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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 376 283 316
Rank change year-on-year -93 +33 -71
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 256 259 287
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.88% 0.67%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.00% 2.59% 2.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 144 208
10th Percentile £337 £390 £350
25th Percentile £400 £451 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £525 £510
Median % change year-on-year -11.08% +2.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £602 £625
90th Percentile £625 £675 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -8.10% +5.26% -11.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 16 8
10th Percentile £46.75 £64.25 £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% +0.97%
75th Percentile £52.50 £70.06 £67.69
90th Percentile £53.25 £85.63 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £68.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -26.47% +4.62% +5.58%

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 12,809 10,009 12,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 27.15% 34.17% 29.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,466 6,797 9,080
10th Percentile £355 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £416 £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 £774 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +0.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 558 250 487
10th Percentile £41.94 £22.50 £31.70
25th Percentile £54.55 £33.91 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +1.46% +1.73%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £79.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.56% +2.40% +1.07%

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 4 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
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 4 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 -84 216 £475 -11.71% 55
UK excluding London -122 121 £460 -8.10% 30
London -49 100 £505 -8.18% 23
Work from Home -55 71 £475 -11.87% 24
Midlands -52 35 £471 +2.45% 5
West Midlands -42 34 £470 +2.17% 2
South East -49 29 £392 -34.67% 16
North of England -63 27 £455 -10.76% 7
East of England -25 20 £473 +1.29% 1
Yorkshire -52 13 £480 -4.00% 3
North West -36 12 £450 -13.42% 3
South West -47 4 £700 +34.29%
Scotland -56 4 - -
Wales -11 2 £305 - 1
East Midlands -32 1 £525 +10.53% 3
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 (5.08%) Apache
2 12 (4.69%) Confluence
3 9 (3.52%) Apache Spark
4 6 (2.34%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (1.56%) CICS
5 4 (1.56%) WebLogic
6 3 (1.17%) JBoss
6 3 (1.17%) nginx
6 3 (1.17%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (1.17%) SharePoint
6 3 (1.17%) Tomcat
6 3 (1.17%) WebSphere
6 3 (1.17%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.78%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.78%) Oracle Spatial
8 1 (0.39%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.39%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.73%) Notepad++
2 4 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.17%) Oracle 11i
1 3 (1.17%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.78%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 99 (38.67%) AWS
2 53 (20.70%) Azure
3 41 (16.02%) GitHub
4 36 (14.06%) Serverless
5 34 (13.28%) GitHub Actions
6 30 (11.72%) Amazon S3
7 29 (11.33%) Amazon EC2
8 28 (10.94%) OpenShift
9 27 (10.55%) AWS Lambda
10 22 (8.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (6.25%) Amazon EKS
12 14 (5.47%) AWS CloudFormation
12 14 (5.47%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (3.91%) GCP
14 9 (3.52%) AWS CodePipeline
14 9 (3.52%) PaaS
15 8 (3.13%) IaaS
16 7 (2.73%) Azure AKS
16 7 (2.73%) Pulumi
