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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 44 40
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -16
Contract jobs citing Linux 147 55 73
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 4.83% 4.06% 3.79%
As % of the Operating Systems category 45.79% 28.65% 29.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 38 45
10th Percentile £303 £410 £387
25th Percentile £371 £457 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.07% -2.36% +1.85%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £581
90th Percentile £619 £689 £750
England median daily rate £518 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -5.91% - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £58.43 - £67.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £70.00
75th Percentile £70.59 - £72.50
90th Percentile £74.73 - -
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% +8.33% -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 321 192 248
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 10.54% 14.17% 12.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 218 130 164
10th Percentile £200 £150 £185
25th Percentile £350 £200 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £446 £400 £423
Median % change year-on-year +11.50% -5.33% -16.34%
75th Percentile £537 £525 £545
90th Percentile £611 £639 £675
England median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 12 21
10th Percentile £20.92 £15.36 £15.65
25th Percentile £28.91 £16.67 £17.72
Median hourly rate £63.14 £18.13 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +248.23% -4.58% +7.22%
75th Percentile £70.44 £19.63 £23.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £24.19 -
England median hourly rate £28.74 £24.66 £21.50
% change year-on-year +16.55% +14.70% -25.86%

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 16 April 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Linux in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Linux in the West Midlands

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 16 April 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 +12 41 £525 -23.80% 9
Coventry -3 25 £316 +125.71% 1
Shropshire -35 19 £467 +1.48% 4
Herefordshire +2 17 £550 +18.92% 5
Warwickshire -24 15 £363 -32.50% 2
Worcestershire +5 13 £560 -20.00% 5
Solihull -11 8 - - 1
Staffordshire - 2 - - 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 (17.69%) Confluence
2 9 (6.12%) WebLogic
3 5 (3.40%) Apache
4 4 (2.72%) SAS
5 3 (2.04%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.68%) CMS
6 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.68%) nginx
Applications
1 9 (6.12%) MS Visio
2 3 (2.04%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.68%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (0.68%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.68%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 71 (48.30%) AWS
2 40 (27.21%) Azure
3 20 (13.61%) Amazon EC2
3 20 (13.61%) Amazon S3
4 15 (10.20%) Datadog
4 15 (10.20%) OpenShift
5 11 (7.48%) Route 53
6 10 (6.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 10 (6.80%) Amazon SQS
6 10 (6.80%) AWS KMS
7 8 (5.44%) GitHub
8 6 (4.08%) Serverless
9 4 (2.72%) AWS Lambda
9 4 (2.72%) GCP
9 4 (2.72%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (2.04%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (2.04%) SaaS
11 2 (1.36%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 16 (10.88%) VSAN
2 11 (7.48%) Firewall
3 7 (4.76%) Intrusion Detection
4 5 (3.40%) Network Security
4 5 (3.40%) VPN
5 4 (2.72%) DKIM
5 4 (2.72%) DMARC
5 4 (2.72%) SMTP
6 3 (2.04%) Kerberos
6 3 (2.04%) SSH
6 3 (2.04%) SSL
6 3 (2.04%) WAN
7 2 (1.36%) DNS
7 2 (1.36%) Wireless
8 1 (0.68%) BGP
8 1 (0.68%) DHCP
8 1 (0.68%) IPsec
8 1 (0.68%) MPLS
8 1 (0.68%) SAN
8 1 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (13.61%) Amazon RDS
2 12 (8.16%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (6.80%) Amazon Aurora
3 10 (6.80%) DynamoDB
4 8 (5.44%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (4.08%) MongoDB
5 6 (4.08%) Relational Database
6 5 (3.40%) InfluxDB
7 3 (2.04%) SAP HANA
8 2 (1.36%) MySQL
9 1 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.68%) IDMS
9 1 (0.68%) Metadata
9 1 (0.68%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.68%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.68%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (17.69%) Jenkins
2 21 (14.29%) JIRA
3 19 (12.93%) Git
4 12 (8.16%) GitLab
5 11 (7.48%) JUnit
5 11 (7.48%) Maven
5 11 (7.48%) SonarQube
6 10 (6.80%) DbUnit
6 10 (6.80%) jMock
6 10 (6.80%) Mockito
7 8 (5.44%) Bitbucket Server
8 7 (4.76%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (2.04%) Chocolatey
9 3 (2.04%) CircleCI
10 2 (1.36%) Artifactory
10 2 (1.36%) Liquibase
11 1 (0.68%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.68%) Gradle
11 1 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.68%) webpack
General
1 40 (27.21%) Social Skills
2 23 (15.65%) Analytical Skills
3 19 (12.93%) Public Sector
4 16 (10.88%) Finance
5 8 (5.44%) Presentation Skills
6 7 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (2.72%) Banking
8 2 (1.36%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.36%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.68%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.68%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.68%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 43 (29.25%) Analyst
2 26 (17.69%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 23 (15.65%) Storage Analyst
4 19 (12.93%) Site Engineer
4 19 (12.93%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 13 (8.84%) Architect
