Shell Script Contract Job Trends

Shell Scripting (Shell Programming)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Shell Script skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 401 267 286
Rank change year-on-year -134 +19 -52
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 238 292 350
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.98% 0.80%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.75% 2.89% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 172 246
10th Percentile £325 £325 £324
25th Percentile £392 £419 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% - -7.41%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £606
90th Percentile £634 £644 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £491 £452
% change year-on-year -7.33% +8.75% -14.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 14 8
10th Percentile £28.30 £65.90 £59.73
25th Percentile £32.13 - £64.19
Median hourly rate £39.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.91% +4.62% -6.31%
75th Percentile £47.13 - £67.69
90th Percentile £51.10 £77.13 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -41.91% +4.62% -5.45%

All Programming Languages
UK

Shell Script falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 13,578 10,121 13,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.87% 33.94% 30.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,847 6,867 9,316
10th Percentile £360 £350 £350
25th Percentile £418 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.59% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £650
90th Percentile £716 £756 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +3.16% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 553 236 550
10th Percentile £35.25 £25.50 £31.25
25th Percentile £53.53 £33.91 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -12.00% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.13 £70.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £84.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.84% -4.62% +4.00%

Shell Script
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Shell Script relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Shell Script job vacancy trend in the UK

Shell Script
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Shell Script.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Shell Script

Shell Script
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Shell Script over the 6 months to 19 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Shell Script in the UK

Shell Script
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Shell Script.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Shell Script

Shell Script
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Shell Script over the 6 months to 19 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Shell Script in the UK

Shell Script
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Shell Script within the UK over the 6 months to 19 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
England -120 210 £470 -9.57% 34
UK excluding London -163 116 £455 -7.33% 28
London -73 98 £518 -5.91% 12
Work from Home -79 55 £500 +6.27% 16
South East -58 32 £396 -34.00% 8
Midlands -48 27 £467 +1.48% 3
West Midlands -49 26 £466 +1.29% 3
East of England -21 25 £470 +63.48% 2
North of England -87 25 £500 +1.46% 8
Yorkshire -70 14 £500 - 1
North West -46 9 £450 +12.50% 6
South West -39 2 £556 +6.71% 5
Scotland -61 2 - - 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £190 -
Wales -17 1 £345 +22.12% 3
East Midlands -19 1 £525 +45.83%
North East - 1 £413 - 1

