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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 224 174 119
Rank change year-on-year -50 -55 -20
Contract jobs citing Unix 623 541 777
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.65% 2.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.94% 12.32% 14.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 385 354 508
10th Percentile £350 £305 £325
25th Percentile £418 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.20% -7.05%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £709 £712 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -1.08% +5.56% -15.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 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% -58.14%
75th Percentile £55.00 £55.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.66 £62.50 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +15.26% -25.78%

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 5,216 4,393 5,428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.72% 13.43% 13.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,305 2,796 3,553
10th Percentile £193 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £306 £326
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £585
90th Percentile £669 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £447 £450
% change year-on-year +0.67% -0.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 356 270 323
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.56 £12.43
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.51 £17.85
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.08 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.77% -16.42% -29.41%
75th Percentile £63.75 £57.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.83 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.81 £24.33 £39.25
% change year-on-year +6.06% -38.01% +27.02%

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 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 26 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 26 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 -36 513 £500 - 85
UK excluding London -61 336 £470 -1.08% 63
London -69 208 £550 +4.76% 37
Work from Home -29 174 £500 +5.26% 41
North of England -32 111 £475 -3.46% 18
South East -48 99 £459 +2.00% 5
North West -8 83 £475 +5.91% 11
Midlands -12 75 £470 -6.00% 6
West Midlands -21 67 £471 -9.20% 5
Scotland -58 41 £367 -22.74% 2
Yorkshire -43 21 £525 -19.23% 4
North East -33 10 £480 - 3
East of England -28 8 £700 +40.00% 4
South West -46 8 £650 +8.33% 27
East Midlands -14 7 £463 +17.83% 1
Wales -11 5 £383 +35.40% 1
Northern Ireland -6 1 - - 1

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 33 (5.30%) Confluence
2 29 (4.65%) SAS
3 17 (2.73%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (2.25%) SharePoint
5 13 (2.09%) Apache
6 12 (1.93%) Apache Spark
7 10 (1.61%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 8 (1.28%) WebLogic
9 7 (1.12%) OpenStack
10 6 (0.96%) WebSphere
11 5 (0.80%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.64%) NetWeaver
13 3 (0.48%) CICS
13 3 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
13 3 (0.48%) WebSphere Application Server
14 2 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.32%) CMS
14 2 (0.32%) IIS
14 2 (0.32%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.32%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 14 (2.25%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.12%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.96%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (0.96%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.64%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.64%) Summit
4 3 (0.48%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.48%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 134 (21.51%) AWS
2 85 (13.64%) Azure
3 42 (6.74%) GitHub
4 35 (5.62%) GCP
5 25 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
6 24 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
6 24 (3.85%) IaaS
7 23 (3.69%) Serverless
8 22 (3.53%) Amazon S3
9 21 (3.37%) Entra ID
10 17 (2.73%) PaaS
10 17 (2.73%) SaaS
