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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 188 126 110
Rank change year-on-year -62 -16 -27
Contract jobs citing Unix 582 664 894
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 2.08% 2.10%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.33% 14.84% 14.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 394 385 640
10th Percentile £204 £350 £362
25th Percentile £386 £423 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £527 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.87% -4.18% -
75th Percentile £600 £675 £668
90th Percentile £738 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £446 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -6.11% -5.00% -7.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 7 10
10th Percentile £26.28 £38.70 £21.88
25th Percentile £26.31 £40.50 £24.31
Median hourly rate £27.75 £41.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year -32.32% -27.11% -13.13%
75th Percentile £29.31 £59.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £29.43 £69.50 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £47.00 £61.50
% change year-on-year - -23.58% +11.82%

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 4,722 4,475 6,278
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.70% 14.05% 14.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,133 2,795 4,270
10th Percentile £172 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £294
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £670 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -3.53% -1.16% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 332 167 314
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.78 £21.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £32.25
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% +5.43% +29.00%
75th Percentile £60.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.40 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £31.08 £27.25
% change year-on-year -19.56% +14.06% +21.11%

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 16 January 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
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 16 January 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 -49 483 £475 -13.64% 112
UK excluding London -45 303 £446 -6.11% 89
London -26 224 £565 -5.83% 39
Work from Home -77 159 £454 -9.20% 71
North of England -16 85 £466 -31.04% 15
South East -15 81 £208 -52.20% 31
Midlands -37 71 £483 -3.37% 12
West Midlands -28 66 £483 -8.59% 7
Scotland -18 54 £425 -5.56% 6
North West +5 48 £463 -26.00% 10
Yorkshire -42 35 £495 -29.29% 3
South West -27 10 £700 +33.33% 11
East Midlands -27 5 £437 +23.80% 5
North East -12 4 £500 -9.09% 2
East of England -29 3 £500 +25.00% 12
Wales -2 1 £265 +64.60% 4
Northern Ireland -8 1 - - 1

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 42 (7.22%) Apache
2 40 (6.87%) WebLogic
3 25 (4.30%) Confluence
4 19 (3.26%) SharePoint
5 18 (3.09%) JBoss
6 10 (1.72%) Tomcat
7 9 (1.55%) IIS
7 9 (1.55%) Tuxedo
7 9 (1.55%) WebSphere
8 8 (1.37%) iPlanet
8 8 (1.37%) WebSphere Application Server
9 6 (1.03%) Apache Spark
9 6 (1.03%) nginx
10 5 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.86%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.86%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.69%) SAS
12 2 (0.34%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.34%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
Applications
1 18 (3.09%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.17%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.37%) Oracle EBS
1 8 (1.37%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.86%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.52%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.52%) Kondor
4 3 (0.52%) Oracle Assets
4 3 (0.52%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.34%) SAP IBP
6 1 (0.17%) Finacle
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 155 (26.63%) AWS
2 105 (18.04%) Azure
3 33 (5.67%) GCP
4 28 (4.81%) GitHub
5 24 (4.12%) SaaS
6 23 (3.95%) AWS CloudFormation
7 19 (3.26%) Azure Monitor
8 18 (3.09%) OpenShift
8 18 (3.09%) Sauce Labs
9 16 (2.75%) Amazon EC2
10 15 (2.58%) Amazon S3
11 12 (2.06%) Serverless
