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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 222 171 115
Rank change year-on-year -51 -56 -18
Contract jobs citing Unix 632 529 778
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.60% 2.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.26% 12.11% 14.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 391 351 519
10th Percentile £325 £350 £330
25th Percentile £413 £410 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% -1.38% -7.82%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £694 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -2.37% +5.56% -15.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 7
10th Percentile £21.50 £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% -58.49%
75th Percentile £54.25 £55.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £55.35 £62.50 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +15.26% -26.00%

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 5,157 4,370 5,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 13.26% 14.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,269 2,796 3,611
10th Percentile £193 £192 £200
25th Percentile £325 £311 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £450 £474
% change year-on-year +2.00% -5.06% +5.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 259 333
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.50 £12.43
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £25.92 £24.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -12.73% -31.25%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.15 £67.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £22.56 £46.25
% change year-on-year +18.17% -51.22% +68.18%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -37 524 £487 -1.64% 390
UK excluding London -43 363 £464 -2.37% 145
London -81 193 £550 +8.64% 284
Work from Home -25 176 £500 +5.26% 120
North of England -19 120 £481 +2.29% 28
South East -29 106 £425 -5.56% 48
North West +2 91 £481 +7.61% 19
Midlands +3 88 £461 -2.89% 9
West Midlands +6 80 £460 -4.17% 7
Scotland -55 39 £304 -36.00% 15
Yorkshire -43 22 £500 -4.76% 6
East of England -20 10 £700 +40.00% 11
North East - 10 £480 - 3
East Midlands -5 7 £463 +23.33% 2
South West -45 7 £575 -4.17% 25
Wales -7 6 £383 +35.40% 3
Northern Ireland 0 1 - - 8

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 34 (5.38%) Confluence
2 31 (4.91%) SAS
3 17 (2.69%) Apache Airflow
4 13 (2.06%) Apache
5 12 (1.90%) Apache Spark
6 9 (1.42%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.27%) WebLogic
8 7 (1.11%) NetWeaver
9 6 (0.95%) OpenStack
9 6 (0.95%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.95%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.79%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.63%) CICS
11 4 (0.63%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.32%) CMS
13 2 (0.32%) nginx
13 2 (0.32%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 12 (1.90%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.11%) Notepad++
3 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.95%) SAP PSCD
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.63%) Summit
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 127 (20.09%) AWS
2 82 (12.97%) Azure
3 38 (6.01%) GitHub
4 29 (4.59%) GCP
5 25 (3.96%) GitHub Actions
5 25 (3.96%) IaaS
6 23 (3.64%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (3.48%) Entra ID
8 21 (3.32%) Amazon S3
8 21 (3.32%) Serverless
9 18 (2.85%) PaaS
10 17 (2.69%) SaaS
11 15 (2.37%) Power Platform
12 14 (2.22%) OpenShift
13 13 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
14 12 (1.90%) Snowflake
15 9 (1.42%) Amazon EC2
15 9 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
15 9 (1.42%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (1.27%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.06%) Firewall
2 31 (4.91%) DNS
3 26 (4.11%) TCP/IP
4 25 (3.96%) SAN
5 16 (2.53%) HTTP
6 15 (2.37%) SSL
7 13 (2.06%) NAS
8 11 (1.74%) DHCP
9 10 (1.58%) SSH
10 9 (1.42%) Network Security
11 7 (1.11%) LAN
11 7 (1.11%) LTE
11 7 (1.11%) PuTTY
11 7 (1.11%) WAN
11 7 (1.11%) WinSCP
11 7 (1.11%) Wireshark
12 6 (0.95%) 5G
12 6 (0.95%) Diameter Protocol
