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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 215 144 142
Rank change year-on-year -71 -2 -60
Contract jobs citing Unix 536 574 729
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.95% 1.67%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.38% 14.04% 12.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 334 342 483
10th Percentile £283 £363 £350
25th Percentile £400 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £565 £600 £666
90th Percentile £700 £712 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £443 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -6.84% -5.00% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 10 22
10th Percentile £21.50 £40.10 £22.01
25th Percentile £25.92 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% +31.88% -30.43%
75th Percentile £53.75 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £54.90 £66.13 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £52.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -9.88% +31.88% -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 4,711 4,087 5,896
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.21% 13.89% 13.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,067 2,724 3,966
10th Percentile £181 £200 £183
25th Percentile £310 £320 £290
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £594
90th Percentile £660 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 173 406
10th Percentile £15.62 £16.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.31
Median hourly rate £34.00 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.61% +9.91% -26.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £67.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.13 £24.18 £20.00
% change year-on-year +41.15% +20.90% -25.93%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -65 457 £472 -8.74% 94
UK excluding London -73 292 £443 -6.84% 64
London -55 191 £565 +2.73% 44
Work from Home -65 162 £471 -4.94% 34
North of England -49 88 £469 -10.67% 9
South East -12 81 £392 -19.59% 22
Midlands -22 81 £450 -4.05% 15
West Midlands -20 75 £450 -4.66% 9
North West -13 68 £474 -9.71% 5
Scotland -50 31 £395 -15.42% 6
Yorkshire -70 18 £461 -29.04% 2
East Midlands -34 6 £478 +5.18% 6
South West -37 6 £700 +27.27% 6
Wales -3 5 £265 +58.62% 1
East of England -48 3 - - 5
North East -14 2 £513 -8.89% 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 23 (4.29%) Apache
2 22 (4.10%) WebLogic
3 20 (3.73%) Apache Spark
4 17 (3.17%) SAS
5 16 (2.99%) Tuxedo
6 13 (2.43%) Confluence
7 10 (1.87%) Apache Airflow
7 10 (1.87%) CICS
8 7 (1.31%) SharePoint
9 6 (1.12%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.93%) JBoss
10 5 (0.93%) nginx
10 5 (0.93%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.75%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.75%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.75%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.56%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.56%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.56%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.37%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 12 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.31%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
1 6 (1.12%) Summit
2 4 (0.75%) Oracle 11i
2 4 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.75%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.37%) ION MarketView
3 2 (0.37%) Oracle BRM
3 2 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle CRM
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 100 (18.66%) AWS
2 70 (13.06%) Azure
3 30 (5.60%) GitHub
4 20 (3.73%) Amazon S3
4 20 (3.73%) AWS Lambda
5 19 (3.54%) Serverless
6 17 (3.17%) GCP
6 17 (3.17%) GitHub Actions
7 13 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (2.24%) Snowflake
9 11 (2.05%) OpenShift
9 11 (2.05%) SaaS
10 10 (1.87%) Azure Data Factory
10 10 (1.87%) Entra ID
10 10 (1.87%) Power Platform
11 9 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
12 8 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
