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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 176 128
Rank change year-on-year -45 -48 -37
Contract jobs citing Unix 641 520 777
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.21% 1.59% 1.90%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.61% 11.82% 13.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 385 336 512
10th Percentile £330 £356 £326
25th Percentile £413 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £506
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -6.13% -8.00%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £470 £450
% change year-on-year -2.13% +4.33% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 6 13
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 £22.12
25th Percentile £31.86 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -57.65%
75th Percentile £53.75 £55.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £55.00 £62.50 £67.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £54.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.17% +36.88% -35.77%

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 5,082 4,401 5,693
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.63% 13.47% 13.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,223 2,842 3,754
10th Percentile £193 £200 £190
25th Percentile £319 £313 £324
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.08% -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% +2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 342 247 393
10th Percentile £15.76 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.94 £18.10 £16.32
Median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -4.88% -43.11%
75th Percentile £63.75 £54.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.20 £67.40 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.47 £21.59 £31.13
% change year-on-year +22.60% -30.63% -0.40%

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 24 July 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 24 July 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 24 July 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 -28 536 £491 +3.42% 96
UK excluding London -44 371 £460 -2.13% 73
London -82 194 £569 +13.88% 54
Work from Home -15 184 £500 +11.11% 50
North of England -10 127 £480 +6.67% 20
South East -16 111 £425 -10.53% 18
North West +6 97 £475 +6.26% 16
Midlands +11 87 £459 +2.00% 9
West Midlands -2 79 £459 -0.22% 9
Scotland -53 37 £425 -12.82% 10
Yorkshire -47 24 £500 -4.76% 2
East of England -24 10 £700 +55.56% 2
North East -27 9 £490 +30.73% 2
East Midlands -9 7 £463 +23.33%
Wales -11 6 £383 +35.40% 6
South West -48 6 £600 - 5
Northern Ireland -2 1 - - 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 36 (5.62%) Confluence
2 32 (4.99%) SAS
3 15 (2.34%) Apache
3 15 (2.34%) Apache Airflow
3 15 (2.34%) Apache Spark
4 10 (1.56%) CICS
5 9 (1.40%) WebLogic
6 7 (1.09%) NetWeaver
6 7 (1.09%) SharePoint
6 7 (1.09%) Tuxedo
7 6 (0.94%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.62%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.62%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
10 3 (0.47%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.31%) IIS
11 2 (0.31%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 13 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.09%) Notepad++
3 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.94%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.94%) SAP PSCD
3 5 (0.78%) Summit
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Assets
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle E-Business Tax
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle FAH
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Internet Expenses
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
5 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 119 (18.56%) AWS
2 79 (12.32%) Azure
3 34 (5.30%) GitHub
4 27 (4.21%) GCP
5 25 (3.90%) AWS Lambda
6 24 (3.74%) Entra ID
6 24 (3.74%) Serverless
7 22 (3.43%) GitHub Actions
8 21 (3.28%) Amazon S3
9 18 (2.81%) IaaS
9 18 (2.81%) PaaS
10 16 (2.50%) SaaS
11 15 (2.34%) OpenShift
12 14 (2.18%) Power Platform
13 12 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (1.72%) Snowflake
15 9 (1.40%) Amazon EC2
16 8 (1.25%) Amazon ECS
16 8 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
