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 23 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 184 131 119
Rank change year-on-year -53 -12 -34
Contract jobs citing Unix 586 650 871
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.55% 2.05% 2.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.24% 14.56% 13.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 375 622
10th Percentile £204 £350 £356
25th Percentile £400 £425 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £527 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.87% -4.18% -2.22%
75th Percentile £600 £673 £675
90th Percentile £738 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £446 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -6.11% -5.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 7 14
10th Percentile £26.28 £38.70 £22.00
25th Percentile £26.31 £40.50 £33.44
Median hourly rate £27.75 £41.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.32% +2.50% -38.22%
75th Percentile £29.31 £59.00 £62.19
90th Percentile £29.43 £69.50 £74.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £47.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year - +7.43% -20.45%

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 4,787 4,463 6,276
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.62% 14.08% 14.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,175 2,784 4,248
10th Percentile £173 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £313 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.77%
75th Percentile £564 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £695 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -2.94% - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 165 350
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.69 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.00 £37.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.33% +25.00% +20.00%
75th Percentile £60.13 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.60 £72.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £35.75 £25.25
% change year-on-year -34.27% +41.58% +6.14%

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 23 January 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
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 23 January 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 -49 490 £480 -12.73% 203
UK excluding London -50 303 £446 -6.11% 200
London -33 231 £565 -5.83% 30
Work from Home -62 163 £469 -6.20% 63
North of England -23 84 £465 -31.07% 39
South East -17 82 £208 -52.26% 55
Midlands -42 72 £483 -3.37% 30
West Midlands -36 67 £483 -8.59% 12
Scotland -13 54 £425 -5.56% 11
North West -7 47 £460 -26.40% 18
Yorkshire -38 35 £495 -30.53% 15
South West -20 10 £700 +33.33% 26
East Midlands -31 5 £437 +11.76% 18
North East -11 4 £500 -9.09% 6
East of England -34 2 £470 +17.50% 31
Wales -5 1 £265 +64.60% 11
Northern Ireland -11 1 - - 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 42 (7.17%) Apache
2 40 (6.83%) WebLogic
3 23 (3.92%) Confluence
4 18 (3.07%) JBoss
5 17 (2.90%) SharePoint
6 10 (1.71%) Tomcat
7 9 (1.54%) IIS
7 9 (1.54%) Tuxedo
7 9 (1.54%) WebSphere
8 8 (1.37%) iPlanet
8 8 (1.37%) WebSphere Application Server
9 6 (1.02%) Apache Spark
9 6 (1.02%) nginx
10 5 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.85%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.85%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.68%) SAS
12 2 (0.34%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 1 (0.17%) NetWeaver
13 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
Applications
1 17 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.17%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.37%) Oracle EBS
1 8 (1.37%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.85%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.68%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.51%) Kondor
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.34%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.17%) Finacle
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.17%) SAP IBP
6 1 (0.17%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 154 (26.28%) AWS
2 104 (17.75%) Azure
3 33 (5.63%) GCP
4 27 (4.61%) GitHub
5 23 (3.92%) AWS CloudFormation
5 23 (3.92%) SaaS
6 19 (3.24%) Azure Monitor
6 19 (3.24%) OpenShift
7 17 (2.90%) Sauce Labs
8 15 (2.56%) Amazon EC2
