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 24 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 230 175 119
Rank change year-on-year -55 -56 -24
Contract jobs citing Unix 623 541 776
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.64% 2.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.97% 12.18% 14.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 383 357 508
10th Percentile £350 £310 £325
25th Percentile £418 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.20% -7.05%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £712 £711 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -1.26% +5.56% -15.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 7
10th Percentile £28.19 £43.87 -
25th Percentile £43.81 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -58.14%
75th Percentile £55.00 £55.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £67.51 £62.50 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +15.26% -25.78%

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 5,206 4,441 5,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.71% 13.46% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,292 2,828 3,561
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £307 £329
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £447 £455
% change year-on-year +0.67% -1.76% +1.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 365 272 323
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.63 £12.43
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.51 £17.85
Median hourly rate £26.00 £25.08 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.69% -16.42% -27.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.60 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £24.33 £39.25
% change year-on-year +9.58% -38.01% +33.96%

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 24 August 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 24 August 2026.

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 24 August 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 -48 513 £500 - 83
UK excluding London -71 339 £469 -1.26% 59
London -66 207 £550 +7.32% 37
Work from Home -27 175 £500 +5.26% 37
North of England -28 109 £475 -3.46% 17
South East -43 99 £459 +2.00% 13
North West -5 83 £475 +6.26% 10
Midlands -3 78 £469 -6.11% 6
West Midlands -6 70 £470 -9.46% 5
Scotland -61 41 £367 -22.74% 2
Yorkshire -42 19 £525 -19.23% 5
East of England -26 10 £700 +40.00% 2
North East -31 10 £480 - 2
South West -44 8 £650 +8.33% 20
East Midlands -11 7 £463 +17.83% 1
Wales -13 5 £383 +35.40%
Northern Ireland -4 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 35 (5.62%) Confluence
2 31 (4.98%) SAS
3 17 (2.73%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (2.25%) SharePoint
5 13 (2.09%) Apache
6 12 (1.93%) Apache Spark
7 9 (1.44%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 8 (1.28%) WebLogic
9 7 (1.12%) NetWeaver
9 7 (1.12%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.80%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.64%) CICS
11 4 (0.64%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.48%) Tuxedo
12 3 (0.48%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.32%) CMS
13 2 (0.32%) IIS
13 2 (0.32%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.32%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 14 (2.25%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.12%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.96%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.96%) SAP PSCD
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.64%) Summit
4 3 (0.48%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.48%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 133 (21.35%) AWS
2 87 (13.96%) Azure
3 41 (6.58%) GitHub
4 35 (5.62%) GCP
5 25 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
5 25 (4.01%) IaaS
6 24 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (3.69%) Serverless
8 22 (3.53%) Amazon S3
9 21 (3.37%) Entra ID
10 18 (2.89%) PaaS
11 17 (2.73%) SaaS
12 16 (2.57%) Power Platform
13 14 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
13 14 (2.25%) OpenShift
14 12 (1.93%) Snowflake
15 9 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
15 9 (1.44%) GitHub Copilot
16 8 (1.28%) Amazon EMR