12 11 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 11 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (1.89%) Cloud Computing
13 10 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 9 (1.55%) OCI
15 8 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
15 8 (1.37%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 31 (5.33%) Firewall
2 26 (4.47%) HTTP
3 25 (4.30%) TCP/IP
4 23 (3.95%) DNS
5 19 (3.26%) Wireless
6 16 (2.75%) SSH
7 13 (2.23%) SSL
8 11 (1.89%) Network Security
9 10 (1.72%) Kerberos
10 8 (1.37%) SAN
11 6 (1.03%) DHCP
12 5 (0.86%) FTP
13 4 (0.69%) FIX Connectivity
13 4 (0.69%) Wireshark
14 3 (0.52%) Broadband
14 3 (0.52%) GPRS
14 3 (0.52%) InfiniBand
14 3 (0.52%) NAS
14 3 (0.52%) Unified Communications
14 3 (0.52%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (9.45%) Relational Database
2 54 (9.28%) MySQL
3 52 (8.93%) MongoDB
4 40 (6.87%) Oracle Database
5 29 (4.98%) NoSQL
6 25 (4.30%) PostgreSQL
7 24 (4.12%) Elasticsearch
8 18 (3.09%) SQL Server
9 15 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
10 11 (1.89%) Amazon RDS
10 11 (1.89%) Data Lake
10 11 (1.89%) KDB
10 11 (1.89%) Kdb+
11 10 (1.72%) Amazon Redshift
12 9 (1.55%) Big Data
13 8 (1.37%) RDBMS
14 6 (1.03%) Couchbase
14 6 (1.03%) Hadoop
15 5 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
15 5 (0.86%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 60 (10.31%) Jenkins
2 51 (8.76%) Git
3 37 (6.36%) JIRA
4 30 (5.15%) GitLab
5 27 (4.64%) Eclipse
6 22 (3.78%) JUnit
7 20 (3.44%) Mockito
7 20 (3.44%) Xcode
8 19 (3.26%) Browser DevTools
9 18 (3.09%) Android Studio
10 15 (2.58%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (2.23%) Selenium
12 11 (1.89%) Bitbucket
13 10 (1.72%) Maven
14 9 (1.55%) IntelliJ
15 8 (1.37%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (1.37%) CA Release Automation
15 8 (1.37%) MSI
16 6 (1.03%) Gradle
16 6 (1.03%) SoapUI
General
1 180 (30.93%) Social Skills
2 150 (25.77%) Finance
3 70 (12.03%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (9.11%) Banking
5 38 (6.53%) Public Sector
6 26 (4.47%) Front Office
7 14 (2.41%) Financial Institution
8 13 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
8 13 (2.23%) Investment Banking
9 11 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (1.20%) Legal
10 7 (1.20%) Military
11 5 (0.86%) Law
12 3 (0.52%) Billing
12 3 (0.52%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.52%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.34%) Back Office
13 2 (0.34%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 107 (18.38%) Developer
2 102 (17.53%) Senior
3 46 (7.90%) Technical Support
4 45 (7.73%) Java Developer
5 42 (7.22%) Analyst
6 34 (5.84%) DevOps Engineer
7 33 (5.67%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 32 (5.50%) Unix Engineer
9 31 (5.33%) Support Engineer
10 28 (4.81%) Linux Engineer
11 27 (4.64%) Site Engineer
12 26 (4.47%) Senior Developer
12 26 (4.47%) Technical Engineer
13 24 (4.12%) Software Engineer
13 24 (4.12%) Technical Support Engineer
14 22 (3.78%) Consultant
14 22 (3.78%) Kafka Engineer
15 20 (3.44%) C++ Software Engineer
15 20 (3.44%) Platform Engineer
15 20 (3.44%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (14.09%) Kafka
2 38 (6.53%) React
3 37 (6.36%) REST
4 34 (5.84%) SOAP
5 28 (4.81%) AngularJS
6 27 (4.64%) CSS
7 24 (4.12%) XML
8 23 (3.95%) Middleware
9 20 (3.44%) HTML
10 19 (3.26%) ActiveMQ
10 19 (3.26%) Ajax
10 19 (3.26%) GraphQL
10 19 (3.26%) JSON
11 18 (3.09%) JAX-RS
11 18 (3.09%) Spring
12 15 (2.58%) Elastic Stack
13 14 (2.41%) Hibernate
14 12 (2.06%) HTML5
14 12 (2.06%) J2EE
15 11 (1.89%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.67%) Management Information System
2 21 (3.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 21 (3.61%) Mobile App
3 20 (3.44%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.92%) Cloud Native
5 14 (2.41%) Linux Command Line
6 13 (2.23%) Algorithms
6 13 (2.23%) Data Centre
7 12 (2.06%) Tandem
8 11 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
8 11 (1.89%) Fixed Income
8 11 (1.89%) Replication
8 11 (1.89%) Security Posture
9 10 (1.72%) Equities
10 9 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
11 8 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
11 8 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
11 8 (1.37%) Legacy Applications
11 8 (1.37%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 399 (68.56%) Linux
