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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 202 136 129
Rank change year-on-year -66 -7 -48
Contract jobs citing Unix 559 629 804
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.35% 2.05% 1.83%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.61% 14.33% 13.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 368 363 542
10th Percentile £206 £356 £363
25th Percentile £400 £423 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -11.73% -5.45% -0.50%
75th Percentile £593 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £780
UK excluding London median daily rate £434 £472 £495
% change year-on-year -8.16% -4.65% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 7 22
10th Percentile £21.26 £38.70 £22.01
25th Percentile £25.72 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £27.88 £41.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.00% +2.50% -38.22%
75th Percentile £53.75 £59.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £54.20 £69.50 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.16 £47.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -42.21% +17.50% -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 4,816 4,390 6,105
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.62% 14.31% 13.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,187 2,786 4,096
10th Percentile £178 £200 £180
25th Percentile £275 £318 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% -9.27%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £695 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -1.18% -1.16% -9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 151 380
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.10 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.05 £20.62 £16.44
Median hourly rate £23.79 £29.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.97% +16.00% -5.62%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £68.87 £68.75 £70.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £27.75 £24.00
% change year-on-year -17.80% +15.63% -9.40%

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 26 February 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 26 February 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 26 February 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 -61 487 £468 -10.95% 76
UK excluding London -70 291 £434 -8.16% 65
London -39 221 £550 -2.44% 25
Work from Home -80 159 £450 -7.69% 42
North of England -30 102 £469 -16.62% 19
South East -22 74 £210 -55.08% 16
Midlands -23 70 £439 -4.67% 11
North West +6 69 £467 -15.09% 14
West Midlands -17 67 £440 -5.27% 10
Scotland -43 32 £423 -6.11% 4
Yorkshire -63 31 £483 -16.09% 2
South West -39 11 £700 +33.33% 3
North East -13 3 £563 - 3
East of England -31 3 £440 -2.22% 7
East Midlands -32 3 £430 +1.78% 1
Wales -5 2 £265 +62.04% 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 30 (5.37%) Apache
1 30 (5.37%) WebLogic
2 24 (4.29%) Confluence
3 16 (2.86%) SharePoint
4 15 (2.68%) JBoss
5 14 (2.50%) Tuxedo
6 10 (1.79%) SAS
7 9 (1.61%) Apache Spark
8 7 (1.25%) CICS
8 7 (1.25%) Tomcat
9 6 (1.07%) IIS
9 6 (1.07%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (1.07%) WebSphere
10 5 (0.89%) iPlanet
10 5 (0.89%) WebSphere Application Server
11 4 (0.72%) nginx
12 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
12 3 (0.54%) NetWeaver
12 3 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
13 2 (0.36%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 14 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.07%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (1.07%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.89%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.72%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.54%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.36%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.36%) Kondor
5 2 (0.36%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.36%) Summit
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 128 (22.90%) AWS
2 85 (15.21%) Azure
3 25 (4.47%) GCP
4 24 (4.29%) GitHub
5 20 (3.58%) AWS CloudFormation
6 18 (3.22%) SaaS
7 17 (3.04%) Serverless
8 15 (2.68%) AWS Lambda
9 14 (2.50%) OpenShift
10 13 (2.33%) Sauce Labs
