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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 228 135 138
Rank change year-on-year -93 +3 -57
Contract jobs citing Unix 508 589 754
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 2.03% 1.70%
As % of the Operating Systems category 10.74% 14.15% 12.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 329 350 504
10th Percentile £257 £356 £332
25th Percentile £393 £422 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -7.28% -
75th Percentile £575 £620 £661
90th Percentile £725 £738 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £429 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -9.68% -5.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 9 22
10th Percentile - - £22.01
25th Percentile £21.50 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £27.94 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -47.28% +32.50% -30.43%
75th Percentile £53.00 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £53.93 £67.25 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £53.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -58.49% +32.50% -27.27%

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 4,728 4,163 5,966
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.75% 14.32% 13.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,094 2,773 3,984
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £300 £325 £283
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £461
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.98% -10.44%
75th Percentile £567 £600 £594
90th Percentile £657 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £422 £450 £438
% change year-on-year -6.17% +2.86% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 336 162 409
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.52 £12.86
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.41 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.16 £24.66 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.10% +12.09% -24.14%
75th Percentile £61.81 £63.63 £57.50
90th Percentile £71.00 £68.75 £69.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £24.66 £20.35
% change year-on-year -7.50% +21.16% -23.20%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -83 439 £465 -11.43% 90
UK excluding London -100 256 £429 -9.68% 71
London -47 211 £550 -2.22% 39
Work from Home -96 148 £454 -8.38% 47
North of England -59 79 £463 -11.90% 20
Midlands -32 68 £444 -3.59% 12
South East -33 68 £339 -30.07% 21
North West -15 62 £469 -10.67% 10
West Midlands -32 62 £444 -4.52% 8
Scotland -49 28 £402 -13.46% 6
Yorkshire -70 16 £447 -18.73% 7
South West -34 7 £700 +27.27% 3
East Midlands -33 6 £478 +5.18% 4
Wales -9 5 £265 +62.04% 2
East of England -44 3 £440 -2.22% 4
North East -14 1 £625 +11.11% 3

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 22 (4.33%) WebLogic
2 21 (4.13%) Apache
3 20 (3.94%) Confluence
4 16 (3.15%) Tuxedo
5 12 (2.36%) Apache Spark
6 11 (2.17%) SAS
6 11 (2.17%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.57%) CICS
8 6 (1.18%) NetWeaver
9 5 (0.98%) JBoss
9 5 (0.98%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.98%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.79%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.79%) nginx
10 4 (0.79%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.79%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.59%) IBM HTTP Server
11 3 (0.59%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.39%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 10 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.98%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (0.98%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (0.98%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.98%) Summit
3 3 (0.59%) Oracle BRM
3 3 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.39%) ION MarketView
4 2 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.20%) Kondor
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 101 (19.88%) AWS
2 76 (14.96%) Azure
3 29 (5.71%) GitHub
4 15 (2.95%) GCP
4 15 (2.95%) SaaS
4 15 (2.95%) Serverless
5 13 (2.56%) AWS CloudFormation
6 12 (2.36%) Amazon S3
6 12 (2.36%) AWS Lambda
6 12 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
7 10 (1.97%) Entra ID
