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

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 307 293 300
Rank change year-on-year -14 +7 -27
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 315 270 323
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.81% 0.75%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.74% 2.48% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 196 153 221
10th Percentile £330 £360 £400
25th Percentile £400 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year -6.90% -5.66% -1.85%
75th Percentile £559 £580 £630
90th Percentile £625 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.47% -2.11% -11.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 9 4
10th Percentile £53.55 - £32.95
25th Percentile £65.00 £63.50 £51.14
Median hourly rate £68.00 £72.50 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -6.21% +13.73% -12.67%
75th Percentile £81.50 £97.50 £68.25
90th Percentile £110.00 - £74.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year - +6.67% -12.67%

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 11,481 10,872 13,070
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.00% 32.56% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,607 6,960 9,305
10th Percentile £350 £350 £355
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £619 £645 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.05% -2.50% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 380 247 413
10th Percentile £32.41 £21.25 £35.10
25th Percentile £51.16 £38.38 £47.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £69.58 £68.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.33 £85.00 £78.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +3.17% -3.08% -

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Shell Script in the UK

Shell Script
Top 16 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 31 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
England -15 249 £475 -7.77% 127
UK excluding London +37 190 £477 +2.47% 110
Work from Home -3 102 £438 -14.15% 38
London -57 88 £439 -16.43% 25
North of England -15 53 £480 -3.27% 28
Scotland +18 38 £497 +5.64% 4
Yorkshire -20 37 £500 -16.49% 11
South East -9 34 £400 -4.76% 32
Midlands -13 31 £516 +22.86% 16
West Midlands -10 29 £525 +19.32% 8
South West +3 21 £525 -18.29% 8
North West -11 16 £453 +25.83% 16
East of England -5 14 £458 - 22
East Midlands -14 2 £425 +19.38% 7
Wales - 1 £265 - 1
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 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 17 (5.40%) Apache
2 11 (3.49%) Apache Spark
2 11 (3.49%) JBoss
3 8 (2.54%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (2.54%) IIS
3 8 (2.54%) iPlanet
3 8 (2.54%) WebSphere
3 8 (2.54%) WebSphere Application Server
4 3 (0.95%) Confluence
4 3 (0.95%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.95%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.63%) SAS
6 1 (0.32%) CICS
6 1 (0.32%) nginx
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.32%) WebLogic
Applications
1 8 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (2.54%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.59%) Oracle Applications
2 4 (1.27%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle 11i
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 3 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) ION MarketView
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 98 (31.11%) AWS
2 48 (15.24%) Azure
3 45 (14.29%) GitHub
4 34 (10.79%) OpenShift
5 26 (8.25%) Serverless
6 24 (7.62%) Amazon EC2
6 24 (7.62%) Amazon S3
7 23 (7.30%) AWS CloudFormation
8 21 (6.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 21 (6.67%) AWS Lambda
9 19 (6.03%) GCP
10 16 (5.08%) Amazon EKS
11 15 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (3.17%) Amazon ECS
12 10 (3.17%) PaaS
