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

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 216 160 137
Rank change year-on-year -56 -23 -57
Contract jobs citing Unix 549 529 736
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.81% 1.71%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.82% 12.97% 12.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 333 315 491
10th Percentile £259 £363 £350
25th Percentile £400 £418 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £545
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -8.26% -0.91%
75th Percentile £552 £600 £653
90th Percentile £674 £688 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £467 £470
% change year-on-year -3.64% -0.64% -12.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 8 20
10th Percentile £21.50 £39.29 £22.08
25th Percentile £27.34 £40.50 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £53.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% +34.38% -31.73%
75th Percentile £53.75 £57.50 £42.19
90th Percentile £54.70 £68.38 £65.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £53.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -11.55% +34.38% -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 4,645 4,078 5,733
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.78% 13.97% 13.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,004 2,680 3,878
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% +1.60% -7.43%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £652 £690 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £433 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -3.89% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 320 181 392
10th Percentile £15.99 £15.33 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.79 £15.44
Median hourly rate £47.50 £23.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +106.52% +4.55% -42.86%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +115.91% -2.22% -23.21%

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 May 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 May 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 12 May 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 -53 468 £469 -6.20% 115
UK excluding London -49 326 £450 -3.64% 81
London -71 174 £569 +4.60% 54
Work from Home -56 166 £468 -1.42% 49
North of England -33 99 £469 -0.42% 19
South East -15 98 £339 -32.20% 34
Midlands -1 86 £459 -0.22% 10
West Midlands -7 80 £457 -0.76% 8
North West +3 78 £475 +6.26% 11
Scotland -48 36 £425 -9.96% 4
Yorkshire -60 18 £460 -12.38% 6
Wales -7 5 £265 +58.62%
East Midlands -34 5 £525 +15.64% 2
South West -35 4 £638 +74.66% 7
East of England -42 4 £300 -33.33% 6
North East -16 3 £413 +10.00% 2

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 21 (3.83%) Confluence
2 18 (3.28%) WebLogic
3 17 (3.10%) Apache
3 17 (3.10%) Apache Spark
4 16 (2.91%) Tuxedo
5 15 (2.73%) SAS
6 11 (2.00%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (1.82%) CICS
8 8 (1.46%) SharePoint
9 6 (1.09%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.91%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.91%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.73%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.55%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.55%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.55%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.36%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.36%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.36%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 11 (2.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.28%) Notepad++
4 4 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.09%) SAP S/4HANA
1 6 (1.09%) Summit
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle 11i
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.73%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.55%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 95 (17.30%) AWS
2 75 (13.66%) Azure
3 31 (5.65%) GitHub
4 24 (4.37%) AWS Lambda
5 23 (4.19%) Serverless
6 22 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
7 21 (3.83%) Amazon S3
8 20 (3.64%) Entra ID
9 18 (3.28%) GCP
10 14 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (2.55%) OpenShift
10 14 (2.55%) SaaS
