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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 412 268 267
Rank change year-on-year -144 -1 +13
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 288 335 335
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.52% 1.01% 0.89%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.01% 3.06% 2.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 191 215
10th Percentile £325 £309 £344
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.93% -1.60% -4.76%
75th Percentile £610 £591 £594
90th Percentile £709 £626 £709
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £475 £425
% change year-on-year -2.11% +11.76% -15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 17 6
10th Percentile £30.44 £65.60 £62.63
25th Percentile £37.48 - £63.50
Median hourly rate £49.58 £68.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.09% -15.00% +14.29%
75th Percentile £61.31 - £97.50
90th Percentile £68.12 £101.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.58 £68.00 -
% change year-on-year -27.09% - -

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 14,340 10,935 12,154
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.12% 33.08% 32.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,314 7,202 8,050
10th Percentile £363 £344 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 546 298 333
10th Percentile £24.00 £29.00 £26.40
25th Percentile £46.25 £40.31 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +3.59%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £78.50
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 1 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 -127 240 £508 +3.15% 175
UK excluding London -146 147 £465 -2.11% 115
London -74 118 £550 +4.76% 73
Work from Home -96 80 £470 -1.05% 77
North of England -100 36 £419 -12.76% 24
Midlands -34 33 £478 -4.40% 23
West Midlands -21 31 £500 -3.10% 18
Scotland -51 26 £425 -13.79% 11
South East -70 26 £500 +17.65% 20
Yorkshire -59 19 £425 -15.00% 7
North West -60 13 £313 -30.13% 14
East of England -32 12 £350 -13.04% 11
South West -45 12 £540 +210.34% 15
North East - 5 £463 - 3
Northern Ireland +8 2 £190 - 7
Wales -14 2 £265 -6.19% 5
East Midlands -17 2 £466 +29.31% 5

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 15 (5.21%) Apache
2 12 (4.17%) SAS
3 11 (3.82%) WebLogic
4 10 (3.47%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (2.08%) Apache Spark
6 5 (1.74%) Confluence
6 5 (1.74%) WebSphere
7 4 (1.39%) OpenStack
7 4 (1.39%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (1.04%) CICS
8 3 (1.04%) JBoss
9 2 (0.69%) nginx
9 2 (0.69%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.69%) WebSphere Application Server
10 1 (0.35%) Tomcat
Applications
1 7 (2.43%) Notepad++
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (2.08%) Front Arena
1 6 (2.08%) Summit
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle Assets
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle E-Business Tax
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle FAH
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle General Ledger
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle Internet Expenses
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle iProcurement
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle Payables
2 4 (1.39%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (1.04%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.35%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.35%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 109 (37.85%) AWS
2 65 (22.57%) GCP
3 63 (21.88%) Azure
4 49 (17.01%) GitHub
5 32 (11.11%) Serverless
6 27 (9.38%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (7.64%) Amazon S3
8 20 (6.94%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (5.21%) Amazon EC2
10 14 (4.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 12 (4.17%) dbt
11 12 (4.17%) OpenShift
12 10 (3.47%) GitHub Copilot
13 9 (3.13%) AWS CloudFormation
13 9 (3.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (3.13%) Power Platform
13 9 (3.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (2.78%) Amazon SQS
