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 5 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 297 298 283
Rank change year-on-year +1 -15 -11
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 311 298 364
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.82% 0.81%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.70% 2.55% 2.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 189 170 260
10th Percentile £309 £350 £400
25th Percentile £365 £400 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £454 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.20% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £554 £579 £594
90th Percentile £625 £708 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.11% -10.00% -7.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 8 6
10th Percentile £53.55 - £41.04
25th Percentile £65.00 £63.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.00 £80.25 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year -15.26% +25.88% -12.67%
75th Percentile £81.50 £97.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £110.00 - £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year - +6.67% -12.67%

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 11,501 11,708 13,887
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.51% 32.41% 30.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,590 7,500 9,878
10th Percentile £345 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.24% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 346 286 430
10th Percentile £30.13 £22.00 £31.48
25th Percentile £48.75 £40.19 £47.50
Median hourly rate £63.75 £63.00 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.19% +4.13% -3.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £69.45 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 -28 249 £454 -9.20% 33
UK excluding London +23 190 £473 +5.11% 29
Work from Home +15 104 £430 -14.10% 25
London -51 92 £450 -14.29% 13
North of England -10 51 £475 -4.28% 3
Scotland +18 40 £500 +11.11% 3
Yorkshire -8 34 £506 -15.45%
Midlands -10 33 £490 +16.67% 3
South East -17 30 £395 -1.25% 14
West Midlands -9 29 £516 +22.86% 2
South West -2 21 £525 -18.29% 2
North West -10 17 £446 +23.89% 3
East of England - 14 £423 - 6
East Midlands -12 4 £360 +1.12% 1
Wales -4 3 £265 -47.65%
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 (5.47%) Apache
2 16 (5.14%) JBoss
3 10 (3.22%) Apache Spark
4 9 (2.89%) Tomcat
5 8 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (2.57%) IIS
5 8 (2.57%) iPlanet
5 8 (2.57%) WebSphere
5 8 (2.57%) WebSphere Application Server
6 3 (0.96%) Confluence
6 3 (0.96%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.64%) SAS
7 2 (0.64%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.32%) CICS
8 1 (0.32%) nginx
8 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.32%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 8 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (2.57%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.96%) Oracle 11i
1 3 (0.96%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (0.96%) Oracle EBS R12
1 3 (0.96%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
1 3 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.64%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.32%) ION MarketView
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 91 (29.26%) AWS
2 38 (12.22%) Azure
2 38 (12.22%) OpenShift
3 36 (11.58%) GitHub
4 21 (6.75%) Serverless
5 20 (6.43%) Amazon EC2
5 20 (6.43%) Amazon S3
5 20 (6.43%) AWS CloudFormation
6 19 (6.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 18 (5.79%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (5.79%) GCP
8 10 (3.22%) Amazon ECS
8 10 (3.22%) Amazon EKS
9 9 (2.89%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (2.89%) OCI
9 9 (2.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 8 (2.57%) PaaS
11 7 (2.25%) Cloud Computing
