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

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 375 296 323
Rank change year-on-year -79 +27 -80
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 268 246 295
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.58% 0.84% 0.67%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.08% 2.46% 2.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 191 133 212
10th Percentile £350 £384 £364
25th Percentile £400 £430 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £525 £510
Median % change year-on-year -12.57% +2.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £606 £625
90th Percentile £625 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £500 £472
% change year-on-year -6.57% +5.88% -12.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 9
10th Percentile £46.75 £63.35 £48.16
25th Percentile £47.50 £65.75 £61.75
Median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +10.64%
75th Percentile £52.50 £77.19 £65.25
90th Percentile £53.25 £93.75 £76.00
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 12,881 9,980 12,866
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 28.09% 34.10% 29.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,568 6,734 9,133
10th Percentile £353 £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 £713 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £488
% change year-on-year - -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 546 242 481
10th Percentile £41.94 £22.55 £31.25
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.38 £68.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.97% +1.99% -

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 12 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 12 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 -76 222 £475 -13.64% 55
UK excluding London -102 128 £467 -6.57% 36
London -59 100 £500 -9.09% 23
Work from Home -46 78 £465 -13.73% 23
Midlands -39 42 £470 +2.17% 6
West Midlands -41 40 £470 +2.17% 4
South East -43 27 £392 -33.90% 15
North of England -78 22 £485 -17.09% 7
East of England -29 20 £473 +1.29% 2
Yorkshire -63 12 £500 -14.16% 2
South West -28 9 £700 +29.03% 5
North West -34 9 £450 -25.00% 5
Scotland -41 6 £402 -14.47%
Wales -8 2 £305 - 1
East Midlands - 2 £475 - 2

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 (4.48%) Apache
1 12 (4.48%) Confluence
2 9 (3.36%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.87%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (1.87%) WebLogic
4 3 (1.12%) CICS
4 3 (1.12%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (1.12%) SAS
4 3 (1.12%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.75%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.75%) nginx
5 2 (0.75%) Oracle Spatial
5 2 (0.75%) 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 7 (2.61%) Notepad++
2 4 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.12%) Oracle 11i
1 3 (1.12%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.75%) 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
1 105 (39.18%) AWS
2 52 (19.40%) Azure
3 40 (14.93%) GitHub
4 33 (12.31%) Serverless
5 31 (11.57%) Amazon EC2
5 31 (11.57%) Amazon S3
6 30 (11.19%) OpenShift
7 29 (10.82%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (8.96%) AWS Lambda
9 23 (8.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 15 (5.60%) Amazon EKS
11 13 (4.85%) AWS CloudFormation
11 13 (4.85%) GCP
12 12 (4.48%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (2.99%) AWS CodePipeline
13 8 (2.99%) IaaS
13 8 (2.99%) PaaS
14 7 (2.61%) Azure AKS
14 7 (2.61%) Pulumi
15 6 (2.24%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 18 (6.72%) SSH
2 9 (3.36%) DNS
2 9 (3.36%) SAN
3 8 (2.99%) Network Security
4 7 (2.61%) PuTTY
4 7 (2.61%) WinSCP
