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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 227 145 143
Rank change year-on-year -82 -2 -62
Contract jobs citing Unix 513 569 744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.15% 1.96% 1.68%
As % of the Operating Systems category 10.80% 13.78% 12.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 330 337 499
10th Percentile £272 £359 £334
25th Percentile £400 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.27% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £575 £613 £656
90th Percentile £725 £738 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -9.58% -5.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 9 22
10th Percentile - - £22.01
25th Percentile £21.50 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £28.00 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -47.17% +32.50% -30.43%
75th Percentile £53.38 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £53.90 £67.25 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.22 £53.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -54.30% +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 4,750 4,128 5,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.63% 14.21% 13.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,116 2,752 4,012
10th Percentile £181 £200 £181
25th Percentile £300 £325 £287
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £594
90th Percentile £655 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £424 £450 £438
% change year-on-year -5.69% +2.86% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 164 406
10th Percentile £15.17 £16.67 £12.86
25th Percentile £17.95 £18.20 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.00 £24.83 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.68% +12.86% -26.67%
75th Percentile £64.38 £63.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.34 £68.58 £67.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £24.66 £20.35
% change year-on-year -4.70% +21.16% -27.57%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -75 441 £471 -10.38% 90
UK excluding London -91 259 £430 -9.58% 71
London -60 209 £550 -2.22% 39
Work from Home -79 153 £454 -9.20% 47
North of England -61 78 £465 -11.43% 20
Midlands -34 72 £444 -5.44% 12
South East -30 67 £375 -25.00% 21
West Midlands -21 66 £444 -6.04% 8
North West -17 61 £469 -10.67% 10
Scotland -48 29 £401 -13.72% 6
Yorkshire -70 16 £447 -20.53% 7
South West -33 7 £700 +27.27% 3
East Midlands -32 6 £478 +5.18% 4
Wales -6 5 £265 +58.62% 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 23 (4.48%) Apache
2 22 (4.29%) WebLogic
3 18 (3.51%) Confluence
4 16 (3.12%) Tuxedo
5 12 (2.34%) Apache Spark
5 12 (2.34%) SAS
6 10 (1.95%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.56%) CICS
8 6 (1.17%) NetWeaver
9 5 (0.97%) JBoss
9 5 (0.97%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.97%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.78%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.78%) nginx
10 4 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.78%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.58%) IBM HTTP Server
11 3 (0.58%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.39%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 12 (2.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.97%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (0.97%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (0.97%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.97%) Summit
3 3 (0.58%) Oracle BRM
3 3 (0.58%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.39%) ION MarketView
4 2 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle CRM
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 97 (18.91%) AWS
2 75 (14.62%) Azure
3 32 (6.24%) GitHub
4 15 (2.92%) GCP
4 15 (2.92%) GitHub Actions
4 15 (2.92%) Serverless
5 14 (2.73%) SaaS
6 13 (2.53%) Amazon S3
7 12 (2.34%) AWS Lambda
7 12 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
9 10 (1.95%) Amazon EC2
