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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 209 150 141
Rank change year-on-year -59 -9 -58
Contract jobs citing Unix 541 574 726
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.95% 1.67%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.51% 13.93% 12.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 339 342 481
10th Percentile £298 £361 £350
25th Percentile £400 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £567 £600 £675
90th Percentile £700 £712 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.70% -5.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 10 21
10th Percentile £21.50 £40.10 £22.08
25th Percentile £25.92 £40.50 £31.25
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 £53.75
90th Percentile £54.90 £66.13 £67.50
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 4,701 4,121 5,811
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.14% 13.99% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,067 2,730 3,918
10th Percentile £185 £200 £183
25th Percentile £312 £325 £291
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £575 £599 £591
90th Percentile £657 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £440
% change year-on-year -5.56% +2.27% -7.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 327 179 398
10th Percentile £15.81 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.41 £18.13 £15.19
Median hourly rate £34.00 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.61% +9.91% -41.33%
75th Percentile £67.54 £62.50 £59.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £69.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.57 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year +42.95% +15.14% -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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -65 463 £473 -8.55% 106
UK excluding London -65 299 £448 -5.70% 74
London -56 190 £565 +2.73% 48
Work from Home -60 161 £472 -4.74% 40
North of England -51 90 £469 -10.67% 13
South East -18 84 £392 -19.59% 20
Midlands -15 83 £450 -5.26% 15
West Midlands -10 76 £450 -5.26% 10
North West -8 69 £475 -9.62% 8
Scotland -54 31 £395 -15.42% 9
Yorkshire -68 19 £460 -29.23% 1
East Midlands -34 7 £463 +1.87% 5
South West -47 6 £700 +27.27% 7
Wales -3 5 £265 +58.62% 1
East of England -47 3 - - 8
North East -20 2 £513 -8.89% 4

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 (4.44%) Apache
2 23 (4.25%) WebLogic
3 21 (3.88%) Apache Spark
4 17 (3.14%) SAS
5 16 (2.96%) Tuxedo
6 14 (2.59%) Confluence
7 11 (2.03%) Apache Airflow
8 10 (1.85%) CICS
9 7 (1.29%) SharePoint
10 6 (1.11%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.92%) JBoss
11 5 (0.92%) nginx
11 5 (0.92%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.74%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.74%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.55%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.55%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.55%) WebSphere Application Server
14 2 (0.37%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 12 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.29%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.11%) SAP S/4HANA
1 6 (1.11%) Summit
2 4 (0.74%) Oracle 11i
2 4 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.74%) 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
1 101 (18.67%) AWS
2 70 (12.94%) Azure
3 32 (5.91%) GitHub
4 21 (3.88%) Amazon S3
4 21 (3.88%) AWS Lambda
5 20 (3.70%) Serverless
6 19 (3.51%) GitHub Actions
7 16 (2.96%) GCP
8 14 (2.59%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (2.22%) OpenShift
10 11 (2.03%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (2.03%) Entra ID
10 11 (2.03%) SaaS
11 10 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (1.85%) Power Platform
11 10 (1.85%) Snowflake
12 8 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
