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

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 520 452 467
Rank change year-on-year -68 +15 +115
Contract jobs citing Ubuntu 86 80 134
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.26% 0.30%
As % of the Operating Systems category 1.80% 1.82% 2.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 54 109
10th Percentile £273 £323 £400
25th Percentile £450 £433 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £557 £575 £569
90th Percentile £640 £675 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £510 £519
% change year-on-year +0.98% -1.64% -1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 1
10th Percentile £62.00 £47.88 -
25th Percentile - £60.81 £20.50
Median hourly rate £68.00 £90.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.44% +328.57% +5.00%
75th Percentile £116.25 £112.00 £21.50
90th Percentile £119.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year - +223.81% -45.79%

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 4,769 4,395 6,214
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.70% 14.30% 13.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,156 2,780 4,165
10th Percentile £176 £200 £181
25th Percentile £267 £313 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -5.38% +2.15% -9.71%
75th Percentile £569 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £690 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -2.94% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 150 387
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.03 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.94 £16.63
Median hourly rate £22.91 £29.00 £25.18
Median % change year-on-year -21.02% +15.17% -4.91%
75th Percentile £54.69 £64.69 £61.99
90th Percentile £69.99 £68.88 £71.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.50 £25.18
% change year-on-year -18.18% +9.21% -4.95%

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 February 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 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Ubuntu in the UK

Ubuntu
Top 11 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 February 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 -50 82 £525 +0.24% 27
UK excluding London -69 66 £515 +0.98% 27
South West +2 30 £450 -16.28% 1
Work from Home -27 23 £537 +7.40% 12
London -36 14 £580 +5.45% 5
South East -38 14 £475 -17.39% 5
North of England -54 10 £525 - 10
Yorkshire - 10 £525 - 3
Midlands -51 7 £540 +2.86% 5
West Midlands -57 7 £540 - 4
East of England -24 5 £681 +58.37% 1