13 9 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (2.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (2.54%) OCI
15 6 (1.90%) Entra ID
16 5 (1.59%) AWS Fargate
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.44%) SSH
2 13 (4.13%) DNS
2 13 (4.13%) SAN
2 13 (4.13%) TCP/IP
3 11 (3.49%) Firewall
4 10 (3.17%) Kerberos
5 7 (2.22%) HTTP
6 4 (1.27%) Network Security
7 3 (0.95%) NAS
8 2 (0.63%) SSL
9 1 (0.32%) BGP
9 1 (0.32%) FTP
9 1 (0.32%) IPsec
9 1 (0.32%) LAN
9 1 (0.32%) SMTP
9 1 (0.32%) SNMP
9 1 (0.32%) VLAN
9 1 (0.32%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (17.14%) Oracle Database
2 46 (14.60%) MongoDB
3 31 (9.84%) Relational Database
4 27 (8.57%) Amazon RDS
5 25 (7.94%) DB2
6 21 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
7 20 (6.35%) NoSQL
8 16 (5.08%) SQL Server
9 11 (3.49%) Data Warehouse
9 11 (3.49%) Hadoop
10 10 (3.17%) MySQL
11 9 (2.86%) Elasticsearch
12 8 (2.54%) Apache Hive
13 6 (1.90%) Big Data
13 6 (1.90%) Couchbase
13 6 (1.90%) HBase
13 6 (1.90%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (1.59%) Amazon Redshift
14 5 (1.59%) OLTP
14 5 (1.59%) Redis
Development Applications
1 83 (26.35%) Jenkins
2 62 (19.68%) Git
3 44 (13.97%) GitLab
4 31 (9.84%) JUnit
5 17 (5.40%) JIRA
6 11 (3.49%) Maven
6 11 (3.49%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (2.54%) Bitbucket Server
7 8 (2.54%) CA Release Automation
7 8 (2.54%) ClearCase
7 8 (2.54%) Mockito
7 8 (2.54%) Postman
8 7 (2.22%) Subversion
9 6 (1.90%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 5 (1.59%) REST Assured
10 5 (1.59%) SoapUI
10 5 (1.59%) SonarQube
10 5 (1.59%) Xcode
10 5 (1.59%) XCTest
11 4 (1.27%) Terragrunt
General
1 116 (36.83%) Social Skills
2 63 (20.00%) Finance
3 56 (17.78%) Analytical Skills
4 44 (13.97%) Banking
5 31 (9.84%) Public Sector
6 27 (8.57%) Investment Banking
7 14 (4.44%) Front Office
8 4 (1.27%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.27%) Financial Institution
8 4 (1.27%) Law
8 4 (1.27%) Multimedia
9 3 (0.95%) Local Government
9 3 (0.95%) Manufacturing
9 3 (0.95%) Military
9 3 (0.95%) Retail
9 3 (0.95%) Wearables
10 2 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.63%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.32%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 83 (26.35%) Developer
2 44 (13.97%) Java Developer
3 37 (11.75%) DevOps Engineer
4 35 (11.11%) Senior
5 28 (8.89%) Administrator
6 23 (7.30%) SQL Developer
7 22 (6.98%) Investment Banking Java Developer
8 18 (5.71%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 17 (5.40%) AWS Engineer
9 17 (5.40%) DBA
9 17 (5.40%) Support Engineer
10 16 (5.08%) Senior Developer
11 15 (4.76%) Site Engineer
12 14 (4.44%) Senior Java Developer
13 13 (4.13%) Oracle DBA
14 12 (3.81%) Linux Engineer
14 12 (3.81%) Product Engineer
14 12 (3.81%) Products Support Engineer
14 12 (3.81%) Software Support Engineer
15 11 (3.49%) Senior Investment Banking Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (18.10%) Kafka
2 35 (11.11%) Spring
3 23 (7.30%) JMS
4 20 (6.35%) Middleware
4 20 (6.35%) Node.js
5 19 (6.03%) REST
6 16 (5.08%) Elastic Stack
7 15 (4.76%) RESTful
7 15 (4.76%) SOAP
8 14 (4.44%) FastAPI
9 12 (3.81%) Spring Boot
10 11 (3.49%) LDAP
11 10 (3.17%) OpenID
12 9 (2.86%) AWS CDK
12 9 (2.86%) HTML
12 9 (2.86%) OAuth
12 9 (2.86%) SAML
13 8 (2.54%) CSS
13 8 (2.54%) OpenAPI
13 8 (2.54%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (7.62%) Data Structures
2 23 (7.30%) Equities
3 15 (4.76%) Cloud Native
4 11 (3.49%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.86%) Data Centre
5 9 (2.86%) Distributed Systems
5 9 (2.86%) Linux Command Line
6 8 (2.54%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.54%) Legacy Applications
6 8 (2.54%) Replication
7 7 (2.22%) Enterprise Cloud
7 7 (2.22%) Enterprise Storage
8 6 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.90%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.90%) PKI
9 5 (1.59%) Mainframe
