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 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 223 167 115
Rank change year-on-year -56 -52 -20
Contract jobs citing Unix 634 531 781
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 1.61% 2.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.24% 12.20% 14.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 389 354 521
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -1.38% -7.82%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £698 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -2.63% +5.56% -15.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 7
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 -
25th Percentile £43.81 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -58.49%
75th Percentile £54.25 £55.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £55.35 £62.50 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +15.26% -26.00%

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 5,181 4,353 5,464
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.70% 13.22% 14.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,277 2,780 3,621
10th Percentile £193 £191 £200
25th Percentile £319 £311 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £457 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +1.44% -5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 360 262 334
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.50 £12.44
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.19 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.00 £24.58 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.78% -19.41% -24.36%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.55 £67.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £23.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +21.74% -48.89% +63.64%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -39 526 £490 -2.00% 194
UK excluding London -40 358 £463 -2.63% 99
London -74 200 £550 +7.32% 124
Work from Home -14 176 £500 +5.26% 77
North of England -15 117 £480 -4.43% 27
South East -35 104 £431 -4.17% 26
North West +1 88 £478 +4.66% 20
Midlands 0 88 £461 -3.40% 8
West Midlands -6 80 £460 -7.54% 7
Scotland -50 39 £304 -36.00% 10
Yorkshire -37 22 £500 -19.35% 6
East of England -21 10 £700 +40.00% 4
North East - 10 £480 - 1
East Midlands -19 7 £463 +17.83% 1
South West -51 7 £575 -4.17% 19
Wales -11 6 £383 +35.40% 3
Northern Ireland -1 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 34 (5.36%) Confluence
2 31 (4.89%) SAS
3 17 (2.68%) Apache Airflow
4 13 (2.05%) Apache
5 12 (1.89%) Apache Spark
6 11 (1.74%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.26%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 8 (1.26%) WebLogic
8 7 (1.10%) NetWeaver
9 6 (0.95%) OpenStack
9 6 (0.95%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.79%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.63%) CICS
11 4 (0.63%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.32%) CMS
13 2 (0.32%) IIS
13 2 (0.32%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 12 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.10%) Notepad++
3 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.95%) SAP PSCD
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.63%) Summit
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 129 (20.35%) AWS
2 84 (13.25%) Azure
3 41 (6.47%) GitHub
4 31 (4.89%) GCP
5 25 (3.94%) GitHub Actions
5 25 (3.94%) IaaS
6 23 (3.63%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (3.47%) Entra ID
8 21 (3.31%) Amazon S3
8 21 (3.31%) Serverless
9 18 (2.84%) PaaS
10 17 (2.68%) SaaS
11 15 (2.37%) Power Platform
12 14 (2.21%) OpenShift
13 13 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
14 12 (1.89%) Snowflake
15 9 (1.42%) Amazon EC2
15 9 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
15 9 (1.42%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (1.26%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.57%) Firewall
2 28 (4.42%) DNS
3 25 (3.94%) SAN
4 23 (3.63%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.37%) HTTP
6 13 (2.05%) NAS
7 12 (1.89%) SSL
8 11 (1.74%) DHCP
9 10 (1.58%) SSH
10 8 (1.26%) Network Security
11 7 (1.10%) LAN
11 7 (1.10%) LTE
11 7 (1.10%) PuTTY
11 7 (1.10%) WAN
11 7 (1.10%) WinSCP
12 6 (0.95%) Internet
12 6 (0.95%) Radio Access Network
