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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 381 294 322
Rank change year-on-year -87 +28 -82
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 270 244 288
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 0.83% 0.65%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.09% 2.45% 2.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 130 205
10th Percentile £350 £399 £350
25th Percentile £400 £436 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £530 £501
Median % change year-on-year -13.21% +5.79% -7.22%
75th Percentile £538 £605 £625
90th Percentile £625 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £500 £470
% change year-on-year -6.50% +6.38% -12.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 11 8
10th Percentile £46.75 £63.50 £44.75
25th Percentile £47.50 £66.50 £62.50
Median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +10.64%
75th Percentile £52.50 £76.88 £67.50
90th Percentile £53.25 £93.75 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +16.85%

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 12,905 9,946 12,857
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 28.19% 34.03% 29.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,586 6,706 9,126
10th Percentile £354 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £714 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £478 £488
% change year-on-year -0.42% -2.05% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 544 243 480
10th Percentile £41.94 £22.60 £30.63
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.63 £67.38
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £61.00
% change year-on-year +1.56% +4.92% -2.40%

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 April 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
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 9 April 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 -85 223 £475 -13.64% 53
UK excluding London -98 130 £468 -6.50% 39
London -49 100 £500 -9.09% 21
Work from Home -43 79 £466 -13.40% 27
Midlands -36 43 £471 +2.45% 6
West Midlands -34 41 £471 +2.45% 5
South East -44 26 £392 -33.90% 17
North of England -76 22 £485 -17.09% 8
East of England -24 20 £473 +1.29% 5
Yorkshire -62 12 £500 -14.16% 3
South West -29 10 £638 +16.70% 3
North West -30 9 £450 -25.00% 5
Scotland -35 7 £402 -14.47%
Wales -11 2 £305 - 2
East Midlands - 2 £475 - 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 12 (4.44%) Apache
1 12 (4.44%) Confluence
2 9 (3.33%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (1.85%) WebLogic
4 3 (1.11%) CICS
4 3 (1.11%) nginx
4 3 (1.11%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (1.11%) SAS
4 3 (1.11%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.74%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.74%) Oracle Spatial
5 2 (0.74%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.37%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.37%) JBoss
6 1 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.37%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.37%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 6 (2.22%) Notepad++
2 5 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.11%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.11%) Oracle 11i
1 3 (1.11%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 107 (39.63%) AWS
2 53 (19.63%) Azure
3 42 (15.56%) GitHub
4 35 (12.96%) Serverless
5 32 (11.85%) Amazon EC2
5 32 (11.85%) Amazon S3
6 30 (11.11%) GitHub Actions
6 30 (11.11%) OpenShift
7 25 (9.26%) AWS Lambda
8 24 (8.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (5.93%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (5.19%) AWS CloudFormation
11 13 (4.81%) GCP
12 12 (4.44%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (2.96%) AWS CodePipeline
13 8 (2.96%) IaaS
13 8 (2.96%) PaaS
14 7 (2.59%) Azure AKS
14 7 (2.59%) Pulumi
15 6 (2.22%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 18 (6.67%) SSH