9 5 (1.59%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (1.27%) DataPower
10 4 (1.27%) Hedge funds
10 4 (1.27%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 223 (70.79%) Linux
2 98 (31.11%) Unix
3 42 (13.33%) Windows
4 40 (12.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (5.08%) Ubuntu
6 13 (4.13%) CentOS
7 11 (3.49%) Windows Server
8 7 (2.22%) VMS
9 5 (1.59%) Android
9 5 (1.59%) Apple iOS
10 4 (1.27%) AIX
10 4 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (1.27%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (1.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.95%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.63%) Debian
12 2 (0.63%) Solaris
13 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (35.56%) CI/CD
2 108 (34.29%) Problem-Solving
3 102 (32.38%) Agile
4 76 (24.13%) DevOps
5 55 (17.46%) Performance Tuning
6 50 (15.87%) Infrastructure as Code
7 48 (15.24%) SDLC
7 48 (15.24%) Task Automation
8 43 (13.65%) Containerisation
9 32 (10.16%) Software Engineering
10 30 (9.52%) Observability
11 29 (9.21%) ITIL
12 28 (8.89%) Migration
13 27 (8.57%) Multithreading
13 27 (8.57%) Root Cause Analysis
14 26 (8.25%) Infrastructure Automation
15 25 (7.94%) Microservices
16 23 (7.30%) Database Tuning
17 22 (6.98%) Open Source
17 22 (6.98%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 162 (51.43%) Python
2 112 (35.56%) SQL
3 92 (29.21%) Java
4 44 (13.97%) JavaScript
5 39 (12.38%) Bash
6 23 (7.30%) C
7 21 (6.67%) Perl
8 18 (5.71%) PL/SQL
8 18 (5.71%) TypeScript
9 17 (5.40%) Go
10 16 (5.08%) C++
11 13 (4.13%) Groovy
12 12 (3.81%) Ada
13 9 (2.86%) PowerShell
14 7 (2.22%) Korn
15 5 (1.59%) ProC
16 3 (0.95%) MATLAB
17 2 (0.63%) Bourne shell
17 2 (0.63%) Search Processing Language
17 2 (0.63%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 81 (25.71%) Security Cleared
2 59 (18.73%) SC Cleared
3 17 (5.40%) BPSS Clearance
4 14 (4.44%) Degree
4 14 (4.44%) DV Cleared
5 10 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.22%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.90%) OCP
7 6 (1.90%) Oracle Certification
8 4 (1.27%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.63%) RHCE
9 2 (0.63%) RHCSA
9 2 (0.63%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.44%) SLA
2 11 (3.49%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.22%) QA
4 5 (1.59%) NCSC
5 4 (1.27%) GDPR
6 2 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.32%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 64 (20.32%) Docker
2 19 (6.03%) Active Directory
3 11 (3.49%) Oracle RAC
4 10 (3.17%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (2.54%) Tivoli Directory Server
6 7 (2.22%) HDFS
6 7 (2.22%) KVM
6 7 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.63%) GridGain
7 2 (0.63%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.63%) vSphere
8 1 (0.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.32%) Snort
8 1 (0.32%) Squid
8 1 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 79 (25.08%) Ansible
2 72 (22.86%) Kubernetes
3 69 (21.90%) Terraform
4 39 (12.38%) Grafana
5 35 (11.11%) Prometheus
6 22 (6.98%) Progress Chef
7 14 (4.44%) Data Guard
7 14 (4.44%) Puppet
7 14 (4.44%) Red Hat Satellite
8 10 (3.17%) yum
9 9 (2.86%) Single Sign-On
9 9 (2.86%) Tivoli
10 8 (2.54%) CA Single Sign-On
10 8 (2.54%) CA Wily
10 8 (2.54%) Packer
11 7 (2.22%) Hadoop YARN
12 6 (1.90%) NetBackup
12 6 (1.90%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 5 (1.59%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 88 (27.94%) Oracle
2 52 (16.51%) Red Hat
3 47 (14.92%) Splunk
4 27 (8.57%) Microsoft
5 26 (8.25%) Sybase
6 22 (6.98%) IBM
7 15 (4.76%) NetApp
8 13 (4.13%) VMware
9 12 (3.81%) Dynatrace
9 12 (3.81%) ServiceNow
10 11 (3.49%) AppDynamics
10 11 (3.49%) Dell
11 10 (3.17%) MuleSoft
12 9 (2.86%) Google
13 8 (2.54%) Broadcom
13 8 (2.54%) Confluent
14 7 (2.22%) 3PAR
14 7 (2.22%) HP
14 7 (2.22%) Veritas
15 6 (1.90%) Nimble Storage