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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 383 277 311
Rank change year-on-year -106 +34 -84
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 252 262 288
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.53% 0.90% 0.67%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.97% 2.66% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 173 152 211
10th Percentile £329 £376 £350
25th Percentile £400 £455 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £523 £510
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% +2.45% -5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £602 £625
90th Percentile £625 £675 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £500 £465
% change year-on-year -8.20% +7.53% -13.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 15 8
10th Percentile £46.75 £66.20 £59.73
25th Percentile £47.50 - £64.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +0.97%
75th Percentile £52.50 £72.13 £67.69
90th Percentile £53.25 £87.25 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +5.58%

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 12,774 9,864 12,664
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.86% 34.04% 29.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,409 6,705 9,004
10th Percentile £352 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £763 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +0.63% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 559 238 486
10th Percentile £41.25 £25.07 £33.63
25th Percentile £54.55 £35.00 £46.48
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - +1.07%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £78.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +0.78% +3.20% -

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 14 May 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
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 14 May 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 -93 216 £475 -9.52% 61
UK excluding London -134 120 £459 -8.20% 33
London -55 100 £510 -7.27% 27
Work from Home -58 69 £488 -9.39% 18
Midlands -44 32 £470 +2.17% 4
West Midlands -40 31 £469 +1.90% 1
South East -53 29 £392 -34.67% 20
North of England -71 28 £455 -10.76% 8
East of England -23 24 £473 +45.38% 1
North West -36 13 £450 -13.42% 3
Yorkshire -61 13 £480 -4.00% 4
Scotland -41 4 - -
South West -47 2 £638 +22.30%
Wales -11 1 £345 -
East Midlands -30 1 £525 +10.53% 3
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 14 (5.56%) Apache
2 11 (4.37%) Confluence
3 8 (3.17%) Apache Spark
4 6 (2.38%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (1.59%) CICS
5 4 (1.59%) WebLogic
6 3 (1.19%) JBoss
6 3 (1.19%) nginx
6 3 (1.19%) SharePoint
6 3 (1.19%) Tomcat
6 3 (1.19%) WebSphere
6 3 (1.19%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.79%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.79%) Oracle Spatial
7 2 (0.79%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.40%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.40%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.78%) Notepad++
2 4 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.19%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.40%) Oracle 11i
2 1 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 96 (38.10%) AWS
2 51 (20.24%) Azure
3 42 (16.67%) GitHub
4 36 (14.29%) Serverless
5 35 (13.89%) GitHub Actions
6 28 (11.11%) Amazon S3
7 27 (10.71%) Amazon EC2
7 27 (10.71%) AWS Lambda
8 26 (10.32%) OpenShift
9 21 (8.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 17 (6.75%) Amazon EKS
11 14 (5.56%) AWS CloudFormation
11 14 (5.56%) Azure DevOps
12 10 (3.97%) GCP
12 10 (3.97%) PaaS
13 9 (3.57%) AWS CodePipeline
13 9 (3.57%) IaaS
14 8 (3.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 7 (2.78%) Azure AKS
15 7 (2.78%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 12 (4.76%) SSH
2 11 (4.37%) DNS
3 9 (3.57%) SAN