9 10 (1.95%) Azure Data Factory
9 10 (1.95%) Entra ID
10 9 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (1.75%) OpenShift
10 9 (1.75%) Power Platform
11 8 (1.56%) Sauce Labs
11 8 (1.56%) Snowflake
12 7 (1.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 32 (6.24%) Firewall
2 18 (3.51%) DNS
3 15 (2.92%) SAN
4 13 (2.53%) HTTP
4 13 (2.53%) TCP/IP
5 12 (2.34%) Network Security
5 12 (2.34%) Wireless
6 11 (2.14%) SSH
7 9 (1.75%) NAS
8 8 (1.56%) InfiniBand
9 7 (1.36%) Ethernet
9 7 (1.36%) NetScaler
10 6 (1.17%) SSL
10 6 (1.17%) VPN
11 5 (0.97%) Ethernet VPN
11 5 (0.97%) FTP
11 5 (0.97%) RTP
12 4 (0.78%) FIX Connectivity
12 4 (0.78%) MPLS
13 3 (0.58%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (9.36%) MySQL
1 48 (9.36%) SQL Server
2 44 (8.58%) Relational Database
3 40 (7.80%) Oracle Database
4 34 (6.63%) MongoDB
5 28 (5.46%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (3.31%) KDB
6 17 (3.31%) Kdb+
6 17 (3.31%) NoSQL
7 14 (2.73%) Metadata
8 13 (2.53%) Big Data
9 12 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
10 11 (2.14%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (2.14%) Tick Data
11 10 (1.95%) Data Lake
11 10 (1.95%) DB2
11 10 (1.95%) Hadoop
12 9 (1.75%) DataStage
12 9 (1.75%) Pentaho
12 9 (1.75%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 48 (9.36%) Jenkins
2 45 (8.77%) Git
3 35 (6.82%) GitLab
3 35 (6.82%) JIRA
4 12 (2.34%) Bitbucket
4 12 (2.34%) Eclipse
5 11 (2.14%) JUnit
5 11 (2.14%) Mockito
5 11 (2.14%) MSI
6 8 (1.56%) Android Studio
6 8 (1.56%) Browser DevTools
6 8 (1.56%) Maven
6 8 (1.56%) Selenium
6 8 (1.56%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (1.56%) Xcode
7 5 (0.97%) Toad
8 4 (0.78%) Ant
8 4 (0.78%) IntelliJ
8 4 (0.78%) ScriptRunner
8 4 (0.78%) SonarQube
General
1 137 (26.71%) Finance
2 121 (23.59%) Social Skills
3 69 (13.45%) Banking
4 62 (12.09%) Analytical Skills
5 47 (9.16%) Public Sector
6 22 (4.29%) Front Office
6 22 (4.29%) Investment Banking
7 16 (3.12%) Influencing Skills
8 13 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (1.75%) Financial Institution
10 8 (1.56%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.17%) Advertising
11 6 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.78%) Retail
13 3 (0.58%) Billing
13 3 (0.58%) Law
13 3 (0.58%) Legal
13 3 (0.58%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.58%) Military
14 1 (0.19%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 98 (19.10%) Developer
2 73 (14.23%) Senior
3 44 (8.58%) Analyst
4 36 (7.02%) Java Developer
5 33 (6.43%) Unix Engineer
6 32 (6.24%) Support Engineer
7 28 (5.46%) DBA
8 26 (5.07%) Data Engineer
9 25 (4.87%) Linux Engineer
9 25 (4.87%) Oracle DBA
9 25 (4.87%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 25 (4.87%) Technical Support
10 21 (4.09%) Administrator
10 21 (4.09%) DevOps Engineer
10 21 (4.09%) Site Engineer
11 20 (3.90%) Senior Developer
12 19 (3.70%) Software Engineer
13 17 (3.31%) Architect
13 17 (3.31%) Unix Linux Engineer
14 15 (2.92%) Kafka Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (10.92%) Kafka
2 32 (6.24%) REST
3 27 (5.26%) XML
4 25 (4.87%) Middleware
5 18 (3.51%) React
5 18 (3.51%) SOAP
6 16 (3.12%) JSON
7 15 (2.92%) Elastic Stack
8 13 (2.53%) AngularJS
8 13 (2.53%) Oracle GoldenGate
8 13 (2.53%) Spring
9 12 (2.34%) CSS
9 12 (2.34%) RESTful
10 11 (2.14%) JAX-RS
11 10 (1.95%) ActiveMQ
12 9 (1.75%) FIX Protocol
12 9 (1.75%) HTML
12 9 (1.75%) Spring Boot
13 8 (1.56%) Ajax
13 8 (1.56%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 26 (5.07%) Management Information System
2 23 (4.48%) Cloud Native
2 23 (4.48%) Onboarding
3 20 (3.90%) Linux Command Line
4 18 (3.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 15 (2.92%) Data Centre
5 15 (2.92%) Fixed Income
5 15 (2.92%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (2.53%) Derivative
7 12 (2.34%) Equities
8 11 (2.14%) Greenfield Project
8 11 (2.14%) Mainframe
9 10 (1.95%) Public Cloud
10 8 (1.56%) BYOD
10 8 (1.56%) Clustering
10 8 (1.56%) Enterprise Cloud
10 8 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.56%) Mobile App