12 6 (0.95%) VoLTE
12 6 (0.95%) VPN
12 6 (0.95%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (10.73%) SQL Server
2 53 (8.36%) Oracle Database
3 42 (6.62%) Relational Database
4 39 (6.15%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (5.05%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (4.26%) MySQL
7 24 (3.79%) MongoDB
8 20 (3.15%) Db2
9 19 (3.00%) Metadata
10 16 (2.52%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.52%) DataStage
10 16 (2.52%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.37%) Oracle Database 12c
11 15 (2.37%) Power BI
11 15 (2.37%) Sybase ASE
12 14 (2.21%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.21%) NoSQL
12 14 (2.21%) Oracle Reports
12 14 (2.21%) RDBMS
13 12 (1.89%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 69 (10.88%) Jenkins
2 60 (9.46%) Git
3 57 (8.99%) JIRA
4 51 (8.04%) GitLab
5 23 (3.63%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.05%) Mockito
7 11 (1.74%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.74%) Sonatype Nexus
8 10 (1.58%) JUnit
9 9 (1.42%) Maven
9 9 (1.42%) Oracle Forms
10 8 (1.26%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.79%) eggPlant
11 5 (0.79%) JMeter
11 5 (0.79%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.79%) Postman
11 5 (0.79%) Selenium
11 5 (0.79%) SoapUI
12 4 (0.63%) Gradle
12 4 (0.63%) JDeveloper
General
1 150 (23.66%) Finance
2 144 (22.71%) Social Skills
3 95 (14.98%) Banking
4 92 (14.51%) Analytical Skills
5 52 (8.20%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.73%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.47%) Front Office
8 21 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.74%) Retail
9 11 (1.74%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (0.95%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.79%) Advertising
12 5 (0.79%) Military
13 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.32%) Billing
14 2 (0.32%) Local Government
14 2 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.32%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 128 (20.19%) Developer
2 91 (14.35%) Senior
3 70 (11.04%) Data Engineer
4 63 (9.94%) Unix Engineer
5 48 (7.57%) Java Developer
6 44 (6.94%) Senior Developer
7 39 (6.15%) DBA
7 39 (6.15%) Support Engineer
8 34 (5.36%) Analyst
9 28 (4.42%) Python Developer
10 27 (4.26%) Oracle DBA
11 25 (3.94%) Consultant
12 23 (3.63%) Linux Engineer
13 22 (3.47%) Administrator
14 21 (3.31%) Architect
15 18 (2.84%) Senior Java Developer
16 17 (2.68%) Applications Support
17 14 (2.21%) Lead
18 13 (2.05%) Automation Engineer
19 12 (1.89%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (10.09%) Kafka
2 44 (6.94%) REST
3 39 (6.15%) Middleware
3 39 (6.15%) RESTful
4 32 (5.05%) Spring
5 29 (4.57%) Spring Boot
6 25 (3.94%) XML
7 20 (3.15%) Web Services
8 18 (2.84%) CSS
9 17 (2.68%) .NET
9 17 (2.68%) SOAP
10 15 (2.37%) HTML
10 15 (2.37%) Pandas
10 15 (2.37%) RabbitMQ
11 14 (2.21%) ActiveMQ
12 13 (2.05%) FastAPI
12 13 (2.05%) Flask
12 13 (2.05%) JAX-RS
12 13 (2.05%) JDBC
12 13 (2.05%) Oracle GoldenGate
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.78%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.99%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.68%) Legacy Systems
4 35 (5.52%) Data Centre
5 27 (4.26%) Distributed Systems
6 25 (3.94%) Cloud Native
7 21 (3.31%) Fixed Income
7 21 (3.31%) Management Information System
8 20 (3.15%) Replication
9 18 (2.84%) Derivative
10 16 (2.52%) Clustering
11 15 (2.37%) Mainframe
12 13 (2.05%) Virtual Team
13 12 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (1.89%) PKI
14 11 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.74%) Market Risk
15 10 (1.58%) Data Structures
15 10 (1.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 9 (1.42%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 415 (65.46%) Linux
2 151 (23.82%) Windows
3 68 (10.73%) Solaris
4 39 (6.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 38 (5.99%) Windows Server
6 33 (5.21%) AIX
7 10 (1.58%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.26%) HPUX
9 7 (1.10%) Mac OS X
9 7 (1.10%) SUSE
10 5 (0.79%) CentOS
10 5 (0.79%) VMS
11 3 (0.47%) Android
11 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
11 3 (0.47%) OpenVMS
12 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.32%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.32%) zOS
