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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 218 146 142
Rank change year-on-year -72 -4 -59
Contract jobs citing Unix 546 569 737
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.93% 1.69%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.62% 13.83% 12.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 343 341 489
10th Percentile £267 £361 £350
25th Percentile £400 £423 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £567 £600 £675
90th Percentile £700 £712 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.89% -5.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 10 22
10th Percentile £21.50 £40.10 £22.08
25th Percentile £25.92 £40.50 £25.66
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% +31.88% -31.73%
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 4,697 4,113 5,864
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.12% 13.93% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,064 2,724 3,954
10th Percentile £185 £200 £183
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £575 £596 £593
90th Percentile £658 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £448
% change year-on-year -5.56% +0.56% -5.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 180 401
10th Percentile £15.94 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.25
Median hourly rate £34.57 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.95% +9.91% -41.33%
75th Percentile £67.69 £62.50 £59.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.68 £23.59 £21.00
% change year-on-year +51.24% +12.33% -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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -58 468 £472 -7.85% 81
UK excluding London -70 303 £447 -5.89% 67
London -59 191 £565 +2.73% 32
Work from Home -59 164 £471 -4.61% 34
North of England -46 91 £469 -10.76% 13
South East -16 87 £390 -20.05% 20
Midlands -12 83 £450 -5.26% 12
West Midlands -11 76 £450 -5.26% 7
North West -2 69 £475 -9.62% 8
Scotland -53 31 £395 -15.42% 7
Yorkshire -65 19 £460 -29.23% 1
East Midlands -32 7 £463 +1.87% 5
South West -38 6 £700 +27.27% 7
Wales -5 5 £265 +58.62% 1
North East -19 3 £413 -26.67% 4
East of England -42 3 - - 6

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 24 (4.40%) Apache
2 23 (4.21%) WebLogic
3 21 (3.85%) Apache Spark
4 17 (3.11%) SAS
5 16 (2.93%) Tuxedo
6 14 (2.56%) Confluence
7 11 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (1.83%) CICS
9 7 (1.28%) SharePoint
10 6 (1.10%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.92%) JBoss
11 5 (0.92%) nginx
11 5 (0.92%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.73%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.73%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.55%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.55%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.55%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.55%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 12 (2.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.28%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.10%) SAP S/4HANA
1 6 (1.10%) Summit
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle 11i
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.37%) ION MarketView
3 2 (0.37%) Oracle BRM
3 2 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
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
1 103 (18.86%) AWS
2 70 (12.82%) Azure
3 33 (6.04%) GitHub
4 22 (4.03%) Amazon S3
4 22 (4.03%) AWS Lambda
5 21 (3.85%) Serverless
6 20 (3.66%) GitHub Actions
7 16 (2.93%) GCP
8 14 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (2.20%) OpenShift
9 12 (2.20%) SaaS
10 11 (2.01%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (2.01%) Entra ID
11 10 (1.83%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (1.83%) Power Platform
11 10 (1.83%) Snowflake
12 8 (1.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 8 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
13 7 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
