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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 184 117
Rank change year-on-year -37 -67 -21
Contract jobs citing Unix 639 527 778
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.20% 1.60% 2.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.38% 12.07% 14.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 393 350 519
10th Percentile £330 £350 £330
25th Percentile £413 £411 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% -1.38% -7.82%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £698 £694 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -2.63% +5.56% -15.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 7
10th Percentile £21.50 £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% -58.49%
75th Percentile £54.25 £55.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £55.35 £62.50 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +15.26% -26.00%

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 5,161 4,367 5,453
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 13.26% 14.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,265 2,793 3,610
10th Percentile £193 £200 £200
25th Percentile £320 £313 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £450 £473
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.91% +5.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 259 334
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.50 £12.44
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £25.92 £24.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -12.73% -31.80%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.15 £67.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £22.56 £45.00
% change year-on-year +18.17% -49.87% +63.64%

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 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 11 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 11 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 -36 531 £487 -1.04% 207
UK excluding London -35 367 £463 -2.63% 101
London -81 196 £550 +10.00% 132
Work from Home -21 179 £500 +5.26% 79
North of England -19 122 £481 +2.18% 23
South East -30 108 £425 -5.56% 28
North West +10 93 £481 +7.49% 16
Midlands -2 88 £461 -2.89% 11
West Midlands -3 80 £460 -4.17% 10
Scotland -54 39 £304 -37.64% 10
Yorkshire -45 22 £500 -4.76% 6
East of England -22 10 £700 +40.00% 6
North East - 10 £480 - 1
East Midlands -8 7 £463 +23.33% 1
South West -40 7 £575 -4.17% 19
Wales -7 6 £383 +35.40% 2
Northern Ireland -1 1 - - 4

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 (5.32%) Confluence
2 31 (4.85%) SAS
3 17 (2.66%) Apache Airflow
4 13 (2.03%) Apache
4 13 (2.03%) Apache Spark
5 8 (1.25%) SharePoint
5 8 (1.25%) WebLogic
6 7 (1.10%) NetWeaver
7 6 (0.94%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.94%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.78%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.63%) CICS
9 4 (0.63%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
10 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.31%) CMS
11 2 (0.31%) IIS
11 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 12 (1.88%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.10%) 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 4 (0.63%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.63%) Summit
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.31%) 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
1 129 (20.19%) AWS
2 83 (12.99%) Azure
3 40 (6.26%) GitHub
4 30 (4.69%) GCP
5 26 (4.07%) AWS Lambda
6 25 (3.91%) GitHub Actions
6 25 (3.91%) IaaS
7 24 (3.76%) Serverless
8 22 (3.44%) Amazon S3
8 22 (3.44%) Entra ID
9 18 (2.82%) PaaS
10 17 (2.66%) SaaS
11 15 (2.35%) Power Platform
12 14 (2.19%) OpenShift
13 13 (2.03%) Snowflake
14 12 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
15 9 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
15 9 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
15 9 (1.41%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (1.25%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.01%) Firewall
2 31 (4.85%) DNS
3 25 (3.91%) SAN
3 25 (3.91%) TCP/IP
4 15 (2.35%) HTTP
5 14 (2.19%) SSL
6 13 (2.03%) NAS
7 11 (1.72%) DHCP
8 10 (1.56%) SSH
9 9 (1.41%) Network Security
9 9 (1.41%) VPN
