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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 227 134 144
Rank change year-on-year -93 +10 -64
Contract jobs citing Unix 521 602 758
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.20% 2.03% 1.70%
As % of the Operating Systems category 10.86% 14.11% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 344 351 516
10th Percentile £257 £350 £334
25th Percentile £392 £417 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £452 £518 £550
Median % change year-on-year -12.71% -5.91% -
75th Percentile £561 £631 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £790
UK excluding London median daily rate £429 £474 £500
% change year-on-year -9.45% -5.25% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 9 22
10th Percentile - £39.60 £22.01
25th Percentile £21.50 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £27.94 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.78% +31.25% -38.22%
75th Percentile £53.19 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £53.98 £67.25 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.22 £52.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -54.09% +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 4,797 4,265 6,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.09% 14.35% 13.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,146 2,784 4,025
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £280 £317 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £588
90th Percentile £656 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £448 £430
% change year-on-year -7.82% +4.07% -9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 352 157 405
10th Percentile £15.02 £16.60 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% +24.44% -15.09%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £22.50
% change year-on-year -8.76% +9.60% -13.46%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 15 March 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 -65 452 £460 -12.48% 87
UK excluding London -80 271 £429 -9.45% 66
London -55 208 £538 -4.44% 40
Work from Home -86 149 £450 -9.18% 51
North of England -50 87 £463 -11.90% 20
Midlands -24 71 £439 -4.67% 10
South East -38 70 £320 -32.63% 22
North West 0 68 £465 -11.43% 13
West Midlands -27 67 £439 -5.60% 7
Scotland -42 30 £411 -10.11% 2
Yorkshire -69 18 £460 -16.36% 4
South West -41 8 £700 +27.27% 2
Wales -10 4 £265 +62.04% 2
East Midlands -33 4 £478 +13.02% 3
East of England -40 3 £440 -2.22% 5
North East -13 2 £563 - 3

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 27 (5.18%) Apache
1 27 (5.18%) WebLogic
2 23 (4.41%) Confluence
3 16 (3.07%) Tuxedo
4 15 (2.88%) SharePoint
5 12 (2.30%) Apache Spark
6 11 (2.11%) JBoss
6 11 (2.11%) SAS
7 8 (1.54%) CICS
8 6 (1.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.96%) NetWeaver
9 5 (0.96%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.77%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.77%) nginx
10 4 (0.77%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.77%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.58%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.38%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.38%) IIS
Applications
1 12 (2.30%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.15%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (1.15%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.96%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.77%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.58%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.58%) Summit
5 2 (0.38%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.38%) Kondor
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 105 (20.15%) AWS
2 76 (14.59%) Azure
3 26 (4.99%) GitHub
4 18 (3.45%) GCP
5 16 (3.07%) SaaS
6 14 (2.69%) AWS CloudFormation
7 12 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (2.30%) Serverless
8 11 (2.11%) Amazon S3
8 11 (2.11%) Sauce Labs
9 10 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (1.92%) OpenShift
10 9 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (1.73%) Azure Data Factory
10 9 (1.73%) Cloud Computing
11 8 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
11 8 (1.54%) Entra ID
