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

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 299 293 309
Rank change year-on-year -6 +16 -40
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 303 262 314
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.82% 0.74%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.69% 2.51% 2.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 146 214
10th Percentile £324 £360 £400
25th Percentile £400 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £510 £536
Median % change year-on-year -6.91% -4.85% -0.69%
75th Percentile £558 £580 £645
90th Percentile £625 £694 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +2.13% -1.05% -11.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 8 5
10th Percentile £53.55 £63.50 £34.49
25th Percentile £65.00 £66.88 £55.00
Median hourly rate £68.00 £82.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.58% +32.00% -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 11,278 10,445 12,813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.73% 32.70% 30.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,473 6,644 9,107
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% -4.55% -2.74%
75th Percentile £619 £640 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.28% -2.50% -2.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 388 239 411
10th Percentile £34.25 £21.25 £32.32
25th Percentile £51.21 £37.88 £46.32
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +0.81% -1.59%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.48 £85.00 £78.00
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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -30 238 £479 -7.88% 52
UK excluding London +24 181 £480 +2.13% 51
Work from Home -19 96 £450 -11.85% 43
London -56 84 £450 -14.29% 8
North of England -15 50 £480 -10.70% 6
Scotland +4 36 £493 +4.89% 2
Yorkshire -20 35 £500 -16.49% 2
Midlands -17 31 £516 +26.47% 7
West Midlands -13 29 £525 +14.13% 4
South East -16 27 £420 - 19
South West -5 21 £525 -18.29% 2
East of England -7 17 £475 - 15
North West -23 15 £453 +25.83% 3
East Midlands -21 2 £425 +19.38% 3
Wales - 1 £265 - 3
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 (5.61%) Apache
2 11 (3.63%) Apache Spark
2 11 (3.63%) JBoss
3 8 (2.64%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (2.64%) IIS
3 8 (2.64%) iPlanet
3 8 (2.64%) WebSphere
3 8 (2.64%) WebSphere Application Server
4 3 (0.99%) Confluence
4 3 (0.99%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.99%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.66%) SAS
6 1 (0.33%) CICS
6 1 (0.33%) nginx
6 1 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 8 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (2.64%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.65%) Oracle Applications
2 4 (1.32%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.99%) Oracle 11i
3 3 (0.99%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.99%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 3 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.33%) ION MarketView
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 97 (32.01%) AWS
2 46 (15.18%) Azure
2 46 (15.18%) GitHub
3 34 (11.22%) OpenShift
4 27 (8.91%) Serverless
5 24 (7.92%) Amazon EC2
5 24 (7.92%) Amazon S3
6 23 (7.59%) AWS CloudFormation
7 22 (7.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 21 (6.93%) AWS Lambda
9 18 (5.94%) GCP
10 17 (5.61%) Amazon EKS
11 16 (5.28%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (3.30%) Amazon ECS
12 10 (3.30%) PaaS
13 9 (2.97%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (2.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (2.64%) OCI
15 6 (1.98%) Entra ID
16 5 (1.65%) AWS Fargate
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.62%) SSH