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 (8.14%) Apache
2 3 (3.49%) Confluence
2 3 (3.49%) nginx
3 2 (2.33%) Oracle HTTP Server
3 2 (2.33%) Tomcat
3 2 (2.33%) WebLogic
4 1 (1.16%) Apache Spark
4 1 (1.16%) Apache Superset
4 1 (1.16%) OpenStack
Applications
1 8 (9.30%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (4.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (3.49%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Cloud Services
1 19 (22.09%) Azure
2 16 (18.60%) AWS
3 7 (8.14%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (6.98%) GCP
5 5 (5.81%) Amazon S3
5 5 (5.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 4 (4.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 4 (4.65%) Amazon EC2
6 4 (4.65%) Amazon ELB
6 4 (4.65%) IaaS
7 3 (3.49%) Amazon ECS
7 3 (3.49%) AWS KMS
7 3 (3.49%) GitHub
7 3 (3.49%) OpenShift
7 3 (3.49%) Route 53
8 1 (1.16%) Amazon ECR
8 1 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (1.16%) dbt
8 1 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.16%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (9.30%) Firewall
2 7 (8.14%) BGP
2 7 (8.14%) DNS
2 7 (8.14%) Network Security
2 7 (8.14%) SMTP
2 7 (8.14%) VPN
3 6 (6.98%) Cisco ASA
3 6 (6.98%) Cisco IOS
3 6 (6.98%) MPLS
3 6 (6.98%) TACACS
4 5 (5.81%) HTTP
4 5 (5.81%) TCP/IP
5 4 (4.65%) DKIM
5 4 (4.65%) DMARC
6 3 (3.49%) IMAP
6 3 (3.49%) NFC
6 3 (3.49%) OpenLDAP
6 3 (3.49%) PPP
6 3 (3.49%) SAN
6 3 (3.49%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.65%) Amazon Aurora
1 4 (4.65%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (3.49%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (1.16%) Apache Hive
3 1 (1.16%) Hadoop
3 1 (1.16%) Impala
3 1 (1.16%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.16%) Redis
3 1 (1.16%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (16.28%) Git
2 6 (6.98%) Jenkins
3 5 (5.81%) GitLab
4 3 (3.49%) Eclipse
4 3 (3.49%) JIRA
4 3 (3.49%) Vagrant
4 3 (3.49%) Valgrind
5 1 (1.16%) Postman
5 1 (1.16%) Visual Studio
General
1 18 (20.93%) Social Skills
2 11 (12.79%) Public Sector
3 10 (11.63%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (3.49%) Aerospace
4 3 (3.49%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (3.49%) Banking
4 3 (3.49%) Finance
4 3 (3.49%) Presentation Skills
4 3 (3.49%) Telecoms
5 1 (1.16%) Aviation
5 1 (1.16%) Billing
5 1 (1.16%) Law
Job Titles
1 13 (15.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 12 (13.95%) Product Engineer
2 12 (13.95%) Products Support Engineer
2 12 (13.95%) Software Support Engineer
2 12 (13.95%) Support Engineer
3 11 (12.79%) DevOps Engineer
4 9 (10.47%) Linux Engineer
5 8 (9.30%) Lead
6 7 (8.14%) Security Engineer
6 7 (8.14%) Software Engineer
6 7 (8.14%) VMware Engineer
6 7 (8.14%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
7 6 (6.98%) Architect
8 5 (5.81%) Administrator
8 5 (5.81%) Consultant
8 5 (5.81%) Senior
8 5 (5.81%) Senior Linux Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) System Design Authority
9 4 (4.65%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
9 4 (4.65%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (16.28%) Middleware
2 13 (15.12%) LDAP
3 9 (10.47%) YAML
4 6 (6.98%) JSON
5 5 (5.81%) XML
6 4 (4.65%) REST
6 4 (4.65%) Web Services
7 1 (1.16%) AWS CDK
7 1 (1.16%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (1.16%) Jinja
7 1 (1.16%) Kafka
7 1 (1.16%) LAPP Stack
7 1 (1.16%) Node.js
7 1 (1.16%) OpenMP
7 1 (1.16%) RabbitMQ
7 1 (1.16%) React
7 1 (1.16%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 7 (8.14%) PKI
2 6 (6.98%) Replication
3 5 (5.81%) Data Centre
4 3 (3.49%) Acoustics
4 3 (3.49%) Client/Server
4 3 (3.49%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.49%) Derivative
4 3 (3.49%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.49%) SCADA
4 3 (3.49%) Smartcard
5 2 (2.33%) CUDA
5 2 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (2.33%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (2.33%) Private Cloud
5 2 (2.33%) Product Ownership
5 2 (2.33%) Public Cloud
6 1 (1.16%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (1.16%) Grid Computing
6 1 (1.16%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 86 (100.00%) Linux
2 39 (45.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 22 (25.58%) CentOS
4 14 (16.28%) Windows
5 11 (12.79%) Debian
6 7 (8.14%) Windows Server
7 6 (6.98%) VMS
8 5 (5.81%) Unix
9 4 (4.65%) Rocky
9 4 (4.65%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (3.49%) Amazon Linux
11 2 (2.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (1.16%) Alpine Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (32.56%) CI/CD
2 26 (30.23%) DevOps
3 21 (24.42%) Containerisation
4 19 (22.09%) Software Engineering
5 15 (17.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 15 (17.44%) Problem-Solving
6 12 (13.95%) Agile
6 12 (13.95%) Continuous Improvement
6 12 (13.95%) Patch Management
7 10 (11.63%) Configuration Management
7 10 (11.63%) Cybersecurity
7 10 (11.63%) DevSecOps
7 10 (11.63%) RBAC
8 9 (10.47%) High Availability
8 9 (10.47%) ITIL
9 8 (9.30%) API Integration
9 8 (9.30%) Architectural Patterns
9 8 (9.30%) ITSM
9 8 (9.30%) Machine Learning
9 8 (9.30%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 37 (43.02%) Python
2 18 (20.93%) JavaScript
3 16 (18.60%) C++
3 16 (18.60%) Shell Script
4 14 (16.28%) Bash
5 13 (15.12%) C
6 12 (13.95%) Ada
6 12 (13.95%) PowerShell
7 10 (11.63%) Perl
8 8 (9.30%) Ruby
9 5 (5.81%) SQL
10 4 (4.65%) C#
10 4 (4.65%) Go
10 4 (4.65%) PHP
11 3 (3.49%) Groovy
11 3 (3.49%) Java
12 1 (1.16%) Embedded C
12 1 (1.16%) Embedded C++
12 1 (1.16%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (1.16%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 42 (48.84%) Security Cleared
2 37 (43.02%) SC Cleared
3 16 (18.60%) Degree
4 14 (16.28%) DV Cleared
5 13 (15.12%) RHCE
6 5 (5.81%) AWS Certification
6 5 (5.81%) CompTIA Security+
7 4 (4.65%) APMG
7 4 (4.65%) GIAC
7 4 (4.65%) SSCP
8 3 (3.49%) Azure Certification
8 3 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (3.49%) GSEC
9 2 (2.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (2.33%) CISSP
9 2 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (2.33%) RHCSA
10 1 (1.16%) CESG Certified Professional
10 1 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (1.16%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (9.30%) NIST
2 7 (8.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (6.98%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (4.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (3.49%) NCSC
6 2 (2.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (1.16%) NIST 800
System Software
1 17 (19.77%) Docker
2 13 (15.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (8.14%) Postfix
4 6 (6.98%) QEMU
4 6 (6.98%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (4.65%) Active Directory
6 3 (3.49%) DFS Replication
6 3 (3.49%) Dovecot
6 3 (3.49%) KVM
6 3 (3.49%) Squid
6 3 (3.49%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (2.33%) GPFS
7 2 (2.33%) Lustre
7 2 (2.33%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (1.16%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (1.16%) Ceph
8 1 (1.16%) HDFS
8 1 (1.16%) VMware NSX
8 1 (1.16%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (33.72%) Ansible
2 24 (27.91%) Kubernetes
3 16 (18.60%) Terraform
4 10 (11.63%) Nessus
4 10 (11.63%) Puppet
4 10 (11.63%) SCOM
5 9 (10.47%) Grafana
5 9 (10.47%) Prometheus
6 7 (8.14%) Podman
6 7 (8.14%) vCenter Server
7 5 (5.81%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (4.65%) Packer
9 3 (3.49%) Proxmox
9 3 (3.49%) SCCM
10 2 (2.33%) Nagios
10 2 (2.33%) Progress Chef
11 1 (1.16%) Cilium
11 1 (1.16%) Hadoop YARN
11 1 (1.16%) Kibana
11 1 (1.16%) SELinux
Vendors
1 37 (43.02%) Red Hat
2 21 (24.42%) VMware
3 14 (16.28%) NVIDIA
4 7 (8.14%) Dell
4 7 (8.14%) Microsoft
5 6 (6.98%) Cisco
6 5 (5.81%) Splunk
7 4 (4.65%) ServiceNow
7 4 (4.65%) Veeam
8 3 (3.49%) Jaspersoft
9 2 (2.33%) Oracle
9 2 (2.33%) Snow
9 2 (2.33%) Sophos
9 2 (2.33%) Tenable
10 1 (1.16%) Cloudera
10 1 (1.16%) Cribl.io
10 1 (1.16%) Foundry
10 1 (1.16%) LogicMonitor
10 1 (1.16%) New Relic
10 1 (1.16%) Palo Alto