13 7 (1.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 7 (1.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 6 (1.11%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 36 (6.65%) Firewall
2 20 (3.70%) DNS
3 16 (2.96%) HTTP
4 15 (2.77%) SAN
5 13 (2.40%) Network Security
5 13 (2.40%) TCP/IP
6 11 (2.03%) Wireless
7 9 (1.66%) NAS
8 8 (1.48%) InfiniBand
9 7 (1.29%) Ethernet
9 7 (1.29%) NetScaler
9 7 (1.29%) PuTTY
9 7 (1.29%) SSH
9 7 (1.29%) WinSCP
10 6 (1.11%) FTP
10 6 (1.11%) SSL
10 6 (1.11%) VPN
11 5 (0.92%) Ethernet VPN
11 5 (0.92%) RTP
12 4 (0.74%) FIX Connectivity
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (11.09%) SQL Server
2 42 (7.76%) Relational Database
3 41 (7.58%) MongoDB
4 39 (7.21%) PostgreSQL
5 38 (7.02%) MySQL
5 38 (7.02%) Oracle Database
6 22 (4.07%) Metadata
6 22 (4.07%) NoSQL
7 21 (3.88%) Big Data
8 19 (3.51%) Data Warehouse
9 18 (3.33%) KDB
9 18 (3.33%) Kdb+
10 12 (2.22%) Amazon Aurora
11 11 (2.03%) Data Lake
11 11 (2.03%) DataStage
11 11 (2.03%) Tick Data
12 10 (1.85%) BusinessObjects
12 10 (1.85%) DB2
12 10 (1.85%) Hadoop
12 10 (1.85%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 54 (9.98%) Jenkins
2 46 (8.50%) Git
3 38 (7.02%) GitLab
4 31 (5.73%) JIRA
5 13 (2.40%) Mockito
6 12 (2.22%) Bitbucket
7 11 (2.03%) MSI
8 9 (1.66%) Eclipse
9 8 (1.48%) JUnit
9 8 (1.48%) Maven
9 8 (1.48%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (1.11%) Selenium
11 5 (0.92%) Android Studio
11 5 (0.92%) Browser DevTools
11 5 (0.92%) Toad
11 5 (0.92%) Xcode
12 4 (0.74%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.74%) IntelliJ
12 4 (0.74%) ScriptRunner
12 4 (0.74%) SonarQube
General
1 142 (26.25%) Finance
2 122 (22.55%) Social Skills
3 75 (13.86%) Banking
4 64 (11.83%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (9.98%) Public Sector
6 24 (4.44%) Investment Banking
7 20 (3.70%) Front Office
8 16 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (1.48%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.29%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.11%) Advertising
11 6 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.92%) Retail
13 4 (0.74%) 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
1 103 (19.04%) Developer
2 72 (13.31%) Senior
3 45 (8.32%) Data Engineer
4 44 (8.13%) Java Developer
5 43 (7.95%) Analyst
6 40 (7.39%) Unix Engineer
7 34 (6.28%) Support Engineer
8 28 (5.18%) DBA
9 24 (4.44%) Linux Engineer
9 24 (4.44%) Oracle DBA
9 24 (4.44%) Senior Developer
9 24 (4.44%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 23 (4.25%) Administrator
10 23 (4.25%) Technical Support
11 21 (3.88%) Site Engineer
12 19 (3.51%) DevOps Engineer
13 18 (3.33%) Software Engineer
14 17 (3.14%) Architect
15 16 (2.96%) Consultant
16 15 (2.77%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (10.35%) Kafka
2 32 (5.91%) REST
3 27 (4.99%) XML
4 26 (4.81%) Middleware
5 21 (3.88%) RESTful
6 18 (3.33%) Spring
7 16 (2.96%) SOAP
8 15 (2.77%) CSS
8 15 (2.77%) HTML
8 15 (2.77%) JSON
9 14 (2.59%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 13 (2.40%) Elastic Stack
10 13 (2.40%) JAX-RS
10 13 (2.40%) Spring Boot
11 12 (2.22%) ActiveMQ
11 12 (2.22%) React
12 10 (1.85%) AngularJS
12 10 (1.85%) Play Framework
13 9 (1.66%) FIX Protocol
13 9 (1.66%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 29 (5.36%) Linux Command Line
2 28 (5.18%) Onboarding
3 26 (4.81%) Management Information System
4 22 (4.07%) Cloud Native
4 22 (4.07%) Data Centre
5 19 (3.51%) Legacy Systems
6 18 (3.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 16 (2.96%) Fixed Income
8 14 (2.59%) Derivative
8 14 (2.59%) Mainframe
9 12 (2.22%) Equities
10 10 (1.85%) BYOD
10 10 (1.85%) Public Cloud
10 10 (1.85%) Virtual Team
10 10 (1.85%) VSAM
11 9 (1.66%) Clustering
11 9 (1.66%) Greenfield Project
12 8 (1.48%) Replication
13 7 (1.29%) Algorithms
13 7 (1.29%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 360 (66.54%) Linux