13 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (21.77%) CI/CD
2 119 (18.77%) Agile
3 106 (16.72%) Migration
3 106 (16.72%) Problem-Solving
4 93 (14.67%) Test Automation
5 92 (14.51%) DevOps
6 83 (13.09%) High Availability
7 82 (12.93%) ITIL
8 76 (11.99%) Root Cause Analysis
9 65 (10.25%) Performance Tuning
10 59 (9.31%) Data Modelling
11 55 (8.68%) Disaster Recovery
12 54 (8.52%) ETL
13 53 (8.36%) Data Pipeline
13 53 (8.36%) Microservices
14 49 (7.73%) Analytics
14 49 (7.73%) Continuous Improvement
14 49 (7.73%) Runbook
15 45 (7.10%) Performance Optimisation
16 44 (6.94%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 245 (38.64%) SQL
2 232 (36.59%) Python
3 126 (19.87%) Java
4 123 (19.40%) Shell Script
5 87 (13.72%) PL/SQL
6 54 (8.52%) Bash
7 49 (7.73%) PowerShell
8 46 (7.26%) Perl
9 34 (5.36%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.26%) C#
11 20 (3.15%) C++
12 15 (2.37%) C
13 14 (2.21%) Korn
14 7 (1.10%) Go
15 6 (0.95%) ABAP
15 6 (0.95%) COBOL
15 6 (0.95%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.95%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.95%) Scala
16 5 (0.79%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 226 (35.65%) Security Cleared
2 192 (30.28%) SC Cleared
3 59 (9.31%) Degree
4 29 (4.57%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (2.68%) CISSP
6 14 (2.21%) DV Cleared
7 13 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (1.58%) CISM
9 8 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (1.26%) CompTIA Security+
10 7 (1.10%) CRISC
11 6 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.95%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.95%) GIAC
12 5 (0.79%) RHCE
12 5 (0.79%) SANS
13 4 (0.63%) GSEC
13 4 (0.63%) ISEB
13 4 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.68%) NIST
2 35 (5.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 26 (4.10%) QA
4 25 (3.94%) Data Quality
5 14 (2.21%) SLA
6 12 (1.89%) GDPR
7 7 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.10%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.95%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.79%) GRC
10 4 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.63%) ISO 15022
10 4 (0.63%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.47%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.32%) NCSC
13 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
13 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
13 1 (0.16%) SEPA
13 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 54 (8.52%) Docker
2 42 (6.62%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.94%) Oracle RAC
4 23 (3.63%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (2.68%) NFS
6 8 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.10%) Firmware
7 7 (1.10%) PowerHA
8 6 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.79%) GPFS
9 5 (0.79%) Postfix
9 5 (0.79%) Varnish
9 5 (0.79%) vSphere
10 4 (0.63%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.47%) GridGain
11 3 (0.47%) HDFS
11 3 (0.47%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.47%) KVM
11 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.47%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 65 (10.25%) Kubernetes
2 58 (9.15%) Ansible
3 37 (5.84%) Terraform
4 35 (5.52%) Oracle RMAN
5 30 (4.73%) Grafana
6 20 (3.15%) Data Guard
7 18 (2.84%) Progress Chef
7 18 (2.84%) Prometheus
8 17 (2.68%) Control-M
9 16 (2.52%) Puppet
10 14 (2.21%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 11 (1.74%) Kibana
12 10 (1.58%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (1.10%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 6 (0.95%) Tivoli
15 5 (0.79%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.79%) HP Fortify
15 5 (0.79%) ITRS Geneos
15 5 (0.79%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.79%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 243 (38.33%) Oracle
2 57 (8.99%) IBM
3 43 (6.78%) Microsoft
4 42 (6.62%) Splunk
5 40 (6.31%) BeyondTrust
6 33 (5.21%) Informatica
7 32 (5.05%) CyberArk
8 29 (4.57%) Sybase
8 29 (4.57%) Talend
9 28 (4.42%) VMware
10 27 (4.26%) Red Hat
11 24 (3.79%) SAP
12 23 (3.63%) ServiceNow
13 21 (3.31%) Denodo
14 14 (2.21%) Dynatrace
15 13 (2.05%) Cisco
16 12 (1.89%) HP
17 11 (1.74%) BT
18 10 (1.58%) SaltStack
18 10 (1.58%) Solace