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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 409 272 256
Rank change year-on-year -137 -16 +14
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 270 320 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.98% 0.93%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.92% 2.96% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 188 197 243
10th Percentile £336 £330 £336
25th Percentile £404 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £591 £600 £603
90th Percentile £705 £638 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 13 8
10th Percentile £30.85 £63.20 £62.98
25th Percentile £38.50 - £63.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.79% +4.62% -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.21 - £69.88
90th Percentile £68.88 £89.60 £85.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -22.79% +4.62% -6.31%

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 14,066 10,796 12,242
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.26% 32.94% 31.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,157 7,202 8,517
10th Percentile £363 £340 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £503 £533
Median % change year-on-year +2.99% -5.72% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 522 290 394
10th Percentile £29.96 £28.24 £27.00
25th Percentile £50.88 £35.25 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +8.33%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £80.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +8.33%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 21 August 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 -139 223 £481 -3.80% 52
UK excluding London -151 139 £450 -10.00% 49
London -75 111 £550 +4.76% 12
Work from Home -93 75 £470 -1.05% 20
North of England -110 33 £419 -16.25% 18
South East -62 32 £438 -27.08% 8
Scotland -49 26 £425 -10.99% 2
Midlands -44 21 £470 -1.05% 6
Yorkshire -65 20 £425 -15.00% 5
West Midlands -45 18 £470 -6.00% 4
East of England -13 16 £350 +7.69% 2
North West -54 11 £375 -6.25% 9
South West -60 8 £544 +8.75% 10
East Midlands -19 3 £481 +33.61% 2
North East - 3 £463 - 4
Northern Ireland +3 2 £190 - 1
Wales -17 1 £265 -6.19% 2

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 20 (7.41%) Apache
2 14 (5.19%) Apache Airflow
3 12 (4.44%) SAS
4 8 (2.96%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.22%) CICS
5 6 (2.22%) Oracle Workflow
5 6 (2.22%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.85%) Confluence
7 4 (1.48%) WebSphere
8 3 (1.11%) JBoss
8 3 (1.11%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.74%) nginx
9 2 (0.74%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.74%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.74%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.37%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 7 (2.59%) Notepad++
Business Applications
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle Assets
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle EBS
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle E-Business Tax
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle FAH
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle General Ledger
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle Internet Expenses
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle iProcurement
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle Payables
1 4 (1.48%) Oracle Receivables
2 3 (1.11%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.37%) FLEXCUBE
3 1 (0.37%) Front Arena
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.37%) Summit
3 1 (0.37%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 97 (35.93%) AWS
2 64 (23.70%) Azure
3 51 (18.89%) GCP
4 47 (17.41%) GitHub
5 33 (12.22%) Serverless
6 27 (10.00%) AWS Lambda
7 26 (9.63%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (8.89%) Amazon S3
9 16 (5.93%) Amazon EC2
10 14 (5.19%) OpenShift
11 12 (4.44%) dbt
