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 9 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 213 135 138
Rank change year-on-year -78 +3 -58
Contract jobs citing Unix 527 598 783
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.25% 2.01% 1.75%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.06% 14.08% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 344 349 533
10th Percentile £222 £350 £333
25th Percentile £392 £423 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.41% -5.45% -0.09%
75th Percentile £565 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £779
UK excluding London median daily rate £429 £472 £495
% change year-on-year -9.11% -4.65% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 9 22
10th Percentile - £39.60 £22.01
25th Percentile £21.50 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £27.69 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -47.26% +31.25% -38.46%
75th Percentile £53.19 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £53.98 £67.25 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.22 £52.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -54.09% +31.88% -30.43%

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 4,765 4,246 6,108
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.28% 14.27% 13.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,131 2,757 4,070
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £275 £317 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +5.56% -12.37%
75th Percentile £565 £595 £588
90th Percentile £658 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £438 £425
% change year-on-year -5.71% +2.94% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 351 156 415
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.38 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.12 £19.63 £15.58
Median hourly rate £23.00 £28.71 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.87% +27.58% -15.09%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.58 £24.83 £22.50
% change year-on-year -9.08% +10.36% -13.46%

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 9 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 -66 459 £459 -12.57% 121
UK excluding London -73 275 £429 -9.11% 111
London -44 208 £539 -4.22% 30
Work from Home -78 153 £450 -9.18% 74
North of England -38 90 £464 -11.67% 25
South East -26 73 £320 -32.63% 35
Midlands -30 71 £439 -4.67% 16
North West +5 69 £467 -11.05% 14
West Midlands -20 67 £439 -4.67% 12
Scotland -48 29 £420 -6.67% 3
Yorkshire -70 19 £460 -16.36% 7
South West -38 8 £700 +27.27% 12
Wales -5 4 £265 +62.04% 5
East Midlands -36 4 £478 +13.02% 3
North East -11 3 £563 - 4
East of England -46 3 £440 -2.22% 13

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 29 (5.50%) WebLogic
2 26 (4.93%) Apache
3 23 (4.36%) Confluence
4 16 (3.04%) Tuxedo
5 15 (2.85%) SharePoint
6 12 (2.28%) JBoss
7 11 (2.09%) SAS
8 9 (1.71%) Apache Spark
9 8 (1.52%) CICS
10 7 (1.33%) Tomcat
11 6 (1.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.76%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.76%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.76%) nginx
12 4 (0.76%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.76%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.57%) IIS
13 3 (0.57%) WebSphere Application Server
14 2 (0.38%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.38%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 12 (2.28%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.14%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (1.14%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.95%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.76%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.57%) Oracle BRM
5 2 (0.38%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.38%) Kondor
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.38%) Summit
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 110 (20.87%) AWS
2 75 (14.23%) Azure
3 24 (4.55%) GitHub
4 21 (3.98%) GCP
5 17 (3.23%) AWS CloudFormation
5 17 (3.23%) SaaS
6 13 (2.47%) Serverless
7 12 (2.28%) Sauce Labs
8 11 (2.09%) AWS Lambda
8 11 (2.09%) OpenShift
9 10 (1.90%) Amazon S3
10 9 (1.71%) Cloud Computing
10 9 (1.71%) Entra ID