2 13 (4.29%) TCP/IP
3 11 (3.63%) DNS
4 9 (2.97%) Firewall
4 9 (2.97%) Kerberos
5 7 (2.31%) HTTP
6 4 (1.32%) Network Security
6 4 (1.32%) SAN
7 2 (0.66%) SSL
8 1 (0.33%) BGP
8 1 (0.33%) FTP
8 1 (0.33%) IPsec
8 1 (0.33%) LAN
8 1 (0.33%) NAS
8 1 (0.33%) SMTP
8 1 (0.33%) SNMP
8 1 (0.33%) VLAN
8 1 (0.33%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (17.16%) Oracle Database
2 44 (14.52%) MongoDB
3 29 (9.57%) Relational Database
4 27 (8.91%) Amazon RDS
5 23 (7.59%) DB2
6 20 (6.60%) NoSQL
7 18 (5.94%) PostgreSQL
8 16 (5.28%) SQL Server
9 11 (3.63%) Data Warehouse
9 11 (3.63%) Hadoop
10 10 (3.30%) MySQL
11 9 (2.97%) Elasticsearch
12 8 (2.64%) Apache Hive
13 6 (1.98%) Big Data
13 6 (1.98%) Couchbase
13 6 (1.98%) HBase
13 6 (1.98%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (1.65%) Amazon Redshift
14 5 (1.65%) InfluxDB
15 4 (1.32%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 81 (26.73%) Jenkins
2 58 (19.14%) Git
3 43 (14.19%) GitLab
4 27 (8.91%) JUnit
5 15 (4.95%) JIRA
6 11 (3.63%) Sonatype Nexus
7 9 (2.97%) Maven
8 8 (2.64%) Bitbucket Server
8 8 (2.64%) CA Release Automation
8 8 (2.64%) ClearCase
9 6 (1.98%) Mockito
9 6 (1.98%) Postman
10 5 (1.65%) Subversion
11 4 (1.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 4 (1.32%) CircleCI
11 4 (1.32%) Terragrunt
12 3 (0.99%) PyCharm
12 3 (0.99%) REST Assured
12 3 (0.99%) SoapUI
12 3 (0.99%) SonarQube
General
1 104 (34.32%) Social Skills
2 58 (19.14%) Finance
3 54 (17.82%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (13.20%) Banking
5 29 (9.57%) Public Sector
6 25 (8.25%) Investment Banking
7 13 (4.29%) Front Office
8 6 (1.98%) Aerospace
8 6 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.32%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.32%) Law
9 4 (1.32%) Multimedia
9 4 (1.32%) Retail
10 3 (0.99%) Local Government
10 3 (0.99%) Manufacturing
10 3 (0.99%) Military
10 3 (0.99%) Wearables
11 2 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.66%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.33%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 81 (26.73%) Developer
2 42 (13.86%) Java Developer
3 38 (12.54%) DevOps Engineer
4 34 (11.22%) Senior
5 23 (7.59%) Administrator
6 21 (6.93%) SQL Developer
7 20 (6.60%) Investment Banking Java Developer
8 18 (5.94%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 17 (5.61%) AWS Engineer
9 17 (5.61%) DBA
9 17 (5.61%) Support Engineer
10 15 (4.95%) Senior Developer
10 15 (4.95%) Site Engineer
11 13 (4.29%) Oracle DBA
11 13 (4.29%) Senior Java Developer
12 12 (3.96%) Linux Engineer
12 12 (3.96%) Product Engineer
12 12 (3.96%) Products Support Engineer
12 12 (3.96%) Software Support Engineer
13 11 (3.63%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (17.49%) Kafka
2 31 (10.23%) Spring
3 21 (6.93%) JMS
4 20 (6.60%) Middleware
5 19 (6.27%) Node.js
6 17 (5.61%) REST
7 16 (5.28%) Elastic Stack
8 15 (4.95%) RESTful
9 14 (4.62%) FastAPI
10 13 (4.29%) LDAP
10 13 (4.29%) SOAP
11 10 (3.30%) Spring Boot
12 9 (2.97%) OpenID
13 8 (2.64%) AWS CDK
13 8 (2.64%) OAuth
13 8 (2.64%) OpenAPI
13 8 (2.64%) SAML
13 8 (2.64%) XML
14 7 (2.31%) React
14 7 (2.31%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 22 (7.26%) Data Structures
2 21 (6.93%) Equities
3 14 (4.62%) Cloud Native
4 11 (3.63%) Data Centre
5 10 (3.30%) Management Information System
6 9 (2.97%) Linux Command Line
7 8 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (2.64%) Legacy Applications
7 8 (2.64%) Replication
8 7 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (2.31%) Enterprise Cloud
9 6 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.98%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.98%) PKI
10 5 (1.65%) Mainframe
10 5 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
11 4 (1.32%) DataPower
