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 22 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 307 293 296
Rank change year-on-year -14 +3 -24
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 316 262 316
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.83% 0.73%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.73% 2.49% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 202 139 216
10th Percentile £325 £359 £400
25th Percentile £400 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -5.66% -1.85%
75th Percentile £550 £574 £650
90th Percentile £625 £690 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £479 £463 £470
% change year-on-year +3.40% -1.49% -12.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 8 5
10th Percentile £53.55 £66.65 £34.49
25th Percentile £65.00 £68.56 £55.00
Median hourly rate £68.00 £92.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.49% +48.00% -14.38%
75th Percentile £81.50 £97.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £110.00 - £72.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +8.80% -14.38%

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 11,592 10,536 12,948
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.67% 33.23% 30.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,707 6,692 9,171
10th Percentile £350 £355 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% -2.78% -4.42%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.79% -2.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 428 248 466
10th Percentile £37.31 £21.25 £35.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £35.56 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £69.62
90th Percentile £75.30 £85.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -3.85%

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 22 January 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 22 January 2026.

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 22 January 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 -14 250 £480 -6.80% 31
UK excluding London +7 185 £479 +3.40% 37
Work from Home -12 91 £454 -10.98% 26
London -63 91 £454 -13.52% 10
North of England -29 49 £480 -10.70%
Midlands -24 37 £516 +26.47% 5
West Midlands -20 35 £525 +14.13% 5
Scotland +3 34 £493 +4.89% 10
Yorkshire -27 34 £500 -16.49%
South East -29 28 £420 - 15
South West -2 20 £525 -4.55% 1
East of England -1 18 £475 +1.82% 8
North West -21 15 £453 +25.83%
East Midlands -21 2 £425 +19.38%
Wales -4 1 £265 - 2
Northern Ireland - 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 (5.38%) Apache
2 11 (3.48%) Apache Spark
2 11 (3.48%) JBoss
3 9 (2.85%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (2.53%) IIS
4 8 (2.53%) iPlanet
4 8 (2.53%) WebSphere
4 8 (2.53%) WebSphere Application Server
5 3 (0.95%) Confluence
5 3 (0.95%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.95%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.63%) SAS
7 1 (0.32%) nginx
7 1 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.32%) WebLogic
Applications
1 10 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.58%) 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
1 104 (32.91%) AWS
2 50 (15.82%) Azure
3 48 (15.19%) GitHub
4 37 (11.71%) OpenShift
5 28 (8.86%) Serverless
6 25 (7.91%) Amazon EC2
6 25 (7.91%) Amazon S3
7 23 (7.28%) AWS CloudFormation
8 22 (6.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 20 (6.33%) AWS Lambda
10 19 (6.01%) GCP
11 17 (5.38%) Amazon EKS
12 16 (5.06%) GitHub Actions
13 11 (3.48%) PaaS
14 10 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
15 9 (2.85%) Amazon ECS
16 8 (2.53%) OCI
16 8 (2.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 6 (1.90%) Azure AKS
17 6 (1.90%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (5.06%) SSH
