Linux Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Linux
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Linux skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 26 46
Rank change year-on-year +1 +20 -25
Contract jobs citing Linux 186 101 71
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 7.92% 6.51% 3.97%
As % of the Operating Systems category 54.23% 41.91% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 63 50
10th Percentile £305 £386 £200
25th Percentile £413 £466 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £551 £444
Median % change year-on-year -4.72% +24.17% -17.82%
75th Percentile £582 £643 £600
90th Percentile £619 £710 £688
England median daily rate £511 £551 £550
% change year-on-year -7.21% +0.18% -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £60.00 - -
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £50.00
75th Percentile £69.99 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £63.14 £66.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year -5.06% +10.83% -7.69%

All Operating Systems
West Midlands

Linux 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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 343 241 238
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 14.61% 15.54% 13.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 152 168
10th Percentile £163 £188 £164
25th Percentile £290 £212 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £434 £400
Median % change year-on-year +9.42% +8.53% -19.19%
75th Percentile £559 £575 £514
90th Percentile £619 £692 £638
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 12
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.66
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.40 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £18.57 £18.11
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% +2.51% +8.33%
75th Percentile £29.25 £22.89 £23.75
90th Percentile £69.99 £24.05 -
England median hourly rate £25.00 £55.00 £27.00
% change year-on-year -54.55% +103.70% +6.93%

Linux
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Linux relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Linux job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Linux
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Linux.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Linux

Linux
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Linux in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 20 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Linux in the West Midlands

Linux
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Linux.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Linux

Linux
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Linux within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 20 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
Birmingham +1 74 £525 -6.67% 12
Shropshire -15 27 £530 +14.80% 5
Coventry +4 26 £316 +125.71%
Warwickshire -16 21 £508 -11.74% 5
Worcestershire -3 15 £575 -17.86% 8
Herefordshire -18 11 £550 +4.76% 2
Staffordshire -1 2 - - 6
Solihull -1 1 - -
Wolverhampton - 1 - -
Bilston - 1 £550 -
Linux
England

