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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 220 167 131
Rank change year-on-year -53 -36 -48
Contract jobs citing Unix 587 502 761
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.69% 1.75%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.28% 12.11% 13.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 345 303 509
10th Percentile £303 £358 £333
25th Percentile £400 £408 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% -9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £552 £599 £634
90th Percentile £650 £648 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £470 £450
% change year-on-year -2.24% +4.33% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 6 21
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 £22.30
25th Percentile £31.86 £52.19 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £55.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +37.50% -37.50%
75th Percentile £53.75 £66.25 -
90th Percentile £55.00 £73.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £55.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.56% +37.50% -32.85%

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 4,782 4,144 5,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 13.99% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,050 2,701 3,844
10th Percentile £189 £200 £188
25th Percentile £315 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 206 420
10th Percentile £14.70 £15.28 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £15.85
Median hourly rate £28.00 £22.00 £23.98
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -8.24% -49.53%
75th Percentile £63.75 £41.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.14 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.69 £18.87 £25.25
% change year-on-year +46.74% -25.27% -40.59%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -41 502 £469 -1.26% 107
UK excluding London -46 352 £459 -2.24% 73
London -78 184 £550 +10.00% 52
Work from Home -20 170 £469 +4.22% 52
North of England -22 118 £479 +9.81% 16
South East -17 106 £392 -28.73% 30
North West +7 89 £479 +15.79% 11
Midlands -5 84 £459 -0.22% 4
West Midlands -3 79 £459 -0.22% 2
Scotland -47 39 £425 -10.53% 5
Yorkshire -56 24 £465 -10.36% 4
North East -29 5 £480 +28.00% 1
South West -34 5 £600 - 6
East of England -37 5 £300 -33.33% 7
East Midlands -25 4 £494 +23.28% 2
Wales - 4 - - 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 (5.79%) Confluence
2 26 (4.43%) SAS
3 18 (3.07%) Apache
4 16 (2.73%) Apache Spark
5 14 (2.39%) Apache Airflow
6 10 (1.70%) CICS
6 10 (1.70%) WebLogic
7 7 (1.19%) NetWeaver
7 7 (1.19%) Tuxedo
8 6 (1.02%) OpenStack
8 6 (1.02%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.68%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.51%) IBM HTTP Server
10 3 (0.51%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.51%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.51%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.34%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.34%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.34%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 7 (1.19%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (1.19%) Notepad++
2 4 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 8 (1.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.02%) Summit
3 2 (0.34%) FLEXCUBE
3 2 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.17%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 112 (19.08%) AWS
2 72 (12.27%) Azure
3 29 (4.94%) GitHub
4 26 (4.43%) GCP
5 24 (4.09%) Entra ID
6 23 (3.92%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (3.75%) Serverless
8 21 (3.58%) GitHub Actions
9 20 (3.41%) Amazon S3
9 20 (3.41%) OpenShift
10 15 (2.56%) IaaS
10 15 (2.56%) PaaS
10 15 (2.56%) Power Platform
11 13 (2.21%) SaaS
12 11 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (1.70%) Snowflake
14 9 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
15 8 (1.36%) Azure Data Factory
16 7 (1.19%) Amazon ECS
16 7 (1.19%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.94%) Firewall