11 7 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (1.93%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 13 (4.18%) DNS
2 12 (3.86%) SAN
3 9 (2.89%) Firewall
3 9 (2.89%) Kerberos
3 9 (2.89%) SSH
3 9 (2.89%) TCP/IP
4 7 (2.25%) HTTP
5 3 (0.96%) NAS
5 3 (0.96%) Network Security
6 2 (0.64%) SSL
7 1 (0.32%) BGP
7 1 (0.32%) FTP
7 1 (0.32%) IPsec
7 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.32%) LAN
7 1 (0.32%) SMTP
7 1 (0.32%) SNMP
7 1 (0.32%) VLAN
7 1 (0.32%) VPN
7 1 (0.32%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (17.04%) Oracle Database
2 48 (15.43%) MongoDB
3 37 (11.90%) Relational Database
4 32 (10.29%) DB2
5 23 (7.40%) Amazon RDS
6 20 (6.43%) NoSQL
7 18 (5.79%) PostgreSQL
8 17 (5.47%) SQL Server
9 12 (3.86%) Data Warehouse
10 11 (3.54%) MySQL
11 10 (3.22%) Hadoop
12 9 (2.89%) Elasticsearch
13 7 (2.25%) Apache Hive
14 6 (1.93%) Big Data
14 6 (1.93%) Couchbase
14 6 (1.93%) HBase
15 5 (1.61%) Amazon Redshift
15 5 (1.61%) Metadata
15 5 (1.61%) Redis
16 4 (1.29%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 80 (25.72%) Jenkins
2 66 (21.22%) Git
3 42 (13.50%) JUnit
4 36 (11.58%) GitLab
5 21 (6.75%) JIRA
6 17 (5.47%) Maven
6 17 (5.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (2.57%) Bitbucket Server
7 8 (2.57%) CA Release Automation
7 8 (2.57%) ClearCase
7 8 (2.57%) Gradle
7 8 (2.57%) Postman
8 7 (2.25%) Mockito
8 7 (2.25%) Subversion
9 6 (1.93%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 6 (1.93%) SonarQube
10 5 (1.61%) REST Assured
10 5 (1.61%) SoapUI
10 5 (1.61%) Xcode
10 5 (1.61%) XCTest
General
1 120 (38.59%) Social Skills
2 66 (21.22%) Finance
3 64 (20.58%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (15.11%) Banking
5 32 (10.29%) Investment Banking
6 27 (8.68%) Public Sector
7 16 (5.14%) Front Office
8 6 (1.93%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.29%) Multimedia
10 3 (0.96%) Manufacturing
10 3 (0.96%) Military
10 3 (0.96%) Wearables
11 2 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.64%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.32%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.32%) Aviation
12 1 (0.32%) Back Office
12 1 (0.32%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.32%) Law
12 1 (0.32%) Retail
Job Titles
1 87 (27.97%) Developer
2 50 (16.08%) Java Developer
3 35 (11.25%) Senior
4 34 (10.93%) DevOps Engineer
5 28 (9.00%) Investment Banking Java Developer
5 28 (9.00%) SQL Developer
6 24 (7.72%) Administrator
7 18 (5.79%) Senior Developer
8 17 (5.47%) Support Engineer
9 16 (5.14%) Senior Java Developer
9 16 (5.14%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 14 (4.50%) DBA
10 14 (4.50%) Linux Developer
10 14 (4.50%) Senior Investment Banking Java Developer
10 14 (4.50%) Senior SQL Developer
10 14 (4.50%) Sybase Developer
11 13 (4.18%) AWS Engineer
11 13 (4.18%) Site Engineer
12 12 (3.86%) Product Engineer
12 12 (3.86%) Products Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (18.97%) Kafka
2 47 (15.11%) Spring
3 29 (9.32%) JMS
4 25 (8.04%) REST
5 22 (7.07%) SOAP
6 19 (6.11%) Spring Boot
7 17 (5.47%) Middleware
8 16 (5.14%) Elastic Stack
8 16 (5.14%) RESTful
9 15 (4.82%) Node.js
10 14 (4.50%) FastAPI
11 10 (3.22%) OpenID
11 10 (3.22%) Spring Cloud
12 9 (2.89%) OAuth
12 9 (2.89%) OpenAPI
12 9 (2.89%) SAML
13 8 (2.57%) CSS
13 8 (2.57%) JSON
13 8 (2.57%) Swagger
13 8 (2.57%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (10.29%) Data Structures
2 28 (9.00%) Equities
3 12 (3.86%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.86%) Linux Command Line
4 9 (2.89%) Data Centre
4 9 (2.89%) Distributed Systems
5 8 (2.57%) Enterprise Storage
5 8 (2.57%) Legacy Applications
5 8 (2.57%) Replication
6 7 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (2.25%) Enterprise Cloud
6 7 (2.25%) Management Information System
6 7 (2.25%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.93%) PKI
8 5 (1.61%) Mainframe