13 7 (1.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 7 (1.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 6 (1.12%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 36 (6.72%) Firewall
2 20 (3.73%) DNS
3 15 (2.80%) HTTP
3 15 (2.80%) SAN
4 13 (2.43%) Network Security
4 13 (2.43%) TCP/IP
5 12 (2.24%) Wireless
6 9 (1.68%) NAS
7 8 (1.49%) InfiniBand
8 7 (1.31%) Ethernet
8 7 (1.31%) NetScaler
8 7 (1.31%) PuTTY
8 7 (1.31%) SSH
8 7 (1.31%) WinSCP
9 6 (1.12%) FTP
9 6 (1.12%) SSL
9 6 (1.12%) VPN
10 5 (0.93%) Ethernet VPN
10 5 (0.93%) RTP
11 4 (0.75%) FIX Connectivity
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (11.38%) SQL Server
2 44 (8.21%) Relational Database
3 41 (7.65%) MongoDB
4 40 (7.46%) MySQL
5 38 (7.09%) PostgreSQL
6 33 (6.16%) Oracle Database
7 23 (4.29%) Metadata
8 22 (4.10%) NoSQL
9 21 (3.92%) Big Data
9 21 (3.92%) Data Warehouse
10 18 (3.36%) KDB
10 18 (3.36%) Kdb+
11 11 (2.05%) Amazon Aurora
11 11 (2.05%) DataStage
11 11 (2.05%) Tick Data
12 10 (1.87%) BusinessObjects
12 10 (1.87%) Data Lake
12 10 (1.87%) DB2
12 10 (1.87%) Power BI
12 10 (1.87%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 52 (9.70%) Jenkins
2 44 (8.21%) Git
3 38 (7.09%) GitLab
4 30 (5.60%) JIRA
5 13 (2.43%) Mockito
6 12 (2.24%) Bitbucket
7 11 (2.05%) MSI
8 10 (1.87%) Eclipse
9 8 (1.49%) JUnit
9 8 (1.49%) Maven
9 8 (1.49%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (1.12%) Android Studio
10 6 (1.12%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (1.12%) Selenium
10 6 (1.12%) Xcode
11 5 (0.93%) Toad
12 4 (0.75%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.75%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.75%) ScriptRunner
12 4 (0.75%) SonarQube
General
1 140 (26.12%) Finance
2 122 (22.76%) Social Skills
3 73 (13.62%) Banking
4 63 (11.75%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (10.07%) Public Sector
6 24 (4.48%) Investment Banking
7 20 (3.73%) Front Office
8 16 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (1.49%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.12%) Advertising
11 6 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.75%) Military
12 4 (0.75%) Retail
13 3 (0.56%) Law
13 3 (0.56%) Legal
14 2 (0.37%) Billing
14 2 (0.37%) Local Government
14 2 (0.37%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 104 (19.40%) Developer
2 75 (13.99%) Senior
3 45 (8.40%) Data Engineer
4 44 (8.21%) Java Developer
5 43 (8.02%) Analyst
6 40 (7.46%) Unix Engineer
7 33 (6.16%) Support Engineer
8 25 (4.66%) Linux Engineer
9 24 (4.48%) Senior Developer
9 24 (4.48%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 23 (4.29%) DBA
10 23 (4.29%) Technical Support
11 21 (3.92%) Administrator
11 21 (3.92%) Site Engineer
12 20 (3.73%) Oracle DBA
13 19 (3.54%) DevOps Engineer
14 18 (3.36%) Software Engineer
15 17 (3.17%) Architect
16 16 (2.99%) Consultant
16 16 (2.99%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (10.63%) Kafka
2 31 (5.78%) REST
3 27 (5.04%) XML
4 24 (4.48%) Middleware
5 19 (3.54%) RESTful
6 18 (3.36%) Spring
7 16 (2.99%) CSS
7 16 (2.99%) SOAP
8 15 (2.80%) HTML
8 15 (2.80%) JSON
8 15 (2.80%) React
9 14 (2.61%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 13 (2.43%) Elastic Stack
10 13 (2.43%) JAX-RS
10 13 (2.43%) Spring Boot
11 12 (2.24%) ActiveMQ
12 11 (2.05%) AngularJS
13 10 (1.87%) Play Framework
14 9 (1.68%) FIX Protocol
15 8 (1.49%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 29 (5.41%) Linux Command Line
2 28 (5.22%) Onboarding
3 25 (4.66%) Management Information System
4 21 (3.92%) Cloud Native
4 21 (3.92%) Data Centre
5 18 (3.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 17 (3.17%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (2.99%) Fixed Income
8 14 (2.61%) Derivative
9 13 (2.43%) Mainframe
10 12 (2.24%) Equities
11 10 (1.87%) BYOD
11 10 (1.87%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.87%) Public Cloud
11 10 (1.87%) VSAM
12 9 (1.68%) Virtual Team
13 8 (1.49%) Clustering
13 8 (1.49%) Replication
14 7 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
14 7 (1.31%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 355 (66.23%) Linux
2 146 (27.24%) Windows
3 35 (6.53%) Solaris
4 34 (6.34%) Windows Server
