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 7 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 215 149 134
Rank change year-on-year -66 -15 -52
Contract jobs citing Unix 554 551 745
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.88% 1.72%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.80% 13.49% 12.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 336 331 493
10th Percentile £257 £363 £350
25th Percentile £400 £421 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.30% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £552 £600 £656
90th Percentile £684 £725 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £472 £488
% change year-on-year -4.82% -3.13% -9.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 9 21
10th Percentile £21.50 £39.70 £22.08
25th Percentile £27.34 £40.50 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +31.25% -31.09%
75th Percentile £53.75 £55.00 £48.75
90th Percentile £54.70 £67.25 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -9.45% +31.25% -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 4,696 4,085 5,798
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.85% 13.95% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,038 2,682 3,907
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -6.84%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £655 £696 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -4.44% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 320 184 398
10th Percentile £16.00 £16.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.09 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +97.18% +9.13% -42.66%
75th Percentile £67.40 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.88 £22.50
% change year-on-year +107.65% +1.67% -24.11%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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 -54 474 £469 -6.20% 127
UK excluding London -63 330 £450 -4.82% 90
London -80 175 £569 +3.41% 58
Work from Home -49 168 £469 -2.29% 68
South East 0 102 £358 -28.40% 26
North of England -29 100 £469 -10.76% 23
Midlands -17 86 £459 -1.82% 16
West Midlands -3 80 £457 -3.89% 12
North West +2 79 £475 +6.15% 15
Scotland -49 35 £425 -8.99% 2
Yorkshire -65 18 £460 -29.23% 7
Wales -10 5 £265 +58.62% 3
East Midlands -32 5 £525 +15.64% 4
South West -34 4 £638 +40.88% 8
East of England -47 4 £300 -33.33% 9
North East -16 3 £413 -26.67% 1

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 20 (3.61%) Apache
2 19 (3.43%) Confluence
3 18 (3.25%) WebLogic
4 17 (3.07%) Apache Spark
5 16 (2.89%) Tuxedo
6 15 (2.71%) SAS
7 11 (1.99%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (1.81%) CICS
9 6 (1.08%) NetWeaver
9 6 (1.08%) SharePoint
10 5 (0.90%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.90%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.72%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.72%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.54%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.54%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.54%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.36%) Oracle Spatial
13 2 (0.36%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 11 (1.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.26%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
1 6 (1.08%) Summit
2 4 (0.72%) Oracle 11i
2 4 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.72%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.54%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle BRM
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 95 (17.15%) AWS
2 75 (13.54%) Azure
3 31 (5.60%) GitHub
4 24 (4.33%) AWS Lambda
5 23 (4.15%) Serverless
6 22 (3.97%) GitHub Actions
7 21 (3.79%) Amazon S3
8 20 (3.61%) Entra ID
9 18 (3.25%) GCP
10 14 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (2.53%) OpenShift
10 14 (2.53%) SaaS
11 13 (2.35%) IaaS
11 13 (2.35%) PaaS
12 10 (1.81%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (1.81%) Snowflake
13 9 (1.62%) Power Platform
14 8 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (1.44%) Azure Data Factory
14 8 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 35 (6.32%) Firewall
2 22 (3.97%) DNS