14 8 (2.78%) Datadog
15 7 (2.43%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 20 (6.94%) DNS
2 16 (5.56%) TCP/IP
3 12 (4.17%) HTTP
4 10 (3.47%) SSL
5 9 (3.13%) Firewall
6 7 (2.43%) Network Security
6 7 (2.43%) PuTTY
6 7 (2.43%) VPN
6 7 (2.43%) WinSCP
7 5 (1.74%) 5G
7 5 (1.74%) SAN
7 5 (1.74%) SSH
8 4 (1.39%) 4G
8 4 (1.39%) MQTT
9 3 (1.04%) BGP
9 3 (1.04%) Multicast
10 2 (0.69%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 2 (0.69%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 2 (0.69%) HTTPS
10 2 (0.69%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (11.11%) Data Warehouse
2 26 (9.03%) Oracle Database
3 22 (7.64%) MySQL
4 20 (6.94%) MongoDB
4 20 (6.94%) Relational Database
5 19 (6.60%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (5.90%) Db2
7 15 (5.21%) NoSQL
7 15 (5.21%) SQL Server
8 12 (4.17%) Metadata
9 11 (3.82%) PowerCenter
10 10 (3.47%) BusinessObjects
10 10 (3.47%) Oracle Reports
10 10 (3.47%) Redis
11 9 (3.13%) BigQuery
11 9 (3.13%) DynamoDB
11 9 (3.13%) Elasticsearch
11 9 (3.13%) Star Schema
12 8 (2.78%) Amazon RDS
12 8 (2.78%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 88 (30.56%) Git
2 55 (19.10%) Jenkins
3 46 (15.97%) GitLab
4 34 (11.81%) Maven
5 22 (7.64%) JUnit
6 14 (4.86%) JIRA
6 14 (4.86%) Mockito
7 11 (3.82%) Claude Code
8 10 (3.47%) SonarQube
8 10 (3.47%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (2.43%) Bitbucket
9 7 (2.43%) Gradle
10 6 (2.08%) Selenium
11 5 (1.74%) Oracle Forms
12 4 (1.39%) Cucumber
12 4 (1.39%) JDeveloper
12 4 (1.39%) Visual Studio Code
13 3 (1.04%) Team Foundation Server
13 3 (1.04%) webpack
13 3 (1.04%) Xcode
General
1 93 (32.29%) Finance
2 57 (19.79%) Banking
3 42 (14.58%) Social Skills
4 40 (13.89%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (6.94%) Public Sector
6 16 (5.56%) Investment Banking
7 8 (2.78%) Telecoms
8 5 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.39%) Retail
10 3 (1.04%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.69%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.69%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.69%) Prime Brokerage
11 2 (0.69%) Publishing
12 1 (0.35%) Advertising
12 1 (0.35%) Electronics
12 1 (0.35%) Front Office
12 1 (0.35%) Legal
12 1 (0.35%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 73 (25.35%) Developer
2 44 (15.28%) Senior
3 32 (11.11%) Python Developer
4 28 (9.72%) Data Engineer
5 21 (7.29%) Senior Developer
6 20 (6.94%) DevOps Engineer
6 20 (6.94%) Java Developer
7 19 (6.60%) Java Engineer
8 16 (5.56%) Architect
8 16 (5.56%) Cloud Engineer
9 15 (5.21%) GCP Engineer
10 13 (4.51%) Analyst
11 11 (3.82%) AWS Engineer
12 10 (3.47%) Software Engineer
13 9 (3.13%) Support Engineer
14 8 (2.78%) Administrator
14 8 (2.78%) Consultant
14 8 (2.78%) Lead
14 8 (2.78%) Senior Java Developer
14 8 (2.78%) Senior Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (24.31%) Terraform
2 38 (13.19%) RESTful
3 32 (11.11%) REST
4 30 (10.42%) Spring
5 29 (10.07%) Spring Boot
6 28 (9.72%) Kafka
7 26 (9.03%) Flask
8 22 (7.64%) FastAPI
9 20 (6.94%) CSS
9 20 (6.94%) HTML
10 18 (6.25%) JSON
11 17 (5.90%) Pandas
12 15 (5.21%) Django
13 14 (4.86%) JPA
13 14 (4.86%) Web Services
14 13 (4.51%) Middleware
15 12 (4.17%) OpenAPI
15 12 (4.17%) RabbitMQ
15 12 (4.17%) React
15 12 (4.17%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (11.81%) Linux Command Line
2 19 (6.60%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.51%) Enterprise Software
3 13 (4.51%) Management Information System
4 8 (2.78%) Derivative
4 8 (2.78%) Fixed Income
4 8 (2.78%) Public Cloud
5 7 (2.43%) Data Centre
5 7 (2.43%) Distributed Systems
5 7 (2.43%) Enterprise Cloud
5 7 (2.43%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (2.43%) Market Risk
6 6 (2.08%) AI Agents
6 6 (2.08%) Algorithms
6 6 (2.08%) Product Ownership
6 6 (2.08%) Replication
7 5 (1.74%) Credit Risk
7 5 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.74%) Onboarding
7 5 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 158 (54.86%) Linux
2 124 (43.06%) Unix
3 21 (7.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 17 (5.90%) Windows
5 12 (4.17%) Solaris