13 7 (1.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 36 (6.59%) Firewall
2 21 (3.85%) DNS
3 17 (3.11%) HTTP
4 15 (2.75%) SAN
5 14 (2.56%) TCP/IP
6 13 (2.38%) Network Security
7 11 (2.01%) Wireless
8 9 (1.65%) NAS
9 8 (1.47%) 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%) WinSCP
11 6 (1.10%) FTP
11 6 (1.10%) VPN
12 5 (0.92%) Ethernet VPN
12 5 (0.92%) RTP
12 5 (0.92%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (10.99%) SQL Server
2 44 (8.06%) Relational Database
3 41 (7.51%) MongoDB
4 40 (7.33%) MySQL
5 39 (7.14%) PostgreSQL
6 38 (6.96%) Oracle Database
7 22 (4.03%) Metadata
7 22 (4.03%) NoSQL
8 21 (3.85%) Big Data
9 19 (3.48%) Data Warehouse
10 18 (3.30%) KDB
10 18 (3.30%) Kdb+
11 12 (2.20%) Amazon Aurora
12 11 (2.01%) Data Lake
12 11 (2.01%) DataStage
12 11 (2.01%) Tick Data
13 10 (1.83%) BusinessObjects
13 10 (1.83%) DB2
13 10 (1.83%) Hadoop
13 10 (1.83%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 55 (10.07%) Jenkins
2 46 (8.42%) Git
3 39 (7.14%) GitLab
4 31 (5.68%) JIRA
5 13 (2.38%) Mockito
6 12 (2.20%) Bitbucket
7 11 (2.01%) MSI
8 10 (1.83%) Eclipse
9 9 (1.65%) Sonatype Nexus
10 8 (1.47%) JUnit
10 8 (1.47%) Maven
11 6 (1.10%) Android Studio
11 6 (1.10%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (1.10%) Selenium
11 6 (1.10%) Xcode
12 5 (0.92%) Toad
13 4 (0.73%) Artifactory
13 4 (0.73%) CA Gen
13 4 (0.73%) IntelliJ
13 4 (0.73%) SonarQube
General
1 143 (26.19%) Finance
2 122 (22.34%) Social Skills
3 76 (13.92%) Banking
4 64 (11.72%) Analytical Skills
5 55 (10.07%) Public Sector
6 25 (4.58%) Investment Banking
7 20 (3.66%) Front Office
8 16 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (2.93%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (1.47%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.10%) Advertising
12 5 (0.92%) Retail
13 4 (0.73%) Military
14 3 (0.55%) Law
14 3 (0.55%) Legal
15 2 (0.37%) Billing
15 2 (0.37%) Local Government
15 2 (0.37%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 104 (19.05%) Developer
2 73 (13.37%) Senior
3 45 (8.24%) Data Engineer
3 45 (8.24%) Java Developer
4 43 (7.88%) Analyst
5 40 (7.33%) Unix Engineer
6 36 (6.59%) Support Engineer
7 28 (5.13%) DBA
8 25 (4.58%) Senior Developer
8 25 (4.58%) Technical Support
9 24 (4.40%) Linux Engineer
9 24 (4.40%) Oracle DBA
9 24 (4.40%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 23 (4.21%) Administrator
11 21 (3.85%) Site Engineer
12 20 (3.66%) DevOps Engineer
13 18 (3.30%) Software Engineer
14 17 (3.11%) Architect
15 16 (2.93%) Consultant
16 15 (2.75%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (10.26%) Kafka
2 32 (5.86%) REST
3 27 (4.95%) XML
4 26 (4.76%) Middleware
5 21 (3.85%) RESTful
6 18 (3.30%) Spring
7 16 (2.93%) CSS
7 16 (2.93%) SOAP
8 15 (2.75%) HTML
8 15 (2.75%) JSON
9 14 (2.56%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 13 (2.38%) Elastic Stack
10 13 (2.38%) JAX-RS
10 13 (2.38%) React
10 13 (2.38%) Spring Boot
11 12 (2.20%) ActiveMQ
12 11 (2.01%) AngularJS
13 10 (1.83%) Play Framework
14 9 (1.65%) FIX Protocol
14 9 (1.65%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 29 (5.31%) Linux Command Line
2 28 (5.13%) Onboarding
3 26 (4.76%) Management Information System
4 22 (4.03%) Cloud Native
4 22 (4.03%) Data Centre
5 19 (3.48%) Legacy Systems
6 18 (3.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 16 (2.93%) Fixed Income
8 15 (2.75%) Derivative
9 14 (2.56%) Mainframe
10 12 (2.20%) Equities
11 10 (1.83%) BYOD
11 10 (1.83%) Public Cloud
11 10 (1.83%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.83%) VSAM
12 9 (1.65%) Clustering
12 9 (1.65%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (1.47%) Replication
14 7 (1.28%) Algorithms
14 7 (1.28%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 365 (66.85%) Linux
2 145 (26.56%) Windows
3 36 (6.59%) Solaris
4 34 (6.23%) Windows Server
5 30 (5.49%) AIX
6 24 (4.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.38%) Mac OS X
8 7 (1.28%) Oracle Linux
9 6 (1.10%) Android
10 4 (0.73%) HPUX
10 4 (0.73%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.73%) SUSE
