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 3 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 398 261 291
Rank change year-on-year -137 +30 -61
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 244 284 325
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.99% 0.75%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.86% 2.89% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 165 236
10th Percentile £325 £358 £332
25th Percentile £400 £438 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £520 £501
Median % change year-on-year -10.18% +3.79% -8.03%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £617
90th Percentile £635 £650 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £457 £500 £460
% change year-on-year -8.60% +8.70% -13.70%
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% -2.35%
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% +0.97%

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 13,131 9,828 12,943
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.88% 34.16% 30.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,589 6,685 9,180
10th Percentile £358 £358 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £650
90th Percentile £713 £756 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 559 227 522
10th Percentile £36.25 £27.00 £31.25
25th Percentile £53.88 £34.20 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -7.26% -0.80%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.80 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -119 210 £474 -9.76% 50
UK excluding London -142 120 £457 -8.60% 34
London -88 95 £518 -5.91% 18
Work from Home -75 62 £500 +2.04% 35
South East -56 31 £400 -33.33% 18
North of England -88 29 £460 -8.00% 8
Midlands -44 27 £467 -0.14% 3
West Midlands -46 26 £466 +1.29% 2
East of England -20 25 £470 +44.62% 4
Yorkshire -69 15 £480 -4.00% 3
North West -39 12 £450 -11.05% 5
Scotland -54 3 - - 1
South West -43 2 £556 +6.71% 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £190 -
Wales -12 1 £345 -
East Midlands -27 1 £525 +10.53% 1
North East - 1 £413 -

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 (5.33%) Apache
2 12 (4.92%) Confluence
3 7 (2.87%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (2.87%) Apache Spark
4 6 (2.46%) CICS
5 4 (1.64%) WebLogic
6 3 (1.23%) JBoss
6 3 (1.23%) nginx
6 3 (1.23%) Tomcat
6 3 (1.23%) WebSphere
6 3 (1.23%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.82%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.82%) Oracle Spatial
7 2 (0.82%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.82%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.41%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.41%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.87%) Notepad++
2 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.23%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.41%) FLEXCUBE
2 1 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.41%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 89 (36.48%) AWS
2 51 (20.90%) Azure
3 42 (17.21%) GitHub
4 36 (14.75%) GitHub Actions
4 36 (14.75%) Serverless
5 25 (10.25%) Amazon S3
5 25 (10.25%) AWS Lambda
6 23 (9.43%) Amazon EC2
7 20 (8.20%) OpenShift
8 17 (6.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (6.56%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (5.74%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (5.33%) AWS CloudFormation
11 13 (5.33%) GCP
12 10 (4.10%) PaaS
13 9 (3.69%) AWS CodePipeline
14 8 (3.28%) IaaS
14 8 (3.28%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 6 (2.46%) Azure AKS
15 6 (2.46%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.51%) DNS
2 10 (4.10%) SSH
3 8 (3.28%) Network Security
3 8 (3.28%) SAN
4 7 (2.87%) PuTTY
4 7 (2.87%) WinSCP
5 6 (2.46%) TCP/IP
6 5 (2.05%) Firewall
7 3 (1.23%) HTTPS
7 3 (1.23%) MQTT
7 3 (1.23%) NAS
7 3 (1.23%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.82%) AMQP