Linux
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 26 (13.98%) Confluence
2 21 (11.29%) Apache
3 18 (9.68%) WebLogic
4 11 (5.91%) nginx
5 7 (3.76%) OpenStack
6 4 (2.15%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (2.15%) Apache Spark
7 2 (1.08%) Drupal
8 1 (0.54%) CMS
8 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 9 (4.84%) Mozilla Thunderbird
1 9 (4.84%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.54%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.54%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.54%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 97 (52.15%) AWS
2 65 (34.95%) Azure
3 23 (12.37%) Amazon EC2
3 23 (12.37%) Amazon S3
4 21 (11.29%) GCP
5 20 (10.75%) Serverless
6 19 (10.22%) Datadog
7 18 (9.68%) AWS KMS
8 17 (9.14%) OpenShift
9 14 (7.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 14 (7.53%) Amazon ELB
9 14 (7.53%) Azure Monitor
9 14 (7.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 11 (5.91%) GitHub
11 10 (5.38%) Microsoft 365
12 9 (4.84%) Amazon ECS
12 9 (4.84%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (4.84%) Route 53
13 8 (4.30%) SaaS
14 7 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 23 (12.37%) SMTP
2 22 (11.83%) DNS
2 22 (11.83%) Firewall
3 21 (11.29%) SSH
4 14 (7.53%) FTP
4 14 (7.53%) HTTP
4 14 (7.53%) VSAN
5 9 (4.84%) DKIM
5 9 (4.84%) DMARC
5 9 (4.84%) IMAP
5 9 (4.84%) OpenLDAP
6 6 (3.23%) Internet
7 5 (2.69%) Kerberos
8 4 (2.15%) Network Security
9 3 (1.61%) TCP/IP
10 2 (1.08%) DHCP
10 2 (1.08%) VPN
10 2 (1.08%) WAN
10 2 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (1.08%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (12.37%) Amazon RDS
2 20 (10.75%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (9.14%) Elasticsearch
4 14 (7.53%) NoSQL
5 9 (4.84%) Amazon Aurora
6 5 (2.69%) InfluxDB
6 5 (2.69%) Relational Database
7 4 (2.15%) Apache Hive
7 4 (2.15%) Hadoop
7 4 (2.15%) HBase
8 3 (1.61%) MongoDB
8 3 (1.61%) MySQL
9 1 (0.54%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 47 (25.27%) Jenkins
2 25 (13.44%) Git
3 24 (12.90%) JIRA
4 23 (12.37%) GitLab
5 14 (7.53%) Vagrant
6 10 (5.38%) Liquibase
7 7 (3.76%) CircleCI
8 6 (3.23%) JUnit
8 6 (3.23%) Postman
9 5 (2.69%) Artifactory
9 5 (2.69%) Bitbucket
9 5 (2.69%) Cypress.io
9 5 (2.69%) Gradle
9 5 (2.69%) Maven
9 5 (2.69%) Selenium
9 5 (2.69%) Snyk
9 5 (2.69%) SonarQube
9 5 (2.69%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (2.69%) webpack
10 2 (1.08%) Chocolatey
General
1 83 (44.62%) Social Skills
2 31 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
3 23 (12.37%) Public Sector
4 21 (11.29%) Finance
5 20 (10.75%) Presentation Skills
6 17 (9.14%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (5.38%) Financial Institution
8 9 (4.84%) Banking
9 2 (1.08%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.08%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.54%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.54%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 33 (17.74%) Analyst
2 24 (12.90%) Infrastructure Analyst
2 24 (12.90%) Site Engineer
2 24 (12.90%) Site Reliability Engineer
3 23 (12.37%) DevOps Engineer
4 20 (10.75%) AWS Engineer
4 20 (10.75%) Platform Engineer
5 19 (10.22%) Storage Analyst
6 15 (8.06%) Architect
6 15 (8.06%) Cloud Platform Engineer
6 15 (8.06%) Splunk Engineer
7 14 (7.53%) AWS DevOps
7 14 (7.53%) AWS DevOps Engineer
8 12 (6.45%) Cloud Engineer
8 12 (6.45%) Software Engineer
9 10 (5.38%) Senior
10 9 (4.84%) AWS Platform Engineer
10 9 (4.84%) GCP Engineer
11 8 (4.30%) Monitoring Engineer
12 7 (3.76%) DevOps Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (20.97%) Elastic Stack
2 20 (10.75%) LDAP
3 19 (10.22%) Flash
3 19 (10.22%) REST
4 17 (9.14%) RESTful
5 7 (3.76%) RabbitMQ
5 7 (3.76%) YAML
6 5 (2.69%) JSON
6 5 (2.69%) OAuth
6 5 (2.69%) SAML
7 4 (2.15%) Middleware
7 4 (2.15%) Node.js
7 4 (2.15%) Spark Streaming
7 4 (2.15%) Spring
8 3 (1.61%) CSS
9 2 (1.08%) Drush
9 2 (1.08%) Kafka
9 2 (1.08%) React
9 2 (1.08%) Spring Boot
9 2 (1.08%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 36 (19.35%) Linux Command Line
2 33 (17.74%) Replication
3 16 (8.60%) Management Information System
4 14 (7.53%) Public Cloud
5 12 (6.45%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (5.38%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.69%) Data Centre
