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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 367 284 316
Rank change year-on-year -83 +32 -75
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 262 254 288
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.86% 0.66%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.04% 2.53% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 183 137 209
10th Percentile £352 £384 £358
25th Percentile £400 £453 £425
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 £622 £675 £718
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £472
% change year-on-year -7.50% +5.88% -12.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 13 9
10th Percentile £46.75 £63.80 £48.16
25th Percentile £47.50 - £61.75
Median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +5.58%
75th Percentile £52.50 £76.25 £65.25
90th Percentile £53.25 £90.50 £76.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +10.64%

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 12,826 10,040 12,701
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 27.72% 34.09% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,509 6,805 9,022
10th Percentile £353 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £415 £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 554 242 475
10th Percentile £42.11 £22.48 £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 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.56% +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 21 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 21 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 -76 219 £473 -14.09% 61
UK excluding London -120 123 £463 -7.50% 37
London -59 100 £500 -9.09% 27
Work from Home -47 75 £470 -12.96% 21
Midlands -43 39 £467 +1.56% 6
West Midlands -40 37 £467 +1.56% 4
South East -48 28 £400 -33.33% 16
North of England -65 24 £485 -16.74% 10
East of England -20 20 £473 +1.29% 2
Yorkshire -71 13 £480 -12.73% 3
North West -44 10 £468 -23.67% 6
South West -40 6 £700 +29.03% 2
Scotland -47 4 - -
Wales -7 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 13 (4.96%) Apache
1 13 (4.96%) Confluence
2 11 (4.20%) Apache Spark
3 6 (2.29%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.91%) WebLogic
5 4 (1.53%) CICS
6 3 (1.15%) JBoss
6 3 (1.15%) nginx
6 3 (1.15%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (1.15%) SharePoint
6 3 (1.15%) Tomcat
6 3 (1.15%) WebSphere
6 3 (1.15%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.76%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.76%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.38%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.38%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.67%) Notepad++
2 4 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.15%) Oracle 11i
1 3 (1.15%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.76%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 103 (39.31%) AWS
2 54 (20.61%) Azure
3 40 (15.27%) GitHub
4 35 (13.36%) Serverless
5 30 (11.45%) GitHub Actions
6 29 (11.07%) Amazon EC2
6 29 (11.07%) Amazon S3
7 28 (10.69%) OpenShift
8 26 (9.92%) AWS Lambda
9 23 (8.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 16 (6.11%) Amazon EKS
11 13 (4.96%) AWS CloudFormation
11 13 (4.96%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (4.20%) GCP
13 10 (3.82%) PaaS
14 8 (3.05%) AWS CodePipeline
14 8 (3.05%) IaaS
15 7 (2.67%) Azure AKS
15 7 (2.67%) Azure Data Factory
15 7 (2.67%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 16 (6.11%) SSH
2 9 (3.44%) DNS
2 9 (3.44%) SAN
3 8 (3.05%) Network Security
4 7 (2.67%) PuTTY
4 7 (2.67%) WinSCP
5 6 (2.29%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.91%) Firewall
7 3 (1.15%) HTTP
7 3 (1.15%) HTTPS
7 3 (1.15%) NAS
7 3 (1.15%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.76%) AMQP
