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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 38 30
Rank change year-on-year -15 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Linux 126 73 106
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.85% 4.91% 5.17%
As % of the Operating Systems category 40.91% 33.64% 36.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 83 53 61
10th Percentile £263 £421 £325
25th Percentile £402 £455 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -9.09% +1.85%
75th Percentile £581 £582 £635
90th Percentile £619 £655 £750
England median daily rate £511 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -7.18% - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £58.43 - £67.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £70.00
75th Percentile £70.41 - £72.50
90th Percentile £73.35 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 308 217 291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 9.42% 14.60% 14.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 152 189
10th Percentile £198 £150 £184
25th Percentile £371 £200 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +14.63% -11.11% -
75th Percentile £538 £504 £575
90th Percentile £600 £636 £678
England median daily rate £456 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -1.62% -2.37% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 11 17
10th Percentile £44.22 £15.22 £14.99
25th Percentile £58.43 £16.67 £18.50
Median hourly rate £63.14 £18.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +248.23% -19.42% +16.88%
75th Percentile £70.23 £19.01 £23.75
90th Percentile £71.97 £24.66 £72.50
England median hourly rate £32.50 £18.87 £23.00
% change year-on-year +72.23% -17.96% -50.80%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -20 26 £463 -7.50% 16
Warwickshire -23 21 £565 +4.92% 3
Shropshire -39 19 £468 +1.79% 11
Solihull -14 13 £500 +11.11%
Herefordshire +2 12 £538 -4.44% 3
Coventry -12 11 £402 -23.43% 6
Worcestershire - 11 £175 - 6
Staffordshire +1 4 £200 -59.60% 13
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 20 (15.87%) Confluence
2 7 (5.56%) Apache
2 7 (5.56%) WebLogic
3 4 (3.17%) SAS
4 2 (1.59%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.79%) CMS
5 1 (0.79%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.59%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.79%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.79%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.79%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 58 (46.03%) AWS
2 27 (21.43%) Azure
3 20 (15.87%) Amazon EC2
3 20 (15.87%) Amazon S3
4 15 (11.90%) Route 53
5 14 (11.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 13 (10.32%) Amazon SQS
6 13 (10.32%) AWS KMS
7 10 (7.94%) GitHub
8 9 (7.14%) OpenShift
9 6 (4.76%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
10 5 (3.97%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (2.38%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (2.38%) Datadog
11 3 (2.38%) GCP
11 3 (2.38%) IaaS
11 3 (2.38%) SaaS
12 2 (1.59%) CloudFront
12 2 (1.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (10.32%) Firewall
2 7 (5.56%) SNMP
3 5 (3.97%) Intrusion Detection
3 5 (3.97%) VPN
4 4 (3.17%) NAS
4 4 (3.17%) SAN
4 4 (3.17%) VSAN
5 3 (2.38%) LAN
5 3 (2.38%) SSL
5 3 (2.38%) WAN
6 2 (1.59%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.79%) AMQP
7 1 (0.79%) Anycast
7 1 (0.79%) BGP
7 1 (0.79%) DMVPN
7 1 (0.79%) IPsec
7 1 (0.79%) MPLS
7 1 (0.79%) Network Security
7 1 (0.79%) NGFW
7 1 (0.79%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (13.49%) Amazon RDS
2 16 (12.70%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (10.32%) Amazon Aurora
3 13 (10.32%) DynamoDB
4 5 (3.97%) MongoDB
4 5 (3.97%) MySQL
4 5 (3.97%) Oracle Database
5 4 (3.17%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (2.38%) Amazon Redshift