3 18 (3.25%) HTTP
4 15 (2.71%) SAN
5 14 (2.53%) TCP/IP
6 13 (2.35%) Network Security
7 10 (1.81%) Wireless
8 9 (1.62%) NAS
9 8 (1.44%) InfiniBand
10 7 (1.26%) Ethernet
10 7 (1.26%) NetScaler
10 7 (1.26%) PuTTY
10 7 (1.26%) SSH
10 7 (1.26%) SSL
10 7 (1.26%) VPN
10 7 (1.26%) WinSCP
10 7 (1.26%) Wireshark
11 6 (1.08%) 5G
11 6 (1.08%) FTP
12 5 (0.90%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (11.55%) SQL Server
2 49 (8.84%) Relational Database
3 39 (7.04%) MySQL
4 36 (6.50%) Oracle Database
5 34 (6.14%) PostgreSQL
6 33 (5.96%) MongoDB
7 19 (3.43%) Metadata
8 17 (3.07%) Big Data
8 17 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
8 17 (3.07%) NoSQL
9 15 (2.71%) KDB
10 14 (2.53%) Amazon Aurora
11 13 (2.35%) BusinessObjects
11 13 (2.35%) DataStage
11 13 (2.35%) Kdb+
12 12 (2.17%) DB2
13 10 (1.81%) RDBMS
14 9 (1.62%) Data Lake
14 9 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
14 9 (1.62%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 54 (9.75%) Jenkins
2 43 (7.76%) Git
3 40 (7.22%) GitLab
4 34 (6.14%) JIRA
5 12 (2.17%) Artifactory
5 12 (2.17%) Mockito
6 11 (1.99%) MSI
7 9 (1.62%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (1.44%) Maven
9 7 (1.26%) Bitbucket
10 6 (1.08%) Android Studio
10 6 (1.08%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (1.08%) Eclipse
10 6 (1.08%) Xcode
11 5 (0.90%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.90%) Toad
12 4 (0.72%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.72%) JUnit
13 3 (0.54%) Ant
13 3 (0.54%) Introscope
General
1 139 (25.09%) Finance
2 124 (22.38%) Social Skills
3 77 (13.90%) Banking
4 59 (10.65%) Analytical Skills
5 57 (10.29%) Public Sector
6 24 (4.33%) Investment Banking
7 18 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (3.25%) Front Office
8 10 (1.81%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.62%) Financial Institution
10 8 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.44%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.08%) Advertising
11 6 (1.08%) Retail
12 5 (0.90%) Law
12 5 (0.90%) Military
13 3 (0.54%) Billing
14 2 (0.36%) Local Government
14 2 (0.36%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.36%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 97 (17.51%) Developer
2 74 (13.36%) Senior
3 51 (9.21%) Data Engineer
4 47 (8.48%) Unix Engineer
5 42 (7.58%) Analyst
6 38 (6.86%) Java Developer
6 38 (6.86%) Support Engineer
7 27 (4.87%) DBA
7 27 (4.87%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 27 (4.87%) Technical Support
8 26 (4.69%) Senior Developer
9 24 (4.33%) Site Engineer
10 23 (4.15%) Architect
10 23 (4.15%) Oracle DBA
11 21 (3.79%) Administrator
12 19 (3.43%) DevOps Engineer
12 19 (3.43%) Linux Engineer
13 18 (3.25%) Python Developer
13 18 (3.25%) Software Engineer
14 17 (3.07%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (10.29%) Kafka
2 27 (4.87%) REST
3 25 (4.51%) Middleware
4 24 (4.33%) RESTful
5 21 (3.79%) XML
6 16 (2.89%) CSS
7 15 (2.71%) Spring
8 14 (2.53%) Elastic Stack
8 14 (2.53%) Oracle GoldenGate
8 14 (2.53%) Spring Boot
9 13 (2.35%) React
10 12 (2.17%) JAX-RS
10 12 (2.17%) Web Services
11 11 (1.99%) ActiveMQ
11 11 (1.99%) AngularJS
11 11 (1.99%) HTML
11 11 (1.99%) LDAP
12 10 (1.81%) SOAP
13 9 (1.62%) JSON
13 9 (1.62%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 34 (6.14%) Onboarding
2 30 (5.42%) Linux Command Line
3 26 (4.69%) Management Information System
4 23 (4.15%) Data Centre
5 21 (3.79%) Cloud Native
6 20 (3.61%) Legacy Systems
7 15 (2.71%) Derivative
7 15 (2.71%) Fixed Income
7 15 (2.71%) Mainframe
8 11 (1.99%) Clustering
8 11 (1.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 11 (1.99%) Public Cloud
9 10 (1.81%) BYOD
9 10 (1.81%) Equities
9 10 (1.81%) Replication
9 10 (1.81%) Virtual Team
9 10 (1.81%) VSAM
10 8 (1.44%) Greenfield Project
10 8 (1.44%) Operational Technology
11 7 (1.26%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 368 (66.43%) Linux
2 151 (27.26%) Windows
3 40 (7.22%) Solaris
4 33 (5.96%) Windows Server
5 30 (5.42%) AIX
6 20 (3.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.35%) Mac OS X
8 7 (1.26%) Oracle Linux
9 6 (1.08%) Android
10 5 (0.90%) HPUX
11 4 (0.72%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.72%) SUSE
