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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 527 448 467
Rank change year-on-year -79 +19 +104
Contract jobs citing Ubuntu 92 79 124
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.26% 0.28%
As % of the Operating Systems category 1.91% 1.84% 2.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 64 50 97
10th Percentile £320 £366 £459
25th Percentile £450 £418 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £557 £603 £569
90th Percentile £639 £675 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 6 1
10th Percentile £62.00 £50.63 -
25th Percentile - £63.50 £20.50
Median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year - +223.81% +12.09%
75th Percentile £116.25 £101.00 £21.50
90th Percentile £119.00 £112.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year - +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 4,806 4,285 6,105
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.34% 14.25% 13.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,160 2,755 4,071
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £275 £316 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +5.56% -12.20%
75th Percentile £565 £594 £588
90th Percentile £663 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £438 £425
% change year-on-year -5.71% +2.94% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 156 414
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.38 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.76 £19.63 £15.54
Median hourly rate £22.91 £28.71 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.21% +27.58% -15.03%
75th Percentile £59.50 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.54 £24.83 £22.50
% change year-on-year -9.23% +10.36% -13.46%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -63 85 £525 +0.48% 37
UK excluding London -69 69 £513 +2.50% 42
South West +5 30 £450 -14.29% 3
Work from Home -34 24 £537 +7.40% 14
South East -50 18 £513 -10.87% 12
London -50 11 £580 +5.45% 6
North of England -51 11 £525 +31.09% 10
Yorkshire -51 10 £525 +31.09% 2
East of England -26 5 £681 +58.37% 1
West Midlands -56 4 £540 - 4
Midlands -72 4 £540 +2.86% 5
Scotland +3 1 - - 6
North West -34 1 £300 - 5

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 8 (8.70%) Apache
2 2 (2.17%) OpenStack
2 2 (2.17%) Oracle HTTP Server
2 2 (2.17%) Tomcat
2 2 (2.17%) WebLogic
3 1 (1.09%) Apache Spark
3 1 (1.09%) Apache Superset
3 1 (1.09%) JBoss
Applications
1 8 (8.70%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 18 (19.57%) Azure
2 13 (14.13%) AWS
3 6 (6.52%) GCP
4 4 (4.35%) IaaS
4 4 (4.35%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (4.35%) OpenShift
5 3 (3.26%) GitHub
6 2 (2.17%) Amazon S3
6 2 (2.17%) SaaS
6 2 (2.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 1 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.09%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.09%) Datadog
7 1 (1.09%) dbt
7 1 (1.09%) Entra ID
7 1 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (1.09%) Nutanix
7 1 (1.09%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (7.61%) BGP
1 7 (7.61%) Network Security
1 7 (7.61%) VPN
2 6 (6.52%) Cisco ASA
2 6 (6.52%) Cisco IOS
2 6 (6.52%) MPLS
2 6 (6.52%) TACACS
3 5 (5.43%) Firewall
3 5 (5.43%) TCP/IP
4 4 (4.35%) DKIM
4 4 (4.35%) DMARC
4 4 (4.35%) DNS
4 4 (4.35%) SMTP
5 3 (3.26%) LAN
5 3 (3.26%) NFC
5 3 (3.26%) PPP
5 3 (3.26%) SAN
6 2 (2.17%) VLAN
6 2 (2.17%) VSAN
6 2 (2.17%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.09%) Amazon Aurora
1 1 (1.09%) Apache Hive
1 1 (1.09%) Hadoop
1 1 (1.09%) Impala
1 1 (1.09%) MongoDB
1 1 (1.09%) OpenStack Swift
1 1 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (1.09%) Redis
1 1 (1.09%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (13.04%) Git
2 5 (5.43%) GitLab
3 3 (3.26%) Eclipse
3 3 (3.26%) Jenkins
3 3 (3.26%) Valgrind
4 1 (1.09%) Postman
4 1 (1.09%) Visual Studio
General
1 16 (17.39%) Social Skills
2 10 (10.87%) Documentation Skills
2 10 (10.87%) Public Sector
3 3 (3.26%) Aerospace
3 3 (3.26%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (3.26%) Banking
3 3 (3.26%) Finance
3 3 (3.26%) Telecoms
4 1 (1.09%) Aviation
4 1 (1.09%) Billing
4 1 (1.09%) Law
Job Titles
1 15 (16.30%) Linux Engineer
2 13 (14.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 12 (13.04%) Product Engineer
3 12 (13.04%) Products Support Engineer
3 12 (13.04%) Software Support Engineer
3 12 (13.04%) Support Engineer
4 9 (9.78%) DevOps Engineer
5 8 (8.70%) Lead
6 7 (7.61%) Security Engineer
6 7 (7.61%) Software Engineer
6 7 (7.61%) VMware Engineer
6 7 (7.61%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
7 6 (6.52%) Architect
8 5 (5.43%) Administrator
8 5 (5.43%) Consultant
8 5 (5.43%) Senior
8 5 (5.43%) Senior Linux Engineer
8 5 (5.43%) System Design Authority
9 4 (4.35%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
9 4 (4.35%) Ubuntu Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (15.22%) Middleware