16 7 (2.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (5.08%) SSH
2 10 (3.91%) DNS
3 9 (3.52%) SAN
4 8 (3.13%) Network Security
5 7 (2.73%) PuTTY
5 7 (2.73%) TCP/IP
5 7 (2.73%) WinSCP
6 5 (1.95%) Firewall
7 4 (1.56%) HTTP
8 3 (1.17%) HTTPS
8 3 (1.17%) NAS
8 3 (1.17%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.78%) AMQP
9 2 (0.78%) iSCSI
9 2 (0.78%) Multicast
9 2 (0.78%) OpenVPN
10 1 (0.39%) BIG-IP
10 1 (0.39%) DSL
10 1 (0.39%) IPsec
10 1 (0.39%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (10.16%) SQL Server
2 24 (9.38%) Oracle Database
2 24 (9.38%) Relational Database
3 21 (8.20%) PostgreSQL
4 19 (7.42%) Amazon RDS
5 18 (7.03%) MongoDB
6 17 (6.64%) Data Warehouse
7 14 (5.47%) Metadata
8 9 (3.52%) DynamoDB
9 8 (3.13%) MySQL
9 8 (3.13%) NoSQL
10 7 (2.73%) BusinessObjects
11 6 (2.34%) Amazon Aurora
11 6 (2.34%) Data Mart
11 6 (2.34%) DB2
11 6 (2.34%) InfluxDB
11 6 (2.34%) Oracle Reports
12 5 (1.95%) Big Data
12 5 (1.95%) Data Lake
12 5 (1.95%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 62 (24.22%) Jenkins
2 47 (18.36%) GitLab
3 38 (14.84%) Git
4 24 (9.38%) JIRA
5 8 (3.13%) Maven
6 6 (2.34%) JUnit
6 6 (2.34%) Mockito
7 5 (1.95%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (1.95%) JMeter
7 5 (1.95%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (1.56%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.56%) PyCharm
8 4 (1.56%) PyUnit
8 4 (1.56%) SonarQube
9 3 (1.17%) Artifactory
9 3 (1.17%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.78%) Gatling
10 2 (0.78%) Gradle
10 2 (0.78%) Postman
10 2 (0.78%) Terragrunt
General
1 60 (23.44%) Social Skills
2 51 (19.92%) Finance
3 37 (14.45%) Banking
4 28 (10.94%) Public Sector
5 15 (5.86%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (3.91%) Front Office
6 10 (3.91%) Retail
7 9 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (3.52%) Investment Banking
8 7 (2.73%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.95%) Advertising
10 3 (1.17%) Law
10 3 (1.17%) Local Government
10 3 (1.17%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.78%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.39%) Electronics
12 1 (0.39%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.39%) Military
Job Titles
1 70 (27.34%) Developer
2 29 (11.33%) Data Engineer
3 27 (10.55%) Java Developer
4 20 (7.81%) Senior
5 19 (7.42%) Administrator
6 18 (7.03%) Python Developer
7 17 (6.64%) DBA
8 16 (6.25%) Support Engineer
9 15 (5.86%) DevOps Engineer
9 15 (5.86%) Site Engineer
9 15 (5.86%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 14 (5.47%) Oracle DBA
11 13 (5.08%) Linux Administrator
12 12 (4.69%) AWS Engineer
13 11 (4.30%) Analyst
13 11 (4.30%) AWS DevOps
13 11 (4.30%) Consultant
14 10 (3.91%) Architect
14 10 (3.91%) Database Engineer
15 9 (3.52%) Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (7.42%) RESTful
2 17 (6.64%) Kafka
2 17 (6.64%) Middleware
3 15 (5.86%) JSON
3 15 (5.86%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 14 (5.47%) Node.js
4 14 (5.47%) Spring
5 13 (5.08%) Elastic Stack
5 13 (5.08%) LDAP
5 13 (5.08%) Spring Boot
6 10 (3.91%) REST
7 9 (3.52%) SOAP
8 8 (3.13%) AWS CDK
8 8 (3.13%) Django
8 8 (3.13%) RabbitMQ
8 8 (3.13%) XML
9 7 (2.73%) .NET
9 7 (2.73%) FastAPI
9 7 (2.73%) YAML
10 6 (2.34%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 20 (7.81%) Management Information System
2 19 (7.42%) Cloud Native
3 15 (5.86%) Data Centre
4 13 (5.08%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (3.13%) Fixed Income
5 8 (3.13%) Mainframe
6 7 (2.73%) DataPower
6 7 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.34%) Hedge funds
7 6 (2.34%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.95%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.95%) Equities
8 5 (1.95%) Legacy Code
8 5 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.95%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.56%) Derivative
9 4 (1.56%) Equity Derivative
