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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 40 25
Rank change year-on-year -18 -15 +4
Contract jobs citing Linux 122 72 116
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.55% 4.46% 5.89%
As % of the Operating Systems category 38.13% 33.49% 40.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 78 51 64
10th Percentile £321 £400 £324
25th Percentile £413 £450 £499
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% -13.64% +1.85%
75th Percentile £581 £540 £635
90th Percentile £671 £638 £750
England median daily rate £520 £537 £540
% change year-on-year -3.17% -0.56% -7.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £58.43 - £67.50
Median hourly rate £64.07 - £70.00
75th Percentile £70.32 - £72.50
90th Percentile £72.66 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -3.70% +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 320 215 288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 9.31% 13.30% 14.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 159 183
10th Percentile £210 £150 £174
25th Percentile £381 £220 £299
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £410 £450
Median % change year-on-year +11.95% -8.89% +9.09%
75th Percentile £526 £500 £573
90th Percentile £588 £576 £675
England median daily rate £463 £463 £475
% change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 6 13
10th Percentile £47.73 £15.90 £14.33
25th Percentile £58.43 £16.67 £16.00
Median hourly rate £63.14 £17.83 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +254.04% -6.14% -5.00%
75th Percentile £70.17 £23.12 £23.75
90th Percentile £71.28 £24.83 £62.75
England median hourly rate £32.50 £22.78 £25.13
% change year-on-year +42.67% -9.33% -40.88%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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
Warwickshire -5 29 £502 +2.97% 6
Shropshire -39 22 £468 +1.63% 8
Birmingham -28 19 £463 -5.13% 15
Solihull -14 13 £500 +11.11% 1
Herefordshire +3 10 £625 +4.17% 4
Worcestershire - 9 £568 - 3
Coventry -19 6 £326 -47.89% 3
Staffordshire -2 4 £200 -59.60% 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 17 (13.93%) Confluence
2 8 (6.56%) WebLogic
3 4 (3.28%) Apache
3 4 (3.28%) SAS
4 2 (1.64%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.82%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.64%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 53 (43.44%) AWS
2 28 (22.95%) Azure
3 22 (18.03%) Amazon EC2
3 22 (18.03%) Amazon S3
4 15 (12.30%) Amazon SQS
4 15 (12.30%) Route 53
5 14 (11.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 14 (11.48%) GitHub
6 13 (10.66%) AWS KMS
7 10 (8.20%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (8.20%) OpenShift
8 9 (7.38%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (5.74%) Datadog
9 7 (5.74%) Microsoft 365
10 6 (4.92%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 6 (4.92%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (4.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 4 (3.28%) GCP
12 2 (1.64%) Entra ID
12 2 (1.64%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 11 (9.02%) Firewall
2 7 (5.74%) SNMP
3 5 (4.10%) Intrusion Detection
4 4 (3.28%) NAS
4 4 (3.28%) NetScaler
4 4 (3.28%) SAN
4 4 (3.28%) VPN
5 3 (2.46%) LAN
5 3 (2.46%) SSL
5 3 (2.46%) VSAN
6 2 (1.64%) IPsec
6 2 (1.64%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.82%) Anycast
7 1 (0.82%) DMVPN
7 1 (0.82%) DNSSEC
7 1 (0.82%) Modbus
7 1 (0.82%) MQTT
7 1 (0.82%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.82%) WAN
7 1 (0.82%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (15.57%) Amazon RDS
2 15 (12.30%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (10.66%) Amazon Aurora
3 13 (10.66%) DynamoDB
4 6 (4.92%) Oracle Database
5 5 (4.10%) MongoDB
6 4 (3.28%) MySQL
7 3 (2.46%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (2.46%) Pentaho
