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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 228 170 117
Rank change year-on-year -58 -53 -17
Contract jobs citing Unix 623 553 779
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.69% 2.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.91% 12.55% 14.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 383 359 508
10th Percentile £350 £305 £325
25th Percentile £418 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.20% -7.05%
75th Percentile £582 £603 £600
90th Percentile £715 £728 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -0.53% +5.56% -15.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 6 6
10th Percentile £41.58 £43.87 -
25th Percentile £43.81 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £25.65
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +113.45% -60.95%
75th Percentile £55.00 £55.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £73.14 £62.50 £50.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -57.03%

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 5,230 4,406 5,430
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 13.47% 14.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,309 2,796 3,540
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £308 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £669 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
Number of hourly rates quoted 359 270 323
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.56 £12.28
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.51 £17.69
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.47% -8.55% -35.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £24.83 £38.00
% change year-on-year +4.71% -34.66% +16.92%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -51 513 £500 - 195
UK excluding London -77 333 £473 -0.53% 106
London -79 211 £550 +4.76% 127
Work from Home -20 177 £500 +5.26% 81
North of England -33 110 £475 -13.64% 26
South East -43 99 £459 +2.00% 23
North West -6 82 £475 +6.26% 15
Midlands -12 71 £473 -6.90% 11
West Midlands -20 64 £475 -8.57% 10
Scotland -50 42 £367 -22.74% 6
Yorkshire -55 21 £525 -19.23% 6
South West -30 10 £663 +10.42% 29
North East -31 10 £480 - 5
East of England -23 8 £700 +40.00% 6
East Midlands -17 6 £456 +16.24% 1
Wales -16 4 £383 +35.40% 2
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 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 33 (5.30%) Confluence
2 28 (4.49%) SAS
3 17 (2.73%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (2.25%) SharePoint
5 12 (1.93%) Apache
5 12 (1.93%) Apache Spark
6 11 (1.77%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 7 (1.12%) OpenStack
8 6 (0.96%) WebLogic
8 6 (0.96%) WebSphere
9 5 (0.80%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.64%) NetWeaver
11 3 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
11 3 (0.48%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.32%) CMS
12 2 (0.32%) IIS
12 2 (0.32%) nginx
12 2 (0.32%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.32%) Oracle Service Bus
12 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 6 (0.96%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (0.96%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
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 ERP
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 135 (21.67%) AWS
2 84 (13.48%) Azure
3 42 (6.74%) GitHub
4 35 (5.62%) GCP
5 25 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
6 24 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
6 24 (3.85%) IaaS
6 24 (3.85%) Serverless
7 22 (3.53%) Amazon S3
8 21 (3.37%) Entra ID
9 18 (2.89%) SaaS
10 16 (2.57%) PaaS
11 14 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (2.25%) OpenShift
11 14 (2.25%) Power Platform
12 12 (1.93%) Snowflake
13 9 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
13 9 (1.44%) GitHub Copilot
