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 21 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 171 125
Rank change year-on-year -50 -46 -36
Contract jobs citing Unix 639 518 778
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.21% 1.59% 1.88%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.61% 11.80% 13.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 379 329 512
10th Percentile £315 £356 £326
25th Percentile £413 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £491 £509
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -3.59% -7.50%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £678 £678 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -3.37% +5.56% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 6 17
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 £22.21
25th Percentile £31.86 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +36.88% -37.68%
75th Percentile £53.75 £55.00 -
90th Percentile £55.00 £62.50 £60.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £54.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.17% +36.88% -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 5,066 4,388 5,728
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.61% 13.47% 13.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,216 2,821 3,773
10th Percentile £191 £200 £190
25th Percentile £319 £313 £324
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.08% -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% +2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 340 248 401
10th Percentile £15.73 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.10 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -6.12% -42.35%
75th Percentile £63.75 £54.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.02 £67.30 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.58 £21.90 £31.00
% change year-on-year +21.37% -29.35% +3.33%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 -22 534 £482 +1.47% 78
UK excluding London -46 367 £459 -3.37% 59
London -69 196 £550 +10.00% 44
Work from Home -26 185 £490 +8.89% 48
North of England -21 124 £480 +1.91% 19
South East -20 112 £425 -15.00% 13
North West -1 94 £475 +6.26% 17
Midlands +15 86 £459 +2.00% 7
West Midlands +5 79 £459 -0.22% 7
Scotland -57 37 £425 -12.82% 7
Yorkshire -55 24 £500 -4.76% 1
East of England -28 10 £700 +55.56% 3
North East -34 9 £490 +30.73% 1
East Midlands -10 6 £472 +28.37%
Wales -11 6 £383 +35.40% 5
South West -45 5 £600 - 2
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 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 36 (5.63%) Confluence
2 32 (5.01%) SAS
3 15 (2.35%) Apache
3 15 (2.35%) Apache Airflow
3 15 (2.35%) Apache Spark
4 10 (1.56%) CICS
5 9 (1.41%) WebLogic
6 7 (1.10%) NetWeaver
6 7 (1.10%) SharePoint
6 7 (1.10%) Tuxedo
7 6 (0.94%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
10 3 (0.47%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.31%) IIS
11 2 (0.31%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 13 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.10%) Notepad++
3 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.94%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.94%) SAP PSCD
3 5 (0.78%) Summit
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle Assets
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle E-Business Tax
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle FAH
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle Internet Expenses
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
5 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 120 (18.78%) AWS
2 77 (12.05%) Azure
3 33 (5.16%) GitHub
4 26 (4.07%) GCP
5 24 (3.76%) AWS Lambda
5 24 (3.76%) Entra ID
6 23 (3.60%) Serverless
7 21 (3.29%) GitHub Actions
8 20 (3.13%) Amazon S3
9 18 (2.82%) IaaS
9 18 (2.82%) PaaS
10 15 (2.35%) OpenShift
10 15 (2.35%) SaaS
11 14 (2.19%) Power Platform
12 11 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (1.56%) Snowflake
14 9 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
15 8 (1.25%) Amazon ECS
15 8 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
16 7 (1.10%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 34 (5.32%) Firewall
2 26 (4.07%) DNS