12 11 (4.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 9 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (3.33%) Power Platform
13 9 (3.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (2.96%) AWS CloudFormation
15 7 (2.59%) Amazon SQS
16 6 (2.22%) Azure Key Vault
16 6 (2.22%) Cloud Composer
16 6 (2.22%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (5.93%) DNS
2 10 (3.70%) SSL
2 10 (3.70%) TCP/IP
3 9 (3.33%) HTTP
4 7 (2.59%) Network Security
4 7 (2.59%) PuTTY
4 7 (2.59%) VPN
4 7 (2.59%) WinSCP
5 6 (2.22%) SAN
6 5 (1.85%) Firewall
6 5 (1.85%) SSH
7 4 (1.48%) MQTT
7 4 (1.48%) Multicast
8 3 (1.11%) 5G
8 3 (1.11%) BGP
8 3 (1.11%) HTTPS
9 2 (0.74%) 4G
9 2 (0.74%) iSCSI
9 2 (0.74%) OpenVPN
9 2 (0.74%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (10.74%) Data Warehouse
1 29 (10.74%) Oracle Database
2 25 (9.26%) SQL Server
3 18 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (6.67%) Relational Database
4 17 (6.30%) MySQL
5 16 (5.93%) Db2
6 15 (5.56%) Metadata
7 14 (5.19%) MongoDB
8 11 (4.07%) Data Lake
8 11 (4.07%) NoSQL
8 11 (4.07%) PowerCenter
9 10 (3.70%) Amazon Aurora
9 10 (3.70%) Amazon RDS
9 10 (3.70%) BusinessObjects
9 10 (3.70%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (3.33%) BigQuery
10 9 (3.33%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (3.33%) Star Schema
11 8 (2.96%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 66 (24.44%) Git
2 56 (20.74%) Jenkins
3 33 (12.22%) GitLab
4 19 (7.04%) Maven
5 13 (4.81%) JUnit
6 12 (4.44%) JIRA
7 11 (4.07%) Claude Code
8 9 (3.33%) Sonatype Nexus
9 8 (2.96%) SonarQube
10 6 (2.22%) Mockito
11 5 (1.85%) Bitbucket
11 5 (1.85%) Gradle
11 5 (1.85%) Oracle Forms
12 4 (1.48%) Artifactory
12 4 (1.48%) JDeveloper
13 3 (1.11%) JMeter
13 3 (1.11%) webpack
13 3 (1.11%) Xcode
14 2 (0.74%) Gatling
14 2 (0.74%) Selenium
General
1 90 (33.33%) Finance
2 59 (21.85%) Banking
3 46 (17.04%) Social Skills
4 23 (8.52%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (7.78%) Public Sector
6 16 (5.93%) Investment Banking
7 7 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.59%) Front Office
8 5 (1.85%) Telecoms
9 4 (1.48%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.48%) Retail
10 3 (1.11%) Advertising
10 3 (1.11%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.74%) Prime Brokerage
11 2 (0.74%) Publishing
12 1 (0.37%) Electronics
12 1 (0.37%) Legal
12 1 (0.37%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 66 (24.44%) Developer
2 37 (13.70%) Data Engineer
2 37 (13.70%) Senior
3 28 (10.37%) Python Developer
4 18 (6.67%) Java Developer
4 18 (6.67%) Senior Developer
5 17 (6.30%) Architect
6 16 (5.93%) Cloud Engineer
7 14 (5.19%) Support Engineer
8 13 (4.81%) DBA
8 13 (4.81%) DevOps Engineer
8 13 (4.81%) GCP Engineer
9 11 (4.07%) Administrator
9 11 (4.07%) Java Engineer
9 11 (4.07%) Oracle DBA
10 10 (3.70%) Analyst
11 9 (3.33%) Software Engineer
12 8 (2.96%) AWS DevOps
12 8 (2.96%) Linux Administrator
12 8 (2.96%) Senior Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (22.22%) Terraform
2 37 (13.70%) RESTful
3 23 (8.52%) Kafka
3 23 (8.52%) REST
4 20 (7.41%) Spring
5 19 (7.04%) FastAPI
5 19 (7.04%) Flask
5 19 (7.04%) Spring Boot
6 17 (6.30%) Pandas
7 15 (5.56%) JSON
8 13 (4.81%) CSS
8 13 (4.81%) HTML
8 13 (4.81%) Middleware
9 12 (4.44%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 12 (4.44%) PySpark
10 10 (3.70%) Django
10 10 (3.70%) Elastic Stack
10 10 (3.70%) RabbitMQ
11 9 (3.33%) Web Services
12 8 (2.96%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 30 (11.11%) Linux Command Line
2 14 (5.19%) Cloud Native
2 14 (5.19%) Management Information System
3 11 (4.07%) Fixed Income
4 8 (2.96%) Data Centre
4 8 (2.96%) Enterprise Software
4 8 (2.96%) Mainframe
4 8 (2.96%) Replication
5 7 (2.59%) Derivative
5 7 (2.59%) Enterprise Cloud
5 7 (2.59%) Hedge funds
5 7 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
6 6 (2.22%) DataPower
6 6 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (2.22%) Market Risk
6 6 (2.22%) Online Banking
6 6 (2.22%) Product Ownership
6 6 (2.22%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.48%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 149 (55.19%) Linux
