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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 410 261 258
Rank change year-on-year -149 -3 +13
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 276 325 350
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 0.99% 0.91%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.95% 3.00% 2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 194 231
10th Percentile £325 £311 £350
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £491 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.88% -1.80% -4.76%
75th Percentile £619 £599 £603
90th Percentile £716 £638 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £478 £440
% change year-on-year -3.51% +8.52% -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 12 5
10th Percentile £30.85 - £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 £74.75 £97.50
90th Percentile £68.88 £108.50 -
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 14,179 10,823 12,148
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 26.02% 32.81% 31.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,205 7,174 8,294
10th Percentile £363 £344 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.90% -4.67% -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 537 297 340
10th Percentile £27.75 £29.00 £27.00
25th Percentile £47.50 £37.77 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +4.00%
75th Percentile £70.50 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £80.00 £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +3.17% -3.08% -

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -141 227 £500 +0.73% 72
UK excluding London -160 139 £461 -3.51% 60
London -72 116 £550 +4.76% 30
Work from Home -87 76 £470 -1.05% 25
North of England -97 37 £425 -11.46% 13
Scotland -69 26 £425 -10.53% 9
South East -76 26 £483 -17.66% 18
Midlands -46 23 £470 -3.59% 10
West Midlands -33 21 £470 -6.00% 5
Yorkshire -65 20 £463 -7.50% 4
East of England -29 15 £388 -3.13% 1
North West -63 14 £344 -14.43% 6
South West -46 11 £563 +12.50% 4
North East - 4 £469 - 3
Northern Ireland +5 2 £190 - 2
East Midlands -19 2 £466 +29.31% 5
Wales -12 1 £265 -6.19% 3

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 18 (6.52%) Apache
2 13 (4.71%) Apache Airflow
3 12 (4.35%) SAS
4 8 (2.90%) Apache Spark
5 6 (2.17%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.81%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (1.45%) CICS
7 4 (1.45%) Confluence
7 4 (1.45%) WebSphere
8 3 (1.09%) JBoss
8 3 (1.09%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.72%) nginx
9 2 (0.72%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.72%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.72%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 7 (2.54%) Notepad++
Business Applications
1 5 (1.81%) Front Arena
1 5 (1.81%) 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
1 101 (36.59%) AWS
2 63 (22.83%) Azure
3 56 (20.29%) GCP
4 55 (19.93%) GitHub
5 33 (11.96%) Serverless
6 31 (11.23%) GitHub Actions
7 27 (9.78%) AWS Lambda
8 24 (8.70%) Amazon S3
9 17 (6.16%) Amazon EC2
10 12 (4.35%) dbt
10 12 (4.35%) OpenShift
11 11 (3.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 9 (3.26%) AWS CodeBuild
12 9 (3.26%) Azure DevOps
12 9 (3.26%) GitHub Copilot
12 9 (3.26%) Power Platform
12 9 (3.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 8 (2.90%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (2.90%) AWS CodePipeline
14 7 (2.54%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 16 (5.80%) DNS
2 13 (4.71%) TCP/IP
3 10 (3.62%) HTTP
3 10 (3.62%) SSL
4 8 (2.90%) 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%) SAN
6 6 (2.17%) SSH
7 4 (1.45%) 5G
7 4 (1.45%) MQTT
7 4 (1.45%) Multicast
8 3 (1.09%) 4G
8 3 (1.09%) BGP
8 3 (1.09%) HTTPS
