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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 364 286 304
Rank change year-on-year -78 +18 -53
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 276 253 309
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.86% 0.69%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.19% 2.52% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 128 212
10th Percentile £325 £357 £363
25th Percentile £392 £425 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £520 £501
Median % change year-on-year -14.09% +3.79% -7.22%
75th Percentile £534 £602 £630
90th Percentile £607 £675 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £500 £463
% change year-on-year -9.00% +8.11% -14.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 10 9
10th Percentile £55.70 £63.35 £48.16
25th Percentile £65.00 £65.75 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.00 £70.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.20% +8.08% +23.81%
75th Percentile - £89.69 -
90th Percentile - £94.13 £76.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £66.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +2.26% +2.31% +23.81%

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 12,595 10,041 12,940
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 29.17% 34.20% 29.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,366 6,650 9,148
10th Percentile £354 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £420 £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 £715 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £482
% change year-on-year -2.56% +1.25% -3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 498 243 493
10th Percentile £41.49 £21.40 £30.75
25th Percentile £54.14 £34.13 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £67.38
90th Percentile £77.00 £85.00 £74.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £61.60
% change year-on-year +1.97% +3.48% -5.23%

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 17 March 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 17 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Shell Script in the UK

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 17 March 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 -63 228 £458 -12.86% 53
UK excluding London -84 142 £455 -9.00% 30
London -53 93 £454 -12.69% 30
Work from Home -40 80 £452 -13.08% 26
Midlands -38 37 £475 +3.26% 3
West Midlands -48 35 £475 +3.26% 2
South East -31 29 £392 -25.33% 15
North of England -67 25 £455 -22.55% 6
East of England -18 19 £440 -5.68% 3
South West -19 19 £525 -4.55% 3
Yorkshire -54 16 £447 -23.59% 1
Scotland -27 11 £402 -14.69%
North West -33 8 £468 -22.08% 5
Wales -8 2 £305 - 2
East Midlands -30 2 £475 +33.43% 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 (4.35%) Confluence
2 9 (3.26%) Apache
2 9 (3.26%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (1.81%) WebLogic
4 3 (1.09%) nginx
4 3 (1.09%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.72%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.72%) CICS
5 2 (0.72%) JBoss
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle Spatial
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.72%) SAS
5 2 (0.72%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.36%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.36%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.36%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 5 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.81%) Oracle Applications
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle 11i
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.36%) ION MarketView
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 99 (35.87%) AWS
2 49 (17.75%) Azure
3 42 (15.22%) GitHub
4 30 (10.87%) Serverless
5 29 (10.51%) Amazon EC2
5 29 (10.51%) Amazon S3
6 27 (9.78%) OpenShift
7 24 (8.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 24 (8.70%) GitHub Actions
8 21 (7.61%) AWS Lambda
9 17 (6.16%) Amazon EKS
9 17 (6.16%) AWS CloudFormation
10 12 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (3.99%) GCP