6 12 (8.16%) Developer
6 12 (8.16%) Java Developer
7 8 (5.44%) Software Engineer
7 8 (5.44%) Splunk Engineer
8 6 (4.08%) Consultant
8 6 (4.08%) DevSecOps Engineer
9 5 (3.40%) Data Engineer
9 5 (3.40%) DevOps Engineer
9 5 (3.40%) Senior
10 4 (2.72%) Administrator
10 4 (2.72%) IT Support
11 3 (2.04%) IT Technician
11 3 (2.04%) SAP Basis Consultant
11 3 (2.04%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (12.93%) Flash
2 17 (11.56%) Spring
2 17 (11.56%) Spring Boot
3 14 (9.52%) REST
4 13 (8.84%) Elastic Stack
5 10 (6.80%) ActiveMQ
5 10 (6.80%) AngularJS
5 10 (6.80%) Hibernate
5 10 (6.80%) JPA
5 10 (6.80%) PowerMock
5 10 (6.80%) SOAP
5 10 (6.80%) Spring Batch
5 10 (6.80%) Spring Cloud
5 10 (6.80%) Spring Integration
5 10 (6.80%) Web Services
6 9 (6.12%) RESTful
7 8 (5.44%) Bootstrap
7 8 (5.44%) Node.js
8 7 (4.76%) LDAP
8 7 (4.76%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 34 (23.13%) Linux Command Line
2 22 (14.97%) Replication
3 11 (7.48%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (5.44%) Management Information System
5 7 (4.76%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.76%) SCADA
6 6 (4.08%) Data Centre
7 5 (3.40%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (2.72%) CSOC
8 4 (2.72%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (2.72%) Security Operations Centre
9 3 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (2.04%) Onboarding
9 3 (2.04%) Product Ownership
10 2 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (1.36%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (1.36%) FPGA
10 2 (1.36%) Operational Technology
10 2 (1.36%) Public Cloud
10 2 (1.36%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 51 (34.69%) Windows
2 23 (15.65%) Unix
3 17 (11.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (5.44%) Windows Server
5 5 (3.40%) AIX
5 5 (3.40%) Solaris
6 4 (2.72%) CentOS
6 4 (2.72%) Embedded Linux
6 4 (2.72%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.36%) Android
7 2 (1.36%) Debian
8 1 (0.68%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (42.18%) Agile
2 42 (28.57%) CI/CD
3 39 (26.53%) Containerisation
4 31 (21.09%) DevOps
4 31 (21.09%) Problem-Solving
5 25 (17.01%) Scrum
6 22 (14.97%) Microservices
7 21 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
8 20 (13.61%) Software Engineering
9 19 (12.93%) Incident Response
9 19 (12.93%) SIEM
9 19 (12.93%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 17 (11.56%) Infrastructure as Code
10 17 (11.56%) Kanban
10 17 (11.56%) Observability
11 16 (10.88%) TDD
11 16 (10.88%) Ticket Management
12 15 (10.20%) Change Management
13 14 (9.52%) Configuration Management
14 13 (8.84%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 42 (28.57%) SQL
2 35 (23.81%) Python
3 24 (16.33%) Java
4 19 (12.93%) Shell Script
5 17 (11.56%) Bash
6 13 (8.84%) PowerShell
7 8 (5.44%) Go
8 6 (4.08%) C++
8 6 (4.08%) Perl
9 5 (3.40%) PL/SQL
10 4 (2.72%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (2.04%) JavaScript
12 2 (1.36%) Bicep
12 2 (1.36%) C
12 2 (1.36%) Kotlin
12 2 (1.36%) SystemVerilog
12 2 (1.36%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.68%) Lisp
13 1 (0.68%) PHP
13 1 (0.68%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 75 (51.02%) Security Cleared
2 60 (40.82%) SC Cleared
3 19 (12.93%) DV Cleared
4 14 (9.52%) Degree
5 11 (7.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (6.80%) CCNA
6 10 (6.80%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (6.12%) AWS Certification
7 9 (6.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (2.04%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.36%) CAPM
9 2 (1.36%) CBAP
9 2 (1.36%) MCSE
9 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (1.36%) PMI Certification
9 2 (1.36%) PMP
9 2 (1.36%) RHCA
9 2 (1.36%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (1.36%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 1 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 11 (7.48%) NIST
2 3 (2.04%) QA
2 3 (2.04%) SOC 2
3 2 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.36%) NCSC
3 2 (1.36%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.68%) COBIT
4 1 (0.68%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.68%) FATCA
4 1 (0.68%) GDPR
System Software
1 44 (29.93%) Docker
2 35 (23.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (19.73%) vSphere
4 19 (12.93%) GPFS
4 19 (12.93%) NFS
5 16 (10.88%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (8.84%) Postfix
7 9 (6.12%) Active Directory
8 4 (2.72%) Snort
9 3 (2.04%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (1.36%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (1.36%) Firmware
10 2 (1.36%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.68%) KVM
Systems Management
1 48 (32.65%) Kubernetes
2 30 (20.41%) Ansible
3 29 (19.73%) vRealize
4 27 (18.37%) Terraform
5 26 (17.69%) Grafana
6 18 (12.24%) Prometheus
7 16 (10.88%) VxRail
8 13 (8.84%) Progress Chef
9 11 (7.48%) Puppet
10 8 (5.44%) Kibana
11 5 (3.40%) Podman
12 4 (2.72%) CSIRT
13 3 (2.04%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (1.36%) Argo
14 2 (1.36%) QRadar
15 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
15 1 (0.68%) Nessus
15 1 (0.68%) Packer
Vendors
1 36 (24.49%) Oracle
1 36 (24.49%) VMware
2 33 (22.45%) Cisco
2 33 (22.45%) IBM
3 25 (17.01%) Splunk
4 20 (13.61%) Microsoft
5 19 (12.93%) ServiceNow
6 15 (10.20%) AppDynamics
7 14 (9.52%) Commvault
7 14 (9.52%) SolarWinds
8 12 (8.16%) Atlassian
8 12 (8.16%) Dell
8 12 (8.16%) HP
9 10 (6.80%) Jaspersoft
10 9 (6.12%) Red Hat
11 7 (4.76%) CyberArk
12 4 (2.72%) BeyondTrust
12 4 (2.72%) Dynatrace
13 3 (2.04%) SAP
14 2 (1.36%) Foundry