4 7 (2.78%) Network Security
4 7 (2.78%) PuTTY
4 7 (2.78%) TCP/IP
4 7 (2.78%) WinSCP
5 5 (1.98%) Firewall
6 3 (1.19%) HTTP
6 3 (1.19%) HTTPS
6 3 (1.19%) NAS
6 3 (1.19%) Reverse Proxy
7 2 (0.79%) AMQP
7 2 (0.79%) iSCSI
7 2 (0.79%) Multicast
7 2 (0.79%) OpenVPN
7 2 (0.79%) VPN
8 1 (0.40%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.40%) LAN
8 1 (0.40%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (9.92%) SQL Server
2 23 (9.13%) Oracle Database
2 23 (9.13%) Relational Database
3 20 (7.94%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (6.75%) Amazon RDS
5 16 (6.35%) Data Warehouse
6 15 (5.95%) MongoDB
7 13 (5.16%) Metadata
8 9 (3.57%) DynamoDB
9 8 (3.17%) NoSQL
10 7 (2.78%) Amazon Aurora
10 7 (2.78%) BusinessObjects
10 7 (2.78%) MySQL
11 6 (2.38%) Data Mart
11 6 (2.38%) DB2
12 5 (1.98%) Data Lake
12 5 (1.98%) InfluxDB
12 5 (1.98%) KDB
12 5 (1.98%) Kdb+
12 5 (1.98%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 64 (25.40%) Jenkins
2 50 (19.84%) GitLab
3 40 (15.87%) Git
4 23 (9.13%) JIRA
5 8 (3.17%) Maven
6 6 (2.38%) JUnit
6 6 (2.38%) Mockito
7 5 (1.98%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (1.98%) JMeter
7 5 (1.98%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (1.59%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.59%) PyCharm
8 4 (1.59%) PyUnit
8 4 (1.59%) SonarQube
9 3 (1.19%) Artifactory
9 3 (1.19%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.79%) Gatling
10 2 (0.79%) Gradle
10 2 (0.79%) Postman
10 2 (0.79%) Terragrunt
General
1 60 (23.81%) Social Skills
2 51 (20.24%) Finance
3 38 (15.08%) Banking
4 29 (11.51%) Public Sector
5 15 (5.95%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (4.37%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (3.97%) Front Office
7 10 (3.97%) Investment Banking
7 10 (3.97%) Retail
8 8 (3.17%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.98%) Advertising
10 3 (1.19%) Law
10 3 (1.19%) Local Government
10 3 (1.19%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.40%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.40%) Military
12 1 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.40%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 69 (27.38%) Developer
2 29 (11.51%) Data Engineer
3 26 (10.32%) Java Developer
4 22 (8.73%) Administrator
5 21 (8.33%) Senior
6 20 (7.94%) Python Developer
7 17 (6.75%) DBA
8 16 (6.35%) DevOps Engineer
8 16 (6.35%) Linux Administrator
9 15 (5.95%) Support Engineer
10 14 (5.56%) Oracle DBA
11 13 (5.16%) AWS Engineer
11 13 (5.16%) Site Engineer
11 13 (5.16%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 12 (4.76%) Analyst
12 12 (4.76%) AWS DevOps
13 11 (4.37%) Architect
14 10 (3.97%) AWS DevOps Engineer
14 10 (3.97%) Consultant
14 10 (3.97%) Database Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (7.94%) RESTful
2 17 (6.75%) Middleware
3 15 (5.95%) Kafka
3 15 (5.95%) LDAP
3 15 (5.95%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 14 (5.56%) JSON
5 13 (5.16%) Elastic Stack
5 13 (5.16%) Node.js
5 13 (5.16%) Spring
6 12 (4.76%) Spring Boot
7 9 (3.57%) Django
7 9 (3.57%) FastAPI
7 9 (3.57%) REST
8 8 (3.17%) AWS CDK
8 8 (3.17%) Flask
8 8 (3.17%) Pandas
9 7 (2.78%) .NET
9 7 (2.78%) Polars
9 7 (2.78%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (2.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (8.33%) Management Information System
2 19 (7.54%) Cloud Native
3 16 (6.35%) Data Centre
4 13 (5.16%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (3.17%) Fixed Income
5 8 (3.17%) Mainframe
6 7 (2.78%) DataPower
6 7 (2.78%) Hedge funds
6 7 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (2.78%) Public Cloud
7 6 (2.38%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.98%) Derivative
8 5 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.98%) Equities
8 5 (1.98%) Legacy Code
8 5 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.98%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.59%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 160 (63.49%) Linux