16 8 (1.28%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 27 (4.33%) DNS
1 27 (4.33%) Firewall
2 22 (3.53%) TCP/IP
3 20 (3.21%) SAN
4 15 (2.41%) HTTP
5 11 (1.77%) DHCP
5 11 (1.77%) SSH
5 11 (1.77%) SSL
6 10 (1.61%) NAS
7 7 (1.12%) LAN
7 7 (1.12%) LTE
7 7 (1.12%) Network Security
7 7 (1.12%) PuTTY
7 7 (1.12%) WAN
7 7 (1.12%) WinSCP
8 6 (0.96%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (0.96%) Internet
8 6 (0.96%) Radio Access Network
8 6 (0.96%) VoLTE
8 6 (0.96%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (9.95%) SQL Server
2 51 (8.19%) Oracle Database
3 44 (7.06%) Relational Database
4 41 (6.58%) PostgreSQL
5 36 (5.78%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (4.17%) MySQL
7 25 (4.01%) MongoDB
8 19 (3.05%) Metadata
9 18 (2.89%) Db2
10 17 (2.73%) DataStage
10 17 (2.73%) NoSQL
11 16 (2.57%) Power BI
11 16 (2.57%) Sybase ASE
12 15 (2.41%) BusinessObjects
12 15 (2.41%) Oracle Database 11g
12 15 (2.41%) RDBMS
13 14 (2.25%) Amazon Aurora
14 13 (2.09%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (1.93%) Data Lake
15 12 (1.93%) KDB
Development Applications
1 67 (10.75%) Jenkins
2 64 (10.27%) Git
3 60 (9.63%) JIRA
4 49 (7.87%) GitLab
5 23 (3.69%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.09%) Bitbucket
7 12 (1.93%) Mockito
8 11 (1.77%) JUnit
8 11 (1.77%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (1.44%) Oracle Forms
10 8 (1.28%) eggPlant
10 8 (1.28%) Maven
10 8 (1.28%) Selenium
10 8 (1.28%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.80%) HP UFT
11 5 (0.80%) JMeter
11 5 (0.80%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.80%) Postman
11 5 (0.80%) SoapUI
12 4 (0.64%) JDeveloper
General
1 156 (25.04%) Finance
2 141 (22.63%) Social Skills
3 98 (15.73%) Banking
4 95 (15.25%) Analytical Skills
5 50 (8.03%) Public Sector
6 29 (4.65%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.53%) Front Office
8 21 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.77%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.61%) Retail
11 7 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.80%) Military
14 4 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 3 (0.48%) General Ledger
16 2 (0.32%) Billing
16 2 (0.32%) Corporate Banking
16 2 (0.32%) Law
16 2 (0.32%) Local Government
16 2 (0.32%) Prime Brokerage
Job Titles
1 130 (20.87%) Developer
2 94 (15.09%) Senior
3 68 (10.91%) Data Engineer
4 63 (10.11%) Unix Engineer
5 48 (7.70%) Java Developer
6 46 (7.38%) Senior Developer
7 38 (6.10%) Support Engineer
8 36 (5.78%) DBA
9 32 (5.14%) Analyst
10 31 (4.98%) Python Developer
11 26 (4.17%) Linux Engineer
12 25 (4.01%) Consultant
13 24 (3.85%) Oracle DBA
14 22 (3.53%) Architect
15 21 (3.37%) Administrator
16 19 (3.05%) Senior Java Developer
17 18 (2.89%) Applications Support
18 14 (2.25%) Lead
19 12 (1.93%) Automation Engineer
19 12 (1.93%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (10.75%) Kafka
2 45 (7.22%) REST
3 41 (6.58%) Middleware
3 41 (6.58%) RESTful
4 39 (6.26%) Terraform
5 32 (5.14%) Spring
6 28 (4.49%) Spring Boot
7 26 (4.17%) XML
8 21 (3.37%) Web Services
9 20 (3.21%) .NET
10 19 (3.05%) CSS
10 19 (3.05%) HTML
10 19 (3.05%) SOAP
11 16 (2.57%) RabbitMQ
12 15 (2.41%) Flask
13 14 (2.25%) Pandas
14 13 (2.09%) ActiveMQ
14 13 (2.09%) FastAPI
14 13 (2.09%) JDBC
14 13 (2.09%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 46 (7.38%) Onboarding
2 37 (5.94%) Linux Command Line
3 35 (5.62%) Legacy Systems
4 34 (5.46%) Data Centre
5 29 (4.65%) Distributed Systems
6 24 (3.85%) Cloud Native
7 21 (3.37%) Fixed Income
8 20 (3.21%) Management Information System
9 19 (3.05%) Replication
10 18 (2.89%) Derivative
11 16 (2.57%) Clustering
12 15 (2.41%) Mainframe
13 13 (2.09%) Virtual Team
14 12 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (1.93%) PKI
15 11 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
15 11 (1.77%) Market Risk
16 10 (1.61%) Data Structures
16 10 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 10 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 411 (65.97%) Linux
2 144 (23.11%) Windows
3 70 (11.24%) Solaris
4 38 (6.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 36 (5.78%) Windows Server
6 33 (5.30%) AIX
7 10 (1.61%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.28%) HPUX
9 7 (1.12%) SUSE
10 6 (0.96%) Mac OS X
11 5 (0.80%) CentOS
12 4 (0.64%) VMS
