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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 226 160 116
Rank change year-on-year -66 -44 -18
Contract jobs citing Unix 645 575 774
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.74% 2.02%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.11% 12.90% 14.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 409 377 487
10th Percentile £350 £300 £350
25th Percentile £419 £404 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -5.45%
75th Percentile £592 £612 £622
90th Percentile £717 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £471
% change year-on-year - +0.80% -10.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 4 5
10th Percentile £43.81 £41.81 -
25th Percentile £45.67 £49.81 -
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +130.04% -63.77%
75th Percentile £55.00 £58.75 £28.75
90th Percentile £74.11 £65.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -58.69%

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 5,326 4,458 5,392
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.77% 13.51% 14.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,359 2,851 3,485
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £306 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.42% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £675 £685
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £447 £450
% change year-on-year +0.67% -0.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 388 266 280
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £15.22
25th Percentile £17.19 £18.59 £19.91
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £48.03
Median % change year-on-year +2.47% -47.64% +6.75%
75th Percentile £65.22 £58.75 £68.19
90th Percentile £74.43 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £25.15 £51.25
% change year-on-year +3.38% -50.93% +18.84%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 -48 527 £500 - 176
UK excluding London -75 340 £475 - 96
London -77 216 £550 +4.76% 115
Work from Home -16 189 £500 +5.26% 83
North of England -30 121 £475 -8.83% 20
South East -57 93 £459 +8.00% 23
North West -8 87 £475 +5.91% 7
Midlands -20 72 £470 -8.74% 7
West Midlands -10 65 £473 -9.13% 7
Scotland -73 42 £440 -7.37% 7
Yorkshire -55 26 £500 -23.08% 7
South West -41 14 £663 -11.67% 23
North East -37 11 £475 - 6
East of England -29 8 £700 +40.00% 7
East Midlands -17 6 £456 +16.24%
Wales -10 3 £383 +35.40% 4
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 7

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 33 (5.12%) Confluence
2 28 (4.34%) SAS
3 16 (2.48%) Apache Airflow
3 16 (2.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 14 (2.17%) SharePoint
5 12 (1.86%) Apache Spark
6 11 (1.71%) Apache
6 11 (1.71%) WebLogic
7 7 (1.09%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.78%) WebLogic Portal
8 5 (0.78%) WebSphere
9 4 (0.62%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.47%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.31%) CICS
11 2 (0.31%) CMS
11 2 (0.31%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.31%) IIS
11 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.31%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 14 (2.17%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.09%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (1.71%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.93%) Oracle EBS R12
2 6 (0.93%) SAP PSCD
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.62%) Summit
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 146 (22.64%) AWS
2 90 (13.95%) Azure
3 47 (7.29%) GitHub
4 42 (6.51%) GCP
5 30 (4.65%) GitHub Actions
6 28 (4.34%) AWS Lambda
6 28 (4.34%) Serverless
7 26 (4.03%) Amazon S3
8 24 (3.72%) IaaS
9 21 (3.26%) Entra ID
10 18 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (2.79%) SaaS
11 16 (2.48%) PaaS
12 14 (2.17%) OpenShift
12 14 (2.17%) Power Platform
13 13 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
13 13 (2.02%) AWS CloudFormation
14 12 (1.86%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (1.71%) Snowflake
16 9 (1.40%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.50%) Firewall
