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

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 285 317
Rank change year-on-year -87 +32 -85
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 265 262 289
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.89% 0.66%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.06% 2.62% 2.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 145 206
10th Percentile £348 £384 £350
25th Percentile £400 £440 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £525 £510
Median % change year-on-year -12.57% +2.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £610 £622
90th Percentile £625 £683 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -8.20% +5.26% -11.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 14 8
10th Percentile £46.75 £63.95 £59.73
25th Percentile £47.50 - £64.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +5.58%
75th Percentile £52.50 £74.19 £67.69
90th Percentile £53.25 £88.88 £76.50
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 12,875 9,994 12,840
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 27.50% 34.03% 29.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,529 6,772 9,115
10th Percentile £352 £359 £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 £767 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £488
% change year-on-year -0.70% -1.87% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 559 247 487
10th Percentile £41.94 £22.49 £31.25
25th Percentile £54.55 £33.91 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +3.31% +0.83%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £79.25
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 27 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 16 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 27 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 -80 222 £473 -12.70% 42
UK excluding London -108 126 £459 -8.20% 28
London -68 101 £500 -9.09% 16
Work from Home -47 75 £468 -14.05% 30
Midlands -36 39 £467 +1.56% 4
West Midlands -37 37 £467 +1.56% 3
South East -56 29 £396 -34.00% 14
North of England -66 27 £455 -14.93% 7
East of England -23 19 £475 +1.82% 1
Yorkshire -72 13 £480 -4.00% 3
North West -33 12 £450 -25.00% 3
South West -38 6 £700 +34.29% 2
Scotland -46 4 - -
Wales -7 2 £305 - 1
East Midlands - 2 £475 - 1
North East - 1 £413 - 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 13 (4.91%) Apache
1 13 (4.91%) Confluence
2 11 (4.15%) Apache Spark
3 6 (2.26%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.89%) WebLogic
5 4 (1.51%) CICS
6 3 (1.13%) JBoss
6 3 (1.13%) nginx
6 3 (1.13%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (1.13%) SharePoint
6 3 (1.13%) Tomcat
6 3 (1.13%) WebSphere
6 3 (1.13%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.75%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.75%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.38%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.38%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.64%) Notepad++
2 4 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.13%) Oracle 11i
1 3 (1.13%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.75%) 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
1 104 (39.25%) AWS
2 54 (20.38%) Azure
3 41 (15.47%) GitHub
4 36 (13.58%) Serverless
5 32 (12.08%) GitHub Actions
6 31 (11.70%) Amazon S3
7 30 (11.32%) Amazon EC2
8 29 (10.94%) OpenShift
9 27 (10.19%) AWS Lambda
10 23 (8.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (6.04%) Amazon EKS
12 14 (5.28%) AWS CloudFormation
13 13 (4.91%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (4.15%) GCP
15 9 (3.40%) AWS CodePipeline
15 9 (3.40%) PaaS
16 8 (3.02%) IaaS
17 7 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
17 7 (2.64%) Pulumi
17 7 (2.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (5.66%) SSH