2 12 (3.80%) DNS
2 12 (3.80%) TCP/IP
3 9 (2.85%) Kerberos
4 8 (2.53%) Firewall
5 7 (2.22%) HTTP
6 4 (1.27%) Network Security
6 4 (1.27%) SAN
7 2 (0.63%) SSL
8 1 (0.32%) AMQP
8 1 (0.32%) BGP
8 1 (0.32%) FTP
8 1 (0.32%) IPsec
8 1 (0.32%) LAN
8 1 (0.32%) SMTP
8 1 (0.32%) SNMP
8 1 (0.32%) VLAN
8 1 (0.32%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (16.14%) Oracle Database
2 42 (13.29%) MongoDB
3 28 (8.86%) Amazon RDS
4 26 (8.23%) Relational Database
5 20 (6.33%) NoSQL
6 18 (5.70%) DB2
7 17 (5.38%) PostgreSQL
8 16 (5.06%) SQL Server
9 13 (4.11%) Data Warehouse
10 11 (3.48%) Hadoop
11 10 (3.16%) MySQL
12 9 (2.85%) Elasticsearch
13 8 (2.53%) Apache Hive
14 6 (1.90%) Big Data
14 6 (1.90%) Couchbase
14 6 (1.90%) HBase
14 6 (1.90%) InfluxDB
14 6 (1.90%) Oracle Reports
15 5 (1.58%) Amazon Redshift
15 5 (1.58%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 84 (26.58%) Jenkins
2 58 (18.35%) Git
3 47 (14.87%) GitLab
4 24 (7.59%) JUnit
5 15 (4.75%) JIRA
6 11 (3.48%) Sonatype Nexus
7 10 (3.16%) Maven
8 8 (2.53%) Bitbucket Server
8 8 (2.53%) CA Release Automation
8 8 (2.53%) ClearCase
9 7 (2.22%) Mockito
10 5 (1.58%) Terragrunt
11 4 (1.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 4 (1.27%) CircleCI
11 4 (1.27%) Postman
11 4 (1.27%) PyCharm
11 4 (1.27%) PyUnit
11 4 (1.27%) Subversion
12 3 (0.95%) Gradle
13 2 (0.63%) Xcode
General
1 105 (33.23%) Social Skills
2 53 (16.77%) Finance
3 52 (16.46%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (12.03%) Banking
5 32 (10.13%) Public Sector
6 24 (7.59%) Investment Banking
7 14 (4.43%) Front Office
8 8 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (2.22%) Retail
10 6 (1.90%) Aerospace
11 4 (1.27%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.27%) Law
11 4 (1.27%) Multimedia
12 3 (0.95%) Local Government
12 3 (0.95%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.95%) Military
12 3 (0.95%) Wearables
13 2 (0.63%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.32%) Back Office
14 1 (0.32%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 84 (26.58%) Developer
2 41 (12.97%) Java Developer
3 38 (12.03%) DevOps Engineer
4 32 (10.13%) Senior
5 25 (7.91%) Administrator
6 21 (6.65%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 18 (5.70%) Site Engineer
8 17 (5.38%) AWS Engineer
8 17 (5.38%) DBA
8 17 (5.38%) SQL Developer
8 17 (5.38%) Support Engineer
9 16 (5.06%) Investment Banking Java Developer
10 13 (4.11%) Oracle DBA
10 13 (4.11%) Senior Developer
11 12 (3.80%) Product Engineer
11 12 (3.80%) Products Support Engineer
11 12 (3.80%) Software Support Engineer
12 11 (3.48%) Automation Engineer
12 11 (3.48%) Cloud Engineer
12 11 (3.48%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (15.19%) Kafka
2 29 (9.18%) Spring
3 22 (6.96%) Middleware
4 21 (6.65%) Node.js
5 18 (5.70%) REST
6 17 (5.38%) JMS
6 17 (5.38%) RESTful
7 16 (5.06%) Elastic Stack
8 15 (4.75%) LDAP
9 14 (4.43%) FastAPI
10 12 (3.80%) SOAP
10 12 (3.80%) Spring Boot
11 10 (3.16%) OpenAPI
11 10 (3.16%) React
12 9 (2.85%) OpenID
13 8 (2.53%) AWS CDK
13 8 (2.53%) HTML
13 8 (2.53%) JSON
13 8 (2.53%) OAuth
13 8 (2.53%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.65%) Equities
2 19 (6.01%) Data Structures
3 16 (5.06%) Cloud Native
4 13 (4.11%) Data Centre
4 13 (4.11%) Management Information System
5 11 (3.48%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.53%) Legacy Applications
6 8 (2.53%) Replication
7 7 (2.22%) Enterprise Cloud
7 7 (2.22%) Linux Command Line
8 6 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.90%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.90%) PKI
9 5 (1.58%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (1.27%) DataPower
10 4 (1.27%) Derivative
10 4 (1.27%) Equity Derivative
