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 7 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 219 161 132
Rank change year-on-year -58 -29 -48
Contract jobs citing Unix 580 495 752
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.69% 1.73%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.08% 12.24% 12.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 341 298 512
10th Percentile £297 £358 £331
25th Percentile £400 £408 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £532
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% -10.63% -3.36%
75th Percentile £552 £599 £638
90th Percentile £658 £650 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £465 £450
% change year-on-year -1.29% +3.33% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 6 21
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 £22.30
25th Percentile £31.86 £52.19 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £55.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +37.50% -32.85%
75th Percentile £53.75 £66.25 -
90th Percentile £55.00 £73.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £55.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.56% +37.50% -31.73%

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 4,801 4,045 5,855
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.70% 13.84% 13.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,060 2,653 3,921
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £316 £313 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £468
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -0.64% -6.40%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 188 408
10th Percentile £14.85 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.19 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.25 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.07% -1.11% -47.83%
75th Percentile £65.00 £44.00 £61.70
90th Percentile £72.60 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £19.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +71.05% -21.42% -37.19%

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 7 June 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 7 June 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 7 June 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 -34 494 £469 -1.26% 93
UK excluding London -47 349 £459 -1.29% 57
London -74 180 £570 +14.00% 48
Work from Home -30 173 £469 +4.22% 39
North of England -30 113 £475 +6.26% 14
South East -9 106 £392 -28.73% 19
Midlands +6 86 £459 +0.88% 4
North West +2 86 £479 +14.68% 10
West Midlands -2 81 £459 -0.22% 3
Scotland -45 39 £425 -10.29% 4
Yorkshire -59 22 £461 -11.08% 4
North East -20 5 £480 +28.00%
East of England -29 5 £300 -33.33% 7
South West -30 5 £600 - 8
East Midlands -29 4 £494 +26.28% 1
Wales - 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 32 (5.52%) Confluence
2 25 (4.31%) SAS
3 18 (3.10%) Apache
4 16 (2.76%) Apache Spark
5 14 (2.41%) Apache Airflow
6 11 (1.90%) WebLogic
7 10 (1.72%) CICS
8 8 (1.38%) Tuxedo
9 7 (1.21%) NetWeaver
10 6 (1.03%) OpenStack
10 6 (1.03%) SharePoint
11 4 (0.69%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.52%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.52%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.52%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.52%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.34%) nginx
13 2 (0.34%) Oracle Spatial
13 2 (0.34%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 7 (1.21%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (1.21%) Notepad++
2 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 8 (1.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.03%) Summit
3 2 (0.34%) FLEXCUBE
3 2 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.17%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 110 (18.97%) AWS
2 71 (12.24%) Azure
3 31 (5.34%) GitHub
4 25 (4.31%) GCP
5 23 (3.97%) AWS Lambda
5 23 (3.97%) Entra ID
5 23 (3.97%) GitHub Actions
6 22 (3.79%) Serverless
7 20 (3.45%) Amazon S3
7 20 (3.45%) OpenShift
8 15 (2.59%) IaaS
8 15 (2.59%) PaaS
8 15 (2.59%) Power Platform
9 13 (2.24%) SaaS
10 11 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.72%) Snowflake
