 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.42%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 802 426 679
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.88 £19.72 £17.74
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.13 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.17% -37.64% +50.00%
75th Percentile £47.69 £60.09 £63.29
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.13 £24.83 £44.50
% change year-on-year -14.92% -44.20% +76.24%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -35 295 £525 -8.70% 60
UK excluding London -11 240 £513 -6.99% 52
Work from Home +9 94 £513 -5.79% 35
South East +15 77 £500 -13.04% 20
North of England -10 70 £525 +0.96% 15
London -76 69 £530 -11.67% 17
South West -14 47 £575 -4.96% 7
Yorkshire -30 39 £525 +1.94% 5
Midlands -30 20 £469 -14.97% 4
North East +7 18 £550 - 3
North West -21 16 £550 - 7
East of England -22 13 £470 +9.30% 4
West Midlands -32 13 £569 +3.22% 3
Scotland -3 10 £500 -3.94% 1
East Midlands -22 7 £420 -7.18% 1
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 (5.67%) Apache
2 18 (5.37%) Confluence
3 12 (3.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (2.09%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.49%) Tomcat
6 4 (1.19%) nginx
7 3 (0.90%) JBoss
7 3 (0.90%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.60%) Appian
8 2 (0.60%) Camunda
9 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.30%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.30%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 8 (2.39%) Maximo
2 1 (0.30%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 113 (33.73%) OpenShift
2 70 (20.90%) AWS
3 67 (20.00%) Azure
4 38 (11.34%) GitHub
5 26 (7.76%) GCP
6 16 (4.78%) Amazon EC2
7 12 (3.58%) Amazon S3
8 10 (2.99%) CloudBees
8 10 (2.99%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (2.69%) Amazon EKS
10 8 (2.39%) Azure AKS
10 8 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (2.39%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 8 (2.39%) Azure Monitor
10 8 (2.39%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (2.39%) Cloud Computing
10 8 (2.39%) IaaS
10 8 (2.39%) SaaS
11 7 (2.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.79%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 29 (8.66%) DNS
2 22 (6.57%) Firewall
3 16 (4.78%) TCP/IP
4 13 (3.88%) SAN
5 10 (2.99%) Internet
5 10 (2.99%) VLAN
6 9 (2.69%) VPN
7 7 (2.09%) VSAN
8 6 (1.79%) BGP
8 6 (1.79%) DKIM
8 6 (1.79%) DMARC
8 6 (1.79%) SMTP
8 6 (1.79%) Software-Defined Networking
8 6 (1.79%) WebEx
9 5 (1.49%) DHCP
9 5 (1.49%) Network Security
10 4 (1.19%) HTTP
11 3 (0.90%) LAN
11 3 (0.90%) Skype
11 3 (0.90%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (7.16%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (4.18%) MongoDB
3 12 (3.58%) Oracle Database
4 8 (2.39%) MySQL
5 7 (2.09%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.09%) Redis
6 6 (1.79%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (1.49%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.19%) Amazon Aurora
8 4 (1.19%) MariaDB
8 4 (1.19%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.90%) Apache Cassandra
9 3 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.60%) GIS
10 2 (0.60%) InfluxDB
10 2 (0.60%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 1 (0.30%) Data Lake
11 1 (0.30%) Impala
11 1 (0.30%) Metadata
11 1 (0.30%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 53 (15.82%) Jenkins