8 15 (2.56%) Amazon S3
9 12 (2.05%) Serverless
10 11 (1.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 11 (1.88%) AWS Lambda
10 11 (1.88%) Cloud Computing
11 10 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 9 (1.54%) OCI
13 8 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
13 8 (1.37%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 28 (4.78%) Firewall
2 25 (4.27%) HTTP
3 22 (3.75%) DNS
3 22 (3.75%) TCP/IP
4 17 (2.90%) Wireless
5 15 (2.56%) SSH
6 11 (1.88%) Network Security
7 10 (1.71%) Kerberos
7 10 (1.71%) SSL
8 9 (1.54%) SAN
9 6 (1.02%) DHCP
10 5 (0.85%) FTP
11 4 (0.68%) FIX Connectivity
11 4 (0.68%) NAS
11 4 (0.68%) Wireshark
12 3 (0.51%) Broadband
12 3 (0.51%) GPRS
12 3 (0.51%) InfiniBand
12 3 (0.51%) Unified Communications
12 3 (0.51%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (9.39%) Relational Database
2 53 (9.04%) MongoDB
2 53 (9.04%) MySQL
3 40 (6.83%) Oracle Database
4 29 (4.95%) NoSQL
5 25 (4.27%) Elasticsearch
5 25 (4.27%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (3.07%) SQL Server
7 15 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (2.22%) KDB
8 13 (2.22%) Kdb+
9 11 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
10 10 (1.71%) Amazon Redshift
10 10 (1.71%) Data Lake
11 8 (1.37%) Big Data
11 8 (1.37%) RDBMS
12 6 (1.02%) Couchbase
12 6 (1.02%) Hadoop
12 6 (1.02%) Metadata
13 5 (0.85%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 61 (10.41%) Jenkins
2 51 (8.70%) Git
3 35 (5.97%) JIRA
4 29 (4.95%) GitLab
5 26 (4.44%) Eclipse
6 22 (3.75%) JUnit
7 20 (3.41%) Mockito
8 19 (3.24%) Xcode
9 18 (3.07%) Browser DevTools
10 17 (2.90%) Android Studio
11 15 (2.56%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (2.22%) Selenium
13 11 (1.88%) Bitbucket
14 9 (1.54%) IntelliJ
14 9 (1.54%) Maven
15 8 (1.37%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (1.37%) CA Release Automation
15 8 (1.37%) MSI
16 6 (1.02%) SoapUI
17 5 (0.85%) QUnit
General
1 176 (30.03%) Social Skills
2 152 (25.94%) Finance
3 73 (12.46%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (9.73%) Banking
5 37 (6.31%) Public Sector
6 30 (5.12%) Front Office
7 15 (2.56%) Investment Banking
8 13 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
9 12 (2.05%) Financial Institution
10 11 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.19%) Legal
11 7 (1.19%) Military
12 5 (0.85%) Law
13 4 (0.68%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.51%) Billing
14 3 (0.51%) Manufacturing
15 2 (0.34%) Back Office
15 2 (0.34%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 114 (19.45%) Developer
2 102 (17.41%) Senior
3 46 (7.85%) Java Developer
4 44 (7.51%) Technical Support
5 43 (7.34%) Analyst
6 35 (5.97%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 34 (5.80%) DevOps Engineer
8 33 (5.63%) Unix Engineer
9 32 (5.46%) Support Engineer
10 30 (5.12%) Linux Engineer
11 29 (4.95%) Site Engineer
12 26 (4.44%) Senior Developer
13 25 (4.27%) Software Engineer
13 25 (4.27%) Technical Engineer
14 23 (3.92%) Consultant
14 23 (3.92%) Technical Support Engineer
15 22 (3.75%) C++ Software Engineer
15 22 (3.75%) Kafka Engineer
15 22 (3.75%) Senior C++ Software Engineer
15 22 (3.75%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (13.82%) Kafka
2 40 (6.83%) React
3 39 (6.66%) REST
4 34 (5.80%) SOAP
5 27 (4.61%) AngularJS
6 26 (4.44%) CSS
7 24 (4.10%) XML
8 22 (3.75%) HTML
8 22 (3.75%) Middleware
9 19 (3.24%) ActiveMQ
10 18 (3.07%) Ajax
10 18 (3.07%) GraphQL
10 18 (3.07%) JAX-RS
10 18 (3.07%) JSON
11 17 (2.90%) Spring
12 16 (2.73%) Elastic Stack
13 15 (2.56%) HTML5
14 14 (2.39%) Hibernate
15 12 (2.05%) J2EE
16 10 (1.71%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 32 (5.46%) Management Information System
2 20 (3.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 20 (3.41%) Mobile App
2 20 (3.41%) Onboarding
3 17 (2.90%) Cloud Native
3 17 (2.90%) Linux Command Line
4 13 (2.22%) Algorithms
4 13 (2.22%) Data Centre
4 13 (2.22%) Equities
5 12 (2.05%) Fixed Income
6 11 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (1.88%) Derivative
6 11 (1.88%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (1.88%) Tandem
7 10 (1.71%) Greenfield Project
7 10 (1.71%) Replication
7 10 (1.71%) Security Posture
8 8 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
8 8 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.37%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 398 (67.92%) Linux
2 188 (32.08%) Windows