17 7 (1.09%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 35 (5.46%) Firewall
2 27 (4.21%) DNS
3 24 (3.74%) SAN
4 20 (3.12%) TCP/IP
5 14 (2.18%) HTTP
5 14 (2.18%) NAS
6 13 (2.03%) SSH
7 11 (1.72%) SSL
8 9 (1.40%) DHCP
8 9 (1.40%) Network Security
9 8 (1.25%) VPN
9 8 (1.25%) Wireshark
10 7 (1.09%) 5G
10 7 (1.09%) FTP
10 7 (1.09%) PuTTY
10 7 (1.09%) WAN
10 7 (1.09%) WinSCP
10 7 (1.09%) Wireless
11 6 (0.94%) Ethernet VPN
11 6 (0.94%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (11.54%) SQL Server
2 54 (8.42%) Oracle Database
3 44 (6.86%) Relational Database
4 35 (5.46%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (4.99%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (4.99%) MongoDB
6 31 (4.84%) MySQL
7 24 (3.74%) Db2
8 22 (3.43%) DataStage
9 19 (2.96%) Metadata
10 16 (2.50%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.50%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.34%) KDB
11 15 (2.34%) Oracle Database 12c
12 14 (2.18%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.18%) NoSQL
12 14 (2.18%) Oracle Reports
12 14 (2.18%) Power BI
12 14 (2.18%) Sybase ASE
13 13 (2.03%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 59 (9.20%) JIRA
2 56 (8.74%) Jenkins
3 51 (7.96%) Git
4 45 (7.02%) GitLab
5 23 (3.59%) Artifactory
6 17 (2.65%) Mockito
7 12 (1.87%) Bitbucket
8 10 (1.56%) Maven
8 10 (1.56%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (1.40%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.94%) JUnit
11 4 (0.62%) CA Gen
11 4 (0.62%) JDeveloper
11 4 (0.62%) Selenium
11 4 (0.62%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.47%) Android Studio
12 3 (0.47%) Browser DevTools
12 3 (0.47%) Eclipse
12 3 (0.47%) Gradle
12 3 (0.47%) MSI
General
1 160 (24.96%) Finance
2 145 (22.62%) Social Skills
3 95 (14.82%) Banking
4 83 (12.95%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (10.30%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.37%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
8 18 (2.81%) Front Office
9 13 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
10 12 (1.87%) Retail
11 11 (1.72%) Telecoms
12 9 (1.40%) Financial Institution
12 9 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (0.94%) Advertising
13 6 (0.94%) Military
14 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.31%) Billing
15 2 (0.31%) Law
15 2 (0.31%) Local Government
15 2 (0.31%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 131 (20.44%) Developer
2 91 (14.20%) Senior
3 67 (10.45%) Data Engineer
4 60 (9.36%) Unix Engineer
5 51 (7.96%) Java Developer
6 44 (6.86%) Senior Developer
7 41 (6.40%) DBA
7 41 (6.40%) Support Engineer
8 36 (5.62%) Analyst
9 29 (4.52%) Oracle DBA
10 26 (4.06%) Consultant
10 26 (4.06%) Python Developer
11 22 (3.43%) Administrator
11 22 (3.43%) Architect
11 22 (3.43%) Senior Java Developer
12 18 (2.81%) Linux Engineer
13 17 (2.65%) Applications Support
14 15 (2.34%) Technical Support
15 14 (2.18%) Technical Engineer
16 13 (2.03%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (9.05%) Kafka
2 46 (7.18%) REST
3 40 (6.24%) Middleware
4 31 (4.84%) RESTful
5 27 (4.21%) Spring
6 25 (3.90%) Spring Boot
7 24 (3.74%) XML
8 17 (2.65%) ActiveMQ
8 17 (2.65%) CSS
8 17 (2.65%) JAX-RS
9 16 (2.50%) Web Services
10 15 (2.34%) LDAP
10 15 (2.34%) Oracle GoldenGate
11 14 (2.18%) Pandas
11 14 (2.18%) SOAP
12 13 (2.03%) RabbitMQ
13 12 (1.87%) FastAPI
13 12 (1.87%) Flask
13 12 (1.87%) JSON
14 11 (1.72%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 44 (6.86%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.93%) Linux Command Line
3 37 (5.77%) Data Centre
4 36 (5.62%) Legacy Systems
5 23 (3.59%) Cloud Native
5 23 (3.59%) Management Information System
6 21 (3.28%) Distributed Systems
6 21 (3.28%) Mainframe
6 21 (3.28%) Replication
7 20 (3.12%) Fixed Income
8 17 (2.65%) Derivative
9 14 (2.18%) Clustering
10 11 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 11 (1.72%) Market Risk
10 11 (1.72%) PKI
11 10 (1.56%) BYOD
11 10 (1.56%) VSAM
12 9 (1.40%) Public Cloud
12 9 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.40%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 426 (66.46%) Linux
2 161 (25.12%) Windows
3 71 (11.08%) Solaris
4 44 (6.86%) Windows Server
5 39 (6.08%) AIX
6 30 (4.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (2.18%) Mac OS X
8 10 (1.56%) Oracle Linux
