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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 27 42
Rank change year-on-year +3 +15 -21
Contract jobs citing Linux 181 102 74
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 7.92% 6.54% 4.22%
As % of the Operating Systems category 53.71% 43.59% 30.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 63 51
10th Percentile £306 £376 £200
25th Percentile £439 £453 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +22.22% -16.36%
75th Percentile £588 £624 £600
90th Percentile £622 £710 £688
England median daily rate £510 £551 £550
% change year-on-year -7.44% +0.18% -4.35%
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 337 234 245
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 14.74% 15.00% 13.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 145 172
10th Percentile £165 £186 £161
25th Percentile £276 £213 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £434 £400
Median % change year-on-year +9.45% +8.50% -19.19%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £518
90th Percentile £618 £670 £638
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -6.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 12
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.59
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.40 £17.54
Median hourly rate £21.46 £18.57 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% +4.77% +7.39%
75th Percentile £29.25 £22.89 £23.75
90th Percentile £69.99 £24.05 £27.58
England median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -52.38% +75.00% +20.00%

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 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 13 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 +3 75 £525 -4.55% 12
Shropshire -14 27 £525 +13.82% 7
Coventry +6 23 £313 +123.21% 1
Warwickshire -12 21 £508 -10.96% 2
Worcestershire -5 14 £588 -16.07% 8
Herefordshire -16 10 £550 +4.76% 1
Staffordshire +1 2 - - 6
Solihull +2 1 - -
Wolverhampton - 1 - - 2
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 27 (14.92%) Confluence
2 20 (11.05%) Apache
3 17 (9.39%) WebLogic
4 10 (5.52%) nginx
5 7 (3.87%) OpenStack
6 4 (2.21%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (2.21%) Apache Spark
7 2 (1.10%) Drupal
8 1 (0.55%) JBoss
8 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 9 (4.97%) Mozilla Thunderbird
1 9 (4.97%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 94 (51.93%) AWS
2 64 (35.36%) Azure
3 24 (13.26%) Amazon EC2
3 24 (13.26%) Amazon S3
4 21 (11.60%) GCP
5 19 (10.50%) AWS KMS
5 19 (10.50%) Datadog
5 19 (10.50%) Serverless
6 17 (9.39%) OpenShift
7 15 (8.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 15 (8.29%) Amazon ELB
7 15 (8.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 14 (7.73%) Azure Monitor
9 11 (6.08%) GitHub
10 10 (5.52%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (5.52%) Microsoft 365
11 9 (4.97%) Amazon ECS
11 9 (4.97%) Route 53
12 7 (3.87%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (3.87%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 24 (13.26%) SMTP
2 23 (12.71%) DNS
3 22 (12.15%) Firewall
3 22 (12.15%) SSH
4 15 (8.29%) FTP
4 15 (8.29%) HTTP
5 13 (7.18%) VSAN
6 9 (4.97%) DKIM
6 9 (4.97%) DMARC
6 9 (4.97%) IMAP
6 9 (4.97%) OpenLDAP
7 6 (3.31%) Internet
8 5 (2.76%) Kerberos
9 4 (2.21%) Network Security
10 3 (1.66%) TCP/IP
11 2 (1.10%) DHCP
11 2 (1.10%) Intrusion Detection
11 2 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
11 2 (1.10%) Wireless
