Ubuntu Contract Job Trends

Ubuntu Linux
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Ubuntu skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 523 444 471
Rank change year-on-year -79 +27 +94
Contract jobs citing Ubuntu 87 74 117
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.25% 0.26%
As % of the Operating Systems category 1.81% 1.75% 1.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 48 86
10th Percentile £420 £351 £463
25th Percentile £452 £415 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £545
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -8.26% -0.91%
75th Percentile £560 £613 £558
90th Percentile £639 £675 £594
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £536
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.76% +2.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 1
10th Percentile £59.30 £46.08 -
25th Percentile £68.00 £56.31 £20.50
Median hourly rate £109.00 £66.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.15% +214.29% +12.09%
75th Percentile £119.00 £68.00 £21.50
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £109.00 £68.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +60.29% +223.81% +20.21%

All Operating Systems
UK

Ubuntu falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring operating system skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 4,797 4,218 5,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.92% 14.28% 13.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,146 2,781 3,983
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £290 £319 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £565 £589 £594
90th Percentile £654 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £450 £430
% change year-on-year -7.78% +4.65% -9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 346 157 410
10th Percentile £15.11 £16.60 £13.21
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% +27.27% -20.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £20.85
% change year-on-year -8.76% +18.26% -19.80%

Ubuntu
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Ubuntu job vacancy trend in the UK

Ubuntu
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Ubuntu

Ubuntu
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Ubuntu over the 6 months to 22 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Ubuntu in the UK

Ubuntu
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Ubuntu

Ubuntu
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Ubuntu over the 6 months to 22 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Ubuntu in the UK

Ubuntu
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Ubuntu within the UK over the 6 months to 22 March 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 -101 78 £525 - 45
UK excluding London -67 63 £525 +5.00% 36
South West -17 25 £450 -14.29% 2
Work from Home -31 23 £537 +7.94% 22
South East -58 17 £525 -8.70% 15
North of England -69 11 £525 +31.09% 10
London -48 10 £578 +5.00% 12
Yorkshire -48 10 £525 +31.09% 1
East of England -22 5 £681 +58.37% 3
Midlands -62 4 £540 +2.86% 3
West Midlands -65 4 £540 - 2
Scotland -4 1 - -
North West -28 1 £300 - 8