11 8 (1.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 8 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
11 8 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.52%) Power Platform
12 7 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 7 (1.33%) OCI
13 6 (1.14%) Azure API Management
Communications & Networking
1 35 (6.64%) Firewall
2 20 (3.80%) DNS
3 16 (3.04%) Wireless
4 15 (2.85%) SSH
5 14 (2.66%) HTTP
6 13 (2.47%) TCP/IP
7 12 (2.28%) SAN
8 11 (2.09%) Network Security
9 8 (1.52%) InfiniBand
9 8 (1.52%) NAS
10 7 (1.33%) Ethernet
10 7 (1.33%) NetScaler
11 6 (1.14%) SSL
11 6 (1.14%) VPN
12 5 (0.95%) Ethernet VPN
12 5 (0.95%) FTP
13 4 (0.76%) DHCP
13 4 (0.76%) FIX Connectivity
13 4 (0.76%) MPLS
14 3 (0.57%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (9.30%) MySQL
2 44 (8.35%) MongoDB
2 44 (8.35%) Relational Database
3 40 (7.59%) Oracle Database
4 38 (7.21%) SQL Server
5 27 (5.12%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (4.17%) NoSQL
7 16 (3.04%) KDB
7 16 (3.04%) Kdb+
8 15 (2.85%) Elasticsearch
9 14 (2.66%) Big Data
10 12 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (2.09%) Hadoop
12 10 (1.90%) Amazon RDS
13 9 (1.71%) DataStage
13 9 (1.71%) DB2
13 9 (1.71%) Tick Data
14 8 (1.52%) Amazon Redshift
14 8 (1.52%) Pentaho
15 7 (1.33%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 46 (8.73%) Jenkins
2 44 (8.35%) Git
3 36 (6.83%) GitLab
4 35 (6.64%) JIRA
5 21 (3.98%) Eclipse
6 19 (3.61%) JUnit
7 14 (2.66%) Selenium
8 13 (2.47%) Mockito
8 13 (2.47%) Xcode
9 12 (2.28%) Android Studio
9 12 (2.28%) Bitbucket
9 12 (2.28%) Browser DevTools
10 11 (2.09%) MSI
11 9 (1.71%) IntelliJ
12 8 (1.52%) Maven
13 5 (0.95%) SoapUI
13 5 (0.95%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (0.95%) Toad
14 4 (0.76%) Ant
14 4 (0.76%) Subversion
General
1 145 (27.51%) Social Skills
2 140 (26.57%) Finance
3 62 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (10.82%) Banking
5 44 (8.35%) Public Sector
6 23 (4.36%) Front Office
7 21 (3.98%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (3.04%) Investment Banking
9 15 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (1.52%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.33%) Telecoms
12 6 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.95%) Advertising
13 5 (0.95%) Law
13 5 (0.95%) Legal
14 4 (0.76%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.76%) Retail
15 3 (0.57%) Billing
15 3 (0.57%) Military
15 3 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 94 (17.84%) Developer
2 75 (14.23%) Senior
3 43 (8.16%) Analyst
4 37 (7.02%) Java Developer
5 36 (6.83%) Support Engineer
6 33 (6.26%) Unix Engineer
7 31 (5.88%) Technical Support
8 27 (5.12%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 26 (4.93%) Linux Engineer
10 25 (4.74%) Software Engineer
11 24 (4.55%) DevOps Engineer
12 23 (4.36%) Site Engineer
13 22 (4.17%) DBA
13 22 (4.17%) Oracle DBA
14 20 (3.80%) Data Engineer
14 20 (3.80%) Kafka Engineer
15 19 (3.61%) C++ Software Engineer
15 19 (3.61%) Lead
16 18 (3.42%) Senior C++ Software Engineer
16 18 (3.42%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (12.52%) Kafka
2 40 (7.59%) REST
3 30 (5.69%) XML
4 29 (5.50%) Middleware
5 27 (5.12%) SOAP
6 26 (4.93%) React
7 24 (4.55%) JSON
8 21 (3.98%) CSS
9 20 (3.80%) Spring
10 19 (3.61%) AngularJS
10 19 (3.61%) HTML
11 15 (2.85%) Elastic Stack
12 14 (2.66%) HTML5
12 14 (2.66%) J2EE
13 12 (2.28%) ActiveMQ
13 12 (2.28%) Ajax
13 12 (2.28%) GraphQL
13 12 (2.28%) JAX-RS
13 12 (2.28%) Oracle GoldenGate
14 10 (1.90%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 29 (5.50%) Management Information System
2 20 (3.80%) Onboarding
3 19 (3.61%) Cloud Native
3 19 (3.61%) Linux Command Line
4 17 (3.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 15 (2.85%) Data Centre
6 12 (2.28%) Equities
6 12 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
6 12 (2.28%) Mobile App
7 11 (2.09%) Algorithms
7 11 (2.09%) Fixed Income
7 11 (2.09%) Greenfield Project
7 11 (2.09%) Security Posture
8 10 (1.90%) Derivative
9 9 (1.71%) Mainframe
9 9 (1.71%) Public Cloud
10 8 (1.52%) BYOD
10 8 (1.52%) Enterprise Cloud
10 8 (1.52%) Legacy Applications
10 8 (1.52%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 340 (64.52%) Linux
2 161 (30.55%) Windows