6 3 (2.38%) Pentaho
6 3 (2.38%) SAP HANA
7 2 (1.59%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.79%) Db2
8 1 (0.79%) IDMS
8 1 (0.79%) InfluxDB
8 1 (0.79%) Metadata
8 1 (0.79%) Oracle Database 11g
8 1 (0.79%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.79%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.79%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 26 (20.63%) Git
2 25 (19.84%) Jenkins
3 17 (13.49%) JIRA
4 15 (11.90%) GitLab
5 14 (11.11%) SonarQube
6 13 (10.32%) DbUnit
6 13 (10.32%) jMock
6 13 (10.32%) JUnit
6 13 (10.32%) Maven
6 13 (10.32%) Mockito
7 11 (8.73%) Bitbucket Server
8 6 (4.76%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (3.17%) Artifactory
10 3 (2.38%) Chocolatey
11 1 (0.79%) AppScan
11 1 (0.79%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.79%) Liquibase
11 1 (0.79%) Metasploit
11 1 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.79%) Vite
General
1 42 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 18 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
2 18 (14.29%) Public Sector
3 8 (6.35%) Finance
4 5 (3.97%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (2.38%) Banking
5 3 (2.38%) Legal
5 3 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (1.59%) Automotive
6 2 (1.59%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.79%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.79%) Billing
7 1 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.79%) Investment Banking
7 1 (0.79%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 26 (20.63%) Analyst
2 15 (11.90%) Developer
2 15 (11.90%) Java Developer
3 12 (9.52%) Storage Analyst
4 11 (8.73%) Site Engineer
4 11 (8.73%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 9 (7.14%) Data Engineer
5 9 (7.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 6 (4.76%) Architect
6 6 (4.76%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 6 (4.76%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 6 (4.76%) Senior
6 6 (4.76%) Software Engineer
7 5 (3.97%) DevOps Engineer
7 5 (3.97%) Lead
8 4 (3.17%) Splunk Engineer
8 4 (3.17%) Support Engineer
9 3 (2.38%) Consultant
9 3 (2.38%) Senior Developer
9 3 (2.38%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (15.08%) Spring
1 19 (15.08%) Spring Boot
2 16 (12.70%) REST
3 15 (11.90%) Flash
4 13 (10.32%) ActiveMQ
4 13 (10.32%) AngularJS
4 13 (10.32%) Hibernate
4 13 (10.32%) JPA
4 13 (10.32%) PowerMock
4 13 (10.32%) SOAP
4 13 (10.32%) Spring Batch
4 13 (10.32%) Spring Integration
4 13 (10.32%) Web Services
5 12 (9.52%) RESTful
5 12 (9.52%) Spring Cloud
6 11 (8.73%) Bootstrap
6 11 (8.73%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (6.35%) Node.js
8 3 (2.38%) SAP Basis
9 2 (1.59%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 18 (14.29%) Replication
2 16 (12.70%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (12.70%) Linux Command Line
3 9 (7.14%) Data Centre
4 7 (5.56%) Cloud Native
4 7 (5.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (3.17%) CSOC
5 4 (3.17%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (3.17%) Management Information System
5 4 (3.17%) SCADA
5 4 (3.17%) Security Operations Centre
6 3 (2.38%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (2.38%) Cyber Threat
6 3 (2.38%) Private Cloud
6 3 (2.38%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.59%) Embedded Systems
7 2 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.59%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.59%) PMI
7 2 (1.59%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 51 (40.48%) Windows
2 24 (19.05%) Unix
3 10 (7.94%) Windows Server
4 7 (5.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (3.17%) Ubuntu
6 3 (2.38%) AIX
6 3 (2.38%) Embedded Linux
6 3 (2.38%) Solaris
6 3 (2.38%) SUSE
7 2 (1.59%) Android
7 2 (1.59%) FreeRTOS
7 2 (1.59%) Mac OS