2 10 (3.77%) DNS
3 9 (3.40%) SAN
4 8 (3.02%) Network Security
5 7 (2.64%) PuTTY
5 7 (2.64%) TCP/IP
5 7 (2.64%) WinSCP
6 5 (1.89%) Firewall
7 4 (1.51%) HTTP
8 3 (1.13%) HTTPS
8 3 (1.13%) NAS
8 3 (1.13%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.75%) AMQP
9 2 (0.75%) iSCSI
9 2 (0.75%) Multicast
9 2 (0.75%) OpenVPN
10 1 (0.38%) BIG-IP
10 1 (0.38%) SSL
10 1 (0.38%) VLAN
10 1 (0.38%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (10.19%) Oracle Database
2 26 (9.81%) SQL Server
3 22 (8.30%) Relational Database
4 21 (7.92%) PostgreSQL
5 20 (7.55%) Amazon RDS
5 20 (7.55%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (7.17%) MongoDB
7 16 (6.04%) Metadata
8 10 (3.77%) MySQL
9 9 (3.40%) DynamoDB
10 8 (3.02%) NoSQL
11 7 (2.64%) Big Data
11 7 (2.64%) BusinessObjects
11 7 (2.64%) Hadoop
12 6 (2.26%) Data Mart
12 6 (2.26%) DB2
12 6 (2.26%) InfluxDB
12 6 (2.26%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (1.89%) Data Lake
13 5 (1.89%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 63 (23.77%) Jenkins
2 46 (17.36%) GitLab
3 38 (14.34%) Git
4 25 (9.43%) JIRA
5 8 (3.02%) Maven
6 6 (2.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (1.89%) JMeter
7 5 (1.89%) JUnit
7 5 (1.89%) Mockito
7 5 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (1.51%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.51%) PyCharm
8 4 (1.51%) PyUnit
8 4 (1.51%) SonarQube
9 3 (1.13%) Artifactory
9 3 (1.13%) CircleCI
9 3 (1.13%) Subversion
10 2 (0.75%) Ant
10 2 (0.75%) Gatling
10 2 (0.75%) Toad
General
1 63 (23.77%) Social Skills
2 51 (19.25%) Finance
3 38 (14.34%) Banking
4 29 (10.94%) Public Sector
5 19 (7.17%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (3.77%) Front Office
7 9 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (3.40%) Investment Banking
7 9 (3.40%) Retail
8 7 (2.64%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.89%) Advertising
10 3 (1.13%) Law
10 3 (1.13%) Local Government
10 3 (1.13%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.75%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.38%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 73 (27.55%) Developer
2 29 (10.94%) Data Engineer
2 29 (10.94%) Java Developer
3 19 (7.17%) Administrator
3 19 (7.17%) DBA
3 19 (7.17%) Senior
4 16 (6.04%) Oracle DBA
4 16 (6.04%) Python Developer
4 16 (6.04%) Site Engineer
4 16 (6.04%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 15 (5.66%) DevOps Engineer
5 15 (5.66%) Support Engineer
6 14 (5.28%) AWS Engineer
7 13 (4.91%) Linux Administrator
8 11 (4.15%) AWS DevOps
8 11 (4.15%) Consultant
8 11 (4.15%) Linux Engineer
9 10 (3.77%) Analyst
9 10 (3.77%) Architect
9 10 (3.77%) Database Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (6.42%) Kafka
1 17 (6.42%) Node.js
1 17 (6.42%) RESTful
2 16 (6.04%) Middleware
3 15 (5.66%) JSON
3 15 (5.66%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 14 (5.28%) Spring
5 13 (4.91%) Elastic Stack
5 13 (4.91%) LDAP
5 13 (4.91%) Spring Boot
6 12 (4.53%) REST
7 10 (3.77%) SOAP
8 9 (3.40%) XML
9 8 (3.02%) AWS CDK
10 7 (2.64%) .NET
10 7 (2.64%) Django
10 7 (2.64%) OpenAPI
10 7 (2.64%) YAML
11 6 (2.26%) RabbitMQ
11 6 (2.26%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 20 (7.55%) Cloud Native
1 20 (7.55%) Management Information System
2 15 (5.66%) Data Centre
3 13 (4.91%) Linux Command Line
4 8 (3.02%) Fixed Income
4 8 (3.02%) Mainframe
5 7 (2.64%) DataPower
6 6 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (2.26%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.89%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (1.89%) Equities
7 5 (1.89%) Hedge funds
7 5 (1.89%) Legacy Code
7 5 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.89%) Virtual Team
8 4 (1.51%) Derivative
8 4 (1.51%) Equity Derivative
8 4 (1.51%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 166 (62.64%) Linux
