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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 227 176 114
Rank change year-on-year -51 -62 -19
Contract jobs citing Unix 629 522 774
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.59% 2.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.08% 11.93% 14.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 388 346 515
10th Percentile £350 £313 £328
25th Percentile £418 £408 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £518
Median % change year-on-year - -3.38% -5.91%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £715 £705 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £475 £469
% change year-on-year -1.37% +1.33% -11.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 6 7
10th Percentile £25.96 £43.87 -
25th Percentile £43.81 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -58.96%
75th Percentile £54.50 £55.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £55.40 £62.50 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +15.26% -25.78%

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 5,205 4,377 5,414
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 13.33% 13.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,302 2,793 3,578
10th Percentile £193 £190 £200
25th Percentile £315 £308 £332
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.61% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £470
% change year-on-year - -4.26% +4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 263 329
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.51 £12.41
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.45 £17.00
Median hourly rate £26.00 £25.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -9.09% -31.25%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.85 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £24.00 £38.25
% change year-on-year +16.67% -37.25% +39.09%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 August 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 -46 519 £495 -1.00% 106
UK excluding London -60 343 £469 -1.37% 66
London -67 209 £550 +7.32% 54
Work from Home -23 174 £500 +5.26% 42
North of England -13 109 £478 -2.95% 17
South East -27 100 £459 +2.00% 18
Midlands -9 82 £467 -6.13% 7
North West +2 81 £475 +5.91% 12
West Midlands -9 74 £469 -9.28% 6
Scotland -55 41 £304 -36.00% 5
Yorkshire -38 21 £500 -23.08% 4
East of England -21 10 £700 +40.00% 3
North East - 10 £480 - 1
East Midlands -16 7 £463 +17.83% 1
South West -41 7 £613 +2.08% 17
Wales -12 5 £383 +35.40%
Northern Ireland -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 34 (5.41%) Confluence
2 29 (4.61%) SAS
3 17 (2.70%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (2.23%) SharePoint
5 13 (2.07%) Apache
6 12 (1.91%) Apache Spark
7 9 (1.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 8 (1.27%) WebLogic
9 7 (1.11%) NetWeaver
9 7 (1.11%) OpenStack
10 6 (0.95%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.79%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.64%) CICS
12 4 (0.64%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.48%) WebSphere Application Server
14 2 (0.32%) CMS
14 2 (0.32%) IIS
14 2 (0.32%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 14 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.11%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.95%) SAP PSCD
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.64%) Summit
4 3 (0.48%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.48%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 132 (20.99%) AWS
2 87 (13.83%) Azure
3 42 (6.68%) GitHub
4 35 (5.56%) GCP
5 25 (3.97%) GitHub Actions
5 25 (3.97%) IaaS
6 22 (3.50%) AWS Lambda
6 22 (3.50%) Entra ID
7 21 (3.34%) Serverless
8 20 (3.18%) Amazon S3
9 18 (2.86%) PaaS
10 17 (2.70%) SaaS
11 15 (2.38%) Power Platform
12 14 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
12 14 (2.23%) OpenShift
13 12 (1.91%) Snowflake
14 9 (1.43%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.43%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (1.43%) GitHub Copilot
15 8 (1.27%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 27 (4.29%) DNS
1 27 (4.29%) Firewall
2 22 (3.50%) SAN
2 22 (3.50%) TCP/IP
3 15 (2.38%) HTTP
4 11 (1.75%) DHCP
