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 13 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 24 29 34
Rank change year-on-year +5 +5 -12
Contract jobs citing Linux 177 104 104
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 8.01% 5.75% 5.46%
As % of the Operating Systems category 52.84% 38.52% 34.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 56 68
10th Percentile £308 £417 £247
25th Percentile £429 £456 £371
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £550 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% +12.82% -9.39%
75th Percentile £575 £620 £600
90th Percentile £625 £719 £729
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 2
10th Percentile - - £23.00
25th Percentile £60.00 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £35.00
75th Percentile £69.99 - £42.50
90th Percentile - - £47.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%

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 335 270 298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 15.16% 14.93% 15.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 163 209
10th Percentile £173 £186 £163
25th Percentile £283 £250 £206
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £435 £400
Median % change year-on-year +9.20% +8.75% -19.19%
75th Percentile £551 £538 £518
90th Percentile £618 £650 £625
England median daily rate £450 £475 £480
% change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -6.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 7 17
10th Percentile - £13.71 £16.82
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.61 £17.72
Median hourly rate £19.84 £21.59 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.09% +7.95% +21.21%
75th Percentile £22.99 £23.53 £28.00
90th Percentile £38.50 £28.01 £28.75
England median hourly rate £24.00 £57.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -58.26% +76.92% +30.00%

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 13 December 2025.

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 13 December 2025. 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 +4 71 £525 -4.55% 22
Shropshire -12 30 £515 +11.35% 29
Warwickshire -3 22 £515 -10.04% 4
Coventry - 21 £310 - 17
Worcestershire - 11 £600 - 17
Herefordshire -11 9 £550 +4.76% 1
Solihull +4 2 £450 +157.14% 1
Staffordshire -2 2 - - 17
Wolverhampton - 1 - - 12
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 33 (18.64%) Confluence
2 18 (10.17%) Apache
3 15 (8.47%) WebLogic
4 12 (6.78%) nginx
5 6 (3.39%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (3.39%) Apache Spark
5 6 (3.39%) OpenStack
6 2 (1.13%) Drupal
7 1 (0.56%) JBoss
7 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 11 (6.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 9 (5.08%) MS Visio
3 3 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) SAP GRC
1 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 98 (55.37%) AWS
2 64 (36.16%) Azure
3 34 (19.21%) Amazon S3
4 32 (18.08%) Amazon EC2
5 29 (16.38%) AWS KMS
6 25 (14.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 25 (14.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 23 (12.99%) GCP
8 22 (12.43%) Serverless
9 21 (11.86%) Amazon ELB
10 18 (10.17%) Datadog
11 14 (7.91%) Azure Monitor
11 14 (7.91%) OpenShift
12 12 (6.78%) GitHub
12 12 (6.78%) Microsoft 365
12 12 (6.78%) Route 53
13 11 (6.21%) Amazon ECS
13 11 (6.21%) GitHub Actions
14 10 (5.65%) Amazon Glacier
15 8 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 33 (18.64%) DNS
2 30 (16.95%) SMTP
3 29 (16.38%) SSH
4 26 (14.69%) Firewall
5 20 (11.30%) FTP
5 20 (11.30%) HTTP
6 14 (7.91%) VSAN
7 11 (6.21%) IMAP
7 11 (6.21%) OpenLDAP
8 9 (5.08%) DKIM
8 9 (5.08%) DMARC
9 6 (3.39%) DHCP
9 6 (3.39%) Internet
10 5 (2.82%) Kerberos
10 5 (2.82%) TCP/IP
11 3 (1.69%) Network Security
12 2 (1.13%) Intrusion Detection
12 2 (1.13%) LAN
