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 25 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 213 146 140
Rank change year-on-year -67 -6 -58
Contract jobs citing Unix 548 559 742
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.89% 1.70%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.71% 13.58% 12.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 345 334 490
10th Percentile £268 £363 £350
25th Percentile £400 £421 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £565 £600 £675
90th Percentile £700 £721 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £443 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -6.84% -5.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 10 22
10th Percentile £21.50 £40.10 £22.10
25th Percentile £26.26 £40.50 £25.66
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% +31.88% -31.09%
75th Percentile £53.75 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £54.90 £66.13 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £52.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -9.88% +31.88% -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 4,681 4,116 5,822
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.04% 13.94% 13.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,057 2,725 3,919
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.50% -8.68%
75th Percentile £575 £597 £594
90th Percentile £660 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 319 179 397
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.45% +9.91% -41.33%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £59.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +96.10% +9.52% -30.00%

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 25 April 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 25 April 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 25 April 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 -54 468 £472 -6.30% 82
UK excluding London -68 307 £443 -6.84% 66
London -73 188 £567 +5.47% 29
Work from Home -43 166 £470 -2.94% 95
North of England -45 94 £465 -11.43% 14
South East -28 88 £390 -20.05% 22
Midlands -6 82 £450 -2.17% 12
West Midlands -6 74 £450 -2.17% 7
North West -4 72 £469 -10.67% 9
Scotland -47 32 £395 -15.87% 3
Yorkshire -72 19 £460 -29.23% 1
East Midlands -32 7 £463 +1.87% 5
South West -43 6 £700 +27.27% 8
Wales -4 5 £265 +58.62% 1
North East -18 3 £413 -26.67% 4
East of England -55 3 - - 5

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 (4.01%) Apache
2 21 (3.83%) Apache Spark
2 21 (3.83%) WebLogic
3 16 (2.92%) Tuxedo
4 15 (2.74%) SAS
5 14 (2.55%) Confluence
6 11 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (1.82%) CICS
8 7 (1.28%) SharePoint
9 6 (1.09%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.91%) nginx
10 5 (0.91%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.73%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.73%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.55%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.55%) JBoss
12 3 (0.55%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.55%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.55%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 12 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.28%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.09%) SAP S/4HANA
1 6 (1.09%) Summit
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle 11i
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.36%) Oracle BRM
3 2 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.18%) ION MarketView
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle CRM
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 100 (18.25%) AWS
2 70 (12.77%) Azure
3 33 (6.02%) GitHub
4 22 (4.01%) Amazon S3
4 22 (4.01%) AWS Lambda
5 21 (3.83%) Serverless
6 20 (3.65%) GitHub Actions
7 16 (2.92%) GCP
8 14 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (2.19%) OpenShift
9 12 (2.19%) SaaS
10 11 (2.01%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (2.01%) Entra ID
11 10 (1.82%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (1.82%) Power Platform
