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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 408 262 294
Rank change year-on-year -146 +32 -54
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 246 283 322
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.98% 0.75%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.86% 2.87% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 165 234
10th Percentile £325 £358 £335
25th Percentile £398 £438 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £520 £501
Median % change year-on-year -10.36% +3.74% -8.03%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £614
90th Percentile £633 £650 £707
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £500 £465
% change year-on-year -8.20% +7.53% -13.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 14 8
10th Percentile £29.85 £65.90 £59.73
25th Percentile £36.00 - £64.19
Median hourly rate £47.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.15% +4.62% -2.35%
75th Percentile £51.25 - £67.69
90th Percentile £52.75 £77.13 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -30.15% +4.62% +0.97%

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 13,246 9,867 12,901
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.95% 34.17% 30.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,666 6,714 9,166
10th Percentile £358 £358 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £650
90th Percentile £713 £760 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.41% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 571 220 516
10th Percentile £36.25 £26.93 £32.25
25th Percentile £53.53 £33.91 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.25
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -7.63% -0.40%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -124 211 £474 -9.76% 31
UK excluding London -137 120 £459 -8.20% 24
London -69 96 £510 -7.27% 11
Work from Home -91 62 £500 - 17
South East -57 32 £400 -33.33% 14
Midlands -49 27 £467 -0.14% 2
North of England -91 27 £460 -8.00% 2
West Midlands -57 26 £466 +1.29% 1
East of England -21 25 £470 +44.62% 3
Yorkshire -76 13 £480 -4.00%
North West -50 12 £450 -11.05% 2
South West -50 3 £575 +10.31% 2
Scotland -57 3 - - 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £190 -
Wales -12 1 £345 - 1
East Midlands -23 1 £525 +10.53% 1
North East - 1 £413 -

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 14 (5.69%) Apache
2 11 (4.47%) Confluence
3 7 (2.85%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (2.85%) Apache Spark
4 6 (2.44%) CICS
5 4 (1.63%) WebLogic
6 3 (1.22%) JBoss
6 3 (1.22%) nginx
6 3 (1.22%) Tomcat
6 3 (1.22%) WebSphere
6 3 (1.22%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.81%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.81%) Oracle Spatial
7 2 (0.81%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.81%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.41%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.41%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.85%) Notepad++
2 2 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.22%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.41%) FLEXCUBE
2 1 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.41%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 91 (36.99%) AWS
2 50 (20.33%) Azure
3 41 (16.67%) GitHub
4 36 (14.63%) GitHub Actions
5 35 (14.23%) Serverless
6 26 (10.57%) Amazon S3
7 25 (10.16%) AWS Lambda
8 24 (9.76%) Amazon EC2
9 20 (8.13%) OpenShift
10 18 (7.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (6.50%) Amazon EKS
12 14 (5.69%) Azure DevOps
13 13 (5.28%) AWS CloudFormation
14 11 (4.47%) GCP
15 10 (4.07%) PaaS
16 9 (3.66%) AWS CodePipeline
17 8 (3.25%) IaaS
17 8 (3.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 6 (2.44%) Power Platform
18 6 (2.44%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.47%) DNS
1 11 (4.47%) SSH
2 9 (3.66%) SAN
3 7 (2.85%) Network Security
3 7 (2.85%) PuTTY