2 9 (3.33%) DNS
2 9 (3.33%) SAN
3 8 (2.96%) Network Security
4 6 (2.22%) PuTTY
4 6 (2.22%) TCP/IP
4 6 (2.22%) WinSCP
5 5 (1.85%) Firewall
6 3 (1.11%) HTTPS
6 3 (1.11%) NAS
6 3 (1.11%) Reverse Proxy
7 2 (0.74%) AMQP
7 2 (0.74%) HTTP
7 2 (0.74%) iSCSI
7 2 (0.74%) OpenVPN
8 1 (0.37%) BIG-IP
8 1 (0.37%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.37%) LAN
8 1 (0.37%) Multicast
8 1 (0.37%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (9.63%) Oracle Database
2 25 (9.26%) SQL Server
3 23 (8.52%) MongoDB
4 22 (8.15%) Amazon RDS
5 21 (7.78%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (7.41%) Relational Database
7 19 (7.04%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (5.19%) Metadata
9 8 (2.96%) DynamoDB
9 8 (2.96%) MySQL
9 8 (2.96%) NoSQL
10 7 (2.59%) Big Data
11 6 (2.22%) BusinessObjects
11 6 (2.22%) Data Mart
11 6 (2.22%) Hadoop
11 6 (2.22%) InfluxDB
12 5 (1.85%) DB2
12 5 (1.85%) Oracle Reports
13 4 (1.48%) OLTP
13 4 (1.48%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 65 (24.07%) Jenkins
2 47 (17.41%) GitLab
3 40 (14.81%) Git
4 24 (8.89%) JIRA
5 8 (2.96%) JUnit
6 7 (2.59%) Maven
7 6 (2.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 6 (2.22%) Mockito
8 5 (1.85%) PyCharm
8 5 (1.85%) PyUnit
9 4 (1.48%) JMeter
9 4 (1.48%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (1.11%) Artifactory
10 3 (1.11%) Bitbucket
10 3 (1.11%) CircleCI
10 3 (1.11%) Subversion
11 2 (0.74%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.74%) Postman
11 2 (0.74%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.74%) Terragrunt
General
1 70 (25.93%) Social Skills
2 46 (17.04%) Finance
3 38 (14.07%) Banking
4 30 (11.11%) Public Sector
5 19 (7.04%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (4.44%) Investment Banking
7 11 (4.07%) Front Office
8 9 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (3.33%) Retail
9 7 (2.59%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.48%) Advertising
11 3 (1.11%) Law
11 3 (1.11%) Local Government
11 3 (1.11%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.74%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.37%) Military
13 1 (0.37%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.37%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 76 (28.15%) Developer
2 33 (12.22%) Java Developer
3 27 (10.00%) Data Engineer
4 23 (8.52%) Senior
5 21 (7.78%) Administrator
6 19 (7.04%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 18 (6.67%) Site Engineer
8 17 (6.30%) DBA
9 16 (5.93%) Python Developer
9 16 (5.93%) Support Engineer
10 14 (5.19%) DevOps Engineer
10 14 (5.19%) Linux Administrator
10 14 (5.19%) Oracle DBA
11 13 (4.81%) AWS Engineer
12 10 (3.70%) Analyst
12 10 (3.70%) AWS DevOps
12 10 (3.70%) Consultant
12 10 (3.70%) Database Engineer
12 10 (3.70%) Linux Engineer
12 10 (3.70%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (7.78%) Node.js
2 20 (7.41%) Kafka
3 17 (6.30%) RESTful
4 16 (5.93%) Spring
5 15 (5.56%) Middleware
6 14 (5.19%) Elastic Stack
6 14 (5.19%) Oracle GoldenGate
6 14 (5.19%) REST
6 14 (5.19%) Spring Boot
7 13 (4.81%) JSON
7 13 (4.81%) LDAP
8 10 (3.70%) SOAP
9 9 (3.33%) XML
10 8 (2.96%) AWS CDK
10 8 (2.96%) Django
10 8 (2.96%) OpenAPI
11 7 (2.59%) .NET
11 7 (2.59%) RabbitMQ
12 6 (2.22%) pytest
12 6 (2.22%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (7.04%) Cloud Native
1 19 (7.04%) Management Information System
2 14 (5.19%) Data Centre
3 11 (4.07%) Linux Command Line
4 7 (2.59%) DataPower
4 7 (2.59%) Equities
4 7 (2.59%) Fixed Income
4 7 (2.59%) Mainframe
5 6 (2.22%) Data Structures
5 6 (2.22%) Public Cloud
6 5 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.85%) Legacy Code
6 5 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.85%) Virtual Team
7 4 (1.48%) Clustering
7 4 (1.48%) Derivative
7 4 (1.48%) Equity Derivative
7 4 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 176 (65.19%) Linux
2 106 (39.26%) Unix
3 40 (14.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 22 (8.15%) Windows
5 11 (4.07%) CentOS
