Unix Contract Job Trends

Unix
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Unix skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 222 165 136
Rank change year-on-year -57 -29 -51
Contract jobs citing Unix 579 494 734
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.71% 1.71%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.15% 12.36% 12.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 340 299 498
10th Percentile £275 £360 £325
25th Percentile £400 £411 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £491 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.38% -7.97% -3.09%
75th Percentile £552 £600 £647
90th Percentile £659 £652 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £458 £470 £450
% change year-on-year -2.50% +4.33% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 6 21
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 £22.30
25th Percentile £27.88 £52.19 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £55.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +37.50% -32.85%
75th Percentile £53.75 £66.25 -
90th Percentile £55.00 £73.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £55.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.56% +37.50% -31.73%

All Operating Systems
UK

Unix falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring operating system skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 4,764 3,998 5,766
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 13.87% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,033 2,628 3,876
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £465 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.29% -1.06% -6.00%
75th Percentile £570 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 187 400
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £49.63 £61.60
90th Percentile £71.65 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £18.94 £22.79
% change year-on-year +71.64% -16.92% -40.81%

Unix
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Unix relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Unix job vacancy trend in the UK

Unix
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Unix.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Unix

Unix
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Unix over the 6 months to 4 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Unix in the UK

Unix
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Unix.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Unix

Unix
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Unix over the 6 months to 4 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Unix in the UK

Unix
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 Unix within the UK over the 6 months to 4 June 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 -41 491 £469 -4.09% 96
UK excluding London -48 348 £458 -2.50% 63
London -70 179 £581 +16.20% 47
Work from Home -21 172 £469 +4.22% 45
North of England -26 112 £475 +5.56% 12
South East -15 104 £392 -28.73% 25
Midlands -4 88 £459 -0.22% 4
North West +16 85 £479 +9.95% 9
West Midlands 0 83 £459 -0.22% 3
Scotland -49 40 £425 -10.53% 5
Yorkshire -64 22 £461 -12.14% 2
North East -24 5 £480 +28.00% 1
East of England -39 5 £300 -33.33% 6
East Midlands -27 4 £494 +23.28% 1
South West -35 4 £600 +64.38% 8
Wales - 4 - -