12 1 (0.55%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (13.26%) Amazon RDS
2 20 (11.05%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (9.39%) Elasticsearch
4 14 (7.73%) NoSQL
5 9 (4.97%) Amazon Aurora
6 5 (2.76%) Relational Database
7 4 (2.21%) Apache Hive
7 4 (2.21%) Hadoop
7 4 (2.21%) HBase
7 4 (2.21%) InfluxDB
8 3 (1.66%) MongoDB
9 2 (1.10%) MySQL
10 1 (0.55%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.55%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 49 (27.07%) Jenkins
2 27 (14.92%) Git
3 25 (13.81%) JIRA
4 23 (12.71%) GitLab
5 15 (8.29%) Vagrant
6 10 (5.52%) Liquibase
7 7 (3.87%) CircleCI
7 7 (3.87%) SonarQube
7 7 (3.87%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (3.31%) Bitbucket
8 6 (3.31%) JUnit
8 6 (3.31%) Postman
9 5 (2.76%) Artifactory
9 5 (2.76%) Cypress.io
9 5 (2.76%) Gradle
9 5 (2.76%) Maven
9 5 (2.76%) Selenium
9 5 (2.76%) Snyk
9 5 (2.76%) webpack
10 2 (1.10%) Jaeger
General
1 81 (44.75%) Social Skills
2 30 (16.57%) Analytical Skills
3 24 (13.26%) Public Sector
4 20 (11.05%) Finance
4 20 (11.05%) Presentation Skills
5 17 (9.39%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (5.52%) Financial Institution
7 9 (4.97%) Banking
8 2 (1.10%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.10%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.55%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.55%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 30 (16.57%) Analyst
2 25 (13.81%) DevOps Engineer
3 23 (12.71%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 22 (12.15%) Site Engineer
4 22 (12.15%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 21 (11.60%) AWS Engineer
5 21 (11.60%) Platform Engineer
6 16 (8.84%) Cloud Platform Engineer
6 16 (8.84%) Storage Analyst
7 15 (8.29%) AWS DevOps
7 15 (8.29%) AWS DevOps Engineer
8 14 (7.73%) Architect
8 14 (7.73%) Splunk Engineer
9 12 (6.63%) Cloud Engineer
9 12 (6.63%) Software Engineer
10 10 (5.52%) Senior
11 9 (4.97%) AWS Platform Engineer
11 9 (4.97%) GCP Engineer
12 8 (4.42%) Monitoring Engineer
13 7 (3.87%) DevOps Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (21.55%) Elastic Stack
2 20 (11.05%) LDAP
3 19 (10.50%) REST
4 17 (9.39%) RESTful
5 16 (8.84%) Flash
6 6 (3.31%) RabbitMQ
6 6 (3.31%) YAML
7 5 (2.76%) JSON
7 5 (2.76%) OAuth
7 5 (2.76%) SAML
8 4 (2.21%) Middleware
8 4 (2.21%) Node.js
8 4 (2.21%) Spark Streaming
8 4 (2.21%) Spring
9 3 (1.66%) Spring Boot
10 2 (1.10%) Drush
10 2 (1.10%) Kafka
10 2 (1.10%) NumPy
10 2 (1.10%) OpenTelemetry
10 2 (1.10%) React
Miscellaneous
1 33 (18.23%) Linux Command Line
2 31 (17.13%) Replication
3 15 (8.29%) Management Information System
4 14 (7.73%) Public Cloud
5 12 (6.63%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (5.52%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.76%) Data Centre
7 5 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (2.76%) Onboarding
7 5 (2.76%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.21%) Client/Server
9 3 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.66%) SCADA
10 2 (1.10%) Derivative
10 2 (1.10%) Product Ownership
11 1 (0.55%) CCTV
11 1 (0.55%) HP Storage
11 1 (0.55%) PKI
11 1 (0.55%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 76 (41.99%) Windows
2 40 (22.10%) Unix
3 21 (11.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 15 (8.29%) Amazon Linux
4 15 (8.29%) VMS
5 13 (7.18%) Ubuntu
6 9 (4.97%) AIX
6 9 (4.97%) Solaris
7 6 (3.31%) Windows Server
8 4 (2.21%) CentOS
9 3 (1.66%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (1.66%) Mac OS X