12 6 (0.95%) Radio Access Network
12 6 (0.95%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (10.92%) SQL Server
2 52 (8.23%) Oracle Database
3 41 (6.49%) Relational Database
4 39 (6.17%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (5.06%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (4.43%) MySQL
7 24 (3.80%) MongoDB
8 20 (3.16%) Db2
9 19 (3.01%) Metadata
10 16 (2.53%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.53%) DataStage
10 16 (2.53%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.37%) Oracle Database 12c
11 15 (2.37%) Power BI
12 14 (2.22%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.22%) Oracle Reports
12 14 (2.22%) RDBMS
12 14 (2.22%) Sybase ASE
13 13 (2.06%) NoSQL
14 12 (1.90%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 69 (10.92%) Jenkins
2 58 (9.18%) Git
3 57 (9.02%) JIRA
4 51 (8.07%) GitLab
5 23 (3.64%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.06%) Mockito
7 11 (1.74%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.74%) Sonatype Nexus
8 10 (1.58%) Maven
9 9 (1.42%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.95%) JUnit
10 6 (0.95%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.79%) Selenium
12 4 (0.63%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.63%) Gradle
12 4 (0.63%) JDeveloper
13 3 (0.47%) Android Studio
13 3 (0.47%) Browser DevTools
13 3 (0.47%) eggPlant
13 3 (0.47%) Postman
General
1 151 (23.89%) Finance
2 143 (22.63%) Social Skills
3 95 (15.03%) Banking
4 89 (14.08%) Analytical Skills
5 52 (8.23%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.75%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.48%) Front Office
8 21 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.90%) Retail
10 11 (1.74%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (0.95%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.79%) Advertising
13 5 (0.79%) Military
14 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.32%) Billing
15 2 (0.32%) Corporate Banking
15 2 (0.32%) Law
15 2 (0.32%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 123 (19.46%) Developer
2 89 (14.08%) Senior
3 70 (11.08%) Data Engineer
4 63 (9.97%) Unix Engineer
5 44 (6.96%) Java Developer
6 42 (6.65%) Senior Developer
7 40 (6.33%) DBA
7 40 (6.33%) Support Engineer
8 35 (5.54%) Analyst
9 28 (4.43%) Oracle DBA
10 27 (4.27%) Python Developer
11 25 (3.96%) Consultant
12 22 (3.48%) Administrator
12 22 (3.48%) Linux Engineer
13 21 (3.32%) Architect
14 17 (2.69%) Applications Support
14 17 (2.69%) Senior Java Developer
15 13 (2.06%) Technical Engineer
15 13 (2.06%) Technical Support
16 12 (1.90%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (9.49%) Kafka
2 44 (6.96%) REST
3 37 (5.85%) Middleware
4 35 (5.54%) RESTful
5 29 (4.59%) Spring
6 25 (3.96%) Spring Boot
7 23 (3.64%) XML
8 18 (2.85%) Web Services
9 17 (2.69%) CSS
10 16 (2.53%) SOAP
11 15 (2.37%) .NET
11 15 (2.37%) Pandas
12 14 (2.22%) ActiveMQ
12 14 (2.22%) Oracle GoldenGate
13 13 (2.06%) FastAPI
13 13 (2.06%) Flask
13 13 (2.06%) JAX-RS
13 13 (2.06%) JDBC
13 13 (2.06%) LDAP
13 13 (2.06%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.80%) Onboarding
2 38 (6.01%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.70%) Legacy Systems
4 35 (5.54%) Data Centre
5 26 (4.11%) Distributed Systems
6 25 (3.96%) Cloud Native
7 21 (3.32%) Fixed Income
7 21 (3.32%) Management Information System
8 20 (3.16%) Replication
9 18 (2.85%) Derivative
10 16 (2.53%) Clustering
11 15 (2.37%) Mainframe
12 13 (2.06%) Virtual Team
13 12 (1.90%) PKI
14 11 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.74%) Market Risk
15 10 (1.58%) Data Structures
15 10 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
15 10 (1.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 9 (1.42%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 412 (65.19%) Linux
2 156 (24.68%) Windows
3 68 (10.76%) Solaris
4 38 (6.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 38 (6.01%) Windows Server
5 33 (5.22%) AIX
6 10 (1.58%) Oracle Linux
7 8 (1.27%) HPUX
8 7 (1.11%) Mac OS X
8 7 (1.11%) SUSE
9 5 (0.79%) CentOS
9 5 (0.79%) VMS
10 3 (0.47%) Android
10 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