11 8 (1.54%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (1.54%) Power Platform
12 7 (1.34%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 34 (6.53%) Firewall
2 18 (3.45%) DNS
3 15 (2.88%) SSH
3 15 (2.88%) Wireless
4 14 (2.69%) TCP/IP
5 13 (2.50%) SAN
6 12 (2.30%) HTTP
7 11 (2.11%) Network Security
8 8 (1.54%) InfiniBand
8 8 (1.54%) NAS
9 7 (1.34%) Ethernet
9 7 (1.34%) NetScaler
10 6 (1.15%) VPN
11 5 (0.96%) Ethernet VPN
11 5 (0.96%) FTP
11 5 (0.96%) SSL
12 4 (0.77%) DHCP
12 4 (0.77%) FIX Connectivity
12 4 (0.77%) MPLS
12 4 (0.77%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (9.40%) MySQL
2 43 (8.25%) Relational Database
3 42 (8.06%) MongoDB
4 41 (7.87%) SQL Server
5 40 (7.68%) Oracle Database
6 28 (5.37%) PostgreSQL
7 20 (3.84%) NoSQL
8 17 (3.26%) KDB
8 17 (3.26%) Kdb+
9 14 (2.69%) Big Data
9 14 (2.69%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (2.30%) Metadata
11 11 (2.11%) Data Lake
11 11 (2.11%) Hadoop
12 10 (1.92%) Tick Data
13 9 (1.73%) DataStage
13 9 (1.73%) DB2
14 8 (1.54%) Pentaho
15 7 (1.34%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 45 (8.64%) Git
1 45 (8.64%) Jenkins
2 39 (7.49%) JIRA
3 38 (7.29%) GitLab
4 20 (3.84%) Eclipse
5 19 (3.65%) JUnit
6 14 (2.69%) Selenium
7 12 (2.30%) Bitbucket
7 12 (2.30%) Mockito
7 12 (2.30%) Xcode
8 11 (2.11%) Android Studio
8 11 (2.11%) Browser DevTools
8 11 (2.11%) MSI
9 9 (1.73%) IntelliJ
10 8 (1.54%) Maven
11 5 (0.96%) SoapUI
11 5 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
11 5 (0.96%) Toad
12 4 (0.77%) Ant
12 4 (0.77%) Subversion
General
1 141 (27.06%) Social Skills
2 139 (26.68%) Finance
3 61 (11.71%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (10.94%) Banking
5 45 (8.64%) Public Sector
6 22 (4.22%) Front Office
7 21 (4.03%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (3.26%) Investment Banking
9 16 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.73%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.34%) Telecoms
12 6 (1.15%) Advertising
12 6 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.96%) Law
13 5 (0.96%) Legal
14 4 (0.77%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.77%) Retail
15 3 (0.58%) Billing
15 3 (0.58%) Military
15 3 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 96 (18.43%) Developer
2 71 (13.63%) Senior
3 43 (8.25%) Analyst
4 36 (6.91%) Java Developer
5 35 (6.72%) Support Engineer
6 33 (6.33%) Unix Engineer
7 28 (5.37%) Technical Support
8 26 (4.99%) Linux Engineer
8 26 (4.99%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 23 (4.41%) Data Engineer
9 23 (4.41%) DBA
9 23 (4.41%) DevOps Engineer
10 22 (4.22%) Oracle DBA
10 22 (4.22%) Site Engineer
10 22 (4.22%) Software Engineer
11 19 (3.65%) Kafka Engineer
12 18 (3.45%) Administrator
12 18 (3.45%) Lead
12 18 (3.45%) Unix Linux Engineer
13 16 (3.07%) C++ Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (11.90%) Kafka
2 39 (7.49%) REST
3 31 (5.95%) XML
4 26 (4.99%) SOAP
5 25 (4.80%) Middleware
5 25 (4.80%) React
6 24 (4.61%) JSON
7 21 (4.03%) Spring
8 20 (3.84%) CSS
9 19 (3.65%) HTML
10 18 (3.45%) AngularJS
11 14 (2.69%) Elastic Stack
11 14 (2.69%) HTML5
11 14 (2.69%) J2EE
12 13 (2.50%) Oracle GoldenGate
13 11 (2.11%) ActiveMQ
13 11 (2.11%) Ajax
13 11 (2.11%) GraphQL
13 11 (2.11%) JAX-RS
14 10 (1.92%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 28 (5.37%) Management Information System
2 22 (4.22%) Cloud Native
3 20 (3.84%) Linux Command Line
4 19 (3.65%) Onboarding
5 18 (3.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 16 (3.07%) Data Centre
7 15 (2.88%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (2.30%) Equities
8 12 (2.30%) Fixed Income
9 11 (2.11%) Algorithms
9 11 (2.11%) Derivative
9 11 (2.11%) Greenfield Project
9 11 (2.11%) Mobile App
9 11 (2.11%) Security Posture
10 9 (1.73%) Mainframe
10 9 (1.73%) Public Cloud
11 8 (1.54%) BYOD
11 8 (1.54%) Enterprise Cloud
11 8 (1.54%) VSAM
12 7 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 332 (63.72%) Linux
2 158 (30.33%) Windows
3 29 (5.57%) Windows Server
4 24 (4.61%) Solaris
5 23 (4.41%) AIX
6 21 (4.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.50%) Mac OS X
8 11 (2.11%) Android
9 7 (1.34%) Mac OS
10 6 (1.15%) CentOS
11 3 (0.58%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.38%) VMS