8 9 (1.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 9 (1.77%) Amazon EC2
8 9 (1.77%) Azure Data Factory
8 9 (1.77%) OpenShift
8 9 (1.77%) Sauce Labs
9 8 (1.57%) Power Platform
10 7 (1.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 7 (1.38%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 33 (6.50%) Firewall
2 16 (3.15%) DNS
3 15 (2.95%) SAN
4 13 (2.56%) HTTP
4 13 (2.56%) TCP/IP
4 13 (2.56%) Wireless
5 12 (2.36%) SSH
6 11 (2.17%) Network Security
7 9 (1.77%) NAS
8 8 (1.57%) InfiniBand
9 7 (1.38%) Ethernet
9 7 (1.38%) NetScaler
10 6 (1.18%) SSL
10 6 (1.18%) VPN
11 5 (0.98%) Ethernet VPN
11 5 (0.98%) FTP
11 5 (0.98%) RTP
12 4 (0.79%) FIX Connectivity
12 4 (0.79%) MPLS
13 3 (0.59%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (9.25%) MySQL
2 46 (9.06%) SQL Server
3 44 (8.66%) Relational Database
4 37 (7.28%) Oracle Database
5 34 (6.69%) MongoDB
6 26 (5.12%) PostgreSQL
7 18 (3.54%) NoSQL
8 16 (3.15%) KDB
8 16 (3.15%) Kdb+
9 14 (2.76%) Metadata
10 13 (2.56%) Big Data
11 12 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
12 11 (2.17%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (2.17%) Tick Data
13 10 (1.97%) Data Lake
13 10 (1.97%) DB2
13 10 (1.97%) Hadoop
14 9 (1.77%) DataStage
14 9 (1.77%) RDBMS
15 8 (1.57%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 47 (9.25%) Jenkins
2 42 (8.27%) Git
3 36 (7.09%) JIRA
4 35 (6.89%) GitLab
5 13 (2.56%) Bitbucket
5 13 (2.56%) Eclipse
6 12 (2.36%) JUnit
7 11 (2.17%) MSI
8 10 (1.97%) Mockito
9 9 (1.77%) Android Studio
9 9 (1.77%) Browser DevTools
9 9 (1.77%) Selenium
9 9 (1.77%) Xcode
10 8 (1.57%) Maven
10 8 (1.57%) Sonatype Nexus
11 5 (0.98%) Toad
12 4 (0.79%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.79%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.79%) ScriptRunner
12 4 (0.79%) SoapUI
General
1 139 (27.36%) Finance
2 128 (25.20%) Social Skills
3 66 (12.99%) Banking
4 62 (12.20%) Analytical Skills
5 47 (9.25%) Public Sector
6 22 (4.33%) Front Office
6 22 (4.33%) Investment Banking
7 16 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (1.77%) Financial Institution
9 7 (1.38%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.18%) Advertising
10 6 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.79%) Retail
12 3 (0.59%) Billing
12 3 (0.59%) Law
12 3 (0.59%) Legal
12 3 (0.59%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.59%) Military
13 1 (0.20%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 93 (18.31%) Developer
2 72 (14.17%) Senior
3 43 (8.46%) Analyst
4 34 (6.69%) Java Developer
5 33 (6.50%) Support Engineer
5 33 (6.50%) Unix Engineer
6 26 (5.12%) Linux Engineer
6 26 (5.12%) Technical Support
7 25 (4.92%) DBA
7 25 (4.92%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 22 (4.33%) Data Engineer
8 22 (4.33%) Oracle DBA
9 21 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
9 21 (4.13%) Site Engineer
10 19 (3.74%) Administrator
10 19 (3.74%) Software Engineer
11 18 (3.54%) Unix Linux Engineer
12 16 (3.15%) Kafka Engineer
12 16 (3.15%) Senior Linux Engineer
12 16 (3.15%) Senior Unix Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (11.02%) Kafka
2 32 (6.30%) REST
3 28 (5.51%) XML
4 25 (4.92%) Middleware
5 20 (3.94%) React
6 19 (3.74%) SOAP
7 17 (3.35%) JSON
8 15 (2.95%) Elastic Stack
9 14 (2.76%) AngularJS
9 14 (2.76%) CSS
10 13 (2.56%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 13 (2.56%) Spring
11 10 (1.97%) HTML
11 10 (1.97%) JAX-RS
11 10 (1.97%) RESTful
12 9 (1.77%) ActiveMQ
12 9 (1.77%) Ajax
12 9 (1.77%) FIX Protocol
12 9 (1.77%) GraphQL
12 9 (1.77%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 27 (5.31%) Management Information System
2 23 (4.53%) Cloud Native
2 23 (4.53%) Onboarding
3 18 (3.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 18 (3.54%) Linux Command Line
4 17 (3.35%) Data Centre
5 15 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (2.76%) Fixed Income
7 13 (2.56%) Derivative
8 12 (2.36%) Equities
9 11 (2.17%) Greenfield Project
10 10 (1.97%) Mainframe
10 10 (1.97%) Security Posture
11 9 (1.77%) Mobile App
12 8 (1.57%) BYOD
12 8 (1.57%) Clustering
12 8 (1.57%) Enterprise Cloud
12 8 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (1.57%) Public Cloud
12 8 (1.57%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 332 (65.35%) Linux
2 157 (30.91%) Windows
3 30 (5.91%) Windows Server