7 3 (2.46%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.82%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.82%) Db2
8 1 (0.82%) IDMS
8 1 (0.82%) Metadata
8 1 (0.82%) Oracle Database 11g
8 1 (0.82%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.82%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.82%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.82%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (25.41%) Git
2 26 (21.31%) Jenkins
3 19 (15.57%) GitLab
4 18 (14.75%) Maven
5 15 (12.30%) SonarQube
6 14 (11.48%) JUnit
6 14 (11.48%) Mockito
7 13 (10.66%) DbUnit
7 13 (10.66%) jMock
8 12 (9.84%) JIRA
9 11 (9.02%) Bitbucket Server
10 5 (4.10%) Artifactory
10 5 (4.10%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 2 (1.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.82%) Bitbucket
12 1 (0.82%) Chocolatey
12 1 (0.82%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.82%) Gradle
12 1 (0.82%) Postman
12 1 (0.82%) Snyk
General
1 36 (29.51%) Social Skills
2 18 (14.75%) Public Sector
3 14 (11.48%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (7.38%) Finance
5 6 (4.92%) Legal
6 5 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (2.46%) Banking
7 3 (2.46%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (1.64%) Automotive
8 2 (1.64%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.82%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.82%) Billing
9 1 (0.82%) Electronics
9 1 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.82%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.82%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 21 (17.21%) Analyst
2 19 (15.57%) Developer
2 19 (15.57%) Java Developer
3 10 (8.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 9 (7.38%) Data Engineer
5 7 (5.74%) Architect
5 7 (5.74%) Senior
5 7 (5.74%) Site Engineer
5 7 (5.74%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 6 (4.92%) DevOps Engineer
6 6 (4.92%) Software Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Asset Management Analyst
7 5 (4.10%) Lead
7 5 (4.10%) Storage Analyst
8 4 (3.28%) DevSecOps Engineer
8 4 (3.28%) Infrastructure Architect
8 4 (3.28%) Senior Developer
8 4 (3.28%) Senior Java Developer
8 4 (3.28%) Support Engineer
9 3 (2.46%) Embedded Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (16.39%) Spring
1 20 (16.39%) Spring Boot
2 17 (13.93%) REST
3 14 (11.48%) ActiveMQ
4 13 (10.66%) AngularJS
4 13 (10.66%) Hibernate
4 13 (10.66%) JPA
4 13 (10.66%) PowerMock
4 13 (10.66%) SOAP
4 13 (10.66%) Spring Batch
4 13 (10.66%) Spring Integration
4 13 (10.66%) Web Services
5 12 (9.84%) RESTful
5 12 (9.84%) Spring Cloud
6 11 (9.02%) Bootstrap
6 11 (9.02%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (6.56%) Flash
7 8 (6.56%) Node.js
8 3 (2.46%) SAP Basis
9 2 (1.64%) Qt
Miscellaneous
1 19 (15.57%) Distributed Systems
2 13 (10.66%) Linux Command Line
3 11 (9.02%) Replication
4 10 (8.20%) Cloud Native
5 9 (7.38%) Data Centre
6 7 (5.74%) Private Cloud
7 6 (4.92%) Hybrid Cloud
8 5 (4.10%) SCADA
9 4 (3.28%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (3.28%) CSOC
9 4 (3.28%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (3.28%) Operational Technology
9 4 (3.28%) Security Operations Centre
10 3 (2.46%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (2.46%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (2.46%) Embedded Systems
10 3 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (2.46%) Public Cloud
11 2 (1.64%) IoT
11 2 (1.64%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 47 (38.52%) Windows
2 18 (14.75%) Unix
3 11 (9.02%) Windows Server
4 7 (5.74%) AIX
4 7 (5.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (4.10%) SUSE
5 5 (4.10%) Ubuntu
6 4 (3.28%) Embedded Linux
7 3 (2.46%) Solaris
8 2 (1.64%) Android
8 2 (1.64%) FreeRTOS
8 2 (1.64%) Mac OS
8 2 (1.64%) Windows 10
8 2 (1.64%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.82%) CentOS
