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 11 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 224 137 138
Rank change year-on-year -87 +1 -60
Contract jobs citing Unix 520 594 783
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.22% 2.02% 1.75%
As % of the Operating Systems category 10.91% 14.08% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 343 350 533
10th Percentile £247 £350 £333
25th Percentile £390 £422 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.46% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £563 £637 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £779
UK excluding London median daily rate £427 £469 £495
% change year-on-year -8.96% -5.25% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 9 22
10th Percentile - £39.60 £22.01
25th Percentile £21.50 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £27.88 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.90% +31.25% -38.46%
75th Percentile £53.38 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £54.00 £67.25 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.22 £52.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -54.09% +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 4,766 4,219 6,110
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.20% 14.31% 13.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,130 2,744 4,072
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £275 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +5.56% -12.24%
75th Percentile £563 £588 £588
90th Percentile £658 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £440 £425
% change year-on-year -6.25% +3.53% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 154 415
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.55 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.76 £20.00 £15.58
Median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.34% +28.89% -15.09%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £26.25 £22.50
% change year-on-year -14.29% +16.67% -13.46%

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 11 March 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 11 March 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 11 March 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 -65 452 £459 -12.57% 92
UK excluding London -79 274 £427 -8.96% 69
London -48 204 £539 -4.22% 42
Work from Home -79 150 £450 -9.18% 57
North of England -45 89 £463 -11.90% 16
South East -27 72 £320 -32.63% 27
Midlands -35 71 £439 -4.67% 11
North West -3 68 £465 -11.43% 10
West Midlands -24 67 £439 -4.67% 9
Scotland -40 30 £411 -8.67% 1
Yorkshire -77 19 £460 -16.36% 3
South West -27 8 £700 +27.27% 3
Wales -4 4 £265 +62.04% 3
East Midlands -37 4 £478 +13.02% 2
North East -12 3 £563 - 3
East of England -38 3 £440 -2.22% 5

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 27 (5.19%) WebLogic
2 23 (4.42%) Apache
2 23 (4.42%) Confluence
3 16 (3.08%) Tuxedo
4 15 (2.88%) SharePoint
5 11 (2.12%) JBoss
5 11 (2.12%) SAS
6 9 (1.73%) Apache Spark
7 8 (1.54%) CICS
8 6 (1.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.96%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.77%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.77%) NetWeaver
10 4 (0.77%) nginx
10 4 (0.77%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.77%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.58%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.38%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.38%) IIS
12 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 12 (2.31%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.15%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (1.15%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.96%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.77%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.58%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.58%) Summit
5 2 (0.38%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.38%) Kondor
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 107 (20.58%) AWS
2 73 (14.04%) Azure
3 23 (4.42%) GitHub
4 19 (3.65%) GCP
5 16 (3.08%) SaaS
6 15 (2.88%) AWS CloudFormation
7 12 (2.31%) Serverless
8 11 (2.12%) Amazon S3
8 11 (2.12%) Sauce Labs
9 10 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (1.92%) OpenShift