2 194 (33.33%) Windows
3 28 (4.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (3.95%) Mac OS X
5 20 (3.44%) Android
5 20 (3.44%) Solaris
6 17 (2.92%) Windows Server
7 13 (2.23%) Mac OS
8 12 (2.06%) CentOS
9 5 (0.86%) AIX
10 4 (0.69%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.34%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.34%) VMS
11 2 (0.34%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.34%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (27.66%) Agile
2 113 (19.42%) Problem-Solving
3 110 (18.90%) DevOps
4 104 (17.87%) CI/CD
5 74 (12.71%) Incident Response
6 67 (11.51%) Observability
6 67 (11.51%) OO
7 61 (10.48%) Computer Science
7 61 (10.48%) Microservices
8 56 (9.62%) Continuous Improvement
8 56 (9.62%) Software Engineering
9 55 (9.45%) Infrastructure as Code
10 53 (9.11%) Containerisation
11 52 (8.93%) Test Automation
12 49 (8.42%) Analytics
13 47 (8.08%) Migration
13 47 (8.08%) TDD
14 46 (7.90%) Incident Management
15 44 (7.56%) Change Management
15 44 (7.56%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 235 (40.38%) Python
2 221 (37.97%) SQL
3 154 (26.46%) Java
4 96 (16.49%) Shell Script
5 93 (15.98%) Perl
6 77 (13.23%) Bash
7 57 (9.79%) JavaScript
8 47 (8.08%) C++
9 41 (7.04%) PowerShell
10 30 (5.15%) C#
11 26 (4.47%) PL/SQL
12 15 (2.58%) Go
13 12 (2.06%) Scala
14 11 (1.89%) Korn
15 10 (1.72%) Groovy
16 9 (1.55%) PHP
16 9 (1.55%) Search Processing Language
17 8 (1.37%) TypeScript
18 4 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.69%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 115 (19.76%) Security Cleared
2 88 (15.12%) Degree
3 80 (13.75%) SC Cleared
4 51 (8.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (3.95%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (1.89%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.72%) AWS Certification
7 10 (1.72%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 6 (1.03%) OSCP
9 5 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (0.86%) CISSP
9 5 (0.86%) GPEN
9 5 (0.86%) GWAPT
9 5 (0.86%) ISTQB
9 5 (0.86%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 4 (0.69%) MCP
10 4 (0.69%) RHCE
10 4 (0.69%) Server+ Certification
11 3 (0.52%) CCIE
11 3 (0.52%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.26%) SLA
2 14 (2.41%) QA
3 9 (1.55%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.86%) NCSC
5 4 (0.69%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.69%) SOC 2
6 3 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.52%) NIST
6 3 (0.52%) SEPA
7 2 (0.34%) GMP
7 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.17%) GDPR
8 1 (0.17%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.17%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 91 (15.64%) Docker
2 16 (2.75%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.37%) Tivoli Directory Server
3 8 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.03%) KVM
5 5 (0.86%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.52%) GPFS
6 3 (0.52%) NFS
6 3 (0.52%) QEMU
7 2 (0.34%) GridGain
7 2 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.17%) Ceph
8 1 (0.17%) iptables
8 1 (0.17%) Lustre
8 1 (0.17%) RACF
8 1 (0.17%) Samba
8 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.17%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 83 (14.26%) Kubernetes
2 73 (12.54%) Ansible
3 71 (12.20%) Terraform
4 35 (6.01%) Grafana
5 30 (5.15%) Puppet
6 21 (3.61%) Prometheus
7 14 (2.41%) Kibana
7 14 (2.41%) Progress Chef
8 10 (1.72%) Red Hat Satellite
9 9 (1.55%) Tivoli
10 8 (1.37%) CA Single Sign-On
10 8 (1.37%) CA Wily
11 7 (1.20%) SCCM
11 7 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (1.03%) ITRS Geneos
12 6 (1.03%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.86%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (0.86%) Packer
14 4 (0.69%) Nagios
14 4 (0.69%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 179 (30.76%) Oracle
2 107 (18.38%) Splunk
3 78 (13.40%) Microsoft
4 39 (6.70%) IBM
5 35 (6.01%) ServiceNow
6 29 (4.98%) AppDynamics
7 26 (4.47%) Red Hat
8 24 (4.12%) Cisco
8 24 (4.12%) Dynatrace
9 16 (2.75%) VMware
10 11 (1.89%) CyberArk
10 11 (1.89%) F5
11 9 (1.55%) webMethods
12 8 (1.37%) Broadcom
12 8 (1.37%) Confluent
12 8 (1.37%) CrowdStrike
12 8 (1.37%) MuleSoft
13 7 (1.20%) BeyondTrust
13 7 (1.20%) Dell
14 6 (1.03%) Ab Initio