2 25 (4.26%) DNS
3 20 (3.41%) SAN
4 14 (2.39%) NAS
4 14 (2.39%) TCP/IP
5 11 (1.87%) SSH
6 9 (1.53%) HTTP
6 9 (1.53%) Wireless
7 8 (1.36%) Wireshark
8 7 (1.19%) 5G
8 7 (1.19%) Ethernet
8 7 (1.19%) FTP
8 7 (1.19%) InfiniBand
8 7 (1.19%) NetScaler
8 7 (1.19%) PuTTY
8 7 (1.19%) SSL
8 7 (1.19%) VPN
8 7 (1.19%) WinSCP
9 6 (1.02%) VoLTE
9 6 (1.02%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (12.10%) SQL Server
2 44 (7.50%) Relational Database
3 38 (6.47%) Oracle Database
4 36 (6.13%) MySQL
5 32 (5.45%) PostgreSQL
6 30 (5.11%) MongoDB
7 21 (3.58%) Data Warehouse
8 19 (3.24%) Metadata
9 16 (2.73%) Big Data
9 16 (2.73%) BusinessObjects
9 16 (2.73%) DataStage
10 15 (2.56%) Db2
10 15 (2.56%) KDB
10 15 (2.56%) Power BI
11 14 (2.39%) Amazon Aurora
11 14 (2.39%) NoSQL
12 13 (2.21%) Kdb+
13 12 (2.04%) Sybase ASE
14 11 (1.87%) Data Lake
15 10 (1.70%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 60 (10.22%) Jenkins
2 52 (8.86%) GitLab
3 49 (8.35%) Git
3 49 (8.35%) JIRA
4 22 (3.75%) Artifactory
5 11 (1.87%) Mockito
6 10 (1.70%) Maven
7 9 (1.53%) Bitbucket
8 8 (1.36%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.85%) JUnit
10 4 (0.68%) Android Studio
10 4 (0.68%) Browser DevTools
10 4 (0.68%) CA Gen
10 4 (0.68%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.68%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.68%) Xcode
11 3 (0.51%) Gradle
11 3 (0.51%) Introscope
11 3 (0.51%) MSI
11 3 (0.51%) REST Assured
General
1 148 (25.21%) Finance
2 124 (21.12%) Social Skills
3 90 (15.33%) Banking
4 76 (12.95%) Analytical Skills
5 58 (9.88%) Public Sector
6 26 (4.43%) Investment Banking
7 25 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (3.41%) Front Office
9 11 (1.87%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.53%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.19%) Retail
13 6 (1.02%) Advertising
13 6 (1.02%) Military
14 3 (0.51%) Law
15 2 (0.34%) Billing
15 2 (0.34%) Local Government
15 2 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
16 1 (0.17%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 105 (17.89%) Developer
2 77 (13.12%) Senior
3 65 (11.07%) Data Engineer
4 54 (9.20%) Unix Engineer
5 44 (7.50%) Analyst
6 41 (6.98%) Java Developer
6 41 (6.98%) Support Engineer
7 32 (5.45%) DBA
8 30 (5.11%) Senior Developer
9 23 (3.92%) Oracle DBA
10 22 (3.75%) Administrator
10 22 (3.75%) Architect
10 22 (3.75%) Python Developer
10 22 (3.75%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 21 (3.58%) Technical Support
12 20 (3.41%) Site Engineer
13 19 (3.24%) Consultant
14 16 (2.73%) Software Engineer
15 15 (2.56%) Linux Engineer
16 14 (2.39%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (9.03%) Kafka
2 36 (6.13%) REST
3 28 (4.77%) Middleware
4 26 (4.43%) RESTful
5 22 (3.75%) Spring
5 22 (3.75%) Spring Boot
6 18 (3.07%) CSS
6 18 (3.07%) XML
7 14 (2.39%) HTML
7 14 (2.39%) Web Services
8 13 (2.21%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 11 (1.87%) ActiveMQ
9 11 (1.87%) JAX-RS
9 11 (1.87%) LDAP
9 11 (1.87%) Pandas
9 11 (1.87%) RabbitMQ
10 10 (1.70%) JSON
10 10 (1.70%) React
11 9 (1.53%) Elastic Stack
11 9 (1.53%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 44 (7.50%) Onboarding
2 35 (5.96%) Linux Command Line
3 29 (4.94%) Legacy Systems
4 27 (4.60%) Management Information System
5 24 (4.09%) Data Centre
6 19 (3.24%) Cloud Native
7 17 (2.90%) Mainframe
8 16 (2.73%) Derivative
8 16 (2.73%) Replication
9 14 (2.39%) Fixed Income
10 11 (1.87%) Clustering
10 11 (1.87%) Public Cloud
11 10 (1.70%) BYOD
11 10 (1.70%) Equities
11 10 (1.70%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.70%) VSAM
12 9 (1.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 9 (1.53%) Market Risk
13 8 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 383 (65.25%) Linux
2 151 (25.72%) Windows
3 59 (10.05%) Solaris
4 42 (7.16%) Windows Server
5 29 (4.94%) AIX
6 22 (3.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (2.04%) Mac OS X
8 9 (1.53%) Oracle Linux
9 7 (1.19%) HPUX
10 5 (0.85%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.85%) SUSE
11 4 (0.68%) Android
12 3 (0.51%) VMS