3 29 (5.50%) Windows Server
4 25 (4.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 25 (4.74%) Solaris
5 22 (4.17%) AIX
6 15 (2.85%) Mac OS X
7 12 (2.28%) Android
8 9 (1.71%) CentOS
9 7 (1.33%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.95%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.38%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (27.13%) Agile
2 113 (21.44%) Problem-Solving
3 95 (18.03%) DevOps
4 87 (16.51%) CI/CD
5 58 (11.01%) Computer Science
6 57 (10.82%) Software Engineering
7 55 (10.44%) Observability
8 53 (10.06%) Migration
9 51 (9.68%) Infrastructure as Code
9 51 (9.68%) Microservices
10 49 (9.30%) Containerisation
10 49 (9.30%) Incident Response
10 49 (9.30%) OO
11 47 (8.92%) ITIL
12 43 (8.16%) Performance Tuning
13 42 (7.97%) Continuous Improvement
14 41 (7.78%) Data Modelling
14 41 (7.78%) Test Automation
15 40 (7.59%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 40 (7.59%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 198 (37.57%) SQL
2 191 (36.24%) Python
3 140 (26.57%) Java
4 92 (17.46%) Shell Script
5 71 (13.47%) Bash
6 63 (11.95%) Perl
7 42 (7.97%) C++
7 42 (7.97%) JavaScript
8 39 (7.40%) PowerShell
9 33 (6.26%) PL/SQL
10 28 (5.31%) C#
11 23 (4.36%) Korn
12 14 (2.66%) Scala
13 10 (1.90%) Go
14 9 (1.71%) PHP
15 8 (1.52%) COBOL
16 3 (0.57%) C
16 3 (0.57%) Groovy
16 3 (0.57%) HiveQL
17 2 (0.38%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 122 (23.15%) Security Cleared
2 92 (17.46%) SC Cleared
3 80 (15.18%) Degree
4 43 (8.16%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (3.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.52%) CISSP
7 6 (1.14%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 6 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.14%) OSCP
8 5 (0.95%) CompTIA Security+
8 5 (0.95%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.95%) GPEN
8 5 (0.95%) GWAPT
8 5 (0.95%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.95%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (0.95%) MCSA
8 5 (0.95%) MCSE
8 5 (0.95%) RHCE
9 4 (0.76%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.42%) SLA
2 15 (2.85%) QA
3 9 (1.71%) Data Quality
3 9 (1.71%) NIST
4 7 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.57%) FATCA
5 3 (0.57%) GMP
5 3 (0.57%) NCSC
5 3 (0.57%) SEPA
6 2 (0.38%) GDPR
6 2 (0.38%) ISO 15022
6 2 (0.38%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.38%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.19%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.19%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 74 (14.04%) Docker
2 18 (3.42%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.47%) Oracle RAC
4 11 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (1.71%) KVM
6 6 (1.14%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.14%) NFS
6 6 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.95%) GPFS
8 4 (0.76%) HDFS
8 4 (0.76%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.38%) Firmware
9 2 (0.38%) Postfix
9 2 (0.38%) PowerHA
9 2 (0.38%) SRDF
9 2 (0.38%) Tivoli Directory Server
9 2 (0.38%) Varnish
9 2 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.38%) vSphere
10 1 (0.19%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 76 (14.42%) Kubernetes
2 66 (12.52%) Ansible
3 55 (10.44%) Terraform
4 38 (7.21%) Grafana
5 30 (5.69%) Puppet
6 24 (4.55%) Prometheus
7 15 (2.85%) Oracle RMAN
8 14 (2.66%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 13 (2.47%) Kibana
10 10 (1.90%) Progress Chef
11 7 (1.33%) NetBackup
12 6 (1.14%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (1.14%) Red Hat Satellite
12 6 (1.14%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.95%) CASB
13 5 (0.95%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (0.95%) Nessus
13 5 (0.95%) Salt
13 5 (0.95%) SCCM
14 4 (0.76%) Control-M
Vendors
1 168 (31.88%) Oracle
2 70 (13.28%) Splunk
3 57 (10.82%) Microsoft
4 44 (8.35%) IBM
5 32 (6.07%) ServiceNow
6 23 (4.36%) VMware
7 16 (3.04%) Cisco
7 16 (3.04%) Red Hat
8 12 (2.28%) CyberArk
9 11 (2.09%) Talend
10 10 (1.90%) Informatica
10 10 (1.90%) Remedy
11 9 (1.71%) Fujitsu
11 9 (1.71%) Tenable
11 9 (1.71%) webMethods
12 8 (1.52%) AppDynamics
12 8 (1.52%) Aruba
12 8 (1.52%) Dell
12 8 (1.52%) Veritas
13 7 (1.33%) Sybase