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 18 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 225 165 119
Rank change year-on-year -60 -46 -17
Contract jobs citing Unix 647 575 774
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 1.75% 2.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.10% 12.91% 14.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 415 372 482
10th Percentile £337 £287 £350
25th Percentile £418 £402 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £494 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.32% -5.10% -5.45%
75th Percentile £585 £613 £613
90th Percentile £715 £738 £765
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £471 £450
% change year-on-year +0.85% +4.67% -12.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 5 5
10th Percentile £43.81 £30.34 -
25th Percentile £47.53 £36.48 -
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% +128.99% -63.77%
75th Percentile £55.25 £55.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £75.56 £64.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -58.69%

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 5,345 4,453 5,451
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.82% 13.51% 14.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,363 2,846 3,476
10th Percentile £190 £188 £200
25th Percentile £313 £300 £329
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £674 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £432 £450
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 399 281 270
10th Percentile £14.49 £15.50 £15.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £27.00 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.36% -49.70% +5.26%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.74 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +29.22% -54.27% +19.88%

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 -51 529 £500 - 405
UK excluding London -74 343 £475 +0.85% 173
London -74 216 £550 +1.29% 280
Work from Home -21 191 £500 +5.26% 135
North of England -24 123 £475 -3.46% 35
South East -56 91 £459 +9.29% 39
North West +2 88 £475 +4.86% 17
Midlands -19 73 £470 -6.02% 22
West Midlands -17 66 £470 -9.44% 20
Scotland -56 44 £450 -5.26% 16
Yorkshire -48 26 £500 -23.08% 10
South West -34 14 £663 -11.67% 27
North East -37 12 £470 - 8
East of England -30 8 £700 +40.00% 15
East Midlands -15 6 £456 +16.24% 2
Wales -12 3 £383 +35.40% 7
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 15

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 (5.10%) Confluence
2 29 (4.48%) SAS
3 18 (2.78%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 15 (2.32%) SharePoint
5 14 (2.16%) WebLogic
6 13 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (1.55%) Apache Spark
8 7 (1.08%) Apache
8 7 (1.08%) OpenStack
9 6 (0.93%) WebLogic Portal
10 4 (0.62%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.62%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.46%) nginx
12 2 (0.31%) CICS
12 2 (0.31%) CMS
12 2 (0.31%) IIS
12 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.31%) Oracle Service Bus
13 1 (0.15%) JBoss
13 1 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 14 (2.16%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.08%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 13 (2.01%) Oracle EBS
2 7 (1.08%) Oracle EBS R12
3 6 (0.93%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Assets
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle E-Business Tax
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle FAH
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Internet Expenses
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.46%) FLEXCUBE
5 3 (0.46%) Oracle Applications
5 3 (0.46%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
6 2 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 149 (23.03%) AWS
2 87 (13.45%) Azure
3 46 (7.11%) GCP
4 42 (6.49%) GitHub
5 28 (4.33%) AWS Lambda
5 28 (4.33%) Serverless
6 27 (4.17%) Amazon S3
7 25 (3.86%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (3.71%) IaaS
9 23 (3.55%) Entra ID
10 18 (2.78%) SaaS
11 16 (2.47%) PaaS
12 15 (2.32%) AWS CloudFormation
12 15 (2.32%) OpenShift
12 15 (2.32%) Power Platform
13 14 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
14 13 (2.01%) Amazon EC2
15 11 (1.70%) Snowflake