Unix
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 32 (5.53%) Confluence
2 25 (4.32%) SAS
3 18 (3.11%) Apache
4 16 (2.76%) Apache Spark
5 14 (2.42%) Apache Airflow
5 14 (2.42%) WebLogic
6 11 (1.90%) Tuxedo
7 10 (1.73%) CICS
8 7 (1.21%) NetWeaver
9 6 (1.04%) OpenStack
9 6 (1.04%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.69%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.52%) IBM HTTP Server
11 3 (0.52%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.52%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.52%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.35%) nginx
12 2 (0.35%) Oracle Spatial
12 2 (0.35%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 7 (1.21%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (1.21%) Notepad++
2 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 8 (1.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.04%) Summit
3 2 (0.35%) FLEXCUBE
3 2 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.17%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 109 (18.83%) AWS
2 70 (12.09%) Azure
3 30 (5.18%) GitHub
4 23 (3.97%) AWS Lambda
4 23 (3.97%) GCP
5 22 (3.80%) Entra ID
5 22 (3.80%) GitHub Actions
5 22 (3.80%) Serverless
6 20 (3.45%) Amazon S3
6 20 (3.45%) OpenShift
7 15 (2.59%) IaaS
7 15 (2.59%) PaaS
8 14 (2.42%) Power Platform
9 13 (2.25%) SaaS
10 11 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.73%) Snowflake
12 9 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
13 8 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
14 7 (1.21%) Amazon ECS
14 7 (1.21%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 29 (5.01%) Firewall
2 26 (4.49%) DNS
3 20 (3.45%) SAN
4 14 (2.42%) NAS
4 14 (2.42%) TCP/IP
5 9 (1.55%) HTTP
5 9 (1.55%) SSH
5 9 (1.55%) Wireless
6 8 (1.38%) Wireshark
7 7 (1.21%) 5G
7 7 (1.21%) Ethernet
7 7 (1.21%) FTP
7 7 (1.21%) InfiniBand
7 7 (1.21%) NetScaler
7 7 (1.21%) PuTTY
7 7 (1.21%) SSL
7 7 (1.21%) VPN
7 7 (1.21%) WinSCP
8 6 (1.04%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (1.04%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (11.23%) SQL Server
2 44 (7.60%) Relational Database
3 38 (6.56%) MySQL
4 35 (6.04%) Oracle Database
5 31 (5.35%) MongoDB
5 31 (5.35%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (3.28%) Metadata
7 16 (2.76%) Big Data
7 16 (2.76%) BusinessObjects
8 15 (2.59%) DataStage
8 15 (2.59%) KDB
9 14 (2.42%) Amazon Aurora
9 14 (2.42%) NoSQL
9 14 (2.42%) Power BI
10 13 (2.25%) DB2
10 13 (2.25%) Kdb+
11 10 (1.73%) Data Lake
11 10 (1.73%) Sybase ASE
12 9 (1.55%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 59 (10.19%) Jenkins
2 53 (9.15%) GitLab
3 49 (8.46%) JIRA
4 46 (7.94%) Git
5 22 (3.80%) Artifactory
6 11 (1.90%) Mockito
7 9 (1.55%) Bitbucket
8 8 (1.38%) Maven
8 8 (1.38%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (1.04%) MSI
10 5 (0.86%) Android Studio
10 5 (0.86%) Browser DevTools
10 5 (0.86%) Eclipse
10 5 (0.86%) Xcode
11 4 (0.69%) CA Gen
11 4 (0.69%) JUnit
11 4 (0.69%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.52%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.52%) Introscope
12 3 (0.52%) Selenium
General
1 144 (24.87%) Finance
2 120 (20.73%) Social Skills
3 89 (15.37%) Banking
4 70 (12.09%) Analytical Skills
5 56 (9.67%) Public Sector
6 25 (4.32%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (3.45%) Front Office
9 10 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
9 10 (1.73%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.38%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.21%) Retail
13 6 (1.04%) Advertising
14 5 (0.86%) Law
15 4 (0.69%) Military
16 2 (0.35%) Billing
16 2 (0.35%) Local Government
16 2 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
17 1 (0.17%) International Banking
Job Titles
1 99 (17.10%) Developer
2 74 (12.78%) Senior
3 64 (11.05%) Data Engineer
4 55 (9.50%) Unix Engineer
5 44 (7.60%) Analyst
6 41 (7.08%) Support Engineer
7 38 (6.56%) Java Developer
8 28 (4.84%) DBA
8 28 (4.84%) Senior Developer
9 24 (4.15%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 24 (4.15%) Technical Support
10 23 (3.97%) Administrator
11 22 (3.80%) Architect
11 22 (3.80%) Oracle DBA
11 22 (3.80%) Site Engineer
12 21 (3.63%) Python Developer
13 20 (3.45%) Consultant
14 18 (3.11%) Software Engineer
15 17 (2.94%) Linux Engineer
16 16 (2.76%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (8.98%) Kafka
2 35 (6.04%) REST
3 26 (4.49%) RESTful
4 25 (4.32%) Middleware
5 18 (3.11%) CSS
5 18 (3.11%) Spring
5 18 (3.11%) XML
6 17 (2.94%) Spring Boot
7 14 (2.42%) HTML
7 14 (2.42%) Web Services
8 13 (2.25%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 12 (2.07%) React
10 11 (1.90%) JAX-RS
11 10 (1.73%) ActiveMQ
11 10 (1.73%) AngularJS
11 10 (1.73%) Elastic Stack
11 10 (1.73%) LDAP
11 10 (1.73%) Pandas
11 10 (1.73%) RabbitMQ
12 9 (1.55%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 39 (6.74%) Onboarding
2 33 (5.70%) Linux Command Line
3 27 (4.66%) Legacy Systems
4 26 (4.49%) Management Information System
