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

6 months to
17 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 163 117 109
Rank change year-on-year -46 -8 -22
Contract jobs citing Unix 603 744 1,045
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.72% 2.05% 2.22%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.71% 14.53% 14.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 398 457 733
10th Percentile £216 £343 £363
25th Percentile £371 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £764 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £505
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.94% -6.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 8 12
10th Percentile £26.33 £25.52 £22.00
25th Percentile £26.44 £26.25 £28.94
Median hourly rate £41.25 £39.00 £57.75
Median % change year-on-year +5.77% -32.47% -17.50%
75th Percentile £58.56 £44.38 £77.63
90th Percentile £65.43 £56.60 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £34.25 £69.00
% change year-on-year +81.75% -50.36% +4.55%

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 4,744 5,122 7,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.51% 14.11% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,054 3,142 4,866
10th Percentile £185 £200 £181
25th Percentile £270 £325 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £613
90th Percentile £661 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £408 £450 £440
% change year-on-year -9.28% +2.27% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 364 216 356
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.95 £18.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £51.25 £35.92
Median % change year-on-year -53.17% +42.68% +45.13%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.04 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.79 £52.50 £28.75
% change year-on-year -56.60% +82.61% +27.78%

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 17 November 2025.

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 17 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Unix in the UK

Unix
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 Unix within the UK over the 6 months to 17 November 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 -55 497 £500 -4.76% 195
UK excluding London -49 312 £450 -5.26% 93
London -15 244 £550 -2.22% 131
Work from Home -79 148 £475 -5.00% 121
North of England -21 86 £475 -16.85% 22
South East -18 82 £223 -46.06% 35
Scotland -4 64 £454 +11.69% 3
Midlands -52 53 £439 -16.48% 11
North West -14 47 £453 -15.80% 13
West Midlands -50 47 £498 -5.24% 6
Yorkshire -25 37 £613 -2.78% 9
South West -13 16 £700 +47.37% 6
East Midlands -13 6 £428 +20.08% 5
East of England -23 6 £500 +25.00% 5
Northern Ireland -7 5 - - 3
North East -8 4 £500 -9.09%
Wales 0 3 £265 +64.51% 9

