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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 307 303 297
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 -26
Contract jobs citing Shell Script 316 271 338
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.81% 0.77%
As % of the Programming Languages category 2.75% 2.47% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 195 155 234
10th Percentile £329 £360 £400
25th Percentile £400 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £510 £530
Median % change year-on-year -9.80% -3.77% -1.85%
75th Percentile £559 £582 £629
90th Percentile £625 £718 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £485
% change year-on-year +2.15% -4.17% -9.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 9 5
10th Percentile £53.55 - £36.99
25th Percentile £65.00 £63.50 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.00 £72.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.21% +16.00% -14.38%
75th Percentile £81.50 £97.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £110.00 - £72.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 £68.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +8.80% -14.38%

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 11,509 10,959 13,320
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.95% 32.57% 30.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,618 7,022 9,499
10th Percentile £350 £350 £356
25th Percentile £413 £425 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.14% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £615 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.26% -2.50% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 388 249 416
10th Percentile £32.23 £21.25 £35.25
25th Percentile £51.21 £40.06 £47.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £85.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +1.97% -1.93% -

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 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Shell Script in the UK

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 December 2025. 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 -14 251 £475 -8.65% 113
UK excluding London +29 189 £475 +2.15% 97
Work from Home +5 102 £438 -14.15% 82
London -52 91 £450 -14.29% 25
North of England -14 53 £480 -3.27% 22
Scotland +15 38 £497 +5.64% 4
Yorkshire -15 37 £500 -16.49% 8
South East -8 34 £400 -4.76% 30
Midlands -19 31 £516 +22.86% 13
West Midlands -6 29 £525 +19.32% 7
South West +1 21 £525 -18.29% 8
North West -11 16 £453 +25.83% 13
East of England - 13 £440 - 21
East Midlands -20 2 £425 +19.38% 6
Wales - 1 £265 - 2
Northern Ireland - 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 17 (5.38%) Apache
2 11 (3.48%) Apache Spark
2 11 (3.48%) JBoss
3 8 (2.53%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (2.53%) IIS
3 8 (2.53%) iPlanet
3 8 (2.53%) WebSphere
3 8 (2.53%) WebSphere Application Server
4 3 (0.95%) Confluence
4 3 (0.95%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.95%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.63%) SAS
6 1 (0.32%) CICS
6 1 (0.32%) nginx
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.32%) WebLogic
Applications
1 8 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.58%) Oracle Applications
2 4 (1.27%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle 11i
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 3 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) ION MarketView
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 99 (31.33%) AWS
2 49 (15.51%) Azure
3 44 (13.92%) GitHub
4 34 (10.76%) OpenShift
5 25 (7.91%) Serverless
6 24 (7.59%) Amazon EC2
6 24 (7.59%) Amazon S3
7 22 (6.96%) AWS CloudFormation
8 21 (6.65%) AWS Lambda
8 21 (6.65%) GCP
9 20 (6.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 15 (4.75%) Amazon EKS
11 14 (4.43%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (3.16%) Amazon ECS
12 10 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