8 5 (1.61%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (1.29%) DataPower
9 4 (1.29%) Hedge funds
9 4 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 222 (71.38%) Linux
2 106 (34.08%) Unix
3 39 (12.54%) Windows
4 34 (10.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (5.14%) Ubuntu
6 12 (3.86%) CentOS
7 11 (3.54%) Windows Server
8 7 (2.25%) VMS
9 5 (1.61%) Android
9 5 (1.61%) Apple iOS
10 4 (1.29%) AIX
10 4 (1.29%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (1.29%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (1.29%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.96%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.64%) Solaris
13 1 (0.32%) Debian
13 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (36.01%) Problem-Solving
2 102 (32.80%) Agile
3 96 (30.87%) CI/CD
4 73 (23.47%) DevOps
5 54 (17.36%) Performance Tuning
6 51 (16.40%) SDLC
7 45 (14.47%) Infrastructure as Code
8 40 (12.86%) Containerisation
9 34 (10.93%) Software Engineering
9 34 (10.93%) Task Automation
10 33 (10.61%) Multithreading
11 29 (9.32%) Database Tuning
11 29 (9.32%) Microservices
11 29 (9.32%) Migration
12 28 (9.00%) Open Source
13 27 (8.68%) ITIL
14 25 (8.04%) Infrastructure Automation
14 25 (8.04%) Root Cause Analysis
15 23 (7.40%) Configuration Management
16 22 (7.07%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 168 (54.02%) Python
2 109 (35.05%) SQL
3 98 (31.51%) Java
4 40 (12.86%) JavaScript
5 36 (11.58%) Bash
6 24 (7.72%) C
7 21 (6.75%) Perl
8 18 (5.79%) C++
9 17 (5.47%) PL/SQL
10 13 (4.18%) Go
10 13 (4.18%) Groovy
10 13 (4.18%) TypeScript
11 12 (3.86%) Ada
12 7 (2.25%) Korn
12 7 (2.25%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.29%) JCL
14 2 (0.64%) Bourne shell
14 2 (0.64%) PHP
14 2 (0.64%) Scala
14 2 (0.64%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 74 (23.79%) Security Cleared
2 53 (17.04%) SC Cleared
3 15 (4.82%) Degree
4 13 (4.18%) DV Cleared
5 11 (3.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.25%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.96%) OCP
8 3 (0.96%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (0.64%) RHCE
9 2 (0.64%) RHCSA
9 2 (0.64%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.32%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.54%) Data Quality
2 8 (2.57%) QA
3 7 (2.25%) SLA
4 5 (1.61%) NCSC
5 3 (0.96%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.32%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.32%) GDPR
7 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 62 (19.94%) Docker
2 18 (5.79%) Active Directory
3 11 (3.54%) Oracle RAC
4 8 (2.57%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 7 (2.25%) KVM
5 7 (2.25%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (1.93%) HDFS
7 2 (0.64%) GridGain
7 2 (0.64%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.64%) vSphere
8 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.32%) Snort
8 1 (0.32%) Squid
8 1 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 76 (24.44%) Ansible
2 69 (22.19%) Kubernetes
3 65 (20.90%) Terraform
4 31 (9.97%) Grafana
5 29 (9.32%) Prometheus
6 26 (8.36%) Progress Chef
7 17 (5.47%) Puppet
8 11 (3.54%) Data Guard
8 11 (3.54%) Red Hat Satellite
9 10 (3.22%) yum
10 9 (2.89%) Single Sign-On
10 9 (2.89%) Tivoli
11 8 (2.57%) CA Single Sign-On
11 8 (2.57%) CA Wily
11 8 (2.57%) Packer
12 6 (1.93%) Hadoop YARN
12 6 (1.93%) NetBackup
13 5 (1.61%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (1.61%) Jamf Pro
14 4 (1.29%) Control-M
Vendors
1 86 (27.65%) Oracle
2 44 (14.15%) Splunk
3 43 (13.83%) Red Hat
4 32 (10.29%) Sybase
5 29 (9.32%) Microsoft
6 23 (7.40%) IBM
7 15 (4.82%) NetApp
7 15 (4.82%) ServiceNow
8 11 (3.54%) Dell
9 10 (3.22%) AppDynamics
9 10 (3.22%) MuleSoft
9 10 (3.22%) VMware
10 9 (2.89%) Google
11 8 (2.57%) Broadcom
11 8 (2.57%) Dynatrace
12 7 (2.25%) 3PAR
12 7 (2.25%) Confluent
12 7 (2.25%) HP
12 7 (2.25%) Veritas
13 6 (1.93%) Informatica