10 8 (1.56%) Virtual Team
10 8 (1.56%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 333 (64.91%) Linux
2 151 (29.43%) Windows
3 30 (5.85%) Windows Server
4 26 (5.07%) Solaris
5 23 (4.48%) AIX
6 22 (4.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (2.14%) Mac OS X
8 8 (1.56%) Android
9 4 (0.78%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.58%) Oracle Linux
10 3 (0.58%) VMS
11 2 (0.39%) CentOS
11 2 (0.39%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.19%) Rocky
12 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (25.15%) Agile
2 103 (20.08%) Problem-Solving
3 93 (18.13%) DevOps
4 84 (16.37%) CI/CD
5 59 (11.50%) Migration
6 56 (10.92%) Observability
7 52 (10.14%) ITIL
8 48 (9.36%) Computer Science
8 48 (9.36%) Performance Tuning
9 47 (9.16%) Containerisation
10 45 (8.77%) Software Engineering
11 44 (8.58%) Data Modelling
11 44 (8.58%) Microservices
12 43 (8.38%) OO
12 43 (8.38%) Root Cause Analysis
13 41 (7.99%) Analytics
13 41 (7.99%) Infrastructure as Code
14 40 (7.80%) Disaster Recovery
15 39 (7.60%) Incident Response
15 39 (7.60%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 204 (39.77%) SQL
2 185 (36.06%) Python
3 124 (24.17%) Java
4 108 (21.05%) Shell Script
5 63 (12.28%) Bash
6 59 (11.50%) Perl
7 39 (7.60%) PL/SQL
8 36 (7.02%) PowerShell
9 32 (6.24%) C++
9 32 (6.24%) JavaScript
10 28 (5.46%) C#
11 24 (4.68%) Korn
12 10 (1.95%) PHP
13 8 (1.56%) COBOL
13 8 (1.56%) Scala
14 7 (1.36%) Go
15 3 (0.58%) HiveQL
15 3 (0.58%) Jython
16 2 (0.39%) C-shell
16 2 (0.39%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 132 (25.73%) Security Cleared
2 104 (20.27%) SC Cleared
3 68 (13.26%) Degree
4 35 (6.82%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (1.75%) CISSP
7 7 (1.36%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.97%) CompTIA Security+
9 5 (0.97%) MCSA
9 5 (0.97%) MCSE
10 4 (0.78%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 3 (0.58%) CISM
11 3 (0.58%) GPEN
11 3 (0.58%) GWAPT
11 3 (0.58%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.58%) OSCP
12 2 (0.39%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.51%) SLA
2 16 (3.12%) QA
3 13 (2.53%) Data Quality
4 11 (2.14%) NIST
5 10 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.78%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.58%) FATCA
7 3 (0.58%) 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 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.19%) NCSC
System Software
1 71 (13.84%) Docker
2 19 (3.70%) Active Directory
3 15 (2.92%) Oracle RAC
4 9 (1.75%) NFS
4 9 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (1.36%) KVM
6 6 (1.17%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.97%) GPFS
8 4 (0.78%) HDFS
8 4 (0.78%) Postfix
8 4 (0.78%) Varnish
9 3 (0.58%) Firmware
9 3 (0.58%) GridGain
9 3 (0.58%) PowerHA
9 3 (0.58%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.39%) SRDF
10 2 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.39%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.39%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 71 (13.84%) Kubernetes
2 66 (12.87%) Ansible
3 47 (9.16%) Terraform
4 38 (7.41%) Grafana
5 22 (4.29%) Prometheus
5 22 (4.29%) Puppet
6 19 (3.70%) Oracle RMAN
7 15 (2.92%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 11 (2.14%) Kibana
9 7 (1.36%) NetBackup
10 6 (1.17%) Control-M
10 6 (1.17%) IBM BigFix
10 6 (1.17%) Progress Chef
10 6 (1.17%) Red Hat Satellite
10 6 (1.17%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.97%) CASB
11 5 (0.97%) Data Guard
11 5 (0.97%) Dell DRAC
11 5 (0.97%) HAProxy
11 5 (0.97%) Salt
Vendors
1 170 (33.14%) Oracle
2 54 (10.53%) Splunk
3 45 (8.77%) Microsoft
4 38 (7.41%) IBM
5 29 (5.65%) ServiceNow
6 17 (3.31%) VMware
7 16 (3.12%) Cisco
7 16 (3.12%) CyberArk
7 16 (3.12%) Red Hat
8 15 (2.92%) Sybase
9 12 (2.34%) Talend
10 11 (2.14%) Informatica
11 9 (1.75%) BeyondTrust
11 9 (1.75%) Fujitsu
12 8 (1.56%) AppDynamics
12 8 (1.56%) Aruba
12 8 (1.56%) Dell
12 8 (1.56%) Remedy
12 8 (1.56%) Veritas
13 7 (1.36%) Ab Initio