Shell Script
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 13 (5.46%) Apache
2 12 (5.04%) Confluence
3 8 (3.36%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (2.94%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.52%) CICS
6 4 (1.68%) WebLogic
7 3 (1.26%) nginx
7 3 (1.26%) WebSphere
7 3 (1.26%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.84%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.84%) JBoss
8 2 (0.84%) Oracle Spatial
8 2 (0.84%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.84%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.84%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.42%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.42%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.94%) Notepad++
2 2 (0.84%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.42%) FLEXCUBE
1 1 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (0.42%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 73 (30.67%) AWS
2 43 (18.07%) Azure
3 36 (15.13%) GitHub
4 35 (14.71%) Serverless
5 30 (12.61%) GitHub Actions
6 23 (9.66%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (9.24%) Amazon S3
8 20 (8.40%) OpenShift
9 19 (7.98%) Amazon EC2
10 16 (6.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 15 (6.30%) GCP
12 13 (5.46%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (4.62%) Amazon EKS
14 10 (4.20%) Power Platform
15 9 (3.78%) AWS CloudFormation
16 8 (3.36%) PaaS
16 8 (3.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 7 (2.94%) AWS CodePipeline
18 6 (2.52%) Azure Key Vault
18 6 (2.52%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.78%) DNS
2 8 (3.36%) Network Security
2 8 (3.36%) SAN
3 7 (2.94%) PuTTY
3 7 (2.94%) WinSCP
4 6 (2.52%) SSH
5 4 (1.68%) MQTT
6 3 (1.26%) Firewall
6 3 (1.26%) HTTPS
6 3 (1.26%) NAS
6 3 (1.26%) Reverse Proxy
6 3 (1.26%) SSL
6 3 (1.26%) VPN
7 2 (0.84%) AMQP
7 2 (0.84%) HTTP
7 2 (0.84%) iSCSI
7 2 (0.84%) Multicast
7 2 (0.84%) OpenVPN
7 2 (0.84%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.42%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (11.34%) SQL Server
2 22 (9.24%) Oracle Database
3 20 (8.40%) Relational Database
4 17 (7.14%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (6.30%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (5.88%) Metadata
6 14 (5.88%) MongoDB
7 13 (5.46%) Db2
8 12 (5.04%) MySQL
9 10 (4.20%) Amazon RDS
9 10 (4.20%) BusinessObjects
10 9 (3.78%) Data Lake
10 9 (3.78%) DynamoDB
11 7 (2.94%) Amazon Aurora
11 7 (2.94%) Elasticsearch
11 7 (2.94%) Power BI
12 6 (2.52%) Apache Cassandra
12 6 (2.52%) NoSQL
13 5 (2.10%) Kdb+
13 5 (2.10%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 58 (24.37%) Jenkins
2 46 (19.33%) Git
3 42 (17.65%) GitLab
4 16 (6.72%) JIRA
5 9 (3.78%) JUnit
6 8 (3.36%) SonarQube
7 7 (2.94%) Maven
8 5 (2.10%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (2.10%) Mockito
9 4 (1.68%) Bitbucket
9 4 (1.68%) JMeter
9 4 (1.68%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (1.26%) Artifactory
10 3 (1.26%) PyCharm
10 3 (1.26%) PyUnit
10 3 (1.26%) Terragrunt
11 2 (0.84%) Gradle
11 2 (0.84%) Xcode
12 1 (0.42%) PVCS
12 1 (0.42%) Subversion
General
1 55 (23.11%) Finance
2 51 (21.43%) Social Skills
3 40 (16.81%) Banking
4 25 (10.50%) Public Sector
5 14 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (5.88%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (4.20%) Retail
7 9 (3.78%) Front Office
7 9 (3.78%) Investment Banking
8 8 (3.36%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.10%) Advertising
10 2 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.84%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.42%) Electronics
11 1 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.42%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.42%) Military
11 1 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.42%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 58 (24.37%) Developer
2 31 (13.03%) Data Engineer
3 22 (9.24%) Senior
4 20 (8.40%) Administrator
4 20 (8.40%) Java Developer
4 20 (8.40%) Python Developer
5 17 (7.14%) Linux Administrator
6 16 (6.72%) DBA
6 16 (6.72%) Support Engineer
7 13 (5.46%) DevOps Engineer
7 13 (5.46%) Oracle DBA
8 12 (5.04%) Analyst
9 11 (4.62%) Consultant
10 9 (3.78%) AWS DevOps
10 9 (3.78%) Database Engineer
10 9 (3.78%) Support Analyst
10 9 (3.78%) Technical Support
11 8 (3.36%) AWS Engineer
11 8 (3.36%) Electronic Trading Developer
11 8 (3.36%) Oracle Database Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (10.92%) RESTful
2 17 (7.14%) Middleware
3 16 (6.72%) JSON
3 16 (6.72%) Spring
4 15 (6.30%) LDAP
4 15 (6.30%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 15 (6.30%) Spring Boot
5 12 (5.04%) Kafka
6 11 (4.62%) Elastic Stack
7 10 (4.20%) FastAPI
8 9 (3.78%) Django
8 9 (3.78%) Flask
8 9 (3.78%) HTML
8 9 (3.78%) Pandas