9 2 (0.72%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 2 (0.72%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.72%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (11.59%) Data Warehouse
2 25 (9.06%) Oracle Database
3 19 (6.88%) Relational Database
4 18 (6.52%) Db2
4 18 (6.52%) MySQL
5 16 (5.80%) MongoDB
5 16 (5.80%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (5.80%) SQL Server
6 15 (5.43%) Metadata
7 12 (4.35%) NoSQL
8 11 (3.99%) Data Lake
8 11 (3.99%) PowerCenter
9 10 (3.62%) Amazon Aurora
9 10 (3.62%) BusinessObjects
9 10 (3.62%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (3.26%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (3.26%) Star Schema
11 8 (2.90%) Amazon RDS
11 8 (2.90%) BigQuery
12 7 (2.54%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 78 (28.26%) Git
2 55 (19.93%) Jenkins
3 36 (13.04%) GitLab
4 25 (9.06%) Maven
5 16 (5.80%) JUnit
6 12 (4.35%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (3.99%) Claude Code
7 11 (3.99%) JIRA
8 9 (3.26%) SonarQube
9 8 (2.90%) Mockito
10 7 (2.54%) Gradle
11 5 (1.81%) Bitbucket
11 5 (1.81%) Oracle Forms
12 4 (1.45%) JDeveloper
13 3 (1.09%) Selenium
13 3 (1.09%) Visual Studio Code
13 3 (1.09%) webpack
13 3 (1.09%) Xcode
14 2 (0.72%) JMeter
14 2 (0.72%) Terragrunt
General
1 97 (35.14%) Finance
2 56 (20.29%) Banking
3 44 (15.94%) Social Skills
4 33 (11.96%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (7.25%) Public Sector
6 16 (5.80%) Investment Banking
7 7 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (2.17%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.81%) Front Office
10 4 (1.45%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.45%) Retail
11 3 (1.09%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.72%) Prime Brokerage
12 2 (0.72%) Publishing
13 1 (0.36%) Advertising
13 1 (0.36%) Electronics
13 1 (0.36%) Legal
13 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 72 (26.09%) Developer
2 45 (16.30%) Senior
3 34 (12.32%) Data Engineer
4 31 (11.23%) Python Developer
5 24 (8.70%) Senior Developer
6 20 (7.25%) DevOps Engineer
7 19 (6.88%) Java Developer
8 16 (5.80%) Architect
8 16 (5.80%) Cloud Engineer
9 15 (5.43%) GCP Engineer
10 14 (5.07%) Java Engineer
11 12 (4.35%) Administrator
11 12 (4.35%) Analyst
12 10 (3.62%) Senior Python Developer
13 9 (3.26%) AWS Engineer
13 9 (3.26%) Linux Administrator
13 9 (3.26%) Senior Java Developer
13 9 (3.26%) Software Engineer
14 8 (2.90%) AWS Developer
14 8 (2.90%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (23.91%) Terraform
2 35 (12.68%) RESTful
3 24 (8.70%) Spring
4 23 (8.33%) FastAPI
4 23 (8.33%) Kafka
4 23 (8.33%) REST
4 23 (8.33%) Spring Boot
5 22 (7.97%) Flask
6 18 (6.52%) Pandas
7 14 (5.07%) CSS
7 14 (5.07%) Django
7 14 (5.07%) HTML
7 14 (5.07%) JSON
8 13 (4.71%) Middleware
9 12 (4.35%) PySpark
10 11 (3.99%) RabbitMQ
11 10 (3.62%) JPA
11 10 (3.62%) Web Services
12 9 (3.26%) Elastic Stack
13 7 (2.54%) React
Miscellaneous
1 29 (10.51%) Linux Command Line
2 18 (6.52%) Cloud Native
3 15 (5.43%) Management Information System
4 11 (3.99%) Fixed Income
5 10 (3.62%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (3.26%) Data Centre
7 8 (2.90%) Public Cloud
7 8 (2.90%) Replication
7 8 (2.90%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (2.54%) Derivative
8 7 (2.54%) Enterprise Cloud
8 7 (2.54%) Hedge funds
9 6 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
9 6 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
9 6 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (2.17%) Mainframe
9 6 (2.17%) Market Risk
9 6 (2.17%) Product Ownership
10 5 (1.81%) Distributed Applications
10 5 (1.81%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 153 (55.43%) Linux
2 127 (46.01%) Unix
3 24 (8.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 19 (6.88%) Windows
5 10 (3.62%) Solaris
6 5 (1.81%) AIX
6 5 (1.81%) CentOS
6 5 (1.81%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.81%) zOS
7 4 (1.45%) VMS