5 6 (2.24%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.87%) Firewall
7 3 (1.12%) HTTPS
7 3 (1.12%) NAS
7 3 (1.12%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.75%) AMQP
8 2 (0.75%) HTTP
8 2 (0.75%) iSCSI
8 2 (0.75%) OpenVPN
9 1 (0.37%) BIG-IP
9 1 (0.37%) Kerberos
9 1 (0.37%) LAN
9 1 (0.37%) Multicast
9 1 (0.37%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (9.33%) Oracle Database
1 25 (9.33%) SQL Server
2 23 (8.58%) MongoDB
3 21 (7.84%) Amazon RDS
3 21 (7.84%) PostgreSQL
4 20 (7.46%) Data Warehouse
4 20 (7.46%) Relational Database
5 15 (5.60%) Metadata
6 8 (2.99%) DynamoDB
6 8 (2.99%) MySQL
6 8 (2.99%) NoSQL
7 7 (2.61%) Big Data
7 7 (2.61%) BusinessObjects
8 6 (2.24%) Data Mart
8 6 (2.24%) Hadoop
8 6 (2.24%) InfluxDB
9 5 (1.87%) DB2
9 5 (1.87%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (1.49%) OLTP
10 4 (1.49%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 64 (23.88%) Jenkins
2 46 (17.16%) GitLab
3 41 (15.30%) Git
4 24 (8.96%) JIRA
5 8 (2.99%) Maven
6 7 (2.61%) JUnit
7 6 (2.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (1.87%) Mockito
8 5 (1.87%) PyCharm
8 5 (1.87%) PyUnit
9 4 (1.49%) Bitbucket
9 4 (1.49%) JMeter
9 4 (1.49%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (1.12%) Artifactory
10 3 (1.12%) CircleCI
10 3 (1.12%) Subversion
11 2 (0.75%) Gradle
11 2 (0.75%) Selenium
11 2 (0.75%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.75%) Terragrunt
General
1 68 (25.37%) Social Skills
2 46 (17.16%) Finance
3 38 (14.18%) Banking
4 29 (10.82%) Public Sector
5 19 (7.09%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (4.48%) Investment Banking
7 11 (4.10%) Front Office
8 9 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (3.36%) Retail
9 7 (2.61%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.49%) Advertising
11 3 (1.12%) Law
11 3 (1.12%) Local Government
11 3 (1.12%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.75%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.37%) Electronics
13 1 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.37%) Military
13 1 (0.37%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 77 (28.73%) Developer
2 34 (12.69%) Java Developer
3 28 (10.45%) Data Engineer
4 22 (8.21%) Senior
5 21 (7.84%) Administrator
6 19 (7.09%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 18 (6.72%) Site Engineer
8 17 (6.34%) DBA
9 16 (5.97%) Python Developer
10 15 (5.60%) Support Engineer
11 14 (5.22%) Linux Administrator
11 14 (5.22%) Oracle DBA
12 13 (4.85%) AWS Engineer
12 13 (4.85%) DevOps Engineer
13 10 (3.73%) Analyst
13 10 (3.73%) AWS DevOps
13 10 (3.73%) Consultant
13 10 (3.73%) Database Engineer
13 10 (3.73%) Linux Engineer
13 10 (3.73%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (7.84%) Node.js
2 20 (7.46%) Kafka
3 16 (5.97%) RESTful
3 16 (5.97%) Spring
4 15 (5.60%) REST
5 14 (5.22%) Middleware
5 14 (5.22%) Oracle GoldenGate
6 13 (4.85%) JSON
6 13 (4.85%) LDAP
6 13 (4.85%) Spring Boot
7 12 (4.48%) Elastic Stack
8 9 (3.36%) SOAP
8 9 (3.36%) XML
9 8 (2.99%) AWS CDK
9 8 (2.99%) Django
9 8 (2.99%) OpenAPI
10 7 (2.61%) .NET
10 7 (2.61%) RabbitMQ
11 6 (2.24%) pytest
11 6 (2.24%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (7.09%) Cloud Native
1 19 (7.09%) Management Information System
2 14 (5.22%) Data Centre
3 12 (4.48%) Linux Command Line
4 7 (2.61%) DataPower
4 7 (2.61%) Equities
4 7 (2.61%) Fixed Income
4 7 (2.61%) Mainframe
5 6 (2.24%) Data Structures
5 6 (2.24%) Public Cloud
6 5 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.87%) Legacy Code
6 5 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.87%) Virtual Team
7 4 (1.49%) Clustering
7 4 (1.49%) Derivative
7 4 (1.49%) Equity Derivative
7 4 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 172 (64.18%) Linux
2 107 (39.93%) Unix
