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

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 164 118 111
Rank change year-on-year -46 -7 -24
Contract jobs citing Unix 614 754 1,040
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.73% 2.05% 2.24%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.76% 14.56% 14.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 406 467 730
10th Percentile £221 £346 £363
25th Percentile £371 £405 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.66% -6.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £634 £638
90th Percentile £738 £755 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £513
% change year-on-year -5.26% -7.32% -3.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 8 11
10th Percentile £26.33 £25.52 £22.00
25th Percentile £26.44 £26.25 £39.38
Median hourly rate £41.25 £39.00 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.77% -38.10% -10.00%
75th Percentile £58.56 £44.38 £77.75
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% -1.43%

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 4,813 5,177 7,092
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.54% 14.11% 15.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,099 3,180 4,809
10th Percentile £185 £200 £182
25th Percentile £270 £325 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -4.95%
75th Percentile £572 £584 £613
90th Percentile £653 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £450 £442
% change year-on-year -8.89% +1.81% -1.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 364 219 356
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £14.76
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.11 £18.45
Median hourly rate £24.00 £52.50 £35.92
Median % change year-on-year -54.29% +46.16% +43.68%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.46 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.57 £52.50 £28.75
% change year-on-year -57.01% +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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -43 506 £500 -4.76% 199
UK excluding London -42 318 £450 -5.26% 95
London -19 249 £547 -2.84% 127
Work from Home -75 150 £475 -5.00% 97
North of England -23 88 £475 -17.39% 21
South East -16 82 £223 -44.93% 31
Scotland -7 66 £454 +12.10% 4
Midlands -48 55 £434 -17.43% 11
North West -10 47 £453 -15.80% 12
West Midlands -52 47 £498 -5.24% 6
Yorkshire -26 39 £590 -3.67% 9
South West -21 16 £700 +47.37% 7
East Midlands -10 8 £418 +17.28% 5
East of England -23 6 £500 +25.00% 10
Northern Ireland -6 5 - - 4
North East -11 4 £500 -9.09%
Wales -1 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 (6.35%) Apache
2 32 (5.21%) Confluence
3 28 (4.56%) WebLogic
4 24 (3.91%) JBoss
5 16 (2.61%) SharePoint
6 15 (2.44%) Tomcat
7 13 (2.12%) WebSphere
8 9 (1.47%) IIS
9 8 (1.30%) iPlanet
9 8 (1.30%) WebSphere Application Server
10 6 (0.98%) Apache Spark
10 6 (0.98%) nginx
10 6 (0.98%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.81%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
12 4 (0.65%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.33%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.33%) SAS
14 1 (0.16%) CICS
Applications
1 14 (2.28%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.33%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.30%) Oracle EBS
1 8 (1.30%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.81%) ION MarketView
2 5 (0.81%) Kondor
2 5 (0.81%) Oracle Assets
2 5 (0.81%) Oracle BPM
2 5 (0.81%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.65%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.65%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.65%) SAP IBP
4 3 (0.49%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.49%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.33%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.16%) Finacle
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle E-Business Tax
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.16%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.16%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 169 (27.52%) AWS
2 112 (18.24%) Azure
3 41 (6.68%) GCP
4 35 (5.70%) GitHub
5 26 (4.23%) SaaS
6 22 (3.58%) OpenShift
7 19 (3.09%) Azure Monitor
8 18 (2.93%) Amazon EC2
8 18 (2.93%) AWS CloudFormation
8 18 (2.93%) Sauce Labs
9 15 (2.44%) Amazon S3