6 6 (2.08%) AIX
7 4 (1.39%) VMS
7 4 (1.39%) zOS
8 3 (1.04%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.04%) CentOS
8 3 (1.04%) SUSE
8 3 (1.04%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.69%) HPUX
9 2 (0.69%) Rocky
9 2 (0.69%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
10 1 (0.35%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.35%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.35%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (45.14%) CI/CD
2 81 (28.13%) DevOps
3 72 (25.00%) Containerisation
4 71 (24.65%) Infrastructure as Code
5 56 (19.44%) Agile
6 50 (17.36%) AI
7 47 (16.32%) Problem-Solving
8 44 (15.28%) Migration
9 43 (14.93%) Data Pipeline
9 43 (14.93%) Performance Tuning
10 41 (14.24%) Root Cause Analysis
11 39 (13.54%) Code Quality
11 39 (13.54%) ETL
12 37 (12.85%) Observability
13 35 (12.15%) Microservices
14 34 (11.81%) Continuous Improvement
15 33 (11.46%) Performance Optimisation
15 33 (11.46%) SDLC
15 33 (11.46%) Test Automation
16 32 (11.11%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 156 (54.17%) SQL
2 153 (53.13%) Python
3 83 (28.82%) Java
4 67 (23.26%) Bash
5 42 (14.58%) PL/SQL
6 24 (8.33%) PowerShell
7 23 (7.99%) JavaScript
8 17 (5.90%) Groovy
9 14 (4.86%) Perl
10 10 (3.47%) Korn
11 9 (3.13%) TypeScript
12 7 (2.43%) Go
13 6 (2.08%) C#
13 6 (2.08%) Scala
13 6 (2.08%) T-SQL
14 5 (1.74%) Ruby
15 4 (1.39%) C
15 4 (1.39%) JCL
15 4 (1.39%) Rust
16 3 (1.04%) C++
Qualifications
1 86 (29.86%) Security Cleared
2 62 (21.53%) SC Cleared
3 29 (10.07%) Degree
4 26 (9.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (4.17%) DV Cleared
6 11 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (3.13%) Master's Degree
8 6 (2.08%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.04%) Oracle Certification
10 2 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 2 (0.69%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.69%) CISSP
11 1 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.35%) CCNA
11 1 (0.35%) CISM
11 1 (0.35%) GIAC
11 1 (0.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 1 (0.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.35%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (12.50%) Data Quality
2 19 (6.60%) QA
3 6 (2.08%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.74%) Basel III
4 5 (1.74%) SLA
5 3 (1.04%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (1.04%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.69%) ISO 15022
7 1 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.35%) GDPR
7 1 (0.35%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.35%) NIST
7 1 (0.35%) SEPA
System Software
1 76 (26.39%) Docker
2 8 (2.78%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (2.08%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.08%) zsh
4 5 (1.74%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (1.39%) NFS
5 4 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (1.04%) Postfix
6 3 (1.04%) Sendmail
6 3 (1.04%) Varnish
6 3 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.69%) KVM
7 2 (0.69%) vSphere
8 1 (0.35%) HDFS
8 1 (0.35%) Veritas Cluster Server
8 1 (0.35%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 91 (31.60%) Kubernetes
2 58 (20.14%) Ansible
3 35 (12.15%) Grafana
4 27 (9.38%) Prometheus
5 14 (4.86%) Kibana
6 9 (3.13%) Control-M
7 8 (2.78%) Oracle RMAN
7 8 (2.78%) Podman
8 7 (2.43%) Data Guard
9 6 (2.08%) Puppet
10 5 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
11 4 (1.39%) HP ALM
11 4 (1.39%) NetBackup
11 4 (1.39%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 4 (1.39%) Packer
12 3 (1.04%) Check_MK
12 3 (1.04%) HAProxy
12 3 (1.04%) logstash
12 3 (1.04%) Netcool
12 3 (1.04%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 83 (28.82%) Oracle
2 39 (13.54%) Google
3 24 (8.33%) Splunk
4 21 (7.29%) Informatica
5 20 (6.94%) IBM
6 16 (5.56%) Red Hat
7 15 (5.21%) Microsoft
8 9 (3.13%) New Relic
8 9 (3.13%) Sybase
8 9 (3.13%) VMware
9 8 (2.78%) Dynatrace
9 8 (2.78%) HP
9 8 (2.78%) ServiceNow
10 7 (2.43%) Checkmarx
10 7 (2.43%) Murex
11 6 (2.08%) AppDynamics
11 6 (2.08%) Calypso
11 6 (2.08%) FIS
11 6 (2.08%) Tenable
11 6 (2.08%) Teradata