2 28 (4.34%) DNS
3 27 (4.19%) TCP/IP
4 21 (3.26%) SAN
5 15 (2.33%) HTTP
6 12 (1.86%) DHCP
7 11 (1.71%) SSH
7 11 (1.71%) SSL
8 10 (1.55%) NAS
9 7 (1.09%) LAN
9 7 (1.09%) LTE
9 7 (1.09%) PuTTY
9 7 (1.09%) WAN
9 7 (1.09%) WinSCP
10 6 (0.93%) Diameter Protocol
10 6 (0.93%) Internet
10 6 (0.93%) Network Security
10 6 (0.93%) VoLTE
10 6 (0.93%) VPN
10 6 (0.93%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (9.15%) Oracle Database
2 57 (8.84%) SQL Server
3 47 (7.29%) Relational Database
4 44 (6.82%) PostgreSQL
5 41 (6.36%) Data Warehouse
6 25 (3.88%) MongoDB
7 24 (3.72%) MySQL
8 21 (3.26%) Db2
8 21 (3.26%) Oracle Database 11g
9 18 (2.79%) Metadata
9 18 (2.79%) NoSQL
10 16 (2.48%) Data Lake
10 16 (2.48%) DataStage
10 16 (2.48%) RDBMS
11 14 (2.17%) Amazon Aurora
11 14 (2.17%) Oracle Database 12c
11 14 (2.17%) Power BI
12 13 (2.02%) BusinessObjects
12 13 (2.02%) Oracle Reports
12 13 (2.02%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 77 (11.94%) Git
2 68 (10.54%) Jenkins
3 55 (8.53%) JIRA
4 52 (8.06%) GitLab
5 22 (3.41%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.02%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (1.71%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.71%) JUnit
7 11 (1.71%) SonarQube
8 10 (1.55%) Mockito
9 9 (1.40%) Maven
9 9 (1.40%) Oracle Forms
10 8 (1.24%) eggPlant
10 8 (1.24%) Selenium
11 6 (0.93%) Gradle
12 5 (0.78%) HP UFT
12 5 (0.78%) JMeter
12 5 (0.78%) LoadRunner
12 5 (0.78%) Oracle APEX
12 5 (0.78%) SoapUI
General
1 165 (25.58%) Finance
2 144 (22.33%) Social Skills
3 106 (16.43%) Banking
4 102 (15.81%) Analytical Skills
5 53 (8.22%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.65%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.41%) Front Office
8 20 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.71%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.24%) Retail
11 6 (0.93%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.78%) Military
13 4 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.62%) Legal
13 4 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.31%) Billing
15 2 (0.31%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 138 (21.40%) Developer
2 105 (16.28%) Senior
3 65 (10.08%) Unix Engineer
4 64 (9.92%) Data Engineer
5 54 (8.37%) Senior Developer
6 48 (7.44%) Java Developer
7 41 (6.36%) DBA
8 33 (5.12%) Python Developer
9 31 (4.81%) Linux Engineer
10 30 (4.65%) Analyst
10 30 (4.65%) Support Engineer
11 27 (4.19%) Oracle DBA
12 25 (3.88%) Consultant
13 24 (3.72%) Administrator
13 24 (3.72%) Architect
14 21 (3.26%) Senior Java Developer
15 19 (2.95%) DevOps Engineer
16 17 (2.64%) Applications Support
17 15 (2.33%) Lead
18 13 (2.02%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (10.70%) Kafka
2 51 (7.91%) Terraform
3 43 (6.67%) REST
4 40 (6.20%) Middleware
4 40 (6.20%) RESTful
5 32 (4.96%) Spring
6 31 (4.81%) Spring Boot
7 26 (4.03%) XML
8 22 (3.41%) Web Services
9 21 (3.26%) .NET
10 19 (2.95%) HTML
10 19 (2.95%) SOAP
11 17 (2.64%) CSS
12 16 (2.48%) RabbitMQ
13 15 (2.33%) Django
13 15 (2.33%) Flask
13 15 (2.33%) Pandas
14 13 (2.02%) FastAPI
14 13 (2.02%) JDBC
14 13 (2.02%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.29%) Onboarding
2 36 (5.58%) Legacy Systems
2 36 (5.58%) Linux Command Line
3 32 (4.96%) Data Centre
3 32 (4.96%) Distributed Systems
4 28 (4.34%) Cloud Native
5 21 (3.26%) Fixed Income
6 20 (3.10%) Management Information System
6 20 (3.10%) Replication
7 19 (2.95%) Clustering
8 18 (2.79%) Derivative
9 15 (2.33%) Mainframe
10 13 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (2.02%) Virtual Team
11 12 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
11 12 (1.86%) PKI
11 12 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.71%) Data Structures
12 11 (1.71%) Market Risk
12 11 (1.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 437 (67.75%) Linux
2 150 (23.26%) Windows
3 72 (11.16%) Solaris
4 41 (6.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 41 (6.36%) Windows Server
5 30 (4.65%) AIX
6 10 (1.55%) Oracle Linux
7 8 (1.24%) HPUX
8 7 (1.09%) SUSE
8 7 (1.09%) VMS
9 5 (0.78%) CentOS
10 4 (0.62%) Mac OS X