10 3 (0.47%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.32%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.32%) zOS
12 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (21.52%) CI/CD
2 116 (18.35%) Agile
3 108 (17.09%) Problem-Solving
4 106 (16.77%) Migration
5 88 (13.92%) DevOps
6 87 (13.77%) ITIL
6 87 (13.77%) Test Automation
7 83 (13.13%) High Availability
8 77 (12.18%) Root Cause Analysis
9 64 (10.13%) Performance Tuning
10 58 (9.18%) Data Modelling
11 55 (8.70%) Disaster Recovery
12 53 (8.39%) Data Pipeline
12 53 (8.39%) ETL
13 50 (7.91%) Microservices
14 49 (7.75%) Analytics
14 49 (7.75%) Runbook
15 46 (7.28%) Continuous Improvement
16 45 (7.12%) Validation
17 44 (6.96%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 239 (37.82%) SQL
2 228 (36.08%) Python
3 121 (19.15%) Java
3 121 (19.15%) Shell Script
4 87 (13.77%) PL/SQL
5 54 (8.54%) Bash
6 49 (7.75%) PowerShell
7 45 (7.12%) Perl
8 33 (5.22%) JavaScript
9 27 (4.27%) C#
10 20 (3.16%) C++
11 15 (2.37%) C
11 15 (2.37%) Korn
12 7 (1.11%) Go
13 6 (0.95%) ABAP
13 6 (0.95%) COBOL
13 6 (0.95%) Kotlin
13 6 (0.95%) MUMPS
13 6 (0.95%) Scala
14 5 (0.79%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 226 (35.76%) Security Cleared
2 192 (30.38%) SC Cleared
3 57 (9.02%) Degree
4 29 (4.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (3.16%) CISSP
6 14 (2.22%) DV Cleared
7 13 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.74%) CompTIA Security+
9 10 (1.58%) CISM
10 8 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.11%) CRISC
12 6 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 6 (0.95%) CESG Certified Professional
12 6 (0.95%) GIAC
12 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.79%) MCSA
13 5 (0.79%) MCSE
13 5 (0.79%) RHCE
13 5 (0.79%) SANS
14 4 (0.63%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.70%) NIST
2 35 (5.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (3.96%) Data Quality
3 25 (3.96%) QA
4 15 (2.37%) SLA
5 12 (1.90%) GDPR
6 7 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (1.11%) ISO 20022
7 6 (0.95%) ISO 31000
8 5 (0.79%) GRC
9 4 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
9 4 (0.63%) ISO 15022
9 4 (0.63%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.47%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.32%) NCSC
12 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
12 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
12 1 (0.16%) SEPA
12 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 54 (8.54%) Docker
2 45 (7.12%) Active Directory
3 26 (4.11%) Oracle RAC
4 23 (3.64%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (2.69%) NFS
6 8 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.11%) Firmware
7 7 (1.11%) PowerHA
8 6 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.79%) GPFS
9 5 (0.79%) Postfix
9 5 (0.79%) Varnish
9 5 (0.79%) vSphere
10 4 (0.63%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.47%) GridGain
11 3 (0.47%) HDFS
11 3 (0.47%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.47%) KVM
11 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.47%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 65 (10.28%) Kubernetes
2 56 (8.86%) Ansible
3 37 (5.85%) Terraform
4 36 (5.70%) Oracle RMAN
5 30 (4.75%) Grafana
6 20 (3.16%) Data Guard
7 18 (2.85%) Prometheus
8 17 (2.69%) Progress Chef
9 15 (2.37%) Control-M
9 15 (2.37%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 15 (2.37%) Puppet
10 11 (1.74%) Kibana
11 10 (1.58%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (1.11%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.95%) Nessus
13 6 (0.95%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.79%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.79%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.79%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.79%) vRealize
Vendors
1 240 (37.97%) Oracle
2 55 (8.70%) IBM
3 45 (7.12%) Splunk
4 44 (6.96%) Microsoft
5 40 (6.33%) BeyondTrust
6 35 (5.54%) CyberArk
7 33 (5.22%) Informatica
8 29 (4.59%) Talend
9 28 (4.43%) Sybase
9 28 (4.43%) VMware
10 26 (4.11%) Red Hat
11 23 (3.64%) ServiceNow
12 22 (3.48%) SAP
13 21 (3.32%) Denodo
14 14 (2.22%) Dynatrace
15 13 (2.06%) Cisco
16 12 (1.90%) HP
17 11 (1.74%) BT
18 10 (1.58%) Solace
19 9 (1.42%) SaltStack