12 7 (2.54%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (2.54%) Azure AKS
12 7 (2.54%) PaaS
12 7 (2.54%) Pulumi
12 7 (2.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 6 (2.17%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (6.52%) SSH
2 9 (3.26%) DNS
3 8 (2.90%) SAN
4 6 (2.17%) Network Security
4 6 (2.17%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.45%) Firewall
6 3 (1.09%) HTTP
6 3 (1.09%) Reverse Proxy
7 2 (0.72%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.72%) iSCSI
7 2 (0.72%) NAS
7 2 (0.72%) OpenVPN
8 1 (0.36%) AMQP
8 1 (0.36%) BIG-IP
8 1 (0.36%) DHCP
8 1 (0.36%) FTP
8 1 (0.36%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (11.23%) MongoDB
2 29 (10.51%) Oracle Database
3 24 (8.70%) Amazon RDS
4 20 (7.25%) Relational Database
5 19 (6.88%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (6.52%) SQL Server
7 15 (5.43%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (4.71%) MySQL
9 12 (4.35%) NoSQL
10 8 (2.90%) Big Data
10 8 (2.90%) DB2
10 8 (2.90%) Metadata
11 7 (2.54%) DynamoDB
12 6 (2.17%) Data Mart
12 6 (2.17%) Hadoop
13 5 (1.81%) InfluxDB
13 5 (1.81%) Oracle Reports
14 4 (1.45%) Data Lake
14 4 (1.45%) Oracle Database 12c
14 4 (1.45%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 63 (22.83%) Jenkins
2 48 (17.39%) GitLab
3 35 (12.68%) Git
4 25 (9.06%) JIRA
5 13 (4.71%) JUnit
6 7 (2.54%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 7 (2.54%) Mockito
7 6 (2.17%) PyCharm
7 6 (2.17%) PyUnit
8 5 (1.81%) Maven
9 4 (1.45%) JMeter
9 4 (1.45%) Subversion
10 3 (1.09%) Artifactory
10 3 (1.09%) Bitbucket
10 3 (1.09%) CircleCI
10 3 (1.09%) Postman
10 3 (1.09%) Selenium
10 3 (1.09%) SonarQube
10 3 (1.09%) Terragrunt
11 2 (0.72%) Gatling
General
1 75 (27.17%) Social Skills
2 40 (14.49%) Finance
3 33 (11.96%) Banking
4 30 (10.87%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (10.87%) Public Sector
5 13 (4.71%) Investment Banking
6 10 (3.62%) Front Office
7 9 (3.26%) Retail
8 7 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (2.17%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.45%) Advertising
10 4 (1.45%) Law
10 4 (1.45%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.09%) Local Government
11 3 (1.09%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.72%) Military
12 2 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.36%) Marketing
13 1 (0.36%) Multimedia
13 1 (0.36%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 74 (26.81%) Developer
2 33 (11.96%) Java Developer
3 26 (9.42%) Support Engineer
4 22 (7.97%) Senior
5 19 (6.88%) Administrator
5 19 (6.88%) DBA
6 18 (6.52%) DevOps Engineer
6 18 (6.52%) Oracle DBA
6 18 (6.52%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 17 (6.16%) Data Engineer
7 17 (6.16%) Site Engineer
8 15 (5.43%) AWS Engineer
9 12 (4.35%) AWS DevOps
9 12 (4.35%) Product Engineer
9 12 (4.35%) Products Support Engineer
9 12 (4.35%) Software Support Engineer
10 11 (3.99%) Consultant
10 11 (3.99%) Linux Administrator
10 11 (3.99%) Python Developer
11 10 (3.62%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (9.42%) Kafka
2 22 (7.97%) Middleware
3 21 (7.61%) Node.js
3 21 (7.61%) Spring
4 18 (6.52%) Elastic Stack
5 15 (5.43%) REST
5 15 (5.43%) RESTful
5 15 (5.43%) Spring Boot
6 14 (5.07%) Oracle GoldenGate
7 12 (4.35%) JSON
8 10 (3.62%) LDAP
8 10 (3.62%) OpenAPI
8 10 (3.62%) SOAP
9 9 (3.26%) XML
10 7 (2.54%) AWS CDK
10 7 (2.54%) pytest
10 7 (2.54%) XSD
11 6 (2.17%) Django
11 6 (2.17%) Lambda Expressions
11 6 (2.17%) React
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.61%) Cloud Native
2 16 (5.80%) Management Information System
3 12 (4.35%) Data Centre
4 11 (3.99%) Equities
5 10 (3.62%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.54%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (2.17%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (2.17%) DataPower
7 6 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.17%) Mainframe
8 5 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.81%) Legacy Code
8 5 (1.81%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (1.45%) Clustering
9 4 (1.45%) Derivative