5 29 (5.41%) AIX
6 23 (4.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.43%) Mac OS X
8 6 (1.12%) Android
8 6 (1.12%) Oracle Linux
9 4 (0.75%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.56%) HPUX
10 3 (0.56%) SUSE
11 2 (0.37%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.37%) VMS
12 1 (0.19%) Rocky
12 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (24.44%) Agile
2 96 (17.91%) Problem-Solving
3 90 (16.79%) CI/CD
4 82 (15.30%) DevOps
5 73 (13.62%) Migration
6 56 (10.45%) ITIL
6 56 (10.45%) Observability
7 47 (8.77%) Performance Tuning
8 46 (8.58%) Computer Science
8 46 (8.58%) Containerisation
8 46 (8.58%) High Availability
8 46 (8.58%) Software Engineering
9 45 (8.40%) Disaster Recovery
9 45 (8.40%) Microservices
9 45 (8.40%) Root Cause Analysis
10 43 (8.02%) Infrastructure as Code
11 42 (7.84%) Test Automation
12 39 (7.28%) Analytics
13 38 (7.09%) Change Management
13 38 (7.09%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 214 (39.93%) SQL
2 194 (36.19%) Python
3 130 (24.25%) Java
4 104 (19.40%) Shell Script
5 61 (11.38%) Bash
6 55 (10.26%) Perl
7 45 (8.40%) PL/SQL
7 45 (8.40%) PowerShell
8 35 (6.53%) JavaScript
9 28 (5.22%) C++
10 27 (5.04%) C#
11 24 (4.48%) Korn
12 12 (2.24%) Scala
13 10 (1.87%) COBOL
13 10 (1.87%) PHP
14 7 (1.31%) Go
15 3 (0.56%) C
15 3 (0.56%) HiveQL
15 3 (0.56%) Jython
16 2 (0.37%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 154 (28.73%) Security Cleared
2 126 (23.51%) SC Cleared
3 64 (11.94%) Degree
4 28 (5.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (4.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (1.87%) CISSP
7 8 (1.49%) CompTIA Security+
8 6 (1.12%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.93%) MCSA
9 5 (0.93%) MCSE
10 4 (0.75%) RHCE
11 3 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.37%) CISM
12 2 (0.37%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.37%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.19%) CREST Certified
13 1 (0.19%) GPEN
13 1 (0.19%) GWAPT
13 1 (0.19%) GXPN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 19 (3.54%) NIST
3 18 (3.36%) SLA
4 16 (2.99%) QA
5 11 (2.05%) Data Quality
6 4 (0.75%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.56%) FATCA
7 3 (0.56%) GRC
8 2 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.37%) GDPR
8 2 (0.37%) GMP
8 2 (0.37%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.37%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.37%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.37%) SEPA
9 1 (0.19%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 73 (13.62%) Docker
2 26 (4.85%) Active Directory
3 16 (2.99%) Oracle RAC
4 12 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
5 11 (2.05%) NFS
6 7 (1.31%) KVM
6 7 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.12%) GPFS
7 6 (1.12%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.75%) HDFS
8 4 (0.75%) Postfix
8 4 (0.75%) Varnish
9 3 (0.56%) Firmware
9 3 (0.56%) GridGain
9 3 (0.56%) PowerHA
9 3 (0.56%) Sendmail
9 3 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.56%) vSphere
10 2 (0.37%) SRDF
10 2 (0.37%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 70 (13.06%) Kubernetes
2 62 (11.57%) Ansible
3 46 (8.58%) Terraform
4 44 (8.21%) Grafana
5 24 (4.48%) Prometheus
6 20 (3.73%) Oracle RMAN
6 20 (3.73%) Puppet
7 16 (2.99%) Kibana
7 16 (2.99%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 7 (1.31%) NetBackup
8 7 (1.31%) Progress Chef
9 6 (1.12%) Control-M
9 6 (1.12%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (1.12%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.93%) CASB
10 5 (0.93%) Data Guard
10 5 (0.93%) HAProxy
10 5 (0.93%) Nessus
10 5 (0.93%) Red Hat Satellite
10 5 (0.93%) Salt
Vendors
1 189 (35.26%) Oracle
2 54 (10.07%) Splunk
3 40 (7.46%) Microsoft
4 34 (6.34%) IBM
5 25 (4.66%) ServiceNow
6 24 (4.48%) CyberArk
7 21 (3.92%) BeyondTrust
8 19 (3.54%) Cisco
8 19 (3.54%) Informatica
8 19 (3.54%) VMware
9 18 (3.36%) Red Hat
10 15 (2.80%) Sybase
11 13 (2.43%) Talend
12 9 (1.68%) CheckPoint
12 9 (1.68%) F5
12 9 (1.68%) Fujitsu
12 9 (1.68%) Veritas
13 8 (1.49%) AppDynamics
13 8 (1.49%) Aruba
13 8 (1.49%) Remedy