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 39 (6.47%) Apache
2 32 (5.31%) Confluence
3 28 (4.64%) WebLogic
4 24 (3.98%) JBoss
5 16 (2.65%) SharePoint
6 15 (2.49%) Tomcat
7 13 (2.16%) WebSphere
8 9 (1.49%) IIS
9 8 (1.33%) iPlanet
9 8 (1.33%) WebSphere Application Server
10 6 (1.00%) nginx
10 6 (1.00%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.83%) Apache Spark
11 5 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.83%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.66%) NetWeaver
13 3 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
14 2 (0.33%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.33%) SAS
15 1 (0.17%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 14 (2.32%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.33%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.33%) Oracle EBS
1 8 (1.33%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.83%) ION MarketView
2 5 (0.83%) Kondor
2 5 (0.83%) Oracle Assets
2 5 (0.83%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.66%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.66%) SAP IBP
4 3 (0.50%) Oracle BPM
4 3 (0.50%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.33%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.17%) Finacle
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.17%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.17%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 168 (27.86%) AWS
2 109 (18.08%) Azure
3 38 (6.30%) GCP
4 33 (5.47%) GitHub
5 26 (4.31%) SaaS
6 22 (3.65%) OpenShift
7 19 (3.15%) Azure Monitor
8 18 (2.99%) Amazon EC2
8 18 (2.99%) AWS CloudFormation
8 18 (2.99%) Sauce Labs
9 15 (2.49%) Amazon S3
10 13 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (1.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 11 (1.82%) Cloud Computing
13 10 (1.66%) Serverless
14 9 (1.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 9 (1.49%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
15 8 (1.33%) Microsoft 365
16 7 (1.16%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 41 (6.80%) Firewall
2 36 (5.97%) TCP/IP
3 30 (4.98%) DNS
3 30 (4.98%) HTTP
4 20 (3.32%) SSL
4 20 (3.32%) Wireless
5 17 (2.82%) SSH
6 12 (1.99%) Network Security
6 12 (1.99%) SAN
7 10 (1.66%) DHCP
8 9 (1.49%) Kerberos
9 8 (1.33%) Internet
10 6 (1.00%) VPN
11 5 (0.83%) FTP
12 4 (0.66%) Wireshark
13 3 (0.50%) Broadband
13 3 (0.50%) GPRS
13 3 (0.50%) GSM
13 3 (0.50%) Unified Communications
13 3 (0.50%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (8.79%) Relational Database
2 51 (8.46%) MongoDB
2 51 (8.46%) MySQL
3 41 (6.80%) Oracle Database
4 27 (4.48%) NoSQL
5 22 (3.65%) SQL Server
6 21 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
7 16 (2.65%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (2.49%) KDB
9 13 (2.16%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (2.16%) Kdb+
10 11 (1.82%) Big Data
10 11 (1.82%) DB2
11 10 (1.66%) Data Lake
12 8 (1.33%) Amazon Redshift
13 7 (1.16%) Hadoop
13 7 (1.16%) Metadata
14 6 (1.00%) Power BI
14 6 (1.00%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 82 (13.60%) Git
2 77 (12.77%) Jenkins
3 54 (8.96%) JIRA
4 37 (6.14%) GitLab
5 32 (5.31%) JUnit
6 29 (4.81%) Eclipse
7 27 (4.48%) Maven
8 25 (4.15%) Sonatype Nexus
9 23 (3.81%) Xcode
10 22 (3.65%) Mockito
11 19 (3.15%) Browser DevTools
12 18 (2.99%) Android Studio
13 16 (2.65%) Bitbucket
13 16 (2.65%) Gradle
14 15 (2.49%) IntelliJ
14 15 (2.49%) Selenium
15 9 (1.49%) Postman
15 9 (1.49%) SoapUI
15 9 (1.49%) SonarQube
16 8 (1.33%) CA Release Automation
General
1 189 (31.34%) Social Skills
2 173 (28.69%) Finance
3 91 (15.09%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (8.79%) Banking
5 34 (5.64%) Public Sector
6 24 (3.98%) Financial Institution
6 24 (3.98%) Front Office
7 13 (2.16%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (1.49%) Investment Banking
9 8 (1.33%) Legal
10 7 (1.16%) Back Office
11 6 (1.00%) Manufacturing
11 6 (1.00%) Military
11 6 (1.00%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.66%) General Ledger
12 4 (0.66%) Marketing
13 3 (0.50%) Billing
13 3 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.50%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 130 (21.56%) Developer
2 99 (16.42%) Senior
3 57 (9.45%) Java Developer
4 44 (7.30%) Analyst
5 41 (6.80%) Technical Support
6 34 (5.64%) Support Engineer
7 33 (5.47%) DevOps Engineer
8 29 (4.81%) Technical Engineer
9 28 (4.64%) Linux Engineer
10 27 (4.48%) Senior Developer
11 25 (4.15%) Technical Support Engineer
12 22 (3.65%) Software Engineer
13 20 (3.32%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 19 (3.15%) Administrator
14 19 (3.15%) Lead
14 19 (3.15%) Platform Engineer
14 19 (3.15%) UX Engineer
15 18 (2.99%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
16 17 (2.82%) Kafka Engineer
16 17 (2.82%) Senior Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (12.60%) Kafka
2 49 (8.13%) SOAP
3 47 (7.79%) REST
4 38 (6.30%) React
5 35 (5.80%) Spring
6 33 (5.47%) AngularJS
6 33 (5.47%) Middleware
7 31 (5.14%) CSS
8 30 (4.98%) XML
9 27 (4.48%) HTML
10 26 (4.31%) JSON
11 21 (3.48%) Spring Boot
12 20 (3.32%) ActiveMQ
12 20 (3.32%) J2EE
13 19 (3.15%) Ajax
13 19 (3.15%) GraphQL
14 18 (2.99%) Hibernate