2 51 (15.22%) GitLab
3 34 (10.15%) Git
4 20 (5.97%) JIRA
5 13 (3.88%) Artifactory
6 10 (2.99%) SonarQube
7 9 (2.69%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (1.49%) Cucumber
8 5 (1.49%) Gradle
8 5 (1.49%) Maven
8 5 (1.49%) Mockito
8 5 (1.49%) Subversion
9 4 (1.19%) TeamCity
10 3 (0.90%) Oracle APEX
11 2 (0.60%) Ant
11 2 (0.60%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.60%) JUnit
11 2 (0.60%) Robot Framework
11 2 (0.60%) Selenium
12 1 (0.30%) Eclipse
General
1 77 (22.99%) Social Skills
2 33 (9.85%) Public Sector
3 20 (5.97%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (5.97%) Documentation Skills
4 19 (5.67%) Finance
5 11 (3.28%) Aerospace
6 7 (2.09%) Banking
6 7 (2.09%) Financial Institution
6 7 (2.09%) Legal
7 5 (1.49%) Manufacturing
8 3 (0.90%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.30%) Automotive
10 1 (0.30%) Aviation
10 1 (0.30%) Back Office
10 1 (0.30%) Front Office
10 1 (0.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.30%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.30%) Law
Job Titles
1 42 (12.54%) DevOps Engineer
2 37 (11.04%) Administrator
3 35 (10.45%) Architect
4 34 (10.15%) Developer
5 26 (7.76%) Linux Engineer
6 22 (6.57%) Software Engineer
7 21 (6.27%) Senior
8 19 (5.67%) Platform Engineer
8 19 (5.67%) Support Engineer
9 17 (5.07%) Linux Administrator
10 16 (4.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 15 (4.48%) Automation Engineer
11 15 (4.48%) Full-Stack Developer
11 15 (4.48%) Lead
12 12 (3.58%) Product Engineer
12 12 (3.58%) Products Support Engineer
12 12 (3.58%) Software Support Engineer
12 12 (3.58%) Systems Administrator
13 10 (2.99%) Consultant
13 10 (2.99%) Data Protection Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (7.16%) YAML
2 23 (6.87%) AngularJS
3 20 (5.97%) React
3 20 (5.97%) REST
3 20 (5.97%) Spring
4 19 (5.67%) Middleware
4 19 (5.67%) Node.js
5 18 (5.37%) CSS
5 18 (5.37%) HTML
6 16 (4.78%) Keycloak
7 12 (3.58%) Apache NiFi
7 12 (3.58%) Elastic Stack
7 12 (3.58%) LDAP
7 12 (3.58%) Loki
7 12 (3.58%) Vue
8 11 (3.28%) ARM Templates
8 11 (3.28%) Kafka
9 10 (2.99%) JSON
10 8 (2.39%) Ruby on Rails
10 8 (2.39%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 42 (12.54%) Cloud Native
2 27 (8.06%) Product Ownership
3 20 (5.97%) Onboarding
4 17 (5.07%) Data Centre
4 17 (5.07%) Hybrid Cloud
5 14 (4.18%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (3.28%) Clustering
7 10 (2.99%) Management Information System
8 8 (2.39%) Hedge funds
8 8 (2.39%) Virtual Team
9 7 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.79%) Private Cloud
11 5 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.49%) PKI
12 4 (1.19%) Replication
13 3 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
13 3 (0.90%) Cyber Defence
13 3 (0.90%) Enterprise Storage
13 3 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
14 2 (0.60%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 222 (66.27%) Linux
2 163 (48.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 53 (15.82%) Windows
4 36 (10.75%) Ubuntu
5 29 (8.66%) Windows Server
6 28 (8.36%) CentOS
7 26 (7.76%) Unix
8 12 (3.58%) Solaris
9 5 (1.49%) OpenVMS
10 4 (1.19%) Debian
10 4 (1.19%) Mac OS
10 4 (1.19%) Oracle Linux
11 3 (0.90%) AIX
11 3 (0.90%) Windows 10
11 3 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.60%) VMS
12 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (42.69%) CI/CD
2 123 (36.72%) DevOps
3 78 (23.28%) Containerisation
4 66 (19.70%) Problem-Solving