13 1 (0.19%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.19%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.19%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.19%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (27.64%) Agile
2 110 (21.11%) Problem-Solving
3 95 (18.23%) DevOps
4 87 (16.70%) CI/CD
5 57 (10.94%) Migration
6 56 (10.75%) Observability
7 55 (10.56%) Computer Science
8 54 (10.36%) Software Engineering
9 51 (9.79%) ITIL
10 48 (9.21%) Microservices
11 47 (9.02%) Incident Response
11 47 (9.02%) Infrastructure as Code
12 46 (8.83%) Containerisation
12 46 (8.83%) OO
13 44 (8.45%) Data Modelling
13 44 (8.45%) Performance Tuning
14 42 (8.06%) Continuous Improvement
15 40 (7.68%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 39 (7.49%) Change Management
16 39 (7.49%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 202 (38.77%) SQL
2 184 (35.32%) Python
3 136 (26.10%) Java
4 94 (18.04%) Shell Script
5 65 (12.48%) Bash
6 64 (12.28%) Perl
7 40 (7.68%) JavaScript
8 38 (7.29%) C++
9 37 (7.10%) PowerShell
10 33 (6.33%) PL/SQL
11 26 (4.99%) C#
12 24 (4.61%) Korn
13 14 (2.69%) Scala
14 10 (1.92%) PHP
15 9 (1.73%) Go
16 8 (1.54%) COBOL
17 3 (0.58%) C
17 3 (0.58%) HiveQL
18 2 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
18 2 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 126 (24.18%) Security Cleared
2 97 (18.62%) SC Cleared
3 75 (14.40%) Degree
4 41 (7.87%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (3.84%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.54%) CISSP
7 6 (1.15%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 6 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.15%) OSCP
8 5 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
8 5 (0.96%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.96%) GPEN
8 5 (0.96%) GWAPT
8 5 (0.96%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.96%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (0.96%) MCSA
8 5 (0.96%) MCSE
9 4 (0.77%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.58%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.58%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.45%) SLA
2 16 (3.07%) QA
3 13 (2.50%) Data Quality
4 9 (1.73%) NIST
5 7 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.58%) FATCA
6 3 (0.58%) GMP
6 3 (0.58%) SEPA
7 2 (0.38%) GDPR
7 2 (0.38%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.38%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.38%) NCSC
7 2 (0.38%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.19%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 71 (13.63%) Docker
2 17 (3.26%) Active Directory
3 14 (2.69%) Oracle RAC
4 11 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (1.73%) KVM
6 6 (1.15%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.15%) NFS
6 6 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.96%) GPFS
8 4 (0.77%) HDFS
9 3 (0.58%) Firmware
9 3 (0.58%) PowerHA
9 3 (0.58%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.38%) Postfix
10 2 (0.38%) SRDF
10 2 (0.38%) Varnish
10 2 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.38%) vSphere
11 1 (0.19%) Samba
11 1 (0.19%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 73 (14.01%) Kubernetes
2 63 (12.09%) Ansible
3 50 (9.60%) Terraform
4 39 (7.49%) Grafana
5 29 (5.57%) Puppet
6 23 (4.41%) Prometheus
7 16 (3.07%) Oracle RMAN
8 15 (2.88%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 12 (2.30%) Kibana
10 9 (1.73%) Progress Chef
11 7 (1.34%) NetBackup
12 6 (1.15%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (1.15%) Red Hat Satellite
12 6 (1.15%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.96%) CASB
13 5 (0.96%) Control-M
13 5 (0.96%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (0.96%) Nessus
13 5 (0.96%) Salt
13 5 (0.96%) SCCM
Vendors
1 165 (31.67%) Oracle
2 63 (12.09%) Splunk
3 55 (10.56%) Microsoft
4 43 (8.25%) IBM
5 31 (5.95%) ServiceNow
6 20 (3.84%) VMware
7 17 (3.26%) Red Hat
8 16 (3.07%) Cisco
9 12 (2.30%) CyberArk
10 11 (2.11%) Talend
11 10 (1.92%) Informatica
11 10 (1.92%) Remedy
12 9 (1.73%) Fujitsu
12 9 (1.73%) webMethods
13 8 (1.54%) AppDynamics
13 8 (1.54%) Aruba
13 8 (1.54%) Dell
13 8 (1.54%) Sybase
13 8 (1.54%) Veritas
14 7 (1.34%) CheckPoint