9 4 (1.56%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 160 (62.50%) Linux
2 106 (41.41%) Unix
3 36 (14.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (8.98%) Windows
5 11 (4.30%) CentOS
6 6 (2.34%) Windows Server
7 5 (1.95%) VMS
7 5 (1.95%) zOS
8 4 (1.56%) Android
8 4 (1.56%) Apple iOS
8 4 (1.56%) Ubuntu
9 3 (1.17%) AIX
10 2 (0.78%) Debian
10 2 (0.78%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.78%) Solaris
11 1 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
11 1 (0.39%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (39.45%) CI/CD
2 62 (24.22%) DevOps
3 60 (23.44%) Problem-Solving
4 58 (22.66%) Agile
5 46 (17.97%) Containerisation
6 44 (17.19%) Infrastructure as Code
6 44 (17.19%) Performance Tuning
7 38 (14.84%) Migration
8 29 (11.33%) Analytics
8 29 (11.33%) Observability
9 28 (10.94%) Task Automation
10 26 (10.16%) Microservices
11 25 (9.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 24 (9.38%) High Availability
12 24 (9.38%) ITIL
13 23 (8.98%) Configuration Management
13 23 (8.98%) ETL
14 21 (8.20%) Data Pipeline
14 21 (8.20%) Software Engineering
15 20 (7.81%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 127 (49.61%) SQL
2 105 (41.02%) Python
3 79 (30.86%) Java
4 35 (13.67%) PL/SQL
5 27 (10.55%) JavaScript
6 22 (8.59%) Bash
7 20 (7.81%) Korn
8 14 (5.47%) Perl
9 13 (5.08%) TypeScript
10 10 (3.91%) Go
11 9 (3.52%) MATLAB
12 8 (3.13%) C#
12 8 (3.13%) C++
13 7 (2.73%) PowerShell
14 6 (2.34%) C
15 5 (1.95%) Groovy
15 5 (1.95%) JCL
15 5 (1.95%) ProC
16 3 (1.17%) PHP
16 3 (1.17%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 100 (39.06%) Security Cleared
2 85 (33.20%) SC Cleared
3 19 (7.42%) Degree
4 18 (7.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (5.08%) DV Cleared
6 12 (4.69%) Oracle Certification
7 10 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (3.13%) OCP
9 4 (1.56%) Master's Degree
10 3 (1.17%) Azure Certification
10 3 (1.17%) CISSP
11 1 (0.39%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.39%) CISM
11 1 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.39%) MOS
11 1 (0.39%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.39%) RHCA
11 1 (0.39%) RHCE
11 1 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.25%) SLA
2 11 (4.30%) Data Quality
3 8 (3.13%) QA
4 6 (2.34%) GDPR
5 3 (1.17%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 3 (1.17%) FATCA
5 3 (1.17%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.17%) NIST
6 1 (0.39%) DICOM
6 1 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 56 (21.88%) Docker
2 15 (5.86%) Oracle RAC
3 12 (4.69%) Active Directory
4 11 (4.30%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.56%) Postfix
6 4 (1.56%) Varnish
7 3 (1.17%) GridGain
7 3 (1.17%) NFS
7 3 (1.17%) Sendmail
8 2 (0.78%) HDFS
8 2 (0.78%) SRDF
9 1 (0.39%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.39%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 60 (23.44%) Kubernetes
2 54 (21.09%) Terraform
3 50 (19.53%) Ansible
4 32 (12.50%) Grafana
5 31 (12.11%) Prometheus
6 22 (8.59%) Oracle RMAN
7 17 (6.64%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 14 (5.47%) Progress Chef
9 12 (4.69%) Red Hat Satellite
10 10 (3.91%) Podman
11 9 (3.52%) Check_MK
12 8 (3.13%) Data Guard
13 7 (2.73%) Puppet
14 6 (2.34%) Kibana
15 4 (1.56%) Docker Swarm
15 4 (1.56%) HAProxy
16 3 (1.17%) Dell DRAC
17 2 (0.78%) logstash
17 2 (0.78%) systemd
17 2 (0.78%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 91 (35.55%) Oracle
2 38 (14.84%) Red Hat
3 17 (6.64%) VMware
4 16 (6.25%) Microsoft
5 11 (4.30%) IBM
5 11 (4.30%) Murex
6 9 (3.52%) Dell
6 9 (3.52%) Informatica
6 9 (3.52%) Splunk
7 8 (3.13%) Sybase
8 6 (2.34%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.34%) Talend
9 5 (1.95%) Cloudera
9 5 (1.95%) Databricks
9 5 (1.95%) Dynatrace
9 5 (1.95%) Veritas
10 4 (1.56%) Hortonworks
10 4 (1.56%) Solace
11 3 (1.17%) CyberArk
11 3 (1.17%) Pure Storage