16 10 (1.55%) Amazon ECS
17 9 (1.39%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.48%) DNS
1 29 (4.48%) Firewall
1 29 (4.48%) TCP/IP
2 20 (3.09%) SAN
3 14 (2.16%) HTTP
4 12 (1.85%) DHCP
4 12 (1.85%) SSH
5 10 (1.55%) NAS
5 10 (1.55%) SSL
6 8 (1.24%) LAN
6 8 (1.24%) Network Security
6 8 (1.24%) WAN
7 7 (1.08%) LTE
7 7 (1.08%) PuTTY
7 7 (1.08%) WinSCP
8 6 (0.93%) 5G
8 6 (0.93%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (0.93%) Radio Access Network
8 6 (0.93%) VoWiFi
8 6 (0.93%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (9.27%) Oracle Database
2 54 (8.35%) SQL Server
3 50 (7.73%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (7.42%) Relational Database
5 43 (6.65%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (4.17%) MongoDB
7 24 (3.71%) MySQL
8 22 (3.40%) Oracle Database 11g
9 21 (3.25%) Db2
10 18 (2.78%) NoSQL
11 16 (2.47%) DataStage
12 15 (2.32%) Oracle Database 12c
12 15 (2.32%) Power BI
13 14 (2.16%) RDBMS
14 13 (2.01%) Amazon Aurora
14 13 (2.01%) BusinessObjects
14 13 (2.01%) Data Lake
14 13 (2.01%) Oracle Database 10g
14 13 (2.01%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (1.85%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 85 (13.14%) Git
2 65 (10.05%) Jenkins
3 53 (8.19%) JIRA
4 52 (8.04%) GitLab
5 22 (3.40%) Artifactory
6 12 (1.85%) JUnit
6 12 (1.85%) SonarQube
7 11 (1.70%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.70%) Gradle
7 11 (1.70%) Maven
7 11 (1.70%) Mockito
8 10 (1.55%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (1.39%) Oracle Forms
10 8 (1.24%) eggPlant
10 8 (1.24%) Selenium
11 5 (0.77%) HP UFT
11 5 (0.77%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.77%) Oracle APEX
11 5 (0.77%) Postman
11 5 (0.77%) SoapUI
General
1 166 (25.66%) Finance
2 145 (22.41%) Social Skills
3 107 (16.54%) Banking
4 106 (16.38%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (8.35%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.33%) Investment Banking
7 21 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (3.09%) Front Office
9 11 (1.70%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.24%) Retail
11 7 (1.08%) Military
12 5 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.77%) Legal
13 4 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.62%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.46%) General Ledger
14 3 (0.46%) Law
15 2 (0.31%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 136 (21.02%) Developer
2 107 (16.54%) Senior
3 65 (10.05%) Unix Engineer
4 62 (9.58%) Data Engineer
5 52 (8.04%) Senior Developer
6 46 (7.11%) Java Developer
7 44 (6.80%) DBA
8 34 (5.26%) Linux Engineer
9 32 (4.95%) Python Developer
10 29 (4.48%) Oracle DBA
11 28 (4.33%) Support Engineer
12 27 (4.17%) Analyst
13 24 (3.71%) Architect
13 24 (3.71%) Consultant
14 23 (3.55%) Administrator
15 20 (3.09%) DevOps Engineer
16 19 (2.94%) Senior Java Developer
17 16 (2.47%) Applications Support
18 15 (2.32%) Lead
19 14 (2.16%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (10.82%) Kafka
2 53 (8.19%) Terraform
3 49 (7.57%) REST
4 42 (6.49%) Middleware
5 40 (6.18%) RESTful
6 37 (5.72%) Spring
7 36 (5.56%) Spring Boot
8 24 (3.71%) XML
9 23 (3.55%) Web Services
10 22 (3.40%) .NET
11 20 (3.09%) HTML
11 20 (3.09%) SOAP
12 18 (2.78%) CSS
13 15 (2.32%) Django
13 15 (2.32%) RabbitMQ
14 14 (2.16%) Flask
14 14 (2.16%) Pandas
15 12 (1.85%) ActiveMQ
15 12 (1.85%) FastAPI
15 12 (1.85%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.26%) Onboarding
2 37 (5.72%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.56%) Distributed Systems
4 33 (5.10%) Data Centre
4 33 (5.10%) Legacy Systems
5 24 (3.71%) Cloud Native
6 21 (3.25%) Replication
7 20 (3.09%) Management Information System
8 19 (2.94%) Clustering
9 16 (2.47%) Fixed Income
10 15 (2.32%) Derivative
10 15 (2.32%) Mainframe
11 13 (2.01%) PKI
11 13 (2.01%) Private Cloud
11 13 (2.01%) Product Ownership
12 12 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
12 12 (1.85%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.70%) Data Structures
13 11 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (1.70%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 437 (67.54%) Linux
2 147 (22.72%) Windows
3 72 (11.13%) Solaris
4 42 (6.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 41 (6.34%) Windows Server