11 10 (1.79%) Amazon S3
11 10 (1.79%) OCI
12 9 (1.61%) Cloud Computing
12 9 (1.61%) Entra ID
13 8 (1.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
13 8 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (1.43%) Power Platform
13 8 (1.43%) Snowflake
14 7 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 34 (6.08%) Firewall
2 19 (3.40%) DNS
3 17 (3.04%) Wireless
4 16 (2.86%) HTTP
4 16 (2.86%) SSH
5 13 (2.33%) TCP/IP
6 10 (1.79%) Network Security
6 10 (1.79%) SAN
7 8 (1.43%) InfiniBand
7 8 (1.43%) NAS
8 7 (1.25%) Ethernet
8 7 (1.25%) NetScaler
9 6 (1.07%) FTP
9 6 (1.07%) Kerberos
9 6 (1.07%) SSL
9 6 (1.07%) VPN
10 5 (0.89%) Ethernet VPN
10 5 (0.89%) Wireshark
11 4 (0.72%) DHCP
11 4 (0.72%) FIX Connectivity
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (8.77%) MongoDB
2 48 (8.59%) MySQL
3 47 (8.41%) Relational Database
4 43 (7.69%) Oracle Database
5 34 (6.08%) SQL Server
6 28 (5.01%) NoSQL
7 27 (4.83%) PostgreSQL
8 19 (3.40%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (2.86%) KDB
9 16 (2.86%) Kdb+
10 14 (2.50%) Big Data
10 14 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
11 13 (2.33%) Amazon RDS
12 11 (1.97%) Amazon Redshift
12 11 (1.97%) Hadoop
13 10 (1.79%) DB2
14 9 (1.61%) Data Lake
14 9 (1.61%) Tick Data
15 8 (1.43%) DataStage
15 8 (1.43%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 54 (9.66%) Jenkins
2 45 (8.05%) Git
3 37 (6.62%) GitLab
4 34 (6.08%) JIRA
5 22 (3.94%) Eclipse
6 19 (3.40%) JUnit
7 18 (3.22%) Mockito
8 14 (2.50%) Selenium
8 14 (2.50%) Xcode
9 13 (2.33%) Android Studio
9 13 (2.33%) Bitbucket
9 13 (2.33%) Browser DevTools
10 12 (2.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (1.79%) Maven
12 9 (1.61%) IntelliJ
12 9 (1.61%) MSI
13 5 (0.89%) CA Release Automation
13 5 (0.89%) Gradle
13 5 (0.89%) SoapUI
13 5 (0.89%) Toad
General
1 155 (27.73%) Social Skills
2 149 (26.65%) Finance
3 69 (12.34%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (10.38%) Banking
5 46 (8.23%) Public Sector
6 25 (4.47%) Front Office
7 20 (3.58%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (3.04%) Investment Banking
9 15 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.97%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.25%) Telecoms
12 6 (1.07%) Legal
13 5 (0.89%) Law
14 4 (0.72%) Advertising
14 4 (0.72%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.54%) Billing
15 3 (0.54%) Military
16 2 (0.36%) Marketing
16 2 (0.36%) Retail
Job Titles
1 108 (19.32%) Developer
2 91 (16.28%) Senior
3 49 (8.77%) Java Developer
4 42 (7.51%) Analyst
5 34 (6.08%) Technical Support
5 34 (6.08%) Unix Engineer
6 32 (5.72%) Support Engineer
7 30 (5.37%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 27 (4.83%) DevOps Engineer
8 27 (4.83%) Linux Engineer
9 26 (4.65%) Site Engineer
9 26 (4.65%) Software Engineer
10 23 (4.11%) Senior Developer
11 22 (3.94%) Data Engineer
12 21 (3.76%) Kafka Engineer
13 20 (3.58%) C++ Software Engineer
13 20 (3.58%) Senior C++ Software Engineer
13 20 (3.58%) Senior Software Engineer
13 20 (3.58%) Technical Engineer
14 19 (3.40%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (13.42%) Kafka
2 40 (7.16%) REST
3 31 (5.55%) React
4 30 (5.37%) XML
5 29 (5.19%) SOAP
6 27 (4.83%) Middleware
7 24 (4.29%) JSON
8 22 (3.94%) CSS
9 21 (3.76%) HTML
10 20 (3.58%) AngularJS
11 18 (3.22%) Spring
12 17 (3.04%) ActiveMQ
12 17 (3.04%) Elastic Stack
12 17 (3.04%) JAX-RS
13 14 (2.50%) HTML5
14 13 (2.33%) Ajax
14 13 (2.33%) GraphQL
14 13 (2.33%) J2EE
14 13 (2.33%) LDAP
15 11 (1.97%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 32 (5.72%) Management Information System
2 20 (3.58%) Cloud Native
2 20 (3.58%) Onboarding
3 18 (3.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 18 (3.22%) Linux Command Line
4 17 (3.04%) Data Centre
5 13 (2.33%) Mobile App
5 13 (2.33%) Security Posture
6 12 (2.15%) Equities
7 11 (1.97%) Algorithms
7 11 (1.97%) Fixed Income
7 11 (1.97%) Greenfield Project
7 11 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
8 10 (1.79%) Derivative
8 10 (1.79%) Replication
9 9 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.43%) Enterprise Cloud
10 8 (1.43%) Mainframe
10 8 (1.43%) Public Cloud
10 8 (1.43%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 371 (66.37%) Linux
2 177 (31.66%) Windows
3 31 (5.55%) Windows Server
4 27 (4.83%) Solaris