9 8 (3.36%) CSS
9 8 (3.36%) REST
9 8 (3.36%) Web Services
10 7 (2.94%) Node.js
10 7 (2.94%) React
10 7 (2.94%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 23 (9.66%) Management Information System
2 16 (6.72%) Data Centre
3 13 (5.46%) Linux Command Line
4 12 (5.04%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.36%) Fixed Income
5 8 (3.36%) Mainframe
6 7 (2.94%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (2.94%) Hedge funds
7 6 (2.52%) Data Structures
7 6 (2.52%) DataPower
7 6 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.52%) Online Banking
7 6 (2.52%) Product Ownership
7 6 (2.52%) Public Cloud
8 5 (2.10%) Derivative
8 5 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (2.10%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.68%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (1.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 145 (60.92%) Linux
2 104 (43.70%) Unix
3 35 (14.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (9.66%) Windows
5 12 (5.04%) CentOS
6 7 (2.94%) zOS
7 6 (2.52%) Solaris
7 6 (2.52%) Windows Server
8 5 (2.10%) Apple iOS
9 3 (1.26%) AIX
9 3 (1.26%) Android
10 2 (0.84%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.84%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.84%) VMS
11 1 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.42%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.42%) SUSE
11 1 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (39.08%) CI/CD
2 62 (26.05%) DevOps
3 48 (20.17%) Agile
3 48 (20.17%) Problem-Solving
4 40 (16.81%) Infrastructure as Code
5 38 (15.97%) Performance Tuning
6 37 (15.55%) Containerisation
7 35 (14.71%) Analytics
8 33 (13.87%) Migration
9 28 (11.76%) Microservices
10 26 (10.92%) Performance Optimisation
11 24 (10.08%) AI
11 24 (10.08%) Data Pipeline
12 23 (9.66%) Continuous Improvement
12 23 (9.66%) ETL
12 23 (9.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 23 (9.66%) Scrum
13 20 (8.40%) High Availability
13 20 (8.40%) Observability
14 19 (7.98%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 117 (49.16%) SQL
2 105 (44.12%) Python
3 64 (26.89%) Java
4 32 (13.45%) PL/SQL
5 21 (8.82%) Bash
5 21 (8.82%) JavaScript
6 14 (5.88%) Korn
7 13 (5.46%) Perl
8 11 (4.62%) MATLAB
8 11 (4.62%) PowerShell
9 9 (3.78%) C#
10 8 (3.36%) C++
11 6 (2.52%) C
11 6 (2.52%) JCL
11 6 (2.52%) Ruby
11 6 (2.52%) TypeScript
12 5 (2.10%) Groovy
13 4 (1.68%) Go
13 4 (1.68%) Rust
14 2 (0.84%) Swift
Qualifications
1 95 (39.92%) Security Cleared
2 82 (34.45%) SC Cleared
3 24 (10.08%) Degree
4 15 (6.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (4.20%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (3.36%) DV Cleared
7 6 (2.52%) Oracle Certification
8 5 (2.10%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.26%) CISSP
10 2 (0.84%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.84%) OCP
11 1 (0.42%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.42%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.42%) CISM
11 1 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.42%) MOS
11 1 (0.42%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.42%) RHCA
11 1 (0.42%) RHCE
11 1 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.88%) SLA
2 11 (4.62%) Data Quality
3 9 (3.78%) QA
4 3 (1.26%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 3 (1.26%) FATCA
4 3 (1.26%) GDPR
4 3 (1.26%) HIPAA
4 3 (1.26%) NIST
5 1 (0.42%) DICOM
5 1 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 52 (21.85%) Docker
2 16 (6.72%) Oracle RAC
3 15 (6.30%) Active Directory
4 7 (2.94%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.10%) Postfix
5 5 (2.10%) Varnish
5 5 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.68%) NFS
6 4 (1.68%) Sendmail
7 3 (1.26%) GridGain
8 2 (0.84%) KVM
8 2 (0.84%) SRDF
9 1 (0.42%) HDFS
9 1 (0.42%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 54 (22.69%) Kubernetes
2 47 (19.75%) Ansible
3 44 (18.49%) Terraform
4 24 (10.08%) Grafana
5 23 (9.66%) Prometheus
6 20 (8.40%) Oracle RMAN
7 15 (6.30%) Podman
8 14 (5.88%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 11 (4.62%) Check_MK
9 11 (4.62%) Red Hat Satellite
10 9 (3.78%) Progress Chef
10 9 (3.78%) Puppet
11 6 (2.52%) Data Guard
12 5 (2.10%) HAProxy
12 5 (2.10%) Kibana
13 3 (1.26%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (1.26%) NetBackup
14 2 (0.84%) Argo
14 2 (0.84%) Packer
14 2 (0.84%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 82 (34.45%) Oracle
2 31 (13.03%) Red Hat
3 17 (7.14%) VMware
4 14 (5.88%) Microsoft
5 10 (4.20%) Murex
5 10 (4.20%) Sybase
6 9 (3.78%) IBM
6 9 (3.78%) Informatica
7 6 (2.52%) Google
7 6 (2.52%) Splunk
7 6 (2.52%) Talend
7 6 (2.52%) Tenable
8 5 (2.10%) Databricks
8 5 (2.10%) NVIDIA
8 5 (2.10%) Veritas
9 4 (1.68%) Cloudera
9 4 (1.68%) Hortonworks
9 4 (1.68%) SAP
9 4 (1.68%) ServiceNow
9 4 (1.68%) Solace