9 15 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
10 12 (1.95%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 11 (1.79%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (1.63%) Serverless
13 9 (1.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 9 (1.47%) Amazon ECS
13 9 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
14 8 (1.30%) IaaS
14 8 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 41 (6.68%) Firewall
2 36 (5.86%) TCP/IP
3 30 (4.89%) DNS
3 30 (4.89%) HTTP
4 20 (3.26%) SSL
4 20 (3.26%) Wireless
5 17 (2.77%) SSH
6 12 (1.95%) Network Security
6 12 (1.95%) SAN
7 10 (1.63%) DHCP
8 9 (1.47%) Kerberos
9 8 (1.30%) Internet
10 6 (0.98%) VPN
11 5 (0.81%) FTP
12 4 (0.65%) Wireshark
13 3 (0.49%) Broadband
13 3 (0.49%) GPRS
13 3 (0.49%) GSM
13 3 (0.49%) Unified Communications
13 3 (0.49%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (8.96%) Relational Database
2 51 (8.31%) MongoDB
2 51 (8.31%) MySQL
3 42 (6.84%) Oracle Database
4 27 (4.40%) NoSQL
5 22 (3.58%) PostgreSQL
5 22 (3.58%) SQL Server
6 16 (2.61%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (2.44%) KDB
8 13 (2.12%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (2.12%) Kdb+
9 11 (1.79%) Big Data
9 11 (1.79%) DB2
10 10 (1.63%) Data Lake
11 9 (1.47%) BigQuery
12 8 (1.30%) Amazon Redshift
12 8 (1.30%) RDBMS
13 7 (1.14%) Hadoop
13 7 (1.14%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 87 (14.17%) Git
2 79 (12.87%) Jenkins
3 56 (9.12%) JIRA
4 37 (6.03%) GitLab
5 35 (5.70%) JUnit
6 29 (4.72%) Eclipse
6 29 (4.72%) Maven
7 26 (4.23%) Sonatype Nexus
8 25 (4.07%) Mockito
9 24 (3.91%) Xcode
10 19 (3.09%) Browser DevTools
11 18 (2.93%) Android Studio
12 17 (2.77%) Bitbucket
12 17 (2.77%) Gradle
13 15 (2.44%) IntelliJ
13 15 (2.44%) Selenium
14 12 (1.95%) SonarQube
15 10 (1.63%) Postman
15 10 (1.63%) SoapUI
16 9 (1.47%) Subversion
General
1 192 (31.27%) Social Skills
2 175 (28.50%) Finance
3 91 (14.82%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (8.96%) Banking
5 35 (5.70%) Public Sector
6 24 (3.91%) Financial Institution
6 24 (3.91%) Front Office
7 13 (2.12%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (1.63%) Investment Banking
9 9 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (1.30%) Legal
11 7 (1.14%) Back Office
12 6 (0.98%) Manufacturing
12 6 (0.98%) Military
12 6 (0.98%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.65%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.65%) Marketing
14 3 (0.49%) Billing
14 3 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.49%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 135 (21.99%) Developer
2 101 (16.45%) Senior
3 60 (9.77%) Java Developer
4 46 (7.49%) Analyst
5 41 (6.68%) Technical Support
6 34 (5.54%) DevOps Engineer
6 34 (5.54%) Support Engineer
7 29 (4.72%) Technical Engineer
8 28 (4.56%) Linux Engineer
8 28 (4.56%) Senior Developer
9 25 (4.07%) Technical Support Engineer
10 22 (3.58%) Software Engineer
11 20 (3.26%) Architect
11 20 (3.26%) Lead
11 20 (3.26%) Platform Engineer
11 20 (3.26%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 19 (3.09%) Administrator
12 19 (3.09%) UX Engineer
13 18 (2.93%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
13 18 (2.93%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (12.70%) Kafka
2 50 (8.14%) SOAP
3 48 (7.82%) REST
4 38 (6.19%) React
4 38 (6.19%) Spring
5 34 (5.54%) AngularJS
5 34 (5.54%) Middleware
6 32 (5.21%) CSS
7 30 (4.89%) XML
8 28 (4.56%) HTML
9 26 (4.23%) JSON
10 22 (3.58%) Spring Boot
11 21 (3.42%) Hibernate
11 21 (3.42%) J2EE
12 20 (3.26%) ActiveMQ
13 19 (3.09%) Ajax
13 19 (3.09%) GraphQL
14 17 (2.77%) JAX-RS
15 15 (2.44%) HTML5
16 14 (2.28%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 38 (6.19%) Management Information System
2 26 (4.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 23 (3.75%) Data Centre
4 21 (3.42%) Mobile App
4 21 (3.42%) Onboarding
5 19 (3.09%) Distributed Systems
5 19 (3.09%) Security Posture
6 16 (2.61%) Algorithms
7 15 (2.44%) Cloud Native
7 15 (2.44%) Linux Command Line
8 14 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
9 13 (2.12%) Tandem
10 12 (1.95%) Fixed Income
11 11 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 11 (1.79%) Legacy Applications
11 11 (1.79%) Replication
12 10 (1.63%) Equities
12 10 (1.63%) Private Cloud
13 9 (1.47%) Data Structures
13 9 (1.47%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 438 (71.34%) Linux