5 23 (3.97%) Data Centre
6 17 (2.94%) Cloud Native
6 17 (2.94%) Mainframe
7 15 (2.59%) Derivative
8 13 (2.25%) Fixed Income
8 13 (2.25%) Replication
9 12 (2.07%) Clustering
10 11 (1.90%) Equities
10 11 (1.90%) Public Cloud
11 10 (1.73%) BYOD
11 10 (1.73%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.73%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.73%) VSAM
12 9 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 8 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (1.38%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 373 (64.42%) Linux
2 155 (26.77%) Windows
3 57 (9.84%) Solaris
4 39 (6.74%) Windows Server
5 28 (4.84%) AIX
6 23 (3.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (2.07%) Mac OS X
8 8 (1.38%) Oracle Linux
9 6 (1.04%) HPUX
10 5 (0.86%) Android
10 5 (0.86%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.69%) SUSE
12 2 (0.35%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.35%) VMS
13 1 (0.17%) CentOS
13 1 (0.17%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.17%) Rocky
13 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.17%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (21.93%) Agile
2 114 (19.69%) CI/CD
3 104 (17.96%) Problem-Solving
4 95 (16.41%) Migration
5 80 (13.82%) DevOps
6 70 (12.09%) High Availability
7 69 (11.92%) ITIL
8 61 (10.54%) Root Cause Analysis
8 61 (10.54%) Test Automation
9 60 (10.36%) Disaster Recovery
10 57 (9.84%) Observability
11 52 (8.98%) Incident Management
12 49 (8.46%) Data Modelling
13 48 (8.29%) Performance Tuning
14 47 (8.12%) Change Management
15 45 (7.77%) Analytics
16 44 (7.60%) Runbook
17 43 (7.43%) Microservices
17 43 (7.43%) Software Engineering
18 42 (7.25%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 222 (38.34%) SQL
2 218 (37.65%) Python
3 110 (19.00%) Java
4 103 (17.79%) Shell Script
5 64 (11.05%) PL/SQL
6 58 (10.02%) Bash
7 53 (9.15%) PowerShell
8 44 (7.60%) Perl
9 40 (6.91%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.66%) C++
11 26 (4.49%) C#
12 17 (2.94%) Korn
13 12 (2.07%) COBOL
14 8 (1.38%) Scala
15 7 (1.21%) Go
16 4 (0.69%) C
16 4 (0.69%) Kotlin
16 4 (0.69%) Ruby
16 4 (0.69%) T-SQL
17 3 (0.52%) Jython
Qualifications
1 196 (33.85%) Security Cleared
2 164 (28.32%) SC Cleared
3 73 (12.61%) Degree
4 27 (4.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (4.32%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (2.94%) CISSP
7 9 (1.55%) CompTIA Security+
7 9 (1.55%) DV Cleared
8 8 (1.38%) CISM
9 7 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (1.04%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (1.04%) CRISC
10 6 (1.04%) GIAC
10 6 (1.04%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.86%) MCSA
11 5 (0.86%) MCSE
11 5 (0.86%) RHCE
11 5 (0.86%) SANS
12 4 (0.69%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (5.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 30 (5.18%) NIST
3 22 (3.80%) SLA
4 18 (3.11%) QA
5 9 (1.55%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (1.04%) ISO 31000
8 4 (0.69%) GRC
8 4 (0.69%) ISO 20022
8 4 (0.69%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.52%) FATCA
10 2 (0.35%) GDPR
10 2 (0.35%) GMP
10 2 (0.35%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.35%) NCSC
10 2 (0.35%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.17%) MIL-STD-1553
11 1 (0.17%) SEPA
System Software
1 59 (10.19%) Docker
2 36 (6.22%) Active Directory
3 18 (3.11%) Oracle RAC
4 17 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (2.76%) NFS
6 9 (1.55%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.38%) GPFS
8 6 (1.04%) Hyper-V
8 6 (1.04%) KVM
8 6 (1.04%) Postfix
8 6 (1.04%) Varnish
8 6 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.86%) vSphere
10 4 (0.69%) HDFS
10 4 (0.69%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.52%) Firmware
11 3 (0.52%) GridGain
11 3 (0.52%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.52%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 2 (0.35%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 69 (11.92%) Kubernetes
2 62 (10.71%) Ansible
3 43 (7.43%) Grafana
4 35 (6.04%) Terraform
5 28 (4.84%) Oracle RMAN
6 26 (4.49%) Prometheus
7 13 (2.25%) Kibana
7 13 (2.25%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 13 (2.25%) Puppet
8 11 (1.90%) Data Guard
9 10 (1.73%) NetBackup
10 9 (1.55%) Progress Chef
10 9 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.04%) Control-M
11 6 (1.04%) HAProxy
11 6 (1.04%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.04%) Tivoli
11 6 (1.04%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.86%) Nessus
12 5 (0.86%) Salt
Vendors
1 231 (39.90%) Oracle
2 51 (8.81%) Splunk
3 42 (7.25%) IBM
4 39 (6.74%) Microsoft
5 34 (5.87%) Talend
6 30 (5.18%) CyberArk
7 27 (4.66%) BeyondTrust
7 27 (4.66%) ServiceNow
7 27 (4.66%) VMware
8 25 (4.32%) Informatica
9 21 (3.63%) Cisco
9 21 (3.63%) Denodo
10 17 (2.94%) Red Hat
10 17 (2.94%) Sybase
11 13 (2.25%) Dynatrace
11 13 (2.25%) Veritas
12 12 (2.07%) SAP
13 9 (1.55%) CheckPoint
13 9 (1.55%) F5
14 8 (1.38%) Aruba