2 144 (26.62%) Windows
3 36 (6.65%) Solaris
4 34 (6.28%) Windows Server
5 30 (5.55%) AIX
6 24 (4.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.40%) Mac OS X
8 7 (1.29%) Oracle Linux
9 5 (0.92%) Android
10 4 (0.74%) HPUX
10 4 (0.74%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.74%) SUSE
11 2 (0.37%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.37%) VMS
12 1 (0.18%) CentOS
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 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (23.84%) Agile
2 97 (17.93%) Problem-Solving
3 93 (17.19%) CI/CD
4 86 (15.90%) DevOps
5 77 (14.23%) Migration
6 61 (11.28%) ITIL
7 57 (10.54%) Observability
8 52 (9.61%) Performance Tuning
9 49 (9.06%) High Availability
10 48 (8.87%) Disaster Recovery
11 47 (8.69%) Containerisation
11 47 (8.69%) Root Cause Analysis
12 46 (8.50%) Computer Science
12 46 (8.50%) Microservices
13 45 (8.32%) Software Engineering
14 43 (7.95%) Infrastructure as Code
15 41 (7.58%) Analytics
15 41 (7.58%) Change Management
16 40 (7.39%) Test Automation
17 38 (7.02%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 215 (39.74%) SQL
2 197 (36.41%) Python
3 129 (23.84%) Java
4 107 (19.78%) Shell Script
5 63 (11.65%) Bash
6 53 (9.80%) Perl
7 48 (8.87%) PL/SQL
8 45 (8.32%) PowerShell
9 35 (6.47%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.99%) C#
11 26 (4.81%) C++
12 24 (4.44%) Korn
13 12 (2.22%) Scala
14 10 (1.85%) COBOL
14 10 (1.85%) PHP
15 7 (1.29%) Go
16 3 (0.55%) C
16 3 (0.55%) HiveQL
16 3 (0.55%) Jython
16 3 (0.55%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 158 (29.21%) Security Cleared
2 128 (23.66%) SC Cleared
3 63 (11.65%) Degree
4 28 (5.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (4.07%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (2.03%) CISSP
7 9 (1.66%) CompTIA Security+
7 9 (1.66%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.11%) 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%) CISA
12 1 (0.18%) ISTQB
12 1 (0.18%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 19 (3.51%) NIST
3 18 (3.33%) SLA
4 16 (2.96%) QA
5 12 (2.22%) Data Quality
6 4 (0.74%) GRC
6 4 (0.74%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.55%) FATCA
8 2 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.37%) GDPR
8 2 (0.37%) GMP
8 2 (0.37%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.37%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.37%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.37%) SEPA
9 1 (0.18%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 74 (13.68%) Docker
2 25 (4.62%) Active Directory
3 18 (3.33%) Oracle RAC
4 12 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
5 11 (2.03%) NFS
6 7 (1.29%) KVM
6 7 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.11%) GPFS
7 6 (1.11%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.74%) HDFS
8 4 (0.74%) Postfix
8 4 (0.74%) 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 70 (12.94%) Kubernetes
2 64 (11.83%) Ansible
3 46 (8.50%) Terraform
4 44 (8.13%) Grafana
5 24 (4.44%) Oracle RMAN
5 24 (4.44%) Prometheus
6 20 (3.70%) Puppet
7 16 (2.96%) Kibana
7 16 (2.96%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 8 (1.48%) Data Guard
9 7 (1.29%) NetBackup
9 7 (1.29%) Progress Chef
10 6 (1.11%) Control-M
10 6 (1.11%) IBM BigFix
10 6 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (1.11%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.92%) CASB
11 5 (0.92%) HAProxy
11 5 (0.92%) Nessus
11 5 (0.92%) Salt
Vendors
1 192 (35.49%) Oracle
2 53 (9.80%) Splunk
3 39 (7.21%) Microsoft
4 35 (6.47%) IBM
5 25 (4.62%) ServiceNow
6 24 (4.44%) CyberArk
7 21 (3.88%) BeyondTrust
8 19 (3.51%) Cisco
8 19 (3.51%) Informatica
8 19 (3.51%) VMware
9 18 (3.33%) Red Hat
10 15 (2.77%) Sybase
11 13 (2.40%) Talend
12 9 (1.66%) CheckPoint
12 9 (1.66%) F5
12 9 (1.66%) Fujitsu
12 9 (1.66%) Veritas
13 8 (1.48%) AppDynamics
13 8 (1.48%) Aruba
13 8 (1.48%) Remedy