3 7 (2.85%) TCP/IP
3 7 (2.85%) WinSCP
4 5 (2.03%) Firewall
5 3 (1.22%) HTTPS
5 3 (1.22%) NAS
5 3 (1.22%) Reverse Proxy
6 2 (0.81%) AMQP
6 2 (0.81%) HTTP
6 2 (0.81%) iSCSI
6 2 (0.81%) MQTT
6 2 (0.81%) Multicast
6 2 (0.81%) OpenVPN
6 2 (0.81%) VPN
7 1 (0.41%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.41%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (10.98%) SQL Server
2 23 (9.35%) Oracle Database
3 20 (8.13%) Relational Database
4 19 (7.72%) PostgreSQL
5 18 (7.32%) MongoDB
6 16 (6.50%) Data Warehouse
7 14 (5.69%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (5.28%) Metadata
9 10 (4.07%) DB2
10 9 (3.66%) DynamoDB
11 8 (3.25%) BusinessObjects
12 7 (2.85%) Amazon Aurora
12 7 (2.85%) MySQL
13 6 (2.44%) NoSQL
13 6 (2.44%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (2.03%) Data Lake
14 5 (2.03%) Data Mart
14 5 (2.03%) Elasticsearch
14 5 (2.03%) KDB
14 5 (2.03%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 61 (24.80%) Jenkins
2 48 (19.51%) GitLab
3 44 (17.89%) Git
4 21 (8.54%) JIRA
5 7 (2.85%) Maven
6 6 (2.44%) SonarQube
7 5 (2.03%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (2.03%) JMeter
7 5 (2.03%) JUnit
7 5 (2.03%) Mockito
7 5 (2.03%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (1.63%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.63%) PyCharm
8 4 (1.63%) PyUnit
9 3 (1.22%) Artifactory
9 3 (1.22%) CircleCI
9 3 (1.22%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.81%) Gatling
10 2 (0.81%) Gradle
10 2 (0.81%) Postman
General
1 57 (23.17%) Social Skills
2 52 (21.14%) Finance
3 38 (15.45%) Banking
4 28 (11.38%) Public Sector
5 16 (6.50%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (4.07%) Front Office
7 10 (4.07%) Retail
8 9 (3.66%) Investment Banking
9 8 (3.25%) Aerospace
10 5 (2.03%) Advertising
11 3 (1.22%) Law
11 3 (1.22%) Local Government
12 2 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.81%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.41%) Electronics
13 1 (0.41%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.41%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.41%) Military
Job Titles
1 63 (25.61%) Developer
2 31 (12.60%) Data Engineer
3 24 (9.76%) Administrator
3 24 (9.76%) Java Developer
4 21 (8.54%) Senior
5 20 (8.13%) Python Developer
6 19 (7.72%) DBA
7 17 (6.91%) Linux Administrator
8 16 (6.50%) DevOps Engineer
8 16 (6.50%) Oracle DBA
9 15 (6.10%) Support Engineer
10 12 (4.88%) Analyst
11 11 (4.47%) AWS DevOps
11 11 (4.47%) AWS Engineer
12 9 (3.66%) AWS DevOps Engineer
12 9 (3.66%) Consultant
12 9 (3.66%) Database Engineer
12 9 (3.66%) Site Engineer
12 9 (3.66%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 9 (3.66%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (9.35%) RESTful
2 16 (6.50%) JSON
2 16 (6.50%) Middleware
3 15 (6.10%) Kafka
3 15 (6.10%) LDAP
3 15 (6.10%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 12 (4.88%) Node.js
4 12 (4.88%) Spring
5 11 (4.47%) Elastic Stack
5 11 (4.47%) Spring Boot
6 9 (3.66%) Django
6 9 (3.66%) FastAPI
7 8 (3.25%) AWS CDK
7 8 (3.25%) Flask
7 8 (3.25%) Pandas
7 8 (3.25%) React
7 8 (3.25%) REST
7 8 (3.25%) Web Services
8 7 (2.85%) .NET
8 7 (2.85%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 22 (8.94%) Management Information System
2 16 (6.50%) Data Centre
3 15 (6.10%) Cloud Native
4 13 (5.28%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (3.25%) Fixed Income
5 8 (3.25%) Mainframe
6 7 (2.85%) Hedge funds
6 7 (2.85%) Public Cloud
7 6 (2.44%) Data Structures
7 6 (2.44%) DataPower
7 6 (2.44%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.44%) Online Banking
8 5 (2.03%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (2.03%) Derivative
8 5 (2.03%) Equities
8 5 (2.03%) Legacy Code
8 5 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (2.03%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.63%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 156 (63.41%) Linux
2 99 (40.24%) Unix