7 5 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (2.69%) Onboarding
7 5 (2.69%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.15%) Client/Server
9 3 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.61%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.61%) SCADA
10 2 (1.08%) Derivative
11 1 (0.54%) CCTV
11 1 (0.54%) FPGA
11 1 (0.54%) HP Storage
11 1 (0.54%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 76 (40.86%) Windows
2 42 (22.58%) Unix
3 20 (10.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 14 (7.53%) Amazon Linux
4 14 (7.53%) VMS
5 13 (6.99%) Ubuntu
6 9 (4.84%) AIX
6 9 (4.84%) Solaris
7 6 (3.23%) Windows Server
8 4 (2.15%) CentOS
9 3 (1.61%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (1.61%) Mac OS X
10 2 (1.08%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (33.33%) Agile
2 61 (32.80%) DevOps
3 56 (30.11%) CI/CD
4 46 (24.73%) Containerisation
5 41 (22.04%) Problem-Solving
6 39 (20.97%) Change Management
7 38 (20.43%) Observability
8 35 (18.82%) Incident Response
9 32 (17.20%) Configuration Management
10 29 (15.59%) Computer Science
11 28 (15.05%) SIEM
12 26 (13.98%) Continuous Improvement
13 25 (13.44%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 25 (13.44%) Software Engineering
14 24 (12.90%) Cloud Security
15 23 (12.37%) Infrastructure as Code
15 23 (12.37%) Validation
16 21 (11.29%) Platform Engineering
17 20 (10.75%) Microservices
17 20 (10.75%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 88 (47.31%) Python
2 47 (25.27%) SQL
3 36 (19.35%) PowerShell
4 28 (15.05%) Bash
5 23 (12.37%) Go
6 18 (9.68%) Shell Script
7 15 (8.06%) Java
8 14 (7.53%) Groovy
9 6 (3.23%) Perl
10 5 (2.69%) C++
11 4 (2.15%) JavaScript
12 3 (1.61%) PHP
12 3 (1.61%) VBScript
13 2 (1.08%) Ruby
13 2 (1.08%) TypeScript
14 1 (0.54%) Bicep
14 1 (0.54%) C
14 1 (0.54%) MATLAB
14 1 (0.54%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 83 (44.62%) Security Cleared
2 64 (34.41%) SC Cleared
3 43 (23.12%) Degree
4 28 (15.05%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (12.37%) DV Cleared
6 12 (6.45%) Master's Degree
7 11 (5.91%) AWS Certification
7 11 (5.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (4.84%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.08%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (1.08%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (1.08%) CCNA
9 2 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (1.08%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.54%) CAPM
10 1 (0.54%) CBAP
10 1 (0.54%) CEH
10 1 (0.54%) CISSP
10 1 (0.54%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.91%) NIST
2 9 (4.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.15%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.61%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.61%) QA
5 2 (1.08%) NCSC
6 1 (0.54%) SLA
System Software
1 62 (33.33%) Docker
2 36 (19.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (16.13%) vSphere
4 19 (10.22%) GPFS
4 19 (10.22%) NFS
5 18 (9.68%) Postfix
6 17 (9.14%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (7.53%) Active Directory
7 14 (7.53%) DFS Replication
7 14 (7.53%) Dovecot
8 9 (4.84%) Squid
9 4 (2.15%) HDFS
10 3 (1.61%) Firmware
11 2 (1.08%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.54%) Snort
12 1 (0.54%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 56 (30.11%) Kubernetes
2 49 (26.34%) Ansible
3 47 (25.27%) Grafana
3 47 (25.27%) Terraform
4 46 (24.73%) Prometheus
5 30 (16.13%) vRealize
6 24 (12.90%) Puppet
7 17 (9.14%) Kibana
8 15 (8.06%) Progress Chef
9 14 (7.53%) VxRail
10 10 (5.38%) Nessus
11 9 (4.84%) Proxmox
12 5 (2.69%) Podman
13 4 (2.15%) Hadoop YARN
14 3 (1.61%) Docker Swarm
14 3 (1.61%) logstash
15 2 (1.08%) Argo
16 1 (0.54%) Dell DRAC
16 1 (0.54%) Fluentd
16 1 (0.54%) Rsyslog
Vendors
1 53 (28.49%) Splunk
2 46 (24.73%) Cisco
3 41 (22.04%) VMware
4 37 (19.89%) Oracle
5 33 (17.74%) IBM
5 33 (17.74%) ServiceNow
6 28 (15.05%) AppDynamics
7 18 (9.68%) CyberArk
8 17 (9.14%) Dynatrace
9 15 (8.06%) BeyondTrust
9 15 (8.06%) SolarWinds
10 14 (7.53%) Commvault
10 14 (7.53%) Dell
10 14 (7.53%) Microsoft
11 13 (6.99%) HP
12 9 (4.84%) Jaspersoft
13 8 (4.30%) Google
13 8 (4.30%) Red Hat
14 5 (2.69%) Broadcom
15 2 (1.08%) ArcSight