11 14 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (2.25%) OpenShift
11 14 (2.25%) Power Platform
12 12 (1.93%) Snowflake
13 9 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
13 9 (1.44%) GitHub Copilot
14 8 (1.28%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (1.28%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 27 (4.33%) DNS
2 26 (4.17%) Firewall
3 23 (3.69%) TCP/IP
4 21 (3.37%) SAN
5 15 (2.41%) HTTP
6 11 (1.77%) DHCP
6 11 (1.77%) SSH
6 11 (1.77%) SSL
7 10 (1.61%) NAS
8 7 (1.12%) LAN
8 7 (1.12%) LTE
8 7 (1.12%) Network Security
8 7 (1.12%) PuTTY
8 7 (1.12%) WAN
8 7 (1.12%) WinSCP
9 6 (0.96%) Diameter Protocol
9 6 (0.96%) Radio Access Network
9 6 (0.96%) VoLTE
9 6 (0.96%) VoWiFi
9 6 (0.96%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (9.63%) SQL Server
2 52 (8.35%) Oracle Database
3 45 (7.22%) Relational Database
4 39 (6.26%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (5.94%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (3.85%) MongoDB
6 24 (3.85%) MySQL
7 19 (3.05%) Db2
7 19 (3.05%) Metadata
8 17 (2.73%) DataStage
8 17 (2.73%) NoSQL
9 16 (2.57%) Oracle Database 11g
10 15 (2.41%) RDBMS
11 14 (2.25%) Amazon Aurora
11 14 (2.25%) Power BI
12 13 (2.09%) BusinessObjects
12 13 (2.09%) Oracle Reports
12 13 (2.09%) Sybase ASE
13 12 (1.93%) Data Lake
13 12 (1.93%) KDB
Development Applications
1 65 (10.43%) Git
1 65 (10.43%) Jenkins
2 58 (9.31%) JIRA
3 47 (7.54%) GitLab
4 23 (3.69%) Artifactory
5 11 (1.77%) Bitbucket
5 11 (1.77%) JUnit
5 11 (1.77%) Mockito
5 11 (1.77%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (1.44%) Oracle Forms
7 8 (1.28%) eggPlant
7 8 (1.28%) Maven
7 8 (1.28%) Selenium
7 8 (1.28%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.80%) HP UFT
8 5 (0.80%) JMeter
8 5 (0.80%) LoadRunner
8 5 (0.80%) Postman
8 5 (0.80%) SoapUI
9 4 (0.64%) JDeveloper
General
1 159 (25.52%) Finance
2 144 (23.11%) Social Skills
3 102 (16.37%) Banking
4 98 (15.73%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (7.87%) Public Sector
6 29 (4.65%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.53%) Front Office
8 21 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.77%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.61%) Retail
11 6 (0.96%) Financial Institution
11 6 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.80%) Military
13 4 (0.64%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.48%) General Ledger
14 3 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
15 2 (0.32%) Local Government
15 2 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.32%) Prime Brokerage
Job Titles
1 131 (21.03%) Developer
2 96 (15.41%) Senior
3 66 (10.59%) Data Engineer
4 63 (10.11%) Unix Engineer
5 47 (7.54%) Java Developer
5 47 (7.54%) Senior Developer
6 37 (5.94%) DBA
6 37 (5.94%) Support Engineer
7 32 (5.14%) Analyst
8 31 (4.98%) Python Developer
9 26 (4.17%) Linux Engineer
10 25 (4.01%) Consultant
10 25 (4.01%) Oracle DBA
11 22 (3.53%) Administrator
11 22 (3.53%) Architect
12 19 (3.05%) Applications Support
12 19 (3.05%) Senior Java Developer
13 14 (2.25%) Lead
14 12 (1.93%) Automation Engineer
14 12 (1.93%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (10.75%) Kafka
2 45 (7.22%) REST
3 41 (6.58%) RESTful
4 40 (6.42%) Middleware
5 39 (6.26%) Terraform
6 32 (5.14%) Spring
7 29 (4.65%) Spring Boot
8 26 (4.17%) XML
9 21 (3.37%) Web Services
10 20 (3.21%) .NET
11 19 (3.05%) CSS
11 19 (3.05%) HTML
11 19 (3.05%) SOAP
12 16 (2.57%) RabbitMQ
13 15 (2.41%) Flask
14 14 (2.25%) Pandas
15 13 (2.09%) FastAPI
15 13 (2.09%) JDBC
15 13 (2.09%) PySpark
16 12 (1.93%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 46 (7.38%) Onboarding
2 37 (5.94%) Linux Command Line
3 35 (5.62%) Legacy Systems
4 33 (5.30%) Data Centre
5 31 (4.98%) Distributed Systems
6 24 (3.85%) Cloud Native
7 21 (3.37%) Fixed Income
8 20 (3.21%) Management Information System
9 19 (3.05%) Replication
10 18 (2.89%) Derivative
11 16 (2.57%) Clustering
12 15 (2.41%) Mainframe
13 13 (2.09%) Virtual Team
14 12 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
14 12 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (1.93%) PKI
15 11 (1.77%) Market Risk
15 11 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.61%) Data Structures