3 39 (15.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (9.35%) Windows
5 13 (5.28%) CentOS
6 7 (2.85%) zOS
7 6 (2.44%) Windows Server
8 5 (2.03%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.63%) Android
9 4 (1.63%) Ubuntu
10 3 (1.22%) Solaris
11 2 (0.81%) AIX
11 2 (0.81%) Debian
11 2 (0.81%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.81%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.81%) VMS
12 1 (0.41%) Amazon Linux
12 1 (0.41%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (40.65%) CI/CD
2 66 (26.83%) DevOps
3 57 (23.17%) Problem-Solving
4 54 (21.95%) Agile
5 44 (17.89%) Infrastructure as Code
6 42 (17.07%) Performance Tuning
7 39 (15.85%) Containerisation
8 33 (13.41%) Migration
9 30 (12.20%) Analytics
10 25 (10.16%) Microservices
10 25 (10.16%) Observability
10 25 (10.16%) Task Automation
11 24 (9.76%) High Availability
12 23 (9.35%) ITIL
13 22 (8.94%) Data Pipeline
13 22 (8.94%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 22 (8.94%) Performance Optimisation
14 21 (8.54%) Continuous Improvement
14 21 (8.54%) ETL
15 20 (8.13%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 118 (47.97%) SQL
2 107 (43.50%) Python
3 69 (28.05%) Java
4 30 (12.20%) PL/SQL
5 24 (9.76%) Bash
6 23 (9.35%) JavaScript
7 17 (6.91%) Korn
8 11 (4.47%) MATLAB
8 11 (4.47%) Perl
8 11 (4.47%) TypeScript
9 10 (4.07%) PowerShell
10 9 (3.66%) C#
11 8 (3.25%) C++
11 8 (3.25%) Go
12 7 (2.85%) C
13 6 (2.44%) JCL
14 5 (2.03%) Groovy
14 5 (2.03%) Ruby
15 4 (1.63%) ProC
16 2 (0.81%) VBA
Qualifications
1 97 (39.43%) Security Cleared
2 84 (34.15%) SC Cleared
3 21 (8.54%) Degree
4 17 (6.91%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (4.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (3.66%) DV Cleared
6 9 (3.66%) Oracle Certification
7 5 (2.03%) Master's Degree
7 5 (2.03%) OCP
8 3 (1.22%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.22%) CISSP
9 1 (0.41%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.41%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.41%) CISM
9 1 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.41%) MOS
9 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.41%) RHCA
9 1 (0.41%) RHCE
9 1 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (7.32%) SLA
2 9 (3.66%) Data Quality
3 8 (3.25%) QA
4 6 (2.44%) GDPR
5 3 (1.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 3 (1.22%) FATCA
5 3 (1.22%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.22%) NIST
6 1 (0.41%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.41%) DICOM
6 1 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 54 (21.95%) Docker
2 16 (6.50%) Oracle RAC
3 14 (5.69%) Active Directory
4 8 (3.25%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.03%) Postfix
5 5 (2.03%) Varnish
5 5 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.63%) NFS
6 4 (1.63%) Sendmail
7 3 (1.22%) GridGain
8 2 (0.81%) HDFS
8 2 (0.81%) SRDF
9 1 (0.41%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.41%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 53 (21.54%) Kubernetes
2 49 (19.92%) Terraform
3 48 (19.51%) Ansible
4 27 (10.98%) Grafana
5 26 (10.57%) Prometheus
6 23 (9.35%) Oracle RMAN
7 17 (6.91%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 14 (5.69%) Podman
9 12 (4.88%) Red Hat Satellite
10 11 (4.47%) Check_MK
11 10 (4.07%) Progress Chef
12 9 (3.66%) Data Guard
13 8 (3.25%) Puppet
14 5 (2.03%) HAProxy
15 4 (1.63%) Docker Swarm
15 4 (1.63%) Kibana
16 2 (0.81%) Argo
16 2 (0.81%) Packer
16 2 (0.81%) systemd
16 2 (0.81%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 86 (34.96%) Oracle
2 40 (16.26%) Red Hat
3 19 (7.72%) VMware
4 13 (5.28%) Microsoft
5 10 (4.07%) Murex
6 9 (3.66%) Informatica
7 8 (3.25%) Splunk
7 8 (3.25%) Sybase
8 6 (2.44%) IBM
8 6 (2.44%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.44%) Talend
9 5 (2.03%) Cloudera
9 5 (2.03%) Databricks
9 5 (2.03%) Dynatrace
9 5 (2.03%) Veritas
10 4 (1.63%) Dell
10 4 (1.63%) Hortonworks
10 4 (1.63%) Solace
10 4 (1.63%) Tenable
11 3 (1.22%) HP