9 1 (0.82%) HPUX
9 1 (0.82%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.82%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (32.79%) CI/CD
1 40 (32.79%) Containerisation
2 36 (29.51%) Agile
3 31 (25.41%) DevOps
4 25 (20.49%) Infrastructure as Code
4 25 (20.49%) Scrum
5 24 (19.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 22 (18.03%) Microservices
7 19 (15.57%) Performance Tuning
8 18 (14.75%) Kanban
8 18 (14.75%) TDD
9 17 (13.93%) Problem-Solving
10 16 (13.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 12 (9.84%) BDD
11 12 (9.84%) Business Continuity
11 12 (9.84%) Software Engineering
11 12 (9.84%) Stakeholder Management
12 11 (9.02%) Continuous Integration
12 11 (9.02%) Disaster Recovery
12 11 (9.02%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 46 (37.70%) SQL
2 29 (23.77%) Java
3 16 (13.11%) Python
4 14 (11.48%) PowerShell
5 11 (9.02%) Bash
5 11 (9.02%) Shell Script
6 9 (7.38%) PL/SQL
7 7 (5.74%) Go
8 4 (3.28%) C
8 4 (3.28%) C++
8 4 (3.28%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (3.28%) Perl
9 3 (2.46%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.82%) Bicep
10 1 (0.82%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.82%) Lisp
10 1 (0.82%) SystemVerilog
10 1 (0.82%) Tcl
10 1 (0.82%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 69 (56.56%) Security Cleared
2 53 (43.44%) SC Cleared
3 20 (16.39%) DV Cleared
4 12 (9.84%) AWS Certification
5 11 (9.02%) Cisco Certification
6 9 (7.38%) CCNA
7 8 (6.56%) Azure Certification
8 6 (4.92%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (4.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 4 (3.28%) MCSE
9 4 (3.28%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (3.28%) RHCA
10 3 (2.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (1.64%) CAPM
11 2 (1.64%) CBAP
11 2 (1.64%) CCNP
11 2 (1.64%) Degree
11 2 (1.64%) PMI Certification
11 2 (1.64%) PMP
12 1 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (9.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (4.92%) NIST
3 4 (3.28%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (1.64%) ISO 26262
4 2 (1.64%) MISRA
4 2 (1.64%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.82%) COBIT
5 1 (0.82%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.82%) FATCA
5 1 (0.82%) GDPR
5 1 (0.82%) NCSC
5 1 (0.82%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.82%) QA
5 1 (0.82%) SLA
System Software
1 35 (28.69%) Docker
2 16 (13.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (9.02%) Postfix
4 8 (6.56%) GPFS
4 8 (6.56%) NFS
4 8 (6.56%) vSphere
5 6 (4.92%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (4.10%) Active Directory
7 4 (3.28%) Hyper-V
7 4 (3.28%) Snort
8 3 (2.46%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (1.64%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.82%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.82%) Firmware
10 1 (0.82%) KVM
10 1 (0.82%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 34 (27.87%) Kubernetes
2 26 (21.31%) Terraform
3 24 (19.67%) Grafana
4 19 (15.57%) Ansible
5 16 (13.11%) Prometheus
6 10 (8.20%) Progress Chef
7 8 (6.56%) Puppet
8 7 (5.74%) Podman
8 7 (5.74%) WMI
9 6 (4.92%) vRealize
10 4 (3.28%) CSIRT
11 3 (2.46%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (2.46%) QRadar
11 3 (2.46%) VxRail
12 2 (1.64%) Check_MK
12 2 (1.64%) Data Guard
12 2 (1.64%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (1.64%) SCCM
13 1 (0.82%) Nessus
13 1 (0.82%) Packer
Vendors
1 35 (28.69%) Oracle
2 27 (22.13%) Microsoft
3 24 (19.67%) Splunk
4 23 (18.85%) Cisco
4 23 (18.85%) VMware
5 18 (14.75%) ServiceNow
6 17 (13.93%) Atlassian
7 14 (11.48%) IBM
8 13 (10.66%) Jaspersoft
9 12 (9.84%) Red Hat
10 9 (7.38%) Fortinet
11 8 (6.56%) SAP
12 7 (5.74%) F5
12 7 (5.74%) Palo Alto
12 7 (5.74%) SolarWinds
13 5 (4.10%) MathWorks
13 5 (4.10%) Siemens
13 5 (4.10%) Talend
14 2 (1.64%) Commvault
14 2 (1.64%) QNX