11 13 (2.37%) IaaS
11 13 (2.37%) PaaS
12 10 (1.82%) Amazon EC2
12 10 (1.82%) Snowflake
13 9 (1.64%) Power Platform
14 8 (1.46%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (1.46%) Azure Data Factory
14 8 (1.46%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.83%) Firewall
2 22 (4.01%) DNS
3 15 (2.73%) HTTP
3 15 (2.73%) SAN
4 14 (2.55%) TCP/IP
5 10 (1.82%) Network Security
6 9 (1.64%) NAS
6 9 (1.64%) SSH
6 9 (1.64%) Wireless
7 8 (1.46%) InfiniBand
8 7 (1.28%) Ethernet
8 7 (1.28%) NetScaler
8 7 (1.28%) PuTTY
8 7 (1.28%) SSL
8 7 (1.28%) VPN
8 7 (1.28%) WinSCP
8 7 (1.28%) Wireshark
9 6 (1.09%) 5G
9 6 (1.09%) FTP
10 5 (0.91%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (11.66%) SQL Server
2 48 (8.74%) Relational Database
3 38 (6.92%) MySQL
4 36 (6.56%) Oracle Database
5 34 (6.19%) PostgreSQL
6 33 (6.01%) MongoDB
7 19 (3.46%) Metadata
8 17 (3.10%) Big Data
8 17 (3.10%) Data Warehouse
8 17 (3.10%) NoSQL
9 15 (2.73%) KDB
10 14 (2.55%) Amazon Aurora
11 13 (2.37%) BusinessObjects
11 13 (2.37%) DataStage
11 13 (2.37%) Kdb+
12 12 (2.19%) DB2
13 10 (1.82%) RDBMS
14 9 (1.64%) Data Lake
14 9 (1.64%) Elasticsearch
14 9 (1.64%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 54 (9.84%) Jenkins
2 43 (7.83%) Git
3 40 (7.29%) GitLab
4 36 (6.56%) JIRA
5 12 (2.19%) Artifactory
5 12 (2.19%) Mockito
6 11 (2.00%) MSI
7 9 (1.64%) Sonatype Nexus
8 8 (1.46%) Maven
9 7 (1.28%) Bitbucket
10 6 (1.09%) Android Studio
10 6 (1.09%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (1.09%) Eclipse
10 6 (1.09%) Xcode
11 5 (0.91%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.91%) Toad
12 4 (0.73%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.73%) JUnit
13 3 (0.55%) Introscope
13 3 (0.55%) Selenium
General
1 133 (24.23%) Finance
2 122 (22.22%) Social Skills
3 77 (14.03%) Banking
4 60 (10.93%) Analytical Skills
5 57 (10.38%) Public Sector
6 24 (4.37%) Investment Banking
7 18 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (3.28%) Front Office
8 10 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.64%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.64%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.09%) Advertising
11 6 (1.09%) Retail
12 5 (0.91%) Law
12 5 (0.91%) Military
13 2 (0.36%) Local Government
13 2 (0.36%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.36%) Organisational Skills
14 1 (0.18%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 98 (17.85%) Developer
2 74 (13.48%) Senior
3 51 (9.29%) Data Engineer
4 49 (8.93%) Unix Engineer
5 42 (7.65%) Analyst
6 38 (6.92%) Java Developer
7 37 (6.74%) Support Engineer
8 27 (4.92%) DBA
8 27 (4.92%) Senior Developer
8 27 (4.92%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 26 (4.74%) Technical Support
10 24 (4.37%) Site Engineer
11 23 (4.19%) Architect
11 23 (4.19%) Oracle DBA
12 21 (3.83%) Administrator
13 19 (3.46%) DevOps Engineer
13 19 (3.46%) Software Engineer
14 18 (3.28%) Linux Engineer
14 18 (3.28%) Python Developer
15 17 (3.10%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (10.20%) Kafka
2 27 (4.92%) REST
3 25 (4.55%) Middleware
4 24 (4.37%) RESTful
5 21 (3.83%) XML
6 16 (2.91%) CSS
7 15 (2.73%) Spring
8 14 (2.55%) Elastic Stack
8 14 (2.55%) Oracle GoldenGate
8 14 (2.55%) Spring Boot
9 13 (2.37%) React
10 12 (2.19%) JAX-RS
10 12 (2.19%) Web Services
11 11 (2.00%) ActiveMQ
11 11 (2.00%) AngularJS
11 11 (2.00%) HTML
11 11 (2.00%) LDAP
12 10 (1.82%) SOAP
13 9 (1.64%) JSON
13 9 (1.64%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 34 (6.19%) Onboarding
2 30 (5.46%) Linux Command Line
3 28 (5.10%) Management Information System
4 23 (4.19%) Data Centre
5 22 (4.01%) Legacy Systems
6 21 (3.83%) Cloud Native
7 16 (2.91%) Mainframe
8 15 (2.73%) Derivative
8 15 (2.73%) Fixed Income
9 11 (2.00%) Clustering
9 11 (2.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 11 (2.00%) Public Cloud
10 10 (1.82%) BYOD
10 10 (1.82%) Equities
10 10 (1.82%) Replication
10 10 (1.82%) Virtual Team
10 10 (1.82%) VSAM
11 8 (1.46%) Greenfield Project
11 8 (1.46%) Operational Technology
12 7 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 361 (65.76%) Linux
2 153 (27.87%) Windows
3 43 (7.83%) Solaris
4 33 (6.01%) Windows Server
5 30 (5.46%) AIX
6 20 (3.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.37%) Mac OS X
8 7 (1.28%) Oracle Linux