15 17 (2.82%) JAX-RS
16 14 (2.32%) HTML5
16 14 (2.32%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 36 (5.97%) Management Information System
2 26 (4.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 22 (3.65%) Data Centre
4 21 (3.48%) Mobile App
4 21 (3.48%) Onboarding
5 19 (3.15%) Security Posture
6 17 (2.82%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (2.65%) Algorithms
8 15 (2.49%) Linux Command Line
9 13 (2.16%) Cloud Native
9 13 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
9 13 (2.16%) Tandem
10 12 (1.99%) Fixed Income
11 11 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
11 11 (1.82%) Replication
12 10 (1.66%) Equities
12 10 (1.66%) Legacy Applications
12 10 (1.66%) Private Cloud
13 9 (1.49%) Data Structures
13 9 (1.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 433 (71.81%) Linux
2 186 (30.85%) Windows
3 30 (4.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (3.98%) Windows Server
5 22 (3.65%) Mac OS X
6 20 (3.32%) Android
6 20 (3.32%) CentOS
7 14 (2.32%) Solaris
8 11 (1.82%) Mac OS
9 9 (1.49%) Ubuntu
10 7 (1.16%) AIX
11 3 (0.50%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 3 (0.50%) VMS
11 3 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.33%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.33%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.33%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (31.18%) Agile
2 129 (21.39%) Problem-Solving
3 120 (19.90%) CI/CD
4 116 (19.24%) DevOps
5 70 (11.61%) Microservices
5 70 (11.61%) OO
6 64 (10.61%) Incident Response
7 60 (9.95%) Continuous Improvement
8 59 (9.78%) Test Automation
9 58 (9.62%) Software Engineering
10 57 (9.45%) Infrastructure as Code
11 54 (8.96%) Computer Science
12 47 (7.79%) Analytics
12 47 (7.79%) TDD
13 45 (7.46%) Observability
14 43 (7.13%) Containerisation
15 39 (6.47%) Change Management
15 39 (6.47%) Data Modelling
15 39 (6.47%) Incident Management
15 39 (6.47%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 249 (41.29%) Python
2 222 (36.82%) SQL
3 169 (28.03%) Java
4 112 (18.57%) Shell Script
5 88 (14.59%) Perl
6 68 (11.28%) Bash
7 64 (10.61%) JavaScript
8 52 (8.62%) C++
9 33 (5.47%) PowerShell
10 31 (5.14%) C#
11 25 (4.15%) PL/SQL
12 13 (2.16%) C
12 13 (2.16%) Go
12 13 (2.16%) Groovy
12 13 (2.16%) Scala
13 9 (1.49%) Search Processing Language
13 9 (1.49%) TypeScript
14 8 (1.33%) Korn
15 6 (1.00%) PromQL
15 6 (1.00%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 91 (15.09%) Security Cleared
2 78 (12.94%) Degree
3 65 (10.78%) SC Cleared
4 41 (6.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (3.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (2.16%) AWS Certification
6 13 (2.16%) DV Cleared
7 12 (1.99%) CISSP
8 10 (1.66%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 7 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 5 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
11 5 (0.83%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.83%) MCSA
11 5 (0.83%) MCSE
11 5 (0.83%) OSCP
12 4 (0.66%) MCP
12 4 (0.66%) OCP
12 4 (0.66%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (4.15%) QA
2 10 (1.66%) SLA
3 9 (1.49%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.16%) NCSC
5 4 (0.66%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.66%) SOC 2
6 3 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.50%) NIST
7 2 (0.33%) Basel III
7 2 (0.33%) GMP
7 2 (0.33%) MiFID
7 2 (0.33%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.33%) SEPA
8 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.17%) Def Stans
8 1 (0.17%) GDPR
8 1 (0.17%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.17%) MISRA
8 1 (0.17%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 81 (13.43%) Docker
2 26 (4.31%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.33%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 5 (0.83%) KVM
6 4 (0.66%) Veritas Cluster Server
6 4 (0.66%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.66%) vSphere
7 3 (0.50%) NFS
7 3 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.50%) QEMU
8 2 (0.33%) GridGain
9 1 (0.17%) RACF
9 1 (0.17%) Samba
9 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.17%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 71 (11.77%) Terraform
2 70 (11.61%) Kubernetes
3 59 (9.78%) Ansible
4 35 (5.80%) Puppet
5 28 (4.64%) Grafana
6 23 (3.81%) Prometheus
7 14 (2.32%) Progress Chef
8 9 (1.49%) Red Hat Satellite
8 9 (1.49%) Tivoli
9 8 (1.33%) CA Single Sign-On
9 8 (1.33%) CA Wily
9 8 (1.33%) Packer
10 7 (1.16%) ITRS Geneos
10 7 (1.16%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (1.16%) Nessus
10 7 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.00%) Kibana
12 5 (0.83%) Control-M
12 5 (0.83%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 5 (0.83%) SCCM
Vendors
1 171 (28.36%) Oracle
2 100 (16.58%) Splunk
3 81 (13.43%) Microsoft
4 40 (6.63%) IBM
5 34 (5.64%) ServiceNow
6 30 (4.98%) VMware
7 28 (4.64%) Red Hat
8 27 (4.48%) Dynatrace
9 24 (3.98%) AppDynamics
10 20 (3.32%) Cisco
11 16 (2.65%) F5
12 15 (2.49%) CyberArk
13 13 (2.16%) MuleSoft
14 12 (1.99%) Google
15 11 (1.82%) SAP
16 10 (1.66%) webMethods
17 9 (1.49%) Tenable
17 9 (1.49%) TIBCO
18 8 (1.33%) Confluent
18 8 (1.33%) Okta