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

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 340 296 309
Rank change year-on-year -44 +13 -51
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 285 252 315
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 0.82% 0.71%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.34% 2.43% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 122 215
10th Percentile £325 £351 £400
25th Percentile £400 £411 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -9.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £628
90th Percentile £619 £688 £727
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £467 £470
% change year-on-year -1.39% -0.74% -12.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 9 7
10th Percentile £57.28 £64.70 £41.33
25th Percentile £66.50 £68.00 £58.13
Median hourly rate £68.00 £75.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.33% +15.38% -10.96%
75th Percentile - £93.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.60 £97.50 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £66.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +2.26% +2.31% -10.96%

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 12,179 10,359 13,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 29.87% 33.70% 29.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,110 6,654 9,294
10th Percentile £352 £354 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -5.78%
75th Percentile £607 £638 £650
90th Percentile £714 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £480 £500
% change year-on-year - -4.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 467 235 501
10th Percentile £41.25 £21.55 £35.52
25th Percentile £53.51 £35.38 £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 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.97% +1.99% -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 February 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 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Shell Script in the UK

Shell Script
Top 15 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 February 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 -34 234 £463 -5.61% 35
UK excluding London -47 155 £460 -1.39% 29
London -51 88 £445 -14.83% 17
Work from Home -40 82 £450 -8.72% 25
Midlands -31 38 £478 +3.80% 6
West Midlands -41 37 £480 +4.35% 3
North of England -47 33 £466 +2.31% 1
South East -18 30 £420 -16.00% 10
East of England -12 20 £473 +19.39% 3
South West -13 19 £525 -4.55% 1
Yorkshire -50 19 £468 -19.74%
Scotland -31 15 £402 -14.47% 8
North West -23 13 £453 +25.83% 1
Wales -3 2 £305 - 1
East Midlands -27 1 £425 +19.38% 3

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 11 (3.86%) Apache
1 11 (3.86%) Confluence
2 8 (2.81%) JBoss
3 7 (2.46%) Apache Spark
4 5 (1.75%) IIS
4 5 (1.75%) iPlanet
4 5 (1.75%) WebLogic
4 5 (1.75%) WebSphere
4 5 (1.75%) WebSphere Application Server
5 3 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.05%) nginx
5 3 (1.05%) SharePoint
5 3 (1.05%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.70%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.70%) Oracle Spatial
6 2 (0.70%) SAS
7 1 (0.35%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.75%) Oracle Applications
2 4 (1.40%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (1.05%) Oracle 11i
3 3 (1.05%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (1.05%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.35%) ION MarketView
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 106 (37.19%) AWS
2 43 (15.09%) Azure
2 43 (15.09%) GitHub
3 32 (11.23%) Serverless
4 30 (10.53%) OpenShift
5 26 (9.12%) Amazon EC2
5 26 (9.12%) Amazon S3
6 24 (8.42%) AWS CloudFormation
7 23 (8.07%) AWS Lambda
8 22 (7.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 19 (6.67%) GitHub Actions
10 18 (6.32%) Amazon EKS
11 15 (5.26%) GCP
12 9 (3.16%) PaaS
13 8 (2.81%) Amazon ECS
13 8 (2.81%) Azure DevOps
14 7 (2.46%) Azure AKS