12 2 (0.36%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.36%) VMS
13 1 (0.18%) CentOS
13 1 (0.18%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.18%) Rocky
13 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (21.84%) Agile
2 102 (18.41%) CI/CD
3 100 (18.05%) Problem-Solving
4 84 (15.16%) Migration
5 79 (14.26%) DevOps
6 63 (11.37%) High Availability
6 63 (11.37%) Observability
7 62 (11.19%) ITIL
8 54 (9.75%) Disaster Recovery
8 54 (9.75%) Root Cause Analysis
9 51 (9.21%) Performance Tuning
10 48 (8.66%) Containerisation
11 47 (8.48%) Test Automation
12 46 (8.30%) Data Modelling
13 45 (8.12%) Change Management
13 45 (8.12%) Incident Management
14 44 (7.94%) Microservices
14 44 (7.94%) Software Engineering
15 43 (7.76%) Computer Science
16 42 (7.58%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 217 (39.17%) SQL
2 210 (37.91%) Python
3 120 (21.66%) Java
4 105 (18.95%) Shell Script
5 59 (10.65%) PL/SQL
6 58 (10.47%) Bash
7 56 (10.11%) Perl
8 48 (8.66%) PowerShell
9 41 (7.40%) JavaScript
10 26 (4.69%) C#
11 25 (4.51%) C++
12 24 (4.33%) Korn
13 11 (1.99%) COBOL
14 10 (1.81%) PHP
15 9 (1.62%) Go
16 8 (1.44%) Scala
17 4 (0.72%) Kotlin
18 3 (0.54%) HiveQL
18 3 (0.54%) Jython
18 3 (0.54%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 173 (31.23%) Security Cleared
2 144 (25.99%) SC Cleared
3 67 (12.09%) Degree
4 29 (5.23%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (4.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (3.07%) CISSP
7 9 (1.62%) CompTIA Security+
8 8 (1.44%) CISM
9 7 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.26%) DV Cleared
10 6 (1.08%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (1.08%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (1.08%) CRISC
10 6 (1.08%) GIAC
10 6 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.90%) MCSA
11 5 (0.90%) MCSE
11 5 (0.90%) RHCE
11 5 (0.90%) SANS
12 4 (0.72%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (5.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 28 (5.05%) NIST
3 20 (3.61%) SLA
4 13 (2.35%) QA
5 9 (1.62%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (1.08%) ISO 31000
8 4 (0.72%) GRC
8 4 (0.72%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.54%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.54%) FATCA
10 2 (0.36%) GMP
10 2 (0.36%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.36%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.36%) NCSC
10 2 (0.36%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.36%) SEPA
11 1 (0.18%) GDPR
11 1 (0.18%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 67 (12.09%) Docker
2 32 (5.78%) Active Directory
3 18 (3.25%) Oracle RAC
4 13 (2.35%) NFS
5 12 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
6 8 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.26%) GPFS
7 7 (1.26%) KVM
8 6 (1.08%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.90%) Postfix
9 5 (0.90%) Varnish
10 4 (0.72%) HDFS
10 4 (0.72%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.54%) Firmware
11 3 (0.54%) GridGain
11 3 (0.54%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
11 3 (0.54%) vSphere
12 2 (0.36%) SRDF
13 1 (0.18%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 69 (12.45%) Kubernetes
2 66 (11.91%) Ansible
3 45 (8.12%) Grafana
4 39 (7.04%) Terraform
5 25 (4.51%) Prometheus
6 24 (4.33%) Oracle RMAN
7 16 (2.89%) Kibana
7 16 (2.89%) Puppet
8 15 (2.71%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 9 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (1.44%) Data Guard
10 8 (1.44%) Progress Chef
11 7 (1.26%) NetBackup
12 6 (1.08%) Control-M
12 6 (1.08%) HAProxy
12 6 (1.08%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (1.08%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.90%) CASB
13 5 (0.90%) Nessus
13 5 (0.90%) Salt
Vendors
1 211 (38.09%) Oracle
2 56 (10.11%) Splunk
3 43 (7.76%) Microsoft
4 40 (7.22%) IBM
5 27 (4.87%) ServiceNow
6 26 (4.69%) CyberArk
7 25 (4.51%) BeyondTrust
8 22 (3.97%) Informatica
9 21 (3.79%) Talend
10 20 (3.61%) VMware
11 19 (3.43%) Cisco
12 16 (2.89%) Red Hat
13 15 (2.71%) Sybase
14 12 (2.17%) Denodo
15 10 (1.81%) Dynatrace
16 9 (1.62%) CheckPoint
16 9 (1.62%) F5
16 9 (1.62%) Fujitsu
17 8 (1.44%) Remedy
17 8 (1.44%) Veritas