9 8 (1.25%) HPUX
10 7 (1.09%) SUSE
11 5 (0.78%) CentOS
11 5 (0.78%) VMS
12 3 (0.47%) Android
12 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.47%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.47%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.31%) zOS
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (19.97%) Agile
2 127 (19.81%) CI/CD
3 112 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
4 102 (15.91%) Migration
5 89 (13.88%) ITIL
6 81 (12.64%) DevOps
7 80 (12.48%) High Availability
8 77 (12.01%) Root Cause Analysis
8 77 (12.01%) Test Automation
9 65 (10.14%) Performance Tuning
10 58 (9.05%) Data Modelling
11 57 (8.89%) Microservices
12 55 (8.58%) ETL
13 54 (8.42%) Disaster Recovery
14 52 (8.11%) Runbook
15 50 (7.80%) Analytics
16 49 (7.64%) Data Pipeline
17 45 (7.02%) Change Management
17 45 (7.02%) Incident Management
18 43 (6.71%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 239 (37.29%) SQL
2 217 (33.85%) Python
3 128 (19.97%) Shell Script
4 125 (19.50%) Java
5 90 (14.04%) PL/SQL
6 54 (8.42%) PowerShell
7 48 (7.49%) Bash
8 36 (5.62%) Perl
9 33 (5.15%) JavaScript
10 25 (3.90%) C#
11 17 (2.65%) Korn
12 16 (2.50%) C++
13 12 (1.87%) COBOL
14 8 (1.25%) C
14 8 (1.25%) Scala
15 6 (0.94%) ABAP
15 6 (0.94%) Kotlin
16 5 (0.78%) Go
16 5 (0.78%) ProC
16 5 (0.78%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 226 (35.26%) Security Cleared
2 191 (29.80%) SC Cleared
3 61 (9.52%) Degree
4 34 (5.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.96%) CISSP
6 13 (2.03%) DV Cleared
7 11 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
7 11 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.40%) CISM
9 8 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.09%) CRISC
11 6 (0.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.94%) GIAC
11 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
12 5 (0.78%) MCSA
12 5 (0.78%) MCSE
12 5 (0.78%) RHCE
12 5 (0.78%) SANS
13 4 (0.62%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (5.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 38 (5.93%) NIST
2 24 (3.74%) Data Quality
3 21 (3.28%) QA
4 15 (2.34%) SLA
5 8 (1.25%) GDPR
6 7 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (0.94%) ISO 20022
7 6 (0.94%) ISO 31000
8 5 (0.78%) GRC
9 4 (0.62%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.62%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
10 3 (0.47%) FATCA
10 3 (0.47%) ISO 15022
11 2 (0.31%) NCSC
12 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
12 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
12 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 52 (8.11%) Docker
2 47 (7.33%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.21%) Oracle RAC
4 21 (3.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 18 (2.81%) NFS
6 11 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.94%) Firmware
7 6 (0.94%) GPFS
7 6 (0.94%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.94%) KVM
7 6 (0.94%) PowerHA
7 6 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.78%) Postfix
8 5 (0.78%) Varnish
8 5 (0.78%) vSphere
9 4 (0.62%) HDFS
9 4 (0.62%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.47%) GridGain
10 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 2 (0.31%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 61 (9.52%) Kubernetes
2 57 (8.89%) Ansible
3 37 (5.77%) Oracle RMAN
4 35 (5.46%) Terraform
5 32 (4.99%) Grafana
6 21 (3.28%) Prometheus
7 20 (3.12%) Data Guard
8 16 (2.50%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 11 (1.72%) Control-M
10 9 (1.40%) Progress Chef
10 9 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (1.25%) Kibana
12 7 (1.09%) Puppet
13 6 (0.94%) IBM BigFix
13 6 (0.94%) Nessus
13 6 (0.94%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.94%) Tivoli
13 6 (0.94%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.94%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.78%) VxRail
Vendors
1 248 (38.69%) Oracle
2 60 (9.36%) IBM
3 45 (7.02%) Microsoft
4 44 (6.86%) Splunk
5 42 (6.55%) BeyondTrust
6 38 (5.93%) CyberArk
7 32 (4.99%) Informatica
7 32 (4.99%) Talend
8 30 (4.68%) VMware
9 29 (4.52%) Sybase
10 27 (4.21%) ServiceNow
11 21 (3.28%) Denodo
12 19 (2.96%) Red Hat
12 19 (2.96%) SAP
13 18 (2.81%) Cisco
14 13 (2.03%) Dynatrace
15 12 (1.87%) HP
16 11 (1.72%) BT
17 10 (1.56%) CheckPoint
17 10 (1.56%) Solace