10 9 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (1.73%) Cloud Computing
10 9 (1.73%) Entra ID
11 8 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
11 8 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.54%) Power Platform
12 7 (1.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 7 (1.35%) Snowflake
13 6 (1.15%) Azure API Management
Communications & Networking
1 33 (6.35%) Firewall
2 19 (3.65%) DNS
3 15 (2.88%) SSH
3 15 (2.88%) Wireless
4 14 (2.69%) TCP/IP
5 13 (2.50%) HTTP
6 12 (2.31%) SAN
7 11 (2.12%) Network Security
8 8 (1.54%) InfiniBand
8 8 (1.54%) NAS
9 7 (1.35%) Ethernet
9 7 (1.35%) NetScaler
10 6 (1.15%) VPN
11 5 (0.96%) Ethernet VPN
11 5 (0.96%) FTP
11 5 (0.96%) SSL
12 4 (0.77%) DHCP
12 4 (0.77%) FIX Connectivity
12 4 (0.77%) MPLS
12 4 (0.77%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (9.04%) MySQL
2 44 (8.46%) MongoDB
3 43 (8.27%) Relational Database
4 40 (7.69%) Oracle Database
5 39 (7.50%) SQL Server
6 27 (5.19%) PostgreSQL
7 20 (3.85%) NoSQL
8 17 (3.27%) KDB
8 17 (3.27%) Kdb+
9 15 (2.88%) Elasticsearch
10 14 (2.69%) Big Data
11 12 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
12 11 (2.12%) Hadoop
13 10 (1.92%) Tick Data
14 9 (1.73%) DataStage
14 9 (1.73%) DB2
14 9 (1.73%) Metadata
15 8 (1.54%) Amazon RDS
15 8 (1.54%) Pentaho
16 7 (1.35%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 46 (8.85%) Jenkins
2 45 (8.65%) Git
3 39 (7.50%) GitLab
4 38 (7.31%) JIRA
5 20 (3.85%) Eclipse
6 19 (3.65%) JUnit
7 14 (2.69%) Selenium
8 13 (2.50%) Mockito
9 12 (2.31%) Bitbucket
9 12 (2.31%) Xcode
10 11 (2.12%) Android Studio
10 11 (2.12%) Browser DevTools
10 11 (2.12%) MSI
11 9 (1.73%) IntelliJ
12 8 (1.54%) Maven
13 5 (0.96%) SoapUI
13 5 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (0.96%) Toad
14 4 (0.77%) Cucumber
14 4 (0.77%) Subversion
General
1 142 (27.31%) Social Skills
2 137 (26.35%) Finance
3 63 (12.12%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (10.96%) Banking
5 45 (8.65%) Public Sector
6 22 (4.23%) Front Office
7 21 (4.04%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (3.27%) Investment Banking
9 16 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.73%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.35%) Telecoms
12 6 (1.15%) Advertising
12 6 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.96%) Law
13 5 (0.96%) Legal
14 4 (0.77%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.77%) Retail
15 3 (0.58%) Billing
15 3 (0.58%) Military
15 3 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 98 (18.85%) Developer
2 73 (14.04%) Senior
3 43 (8.27%) Analyst
4 38 (7.31%) Java Developer
5 35 (6.73%) Support Engineer
6 33 (6.35%) Unix Engineer
7 29 (5.58%) Technical Support
8 27 (5.19%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 26 (5.00%) Linux Engineer
10 24 (4.62%) DevOps Engineer
11 23 (4.42%) Site Engineer
11 23 (4.42%) Software Engineer
12 22 (4.23%) DBA
12 22 (4.23%) Oracle DBA
13 20 (3.85%) Kafka Engineer
14 19 (3.65%) Data Engineer
14 19 (3.65%) Lead
15 18 (3.46%) Unix Linux Engineer
16 17 (3.27%) C++ Software Engineer
16 17 (3.27%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (12.31%) Kafka
2 40 (7.69%) REST
3 31 (5.96%) XML
4 27 (5.19%) SOAP
5 26 (5.00%) Middleware
6 25 (4.81%) React
7 24 (4.62%) JSON
8 21 (4.04%) Spring
9 20 (3.85%) CSS
10 19 (3.65%) HTML
11 18 (3.46%) AngularJS
12 15 (2.88%) Elastic Stack
13 14 (2.69%) HTML5
13 14 (2.69%) J2EE
14 13 (2.50%) Oracle GoldenGate
15 12 (2.31%) ActiveMQ
15 12 (2.31%) JAX-RS
16 11 (2.12%) Ajax
16 11 (2.12%) GraphQL
17 10 (1.92%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 29 (5.58%) Management Information System
2 20 (3.85%) Linux Command Line
3 19 (3.65%) Onboarding
4 18 (3.46%) Cloud Native
4 18 (3.46%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 15 (2.88%) Data Centre
6 12 (2.31%) Equities
6 12 (2.31%) Fixed Income
6 12 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
7 11 (2.12%) Algorithms
7 11 (2.12%) Derivative
7 11 (2.12%) Greenfield Project
7 11 (2.12%) Mobile App
7 11 (2.12%) Security Posture
8 9 (1.73%) Mainframe
8 9 (1.73%) Public Cloud
9 8 (1.54%) BYOD
9 8 (1.54%) Enterprise Cloud
9 8 (1.54%) Legacy Applications
9 8 (1.54%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 332 (63.85%) Linux
2 158 (30.38%) Windows
3 28 (5.38%) Windows Server
4 24 (4.62%) Solaris