10 8 (1.25%) WAN
11 7 (1.10%) LAN
11 7 (1.10%) LTE
11 7 (1.10%) PuTTY
11 7 (1.10%) WinSCP
11 7 (1.10%) Wireshark
12 6 (0.94%) 5G
12 6 (0.94%) Diameter Protocol
12 6 (0.94%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (10.95%) SQL Server
2 51 (7.98%) Oracle Database
3 42 (6.57%) Relational Database
4 39 (6.10%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (5.16%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (4.38%) MySQL
7 26 (4.07%) MongoDB
8 20 (3.13%) Db2
9 19 (2.97%) Metadata
10 16 (2.50%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.50%) DataStage
10 16 (2.50%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.35%) NoSQL
11 15 (2.35%) Oracle Database 12c
11 15 (2.35%) Power BI
12 14 (2.19%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.19%) Oracle Reports
12 14 (2.19%) RDBMS
12 14 (2.19%) Sybase ASE
13 12 (1.88%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 68 (10.64%) Jenkins
2 59 (9.23%) Git
3 57 (8.92%) JIRA
4 51 (7.98%) GitLab
5 23 (3.60%) Artifactory
6 14 (2.19%) Mockito
7 12 (1.88%) Bitbucket
8 11 (1.72%) Sonatype Nexus
9 10 (1.56%) Maven
10 9 (1.41%) Oracle Forms
11 6 (0.94%) JUnit
11 6 (0.94%) SonarQube
12 4 (0.63%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.63%) Gradle
12 4 (0.63%) JDeveloper
12 4 (0.63%) Selenium
13 3 (0.47%) Android Studio
13 3 (0.47%) Eclipse
13 3 (0.47%) Introscope
13 3 (0.47%) Xcode
General
1 152 (23.79%) Finance
2 142 (22.22%) Social Skills
3 96 (15.02%) Banking
4 87 (13.62%) Analytical Skills
5 53 (8.29%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.69%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.44%) Front Office
8 21 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.88%) Retail
10 11 (1.72%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (0.94%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.78%) Advertising
13 5 (0.78%) Military
14 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.31%) Corporate Banking
15 2 (0.31%) Local Government
15 2 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.31%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 126 (19.72%) Developer
2 89 (13.93%) Senior
3 70 (10.95%) Data Engineer
4 64 (10.02%) Unix Engineer
5 46 (7.20%) Java Developer
6 43 (6.73%) Senior Developer
7 41 (6.42%) DBA
7 41 (6.42%) Support Engineer
8 36 (5.63%) Analyst
9 29 (4.54%) Oracle DBA
10 27 (4.23%) Python Developer
11 25 (3.91%) Consultant
12 23 (3.60%) Linux Engineer
13 22 (3.44%) Administrator
14 21 (3.29%) Architect
15 18 (2.82%) Senior Java Developer
16 17 (2.66%) Applications Support
17 13 (2.03%) Technical Engineer
17 13 (2.03%) Technical Support
17 13 (2.03%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (9.39%) Kafka
2 44 (6.89%) REST
3 36 (5.63%) Middleware
4 34 (5.32%) RESTful
5 29 (4.54%) Spring
6 26 (4.07%) Spring Boot
7 22 (3.44%) XML
8 17 (2.66%) CSS
8 17 (2.66%) Web Services
9 15 (2.35%) ActiveMQ
9 15 (2.35%) LDAP
9 15 (2.35%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 15 (2.35%) Pandas
9 15 (2.35%) SOAP
10 14 (2.19%) .NET
10 14 (2.19%) JAX-RS
11 13 (2.03%) FastAPI
11 13 (2.03%) Flask
11 13 (2.03%) JDBC
11 13 (2.03%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.73%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.95%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.63%) Legacy Systems
4 35 (5.48%) Data Centre
5 26 (4.07%) Distributed Systems
6 25 (3.91%) Cloud Native
7 21 (3.29%) Fixed Income
7 21 (3.29%) Management Information System
8 20 (3.13%) Replication
9 18 (2.82%) Derivative
10 16 (2.50%) Clustering
11 15 (2.35%) Mainframe
12 12 (1.88%) PKI
12 12 (1.88%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
13 11 (1.72%) Market Risk
14 10 (1.56%) Data Structures
14 10 (1.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 9 (1.41%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 418 (65.41%) Linux
2 156 (24.41%) Windows
3 68 (10.64%) Solaris
4 39 (6.10%) Windows Server
5 38 (5.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 33 (5.16%) AIX
7 10 (1.56%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.25%) HPUX
9 7 (1.10%) Mac OS X
9 7 (1.10%) SUSE
10 5 (0.78%) CentOS
10 5 (0.78%) VMS
11 3 (0.47%) Android
11 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
11 3 (0.47%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.47%) OpenVMS