12 10 (3.16%) PaaS
13 9 (2.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (2.53%) OCI
15 6 (1.90%) Entra ID
16 5 (1.58%) AWS Fargate
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.43%) SSH
2 13 (4.11%) DNS
2 13 (4.11%) TCP/IP
3 12 (3.80%) SAN
4 11 (3.48%) Firewall
5 10 (3.16%) Kerberos
6 7 (2.22%) HTTP
7 4 (1.27%) Network Security
8 3 (0.95%) NAS
9 2 (0.63%) SSL
10 1 (0.32%) BGP
10 1 (0.32%) FTP
10 1 (0.32%) IPsec
10 1 (0.32%) LAN
10 1 (0.32%) SMTP
10 1 (0.32%) SNMP
10 1 (0.32%) VLAN
10 1 (0.32%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (17.09%) Oracle Database
2 46 (14.56%) MongoDB
3 32 (10.13%) Relational Database
4 27 (8.54%) Amazon RDS
5 25 (7.91%) DB2
6 21 (6.65%) PostgreSQL
7 20 (6.33%) NoSQL
8 16 (5.06%) SQL Server
9 11 (3.48%) Data Warehouse
9 11 (3.48%) Hadoop
10 10 (3.16%) MySQL
11 9 (2.85%) Elasticsearch
12 8 (2.53%) Apache Hive
13 6 (1.90%) Big Data
13 6 (1.90%) Couchbase
13 6 (1.90%) HBase
13 6 (1.90%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (1.58%) Amazon Redshift
14 5 (1.58%) OLTP
14 5 (1.58%) Redis
Development Applications
1 83 (26.27%) Jenkins
2 64 (20.25%) Git
3 44 (13.92%) GitLab
4 31 (9.81%) JUnit
5 17 (5.38%) JIRA
6 11 (3.48%) Maven
6 11 (3.48%) Sonatype Nexus
7 8 (2.53%) Bitbucket Server
7 8 (2.53%) CA Release Automation
7 8 (2.53%) ClearCase
7 8 (2.53%) Mockito
7 8 (2.53%) Postman
8 7 (2.22%) Subversion
9 6 (1.90%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 5 (1.58%) REST Assured
10 5 (1.58%) SoapUI
10 5 (1.58%) SonarQube
10 5 (1.58%) Xcode
10 5 (1.58%) XCTest
11 4 (1.27%) CircleCI
General
1 118 (37.34%) Social Skills
2 64 (20.25%) Finance
3 57 (18.04%) Analytical Skills
4 44 (13.92%) Banking
5 30 (9.49%) Public Sector
6 27 (8.54%) Investment Banking
7 14 (4.43%) Front Office
8 5 (1.58%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.27%) Law
9 4 (1.27%) Multimedia
10 3 (0.95%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.95%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (0.95%) Local Government
10 3 (0.95%) Manufacturing
10 3 (0.95%) Military
10 3 (0.95%) Retail
10 3 (0.95%) Wearables
11 2 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.63%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.32%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 84 (26.58%) Developer
2 44 (13.92%) Java Developer
3 36 (11.39%) DevOps Engineer
4 35 (11.08%) Senior
5 27 (8.54%) Administrator
6 23 (7.28%) SQL Developer
7 22 (6.96%) Investment Banking Java Developer
8 18 (5.70%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 17 (5.38%) DBA
9 17 (5.38%) Support Engineer
10 16 (5.06%) AWS Engineer
10 16 (5.06%) Senior Developer
11 15 (4.75%) Site Engineer
12 14 (4.43%) Senior Java Developer
13 13 (4.11%) Oracle DBA
14 12 (3.80%) Linux Engineer
14 12 (3.80%) Product Engineer
14 12 (3.80%) Products Support Engineer
14 12 (3.80%) Software Support Engineer
15 11 (3.48%) Linux Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (18.04%) Kafka
2 35 (11.08%) Spring
3 23 (7.28%) JMS
4 20 (6.33%) Node.js
5 19 (6.01%) Middleware
5 19 (6.01%) REST
6 17 (5.38%) Elastic Stack
7 15 (4.75%) RESTful
7 15 (4.75%) SOAP
8 14 (4.43%) FastAPI
9 12 (3.80%) Spring Boot
10 10 (3.16%) LDAP
10 10 (3.16%) OpenID
11 9 (2.85%) AWS CDK
11 9 (2.85%) HTML
11 9 (2.85%) OAuth
11 9 (2.85%) SAML
12 8 (2.53%) CSS
12 8 (2.53%) OpenAPI
12 8 (2.53%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (7.91%) Data Structures
2 23 (7.28%) Equities
3 15 (4.75%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.16%) Linux Command Line
4 10 (3.16%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.85%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (2.53%) Data Centre
6 8 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.53%) Legacy Applications
6 8 (2.53%) Replication
7 7 (2.22%) Enterprise Cloud
7 7 (2.22%) Enterprise Storage
8 6 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.90%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.90%) PKI
9 5 (1.58%) Mainframe