Ubuntu
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 7 (8.05%) Apache
2 2 (2.30%) OpenStack
3 1 (1.15%) Apache Spark
3 1 (1.15%) Apache Superset
3 1 (1.15%) JBoss
Applications
1 8 (9.20%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (4.60%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 16 (18.39%) Azure
2 11 (12.64%) AWS
3 5 (5.75%) GitHub
4 4 (4.60%) IaaS
4 4 (4.60%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (4.60%) OpenShift
5 3 (3.45%) GCP
6 2 (2.30%) Amazon S3
6 2 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (2.30%) SaaS
6 2 (2.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 1 (1.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.15%) Amazon ECR
7 1 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (1.15%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.15%) dbt
7 1 (1.15%) Entra ID
7 1 (1.15%) Nutanix
7 1 (1.15%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (9.20%) VPN
2 7 (8.05%) BGP
2 7 (8.05%) Network Security
3 6 (6.90%) Cisco ASA
3 6 (6.90%) Cisco IOS
3 6 (6.90%) MPLS
3 6 (6.90%) TACACS
4 4 (4.60%) DKIM
4 4 (4.60%) DMARC
4 4 (4.60%) SMTP
4 4 (4.60%) VSAN
5 3 (3.45%) LAN
5 3 (3.45%) SAN
5 3 (3.45%) TCP/IP
6 2 (2.30%) Firewall
6 2 (2.30%) NFC
6 2 (2.30%) PPP
6 2 (2.30%) VLAN
6 2 (2.30%) VXLAN
7 1 (1.15%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.15%) Amazon Aurora
1 1 (1.15%) Apache Hive
1 1 (1.15%) Hadoop
1 1 (1.15%) Impala
1 1 (1.15%) MongoDB
1 1 (1.15%) OpenStack Swift
1 1 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (1.15%) Redis
1 1 (1.15%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (14.94%) Git
2 6 (6.90%) GitLab
3 4 (4.60%) Jenkins
4 2 (2.30%) Eclipse
4 2 (2.30%) Valgrind
5 1 (1.15%) Postman
5 1 (1.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 18 (20.69%) Social Skills
2 10 (11.49%) Documentation Skills
2 10 (11.49%) Public Sector
3 3 (3.45%) Banking
3 3 (3.45%) Finance
3 3 (3.45%) Telecoms
4 2 (2.30%) Aerospace
5 1 (1.15%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (1.15%) Billing
Job Titles
1 15 (17.24%) Linux Engineer
2 14 (16.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 9 (10.34%) DevOps Engineer
4 8 (9.20%) Lead
5 7 (8.05%) Security Engineer
5 7 (8.05%) Software Engineer
5 7 (8.05%) VMware Engineer
5 7 (8.05%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
6 6 (6.90%) Migration Engineer
6 6 (6.90%) Product Engineer
6 6 (6.90%) Products Support Engineer
6 6 (6.90%) Software Support Engineer
6 6 (6.90%) Support Engineer
6 6 (6.90%) Ubuntu Engineer
7 5 (5.75%) Administrator
7 5 (5.75%) Consultant
7 5 (5.75%) System Design Authority
8 4 (4.60%) Architect
8 4 (4.60%) Senior
8 4 (4.60%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (11.49%) LDAP
2 9 (10.34%) YAML
3 7 (8.05%) Middleware
4 5 (5.75%) JSON
5 4 (4.60%) XML
6 3 (3.45%) REST
6 3 (3.45%) Web Services
7 2 (2.30%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (1.15%) AWS CDK
8 1 (1.15%) Jinja
8 1 (1.15%) Kafka
8 1 (1.15%) LAPP Stack
8 1 (1.15%) Node.js
8 1 (1.15%) OpenMP
8 1 (1.15%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (1.15%) React
8 1 (1.15%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 7 (8.05%) PKI
2 5 (5.75%) Data Centre
3 4 (4.60%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.45%) Acoustics
4 3 (3.45%) Client/Server
4 3 (3.45%) Derivative
4 3 (3.45%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.45%) Public Cloud
4 3 (3.45%) Replication
4 3 (3.45%) SCADA
5 2 (2.30%) CUDA
5 2 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (2.30%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (2.30%) Private Cloud
5 2 (2.30%) Smartcard
6 1 (1.15%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.15%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (1.15%) Grid Computing
6 1 (1.15%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 87 (100.00%) Linux
2 42 (48.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 20 (22.99%) CentOS
4 15 (17.24%) Windows
5 12 (13.79%) Debian
6 11 (12.64%) Windows Server
7 7 (8.05%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (6.90%) Rocky
9 3 (3.45%) VMS
9 3 (3.45%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (2.30%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (1.15%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (1.15%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (29.89%) CI/CD
2 23 (26.44%) DevOps
3 18 (20.69%) Containerisation
4 17 (19.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 16 (18.39%) Problem-Solving
6 13 (14.94%) Software Engineering
7 12 (13.79%) Agile
8 10 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (11.49%) DevSecOps
8 10 (11.49%) RBAC
9 9 (10.34%) Configuration Management
9 9 (10.34%) ITIL
9 9 (10.34%) Migration
9 9 (10.34%) Patch Management
9 9 (10.34%) Problem Management
10 8 (9.20%) API Integration
10 8 (9.20%) Architectural Patterns
10 8 (9.20%) Cybersecurity
10 8 (9.20%) ITSM
10 8 (9.20%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 31 (35.63%) Python
2 13 (14.94%) Bash
3 12 (13.79%) JavaScript
4 11 (12.64%) PowerShell
5 10 (11.49%) Shell Script
6 9 (10.34%) C++
7 8 (9.20%) Perl
7 8 (9.20%) Ruby
8 7 (8.05%) C
9 6 (6.90%) Ada
10 5 (5.75%) Go
11 4 (4.60%) PHP
12 3 (3.45%) C#
13 2 (2.30%) Java
13 2 (2.30%) SQL
14 1 (1.15%) Embedded C
14 1 (1.15%) Embedded C++
14 1 (1.15%) Search Processing Language
14 1 (1.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 46 (52.87%) Security Cleared
2 41 (47.13%) SC Cleared
3 14 (16.09%) Degree
3 14 (16.09%) DV Cleared
4 9 (10.34%) RHCE
5 5 (5.75%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (4.60%) APMG
6 4 (4.60%) GIAC
6 4 (4.60%) SSCP
7 3 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (3.45%) GSEC
8 2 (2.30%) CISSP
9 1 (1.15%) CCNP
9 1 (1.15%) CESG Certified Professional
9 1 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (1.15%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (9.20%) NIST
2 7 (8.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (6.90%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (4.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (3.45%) NCSC
6 2 (2.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (1.15%) NIST 800
System Software
1 16 (18.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (12.64%) Docker
3 6 (6.90%) QEMU
3 6 (6.90%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (4.60%) Active Directory
4 4 (4.60%) Postfix
4 4 (4.60%) VMware NSX
4 4 (4.60%) vSphere
5 3 (3.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (2.30%) GPFS
6 2 (2.30%) Hyper-V
6 2 (2.30%) Lustre
6 2 (2.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (1.15%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 1 (1.15%) Ceph
7 1 (1.15%) HDFS
7 1 (1.15%) iptables
7 1 (1.15%) KVM
7 1 (1.15%) NFS
7 1 (1.15%) Samba
Systems Management
1 28 (32.18%) Ansible
2 21 (24.14%) Kubernetes
3 12 (13.79%) Terraform
4 10 (11.49%) SCOM
5 9 (10.34%) Puppet
6 8 (9.20%) Grafana
7 7 (8.05%) Nessus
7 7 (8.05%) Podman
7 7 (8.05%) vCenter Server
8 5 (5.75%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (5.75%) Prometheus
9 4 (4.60%) Packer
10 3 (3.45%) SCCM
10 3 (3.45%) WSUS
11 2 (2.30%) SELinux
12 1 (1.15%) Hadoop YARN
12 1 (1.15%) Kibana
12 1 (1.15%) Rundeck
12 1 (1.15%) systemd
12 1 (1.15%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 30 (34.48%) Red Hat
2 25 (28.74%) VMware
3 17 (19.54%) NVIDIA
4 8 (9.20%) Microsoft
5 7 (8.05%) Dell
6 6 (6.90%) Cisco
7 4 (4.60%) Veeam
8 3 (3.45%) Splunk
9 2 (2.30%) Snow
9 2 (2.30%) Sophos
9 2 (2.30%) Tenable
10 1 (1.15%) Cloudera
10 1 (1.15%) Cribl.io
10 1 (1.15%) Foundry
10 1 (1.15%) LogicMonitor
10 1 (1.15%) New Relic
10 1 (1.15%) Palo Alto
10 1 (1.15%) SaltStack
10 1 (1.15%) ServiceNow