9 6 (1.09%) Android
10 5 (0.91%) HPUX
10 5 (0.91%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.73%) SUSE
12 2 (0.36%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.36%) VMS
13 1 (0.18%) CentOS
13 1 (0.18%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.18%) Rocky
13 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (21.86%) Agile
2 102 (18.58%) CI/CD
3 98 (17.85%) Problem-Solving
4 86 (15.66%) Migration
5 80 (14.57%) DevOps
6 65 (11.84%) High Availability
7 64 (11.66%) ITIL
8 60 (10.93%) Observability
9 57 (10.38%) Disaster Recovery
10 54 (9.84%) Root Cause Analysis
11 51 (9.29%) Performance Tuning
12 47 (8.56%) Change Management
12 47 (8.56%) Incident Management
12 47 (8.56%) Test Automation
13 45 (8.20%) Computer Science
13 45 (8.20%) Containerisation
14 44 (8.01%) Data Modelling
14 44 (8.01%) Microservices
14 44 (8.01%) Software Engineering
15 43 (7.83%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 213 (38.80%) SQL
2 210 (38.25%) Python
3 117 (21.31%) Java
4 104 (18.94%) Shell Script
5 58 (10.56%) Bash
6 56 (10.20%) PL/SQL
7 55 (10.02%) Perl
8 49 (8.93%) PowerShell
9 39 (7.10%) JavaScript
10 26 (4.74%) C#
11 25 (4.55%) C++
12 24 (4.37%) Korn
13 11 (2.00%) COBOL
14 9 (1.64%) Go
15 8 (1.46%) Scala
16 7 (1.28%) PHP
17 4 (0.73%) Kotlin
18 3 (0.55%) HiveQL
18 3 (0.55%) Jython
18 3 (0.55%) R
Qualifications
1 176 (32.06%) Security Cleared
2 147 (26.78%) SC Cleared
3 70 (12.75%) Degree
4 31 (5.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (4.19%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (3.10%) CISSP
7 9 (1.64%) CompTIA Security+
8 8 (1.46%) CISM
9 7 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.28%) DV Cleared
10 6 (1.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (1.09%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (1.09%) CRISC
10 6 (1.09%) GIAC
10 6 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.91%) MCSA
11 5 (0.91%) MCSE
11 5 (0.91%) RHCE
11 5 (0.91%) SANS
12 4 (0.73%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (5.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 28 (5.10%) NIST
3 20 (3.64%) SLA
4 13 (2.37%) QA
5 8 (1.46%) Data Quality
6 7 (1.28%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (1.09%) ISO 31000
8 4 (0.73%) GRC
8 4 (0.73%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.55%) FATCA
10 2 (0.36%) GMP
10 2 (0.36%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.36%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.36%) NCSC
10 2 (0.36%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.36%) SEPA
11 1 (0.18%) GDPR
11 1 (0.18%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 64 (11.66%) Docker
2 32 (5.83%) Active Directory
3 18 (3.28%) Oracle RAC
4 13 (2.37%) NFS
5 12 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
6 8 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.28%) GPFS
7 7 (1.28%) KVM
8 6 (1.09%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.91%) Postfix
9 5 (0.91%) Varnish
10 4 (0.73%) HDFS
10 4 (0.73%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.55%) Firmware
11 3 (0.55%) GridGain
11 3 (0.55%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
11 3 (0.55%) vSphere
12 2 (0.36%) SRDF
13 1 (0.18%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 66 (12.02%) Ansible
1 66 (12.02%) Kubernetes
2 42 (7.65%) Grafana
3 39 (7.10%) Terraform
4 25 (4.55%) Prometheus
5 24 (4.37%) Oracle RMAN
6 16 (2.91%) Kibana
6 16 (2.91%) Puppet
7 15 (2.73%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 9 (1.64%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (1.46%) Data Guard
9 8 (1.46%) Progress Chef
10 7 (1.28%) NetBackup
11 6 (1.09%) Control-M
11 6 (1.09%) HAProxy
11 6 (1.09%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (1.09%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.91%) CASB
12 5 (0.91%) Nessus
12 5 (0.91%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 210 (38.25%) Oracle
2 57 (10.38%) Splunk
3 42 (7.65%) IBM
3 42 (7.65%) Microsoft
4 26 (4.74%) CyberArk
4 26 (4.74%) ServiceNow
5 25 (4.55%) BeyondTrust
6 22 (4.01%) Informatica
7 21 (3.83%) Talend
8 20 (3.64%) VMware
9 19 (3.46%) Cisco
10 16 (2.91%) Red Hat
11 15 (2.73%) Sybase
12 12 (2.19%) Denodo
13 10 (1.82%) Dynatrace
14 9 (1.64%) CheckPoint
14 9 (1.64%) F5
14 9 (1.64%) Fujitsu
15 8 (1.46%) Remedy
15 8 (1.46%) Veritas