8 2 (0.76%) iSCSI
8 2 (0.76%) OpenVPN
9 1 (0.38%) BIG-IP
9 1 (0.38%) Kerberos
9 1 (0.38%) LAN
9 1 (0.38%) Multicast
9 1 (0.38%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (9.92%) Oracle Database
1 26 (9.92%) SQL Server
2 20 (7.63%) MongoDB
2 20 (7.63%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (7.25%) Amazon RDS
3 19 (7.25%) Relational Database
4 18 (6.87%) Data Warehouse
5 16 (6.11%) Metadata
6 10 (3.82%) DynamoDB
7 9 (3.44%) MySQL
8 8 (3.05%) NoSQL
9 7 (2.67%) Big Data
9 7 (2.67%) BusinessObjects
9 7 (2.67%) Hadoop
10 6 (2.29%) Data Mart
10 6 (2.29%) InfluxDB
10 6 (2.29%) Oracle Reports
11 5 (1.91%) Data Lake
11 5 (1.91%) KDB
11 5 (1.91%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 61 (23.28%) Jenkins
2 46 (17.56%) GitLab
3 37 (14.12%) Git
4 25 (9.54%) JIRA
5 8 (3.05%) Maven
6 6 (2.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (1.91%) Mockito
7 5 (1.91%) PyCharm
7 5 (1.91%) PyUnit
8 4 (1.53%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.53%) JMeter
8 4 (1.53%) JUnit
8 4 (1.53%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (1.15%) Artifactory
9 3 (1.15%) CircleCI
9 3 (1.15%) SonarQube
9 3 (1.15%) Subversion
10 2 (0.76%) Gatling
10 2 (0.76%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.76%) Toad
General
1 63 (24.05%) Social Skills
2 47 (17.94%) Finance
3 37 (14.12%) Banking
4 30 (11.45%) Public Sector
5 17 (6.49%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (3.82%) Front Office
7 9 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (3.44%) Investment Banking
7 9 (3.44%) Retail
8 7 (2.67%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.91%) Advertising
10 3 (1.15%) Law
10 3 (1.15%) Local Government
10 3 (1.15%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.76%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.38%) Military
12 1 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.38%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 72 (27.48%) Developer
2 30 (11.45%) Java Developer
3 29 (11.07%) Data Engineer
4 20 (7.63%) Administrator
4 20 (7.63%) Senior
5 18 (6.87%) DBA
6 16 (6.11%) Site Engineer
6 16 (6.11%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 15 (5.73%) DevOps Engineer
7 15 (5.73%) Oracle DBA
7 15 (5.73%) Python Developer
8 14 (5.34%) Linux Administrator
8 14 (5.34%) Support Engineer
9 13 (4.96%) AWS Engineer
10 11 (4.20%) Linux Engineer
11 10 (3.82%) Analyst
11 10 (3.82%) Architect
11 10 (3.82%) AWS DevOps
11 10 (3.82%) Consultant
12 9 (3.44%) Database Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (6.87%) Node.js
2 17 (6.49%) Kafka
3 16 (6.11%) RESTful
4 15 (5.73%) JSON
4 15 (5.73%) Middleware
4 15 (5.73%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 14 (5.34%) Spring
6 13 (4.96%) Elastic Stack
6 13 (4.96%) LDAP
6 13 (4.96%) Spring Boot
7 12 (4.58%) REST
8 10 (3.82%) SOAP
9 9 (3.44%) XML
10 8 (3.05%) AWS CDK
10 8 (3.05%) Django
11 7 (2.67%) .NET
11 7 (2.67%) OpenAPI
12 6 (2.29%) RabbitMQ
12 6 (2.29%) Web Services
12 6 (2.29%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (7.63%) Cloud Native
1 20 (7.63%) Management Information System
2 14 (5.34%) Data Centre
3 13 (4.96%) Linux Command Line
4 9 (3.44%) Mainframe
5 8 (3.05%) DataPower
6 7 (2.67%) Fixed Income
7 6 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.29%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.91%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.91%) Equities
8 5 (1.91%) Legacy Code
8 5 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.91%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.53%) Derivative
9 4 (1.53%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (1.53%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 166 (63.36%) Linux
2 105 (40.08%) Unix
3 40 (15.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 22 (8.40%) Windows