5 23 (4.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (4.23%) AIX
7 15 (2.88%) Mac OS X
8 11 (2.12%) Android
9 7 (1.35%) CentOS
9 7 (1.35%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.58%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.38%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.19%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.19%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (27.50%) Agile
2 112 (21.54%) Problem-Solving
3 94 (18.08%) DevOps
4 85 (16.35%) CI/CD
5 56 (10.77%) Computer Science
6 55 (10.58%) Observability
6 55 (10.58%) Software Engineering
7 53 (10.19%) Migration
8 51 (9.81%) Microservices
9 49 (9.42%) Incident Response
9 49 (9.42%) ITIL
10 48 (9.23%) Containerisation
10 48 (9.23%) Infrastructure as Code
11 47 (9.04%) OO
12 43 (8.27%) Data Modelling
13 42 (8.08%) Continuous Improvement
13 42 (8.08%) Performance Tuning
14 41 (7.88%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 40 (7.69%) TDD
15 40 (7.69%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 197 (37.88%) SQL
2 182 (35.00%) Python
3 139 (26.73%) Java
4 91 (17.50%) Shell Script
5 69 (13.27%) Bash
6 61 (11.73%) Perl
7 40 (7.69%) JavaScript
8 39 (7.50%) C++
8 39 (7.50%) PowerShell
9 33 (6.35%) PL/SQL
10 26 (5.00%) C#
11 24 (4.62%) Korn
12 14 (2.69%) Scala
13 10 (1.92%) Go
14 9 (1.73%) PHP
15 8 (1.54%) COBOL
16 3 (0.58%) C
16 3 (0.58%) HiveQL
17 2 (0.38%) C-shell
17 2 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 123 (23.65%) Security Cleared
2 93 (17.88%) SC Cleared
3 77 (14.81%) Degree
4 42 (8.08%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (4.04%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.54%) CISSP
7 6 (1.15%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 6 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.15%) OSCP
8 5 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
8 5 (0.96%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.96%) GPEN
8 5 (0.96%) GWAPT
8 5 (0.96%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.96%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (0.96%) MCSA
8 5 (0.96%) MCSE
9 4 (0.77%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.58%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.46%) SLA
2 16 (3.08%) QA
3 10 (1.92%) Data Quality
4 9 (1.73%) NIST
5 7 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.58%) FATCA
6 3 (0.58%) GMP
6 3 (0.58%) NCSC
6 3 (0.58%) SEPA
7 2 (0.38%) GDPR
7 2 (0.38%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.38%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.38%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.19%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.19%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 72 (13.85%) Docker
2 17 (3.27%) Active Directory
3 14 (2.69%) Oracle RAC
4 11 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (1.73%) KVM
6 6 (1.15%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.15%) NFS
6 6 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.96%) GPFS
8 4 (0.77%) HDFS
9 3 (0.58%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.38%) Firmware
10 2 (0.38%) Postfix
10 2 (0.38%) PowerHA
10 2 (0.38%) SRDF
10 2 (0.38%) Varnish
10 2 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.38%) vSphere
11 1 (0.19%) Samba
11 1 (0.19%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 75 (14.42%) Kubernetes
2 66 (12.69%) Ansible
3 52 (10.00%) Terraform
4 39 (7.50%) Grafana
5 30 (5.77%) Puppet
6 23 (4.42%) Prometheus
7 16 (3.08%) Oracle RMAN
8 15 (2.88%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 13 (2.50%) Kibana
10 9 (1.73%) Progress Chef
11 7 (1.35%) NetBackup
12 6 (1.15%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (1.15%) Red Hat Satellite
12 6 (1.15%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.96%) CASB
13 5 (0.96%) Control-M
13 5 (0.96%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (0.96%) Nessus
13 5 (0.96%) Salt
13 5 (0.96%) SCCM
Vendors
1 163 (31.35%) Oracle
2 66 (12.69%) Splunk
3 55 (10.58%) Microsoft
4 42 (8.08%) IBM
5 31 (5.96%) ServiceNow
6 21 (4.04%) VMware
7 17 (3.27%) Red Hat
8 16 (3.08%) Cisco
9 12 (2.31%) CyberArk
10 11 (2.12%) Talend
11 10 (1.92%) Informatica
11 10 (1.92%) Remedy
12 9 (1.73%) Fujitsu
12 9 (1.73%) webMethods
13 8 (1.54%) AppDynamics
13 8 (1.54%) Aruba
13 8 (1.54%) Dell
13 8 (1.54%) Tenable
13 8 (1.54%) Veritas
14 7 (1.35%) Sybase