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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 420 265 259
Rank change year-on-year -155 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 276 330 343
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 1.00% 0.89%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.95% 3.05% 2.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 191 189 224
10th Percentile £325 £323 £350
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.80% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £621 £600 £600
90th Percentile £715 £638 £709
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £480 £450
% change year-on-year -4.38% +6.67% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 16 5
10th Percentile £30.85 £65.00 £62.45
25th Percentile £38.50 - £63.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.79% +4.62% -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.21 - £97.50
90th Percentile £68.88 £102.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £68.00 -
% change year-on-year -22.79% - -

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 14,147 10,836 12,360
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.00% 32.89% 32.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,184 7,163 8,335
10th Percentile £363 £344 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £503 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.98% -4.29% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 549 294 347
10th Percentile £26.51 £29.00 £27.00
25th Percentile £46.75 £41.25 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +3.17%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.45 £79.63 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 -125 228 £500 - 175
UK excluding London -155 144 £459 -4.38% 104
London -70 112 £550 +4.76% 88
Work from Home -96 74 £470 -1.05% 62
North of England -93 38 £425 -11.46% 23
South East -71 27 £483 -13.14% 27
Scotland -50 26 £425 -12.19% 13
Midlands -38 25 £470 -6.00% 19
West Midlands -34 23 £470 -7.30% 14
Yorkshire -58 20 £463 -7.50% 6
East of England -30 15 £388 -3.13% 7
North West -60 14 £344 -23.21% 15
South West -45 11 £563 +44.23% 7
North East - 5 £463 - 2
Northern Ireland +4 2 £190 - 4
Wales -13 2 £265 -6.19% 4
East Midlands -17 2 £466 +29.31% 5

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 15 (5.43%) Apache
2 12 (4.35%) SAS
3 10 (3.62%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (2.54%) WebLogic
5 6 (2.17%) Apache Spark
6 4 (1.45%) CICS
6 4 (1.45%) Confluence
6 4 (1.45%) OpenStack
6 4 (1.45%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (1.45%) WebSphere
7 3 (1.09%) JBoss
7 3 (1.09%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.72%) nginx
8 2 (0.72%) WebSphere Application Server
9 1 (0.36%) Tomcat
Applications
1 7 (2.54%) Notepad++
2 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (2.17%) Front Arena
1 6 (2.17%) Summit
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle Assets
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle E-Business Tax
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle FAH
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle General Ledger
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle Internet Expenses
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle iProcurement
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle Payables
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.72%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.36%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.36%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 102 (36.96%) AWS
2 61 (22.10%) Azure
3 59 (21.38%) GCP
4 51 (18.48%) GitHub
5 32 (11.59%) Serverless
6 26 (9.42%) AWS Lambda
6 26 (9.42%) GitHub Actions
7 24 (8.70%) Amazon S3
8 16 (5.80%) Amazon EC2
9 14 (5.07%) OpenShift
10 12 (4.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 12 (4.35%) dbt
11 10 (3.62%) GitHub Copilot
11 10 (3.62%) Power Platform
12 9 (3.26%) AWS CodeBuild
12 9 (3.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 8 (2.90%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (2.90%) AWS CodePipeline