5 11 (4.20%) CentOS
6 6 (2.29%) Windows Server
7 5 (1.91%) Android
7 5 (1.91%) Apple iOS
7 5 (1.91%) VMS
7 5 (1.91%) zOS
8 4 (1.53%) Ubuntu
9 3 (1.15%) AIX
10 2 (0.76%) Debian
10 2 (0.76%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.76%) Solaris
11 1 (0.38%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.38%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.38%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (39.31%) CI/CD
2 64 (24.43%) Problem-Solving
3 63 (24.05%) Agile
4 60 (22.90%) DevOps
5 44 (16.79%) Containerisation
5 44 (16.79%) Infrastructure as Code
6 42 (16.03%) Performance Tuning
7 38 (14.50%) Migration
8 31 (11.83%) Task Automation
9 28 (10.69%) Analytics
9 28 (10.69%) Observability
10 27 (10.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 25 (9.54%) Microservices
12 24 (9.16%) ETL
12 24 (9.16%) ITIL
13 23 (8.78%) Configuration Management
13 23 (8.78%) Continuous Improvement
14 22 (8.40%) High Availability
15 21 (8.02%) Scrum
16 20 (7.63%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 125 (47.71%) SQL
2 105 (40.08%) Python
3 84 (32.06%) Java
4 33 (12.60%) PL/SQL
5 26 (9.92%) JavaScript
6 22 (8.40%) Bash
7 20 (7.63%) Korn
8 15 (5.73%) TypeScript
9 13 (4.96%) Perl
10 9 (3.44%) Go
10 9 (3.44%) MATLAB
11 8 (3.05%) C++
12 7 (2.67%) PowerShell
13 6 (2.29%) C#
14 5 (1.91%) C
14 5 (1.91%) JCL
14 5 (1.91%) ProC
15 4 (1.53%) Groovy
16 3 (1.15%) PHP
16 3 (1.15%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 104 (39.69%) Security Cleared
2 86 (32.82%) SC Cleared
3 20 (7.63%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (7.25%) Degree
5 14 (5.34%) DV Cleared
6 11 (4.20%) Oracle Certification
7 10 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (3.05%) OCP
9 4 (1.53%) Master's Degree
10 3 (1.15%) Azure Certification
10 3 (1.15%) CISSP
11 1 (0.38%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.38%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.38%) CISM
11 1 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.38%) MOS
11 1 (0.38%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.38%) RHCA
11 1 (0.38%) RHCE
11 1 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.87%) SLA
2 12 (4.58%) Data Quality
3 6 (2.29%) GDPR
3 6 (2.29%) QA
4 3 (1.15%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 3 (1.15%) FATCA
4 3 (1.15%) HIPAA
4 3 (1.15%) NIST
5 1 (0.38%) DICOM
5 1 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 54 (20.61%) Docker
2 15 (5.73%) Oracle RAC
3 12 (4.58%) Active Directory
4 11 (4.20%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.53%) Postfix
6 4 (1.53%) Varnish
7 3 (1.15%) GridGain
7 3 (1.15%) NFS
7 3 (1.15%) Sendmail
8 2 (0.76%) HDFS
8 2 (0.76%) SRDF
9 1 (0.38%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.38%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 59 (22.52%) Kubernetes
2 54 (20.61%) Terraform
3 50 (19.08%) Ansible
4 31 (11.83%) Grafana
5 30 (11.45%) Prometheus
6 21 (8.02%) Oracle RMAN
7 18 (6.87%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 15 (5.73%) Progress Chef
9 14 (5.34%) Red Hat Satellite
10 10 (3.82%) Podman
11 9 (3.44%) Check_MK
12 8 (3.05%) Puppet
13 7 (2.67%) Data Guard
14 6 (2.29%) Kibana
15 4 (1.53%) Dell DRAC
15 4 (1.53%) Docker Swarm
15 4 (1.53%) HAProxy
16 2 (0.76%) logstash
16 2 (0.76%) systemd
16 2 (0.76%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 90 (34.35%) Oracle
2 42 (16.03%) Red Hat
3 18 (6.87%) Microsoft
4 17 (6.49%) VMware
5 11 (4.20%) Murex
6 10 (3.82%) Dell
6 10 (3.82%) IBM
6 10 (3.82%) Informatica
6 10 (3.82%) Splunk
7 8 (3.05%) Sybase
8 6 (2.29%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.29%) Talend
9 5 (1.91%) Cloudera
9 5 (1.91%) Databricks
9 5 (1.91%) Veritas
10 4 (1.53%) Dynatrace
10 4 (1.53%) Hortonworks
11 3 (1.15%) CyberArk
11 3 (1.15%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.15%) Solace