9 4 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.45%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (1.45%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.45%) Legacy Applications
9 4 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 182 (65.94%) Linux
2 94 (34.06%) Unix
3 38 (13.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (8.33%) Windows
5 16 (5.80%) Ubuntu
6 11 (3.99%) CentOS
7 6 (2.17%) Android
7 6 (2.17%) Apple iOS
8 4 (1.45%) VMS
8 4 (1.45%) Windows Server
9 3 (1.09%) AIX
10 2 (0.72%) Debian
10 2 (0.72%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.72%) zOS
11 1 (0.36%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (38.41%) CI/CD
2 78 (28.26%) Agile
3 76 (27.54%) Problem-Solving
4 53 (19.20%) DevOps
5 44 (15.94%) Containerisation
6 43 (15.58%) Infrastructure as Code
7 42 (15.22%) Performance Tuning
8 33 (11.96%) Software Engineering
9 30 (10.87%) Task Automation
10 28 (10.14%) SDLC
11 27 (9.78%) Observability
12 26 (9.42%) Continuous Improvement
12 26 (9.42%) Data Modelling
12 26 (9.42%) Microservices
13 25 (9.06%) Analytics
14 24 (8.70%) ITIL
14 24 (8.70%) Migration
15 23 (8.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 23 (8.33%) Scrum
16 22 (7.97%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 120 (43.48%) SQL
2 111 (40.22%) Python
3 94 (34.06%) Java
4 43 (15.58%) JavaScript
5 21 (7.61%) Bash
6 20 (7.25%) PL/SQL
7 19 (6.88%) C++
7 19 (6.88%) Korn
8 17 (6.16%) C
8 17 (6.16%) TypeScript
9 12 (4.35%) Ada
9 12 (4.35%) Perl
10 11 (3.99%) Go
11 7 (2.54%) MATLAB
11 7 (2.54%) PowerShell
12 5 (1.81%) Groovy
12 5 (1.81%) ProC
13 3 (1.09%) C#
13 3 (1.09%) JCL
13 3 (1.09%) PHP
Qualifications
1 108 (39.13%) Security Cleared
2 89 (32.25%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.33%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (7.61%) Degree
5 15 (5.43%) DV Cleared
6 14 (5.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.54%) OCP
7 7 (2.54%) Oracle Certification
8 3 (1.09%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.09%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.72%) CISSP
10 1 (0.36%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.36%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.36%) CISM
10 1 (0.36%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.36%) MOS
10 1 (0.36%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.36%) RHCA
10 1 (0.36%) RHCE
10 1 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.52%) SLA
2 16 (5.80%) Data Quality
3 9 (3.26%) QA
4 6 (2.17%) GDPR
5 3 (1.09%) FATCA
6 2 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (0.72%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.72%) NCSC
6 2 (0.72%) NIST
7 1 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 54 (19.57%) Docker
2 13 (4.71%) Oracle RAC
3 9 (3.26%) Active Directory
3 9 (3.26%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.72%) HDFS
4 2 (0.72%) KVM
4 2 (0.72%) Postfix
4 2 (0.72%) SRDF
4 2 (0.72%) Varnish
4 2 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.36%) Apache ZooKeeper
5 1 (0.36%) NFS
5 1 (0.36%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 67 (24.28%) Kubernetes
2 57 (20.65%) Terraform
3 44 (15.94%) Ansible
4 36 (13.04%) Grafana
5 34 (12.32%) Prometheus
6 18 (6.52%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 16 (5.80%) Oracle RMAN
7 16 (5.80%) Progress Chef
8 13 (4.71%) Red Hat Satellite
9 8 (2.90%) Podman
9 8 (2.90%) Puppet
10 7 (2.54%) Check_MK
11 5 (1.81%) Dell DRAC
12 4 (1.45%) Kibana
13 3 (1.09%) Data Guard
13 3 (1.09%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (0.72%) HAProxy
14 2 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
14 2 (0.72%) Packer
14 2 (0.72%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 78 (28.26%) Oracle
2 47 (17.03%) Red Hat
3 18 (6.52%) Microsoft
4 17 (6.16%) Splunk
5 13 (4.71%) VMware
6 11 (3.99%) Dell
7 10 (3.62%) Murex
7 10 (3.62%) Sybase
8 8 (2.90%) ServiceNow
9 7 (2.54%) IBM
10 6 (2.17%) MuleSoft
11 5 (1.81%) Dynatrace
11 5 (1.81%) Informatica
11 5 (1.81%) Talend
12 4 (1.45%) Cloudera
12 4 (1.45%) CyberArk
12 4 (1.45%) Databricks
13 3 (1.09%) Hortonworks
13 3 (1.09%) Pure Storage
13 3 (1.09%) Veritas