5 53 (15.82%) Infrastructure as Code
6 52 (15.52%) Software Engineering
7 45 (13.43%) Agile
8 42 (12.54%) Migration
9 40 (11.94%) RBAC
10 39 (11.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 36 (10.75%) DevSecOps
12 35 (10.45%) Configuration Management
13 33 (9.85%) Continuous Improvement
13 33 (9.85%) Platform Engineering
14 32 (9.55%) ITIL
15 30 (8.96%) High Availability
16 29 (8.66%) Scrum
17 28 (8.36%) ITSM
18 27 (8.06%) Microservices
19 26 (7.76%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 138 (41.19%) Python
2 95 (28.36%) Bash
3 47 (14.03%) Shell Script
4 38 (11.34%) PowerShell
5 34 (10.15%) Java
5 34 (10.15%) Perl
6 33 (9.85%) JavaScript
7 25 (7.46%) SQL
8 16 (4.78%) C
9 15 (4.48%) Ruby
10 13 (3.88%) C++
10 13 (3.88%) TypeScript
11 12 (3.58%) Ada
12 8 (2.39%) Bicep
13 6 (1.79%) MATLAB
14 4 (1.19%) Go
14 4 (1.19%) PL/SQL
15 3 (0.90%) C#
16 2 (0.60%) Groovy
16 2 (0.60%) Korn
Qualifications
1 172 (51.34%) Security Cleared
2 137 (40.90%) SC Cleared
3 39 (11.64%) DV Cleared
4 22 (6.57%) Degree
5 20 (5.97%) RHCE
6 14 (4.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (3.28%) Azure Certification
7 11 (3.28%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (2.69%) CCDP
8 9 (2.69%) CCNA
8 9 (2.69%) CCNP
8 9 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (2.69%) CISSP
8 9 (2.69%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 8 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.39%) CISM
10 7 (2.09%) OCP
10 7 (2.09%) Oracle Certification
10 7 (2.09%) RHCSA
11 3 (0.90%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.67%) QA
2 11 (3.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (3.28%) NIST
3 9 (2.69%) GDPR
3 9 (2.69%) NIST 800
4 8 (2.39%) NCSC
5 6 (1.79%) SLA
6 4 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.30%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.30%) HL7
System Software
1 55 (16.42%) VMware Infrastructure
2 52 (15.52%) Docker
3 29 (8.66%) Active Directory
4 24 (7.16%) vSphere
5 12 (3.58%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (3.58%) VMware NSX
6 10 (2.99%) KVM
7 6 (1.79%) Dovecot
7 6 (1.79%) Postfix
8 5 (1.49%) NFS
8 5 (1.49%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (1.19%) Veritas File System
9 4 (1.19%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.90%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.60%) Hyper-V
11 2 (0.60%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.30%) Apache ZooKeeper
12 1 (0.30%) HDFS
12 1 (0.30%) Lustre
12 1 (0.30%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 140 (41.79%) Ansible
2 138 (41.19%) Kubernetes
3 75 (22.39%) Terraform
4 56 (16.72%) Argo
5 42 (12.54%) Red Hat Satellite
6 38 (11.34%) Grafana
7 36 (10.75%) Prometheus
8 22 (6.57%) Puppet
9 16 (4.78%) Istio
9 16 (4.78%) vCenter Server
10 15 (4.48%) NetBackup
11 14 (4.18%) Podman
12 10 (2.99%) Kustomize
12 10 (2.99%) Progress Chef
13 8 (2.39%) Check_MK
14 7 (2.09%) Data Guard
14 7 (2.09%) EMC NetWorker
14 7 (2.09%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (1.79%) linkerd
15 6 (1.79%) WSUS
Vendors
1 107 (31.94%) VMware
2 34 (10.15%) Microsoft
3 28 (8.36%) Splunk
4 24 (7.16%) Cisco
5 20 (5.97%) Dell
6 19 (5.67%) Oracle
7 17 (5.07%) Commvault
8 13 (3.88%) IBM
8 13 (3.88%) Veritas
9 10 (2.99%) Citrix
10 8 (2.39%) NVIDIA
10 8 (2.39%) Pure Storage
11 7 (2.09%) Broadcom
11 7 (2.09%) Brocade
11 7 (2.09%) EMC
11 7 (2.09%) Isilon
12 6 (1.79%) Google
13 5 (1.49%) CyberArk
13 5 (1.49%) Qualys
14 4 (1.19%) SaltStack