12 2 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.31%) zOS
13 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (21.60%) CI/CD
2 119 (18.62%) Agile
3 111 (17.37%) Problem-Solving
4 106 (16.59%) Migration
5 88 (13.77%) ITIL
6 87 (13.62%) DevOps
7 86 (13.46%) Test Automation
8 84 (13.15%) High Availability
9 76 (11.89%) Root Cause Analysis
10 64 (10.02%) Performance Tuning
11 58 (9.08%) Data Modelling
12 55 (8.61%) Disaster Recovery
13 54 (8.45%) ETL
14 53 (8.29%) Data Pipeline
15 51 (7.98%) Microservices
16 49 (7.67%) Analytics
16 49 (7.67%) Runbook
17 46 (7.20%) Infrastructure as Code
18 45 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
18 45 (7.04%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 239 (37.40%) SQL
2 231 (36.15%) Python
3 123 (19.25%) Shell Script
4 121 (18.94%) Java
5 87 (13.62%) PL/SQL
6 54 (8.45%) Bash
7 49 (7.67%) PowerShell
8 44 (6.89%) Perl
9 34 (5.32%) JavaScript
10 28 (4.38%) C#
11 21 (3.29%) C++
12 16 (2.50%) Korn
13 15 (2.35%) C
14 7 (1.10%) Go
15 6 (0.94%) ABAP
15 6 (0.94%) COBOL
15 6 (0.94%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.94%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.94%) Scala
16 5 (0.78%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 227 (35.52%) Security Cleared
2 193 (30.20%) SC Cleared
3 57 (8.92%) Degree
4 29 (4.54%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (3.13%) CISSP
6 14 (2.19%) DV Cleared
7 13 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
9 10 (1.56%) CISM
10 8 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.10%) CRISC
12 6 (0.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 6 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
12 6 (0.94%) GIAC
12 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.78%) MCSA
13 5 (0.78%) MCSE
13 5 (0.78%) RHCE
13 5 (0.78%) SANS
14 4 (0.63%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.63%) NIST
2 35 (5.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (3.91%) Data Quality
4 24 (3.76%) QA
5 15 (2.35%) SLA
6 12 (1.88%) GDPR
7 7 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.94%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.94%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.78%) GRC
10 4 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.63%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.47%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.47%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.31%) NCSC
13 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
13 1 (0.16%) SEPA
13 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 55 (8.61%) Docker
2 45 (7.04%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.23%) Oracle RAC
4 23 (3.60%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (2.66%) NFS
6 8 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.10%) Firmware
7 7 (1.10%) PowerHA
8 6 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.78%) GPFS
9 5 (0.78%) Postfix
9 5 (0.78%) Varnish
9 5 (0.78%) vSphere
10 4 (0.63%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.47%) GridGain
11 3 (0.47%) HDFS
11 3 (0.47%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.47%) KVM
11 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.47%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 67 (10.49%) Kubernetes
2 60 (9.39%) Ansible
3 39 (6.10%) Terraform
4 37 (5.79%) Oracle RMAN
5 32 (5.01%) Grafana
6 20 (3.13%) Data Guard
6 20 (3.13%) Prometheus
7 17 (2.66%) Progress Chef
8 16 (2.50%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 15 (2.35%) Puppet
10 14 (2.19%) Control-M
11 10 (1.56%) Kibana
11 10 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (1.10%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.94%) Nessus
13 6 (0.94%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.78%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.78%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.78%) Salt
Vendors
1 241 (37.72%) Oracle
2 54 (8.45%) IBM
3 48 (7.51%) Splunk
4 44 (6.89%) Microsoft
5 40 (6.26%) BeyondTrust
6 35 (5.48%) CyberArk
7 33 (5.16%) Informatica
8 29 (4.54%) Talend
9 28 (4.38%) Sybase
9 28 (4.38%) VMware
10 26 (4.07%) Red Hat
10 26 (4.07%) ServiceNow
11 21 (3.29%) Denodo
11 21 (3.29%) SAP
12 16 (2.50%) Cisco
13 14 (2.19%) Dynatrace
14 12 (1.88%) HP
15 11 (1.72%) BT
16 10 (1.56%) F5
16 10 (1.56%) Solace