3 24 (3.76%) SAN
4 19 (2.97%) TCP/IP
5 14 (2.19%) HTTP
5 14 (2.19%) NAS
6 13 (2.03%) SSH
7 10 (1.56%) SSL
8 8 (1.25%) DHCP
8 8 (1.25%) Network Security
8 8 (1.25%) Wireshark
9 7 (1.10%) 5G
9 7 (1.10%) FTP
9 7 (1.10%) PuTTY
9 7 (1.10%) VPN
9 7 (1.10%) WinSCP
9 7 (1.10%) Wireless
10 6 (0.94%) Internet
10 6 (0.94%) VoLTE
10 6 (0.94%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (11.42%) SQL Server
2 54 (8.45%) Oracle Database
3 43 (6.73%) Relational Database
4 33 (5.16%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (5.01%) MySQL
6 31 (4.85%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (4.85%) MongoDB
7 24 (3.76%) Db2
8 22 (3.44%) DataStage
9 19 (2.97%) Metadata
10 16 (2.50%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.50%) KDB
10 16 (2.50%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.35%) Big Data
11 15 (2.35%) Oracle Database 12c
12 14 (2.19%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.19%) Oracle Reports
12 14 (2.19%) Power BI
12 14 (2.19%) Sybase ASE
13 13 (2.03%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 59 (9.23%) JIRA
2 55 (8.61%) Jenkins
3 47 (7.36%) Git
3 47 (7.36%) GitLab
4 23 (3.60%) Artifactory
5 16 (2.50%) Mockito
6 12 (1.88%) Bitbucket
7 9 (1.41%) Maven
7 9 (1.41%) Oracle Forms
8 8 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.78%) JUnit
10 4 (0.63%) CA Gen
10 4 (0.63%) JDeveloper
10 4 (0.63%) Selenium
10 4 (0.63%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.47%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.47%) Eclipse
11 3 (0.47%) Introscope
11 3 (0.47%) MSI
11 3 (0.47%) Xcode
General
1 163 (25.51%) Finance
2 141 (22.07%) Social Skills
3 96 (15.02%) Banking
4 81 (12.68%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (10.33%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.38%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
8 18 (2.82%) Front Office
9 13 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
10 12 (1.88%) Retail
10 12 (1.88%) Telecoms
11 9 (1.41%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (0.94%) Advertising
12 6 (0.94%) Military
13 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.31%) Billing
14 2 (0.31%) Law
14 2 (0.31%) Local Government
14 2 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 131 (20.50%) Developer
2 88 (13.77%) Senior
3 66 (10.33%) Data Engineer
4 59 (9.23%) Unix Engineer
5 50 (7.82%) Java Developer
6 42 (6.57%) Support Engineer
7 41 (6.42%) DBA
7 41 (6.42%) Senior Developer
8 35 (5.48%) Analyst
9 29 (4.54%) Oracle DBA
10 26 (4.07%) Consultant
10 26 (4.07%) Python Developer
11 21 (3.29%) Administrator
11 21 (3.29%) Architect
12 20 (3.13%) Senior Java Developer
13 19 (2.97%) Linux Engineer
14 17 (2.66%) Applications Support
15 16 (2.50%) Technical Support
16 14 (2.19%) DevOps Engineer
16 14 (2.19%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (8.92%) Kafka
2 42 (6.57%) REST
3 39 (6.10%) Middleware
4 29 (4.54%) RESTful
5 25 (3.91%) Spring
6 24 (3.76%) XML
7 23 (3.60%) Spring Boot
8 17 (2.66%) CSS
9 16 (2.50%) ActiveMQ
9 16 (2.50%) JAX-RS
9 16 (2.50%) Web Services
10 15 (2.35%) LDAP
10 15 (2.35%) Oracle GoldenGate
11 14 (2.19%) SOAP
12 13 (2.03%) Pandas
13 12 (1.88%) RabbitMQ
14 11 (1.72%) FastAPI
14 11 (1.72%) Flask
14 11 (1.72%) HTML
14 11 (1.72%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.73%) Onboarding
2 37 (5.79%) Data Centre
2 37 (5.79%) Linux Command Line
3 35 (5.48%) Legacy Systems
4 23 (3.60%) Cloud Native
4 23 (3.60%) Management Information System
5 22 (3.44%) Mainframe
6 21 (3.29%) Replication
7 19 (2.97%) Fixed Income
8 17 (2.66%) Derivative
8 17 (2.66%) Distributed Systems
9 14 (2.19%) Clustering
10 11 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 11 (1.72%) PKI
11 10 (1.56%) BYOD
11 10 (1.56%) Market Risk
11 10 (1.56%) VSAM
12 9 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
12 9 (1.41%) Public Cloud
12 9 (1.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 424 (66.35%) Linux
2 157 (24.57%) Windows
3 70 (10.95%) Solaris
4 42 (6.57%) Windows Server
5 38 (5.95%) AIX
6 30 (4.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (2.19%) Mac OS X
8 10 (1.56%) Oracle Linux
9 8 (1.25%) HPUX
10 7 (1.10%) SUSE
11 5 (0.78%) CentOS
11 5 (0.78%) VMS
12 3 (0.47%) Android