12 2 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (1.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (16.38%) Amazon RDS
2 24 (13.56%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (9.04%) NoSQL
4 12 (6.78%) Elasticsearch
5 11 (6.21%) Amazon Aurora
6 6 (3.39%) Hadoop
7 4 (2.26%) Apache Hive
7 4 (2.26%) HBase
7 4 (2.26%) Relational Database
8 3 (1.69%) InfluxDB
8 3 (1.69%) MongoDB
8 3 (1.69%) SQL Server
9 2 (1.13%) Big Data
9 2 (1.13%) Delta Lake
9 2 (1.13%) MySQL
9 2 (1.13%) Oracle Database
9 2 (1.13%) Oracle Database 12c
9 2 (1.13%) Parquet
10 1 (0.56%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.56%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 54 (30.51%) Jenkins
2 33 (18.64%) Git
3 30 (16.95%) JIRA
4 21 (11.86%) GitLab
4 21 (11.86%) Vagrant
5 10 (5.65%) Liquibase
6 8 (4.52%) SonarQube
6 8 (4.52%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (3.39%) CircleCI
8 5 (2.82%) Bitbucket
8 5 (2.82%) JUnit
8 5 (2.82%) Postman
9 4 (2.26%) Artifactory
9 4 (2.26%) Cypress.io
9 4 (2.26%) Gradle
9 4 (2.26%) Maven
9 4 (2.26%) Selenium
9 4 (2.26%) Snyk
9 4 (2.26%) webpack
10 2 (1.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 77 (43.50%) Social Skills
2 30 (16.95%) Public Sector
3 27 (15.25%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (13.56%) Finance
5 22 (12.43%) Presentation Skills
6 17 (9.60%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (5.65%) Financial Institution
8 9 (5.08%) Banking
9 4 (2.26%) Manufacturing
9 4 (2.26%) Telecoms
10 2 (1.13%) Electronics
10 2 (1.13%) Marketing
10 2 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.56%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 30 (16.95%) DevOps Engineer
2 26 (14.69%) Analyst
3 25 (14.12%) Platform Engineer
4 24 (13.56%) AWS Engineer
5 21 (11.86%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 20 (11.30%) Cloud Platform Engineer
7 18 (10.17%) AWS DevOps
7 18 (10.17%) AWS DevOps Engineer
8 15 (8.47%) Site Engineer
8 15 (8.47%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 13 (7.34%) Senior
10 12 (6.78%) Cloud Engineer
10 12 (6.78%) Software Engineer
10 12 (6.78%) Storage Analyst
11 11 (6.21%) AWS Platform Engineer
12 9 (5.08%) DevOps Platform Engineer
12 9 (5.08%) GCP Engineer
12 9 (5.08%) Splunk Engineer
13 8 (4.52%) Consultant
13 8 (4.52%) Monitoring Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (20.34%) Elastic Stack
2 22 (12.43%) LDAP
3 18 (10.17%) REST
4 17 (9.60%) RESTful
5 12 (6.78%) Flash
6 5 (2.82%) OAuth
6 5 (2.82%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (2.82%) SAML
6 5 (2.82%) YAML
7 4 (2.26%) JSON
7 4 (2.26%) Node.js
7 4 (2.26%) Spark Streaming
7 4 (2.26%) Spring
8 3 (1.69%) Flask
8 3 (1.69%) NumPy
8 3 (1.69%) Pandas
8 3 (1.69%) Spring Boot
9 2 (1.13%) CSS
9 2 (1.13%) Middleware
9 2 (1.13%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 33 (18.64%) Replication
2 31 (17.51%) Linux Command Line
3 14 (7.91%) Public Cloud
4 12 (6.78%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (5.65%) Cloud Native
5 10 (5.65%) Management Information System
6 5 (2.82%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.82%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (2.82%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.26%) Client/Server
7 4 (2.26%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.69%) SCADA
9 2 (1.13%) Derivative
9 2 (1.13%) PKI
9 2 (1.13%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.56%) CCTV
10 1 (0.56%) Cyberattack
10 1 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (0.56%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 78 (44.07%) Windows
2 34 (19.21%) Unix
3 22 (12.43%) VMS
4 21 (11.86%) Amazon Linux
5 19 (10.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (8.47%) Ubuntu
7 9 (5.08%) AIX
7 9 (5.08%) Solaris
8 7 (3.95%) Windows Server
9 4 (2.26%) CentOS
10 3 (1.69%) Mac OS X
11 2 (1.13%) Debian