4 11 (1.75%) SSH
4 11 (1.75%) SSL
5 10 (1.59%) NAS
6 7 (1.11%) LAN
6 7 (1.11%) LTE
6 7 (1.11%) Network Security
6 7 (1.11%) PuTTY
6 7 (1.11%) WAN
6 7 (1.11%) WinSCP
7 6 (0.95%) Diameter Protocol
7 6 (0.95%) Internet
7 6 (0.95%) Radio Access Network
7 6 (0.95%) VoWiFi
7 6 (0.95%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (10.02%) SQL Server
2 49 (7.79%) Oracle Database
3 43 (6.84%) Relational Database
4 42 (6.68%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (5.09%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (4.45%) MySQL
7 25 (3.97%) MongoDB
8 19 (3.02%) Metadata
9 17 (2.70%) Db2
9 17 (2.70%) NoSQL
10 16 (2.54%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.54%) DataStage
10 16 (2.54%) Sybase ASE
11 15 (2.38%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.38%) Power BI
11 15 (2.38%) RDBMS
12 14 (2.23%) Amazon Aurora
13 13 (2.07%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (1.91%) Data Lake
14 12 (1.91%) KDB
Development Applications
1 71 (11.29%) Jenkins
2 63 (10.02%) Git
3 59 (9.38%) JIRA
4 49 (7.79%) GitLab
5 23 (3.66%) Artifactory
6 14 (2.23%) Bitbucket
7 12 (1.91%) Mockito
8 11 (1.75%) JUnit
8 11 (1.75%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (1.43%) Maven
9 9 (1.43%) Oracle Forms
9 9 (1.43%) Selenium
10 8 (1.27%) eggPlant
10 8 (1.27%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.79%) HP UFT
11 5 (0.79%) JMeter
11 5 (0.79%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.79%) Postman
11 5 (0.79%) SoapUI
12 4 (0.64%) JDeveloper
General
1 158 (25.12%) Finance
2 143 (22.73%) Social Skills
3 100 (15.90%) Banking
4 93 (14.79%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (7.79%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.77%) Investment Banking
7 23 (3.66%) Front Office
8 21 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.75%) Retail
9 11 (1.75%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (0.95%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.79%) Military
13 4 (0.64%) Advertising
13 4 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.48%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.32%) Billing
15 2 (0.32%) Law
15 2 (0.32%) Legal
15 2 (0.32%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 131 (20.83%) Developer
2 92 (14.63%) Senior
3 66 (10.49%) Data Engineer
4 63 (10.02%) Unix Engineer
5 48 (7.63%) Java Developer
6 46 (7.31%) Senior Developer
7 39 (6.20%) Support Engineer
8 36 (5.72%) DBA
9 32 (5.09%) Analyst
10 31 (4.93%) Python Developer
11 25 (3.97%) Consultant
11 25 (3.97%) Linux Engineer
12 24 (3.82%) Oracle DBA
13 22 (3.50%) Architect
14 21 (3.34%) Administrator
15 19 (3.02%) Senior Java Developer
16 18 (2.86%) Applications Support
17 14 (2.23%) Lead
18 12 (1.91%) Automation Engineer
18 12 (1.91%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (10.65%) Kafka
2 46 (7.31%) REST
3 41 (6.52%) Middleware
3 41 (6.52%) RESTful
4 38 (6.04%) Terraform
5 33 (5.25%) Spring
6 28 (4.45%) Spring Boot
7 27 (4.29%) XML
8 22 (3.50%) Web Services
9 21 (3.34%) .NET
10 20 (3.18%) CSS
11 19 (3.02%) HTML
11 19 (3.02%) SOAP
12 16 (2.54%) RabbitMQ
13 15 (2.38%) Flask
13 15 (2.38%) Pandas
14 13 (2.07%) ActiveMQ
14 13 (2.07%) FastAPI
14 13 (2.07%) JDBC
15 12 (1.91%) JAX-RS
Miscellaneous
1 45 (7.15%) Onboarding
2 37 (5.88%) Linux Command Line
3 35 (5.56%) Legacy Systems
4 34 (5.41%) Data Centre
5 29 (4.61%) Distributed Systems
6 25 (3.97%) Cloud Native
7 21 (3.34%) Fixed Income
7 21 (3.34%) Management Information System
8 19 (3.02%) Replication
9 18 (2.86%) Derivative
10 16 (2.54%) Clustering
11 15 (2.38%) Mainframe
12 13 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
12 13 (2.07%) Virtual Team
13 12 (1.91%) PKI
14 11 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.75%) Market Risk
15 10 (1.59%) Data Structures
15 10 (1.59%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 10 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 413 (65.66%) Linux
2 147 (23.37%) Windows
3 69 (10.97%) Solaris
4 39 (6.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 35 (5.56%) Windows Server
6 32 (5.09%) AIX
7 10 (1.59%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.27%) HPUX
9 7 (1.11%) SUSE
10 6 (0.95%) Mac OS X
11 5 (0.79%) CentOS
11 5 (0.79%) VMS
12 3 (0.48%) Android