11 2 (0.37%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.37%) VMS
12 1 (0.18%) Rocky
12 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.18%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (23.63%) Agile
2 98 (17.95%) Problem-Solving
3 95 (17.40%) CI/CD
4 87 (15.93%) DevOps
5 77 (14.10%) Migration
6 61 (11.17%) ITIL
7 58 (10.62%) Observability
8 52 (9.52%) Performance Tuning
9 51 (9.34%) High Availability
10 48 (8.79%) Computer Science
10 48 (8.79%) Containerisation
10 48 (8.79%) Disaster Recovery
10 48 (8.79%) Root Cause Analysis
11 46 (8.42%) Microservices
11 46 (8.42%) Software Engineering
12 44 (8.06%) Infrastructure as Code
13 41 (7.51%) Analytics
13 41 (7.51%) Change Management
13 41 (7.51%) Test Automation
14 38 (6.96%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 216 (39.56%) SQL
2 201 (36.81%) Python
3 132 (24.18%) Java
4 109 (19.96%) Shell Script
5 64 (11.72%) Bash
6 55 (10.07%) Perl
7 48 (8.79%) PL/SQL
8 45 (8.24%) PowerShell
9 37 (6.78%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.95%) C#
11 26 (4.76%) C++
12 24 (4.40%) Korn
13 12 (2.20%) Scala
14 10 (1.83%) COBOL
14 10 (1.83%) PHP
15 8 (1.47%) Go
16 3 (0.55%) C
16 3 (0.55%) HiveQL
16 3 (0.55%) Jython
16 3 (0.55%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 159 (29.12%) Security Cleared
2 129 (23.63%) SC Cleared
3 65 (11.90%) Degree
4 30 (5.49%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (4.03%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (2.01%) CISSP
7 9 (1.65%) CompTIA Security+
7 9 (1.65%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.92%) MCSA
9 5 (0.92%) MCSE
9 5 (0.92%) RHCE
10 3 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.37%) CISM
11 2 (0.37%) Oracle Certification
11 2 (0.37%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.37%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.18%) CREST Certified
12 1 (0.18%) GWAPT
12 1 (0.18%) GXPN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 19 (3.48%) NIST
2 19 (3.48%) SLA
3 16 (2.93%) QA
4 12 (2.20%) Data Quality
5 4 (0.73%) GRC
5 4 (0.73%) NIST 800
5 4 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 3 (0.55%) FATCA
7 2 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.37%) GDPR
7 2 (0.37%) GMP
7 2 (0.37%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.37%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.37%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.37%) SEPA
8 1 (0.18%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 75 (13.74%) Docker
2 25 (4.58%) Active Directory
3 18 (3.30%) Oracle RAC
4 12 (2.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 11 (2.01%) NFS
6 7 (1.28%) KVM
6 7 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.10%) GPFS
7 6 (1.10%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.73%) HDFS
8 4 (0.73%) Postfix
8 4 (0.73%) Varnish
9 3 (0.55%) Firmware
9 3 (0.55%) GridGain
9 3 (0.55%) PowerHA
9 3 (0.55%) Sendmail
9 3 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.55%) vSphere
10 2 (0.37%) SRDF
10 2 (0.37%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 72 (13.19%) Kubernetes
2 65 (11.90%) Ansible
3 47 (8.61%) Terraform
4 45 (8.24%) Grafana
5 25 (4.58%) Prometheus
6 24 (4.40%) Oracle RMAN
7 20 (3.66%) Puppet
8 16 (2.93%) Kibana
8 16 (2.93%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 8 (1.47%) Data Guard
10 7 (1.28%) NetBackup
10 7 (1.28%) Progress Chef
10 7 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.10%) Control-M
11 6 (1.10%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.10%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.92%) CASB
12 5 (0.92%) HAProxy
12 5 (0.92%) Nessus
12 5 (0.92%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 195 (35.71%) Oracle
2 55 (10.07%) Splunk
3 40 (7.33%) Microsoft
4 35 (6.41%) IBM
5 25 (4.58%) ServiceNow
6 24 (4.40%) CyberArk
7 21 (3.85%) BeyondTrust
8 19 (3.48%) Cisco
8 19 (3.48%) Informatica
8 19 (3.48%) VMware
9 18 (3.30%) Red Hat
10 15 (2.75%) Sybase
11 13 (2.38%) Talend
12 9 (1.65%) CheckPoint
12 9 (1.65%) F5
12 9 (1.65%) Fujitsu
12 9 (1.65%) Veritas
13 8 (1.47%) Aruba
13 8 (1.47%) Dynatrace
13 8 (1.47%) Remedy