6 31 (4.79%) AIX
7 8 (1.24%) HPUX
7 8 (1.24%) Oracle Linux
8 7 (1.08%) SUSE
8 7 (1.08%) VMS
9 6 (0.93%) CentOS
10 5 (0.77%) Mac OS X
11 4 (0.62%) zOS
12 3 (0.46%) Android
12 3 (0.46%) Check Point GAiA
13 2 (0.31%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.31%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.15%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (25.19%) CI/CD
2 133 (20.56%) Agile
3 110 (17.00%) Problem-Solving
4 109 (16.85%) DevOps
5 108 (16.69%) Migration
6 100 (15.46%) Test Automation
7 80 (12.36%) High Availability
8 78 (12.06%) Root Cause Analysis
9 68 (10.51%) Continuous Improvement
9 68 (10.51%) Data Modelling
10 64 (9.89%) Infrastructure as Code
11 63 (9.74%) Performance Tuning
12 62 (9.58%) ITIL
13 61 (9.43%) ETL
14 60 (9.27%) Containerisation
15 58 (8.96%) Data Pipeline
16 57 (8.81%) Runbook
17 56 (8.66%) Validation
18 53 (8.19%) Analytics
18 53 (8.19%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 252 (38.95%) SQL
2 251 (38.79%) Python
3 133 (20.56%) Java
4 122 (18.86%) Shell Script
5 91 (14.06%) PL/SQL
6 63 (9.74%) Bash
7 54 (8.35%) PowerShell
8 43 (6.65%) Perl
9 34 (5.26%) JavaScript
10 28 (4.33%) C#
11 21 (3.25%) C++
12 15 (2.32%) C
13 9 (1.39%) Go
14 7 (1.08%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.93%) ABAP
15 6 (0.93%) Korn
15 6 (0.93%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.93%) Scala
15 6 (0.93%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.77%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 235 (36.32%) Security Cleared
2 190 (29.37%) SC Cleared
3 64 (9.89%) Degree
4 34 (5.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (3.25%) DV Cleared
6 14 (2.16%) CISSP
6 14 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (1.39%) CISM
8 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.08%) CRISC
9 7 (1.08%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (0.93%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
10 6 (0.93%) GIAC
10 6 (0.93%) ISEB
10 6 (0.93%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.93%) Master's Degree
11 5 (0.77%) RHCE
11 5 (0.77%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.41%) NIST
3 33 (5.10%) QA
4 32 (4.95%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.85%) GDPR
5 12 (1.85%) SLA
6 9 (1.39%) ISO 20022
7 7 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.93%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.77%) GRC
9 5 (0.77%) ISO 15022
9 5 (0.77%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.62%) Basel III
10 4 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.46%) NCSC
11 3 (0.46%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.31%) SEPA
13 1 (0.15%) ISO 8583
13 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 69 (10.66%) Docker
2 40 (6.18%) Active Directory
3 26 (4.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.63%) Oracle RAC
5 16 (2.47%) NFS
6 9 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.62%) Firmware
8 4 (0.62%) GPFS
8 4 (0.62%) Postfix
8 4 (0.62%) PowerHA
8 4 (0.62%) Varnish
8 4 (0.62%) Veritas Volume Manager
8 4 (0.62%) vSphere
9 3 (0.46%) Sendmail
9 3 (0.46%) VirtualBox
10 1 (0.15%) HDFS
10 1 (0.15%) RACF
10 1 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 81 (12.52%) Kubernetes
2 64 (9.89%) Ansible
3 39 (6.03%) Grafana
4 31 (4.79%) Oracle RMAN
5 27 (4.17%) Prometheus
6 21 (3.25%) Data Guard
7 18 (2.78%) Progress Chef
8 16 (2.47%) Puppet
9 14 (2.16%) Control-M
10 11 (1.70%) Kibana
11 9 (1.39%) Single Sign-On
12 8 (1.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 7 (1.08%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 5 (0.77%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.77%) HP Fortify
14 5 (0.77%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.77%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.77%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.77%) ZABBIX
15 4 (0.62%) SCCM
Vendors
1 244 (37.71%) Oracle
2 54 (8.35%) IBM
3 50 (7.73%) Microsoft
4 48 (7.42%) Splunk
5 40 (6.18%) BeyondTrust
6 32 (4.95%) Informatica
7 31 (4.79%) CyberArk
7 31 (4.79%) Red Hat
8 29 (4.48%) VMware
9 25 (3.86%) Sybase
10 23 (3.55%) Talend
11 20 (3.09%) SAP
11 20 (3.09%) ServiceNow
12 18 (2.78%) Denodo
13 15 (2.32%) Dynatrace
14 14 (2.16%) Google
15 12 (1.85%) SaltStack
16 11 (1.70%) BT
17 10 (1.55%) AppDynamics
17 10 (1.55%) HP