10 2 (1.10%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (34.81%) DevOps
2 58 (32.04%) Agile
3 56 (30.94%) CI/CD
4 45 (24.86%) Containerisation
5 40 (22.10%) Problem-Solving
6 39 (21.55%) Change Management
7 35 (19.34%) Observability
8 34 (18.78%) Incident Response
9 32 (17.68%) Configuration Management
10 28 (15.47%) Computer Science
10 28 (15.47%) SIEM
11 25 (13.81%) Cloud Security
12 24 (13.26%) Continuous Improvement
12 24 (13.26%) Software Engineering
13 23 (12.71%) Infrastructure as Code
13 23 (12.71%) Site Reliability Engineering
14 22 (12.15%) Platform Engineering
14 22 (12.15%) Validation
15 21 (11.60%) Microservices
16 20 (11.05%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 90 (49.72%) Python
2 45 (24.86%) SQL
3 37 (20.44%) PowerShell
4 27 (14.92%) Bash
5 23 (12.71%) Go
6 17 (9.39%) Shell Script
7 16 (8.84%) Groovy
7 16 (8.84%) Java
8 8 (4.42%) Perl
9 5 (2.76%) C++
10 3 (1.66%) JavaScript
10 3 (1.66%) VBScript
11 2 (1.10%) PHP
11 2 (1.10%) Ruby
11 2 (1.10%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.55%) Bicep
12 1 (0.55%) C
12 1 (0.55%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.55%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 82 (45.30%) Security Cleared
2 63 (34.81%) SC Cleared
3 42 (23.20%) Degree
4 27 (14.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (12.15%) DV Cleared
6 12 (6.63%) Master's Degree
7 11 (6.08%) AWS Certification
8 9 (4.97%) Azure Certification
8 9 (4.97%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (1.10%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (1.10%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.55%) CAPM
10 1 (0.55%) CBAP
10 1 (0.55%) CCNA
10 1 (0.55%) CEH
10 1 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.55%) CISSP
10 1 (0.55%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.55%) PMP
10 1 (0.55%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.08%) NIST
2 9 (4.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.21%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.66%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.10%) NCSC
5 2 (1.10%) QA
6 1 (0.55%) SLA
System Software
1 61 (33.70%) Docker
2 33 (18.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (14.92%) vSphere
4 18 (9.94%) Postfix
5 16 (8.84%) Active Directory
5 16 (8.84%) GPFS
5 16 (8.84%) NFS
6 15 (8.29%) DFS Replication
7 14 (7.73%) Dovecot
7 14 (7.73%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (4.97%) Squid
9 4 (2.21%) HDFS
10 3 (1.66%) Firmware
11 2 (1.10%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.55%) Snort
12 1 (0.55%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 54 (29.83%) Kubernetes
2 47 (25.97%) Ansible
2 47 (25.97%) Grafana
2 47 (25.97%) Terraform
3 46 (25.41%) Prometheus
4 27 (14.92%) vRealize
5 23 (12.71%) Puppet
6 17 (9.39%) Kibana
7 15 (8.29%) Progress Chef
8 13 (7.18%) VxRail
9 10 (5.52%) Nessus
10 9 (4.97%) Proxmox
11 5 (2.76%) Podman
12 4 (2.21%) Hadoop YARN
13 3 (1.66%) logstash
14 2 (1.10%) Argo
14 2 (1.10%) Docker Swarm
15 1 (0.55%) Dell DRAC
15 1 (0.55%) Fluentd
15 1 (0.55%) Rsyslog
Vendors
1 53 (29.28%) Splunk
2 43 (23.76%) Cisco
3 38 (20.99%) VMware
4 33 (18.23%) Oracle
5 31 (17.13%) ServiceNow
6 30 (16.57%) IBM
7 29 (16.02%) AppDynamics
8 18 (9.94%) CyberArk
9 16 (8.84%) Dynatrace
10 15 (8.29%) BeyondTrust
10 15 (8.29%) SolarWinds
11 14 (7.73%) Commvault
11 14 (7.73%) Dell
11 14 (7.73%) Microsoft
12 13 (7.18%) HP
13 10 (5.52%) Red Hat
14 9 (4.97%) Jaspersoft
15 8 (4.42%) Google
16 5 (2.76%) Broadcom
17 2 (1.10%) ArcSight