6 6 (2.22%) Ubuntu
7 5 (1.85%) Android
7 5 (1.85%) Apple iOS
7 5 (1.85%) VMS
7 5 (1.85%) Windows Server
8 3 (1.11%) AIX
8 3 (1.11%) zOS
9 2 (0.74%) Debian
9 2 (0.74%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
10 1 (0.37%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.37%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.37%) Rocky
10 1 (0.37%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (40.74%) CI/CD
2 71 (26.30%) Problem-Solving
3 68 (25.19%) Agile
4 57 (21.11%) DevOps
5 45 (16.67%) Containerisation
5 45 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
6 44 (16.30%) Performance Tuning
7 33 (12.22%) Migration
7 33 (12.22%) Task Automation
8 29 (10.74%) Analytics
9 27 (10.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 27 (10.00%) Microservices
9 27 (10.00%) Observability
10 24 (8.89%) ETL
10 24 (8.89%) ITIL
11 23 (8.52%) Configuration Management
11 23 (8.52%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 22 (8.15%) Continuous Improvement
12 22 (8.15%) Scrum
12 22 (8.15%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 128 (47.41%) SQL
2 104 (38.52%) Python
3 90 (33.33%) Java
4 31 (11.48%) PL/SQL
5 29 (10.74%) JavaScript
6 20 (7.41%) Bash
6 20 (7.41%) Korn
7 17 (6.30%) TypeScript
8 11 (4.07%) C++
8 11 (4.07%) Perl
9 9 (3.33%) Go
9 9 (3.33%) MATLAB
10 8 (2.96%) C
11 6 (2.22%) C#
11 6 (2.22%) PowerShell
12 5 (1.85%) ProC
13 4 (1.48%) Groovy
13 4 (1.48%) JCL
14 3 (1.11%) PHP
14 3 (1.11%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 111 (41.11%) Security Cleared
2 91 (33.70%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.52%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (7.04%) Degree
5 16 (5.93%) DV Cleared
6 11 (4.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (4.07%) Oracle Certification
7 8 (2.96%) OCP
8 4 (1.48%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.11%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.74%) CISSP
11 1 (0.37%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.37%) CISM
11 1 (0.37%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.37%) MOS
11 1 (0.37%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.37%) RHCA
11 1 (0.37%) RHCE
11 1 (0.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.67%) SLA
2 12 (4.44%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.59%) QA
4 5 (1.85%) GDPR
5 3 (1.11%) FATCA
6 2 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (0.74%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.74%) NIST
7 1 (0.37%) DICOM
7 1 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 59 (21.85%) Docker
2 14 (5.19%) Oracle RAC
3 12 (4.44%) Active Directory
4 9 (3.33%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.48%) Postfix
5 4 (1.48%) Varnish
5 4 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (1.11%) GridGain
6 3 (1.11%) NFS
6 3 (1.11%) Sendmail
7 2 (0.74%) HDFS
7 2 (0.74%) SRDF
8 1 (0.37%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 65 (24.07%) Kubernetes
2 56 (20.74%) Terraform
3 48 (17.78%) Ansible
4 33 (12.22%) Grafana
4 33 (12.22%) Prometheus
5 20 (7.41%) Oracle RMAN
6 18 (6.67%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 17 (6.30%) Progress Chef
8 15 (5.56%) Red Hat Satellite
9 10 (3.70%) Podman
10 9 (3.33%) Check_MK
11 8 (2.96%) Puppet
12 6 (2.22%) Data Guard
13 5 (1.85%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (1.85%) Kibana
14 4 (1.48%) Docker Swarm
14 4 (1.48%) HAProxy
15 2 (0.74%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.74%) Sysdig
15 2 (0.74%) systemd
Vendors
1 88 (32.59%) Oracle
2 42 (15.56%) Red Hat
3 18 (6.67%) Microsoft
4 16 (5.93%) VMware
5 11 (4.07%) Dell
5 11 (4.07%) Murex
5 11 (4.07%) Splunk
5 11 (4.07%) Sybase
6 9 (3.33%) Informatica
7 7 (2.59%) IBM
8 6 (2.22%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.22%) Talend
9 5 (1.85%) Veritas
10 4 (1.48%) Cloudera
10 4 (1.48%) Databricks
10 4 (1.48%) Dynatrace
10 4 (1.48%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.11%) Ab Initio
11 3 (1.11%) Pure Storage
11 3 (1.11%) Solace