14 8 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
14 8 (1.28%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 27 (4.33%) DNS
2 25 (4.01%) Firewall
2 25 (4.01%) TCP/IP
3 23 (3.69%) 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%) PuTTY
7 7 (1.12%) WAN
7 7 (1.12%) WinSCP
8 6 (0.96%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (0.96%) Network Security
8 6 (0.96%) Radio Access Network
8 6 (0.96%) VoLTE
8 6 (0.96%) VoWiFi
8 6 (0.96%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (9.63%) SQL Server
2 53 (8.51%) Oracle Database
3 45 (7.22%) Relational Database
4 40 (6.42%) PostgreSQL
5 38 (6.10%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (3.85%) MongoDB
7 23 (3.69%) MySQL
8 19 (3.05%) Db2
8 19 (3.05%) Metadata
9 17 (2.73%) NoSQL
10 16 (2.57%) DataStage
10 16 (2.57%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.41%) RDBMS
12 14 (2.25%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.25%) Power BI
13 13 (2.09%) BusinessObjects
13 13 (2.09%) Oracle Reports
13 13 (2.09%) Sybase ASE
14 12 (1.93%) Data Lake
14 12 (1.93%) KDB
Development Applications
1 67 (10.75%) Git
2 66 (10.59%) Jenkins
3 58 (9.31%) JIRA
4 46 (7.38%) GitLab
5 23 (3.69%) Artifactory
6 11 (1.77%) Bitbucket
6 11 (1.77%) JUnit
6 11 (1.77%) Mockito
6 11 (1.77%) Sonatype Nexus
7 9 (1.44%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (1.28%) eggPlant
8 8 (1.28%) Selenium
8 8 (1.28%) SonarQube
9 7 (1.12%) Maven
10 5 (0.80%) HP UFT
10 5 (0.80%) JMeter
10 5 (0.80%) LoadRunner
10 5 (0.80%) Postman
10 5 (0.80%) SoapUI
11 4 (0.64%) JDeveloper
General
1 162 (26.00%) Finance
2 146 (23.43%) Social Skills
3 103 (16.53%) Banking
4 99 (15.89%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (7.87%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.82%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.53%) Front Office
8 21 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.77%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.44%) Retail
11 6 (0.96%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.80%) Military
13 4 (0.64%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.48%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.32%) Billing
15 2 (0.32%) Law
15 2 (0.32%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 133 (21.35%) Developer
2 96 (15.41%) Senior
3 65 (10.43%) Data Engineer
4 63 (10.11%) Unix Engineer
5 48 (7.70%) Java Developer
6 47 (7.54%) Senior Developer
7 36 (5.78%) DBA
8 35 (5.62%) Support Engineer
9 32 (5.14%) Analyst
10 31 (4.98%) Python Developer
11 28 (4.49%) Linux Engineer
12 25 (4.01%) Consultant
13 24 (3.85%) Oracle DBA
14 23 (3.69%) Administrator
15 22 (3.53%) Architect
16 19 (3.05%) Applications Support
16 19 (3.05%) Senior Java Developer
17 15 (2.41%) Lead
18 13 (2.09%) Automation Engineer
18 13 (2.09%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (10.91%) Kafka
2 44 (7.06%) REST
3 41 (6.58%) RESTful
4 40 (6.42%) Terraform
5 38 (6.10%) Middleware
6 32 (5.14%) Spring
7 30 (4.82%) Spring Boot
8 26 (4.17%) XML
9 20 (3.21%) .NET
9 20 (3.21%) Web Services
10 19 (3.05%) HTML
10 19 (3.05%) SOAP
11 18 (2.89%) CSS
12 16 (2.57%) RabbitMQ
13 15 (2.41%) Flask
14 14 (2.25%) Pandas
15 13 (2.09%) FastAPI
15 13 (2.09%) JDBC
15 13 (2.09%) PySpark
16 12 (1.93%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.54%) Onboarding
2 38 (6.10%) Linux Command Line
3 37 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
4 33 (5.30%) Data Centre
5 31 (4.98%) Distributed Systems
6 25 (4.01%) 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 14 (2.25%) Mainframe
13 13 (2.09%) Virtual Team
14 12 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
14 12 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (1.93%) PKI
14 12 (1.93%) Self-Motivation
15 11 (1.77%) Market Risk
15 11 (1.77%) Private Cloud
16 10 (1.61%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 414 (66.45%) Linux
2 140 (22.47%) Windows
3 69 (11.08%) Solaris