10 4 (0.62%) zOS
11 3 (0.47%) Android
11 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
12 2 (0.31%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.31%) OpenVMS
12 2 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (24.65%) CI/CD
2 133 (20.62%) Agile
3 114 (17.67%) DevOps
4 108 (16.74%) Migration
4 108 (16.74%) Problem-Solving
5 98 (15.19%) Test Automation
6 80 (12.40%) High Availability
7 78 (12.09%) Root Cause Analysis
8 71 (11.01%) Data Modelling
9 66 (10.23%) Performance Tuning
10 65 (10.08%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (9.92%) ITIL
12 61 (9.46%) Infrastructure as Code
13 59 (9.15%) ETL
14 58 (8.99%) Data Pipeline
15 56 (8.68%) Containerisation
15 56 (8.68%) Runbook
16 54 (8.37%) Analytics
17 53 (8.22%) Microservices
18 52 (8.06%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 253 (39.22%) SQL
2 251 (38.91%) Python
3 130 (20.16%) Java
4 127 (19.69%) Shell Script
5 90 (13.95%) PL/SQL
6 62 (9.61%) Bash
7 52 (8.06%) PowerShell
8 45 (6.98%) Perl
9 33 (5.12%) JavaScript
10 28 (4.34%) C#
11 21 (3.26%) C++
12 15 (2.33%) C
13 8 (1.24%) Go
14 7 (1.09%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.93%) ABAP
15 6 (0.93%) Korn
15 6 (0.93%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.93%) Scala
15 6 (0.93%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.78%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 233 (36.12%) Security Cleared
2 192 (29.77%) SC Cleared
3 59 (9.15%) Degree
4 34 (5.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (3.10%) DV Cleared
6 14 (2.17%) CISSP
7 13 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.40%) CISM
9 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.09%) CRISC
10 7 (1.09%) Oracle Certification
11 6 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.93%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (0.93%) GIAC
11 6 (0.93%) ISEB
11 6 (0.93%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.78%) RHCE
12 5 (0.78%) SANS
13 4 (0.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.43%) NIST
3 31 (4.81%) QA
4 30 (4.65%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.86%) GDPR
6 11 (1.71%) SLA
7 9 (1.40%) ISO 20022
8 7 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (0.93%) ISO 31000
10 5 (0.78%) GRC
10 5 (0.78%) ISO 15022
10 5 (0.78%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.31%) NCSC
13 2 (0.31%) SEPA
14 1 (0.16%) Basel III
14 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
14 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 68 (10.54%) Docker
2 39 (6.05%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.64%) Oracle RAC
5 16 (2.48%) NFS
6 9 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.78%) Firmware
7 5 (0.78%) PowerHA
7 5 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.62%) GPFS
8 4 (0.62%) Postfix
8 4 (0.62%) Varnish
8 4 (0.62%) Veritas Volume Manager
8 4 (0.62%) vSphere
9 3 (0.47%) GridGain
9 3 (0.47%) Sendmail
9 3 (0.47%) VirtualBox
10 1 (0.16%) RACF
10 1 (0.16%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 80 (12.40%) Kubernetes
2 65 (10.08%) Ansible
3 38 (5.89%) Grafana
4 29 (4.50%) Oracle RMAN
5 26 (4.03%) Prometheus
6 20 (3.10%) Data Guard
7 17 (2.64%) Progress Chef
8 15 (2.33%) Control-M
8 15 (2.33%) Puppet
9 11 (1.71%) Kibana
10 9 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (1.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 7 (1.09%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.93%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.78%) HP Fortify
14 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.78%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.78%) Oracle ZFS
15 4 (0.62%) HAProxy
15 4 (0.62%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 248 (38.45%) Oracle
2 55 (8.53%) IBM
3 48 (7.44%) Microsoft
4 47 (7.29%) Splunk
5 40 (6.20%) BeyondTrust
6 31 (4.81%) Red Hat
7 30 (4.65%) CyberArk
7 30 (4.65%) Informatica
8 29 (4.50%) Sybase
9 28 (4.34%) VMware
10 23 (3.57%) Talend
11 22 (3.41%) SAP
12 20 (3.10%) ServiceNow
13 18 (2.79%) Denodo
14 15 (2.33%) Dynatrace
15 13 (2.02%) Google
16 11 (1.71%) AppDynamics
16 11 (1.71%) BT
16 11 (1.71%) SaltStack
16 11 (1.71%) Solace