11 4 (1.32%) Hedge funds
11 4 (1.32%) Legacy Code
12 3 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 214 (70.63%) Linux
2 95 (31.35%) Unix
3 35 (11.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 34 (11.22%) Windows
5 16 (5.28%) Ubuntu
6 15 (4.95%) CentOS
7 9 (2.97%) Windows Server
8 5 (1.65%) Android
8 5 (1.65%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.65%) VMS
9 4 (1.32%) AIX
10 3 (0.99%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.66%) Debian
11 2 (0.66%) Solaris
12 1 (0.33%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.33%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (36.30%) CI/CD
2 98 (32.34%) Problem-Solving
3 96 (31.68%) Agile
4 74 (24.42%) DevOps
5 54 (17.82%) Performance Tuning
6 48 (15.84%) Infrastructure as Code
6 48 (15.84%) Task Automation
7 43 (14.19%) SDLC
8 42 (13.86%) Containerisation
9 32 (10.56%) Software Engineering
10 31 (10.23%) Observability
11 27 (8.91%) Root Cause Analysis
12 26 (8.58%) Migration
13 23 (7.59%) ITIL
13 23 (7.59%) Microservices
13 23 (7.59%) Multithreading
14 22 (7.26%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 21 (6.93%) Analytics
15 21 (6.93%) Configuration Management
15 21 (6.93%) Database Tuning
Programming Languages
1 155 (51.16%) Python
2 107 (35.31%) SQL
3 88 (29.04%) Java
4 42 (13.86%) JavaScript
5 38 (12.54%) Bash
6 23 (7.59%) C
7 20 (6.60%) Perl
8 18 (5.94%) PL/SQL
9 17 (5.61%) TypeScript
10 16 (5.28%) C++
10 16 (5.28%) Go
11 12 (3.96%) Ada
12 11 (3.63%) Groovy
13 7 (2.31%) Korn
13 7 (2.31%) PowerShell
14 5 (1.65%) MATLAB
14 5 (1.65%) ProC
15 2 (0.66%) Bourne shell
15 2 (0.66%) JCL
15 2 (0.66%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 76 (25.08%) Security Cleared
2 55 (18.15%) SC Cleared
3 17 (5.61%) BPSS Clearance
4 14 (4.62%) DV Cleared
5 12 (3.96%) Degree
6 8 (2.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.31%) AWS Certification
8 6 (1.98%) OCP
8 6 (1.98%) Oracle Certification
9 4 (1.32%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.66%) RHCE
10 2 (0.66%) RHCSA
11 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.28%) SLA
2 11 (3.63%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.31%) QA
4 5 (1.65%) NCSC
5 4 (1.32%) GDPR
6 2 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.33%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.33%) WCAG
System Software
1 62 (20.46%) Docker
2 19 (6.27%) Active Directory
3 11 (3.63%) Oracle RAC
4 8 (2.64%) Tivoli Directory Server
4 8 (2.64%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (2.31%) HDFS
5 7 (2.31%) KVM
6 5 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.66%) GridGain
8 1 (0.33%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.33%) Snort
8 1 (0.33%) Squid
8 1 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 77 (25.41%) Ansible
2 69 (22.77%) Kubernetes
3 67 (22.11%) Terraform
4 40 (13.20%) Grafana
5 35 (11.55%) Prometheus
6 21 (6.93%) Progress Chef
7 16 (5.28%) Red Hat Satellite
8 14 (4.62%) Data Guard
9 13 (4.29%) Puppet
10 10 (3.30%) yum
11 9 (2.97%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (2.97%) Tivoli
12 8 (2.64%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (2.64%) CA Wily
13 7 (2.31%) Hadoop YARN
13 7 (2.31%) Packer
13 7 (2.31%) Podman
14 6 (1.98%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
15 5 (1.65%) Check_MK
15 5 (1.65%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 87 (28.71%) Oracle
2 47 (15.51%) Red Hat
3 45 (14.85%) Splunk
4 27 (8.91%) Microsoft
5 24 (7.92%) Sybase
6 22 (7.26%) IBM
7 13 (4.29%) VMware
8 12 (3.96%) ServiceNow
9 11 (3.63%) AppDynamics
10 10 (3.30%) Dynatrace
10 10 (3.30%) MuleSoft
11 9 (2.97%) Google
11 9 (2.97%) NetApp
12 8 (2.64%) Broadcom
12 8 (2.64%) Confluent
12 8 (2.64%) Dell
13 5 (1.65%) Informatica
13 5 (1.65%) Okta
14 3 (0.99%) Ab Initio
14 3 (0.99%) Hyperion