3 40 (14.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (7.84%) Windows
5 11 (4.10%) CentOS
6 5 (1.87%) Android
6 5 (1.87%) Apple iOS
6 5 (1.87%) Ubuntu
6 5 (1.87%) VMS
6 5 (1.87%) Windows Server
7 3 (1.12%) AIX
7 3 (1.12%) zOS
8 2 (0.75%) Debian
8 2 (0.75%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
9 1 (0.37%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.37%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.37%) Rocky
9 1 (0.37%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (40.67%) CI/CD
2 70 (26.12%) Problem-Solving
3 66 (24.63%) Agile
4 56 (20.90%) DevOps
5 44 (16.42%) Infrastructure as Code
5 44 (16.42%) Performance Tuning
6 43 (16.04%) Containerisation
7 34 (12.69%) Migration
8 33 (12.31%) Task Automation
9 29 (10.82%) Analytics
10 27 (10.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 27 (10.07%) Observability
11 26 (9.70%) Microservices
12 25 (9.33%) ETL
13 24 (8.96%) ITIL
14 23 (8.58%) Configuration Management
14 23 (8.58%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 22 (8.21%) Continuous Improvement
15 22 (8.21%) High Availability
16 21 (7.84%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 129 (48.13%) SQL
2 104 (38.81%) Python
3 89 (33.21%) Java
4 32 (11.94%) PL/SQL
5 29 (10.82%) JavaScript
6 20 (7.46%) Bash
6 20 (7.46%) Korn
7 17 (6.34%) TypeScript
8 11 (4.10%) Perl
9 9 (3.36%) C++
9 9 (3.36%) Go
9 9 (3.36%) MATLAB
10 6 (2.24%) C
10 6 (2.24%) C#
10 6 (2.24%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.87%) ProC
12 4 (1.49%) Groovy
12 4 (1.49%) JCL
13 3 (1.12%) PHP
13 3 (1.12%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 109 (40.67%) Security Cleared
2 89 (33.21%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.58%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (7.09%) Degree
5 16 (5.97%) DV Cleared
6 11 (4.10%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (4.10%) Oracle Certification
7 8 (2.99%) OCP
8 4 (1.49%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.12%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.75%) 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 (6.72%) SLA
2 12 (4.48%) Data Quality
3 6 (2.24%) QA
4 5 (1.87%) GDPR
5 3 (1.12%) FATCA
6 2 (0.75%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (0.75%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.75%) NIST
7 1 (0.37%) DICOM
7 1 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 57 (21.27%) Docker
2 14 (5.22%) Oracle RAC
3 12 (4.48%) Active Directory
4 9 (3.36%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.49%) Postfix
5 4 (1.49%) Varnish
5 4 (1.49%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (1.12%) GridGain
6 3 (1.12%) NFS
6 3 (1.12%) Sendmail
7 2 (0.75%) HDFS
7 2 (0.75%) SRDF
8 1 (0.37%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 63 (23.51%) Kubernetes
2 55 (20.52%) Terraform
3 48 (17.91%) Ansible
4 32 (11.94%) Grafana
5 31 (11.57%) Prometheus
6 20 (7.46%) Oracle RMAN
7 18 (6.72%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 17 (6.34%) Progress Chef
9 15 (5.60%) Red Hat Satellite
10 10 (3.73%) Podman
11 9 (3.36%) Check_MK
12 8 (2.99%) Puppet
13 6 (2.24%) Data Guard
14 5 (1.87%) Dell DRAC
14 5 (1.87%) Kibana
15 4 (1.49%) Docker Swarm
15 4 (1.49%) HAProxy
16 2 (0.75%) Sysdig
16 2 (0.75%) systemd
16 2 (0.75%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 88 (32.84%) Oracle
2 41 (15.30%) Red Hat
3 18 (6.72%) Microsoft
4 16 (5.97%) VMware
5 11 (4.10%) Dell
5 11 (4.10%) Murex
5 11 (4.10%) Splunk
5 11 (4.10%) Sybase
6 10 (3.73%) Informatica
7 7 (2.61%) IBM
8 6 (2.24%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.24%) Talend
9 5 (1.87%) Veritas
10 4 (1.49%) Cloudera
10 4 (1.49%) Databricks
10 4 (1.49%) Dynatrace
10 4 (1.49%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.12%) Hortonworks
11 3 (1.12%) Pure Storage
11 3 (1.12%) Solace