2 125 (46.30%) Unix
3 24 (8.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (7.78%) Windows
5 9 (3.33%) Solaris
6 7 (2.59%) zOS
7 5 (1.85%) AIX
7 5 (1.85%) CentOS
7 5 (1.85%) Windows Server
8 3 (1.11%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.74%) HPUX
9 2 (0.74%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.74%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.74%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
10 1 (0.37%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.37%) SUSE
10 1 (0.37%) VMS
10 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (41.85%) CI/CD
2 78 (28.89%) DevOps
3 57 (21.11%) Infrastructure as Code
4 52 (19.26%) Containerisation
5 45 (16.67%) AI
5 45 (16.67%) Performance Tuning
6 44 (16.30%) Migration
7 43 (15.93%) Data Pipeline
8 42 (15.56%) Agile
9 39 (14.44%) Performance Optimisation
10 37 (13.70%) Analytics
10 37 (13.70%) ETL
10 37 (13.70%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (11.85%) Observability
12 31 (11.48%) Code Quality
12 31 (11.48%) Root Cause Analysis
13 30 (11.11%) Microservices
14 28 (10.37%) Test Automation
15 26 (9.63%) Data Modelling
16 25 (9.26%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 144 (53.33%) SQL
2 140 (51.85%) Python
3 67 (24.81%) Java
4 44 (16.30%) Bash
5 43 (15.93%) PL/SQL
6 17 (6.30%) JavaScript
6 17 (6.30%) PowerShell
7 14 (5.19%) Groovy
8 12 (4.44%) Korn
9 11 (4.07%) Perl
10 8 (2.96%) C#
11 7 (2.59%) JCL
12 6 (2.22%) Ruby
12 6 (2.22%) Scala
12 6 (2.22%) TypeScript
13 5 (1.85%) Go
14 4 (1.48%) C
14 4 (1.48%) C++
14 4 (1.48%) MATLAB
14 4 (1.48%) Rust
Qualifications
1 82 (30.37%) Security Cleared
2 64 (23.70%) SC Cleared
3 26 (9.63%) Degree
4 15 (5.56%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.59%) DV Cleared
7 6 (2.22%) AWS Certification
7 6 (2.22%) Oracle Certification
8 5 (1.85%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.11%) CISSP
10 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 2 (0.74%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.74%) CISM
10 2 (0.74%) OCP
11 1 (0.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.37%) GIAC
11 1 (0.37%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 1 (0.37%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.37%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (11.85%) Data Quality
2 13 (4.81%) QA
3 7 (2.59%) SLA
4 6 (2.22%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.11%) Disclosure Scotland
6 2 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (0.74%) GDPR
6 2 (0.74%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.74%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.74%) NIST
7 1 (0.37%) DICOM
7 1 (0.37%) ISO 15022
7 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.37%) SEPA
System Software
1 62 (22.96%) Docker
2 12 (4.44%) Oracle RAC
3 9 (3.33%) Active Directory
4 6 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.85%) zsh
6 4 (1.48%) NFS
6 4 (1.48%) Postfix
6 4 (1.48%) Sendmail
6 4 (1.48%) Varnish
7 3 (1.11%) GridGain
8 2 (0.74%) KVM
8 2 (0.74%) SRDF
9 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 76 (28.15%) Kubernetes
2 49 (18.15%) Ansible
3 23 (8.52%) Grafana
4 20 (7.41%) Prometheus
5 17 (6.30%) Oracle RMAN
6 12 (4.44%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 9 (3.33%) Control-M
8 8 (2.96%) Data Guard
8 8 (2.96%) Podman
8 8 (2.96%) Puppet
9 7 (2.59%) Kibana
10 5 (1.85%) Progress Chef
11 4 (1.48%) Check_MK
11 4 (1.48%) HAProxy
11 4 (1.48%) HP ALM
11 4 (1.48%) NetBackup
11 4 (1.48%) Red Hat Satellite
12 3 (1.11%) ITRS Geneos
12 3 (1.11%) logstash
12 3 (1.11%) Packer
Vendors
1 92 (34.07%) Oracle
2 32 (11.85%) Google
3 20 (7.41%) Informatica
4 18 (6.67%) Red Hat
5 17 (6.30%) Splunk
6 14 (5.19%) Microsoft
7 13 (4.81%) IBM
8 12 (4.44%) Sybase
9 11 (4.07%) VMware
10 10 (3.70%) New Relic
11 8 (2.96%) HP
12 7 (2.59%) Dynatrace
12 7 (2.59%) ServiceNow
12 7 (2.59%) Solace
13 6 (2.22%) Murex
13 6 (2.22%) Tenable
14 5 (1.85%) Cisco
14 5 (1.85%) Databricks
14 5 (1.85%) NVIDIA
14 5 (1.85%) SAP