4 41 (6.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 37 (5.94%) Windows Server
6 32 (5.14%) AIX
7 10 (1.61%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.28%) HPUX
9 7 (1.12%) SUSE
10 5 (0.80%) CentOS
10 5 (0.80%) Mac OS X
11 4 (0.64%) VMS
12 3 (0.48%) Android
12 3 (0.48%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.48%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.48%) zOS
13 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (22.79%) CI/CD
2 121 (19.42%) Agile
3 108 (17.34%) Migration
4 105 (16.85%) Problem-Solving
5 99 (15.89%) Test Automation
6 98 (15.73%) DevOps
7 82 (13.16%) High Availability
8 80 (12.84%) Root Cause Analysis
9 73 (11.72%) ITIL
10 67 (10.75%) Performance Tuning
11 66 (10.59%) Data Modelling
12 58 (9.31%) ETL
13 57 (9.15%) Data Pipeline
13 57 (9.15%) Runbook
14 56 (8.99%) Continuous Improvement
15 55 (8.83%) Microservices
16 52 (8.35%) Disaster Recovery
17 49 (7.87%) Infrastructure as Code
18 48 (7.70%) Change Management
19 47 (7.54%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 244 (39.17%) SQL
2 240 (38.52%) Python
3 130 (20.87%) Java
4 125 (20.06%) Shell Script
5 83 (13.32%) PL/SQL
6 57 (9.15%) Bash
7 50 (8.03%) PowerShell
8 47 (7.54%) Perl
9 34 (5.46%) 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%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.96%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.96%) Scala
15 6 (0.96%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.80%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 215 (34.51%) Security Cleared
2 179 (28.73%) SC Cleared
3 60 (9.63%) Degree
4 31 (4.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (2.73%) 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%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.64%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.62%) NIST
3 31 (4.98%) QA
4 30 (4.82%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.93%) SLA
6 11 (1.77%) GDPR
7 9 (1.44%) ISO 20022
8 7 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (0.96%) ISO 31000
10 5 (0.80%) GRC
10 5 (0.80%) ISO 15022
10 5 (0.80%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.48%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.32%) NCSC
13 2 (0.32%) SEPA
14 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
14 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
14 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 58 (9.31%) Docker
2 39 (6.26%) Active Directory
3 24 (3.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (3.69%) Oracle RAC
5 17 (2.73%) NFS
6 7 (1.12%) Firmware
6 7 (1.12%) PowerHA
7 6 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.80%) GPFS
8 5 (0.80%) vSphere
9 4 (0.64%) Postfix
9 4 (0.64%) Varnish
9 4 (0.64%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.48%) GridGain
10 3 (0.48%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.48%) VirtualBox
11 1 (0.16%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 70 (11.24%) Kubernetes
2 56 (8.99%) Ansible
3 30 (4.82%) Grafana
3 30 (4.82%) Oracle RMAN
4 21 (3.37%) Prometheus
5 20 (3.21%) Data Guard
6 17 (2.73%) Control-M
6 17 (2.73%) Progress Chef
7 16 (2.57%) Puppet
8 11 (1.77%) Kibana
9 10 (1.61%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 9 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (1.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 6 (0.96%) Tivoli
13 5 (0.80%) HP Fortify
13 5 (0.80%) ITRS Geneos
13 5 (0.80%) NetBackup
13 5 (0.80%) Oracle ZFS
13 5 (0.80%) vRealize
13 5 (0.80%) VxRail
Vendors
1 245 (39.33%) Oracle
2 56 (8.99%) IBM
3 46 (7.38%) Splunk
4 43 (6.90%) Microsoft
5 40 (6.42%) BeyondTrust
6 31 (4.98%) Red Hat
7 30 (4.82%) CyberArk
7 30 (4.82%) Informatica
8 27 (4.33%) Sybase
8 27 (4.33%) VMware
9 23 (3.69%) SAP
9 23 (3.69%) Talend
10 21 (3.37%) ServiceNow
11 18 (2.89%) Denodo
12 15 (2.41%) Dynatrace
13 11 (1.77%) BT
13 11 (1.77%) SaltStack
13 11 (1.77%) Solace
14 10 (1.61%) Cisco
14 10 (1.61%) Teradata