2 112 (42.26%) Unix
3 39 (14.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 22 (8.30%) Windows
5 11 (4.15%) CentOS
6 6 (2.26%) Windows Server
7 5 (1.89%) VMS
7 5 (1.89%) zOS
8 4 (1.51%) Android
8 4 (1.51%) Apple iOS
8 4 (1.51%) Ubuntu
9 3 (1.13%) AIX
10 2 (0.75%) Debian
10 2 (0.75%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.75%) 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
1 104 (39.25%) CI/CD
2 64 (24.15%) Problem-Solving
3 62 (23.40%) DevOps
4 61 (23.02%) Agile
5 46 (17.36%) Containerisation
6 45 (16.98%) Performance Tuning
7 44 (16.60%) Infrastructure as Code
8 39 (14.72%) Migration
9 30 (11.32%) Task Automation
10 29 (10.94%) Analytics
10 29 (10.94%) Observability
11 26 (9.81%) ETL
11 26 (9.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 26 (9.81%) Microservices
12 25 (9.43%) Configuration Management
13 24 (9.06%) ITIL
14 23 (8.68%) Continuous Improvement
14 23 (8.68%) High Availability
15 21 (7.92%) Scrum
15 21 (7.92%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 131 (49.43%) SQL
2 108 (40.75%) Python
3 83 (31.32%) Java
4 36 (13.58%) PL/SQL
5 26 (9.81%) JavaScript
6 23 (8.68%) Bash
7 20 (7.55%) Korn
8 14 (5.28%) Perl
8 14 (5.28%) TypeScript
9 10 (3.77%) Go
10 9 (3.40%) MATLAB
11 8 (3.02%) C++
12 7 (2.64%) C#
12 7 (2.64%) PowerShell
13 5 (1.89%) C
13 5 (1.89%) Groovy
13 5 (1.89%) JCL
13 5 (1.89%) ProC
14 3 (1.13%) PHP
14 3 (1.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 104 (39.25%) Security Cleared
2 88 (33.21%) SC Cleared
3 20 (7.55%) BPSS Clearance
3 20 (7.55%) Degree
4 14 (5.28%) DV Cleared
5 12 (4.53%) Oracle Certification
6 11 (4.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (3.02%) OCP
8 4 (1.51%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.13%) Azure Certification
9 3 (1.13%) CISSP
10 1 (0.38%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.38%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.38%) CISM
10 1 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.38%) MOS
10 1 (0.38%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.38%) RHCA
10 1 (0.38%) RHCE
10 1 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.79%) SLA
2 14 (5.28%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.64%) QA
4 6 (2.26%) GDPR
5 3 (1.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 3 (1.13%) FATCA
5 3 (1.13%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.13%) NIST
6 1 (0.38%) DICOM
6 1 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 56 (21.13%) Docker
2 15 (5.66%) Oracle RAC
3 12 (4.53%) Active Directory
4 11 (4.15%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.51%) Postfix
6 4 (1.51%) Varnish
7 3 (1.13%) GridGain
7 3 (1.13%) NFS
7 3 (1.13%) Sendmail
8 2 (0.75%) HDFS
8 2 (0.75%) SRDF
9 1 (0.38%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.38%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 61 (23.02%) Kubernetes
2 55 (20.75%) Terraform
3 52 (19.62%) Ansible
4 33 (12.45%) Grafana
5 32 (12.08%) Prometheus
6 22 (8.30%) Oracle RMAN
7 18 (6.79%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 15 (5.66%) Progress Chef
9 14 (5.28%) Red Hat Satellite
10 10 (3.77%) Podman
11 9 (3.40%) Check_MK
12 8 (3.02%) Data Guard
12 8 (3.02%) Puppet
13 6 (2.26%) Kibana
14 4 (1.51%) Dell DRAC
14 4 (1.51%) Docker Swarm
14 4 (1.51%) HAProxy
15 2 (0.75%) Control-M
15 2 (0.75%) NetBackup
15 2 (0.75%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 94 (35.47%) Oracle
2 41 (15.47%) Red Hat
3 18 (6.79%) Microsoft
4 17 (6.42%) VMware
5 11 (4.15%) IBM
5 11 (4.15%) Murex
6 10 (3.77%) Dell
6 10 (3.77%) Informatica
6 10 (3.77%) Splunk
7 8 (3.02%) Sybase
8 6 (2.26%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.26%) Talend
9 5 (1.89%) Cloudera
9 5 (1.89%) Databricks
9 5 (1.89%) Dynatrace
9 5 (1.89%) Veritas
10 4 (1.51%) Hortonworks
10 4 (1.51%) Solace
11 3 (1.13%) CyberArk
11 3 (1.13%) Pure Storage