10 4 (1.27%) Hedge funds
10 4 (1.27%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 222 (70.25%) Linux
2 100 (31.65%) Unix
3 40 (12.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 33 (10.44%) Windows
5 16 (5.06%) CentOS
5 16 (5.06%) Ubuntu
6 7 (2.22%) Windows Server
7 6 (1.90%) Android
7 6 (1.90%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.58%) VMS
9 4 (1.27%) AIX
10 2 (0.63%) Debian
10 2 (0.63%) Solaris
11 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.32%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (37.66%) CI/CD
2 100 (31.65%) Agile
3 97 (30.70%) Problem-Solving
4 76 (24.05%) DevOps
5 52 (16.46%) Performance Tuning
6 49 (15.51%) Infrastructure as Code
6 49 (15.51%) Task Automation
7 45 (14.24%) Containerisation
8 41 (12.97%) SDLC
9 33 (10.44%) Observability
9 33 (10.44%) Software Engineering
10 31 (9.81%) Migration
11 26 (8.23%) Root Cause Analysis
12 25 (7.91%) Microservices
12 25 (7.91%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 24 (7.59%) Analytics
14 23 (7.28%) Configuration Management
15 22 (6.96%) ITIL
16 21 (6.65%) Data Modelling
17 20 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 155 (49.05%) Python
2 116 (36.71%) SQL
3 92 (29.11%) Java
4 45 (14.24%) JavaScript
5 36 (11.39%) Bash
6 22 (6.96%) C
7 20 (6.33%) Perl
8 19 (6.01%) TypeScript
9 18 (5.70%) PL/SQL
10 16 (5.06%) Go
11 15 (4.75%) C++
12 12 (3.80%) Ada
13 10 (3.16%) Groovy
14 7 (2.22%) Korn
14 7 (2.22%) MATLAB
15 5 (1.58%) PowerShell
15 5 (1.58%) ProC
16 2 (0.63%) Bourne shell
16 2 (0.63%) PHP
16 2 (0.63%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 86 (27.22%) Security Cleared
2 65 (20.57%) SC Cleared
3 21 (6.65%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (4.75%) DV Cleared
5 14 (4.43%) Degree
6 10 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (1.90%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.90%) OCP
7 6 (1.90%) Oracle Certification
8 4 (1.27%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.95%) RHCE
10 2 (0.63%) RHCSA
11 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 1 (0.32%) RHCA
11 1 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.65%) SLA
2 12 (3.80%) Data Quality
3 8 (2.53%) QA
4 5 (1.58%) 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 66 (20.89%) Docker
2 19 (6.01%) Active Directory
3 11 (3.48%) Oracle RAC
4 8 (2.53%) Tivoli Directory Server
4 8 (2.53%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (2.22%) HDFS
5 7 (2.22%) KVM
6 4 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.63%) GridGain
8 1 (0.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.32%) Postfix
8 1 (0.32%) Snort
8 1 (0.32%) Squid
8 1 (0.32%) Varnish
8 1 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 80 (25.32%) Ansible
2 76 (24.05%) Kubernetes
3 72 (22.78%) Terraform
4 43 (13.61%) Grafana
5 38 (12.03%) Prometheus
6 23 (7.28%) Progress Chef
7 18 (5.70%) Red Hat Satellite
8 14 (4.43%) Data Guard
9 12 (3.80%) Puppet
10 10 (3.16%) yum
11 9 (2.85%) Podman
11 9 (2.85%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (2.85%) Tivoli
12 8 (2.53%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (2.53%) CA Wily
13 7 (2.22%) Check_MK
13 7 (2.22%) Hadoop YARN
13 7 (2.22%) Packer
14 6 (1.90%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
15 5 (1.58%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 90 (28.48%) Oracle
2 49 (15.51%) Red Hat
3 44 (13.92%) Splunk
4 29 (9.18%) Microsoft
5 22 (6.96%) IBM
5 22 (6.96%) Sybase
6 14 (4.43%) VMware
7 12 (3.80%) ServiceNow
8 11 (3.48%) AppDynamics
9 10 (3.16%) NetApp
10 9 (2.85%) Dell
10 9 (2.85%) Dynatrace
10 9 (2.85%) Google
10 9 (2.85%) MuleSoft
11 8 (2.53%) Broadcom
11 8 (2.53%) Confluent
12 6 (1.90%) Murex
13 5 (1.58%) Informatica
13 5 (1.58%) Okta
14 3 (0.95%) Pure Storage