14 7 (2.46%) IaaS
14 7 (2.46%) Pulumi
15 6 (2.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 17 (5.96%) SSH
2 9 (3.16%) DNS
3 7 (2.46%) TCP/IP
4 6 (2.11%) Kerberos
4 6 (2.11%) SAN
5 5 (1.75%) Firewall
5 5 (1.75%) Network Security
6 3 (1.05%) HTTP
7 2 (0.70%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.70%) NAS
7 2 (0.70%) Reverse Proxy
8 1 (0.35%) AMQP
8 1 (0.35%) BIG-IP
8 1 (0.35%) DHCP
8 1 (0.35%) FTP
8 1 (0.35%) LAN
8 1 (0.35%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (12.98%) MongoDB
2 35 (12.28%) Oracle Database
3 28 (9.82%) Amazon RDS
4 23 (8.07%) Relational Database
5 18 (6.32%) NoSQL
6 17 (5.96%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (5.26%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (4.56%) MySQL
9 11 (3.86%) SQL Server
10 10 (3.51%) DB2
11 7 (2.46%) Big Data
11 7 (2.46%) Hadoop
12 6 (2.11%) Couchbase
12 6 (2.11%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (1.75%) Amazon Redshift
13 5 (1.75%) Data Mart
13 5 (1.75%) DynamoDB
13 5 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
13 5 (1.75%) InfluxDB
13 5 (1.75%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 73 (25.61%) Jenkins
2 49 (17.19%) GitLab
3 42 (14.74%) Git
4 23 (8.07%) JIRA
5 17 (5.96%) JUnit
6 8 (2.81%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (2.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 7 (2.46%) Maven
8 6 (2.11%) Mockito
8 6 (2.11%) PyCharm
8 6 (2.11%) PyUnit
9 5 (1.75%) Bitbucket Server
9 5 (1.75%) CA Release Automation
10 4 (1.40%) Subversion
10 4 (1.40%) Terragrunt
11 3 (1.05%) Bitbucket
11 3 (1.05%) ClearCase
11 3 (1.05%) JMeter
11 3 (1.05%) Postman
11 3 (1.05%) Selenium
General
1 80 (28.07%) Social Skills
2 41 (14.39%) Analytical Skills
2 41 (14.39%) Finance
3 32 (11.23%) Banking
4 30 (10.53%) Public Sector
5 18 (6.32%) Investment Banking
6 10 (3.51%) Front Office
7 9 (3.16%) Retail
8 8 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (2.11%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.40%) Law
10 4 (1.40%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.05%) Local Government
11 3 (1.05%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.05%) Military
12 2 (0.70%) Advertising
12 2 (0.70%) Financial Institution
12 2 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.35%) Aviation
13 1 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 79 (27.72%) Developer
2 38 (13.33%) Java Developer
3 30 (10.53%) Senior
4 25 (8.77%) DevOps Engineer
5 21 (7.37%) Administrator
5 21 (7.37%) Support Engineer
6 18 (6.32%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 17 (5.96%) AWS Engineer
7 17 (5.96%) Site Engineer
8 15 (5.26%) Data Engineer
8 15 (5.26%) DBA
9 13 (4.56%) Oracle DBA
10 12 (4.21%) Product Engineer
10 12 (4.21%) Products Support Engineer
10 12 (4.21%) Senior Developer
10 12 (4.21%) Software Support Engineer
11 11 (3.86%) AWS DevOps
11 11 (3.86%) AWS DevOps Engineer
11 11 (3.86%) Linux Administrator
11 11 (3.86%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (12.98%) Kafka
2 24 (8.42%) Spring
3 21 (7.37%) Middleware
3 21 (7.37%) Node.js
4 17 (5.96%) Elastic Stack
5 14 (4.91%) LDAP
5 14 (4.91%) REST
5 14 (4.91%) Spring Boot
6 12 (4.21%) RESTful
7 11 (3.86%) JSON
8 10 (3.51%) JMS
8 10 (3.51%) OpenAPI
8 10 (3.51%) XML
9 9 (3.16%) SOAP
10 8 (2.81%) .NET
10 8 (2.81%) AWS CDK
11 7 (2.46%) pytest
11 7 (2.46%) XSD
12 6 (2.11%) Django
12 6 (2.11%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.96%) Cloud Native
2 16 (5.61%) Management Information System
3 15 (5.26%) Equities
4 14 (4.91%) Data Structures
5 13 (4.56%) Data Centre
6 7 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (2.46%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (2.11%) Legacy Applications
7 6 (2.11%) Replication
8 5 (1.75%) Legacy Code
8 5 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (1.40%) DataPower
9 4 (1.40%) Derivative
9 4 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.40%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (1.40%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.40%) Mainframe