11 2 (1.13%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.56%) Android
12 1 (0.56%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (36.72%) DevOps
2 55 (31.07%) Agile
2 55 (31.07%) CI/CD
3 42 (23.73%) Containerisation
4 41 (23.16%) Change Management
5 40 (22.60%) Problem-Solving
6 36 (20.34%) Configuration Management
7 31 (17.51%) Cloud Security
8 29 (16.38%) Incident Response
8 29 (16.38%) Platform Engineering
9 27 (15.25%) Observability
10 25 (14.12%) SIEM
11 23 (12.99%) Computer Science
11 23 (12.99%) Software Engineering
12 22 (12.43%) Continuous Improvement
12 22 (12.43%) Infrastructure as Code
12 22 (12.43%) Microservices
13 20 (11.30%) Patch Management
14 19 (10.73%) High Availability
14 19 (10.73%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 87 (49.15%) Python
2 50 (28.25%) SQL
3 43 (24.29%) PowerShell
4 24 (13.56%) Bash
4 24 (13.56%) Groovy
5 22 (12.43%) Go
6 19 (10.73%) Java
7 15 (8.47%) Shell Script
8 12 (6.78%) Perl
9 4 (2.26%) C++
10 3 (1.69%) JavaScript
10 3 (1.69%) VBScript
11 2 (1.13%) PHP
11 2 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 2 (1.13%) Ruby
11 2 (1.13%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.56%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 81 (45.76%) Security Cleared
2 64 (36.16%) SC Cleared
3 38 (21.47%) Degree
4 23 (12.99%) DV Cleared
5 22 (12.43%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (7.34%) AWS Certification
7 12 (6.78%) Master's Degree
8 10 (5.65%) Azure Certification
9 7 (3.95%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (1.13%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (1.13%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (1.13%) OCP
10 2 (1.13%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.56%) CAPM
11 1 (0.56%) CBAP
11 1 (0.56%) CEH
11 1 (0.56%) CISSP
11 1 (0.56%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.56%) PMP
11 1 (0.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.08%) NIST
2 7 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.26%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.69%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.13%) NCSC
5 2 (1.13%) QA
6 1 (0.56%) SLA
System Software
1 63 (35.59%) Docker
2 31 (17.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (14.12%) vSphere
4 24 (13.56%) Active Directory
5 20 (11.30%) DFS Replication
5 20 (11.30%) Postfix
6 16 (9.04%) Dovecot
7 12 (6.78%) GPFS
7 12 (6.78%) NFS
7 12 (6.78%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (6.21%) Squid
9 4 (2.26%) HDFS
10 3 (1.69%) Firmware
11 2 (1.13%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (1.13%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.56%) Snort
12 1 (0.56%) Terminal Services
12 1 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
12 1 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.56%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 52 (29.38%) Terraform
2 50 (28.25%) Grafana
3 49 (27.68%) Prometheus
4 47 (26.55%) Kubernetes
5 40 (22.60%) Ansible
6 25 (14.12%) vRealize
7 16 (9.04%) Puppet
8 13 (7.34%) VxRail
9 12 (6.78%) Kibana
9 12 (6.78%) Nessus
9 12 (6.78%) Progress Chef
10 10 (5.65%) Proxmox
11 5 (2.82%) Podman
12 4 (2.26%) Argo
12 4 (2.26%) Hadoop YARN
13 3 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (1.69%) logstash
14 2 (1.13%) Data Guard
14 2 (1.13%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 2 (1.13%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 45 (25.42%) Splunk
2 41 (23.16%) Cisco
3 37 (20.90%) VMware
4 33 (18.64%) ServiceNow
5 32 (18.08%) AppDynamics
6 29 (16.38%) Oracle
7 26 (14.69%) IBM
8 17 (9.60%) Dynatrace
9 16 (9.04%) CyberArk
9 16 (9.04%) Microsoft
10 15 (8.47%) BeyondTrust
10 15 (8.47%) SolarWinds
11 14 (7.91%) Commvault
11 14 (7.91%) Dell
12 13 (7.34%) HP
13 11 (6.21%) Jaspersoft
13 11 (6.21%) Red Hat
14 9 (5.08%) Google
15 5 (2.82%) Broadcom
16 3 (1.69%) SAP