12 9 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
13 8 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
14 7 (1.21%) Amazon ECS
14 7 (1.21%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 30 (5.17%) Firewall
2 27 (4.66%) DNS
3 20 (3.45%) SAN
4 15 (2.59%) TCP/IP
5 14 (2.41%) NAS
6 10 (1.72%) SSH
7 9 (1.55%) HTTP
7 9 (1.55%) Wireless
8 8 (1.38%) Wireshark
9 7 (1.21%) 5G
9 7 (1.21%) Ethernet
9 7 (1.21%) FTP
9 7 (1.21%) InfiniBand
9 7 (1.21%) NetScaler
9 7 (1.21%) PuTTY
9 7 (1.21%) SSL
9 7 (1.21%) VPN
9 7 (1.21%) WinSCP
10 6 (1.03%) Diameter Protocol
10 6 (1.03%) VoLTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (11.55%) SQL Server
2 43 (7.41%) Relational Database
3 38 (6.55%) MySQL
4 35 (6.03%) Oracle Database
5 31 (5.34%) MongoDB
5 31 (5.34%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (3.28%) Metadata
7 16 (2.76%) Big Data
7 16 (2.76%) BusinessObjects
8 15 (2.59%) DataStage
8 15 (2.59%) KDB
8 15 (2.59%) Power BI
9 14 (2.41%) Amazon Aurora
9 14 (2.41%) NoSQL
10 13 (2.24%) Db2
10 13 (2.24%) Kdb+
11 11 (1.90%) Data Lake
11 11 (1.90%) Sybase ASE
12 9 (1.55%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 61 (10.52%) Jenkins
2 54 (9.31%) GitLab
3 49 (8.45%) JIRA
4 47 (8.10%) Git
5 22 (3.79%) Artifactory
6 11 (1.90%) Mockito
7 9 (1.55%) Bitbucket
8 8 (1.38%) Maven
8 8 (1.38%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.86%) Android Studio
9 5 (0.86%) Browser DevTools
9 5 (0.86%) Eclipse
9 5 (0.86%) JUnit
9 5 (0.86%) Xcode
10 4 (0.69%) CA Gen
10 4 (0.69%) MSI
10 4 (0.69%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.52%) CircleCI
11 3 (0.52%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.52%) Selenium
General
1 145 (25.00%) Finance
2 121 (20.86%) Social Skills
3 89 (15.34%) Banking
4 71 (12.24%) Analytical Skills
5 56 (9.66%) Public Sector
6 25 (4.31%) Investment Banking
7 23 (3.97%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (3.45%) Front Office
9 10 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
9 10 (1.72%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.38%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.21%) Retail
13 6 (1.03%) Advertising
14 5 (0.86%) Law
14 5 (0.86%) Military
15 2 (0.34%) Billing
15 2 (0.34%) Local Government
15 2 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
16 1 (0.17%) International Banking
Job Titles
1 99 (17.07%) Developer
2 74 (12.76%) Senior
3 64 (11.03%) Data Engineer
4 55 (9.48%) Unix Engineer
5 44 (7.59%) Analyst
6 41 (7.07%) Support Engineer
7 38 (6.55%) Java Developer
8 29 (5.00%) DBA
9 28 (4.83%) Senior Developer
10 24 (4.14%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 23 (3.97%) Technical Support
12 22 (3.79%) Administrator
12 22 (3.79%) Architect
12 22 (3.79%) Oracle DBA
12 22 (3.79%) Site Engineer
13 21 (3.62%) Python Developer
14 20 (3.45%) Consultant
15 17 (2.93%) Linux Engineer
15 17 (2.93%) Software Engineer
16 15 (2.59%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (8.97%) Kafka
2 35 (6.03%) REST
3 26 (4.48%) RESTful
4 25 (4.31%) Middleware
5 19 (3.28%) CSS
5 19 (3.28%) Spring
6 18 (3.10%) Spring Boot
6 18 (3.10%) XML
7 15 (2.59%) HTML
8 14 (2.41%) Web Services
9 13 (2.24%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 12 (2.07%) React
11 11 (1.90%) JAX-RS
12 10 (1.72%) ActiveMQ
12 10 (1.72%) AngularJS
12 10 (1.72%) Elastic Stack
12 10 (1.72%) LDAP
12 10 (1.72%) Pandas
12 10 (1.72%) RabbitMQ
13 9 (1.55%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 41 (7.07%) Onboarding
2 34 (5.86%) Linux Command Line
3 27 (4.66%) Legacy Systems
3 27 (4.66%) Management Information System
4 23 (3.97%) Data Centre
5 17 (2.93%) Cloud Native
5 17 (2.93%) Mainframe
6 15 (2.59%) Derivative
7 14 (2.41%) Replication
8 13 (2.24%) Fixed Income
9 11 (1.90%) Clustering
9 11 (1.90%) Equities
9 11 (1.90%) Public Cloud
10 10 (1.72%) BYOD
10 10 (1.72%) Virtual Team
10 10 (1.72%) VSAM
11 9 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 9 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
12 8 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (1.38%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 375 (64.66%) Linux
2 153 (26.38%) Windows
3 57 (9.83%) Solaris
4 40 (6.90%) Windows Server
5 28 (4.83%) AIX