12 8 (1.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 8 (1.46%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (1.46%) Snowflake
13 7 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
13 7 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 36 (6.57%) Firewall
2 21 (3.83%) DNS
3 17 (3.10%) HTTP
4 15 (2.74%) SAN
5 14 (2.55%) TCP/IP
6 13 (2.37%) Network Security
7 11 (2.01%) Wireless
8 9 (1.64%) NAS
9 8 (1.46%) InfiniBand
10 7 (1.28%) Ethernet
10 7 (1.28%) NetScaler
10 7 (1.28%) PuTTY
10 7 (1.28%) SSH
10 7 (1.28%) SSL
10 7 (1.28%) VPN
10 7 (1.28%) WinSCP
11 6 (1.09%) FTP
12 5 (0.91%) Ethernet VPN
12 5 (0.91%) RTP
12 5 (0.91%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (11.13%) SQL Server
2 46 (8.39%) Relational Database
3 40 (7.30%) MySQL
4 39 (7.12%) MongoDB
4 39 (7.12%) Oracle Database
4 39 (7.12%) PostgreSQL
5 22 (4.01%) Metadata
5 22 (4.01%) NoSQL
6 21 (3.83%) Big Data
6 21 (3.83%) Data Warehouse
7 18 (3.28%) KDB
7 18 (3.28%) Kdb+
8 13 (2.37%) DataStage
9 12 (2.19%) Amazon Aurora
9 12 (2.19%) DB2
10 11 (2.01%) Data Lake
10 11 (2.01%) Tick Data
11 10 (1.82%) BusinessObjects
11 10 (1.82%) Power BI
11 10 (1.82%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 55 (10.04%) Jenkins
2 44 (8.03%) Git
3 37 (6.75%) GitLab
4 31 (5.66%) JIRA
5 13 (2.37%) Mockito
6 12 (2.19%) Bitbucket
7 11 (2.01%) MSI
8 9 (1.64%) Sonatype Nexus
9 8 (1.46%) Eclipse
9 8 (1.46%) Maven
10 6 (1.09%) Android Studio
10 6 (1.09%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (1.09%) JUnit
10 6 (1.09%) Xcode
11 5 (0.91%) Toad
12 4 (0.73%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.73%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.73%) ScriptRunner
12 4 (0.73%) Selenium
12 4 (0.73%) SonarQube
General
1 145 (26.46%) Finance
2 123 (22.45%) Social Skills
3 78 (14.23%) Banking
4 64 (11.68%) Analytical Skills
5 55 (10.04%) Public Sector
6 24 (4.38%) Investment Banking
7 20 (3.65%) Front Office
8 18 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.46%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.28%) Telecoms
12 6 (1.09%) Advertising
13 5 (0.91%) Retail
14 4 (0.73%) Military
15 3 (0.55%) Billing
15 3 (0.55%) Law
16 2 (0.36%) Legal
16 2 (0.36%) Local Government
16 2 (0.36%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 105 (19.16%) Developer
2 73 (13.32%) Senior
3 45 (8.21%) Data Engineer
4 44 (8.03%) Java Developer
5 43 (7.85%) Analyst
6 40 (7.30%) Unix Engineer
7 36 (6.57%) Support Engineer
8 29 (5.29%) DBA
9 25 (4.56%) Oracle DBA
9 25 (4.56%) Senior Developer
9 25 (4.56%) Technical Support
10 24 (4.38%) Linux Engineer
10 24 (4.38%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 21 (3.83%) Administrator
11 21 (3.83%) Site Engineer
12 20 (3.65%) DevOps Engineer
13 18 (3.28%) Software Engineer
14 17 (3.10%) Architect
15 16 (2.92%) Consultant
16 15 (2.74%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (10.22%) Kafka
2 30 (5.47%) REST
3 27 (4.93%) Middleware
4 25 (4.56%) XML
5 21 (3.83%) RESTful
6 16 (2.92%) CSS
6 16 (2.92%) Spring
7 14 (2.55%) Oracle GoldenGate
7 14 (2.55%) SOAP
8 13 (2.37%) Elastic Stack
8 13 (2.37%) HTML
8 13 (2.37%) JAX-RS
8 13 (2.37%) JSON
8 13 (2.37%) React
8 13 (2.37%) Spring Boot
9 12 (2.19%) ActiveMQ
10 11 (2.01%) AngularJS
11 9 (1.64%) FIX Protocol
11 9 (1.64%) LDAP
11 9 (1.64%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 30 (5.47%) Linux Command Line
2 29 (5.29%) Onboarding
3 27 (4.93%) Management Information System
4 23 (4.20%) Data Centre
5 22 (4.01%) Cloud Native
6 20 (3.65%) Legacy Systems
7 19 (3.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 16 (2.92%) Fixed Income
9 15 (2.74%) Derivative
10 14 (2.55%) Mainframe
11 12 (2.19%) Equities
12 10 (1.82%) BYOD
12 10 (1.82%) Public Cloud
12 10 (1.82%) Replication
12 10 (1.82%) Virtual Team
12 10 (1.82%) VSAM
13 9 (1.64%) Clustering
13 9 (1.64%) Greenfield Project
14 7 (1.28%) Algorithms
14 7 (1.28%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 369 (67.34%) Linux
2 148 (27.01%) Windows
3 36 (6.57%) Solaris
4 34 (6.20%) Windows Server
5 30 (5.47%) AIX
6 24 (4.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.37%) Mac OS X