7 2 (1.59%) Windows 10
7 2 (1.59%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.79%) HPUX
8 1 (0.79%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (33.33%) Agile
2 41 (32.54%) CI/CD
3 36 (28.57%) Containerisation
4 30 (23.81%) DevOps
5 27 (21.43%) Scrum
6 23 (18.25%) Continuous Improvement
7 20 (15.87%) Microservices
7 20 (15.87%) Problem-Solving
8 19 (15.08%) Kanban
9 18 (14.29%) Infrastructure as Code
9 18 (14.29%) TDD
10 16 (12.70%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 16 (12.70%) Performance Tuning
11 14 (11.11%) Observability
12 12 (9.52%) Incident Response
12 12 (9.52%) Software Engineering
12 12 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
13 11 (8.73%) BDD
13 11 (8.73%) Continuous Integration
13 11 (8.73%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 48 (38.10%) SQL
2 23 (18.25%) Java
3 18 (14.29%) Python
4 13 (10.32%) Bash
4 13 (10.32%) PowerShell
5 11 (8.73%) Shell Script
6 7 (5.56%) PL/SQL
7 5 (3.97%) Perl
8 4 (3.17%) Go
8 4 (3.17%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (2.38%) C
9 3 (2.38%) C++
9 3 (2.38%) Kotlin
10 2 (1.59%) Bicep
10 2 (1.59%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.79%) Lisp
11 1 (0.79%) PHP
11 1 (0.79%) SystemVerilog
11 1 (0.79%) Tcl
11 1 (0.79%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 68 (53.97%) Security Cleared
2 57 (45.24%) SC Cleared
3 17 (13.49%) DV Cleared
4 13 (10.32%) AWS Certification
4 13 (10.32%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (8.73%) CCNA
6 7 (5.56%) Azure Certification
7 6 (4.76%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (4.76%) Degree
8 5 (3.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 4 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (2.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (2.38%) MCSE
10 3 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (2.38%) RHCA
11 2 (1.59%) CAPM
11 2 (1.59%) CBAP
11 2 (1.59%) CCNP
11 2 (1.59%) PMI Certification
11 2 (1.59%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (8.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (6.35%) NIST
3 3 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (1.59%) ISO 26262
4 2 (1.59%) MISRA
4 2 (1.59%) QA
4 2 (1.59%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.79%) COBIT
5 1 (0.79%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.79%) FATCA
5 1 (0.79%) GDPR
5 1 (0.79%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.79%) SLA
System Software
1 39 (30.95%) Docker
2 20 (15.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (11.90%) GPFS
3 15 (11.90%) NFS
4 13 (10.32%) vSphere
5 11 (8.73%) Postfix
5 11 (8.73%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (3.97%) Active Directory
7 4 (3.17%) Snort
8 3 (2.38%) Hyper-V
8 3 (2.38%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (1.59%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.79%) KVM
10 1 (0.79%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 39 (30.95%) Kubernetes
2 23 (18.25%) Grafana
3 22 (17.46%) Terraform
4 21 (16.67%) Ansible
5 15 (11.90%) Prometheus
6 11 (8.73%) vRealize
7 9 (7.14%) Progress Chef
8 8 (6.35%) Puppet
9 7 (5.56%) WMI
10 5 (3.97%) Podman
11 4 (3.17%) CSIRT
11 4 (3.17%) Kibana
11 4 (3.17%) VxRail
12 3 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
12 3 (2.38%) QRadar
13 2 (1.59%) Check_MK
13 2 (1.59%) Data Guard
13 2 (1.59%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (1.59%) SCCM
14 1 (0.79%) Nessus
Vendors
1 40 (31.75%) Oracle
2 25 (19.84%) Microsoft
2 25 (19.84%) ServiceNow
3 24 (19.05%) Splunk
4 23 (18.25%) Cisco
4 23 (18.25%) VMware
5 19 (15.08%) IBM
6 16 (12.70%) Atlassian
7 13 (10.32%) Jaspersoft
8 11 (8.73%) Red Hat
9 9 (7.14%) Fortinet
10 7 (5.56%) F5
10 7 (5.56%) Palo Alto
10 7 (5.56%) SolarWinds
11 6 (4.76%) SAP
12 5 (3.97%) Talend
13 3 (2.38%) CyberArk
13 3 (2.38%) Dynatrace
13 3 (2.38%) MathWorks
13 3 (2.38%) Siemens