6 22 (3.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (2.07%) Mac OS X
8 8 (1.38%) Oracle Linux
9 6 (1.03%) HPUX
10 5 (0.86%) Android
10 5 (0.86%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.69%) SUSE
12 2 (0.34%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.34%) VMS
13 1 (0.17%) CentOS
13 1 (0.17%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.17%) Rocky
13 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.17%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (21.72%) Agile
2 116 (20.00%) CI/CD
3 103 (17.76%) Problem-Solving
4 95 (16.38%) Migration
5 78 (13.45%) DevOps
6 70 (12.07%) High Availability
7 68 (11.72%) ITIL
8 61 (10.52%) Test Automation
9 60 (10.34%) Root Cause Analysis
10 59 (10.17%) Disaster Recovery
11 58 (10.00%) Observability
12 52 (8.97%) Incident Management
13 49 (8.45%) Data Modelling
14 47 (8.10%) Performance Tuning
15 46 (7.93%) Analytics
15 46 (7.93%) Change Management
15 46 (7.93%) Runbook
16 44 (7.59%) Microservices
17 43 (7.41%) Computer Science
18 42 (7.24%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 220 (37.93%) Python
1 220 (37.93%) SQL
2 110 (18.97%) Java
3 104 (17.93%) Shell Script
4 65 (11.21%) PL/SQL
5 57 (9.83%) Bash
6 56 (9.66%) PowerShell
7 43 (7.41%) Perl
8 40 (6.90%) JavaScript
9 26 (4.48%) C#
9 26 (4.48%) C++
10 16 (2.76%) Korn
11 12 (2.07%) COBOL
12 8 (1.38%) Scala
13 7 (1.21%) Go
14 4 (0.69%) C
14 4 (0.69%) Kotlin
14 4 (0.69%) Ruby
14 4 (0.69%) T-SQL
15 3 (0.52%) Jython
Qualifications
1 197 (33.97%) Security Cleared
2 166 (28.62%) SC Cleared
3 73 (12.59%) Degree
4 26 (4.48%) BPSS Clearance
4 26 (4.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (2.93%) CISSP
6 9 (1.55%) CompTIA Security+
6 9 (1.55%) DV Cleared
7 8 (1.38%) CISM
8 7 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 6 (1.03%) CESG Certified Professional
9 6 (1.03%) CRISC
9 6 (1.03%) GIAC
9 6 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.86%) MCSA
10 5 (0.86%) MCSE
10 5 (0.86%) RHCE
10 5 (0.86%) SANS
11 4 (0.69%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 32 (5.52%) NIST
3 22 (3.79%) SLA
4 19 (3.28%) QA
5 9 (1.55%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (1.03%) ISO 31000
8 4 (0.69%) GRC
8 4 (0.69%) ISO 20022
8 4 (0.69%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.52%) FATCA
10 2 (0.34%) GDPR
10 2 (0.34%) GMP
10 2 (0.34%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.34%) NCSC
10 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.17%) MIL-STD-1553
11 1 (0.17%) SEPA
System Software
1 59 (10.17%) Docker
2 38 (6.55%) Active Directory
3 18 (3.10%) Oracle RAC
3 18 (3.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (2.76%) NFS
5 10 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (1.38%) GPFS
7 6 (1.03%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.03%) KVM
7 6 (1.03%) Postfix
7 6 (1.03%) Varnish
7 6 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.86%) vSphere
9 4 (0.69%) HDFS
9 4 (0.69%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.52%) Firmware
10 3 (0.52%) GridGain
10 3 (0.52%) PowerHA
10 3 (0.52%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 2 (0.34%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 70 (12.07%) Kubernetes
2 65 (11.21%) Ansible
3 43 (7.41%) Grafana
4 36 (6.21%) Terraform
5 28 (4.83%) Oracle RMAN
6 26 (4.48%) Prometheus
7 13 (2.24%) Kibana
7 13 (2.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 13 (2.24%) Puppet
8 11 (1.90%) Data Guard
9 10 (1.72%) NetBackup
10 9 (1.55%) Progress Chef
10 9 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.03%) Control-M
11 6 (1.03%) HAProxy
11 6 (1.03%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.03%) Nessus
11 6 (1.03%) Tivoli
11 6 (1.03%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.86%) vRealize
Vendors
1 234 (40.34%) Oracle
2 51 (8.79%) Splunk
3 42 (7.24%) IBM
4 40 (6.90%) Microsoft
5 34 (5.86%) Talend
6 32 (5.52%) CyberArk
7 29 (5.00%) BeyondTrust
8 28 (4.83%) VMware
9 27 (4.66%) ServiceNow
10 25 (4.31%) Informatica
11 21 (3.62%) Cisco
11 21 (3.62%) Denodo
12 18 (3.10%) Sybase
13 16 (2.76%) Red Hat
14 13 (2.24%) Dynatrace
14 13 (2.24%) Veritas
15 12 (2.07%) SAP
16 9 (1.55%) CheckPoint
16 9 (1.55%) F5
17 8 (1.38%) Aruba