5 26 (4.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (4.11%) Mac OS X
7 18 (3.22%) AIX
8 13 (2.33%) Android
8 13 (2.33%) Mac OS
9 11 (1.97%) CentOS
10 5 (0.89%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.36%) VMS
12 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.18%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (27.91%) Agile
2 120 (21.47%) Problem-Solving
3 107 (19.14%) DevOps
4 97 (17.35%) CI/CD
5 62 (11.09%) Computer Science
6 61 (10.91%) Observability
7 60 (10.73%) Microservices
8 59 (10.55%) Software Engineering
9 57 (10.20%) Incident Response
9 57 (10.20%) Infrastructure as Code
10 54 (9.66%) Migration
11 53 (9.48%) OO
12 51 (9.12%) Containerisation
13 50 (8.94%) Test Automation
14 49 (8.77%) TDD
15 46 (8.23%) Continuous Improvement
16 45 (8.05%) Performance Tuning
17 44 (7.87%) Data Modelling
17 44 (7.87%) Site Reliability Engineering
18 41 (7.33%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 207 (37.03%) Python
2 205 (36.67%) SQL
3 153 (27.37%) Java
4 91 (16.28%) Shell Script
5 76 (13.60%) Bash
6 65 (11.63%) Perl
7 47 (8.41%) JavaScript
8 44 (7.87%) C++
8 44 (7.87%) PowerShell
9 33 (5.90%) PL/SQL
10 29 (5.19%) C#
11 17 (3.04%) Korn
12 14 (2.50%) Scala
13 12 (2.15%) Go
14 8 (1.43%) PHP
15 7 (1.25%) COBOL
16 6 (1.07%) Groovy
17 4 (0.72%) C
17 4 (0.72%) TypeScript
18 3 (0.54%) HiveQL
Qualifications
1 128 (22.90%) Security Cleared
2 97 (17.35%) SC Cleared
3 89 (15.92%) Degree
4 47 (8.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (4.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (1.61%) CISSP
7 7 (1.25%) AWS Certification
8 6 (1.07%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 6 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.07%) OSCP
9 5 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
9 5 (0.89%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.89%) GPEN
9 5 (0.89%) GWAPT
9 5 (0.89%) ISTQB
9 5 (0.89%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 5 (0.89%) MCSA
9 5 (0.89%) MCSE
9 5 (0.89%) RHCE
10 3 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.86%) QA
1 16 (2.86%) SLA
2 9 (1.61%) Data Quality
2 9 (1.61%) NIST
3 7 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (0.72%) GMP
5 3 (0.54%) FATCA
5 3 (0.54%) NCSC
5 3 (0.54%) SEPA
6 2 (0.36%) GDPR
6 2 (0.36%) ISO 15022
6 2 (0.36%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.36%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.18%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.18%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.18%) SOC 2
System Software
1 80 (14.31%) Docker
2 21 (3.76%) Active Directory
3 11 (1.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.61%) KVM
5 7 (1.25%) Oracle RAC
6 6 (1.07%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.07%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.89%) Tivoli Directory Server
8 4 (0.72%) GPFS
8 4 (0.72%) HDFS
8 4 (0.72%) NFS
8 4 (0.72%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.36%) GridGain
9 2 (0.36%) SRDF
10 1 (0.18%) Ceph
10 1 (0.18%) Postfix
10 1 (0.18%) QEMU
10 1 (0.18%) Varnish
10 1 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.18%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 81 (14.49%) Kubernetes
2 68 (12.16%) Ansible
3 60 (10.73%) Terraform
4 39 (6.98%) Grafana
5 33 (5.90%) Puppet
6 25 (4.47%) Prometheus
7 15 (2.68%) Kibana
8 13 (2.33%) Progress Chef
9 9 (1.61%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (1.43%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 7 (1.25%) NetBackup
12 6 (1.07%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (1.07%) Red Hat Satellite
12 6 (1.07%) SCCM
12 6 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (1.07%) Tivoli
12 6 (1.07%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.89%) CASB
13 5 (0.89%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (0.89%) Salt
Vendors
1 175 (31.31%) Oracle
2 81 (14.49%) Splunk
3 63 (11.27%) Microsoft
4 47 (8.41%) IBM
5 33 (5.90%) ServiceNow
6 22 (3.94%) VMware
7 21 (3.76%) Red Hat
8 18 (3.22%) Cisco
9 14 (2.50%) AppDynamics
10 12 (2.15%) CyberArk
11 10 (1.79%) Dynatrace
11 10 (1.79%) Remedy
11 10 (1.79%) Talend
12 9 (1.61%) Informatica
12 9 (1.61%) Tenable
12 9 (1.61%) webMethods
13 8 (1.43%) Aruba
13 8 (1.43%) Dell
13 8 (1.43%) Sybase
13 8 (1.43%) Veritas