2 10 (10.87%) LDAP
3 9 (9.78%) YAML
4 6 (6.52%) JSON
5 5 (5.43%) XML
6 4 (4.35%) REST
6 4 (4.35%) Web Services
7 1 (1.09%) AWS CDK
7 1 (1.09%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (1.09%) Jinja
7 1 (1.09%) Kafka
7 1 (1.09%) LAPP Stack
7 1 (1.09%) Node.js
7 1 (1.09%) OpenMP
7 1 (1.09%) RabbitMQ
7 1 (1.09%) React
7 1 (1.09%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 7 (7.61%) PKI
2 5 (5.43%) Data Centre
3 4 (4.35%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.26%) Acoustics
4 3 (3.26%) Client/Server
4 3 (3.26%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.26%) Derivative
4 3 (3.26%) Public Cloud
4 3 (3.26%) Replication
4 3 (3.26%) SCADA
4 3 (3.26%) Smartcard
5 2 (2.17%) CUDA
5 2 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (2.17%) Private Cloud
5 2 (2.17%) Product Ownership
6 1 (1.09%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (1.09%) Grid Computing
6 1 (1.09%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 92 (100.00%) Linux
2 42 (45.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 24 (26.09%) CentOS
4 12 (13.04%) Windows
5 11 (11.96%) Debian
6 8 (8.70%) Windows Server
7 5 (5.43%) Rocky
7 5 (5.43%) Unix
7 5 (5.43%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (3.26%) VMS
9 2 (2.17%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (1.09%) Alpine Linux
10 1 (1.09%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (28.26%) CI/CD
2 24 (26.09%) DevOps
3 21 (22.83%) Containerisation
4 19 (20.65%) Software Engineering
5 16 (17.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 15 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
7 12 (13.04%) Continuous Improvement
8 11 (11.96%) Agile
9 10 (10.87%) Configuration Management
9 10 (10.87%) Cybersecurity
9 10 (10.87%) DevSecOps
9 10 (10.87%) RBAC
10 9 (9.78%) High Availability
10 9 (9.78%) ITIL
10 9 (9.78%) Patch Management
11 8 (8.70%) API Integration
11 8 (8.70%) Architectural Patterns
11 8 (8.70%) ITSM
11 8 (8.70%) Machine Learning
11 8 (8.70%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 35 (38.04%) Python
2 18 (19.57%) JavaScript
3 16 (17.39%) Bash
3 16 (17.39%) C++
3 16 (17.39%) Shell Script
4 13 (14.13%) C
5 12 (13.04%) Ada
6 10 (10.87%) Perl
6 10 (10.87%) PowerShell
7 8 (8.70%) Ruby
8 4 (4.35%) C#
8 4 (4.35%) Go
8 4 (4.35%) PHP
9 3 (3.26%) Java
10 2 (2.17%) SQL
11 1 (1.09%) Embedded C
11 1 (1.09%) Embedded C++
11 1 (1.09%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (1.09%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 46 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 41 (44.57%) SC Cleared
3 14 (15.22%) DV Cleared
4 13 (14.13%) Degree
4 13 (14.13%) RHCE
5 5 (5.43%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (4.35%) APMG
6 4 (4.35%) GIAC
6 4 (4.35%) SSCP
7 3 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (3.26%) GSEC
8 2 (2.17%) AWS Certification
8 2 (2.17%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (2.17%) CISSP
8 2 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (2.17%) RHCSA
9 1 (1.09%) CCNP
9 1 (1.09%) CESG Certified Professional
9 1 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (1.09%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (8.70%) NIST
2 7 (7.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (6.52%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (4.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (3.26%) NCSC
6 2 (2.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (1.09%) NIST 800
System Software
1 15 (16.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (15.22%) Docker
3 6 (6.52%) QEMU
3 6 (6.52%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (4.35%) Active Directory
4 4 (4.35%) Postfix
5 3 (3.26%) KVM
5 3 (3.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (2.17%) GPFS
6 2 (2.17%) Lustre
6 2 (2.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (2.17%) VMware NSX
6 2 (2.17%) vSphere
7 1 (1.09%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 1 (1.09%) Ceph
7 1 (1.09%) HDFS
7 1 (1.09%) Hyper-V
7 1 (1.09%) iptables
7 1 (1.09%) NFS
7 1 (1.09%) Samba
Systems Management
1 31 (33.70%) Ansible
2 24 (26.09%) Kubernetes
3 13 (14.13%) Terraform
4 11 (11.96%) Puppet
5 10 (10.87%) SCOM
6 7 (7.61%) Grafana
6 7 (7.61%) Nessus
6 7 (7.61%) Podman
6 7 (7.61%) vCenter Server
7 6 (6.52%) Prometheus
8 5 (5.43%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (4.35%) Packer
10 3 (3.26%) Progress Chef
10 3 (3.26%) SCCM
11 2 (2.17%) Nagios
11 2 (2.17%) SELinux
12 1 (1.09%) FortiGate
12 1 (1.09%) Hadoop YARN
12 1 (1.09%) Kibana
12 1 (1.09%) systemd
Vendors
1 38 (41.30%) Red Hat
2 24 (26.09%) VMware
3 15 (16.30%) NVIDIA
4 8 (8.70%) Microsoft
5 7 (7.61%) Dell
6 6 (6.52%) Cisco
7 5 (5.43%) Splunk
8 4 (4.35%) Veeam
9 2 (2.17%) Oracle
9 2 (2.17%) Snow
9 2 (2.17%) Sophos
9 2 (2.17%) Tenable
10 1 (1.09%) Cloudera
10 1 (1.09%) Cribl.io
10 1 (1.09%) Foundry
10 1 (1.09%) LogicMonitor
10 1 (1.09%) New Relic
10 1 (1.09%) Palo Alto
10 1 (1.09%) SaltStack
10 1 (1.09%) ServiceNow