8 2 (0.82%) HTTP
8 2 (0.82%) iSCSI
8 2 (0.82%) Multicast
8 2 (0.82%) OpenVPN
8 2 (0.82%) VPN
9 1 (0.41%) Kerberos
9 1 (0.41%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (11.07%) SQL Server
2 25 (10.25%) Oracle Database
3 20 (8.20%) Relational Database
4 19 (7.79%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (6.97%) MongoDB
6 16 (6.56%) Data Warehouse
7 14 (5.74%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (5.33%) Metadata
9 10 (4.10%) BusinessObjects
9 10 (4.10%) DB2
10 9 (3.69%) DynamoDB
11 7 (2.87%) Amazon Aurora
11 7 (2.87%) MySQL
11 7 (2.87%) Oracle Reports
12 6 (2.46%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (2.46%) NoSQL
13 5 (2.05%) Data Lake
13 5 (2.05%) Data Mart
13 5 (2.05%) Kdb+
13 5 (2.05%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 61 (25.00%) Jenkins
2 49 (20.08%) GitLab
3 45 (18.44%) Git
4 22 (9.02%) JIRA
5 7 (2.87%) Maven
5 7 (2.87%) SonarQube
6 5 (2.05%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 5 (2.05%) JMeter
6 5 (2.05%) JUnit
6 5 (2.05%) Mockito
6 5 (2.05%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (1.64%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.23%) Artifactory
8 3 (1.23%) CircleCI
8 3 (1.23%) PyCharm
8 3 (1.23%) PyUnit
8 3 (1.23%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.82%) Gatling
9 2 (0.82%) Gradle
10 1 (0.41%) Cucumber
General
1 58 (23.77%) Social Skills
2 52 (21.31%) Finance
3 38 (15.57%) Banking
4 28 (11.48%) Public Sector
5 16 (6.56%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (4.92%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (4.10%) Front Office
7 10 (4.10%) Retail
8 9 (3.69%) Investment Banking
9 8 (3.28%) Aerospace
10 5 (2.05%) Advertising
11 3 (1.23%) Law
11 3 (1.23%) Local Government
12 2 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.82%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.41%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.41%) International Banking
13 1 (0.41%) Military
13 1 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 62 (25.41%) Developer
2 31 (12.70%) Data Engineer
3 24 (9.84%) Administrator
4 23 (9.43%) Java Developer
5 21 (8.61%) Senior
6 19 (7.79%) DBA
6 19 (7.79%) Python Developer
7 17 (6.97%) Linux Administrator
8 16 (6.56%) Oracle DBA
9 15 (6.15%) DevOps Engineer
9 15 (6.15%) Support Engineer
10 12 (4.92%) Analyst
11 11 (4.51%) AWS DevOps
11 11 (4.51%) AWS Engineer
11 11 (4.51%) Consultant
12 9 (3.69%) AWS DevOps Engineer
12 9 (3.69%) Database Engineer
12 9 (3.69%) Site Engineer
12 9 (3.69%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 9 (3.69%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (9.84%) RESTful
2 16 (6.56%) Middleware
3 15 (6.15%) JSON
3 15 (6.15%) Kafka
3 15 (6.15%) LDAP
3 15 (6.15%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 12 (4.92%) Spring
5 11 (4.51%) Elastic Stack
5 11 (4.51%) Node.js
5 11 (4.51%) Spring Boot
6 9 (3.69%) FastAPI
7 8 (3.28%) AWS CDK
7 8 (3.28%) Django
7 8 (3.28%) Flask
7 8 (3.28%) Pandas
7 8 (3.28%) React
7 8 (3.28%) REST
7 8 (3.28%) Web Services
8 7 (2.87%) .NET
8 7 (2.87%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 22 (9.02%) Management Information System
2 16 (6.56%) Data Centre
3 15 (6.15%) Cloud Native
4 13 (5.33%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (3.28%) Fixed Income
5 8 (3.28%) Mainframe
6 7 (2.87%) Hedge funds
6 7 (2.87%) Public Cloud
7 6 (2.46%) Data Structures
7 6 (2.46%) DataPower
7 6 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.46%) Online Banking
8 5 (2.05%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (2.05%) Derivative
8 5 (2.05%) Equities
8 5 (2.05%) Legacy Code
8 5 (2.05%) Product Ownership
8 5 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (2.05%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 154 (63.11%) Linux
2 100 (40.98%) Unix
3 38 (15.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (9.84%) Windows