13 3 (0.48%) Android
13 3 (0.48%) Check Point GAiA
13 3 (0.48%) OpenVMS
14 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 2 (0.32%) zOS
15 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (22.63%) CI/CD
2 122 (19.58%) Agile
3 107 (17.17%) Migration
4 105 (16.85%) Problem-Solving
5 97 (15.57%) DevOps
5 97 (15.57%) Test Automation
6 82 (13.16%) High Availability
7 81 (13.00%) Root Cause Analysis
8 74 (11.88%) ITIL
9 66 (10.59%) Performance Tuning
10 65 (10.43%) Data Modelling
11 58 (9.31%) ETL
12 56 (8.99%) Data Pipeline
13 54 (8.67%) Microservices
14 53 (8.51%) Runbook
15 52 (8.35%) Continuous Improvement
16 50 (8.03%) Disaster Recovery
17 48 (7.70%) Analytics
18 46 (7.38%) Change Management
18 46 (7.38%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 245 (39.33%) SQL
2 236 (37.88%) Python
3 130 (20.87%) Java
4 124 (19.90%) Shell Script
5 83 (13.32%) PL/SQL
6 55 (8.83%) Bash
7 49 (7.87%) PowerShell
8 44 (7.06%) Perl
9 35 (5.62%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.33%) C#
11 20 (3.21%) C++
12 15 (2.41%) C
13 12 (1.93%) Korn
14 8 (1.28%) Go
15 6 (0.96%) ABAP
15 6 (0.96%) COBOL
15 6 (0.96%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.96%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.96%) Scala
15 6 (0.96%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 221 (35.47%) Security Cleared
2 186 (29.86%) SC Cleared
3 60 (9.63%) Degree
4 30 (4.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (2.41%) DV Cleared
6 14 (2.25%) CISSP
7 13 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.44%) CISM
9 8 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.12%) CRISC
11 6 (0.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.96%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (0.96%) GIAC
11 6 (0.96%) ISEB
11 6 (0.96%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.80%) RHCE
12 5 (0.80%) SANS
13 4 (0.64%) GSEC
13 4 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.62%) NIST
3 31 (4.98%) QA
4 29 (4.65%) Data Quality
5 13 (2.09%) SLA
6 12 (1.93%) GDPR
7 7 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.12%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.96%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.80%) GRC
10 4 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.48%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.48%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.32%) NCSC
12 2 (0.32%) SEPA
13 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
13 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
13 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 54 (8.67%) Docker
2 39 (6.26%) Active Directory
3 23 (3.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (3.53%) Oracle RAC
5 17 (2.73%) NFS
6 7 (1.12%) Firmware
6 7 (1.12%) PowerHA
7 6 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.80%) GPFS
8 5 (0.80%) Postfix
8 5 (0.80%) Varnish
8 5 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.80%) vSphere
9 4 (0.64%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.48%) GridGain
10 3 (0.48%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.48%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.32%) HDFS
12 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 65 (10.43%) Kubernetes
2 55 (8.83%) Ansible
3 32 (5.14%) Grafana
4 30 (4.82%) Oracle RMAN
5 20 (3.21%) Prometheus
6 19 (3.05%) Data Guard
7 18 (2.89%) Control-M
8 16 (2.57%) Progress Chef
9 14 (2.25%) Puppet
10 11 (1.77%) Kibana
10 11 (1.77%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 9 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (1.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.96%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.80%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.80%) HP Fortify
14 5 (0.80%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.80%) Oracle ZFS
14 5 (0.80%) vRealize
14 5 (0.80%) VxRail
Vendors
1 243 (39.00%) Oracle
2 54 (8.67%) IBM
3 44 (7.06%) Microsoft
4 42 (6.74%) Splunk
5 40 (6.42%) BeyondTrust
6 33 (5.30%) Informatica
7 30 (4.82%) CyberArk
7 30 (4.82%) Sybase
8 29 (4.65%) Red Hat
9 28 (4.49%) VMware
10 26 (4.17%) SAP
10 26 (4.17%) Talend
11 20 (3.21%) Denodo
11 20 (3.21%) ServiceNow
12 16 (2.57%) Dynatrace
13 11 (1.77%) BT
13 11 (1.77%) Solace
14 10 (1.61%) Cisco
14 10 (1.61%) HP
14 10 (1.61%) SaltStack