2 102 (40.48%) Unix
3 37 (14.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (9.13%) Windows
5 13 (5.16%) CentOS
6 6 (2.38%) Windows Server
7 5 (1.98%) VMS
7 5 (1.98%) zOS
8 4 (1.59%) Android
8 4 (1.59%) Apple iOS
8 4 (1.59%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.79%) AIX
9 2 (0.79%) Debian
9 2 (0.79%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.79%) Solaris
10 1 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
10 1 (0.40%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (40.08%) CI/CD
2 63 (25.00%) DevOps
3 57 (22.62%) Problem-Solving
4 54 (21.43%) Agile
5 46 (18.25%) Containerisation
6 44 (17.46%) Performance Tuning
7 43 (17.06%) Infrastructure as Code
8 39 (15.48%) Migration
9 29 (11.51%) Analytics
10 28 (11.11%) Observability
11 26 (10.32%) Microservices
11 26 (10.32%) Task Automation
12 25 (9.92%) High Availability
13 23 (9.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 23 (9.13%) ITIL
13 23 (9.13%) Performance Optimisation
14 22 (8.73%) Configuration Management
14 22 (8.73%) ETL
15 21 (8.33%) Data Pipeline
16 20 (7.94%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 121 (48.02%) SQL
2 107 (42.46%) Python
3 75 (29.76%) Java
4 31 (12.30%) PL/SQL
5 24 (9.52%) Bash
5 24 (9.52%) JavaScript
6 18 (7.14%) Korn
7 14 (5.56%) Perl
8 12 (4.76%) TypeScript
9 11 (4.37%) MATLAB
10 9 (3.57%) C#
10 9 (3.57%) Go
11 8 (3.17%) C++
12 7 (2.78%) C
12 7 (2.78%) PowerShell
13 5 (1.98%) Groovy
14 4 (1.59%) JCL
14 4 (1.59%) ProC
14 4 (1.59%) Ruby
15 3 (1.19%) PHP
Qualifications
1 97 (38.49%) Security Cleared
2 84 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 18 (7.14%) Degree
4 17 (6.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (4.76%) Oracle Certification
6 9 (3.57%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.57%) DV Cleared
7 8 (3.17%) OCP
8 4 (1.59%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.19%) Azure Certification
9 3 (1.19%) CISSP
10 1 (0.40%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.40%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.40%) CISM
10 1 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.40%) MOS
10 1 (0.40%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.40%) RHCA
10 1 (0.40%) RHCE
10 1 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (7.14%) SLA
2 9 (3.57%) Data Quality
3 8 (3.17%) QA
4 6 (2.38%) GDPR
5 3 (1.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 3 (1.19%) FATCA
5 3 (1.19%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.19%) NIST
6 1 (0.40%) DICOM
6 1 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 55 (21.83%) Docker
2 15 (5.95%) Oracle RAC
3 14 (5.56%) Active Directory
4 11 (4.37%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.98%) Postfix
5 5 (1.98%) Varnish
5 5 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.59%) NFS
6 4 (1.59%) Sendmail
7 3 (1.19%) GridGain
8 2 (0.79%) HDFS
8 2 (0.79%) SRDF
9 1 (0.40%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 56 (22.22%) Kubernetes
2 52 (20.63%) Ansible
3 51 (20.24%) Terraform
4 30 (11.90%) Grafana
5 29 (11.51%) Prometheus
6 22 (8.73%) Oracle RMAN
7 17 (6.75%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 13 (5.16%) Progress Chef
9 12 (4.76%) Podman
9 12 (4.76%) Red Hat Satellite
10 11 (4.37%) Check_MK
11 8 (3.17%) Data Guard
12 7 (2.78%) Puppet
13 6 (2.38%) Kibana
14 5 (1.98%) HAProxy
15 4 (1.59%) Docker Swarm
16 2 (0.79%) Argo
16 2 (0.79%) Packer
16 2 (0.79%) Sysdig
16 2 (0.79%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 87 (34.52%) Oracle
2 39 (15.48%) Red Hat
3 19 (7.54%) VMware
4 17 (6.75%) Microsoft
5 11 (4.37%) Murex
6 10 (3.97%) IBM
7 9 (3.57%) Informatica
8 8 (3.17%) Sybase
9 7 (2.78%) Dell
9 7 (2.78%) Splunk
10 6 (2.38%) ServiceNow
10 6 (2.38%) Talend
11 5 (1.98%) Cloudera
11 5 (1.98%) Databricks
11 5 (1.98%) Dynatrace
11 5 (1.98%) Veritas
12 4 (1.59%) Hortonworks
12 4 (1.59%) Solace
13 3 (1.19%) CyberArk
13 3 (1.19%) Pure Storage