4 26 (5.12%) Solaris
5 23 (4.53%) AIX
6 22 (4.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.17%) Mac OS X
8 9 (1.77%) Android
9 3 (0.59%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.59%) Oracle Linux
9 3 (0.59%) VMS
10 2 (0.39%) CentOS
10 2 (0.39%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.20%) OpenVMS
11 1 (0.20%) Rocky
11 1 (0.20%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.20%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.20%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (25.98%) Agile
2 102 (20.08%) Problem-Solving
3 93 (18.31%) DevOps
4 81 (15.94%) CI/CD
5 58 (11.42%) Migration
6 55 (10.83%) Observability
7 51 (10.04%) ITIL
8 49 (9.65%) Computer Science
9 46 (9.06%) Containerisation
9 46 (9.06%) Performance Tuning
9 46 (9.06%) Software Engineering
10 44 (8.66%) Incident Response
10 44 (8.66%) OO
11 43 (8.46%) Microservices
12 42 (8.27%) Data Modelling
13 41 (8.07%) Infrastructure as Code
14 40 (7.87%) Root Cause Analysis
15 39 (7.68%) Analytics
15 39 (7.68%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 36 (7.09%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 197 (38.78%) SQL
2 180 (35.43%) Python
3 125 (24.61%) Java
4 100 (19.69%) Shell Script
5 62 (12.20%) Bash
6 60 (11.81%) Perl
7 35 (6.89%) PowerShell
8 34 (6.69%) C++
8 34 (6.69%) JavaScript
9 33 (6.50%) PL/SQL
10 27 (5.31%) C#
11 24 (4.72%) Korn
12 10 (1.97%) PHP
13 8 (1.57%) COBOL
13 8 (1.57%) Scala
14 7 (1.38%) Go
15 3 (0.59%) HiveQL
15 3 (0.59%) Jython
16 2 (0.39%) C
16 2 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 124 (24.41%) Security Cleared
2 94 (18.50%) SC Cleared
3 69 (13.58%) Degree
4 36 (7.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.57%) CISSP
7 6 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.18%) OSCP
8 5 (0.98%) CompTIA Security+
8 5 (0.98%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.98%) GPEN
8 5 (0.98%) GWAPT
8 5 (0.98%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 5 (0.98%) MCSA
8 5 (0.98%) MCSE
9 4 (0.79%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.79%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (0.79%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.59%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.54%) SLA
2 16 (3.15%) QA
3 13 (2.56%) Data Quality
4 12 (2.36%) NIST
5 10 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.79%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.59%) FATCA
7 3 (0.59%) SEPA
8 2 (0.39%) GDPR
8 2 (0.39%) GMP
8 2 (0.39%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.39%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.39%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.20%) NCSC
System Software
1 70 (13.78%) Docker
2 19 (3.74%) Active Directory
3 14 (2.76%) Oracle RAC
4 9 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (1.38%) KVM
5 7 (1.38%) NFS
6 6 (1.18%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.98%) GPFS
8 4 (0.79%) HDFS
9 3 (0.59%) Firmware
9 3 (0.59%) GridGain
9 3 (0.59%) PowerHA
10 2 (0.39%) Postfix
10 2 (0.39%) SRDF
10 2 (0.39%) Varnish
10 2 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.39%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.39%) vSphere
11 1 (0.20%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 71 (13.98%) Kubernetes
2 65 (12.80%) Ansible
3 48 (9.45%) Terraform
4 38 (7.48%) Grafana
5 23 (4.53%) Prometheus
6 22 (4.33%) Puppet
7 16 (3.15%) Oracle RMAN
8 15 (2.95%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 11 (2.17%) Kibana
10 7 (1.38%) NetBackup
11 6 (1.18%) Control-M
11 6 (1.18%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.18%) Progress Chef
11 6 (1.18%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (1.18%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.98%) CASB
12 5 (0.98%) Dell DRAC
12 5 (0.98%) Nessus
12 5 (0.98%) Salt
13 4 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 168 (33.07%) Oracle
2 56 (11.02%) Splunk
3 49 (9.65%) Microsoft
4 40 (7.87%) IBM
5 32 (6.30%) ServiceNow
6 17 (3.35%) VMware
7 16 (3.15%) Cisco
7 16 (3.15%) Red Hat
8 15 (2.95%) CyberArk
8 15 (2.95%) Sybase
9 11 (2.17%) Talend
10 10 (1.97%) Informatica
10 10 (1.97%) Remedy
11 9 (1.77%) Fujitsu
12 8 (1.57%) AppDynamics
12 8 (1.57%) Aruba
12 8 (1.57%) Dell
12 8 (1.57%) Veritas
13 7 (1.38%) Ab Initio
13 7 (1.38%) CheckPoint