9 5 (1.58%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (1.27%) DataPower
10 4 (1.27%) Hedge funds
10 4 (1.27%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 224 (70.89%) Linux
2 101 (31.96%) Unix
3 42 (13.29%) Windows
4 39 (12.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (5.06%) Ubuntu
6 12 (3.80%) CentOS
7 11 (3.48%) Windows Server
8 7 (2.22%) VMS
9 5 (1.58%) Android
9 5 (1.58%) Apple iOS
10 4 (1.27%) AIX
10 4 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (1.27%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (1.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.95%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.63%) Debian
12 2 (0.63%) Solaris
13 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (36.08%) CI/CD
2 111 (35.13%) Problem-Solving
3 102 (32.28%) Agile
4 78 (24.68%) DevOps
5 54 (17.09%) Performance Tuning
6 51 (16.14%) Infrastructure as Code
7 49 (15.51%) SDLC
8 48 (15.19%) Task Automation
9 44 (13.92%) Containerisation
10 32 (10.13%) Software Engineering
11 29 (9.18%) ITIL
11 29 (9.18%) Observability
12 28 (8.86%) Infrastructure Automation
12 28 (8.86%) Migration
13 27 (8.54%) Multithreading
13 27 (8.54%) Root Cause Analysis
14 25 (7.91%) Microservices
15 24 (7.59%) Configuration Management
16 23 (7.28%) Database Tuning
17 22 (6.96%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 165 (52.22%) Python
2 113 (35.76%) SQL
3 92 (29.11%) Java
4 44 (13.92%) JavaScript
5 39 (12.34%) Bash
6 23 (7.28%) C
7 21 (6.65%) Perl
8 18 (5.70%) PL/SQL
8 18 (5.70%) TypeScript
9 17 (5.38%) Go
10 16 (5.06%) C++
11 13 (4.11%) Groovy
12 12 (3.80%) Ada
13 9 (2.85%) PowerShell
14 7 (2.22%) Korn
15 5 (1.58%) ProC
16 2 (0.63%) Bourne shell
16 2 (0.63%) JCL
16 2 (0.63%) MATLAB
16 2 (0.63%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 80 (25.32%) Security Cleared
2 58 (18.35%) SC Cleared
3 16 (5.06%) BPSS Clearance
4 14 (4.43%) Degree
4 14 (4.43%) DV Cleared
5 10 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.22%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.90%) OCP
7 6 (1.90%) Oracle Certification
8 4 (1.27%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.63%) RHCE
9 2 (0.63%) RHCSA
9 2 (0.63%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (4.11%) SLA
2 11 (3.48%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.22%) QA
4 5 (1.58%) NCSC
5 4 (1.27%) GDPR
6 2 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.32%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 65 (20.57%) Docker
2 18 (5.70%) Active Directory
3 11 (3.48%) Oracle RAC
4 10 (3.16%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (2.53%) Tivoli Directory Server
6 7 (2.22%) HDFS
6 7 (2.22%) KVM
6 7 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.63%) GridGain
7 2 (0.63%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.63%) vSphere
8 1 (0.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 1 (0.32%) Snort
8 1 (0.32%) Squid
8 1 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 80 (25.32%) Ansible
2 73 (23.10%) Kubernetes
3 70 (22.15%) Terraform
4 38 (12.03%) Grafana
5 36 (11.39%) Prometheus
6 24 (7.59%) Progress Chef
7 16 (5.06%) Puppet
8 14 (4.43%) Data Guard
9 13 (4.11%) Red Hat Satellite
10 10 (3.16%) yum
11 9 (2.85%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (2.85%) Tivoli
12 8 (2.53%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (2.53%) CA Wily
12 8 (2.53%) Packer
13 7 (2.22%) Hadoop YARN
14 6 (1.90%) NetBackup
14 6 (1.90%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
15 5 (1.58%) Dell DRAC
15 5 (1.58%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 88 (27.85%) Oracle
2 51 (16.14%) Red Hat
3 47 (14.87%) Splunk
4 27 (8.54%) Microsoft
5 26 (8.23%) Sybase
6 22 (6.96%) IBM
7 15 (4.75%) NetApp
8 12 (3.80%) Dynatrace
8 12 (3.80%) ServiceNow
8 12 (3.80%) VMware
9 11 (3.48%) AppDynamics
9 11 (3.48%) Dell
10 10 (3.16%) MuleSoft
11 9 (2.85%) Google
12 8 (2.53%) Broadcom
12 8 (2.53%) Confluent
13 7 (2.22%) 3PAR
13 7 (2.22%) HP
13 7 (2.22%) Veritas
14 6 (1.90%) Nimble Storage