8 3 (1.09%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.09%) Rocky
9 2 (0.72%) HPUX
9 2 (0.72%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.36%) SUSE
10 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (45.65%) CI/CD
2 82 (29.71%) DevOps
3 66 (23.91%) Infrastructure as Code
4 63 (22.83%) Containerisation
5 52 (18.84%) Agile
6 46 (16.67%) AI
7 45 (16.30%) Data Pipeline
8 43 (15.58%) Migration
9 42 (15.22%) Performance Tuning
10 41 (14.86%) Problem-Solving
11 39 (14.13%) ETL
12 38 (13.77%) Observability
12 38 (13.77%) Performance Optimisation
13 36 (13.04%) Analytics
14 35 (12.68%) Root Cause Analysis
15 32 (11.59%) Code Quality
16 30 (10.87%) Configuration Management
17 29 (10.51%) SDLC
18 28 (10.14%) Microservices
19 27 (9.78%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 154 (55.80%) Python
2 152 (55.07%) SQL
3 73 (26.45%) Java
4 55 (19.93%) Bash
5 47 (17.03%) PL/SQL
6 19 (6.88%) PowerShell
7 17 (6.16%) JavaScript
8 15 (5.43%) Groovy
9 14 (5.07%) Perl
10 9 (3.26%) C#
11 8 (2.90%) Korn
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%) C++
14 4 (1.45%) MATLAB
14 4 (1.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 81 (29.35%) Security Cleared
2 61 (22.10%) SC Cleared
3 26 (9.42%) Degree
4 20 (7.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (3.99%) DV Cleared
6 10 (3.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (2.17%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.81%) Master's Degree
8 5 (1.81%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (0.72%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 2 (0.72%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.72%) CISSP
10 1 (0.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.36%) CCNA
10 1 (0.36%) CISM
10 1 (0.36%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 1 (0.36%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (0.36%) OCP
10 1 (0.36%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (12.32%) Data Quality
2 16 (5.80%) QA
3 7 (2.54%) SLA
4 6 (2.17%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.09%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (1.09%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.72%) ISO 15022
7 1 (0.36%) Basel III
7 1 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.36%) DICOM
7 1 (0.36%) GDPR
7 1 (0.36%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.36%) NIST
7 1 (0.36%) SEPA
System Software
1 73 (26.45%) Docker
2 9 (3.26%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.90%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.81%) Oracle RAC
5 5 (1.81%) zsh
6 4 (1.45%) NFS
7 3 (1.09%) GridGain
7 3 (1.09%) Postfix
7 3 (1.09%) Sendmail
7 3 (1.09%) Varnish
7 3 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.72%) KVM
8 2 (0.72%) vSphere
9 1 (0.36%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.36%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.36%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 79 (28.62%) Kubernetes
2 57 (20.65%) Ansible
3 28 (10.14%) Grafana
4 23 (8.33%) Prometheus
5 10 (3.62%) Kibana
5 10 (3.62%) Podman
6 9 (3.26%) Control-M
6 9 (3.26%) Oracle RMAN
7 8 (2.90%) Data Guard
8 6 (2.17%) Puppet
9 5 (1.81%) Check_MK
9 5 (1.81%) NetBackup
10 4 (1.45%) HP ALM
10 4 (1.45%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 4 (1.45%) Packer
10 4 (1.45%) Red Hat Satellite
11 3 (1.09%) Consul
11 3 (1.09%) ITRS Geneos
11 3 (1.09%) logstash
11 3 (1.09%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 85 (30.80%) Oracle
2 36 (13.04%) Google
3 20 (7.25%) Informatica
4 19 (6.88%) Splunk
5 18 (6.52%) Red Hat
6 17 (6.16%) IBM
7 14 (5.07%) Sybase
8 13 (4.71%) Microsoft
9 12 (4.35%) VMware
10 9 (3.26%) New Relic
11 7 (2.54%) Dynatrace
11 7 (2.54%) Murex
11 7 (2.54%) ServiceNow
11 7 (2.54%) Solace
12 6 (2.17%) Checkmarx
12 6 (2.17%) HP
12 6 (2.17%) Tenable
12 6 (2.17%) Teradata
13 5 (1.81%) FIS
13 5 (1.81%) NVIDIA