5 13 (5.33%) CentOS
6 7 (2.87%) zOS
7 6 (2.46%) Windows Server
8 5 (2.05%) Solaris
9 4 (1.64%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.23%) Android
11 2 (0.82%) AIX
11 2 (0.82%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.82%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.82%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.82%) VMS
12 1 (0.41%) Amazon Linux
12 1 (0.41%) Debian
12 1 (0.41%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (41.39%) CI/CD
2 66 (27.05%) DevOps
3 55 (22.54%) Problem-Solving
4 54 (22.13%) Agile
5 44 (18.03%) Infrastructure as Code
6 42 (17.21%) Performance Tuning
7 40 (16.39%) Containerisation
8 33 (13.52%) Migration
9 31 (12.70%) Analytics
10 26 (10.66%) Microservices
11 25 (10.25%) Observability
12 24 (9.84%) High Availability
12 24 (9.84%) Task Automation
13 23 (9.43%) Continuous Improvement
13 23 (9.43%) Performance Optimisation
14 22 (9.02%) Data Pipeline
14 22 (9.02%) ITIL
15 21 (8.61%) ETL
15 21 (8.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 21 (8.61%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 119 (48.77%) SQL
2 107 (43.85%) Python
3 67 (27.46%) Java
4 30 (12.30%) PL/SQL
5 25 (10.25%) Bash
6 22 (9.02%) JavaScript
7 17 (6.97%) Korn
8 12 (4.92%) Perl
8 12 (4.92%) PowerShell
9 11 (4.51%) MATLAB
10 10 (4.10%) TypeScript
11 9 (3.69%) C#
12 8 (3.28%) C++
12 8 (3.28%) Go
13 7 (2.87%) C
14 6 (2.46%) JCL
15 5 (2.05%) Groovy
15 5 (2.05%) Ruby
16 4 (1.64%) ProC
17 3 (1.23%) Rust
Qualifications
1 95 (38.93%) Security Cleared
2 83 (34.02%) SC Cleared
3 22 (9.02%) Degree
4 17 (6.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (4.10%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.69%) Oracle Certification
7 8 (3.28%) DV Cleared
8 5 (2.05%) Master's Degree
8 5 (2.05%) OCP
9 3 (1.23%) Azure Certification
9 3 (1.23%) CISSP
10 1 (0.41%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.41%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.41%) CISM
10 1 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.41%) MOS
10 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.41%) RHCA
10 1 (0.41%) RHCE
10 1 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (7.38%) SLA
2 9 (3.69%) Data Quality
3 8 (3.28%) QA
4 6 (2.46%) GDPR
5 3 (1.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 3 (1.23%) FATCA
5 3 (1.23%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.23%) NIST
6 1 (0.41%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.41%) DICOM
6 1 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 53 (21.72%) Docker
2 16 (6.56%) Oracle RAC
3 14 (5.74%) Active Directory
4 8 (3.28%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.05%) Postfix
5 5 (2.05%) Varnish
5 5 (2.05%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.64%) NFS
6 4 (1.64%) Sendmail
7 3 (1.23%) GridGain
8 2 (0.82%) HDFS
8 2 (0.82%) SRDF
9 1 (0.41%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.41%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 52 (21.31%) Kubernetes
2 49 (20.08%) Ansible
2 49 (20.08%) Terraform
3 28 (11.48%) Grafana
4 27 (11.07%) Prometheus
5 23 (9.43%) Oracle RMAN
6 17 (6.97%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 14 (5.74%) Podman
8 11 (4.51%) Check_MK
8 11 (4.51%) Red Hat Satellite
9 10 (4.10%) Progress Chef
10 9 (3.69%) Data Guard
10 9 (3.69%) Puppet
11 5 (2.05%) HAProxy
12 4 (1.64%) Docker Swarm
12 4 (1.64%) Kibana
13 2 (0.82%) Argo
13 2 (0.82%) Consul
13 2 (0.82%) Sysdig
13 2 (0.82%) systemd
Vendors
1 88 (36.07%) Oracle
2 37 (15.16%) Red Hat
3 18 (7.38%) VMware
4 13 (5.33%) Microsoft
5 10 (4.10%) Murex
6 9 (3.69%) Informatica
7 8 (3.28%) Sybase
8 7 (2.87%) Splunk
9 6 (2.46%) IBM
9 6 (2.46%) ServiceNow
9 6 (2.46%) Talend
10 5 (2.05%) Cloudera
10 5 (2.05%) Databricks
10 5 (2.05%) Dynatrace
10 5 (2.05%) Tenable
10 5 (2.05%) Veritas
11 4 (1.64%) Hortonworks
11 4 (1.64%) NVIDIA
11 4 (1.64%) SAP
11 4 (1.64%) Solace