3 29 (4.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (3.92%) Mac OS X
5 20 (3.41%) Solaris
6 19 (3.24%) Android
7 18 (3.07%) Windows Server
8 13 (2.22%) CentOS
8 13 (2.22%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.85%) AIX
10 4 (0.68%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.34%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.17%) VMS
12 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.17%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (27.99%) Agile
2 114 (19.45%) Problem-Solving
3 110 (18.77%) DevOps
4 106 (18.09%) CI/CD
5 72 (12.29%) Incident Response
6 69 (11.77%) Observability
7 64 (10.92%) Computer Science
7 64 (10.92%) OO
8 62 (10.58%) Microservices
9 57 (9.73%) Software Engineering
10 55 (9.39%) Continuous Improvement
10 55 (9.39%) Infrastructure as Code
11 53 (9.04%) Containerisation
11 53 (9.04%) Test Automation
12 50 (8.53%) Analytics
13 49 (8.36%) Migration
14 47 (8.02%) TDD
15 45 (7.68%) Data Modelling
15 45 (7.68%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 44 (7.51%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 237 (40.44%) Python
2 225 (38.40%) SQL
3 154 (26.28%) Java
4 101 (17.24%) Shell Script
5 91 (15.53%) Perl
6 79 (13.48%) Bash
7 57 (9.73%) JavaScript
8 49 (8.36%) C++
9 41 (7.00%) PowerShell
10 31 (5.29%) C#
11 26 (4.44%) PL/SQL
12 15 (2.56%) Go
13 12 (2.05%) Scala
14 11 (1.88%) Korn
15 10 (1.71%) Groovy
16 9 (1.54%) PHP
17 8 (1.37%) Search Processing Language
18 7 (1.19%) TypeScript
19 4 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
19 4 (0.68%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 115 (19.62%) Security Cleared
2 93 (15.87%) Degree
3 81 (13.82%) SC Cleared
4 54 (9.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (3.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (1.88%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.71%) AWS Certification
7 10 (1.71%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 6 (1.02%) OSCP
9 5 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (0.85%) GPEN
9 5 (0.85%) GWAPT
9 5 (0.85%) ISTQB
9 5 (0.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 5 (0.85%) RHCE
10 4 (0.68%) CISSP
10 4 (0.68%) Server+ Certification
11 3 (0.51%) CCIE
11 3 (0.51%) CCNP
11 3 (0.51%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.24%) SLA
2 16 (2.73%) QA
3 9 (1.54%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.85%) NCSC
5 4 (0.68%) GMP
5 4 (0.68%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.68%) SOC 2
6 3 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.51%) NIST
6 3 (0.51%) SEPA
7 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.17%) GDPR
8 1 (0.17%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.17%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 92 (15.70%) Docker
2 13 (2.22%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.37%) Tivoli Directory Server
3 8 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.02%) KVM
5 5 (0.85%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.51%) GPFS
6 3 (0.51%) NFS
6 3 (0.51%) QEMU
7 2 (0.34%) GridGain
7 2 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.17%) Ceph
8 1 (0.17%) iptables
8 1 (0.17%) Lustre
8 1 (0.17%) Postfix
8 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.17%) Varnish
8 1 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.17%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 86 (14.68%) Kubernetes
2 75 (12.80%) Ansible
3 70 (11.95%) Terraform
4 36 (6.14%) Grafana
5 31 (5.29%) Puppet
6 22 (3.75%) Prometheus
7 15 (2.56%) Kibana
8 14 (2.39%) Progress Chef
9 10 (1.71%) Red Hat Satellite
10 9 (1.54%) Tivoli
11 8 (1.37%) CA Single Sign-On
11 8 (1.37%) CA Wily
12 7 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
13 6 (1.02%) Jamf Pro
13 6 (1.02%) SCCM
14 5 (0.85%) Dell DRAC
14 5 (0.85%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.85%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.85%) Packer
15 4 (0.68%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 182 (31.06%) Oracle
2 104 (17.75%) Splunk
3 75 (12.80%) Microsoft
4 38 (6.48%) IBM
5 33 (5.63%) ServiceNow
6 29 (4.95%) AppDynamics
7 26 (4.44%) Red Hat
8 24 (4.10%) Cisco
9 23 (3.92%) Dynatrace
10 15 (2.56%) VMware
11 10 (1.71%) F5
12 9 (1.54%) CyberArk
12 9 (1.54%) webMethods
13 8 (1.37%) Broadcom
13 8 (1.37%) Confluent
13 8 (1.37%) CrowdStrike
13 8 (1.37%) MuleSoft
14 7 (1.19%) BeyondTrust
14 7 (1.19%) Dell
15 6 (1.02%) Veritas