9 4 (1.40%) Onboarding
10 3 (1.05%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 192 (67.37%) Linux
2 93 (32.63%) Unix
3 37 (12.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 26 (9.12%) Windows
5 16 (5.61%) Ubuntu
6 13 (4.56%) CentOS
7 8 (2.81%) Android
7 8 (2.81%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.75%) Windows Server
9 4 (1.40%) VMS
10 2 (0.70%) AIX
10 2 (0.70%) Debian
11 1 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.35%) Solaris
11 1 (0.35%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (38.60%) CI/CD
2 82 (28.77%) Problem-Solving
3 77 (27.02%) Agile
4 55 (19.30%) DevOps
5 48 (16.84%) Performance Tuning
6 47 (16.49%) Infrastructure as Code
7 45 (15.79%) Containerisation
8 36 (12.63%) Task Automation
9 33 (11.58%) Software Engineering
10 32 (11.23%) SDLC
11 27 (9.47%) Observability
12 25 (8.77%) Continuous Improvement
13 24 (8.42%) Microservices
14 22 (7.72%) Data Modelling
14 22 (7.72%) Scrum
14 22 (7.72%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 21 (7.37%) Migration
15 21 (7.37%) TDD
16 20 (7.02%) High Availability
16 20 (7.02%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 122 (42.81%) Python
2 118 (41.40%) SQL
3 98 (34.39%) Java
4 43 (15.09%) JavaScript
5 24 (8.42%) Bash
6 22 (7.72%) PL/SQL
7 20 (7.02%) C++
8 18 (6.32%) C
8 18 (6.32%) TypeScript
9 16 (5.61%) Perl
10 13 (4.56%) Go
11 12 (4.21%) Ada
11 12 (4.21%) Korn
12 8 (2.81%) Groovy
13 7 (2.46%) MATLAB
14 6 (2.11%) PowerShell
15 5 (1.75%) ProC
16 3 (1.05%) PHP
17 2 (0.70%) C#
17 2 (0.70%) VBA
Qualifications
1 101 (35.44%) Security Cleared
2 80 (28.07%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.07%) BPSS Clearance
4 18 (6.32%) Degree
5 15 (5.26%) DV Cleared
6 14 (4.91%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (2.11%) OCP
7 6 (2.11%) Oracle Certification
8 4 (1.40%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.05%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.70%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.70%) RHCE
11 1 (0.35%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 1 (0.35%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.35%) CISSP
11 1 (0.35%) RHCA
11 1 (0.35%) RHCSA
11 1 (0.35%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (7.02%) SLA
2 13 (4.56%) Data Quality
3 10 (3.51%) QA
4 5 (1.75%) GDPR
5 3 (1.05%) FATCA
5 3 (1.05%) NCSC
6 1 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.35%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.35%) NIST
System Software
1 57 (20.00%) Docker
2 17 (5.96%) Active Directory
3 9 (3.16%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (1.75%) Oracle RAC
4 5 (1.75%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 3 (1.05%) HDFS
5 3 (1.05%) KVM
6 2 (0.70%) GridGain
6 2 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.35%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 1 (0.35%) Postfix
7 1 (0.35%) Varnish
7 1 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 68 (23.86%) Kubernetes
2 65 (22.81%) Terraform
3 50 (17.54%) Ansible
4 34 (11.93%) Grafana
5 33 (11.58%) Prometheus
6 20 (7.02%) Progress Chef
7 14 (4.91%) Red Hat Satellite
8 11 (3.86%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 8 (2.81%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (2.81%) Podman
10 7 (2.46%) Check_MK
10 7 (2.46%) Puppet
10 7 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (2.11%) Tivoli
12 5 (1.75%) CA Single Sign-On
12 5 (1.75%) CA Wily
12 5 (1.75%) Dell DRAC
13 4 (1.40%) Kibana
13 4 (1.40%) Packer
14 3 (1.05%) logstash
Vendors
1 81 (28.42%) Oracle
2 47 (16.49%) Red Hat
3 28 (9.82%) Splunk
4 24 (8.42%) Microsoft
5 18 (6.32%) IBM
6 16 (5.61%) Sybase
7 14 (4.91%) VMware
8 11 (3.86%) ServiceNow
9 9 (3.16%) Dell
10 8 (2.81%) AppDynamics
11 7 (2.46%) Murex
12 6 (2.11%) Confluent
12 6 (2.11%) Dynatrace
12 6 (2.11%) Google
12 6 (2.11%) MuleSoft
13 5 (1.75%) Broadcom
13 5 (1.75%) Informatica
13 5 (1.75%) Talend
14 4 (1.40%) CyberArk
14 4 (1.40%) NetApp