12 3 (0.48%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.48%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.32%) zOS
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (22.73%) CI/CD
2 122 (19.40%) Agile
3 107 (17.01%) Migration
4 106 (16.85%) Problem-Solving
5 99 (15.74%) DevOps
6 97 (15.42%) Test Automation
7 83 (13.20%) High Availability
8 81 (12.88%) Root Cause Analysis
9 75 (11.92%) ITIL
10 64 (10.17%) Performance Tuning
11 62 (9.86%) Data Modelling
12 55 (8.74%) Continuous Improvement
12 55 (8.74%) ETL
13 54 (8.59%) Microservices
14 53 (8.43%) Data Pipeline
14 53 (8.43%) Disaster Recovery
14 53 (8.43%) Runbook
15 49 (7.79%) Analytics
16 47 (7.47%) Infrastructure as Code
16 47 (7.47%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 244 (38.79%) SQL
2 239 (38.00%) Python
3 132 (20.99%) Java
4 123 (19.55%) Shell Script
5 85 (13.51%) PL/SQL
6 55 (8.74%) Bash
7 48 (7.63%) PowerShell
8 45 (7.15%) Perl
9 36 (5.72%) JavaScript
10 28 (4.45%) C#
11 20 (3.18%) C++
12 15 (2.38%) C
13 13 (2.07%) Korn
14 8 (1.27%) Go
15 6 (0.95%) ABAP
15 6 (0.95%) COBOL
15 6 (0.95%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.95%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.95%) Scala
15 6 (0.95%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 223 (35.45%) Security Cleared
2 189 (30.05%) SC Cleared
3 60 (9.54%) Degree
4 29 (4.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (2.38%) CISSP
6 14 (2.23%) DV Cleared
7 13 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (1.59%) CISM
9 8 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.11%) CRISC
11 6 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.95%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.95%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (0.95%) GIAC
11 6 (0.95%) ISEB
11 6 (0.95%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.79%) RHCE
12 5 (0.79%) SANS
13 4 (0.64%) GSEC
13 4 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.56%) NIST
3 30 (4.77%) QA
4 25 (3.97%) Data Quality
5 14 (2.23%) SLA
6 12 (1.91%) GDPR
7 7 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.11%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.95%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.79%) GRC
10 4 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.48%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.48%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.32%) NCSC
12 2 (0.32%) SEPA
13 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
13 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
13 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 55 (8.74%) Docker
2 40 (6.36%) Active Directory
3 24 (3.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (3.66%) Oracle RAC
5 17 (2.70%) NFS
6 7 (1.11%) Firmware
6 7 (1.11%) PowerHA
7 6 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.79%) GPFS
8 5 (0.79%) Postfix
8 5 (0.79%) Varnish
8 5 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.79%) vSphere
9 4 (0.64%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.48%) GridGain
10 3 (0.48%) HDFS
10 3 (0.48%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.48%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.32%) SRDF
12 1 (0.16%) RACF
Systems Management
1 67 (10.65%) Kubernetes
2 59 (9.38%) Ansible
3 33 (5.25%) Grafana
4 31 (4.93%) Oracle RMAN
5 20 (3.18%) Prometheus
6 19 (3.02%) Data Guard
7 18 (2.86%) Progress Chef
8 17 (2.70%) Control-M
9 16 (2.54%) Puppet
10 12 (1.91%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 11 (1.75%) Kibana
12 10 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (1.11%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 6 (0.95%) Tivoli
15 5 (0.79%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.79%) HP Fortify
15 5 (0.79%) ITRS Geneos
15 5 (0.79%) Oracle ZFS
15 5 (0.79%) vRealize
15 5 (0.79%) VxRail
Vendors
1 243 (38.63%) Oracle
2 53 (8.43%) IBM
3 44 (7.00%) Microsoft
4 41 (6.52%) Splunk
5 40 (6.36%) BeyondTrust
6 31 (4.93%) CyberArk
6 31 (4.93%) Informatica
7 30 (4.77%) Sybase
8 29 (4.61%) VMware
9 28 (4.45%) Red Hat
10 27 (4.29%) Talend
11 26 (4.13%) SAP
12 21 (3.34%) Denodo
13 20 (3.18%) ServiceNow
14 16 (2.54%) Dynatrace
15 12 (1.91%) Cisco
15 12 (1.91%) HP
16 11 (1.75%) BT
16 11 (1.75%) Solace
17 10 (1.59%) SaltStack