12 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.47%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.47%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.31%) zOS
14 1 (0.16%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (19.87%) Agile
2 125 (19.56%) CI/CD
3 111 (17.37%) Problem-Solving
4 100 (15.65%) Migration
5 88 (13.77%) ITIL
6 81 (12.68%) DevOps
7 79 (12.36%) High Availability
8 75 (11.74%) Root Cause Analysis
9 73 (11.42%) Test Automation
10 64 (10.02%) Performance Tuning
11 57 (8.92%) Data Modelling
12 55 (8.61%) Microservices
13 54 (8.45%) Disaster Recovery
13 54 (8.45%) ETL
14 52 (8.14%) Runbook
15 48 (7.51%) Analytics
16 47 (7.36%) Data Pipeline
17 45 (7.04%) Change Management
17 45 (7.04%) Incident Management
18 43 (6.73%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 238 (37.25%) SQL
2 219 (34.27%) Python
3 126 (19.72%) Shell Script
4 123 (19.25%) Java
5 90 (14.08%) PL/SQL
6 52 (8.14%) PowerShell
7 51 (7.98%) Bash
8 36 (5.63%) Perl
9 33 (5.16%) JavaScript
10 24 (3.76%) C#
11 18 (2.82%) C++
12 17 (2.66%) Korn
13 12 (1.88%) COBOL
14 8 (1.25%) Scala
15 7 (1.10%) C
16 6 (0.94%) ABAP
16 6 (0.94%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.78%) Go
17 5 (0.78%) ProC
17 5 (0.78%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 226 (35.37%) Security Cleared
2 191 (29.89%) SC Cleared
3 65 (10.17%) Degree
4 34 (5.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.97%) CISSP
6 13 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (2.03%) DV Cleared
7 11 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
8 9 (1.41%) CISM
9 7 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.10%) CRISC
10 6 (0.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (0.94%) GIAC
10 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.78%) MCSA
11 5 (0.78%) MCSE
11 5 (0.78%) RHCE
11 5 (0.78%) SANS
12 4 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 38 (5.95%) NIST
2 22 (3.44%) Data Quality
3 21 (3.29%) QA
4 15 (2.35%) SLA
5 7 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (0.94%) GDPR
6 6 (0.94%) ISO 20022
6 6 (0.94%) ISO 31000
7 5 (0.78%) GRC
8 4 (0.63%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.63%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.47%) FATCA
9 3 (0.47%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.31%) NCSC
11 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
11 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 50 (7.82%) Docker
2 47 (7.36%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.23%) Oracle RAC
4 19 (2.97%) VMware Infrastructure
5 18 (2.82%) NFS
6 11 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.94%) Firmware
7 6 (0.94%) GPFS
7 6 (0.94%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.94%) KVM
7 6 (0.94%) PowerHA
7 6 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.78%) Postfix
8 5 (0.78%) Varnish
8 5 (0.78%) vSphere
9 4 (0.63%) HDFS
9 4 (0.63%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.47%) GridGain
10 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 2 (0.31%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 59 (9.23%) Kubernetes
2 56 (8.76%) Ansible
3 37 (5.79%) Oracle RMAN
4 36 (5.63%) Terraform
5 35 (5.48%) Grafana
6 24 (3.76%) Prometheus
7 20 (3.13%) Data Guard
8 16 (2.50%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 11 (1.72%) Control-M
10 9 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (1.25%) Kibana
11 8 (1.25%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.94%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (0.94%) Nessus
12 6 (0.94%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.94%) Puppet
12 6 (0.94%) Tivoli
12 6 (0.94%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 6 (0.94%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.78%) vRealize
Vendors
1 247 (38.65%) Oracle
2 60 (9.39%) IBM
3 44 (6.89%) Microsoft
4 43 (6.73%) Splunk
5 41 (6.42%) BeyondTrust
6 38 (5.95%) CyberArk
7 32 (5.01%) Informatica
7 32 (5.01%) Talend
8 29 (4.54%) Sybase
9 28 (4.38%) VMware
10 27 (4.23%) ServiceNow
11 21 (3.29%) Denodo
12 19 (2.97%) Red Hat
12 19 (2.97%) SAP
13 17 (2.66%) Cisco
14 13 (2.03%) Dynatrace
15 12 (1.88%) HP
16 11 (1.72%) BT
17 10 (1.56%) CheckPoint
17 10 (1.56%) Solace