8 7 (1.28%) Oracle Linux
9 6 (1.09%) Android
10 5 (0.91%) HPUX
11 4 (0.73%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.73%) 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%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (22.99%) Agile
2 99 (18.07%) Problem-Solving
3 93 (16.97%) CI/CD
4 85 (15.51%) DevOps
5 78 (14.23%) Migration
6 61 (11.13%) ITIL
7 58 (10.58%) Observability
8 55 (10.04%) Performance Tuning
9 53 (9.67%) High Availability
10 48 (8.76%) Containerisation
10 48 (8.76%) Disaster Recovery
10 48 (8.76%) Root Cause Analysis
11 47 (8.58%) Computer Science
12 44 (8.03%) Microservices
12 44 (8.03%) Software Engineering
13 43 (7.85%) Change Management
14 42 (7.66%) Infrastructure as Code
15 41 (7.48%) Analytics
15 41 (7.48%) Test Automation
16 38 (6.93%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 214 (39.05%) SQL
2 203 (37.04%) Python
3 130 (23.72%) Java
4 112 (20.44%) Shell Script
5 64 (11.68%) Bash
6 56 (10.22%) Perl
7 50 (9.12%) PL/SQL
8 46 (8.39%) PowerShell
9 37 (6.75%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.93%) C#
11 26 (4.74%) C++
12 24 (4.38%) Korn
13 10 (1.82%) COBOL
13 10 (1.82%) PHP
13 10 (1.82%) Scala
14 8 (1.46%) Go
15 3 (0.55%) C
15 3 (0.55%) HiveQL
15 3 (0.55%) Jython
15 3 (0.55%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 161 (29.38%) Security Cleared
2 131 (23.91%) SC Cleared
3 64 (11.68%) Degree
4 30 (5.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (4.20%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (2.01%) CISSP
7 9 (1.64%) CompTIA Security+
7 9 (1.64%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.91%) MCSA
9 5 (0.91%) MCSE
9 5 (0.91%) RHCE
10 3 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.36%) CISM
11 2 (0.36%) Oracle Certification
11 2 (0.36%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.18%) CREST Certified
12 1 (0.18%) GXPN
12 1 (0.18%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (3.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 20 (3.65%) NIST
3 19 (3.47%) SLA
4 16 (2.92%) QA
5 13 (2.37%) Data Quality
6 4 (0.73%) GRC
6 4 (0.73%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.55%) FATCA
8 2 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.36%) GDPR
8 2 (0.36%) GMP
8 2 (0.36%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.36%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.36%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.36%) SEPA
9 1 (0.18%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 73 (13.32%) Docker
2 26 (4.74%) Active Directory
3 18 (3.28%) Oracle RAC
4 13 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 12 (2.19%) NFS
6 7 (1.28%) GPFS
6 7 (1.28%) KVM
6 7 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.09%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.73%) HDFS
8 4 (0.73%) Postfix
8 4 (0.73%) Varnish
8 4 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.73%) vSphere
9 3 (0.55%) Firmware
9 3 (0.55%) GridGain
9 3 (0.55%) PowerHA
9 3 (0.55%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.36%) SRDF
10 2 (0.36%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 72 (13.14%) Kubernetes
2 65 (11.86%) Ansible
3 47 (8.58%) Terraform
4 45 (8.21%) Grafana
5 25 (4.56%) Prometheus
6 24 (4.38%) Oracle RMAN
7 18 (3.28%) Puppet
8 16 (2.92%) Kibana
8 16 (2.92%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 8 (1.46%) Data Guard
10 7 (1.28%) NetBackup
10 7 (1.28%) Progress Chef
10 7 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.09%) Control-M
11 6 (1.09%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.09%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.91%) HAProxy
12 5 (0.91%) Nessus
12 5 (0.91%) Red Hat Satellite
12 5 (0.91%) Salt
Vendors
1 199 (36.31%) Oracle
2 55 (10.04%) Splunk
3 41 (7.48%) Microsoft
4 38 (6.93%) IBM
5 26 (4.74%) ServiceNow
6 25 (4.56%) CyberArk
7 23 (4.20%) BeyondTrust
8 20 (3.65%) Cisco
8 20 (3.65%) VMware
9 19 (3.47%) Informatica
10 18 (3.28%) Red Hat
11 15 (2.74%) Sybase
12 13 (2.37%) Talend
13 9 (1.64%) CheckPoint
13 9 (1.64%) F5
13 9 (1.64%) Fujitsu
13 9 (1.64%) Veritas
14 8 (1.46%) Aruba
14 8 (1.46%) Dynatrace
14 8 (1.46%) Remedy