14 7 (2.54%) Datadog
14 7 (2.54%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 17 (6.16%) DNS
2 14 (5.07%) TCP/IP
3 11 (3.99%) HTTP
4 10 (3.62%) SSL
5 7 (2.54%) Firewall
5 7 (2.54%) PuTTY
5 7 (2.54%) VPN
5 7 (2.54%) WinSCP
6 6 (2.17%) Network Security
6 6 (2.17%) SSH
7 5 (1.81%) 5G
7 5 (1.81%) SAN
8 4 (1.45%) 4G
8 4 (1.45%) MQTT
9 3 (1.09%) BGP
9 3 (1.09%) Multicast
10 2 (0.72%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 2 (0.72%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 2 (0.72%) HTTPS
10 2 (0.72%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (11.59%) Data Warehouse
2 25 (9.06%) Oracle Database
3 19 (6.88%) MySQL
4 18 (6.52%) Db2
4 18 (6.52%) MongoDB
5 17 (6.16%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (6.16%) Relational Database
6 14 (5.07%) SQL Server
7 13 (4.71%) NoSQL
8 12 (4.35%) Metadata
9 11 (3.99%) PowerCenter
10 10 (3.62%) BusinessObjects
10 10 (3.62%) Oracle Reports
11 9 (3.26%) Amazon Aurora
11 9 (3.26%) BigQuery
11 9 (3.26%) Elasticsearch
11 9 (3.26%) Star Schema
12 8 (2.90%) Amazon RDS
12 8 (2.90%) Power BI
12 8 (2.90%) Redis
Development Applications
1 84 (30.43%) Git
2 54 (19.57%) Jenkins
3 41 (14.86%) GitLab
4 24 (8.70%) Maven
5 17 (6.16%) JUnit
6 11 (3.99%) Claude Code
6 11 (3.99%) JIRA
7 9 (3.26%) Mockito
7 9 (3.26%) SonarQube
7 9 (3.26%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (2.54%) Gradle
9 6 (2.17%) Selenium
10 5 (1.81%) Bitbucket
10 5 (1.81%) Oracle Forms
11 4 (1.45%) JDeveloper
11 4 (1.45%) Visual Studio Code
12 3 (1.09%) webpack
12 3 (1.09%) Xcode
13 2 (0.72%) Cucumber
13 2 (0.72%) HP UFT
General
1 94 (34.06%) Finance
2 55 (19.93%) Banking
3 44 (15.94%) Social Skills
4 38 (13.77%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (7.61%) Public Sector
6 15 (5.43%) Investment Banking
7 7 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.54%) Telecoms
8 4 (1.45%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.45%) Retail
9 3 (1.09%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.72%) Prime Brokerage
10 2 (0.72%) Publishing
11 1 (0.36%) Advertising
11 1 (0.36%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.36%) International Banking
11 1 (0.36%) Legal
11 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 70 (25.36%) Developer
2 42 (15.22%) Senior
3 31 (11.23%) Python Developer
4 30 (10.87%) Data Engineer
5 22 (7.97%) Senior Developer
6 20 (7.25%) DevOps Engineer
7 17 (6.16%) Java Developer
8 16 (5.80%) Architect
8 16 (5.80%) Cloud Engineer
9 15 (5.43%) GCP Engineer
9 15 (5.43%) Java Engineer
10 13 (4.71%) Analyst
11 12 (4.35%) Administrator
12 10 (3.62%) Senior Python Developer
13 9 (3.26%) AWS Engineer
13 9 (3.26%) Linux Administrator
13 9 (3.26%) Software Engineer
14 8 (2.90%) DBA
14 8 (2.90%) Support Engineer
15 7 (2.54%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (24.28%) Terraform
2 35 (12.68%) RESTful
3 26 (9.42%) Kafka
3 26 (9.42%) Spring
4 25 (9.06%) Spring Boot
5 24 (8.70%) REST
6 23 (8.33%) FastAPI
7 22 (7.97%) Flask
8 18 (6.52%) Pandas
9 15 (5.43%) CSS
9 15 (5.43%) HTML
10 14 (5.07%) Django
10 14 (5.07%) JSON
11 13 (4.71%) Middleware
12 12 (4.35%) RabbitMQ
13 11 (3.99%) JPA
14 10 (3.62%) Elastic Stack
14 10 (3.62%) Web Services
15 9 (3.26%) OpenAPI
16 8 (2.90%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 30 (10.87%) Linux Command Line
2 15 (5.43%) Management Information System
3 14 (5.07%) Cloud Native
4 12 (4.35%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (3.26%) Data Centre
6 8 (2.90%) Fixed Income
6 8 (2.90%) Public Cloud
6 8 (2.90%) Replication
7 7 (2.54%) Derivative
7 7 (2.54%) Enterprise Cloud
7 7 (2.54%) Product Ownership
8 6 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (2.17%) Hedge funds
8 6 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (2.17%) Mainframe
8 6 (2.17%) Market Risk
9 5 (1.81%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.81%) Distributed Applications
9 5 (1.81%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 148 (53.62%) Linux
2 122 (44.20%) Unix
3 23 (8.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 17 (6.16%) Windows