2 188 (30.62%) Windows
3 30 (4.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (3.91%) Windows Server
5 22 (3.58%) Mac OS X
6 20 (3.26%) Android
6 20 (3.26%) CentOS
7 14 (2.28%) Solaris
8 11 (1.79%) Mac OS
9 9 (1.47%) Ubuntu
10 7 (1.14%) AIX
11 3 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 3 (0.49%) VMS
11 3 (0.49%) 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 (0.16%) Debian
13 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (31.43%) Agile
2 131 (21.34%) Problem-Solving
3 124 (20.20%) CI/CD
4 118 (19.22%) DevOps
5 73 (11.89%) Microservices
5 73 (11.89%) OO
6 64 (10.42%) Incident Response
7 61 (9.93%) Continuous Improvement
8 59 (9.61%) Test Automation
9 57 (9.28%) Infrastructure as Code
9 57 (9.28%) Software Engineering
10 56 (9.12%) Computer Science
11 48 (7.82%) TDD
12 47 (7.65%) Analytics
13 45 (7.33%) Observability
14 44 (7.17%) Containerisation
15 40 (6.51%) Data Modelling
15 40 (6.51%) Mentoring
15 40 (6.51%) Migration
16 39 (6.35%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 255 (41.53%) Python
2 228 (37.13%) SQL
3 174 (28.34%) Java
4 115 (18.73%) Shell Script
5 90 (14.66%) Perl
6 69 (11.24%) Bash
7 66 (10.75%) JavaScript
8 53 (8.63%) C++
9 33 (5.37%) PowerShell
10 30 (4.89%) C#
11 25 (4.07%) PL/SQL
12 15 (2.44%) Groovy
13 14 (2.28%) Scala
14 13 (2.12%) C
14 13 (2.12%) Go
15 10 (1.63%) TypeScript
16 9 (1.47%) Search Processing Language
17 8 (1.30%) Korn
18 6 (0.98%) PromQL
18 6 (0.98%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 92 (14.98%) Security Cleared
2 80 (13.03%) Degree
3 65 (10.59%) SC Cleared
4 42 (6.84%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (3.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (2.12%) AWS Certification
6 13 (2.12%) DV Cleared
7 12 (1.95%) CISSP
8 10 (1.63%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 7 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (0.98%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 5 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
11 5 (0.81%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.81%) MCSA
11 5 (0.81%) MCSE
11 5 (0.81%) OSCP
12 4 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.65%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.65%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.40%) QA
2 10 (1.63%) SLA
3 9 (1.47%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.14%) NCSC
5 4 (0.65%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.65%) SOC 2
6 3 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.49%) NIST
7 2 (0.33%) Accessibility
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 (0.16%) Def Stans
8 1 (0.16%) GDPR
8 1 (0.16%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.16%) MISRA
8 1 (0.16%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 85 (13.84%) Docker
2 26 (4.23%) Active Directory
3 14 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.30%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 5 (0.81%) KVM
6 4 (0.65%) Veritas Cluster Server
6 4 (0.65%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.65%) vSphere
7 3 (0.49%) NFS
7 3 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.49%) QEMU
8 2 (0.33%) GridGain
9 1 (0.16%) RACF
9 1 (0.16%) Samba
9 1 (0.16%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.16%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
9 1 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 75 (12.21%) Kubernetes
2 71 (11.56%) Terraform
3 59 (9.61%) Ansible
4 35 (5.70%) Puppet
5 29 (4.72%) Grafana
6 23 (3.75%) Prometheus
7 14 (2.28%) Progress Chef
8 9 (1.47%) Red Hat Satellite
8 9 (1.47%) Tivoli
9 8 (1.30%) CA Single Sign-On
9 8 (1.30%) CA Wily
9 8 (1.30%) Packer
10 7 (1.14%) Control-M
10 7 (1.14%) ITRS Geneos
10 7 (1.14%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (1.14%) Nessus
10 7 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.98%) Kibana
12 5 (0.81%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 5 (0.81%) SCCM
Vendors
1 173 (28.18%) Oracle
2 102 (16.61%) Splunk
3 81 (13.19%) Microsoft
4 40 (6.51%) IBM
5 34 (5.54%) ServiceNow
6 31 (5.05%) VMware
7 28 (4.56%) Dynatrace
7 28 (4.56%) Red Hat
8 25 (4.07%) AppDynamics
9 20 (3.26%) Cisco
10 16 (2.61%) F5
11 15 (2.44%) CyberArk
12 13 (2.12%) Google
12 13 (2.12%) MuleSoft
13 11 (1.79%) SAP
14 10 (1.63%) webMethods
15 9 (1.47%) Tenable
15 9 (1.47%) TIBCO
16 8 (1.30%) Confluent
16 8 (1.30%) Okta