13 2 (0.34%) CentOS
13 2 (0.34%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.34%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.34%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.17%) Check Point GAiA
14 1 (0.17%) Rocky
14 1 (0.17%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (21.81%) Agile
2 119 (20.27%) CI/CD
3 104 (17.72%) Problem-Solving
4 99 (16.87%) Migration
5 79 (13.46%) DevOps
6 73 (12.44%) High Availability
7 70 (11.93%) ITIL
8 60 (10.22%) Test Automation
9 59 (10.05%) Root Cause Analysis
10 57 (9.71%) Disaster Recovery
11 56 (9.54%) Observability
12 51 (8.69%) Performance Tuning
12 51 (8.69%) Runbook
13 50 (8.52%) Data Modelling
13 50 (8.52%) Incident Management
14 47 (8.01%) Change Management
14 47 (8.01%) Microservices
15 45 (7.67%) Analytics
16 43 (7.33%) Computer Science
17 42 (7.16%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 224 (38.16%) SQL
2 221 (37.65%) Python
3 110 (18.74%) Java
4 103 (17.55%) Shell Script
5 68 (11.58%) PL/SQL
6 56 (9.54%) PowerShell
7 52 (8.86%) Bash
8 41 (6.98%) Perl
9 38 (6.47%) JavaScript
10 25 (4.26%) C#
11 24 (4.09%) C++
12 15 (2.56%) Korn
13 12 (2.04%) COBOL
14 8 (1.36%) Scala
15 4 (0.68%) C
15 4 (0.68%) Go
15 4 (0.68%) Kotlin
15 4 (0.68%) Ruby
15 4 (0.68%) T-SQL
16 3 (0.51%) Jython
Qualifications
1 199 (33.90%) Security Cleared
2 169 (28.79%) SC Cleared
3 73 (12.44%) Degree
4 27 (4.60%) BPSS Clearance
5 24 (4.09%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (3.24%) CISSP
7 11 (1.87%) CompTIA Security+
8 10 (1.70%) DV Cleared
9 9 (1.53%) CISM
10 7 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.19%) CRISC
11 6 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (1.02%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (1.02%) GIAC
11 6 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (1.02%) RHCE
12 5 (0.85%) MCSA
12 5 (0.85%) MCSE
12 5 (0.85%) SANS
13 4 (0.68%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (6.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.96%) NIST
3 19 (3.24%) QA
3 19 (3.24%) SLA
4 11 (1.87%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (1.02%) ISO 31000
7 5 (0.85%) GRC
8 4 (0.68%) ISO 20022
8 4 (0.68%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.51%) FATCA
9 3 (0.51%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.34%) GDPR
10 2 (0.34%) GMP
10 2 (0.34%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.34%) NCSC
11 1 (0.17%) SEPA
11 1 (0.17%) SOC 2
System Software
1 58 (9.88%) Docker
2 41 (6.98%) Active Directory
3 20 (3.41%) Oracle RAC
4 18 (3.07%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (2.73%) NFS
6 10 (1.70%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.36%) GPFS
8 6 (1.02%) Hyper-V
8 6 (1.02%) KVM
8 6 (1.02%) Postfix
8 6 (1.02%) Varnish
8 6 (1.02%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.85%) vSphere
10 4 (0.68%) HDFS
10 4 (0.68%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.51%) Firmware
11 3 (0.51%) GridGain
11 3 (0.51%) PowerHA
11 3 (0.51%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 2 (0.34%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 71 (12.10%) Kubernetes
2 63 (10.73%) Ansible
3 41 (6.98%) Grafana
4 35 (5.96%) Terraform
5 29 (4.94%) Oracle RMAN
6 27 (4.60%) Prometheus
7 13 (2.21%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 12 (2.04%) Data Guard
8 12 (2.04%) Kibana
9 11 (1.87%) Puppet
10 10 (1.70%) NetBackup
11 9 (1.53%) Progress Chef
11 9 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (1.02%) Control-M
12 6 (1.02%) HAProxy
12 6 (1.02%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (1.02%) Nessus
12 6 (1.02%) Tivoli
12 6 (1.02%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.85%) vRealize
Vendors
1 240 (40.89%) Oracle
2 49 (8.35%) Splunk
3 45 (7.67%) IBM
4 40 (6.81%) Microsoft
5 35 (5.96%) CyberArk
6 34 (5.79%) Talend
7 31 (5.28%) BeyondTrust
8 27 (4.60%) ServiceNow
8 27 (4.60%) VMware
9 26 (4.43%) Informatica
10 22 (3.75%) Cisco
11 21 (3.58%) Denodo
11 21 (3.58%) Sybase
12 15 (2.56%) Red Hat
13 14 (2.39%) Dynatrace
14 13 (2.21%) Veritas
15 12 (2.04%) SAP
16 10 (1.70%) CheckPoint
16 10 (1.70%) F5
17 9 (1.53%) Murex