5 9 (3.26%) Solaris
6 5 (1.81%) AIX
6 5 (1.81%) CentOS
6 5 (1.81%) zOS
7 4 (1.45%) VMS
8 3 (1.09%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.09%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.72%) HPUX
9 2 (0.72%) Rocky
9 2 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.36%) Amazon Linux
10 1 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.36%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.36%) SUSE
10 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (46.01%) CI/CD
2 78 (28.26%) DevOps
3 70 (25.36%) Infrastructure as Code
4 65 (23.55%) Containerisation
5 52 (18.84%) Agile
6 50 (18.12%) AI
7 46 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
8 43 (15.58%) Data Pipeline
9 41 (14.86%) Performance Tuning
10 40 (14.49%) ETL
10 40 (14.49%) Migration
11 36 (13.04%) Root Cause Analysis
12 35 (12.68%) Code Quality
12 35 (12.68%) Observability
13 33 (11.96%) Analytics
13 33 (11.96%) Performance Optimisation
14 30 (10.87%) Configuration Management
14 30 (10.87%) Microservices
14 30 (10.87%) Test Automation
15 29 (10.51%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 152 (55.07%) SQL
2 151 (54.71%) Python
3 73 (26.45%) Java
4 57 (20.65%) Bash
5 47 (17.03%) PL/SQL
6 22 (7.97%) PowerShell
7 17 (6.16%) JavaScript
8 15 (5.43%) Groovy
9 14 (5.07%) Perl
10 9 (3.26%) Korn
11 8 (2.90%) C#
12 6 (2.17%) Scala
12 6 (2.17%) TypeScript
13 5 (1.81%) Go
13 5 (1.81%) JCL
13 5 (1.81%) Ruby
14 4 (1.45%) C
14 4 (1.45%) MATLAB
14 4 (1.45%) Rust
15 3 (1.09%) C++
Qualifications
1 80 (28.99%) Security Cleared
2 60 (21.74%) SC Cleared
3 28 (10.14%) Degree
4 23 (8.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (3.99%) DV Cleared
6 10 (3.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.54%) Master's Degree
8 6 (2.17%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.81%) Oracle Certification
10 2 (0.72%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 2 (0.72%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.72%) CISSP
11 1 (0.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.36%) CISM
11 1 (0.36%) GIAC
11 1 (0.36%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 1 (0.36%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (0.36%) OCP
11 1 (0.36%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (12.68%) Data Quality
2 16 (5.80%) QA
3 7 (2.54%) SLA
4 6 (2.17%) Accessibility
5 4 (1.45%) Basel III
6 3 (1.09%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (1.09%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.72%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.36%) GDPR
8 1 (0.36%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.36%) NIST
8 1 (0.36%) SEPA
System Software
1 73 (26.45%) Docker
2 8 (2.90%) Active Directory
2 8 (2.90%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (1.81%) Oracle RAC
3 5 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.81%) zsh
4 4 (1.45%) NFS
5 3 (1.09%) Postfix
5 3 (1.09%) Sendmail
5 3 (1.09%) Varnish
5 3 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.72%) KVM
6 2 (0.72%) vSphere
7 1 (0.36%) HDFS
7 1 (0.36%) Veritas Cluster Server
7 1 (0.36%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 81 (29.35%) Kubernetes
2 58 (21.01%) Ansible
3 31 (11.23%) Grafana
4 26 (9.42%) Prometheus
5 11 (3.99%) Kibana
6 10 (3.62%) Podman
7 9 (3.26%) Control-M
7 9 (3.26%) Oracle RMAN
8 8 (2.90%) Data Guard
9 6 (2.17%) Puppet
10 5 (1.81%) Check_MK
10 5 (1.81%) NetBackup
11 4 (1.45%) HP ALM
11 4 (1.45%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 4 (1.45%) Packer
11 4 (1.45%) Red Hat Satellite
12 3 (1.09%) Consul
12 3 (1.09%) HAProxy
12 3 (1.09%) ITRS Geneos
12 3 (1.09%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 80 (28.99%) Oracle
2 36 (13.04%) Google
3 22 (7.97%) Splunk
4 21 (7.61%) Informatica
5 17 (6.16%) IBM
5 17 (6.16%) Red Hat
6 12 (4.35%) Microsoft
7 11 (3.99%) Sybase
7 11 (3.99%) VMware
8 9 (3.26%) New Relic
9 8 (2.90%) HP
10 7 (2.54%) Dynatrace
10 7 (2.54%) Murex
10 7 (2.54%) ServiceNow
11 6 (2.17%) Calypso
11 6 (2.17%) Checkmarx
11 6 (2.17%) FIS
11 6 (2.17%) Tenable
11 6 (2.17%) Teradata
12 5 (1.81%) SAP