16 10 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 412 (66.13%) Linux
2 141 (22.63%) Windows
3 69 (11.08%) Solaris
4 38 (6.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 36 (5.78%) Windows Server
6 32 (5.14%) AIX
7 10 (1.61%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.28%) HPUX
9 7 (1.12%) SUSE
10 5 (0.80%) CentOS
10 5 (0.80%) Mac OS X
11 4 (0.64%) VMS
12 3 (0.48%) Android
12 3 (0.48%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.48%) OpenVMS
12 3 (0.48%) zOS
13 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (22.31%) CI/CD
2 120 (19.26%) Agile
3 106 (17.01%) Migration
3 106 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
4 98 (15.73%) Test Automation
5 95 (15.25%) DevOps
6 82 (13.16%) High Availability
6 82 (13.16%) Root Cause Analysis
7 75 (12.04%) ITIL
8 66 (10.59%) Data Modelling
8 66 (10.59%) Performance Tuning
9 57 (9.15%) Data Pipeline
9 57 (9.15%) ETL
10 56 (8.99%) Runbook
11 55 (8.83%) Continuous Improvement
12 54 (8.67%) Microservices
13 52 (8.35%) Disaster Recovery
14 48 (7.70%) Change Management
15 47 (7.54%) Infrastructure as Code
16 46 (7.38%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 246 (39.49%) SQL
2 236 (37.88%) Python
3 130 (20.87%) Java
4 125 (20.06%) Shell Script
5 82 (13.16%) PL/SQL
6 57 (9.15%) Bash
7 49 (7.87%) PowerShell
8 44 (7.06%) Perl
9 35 (5.62%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.33%) C#
11 20 (3.21%) C++
12 15 (2.41%) C
13 12 (1.93%) Korn
14 8 (1.28%) Go
15 6 (0.96%) ABAP
15 6 (0.96%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.96%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.96%) Scala
15 6 (0.96%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.80%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 218 (34.99%) Security Cleared
2 183 (29.37%) SC Cleared
3 59 (9.47%) Degree
4 31 (4.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.57%) DV Cleared
6 14 (2.25%) CISSP
7 13 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.44%) CISM
9 8 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.12%) CRISC
11 6 (0.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.96%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (0.96%) GIAC
11 6 (0.96%) ISEB
11 6 (0.96%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.80%) RHCE
12 5 (0.80%) SANS
13 4 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.64%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (5.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.62%) NIST
3 31 (4.98%) QA
4 30 (4.82%) Data Quality
5 13 (2.09%) SLA
6 11 (1.77%) GDPR
7 8 (1.28%) ISO 20022
8 7 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (0.96%) ISO 31000
10 5 (0.80%) GRC
11 4 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.64%) ISO 15022
11 4 (0.64%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.48%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.32%) NCSC
13 2 (0.32%) SEPA
14 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
14 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
14 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 56 (8.99%) Docker
2 39 (6.26%) Active Directory
3 23 (3.69%) Oracle RAC
3 23 (3.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.73%) NFS
5 7 (1.12%) Firmware
5 7 (1.12%) PowerHA
6 6 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.80%) GPFS
7 5 (0.80%) Postfix
7 5 (0.80%) Varnish
7 5 (0.80%) vSphere
8 4 (0.64%) Sendmail
9 3 (0.48%) GridGain
9 3 (0.48%) Veritas Volume Manager
9 3 (0.48%) VirtualBox
10 1 (0.16%) RACF
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 68 (10.91%) Kubernetes
2 54 (8.67%) Ansible
3 31 (4.98%) Oracle RMAN
4 29 (4.65%) Grafana
5 20 (3.21%) Data Guard
5 20 (3.21%) Prometheus
6 18 (2.89%) Control-M
7 16 (2.57%) Progress Chef
8 14 (2.25%) Puppet
9 11 (1.77%) Kibana
9 11 (1.77%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 9 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (1.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 6 (0.96%) Tivoli
13 5 (0.80%) HAProxy
13 5 (0.80%) HP Fortify
13 5 (0.80%) ITRS Geneos
13 5 (0.80%) Oracle ZFS
13 5 (0.80%) vRealize
13 5 (0.80%) VxRail
Vendors
1 243 (39.00%) Oracle
2 56 (8.99%) IBM
3 45 (7.22%) Splunk
4 44 (7.06%) Microsoft
5 40 (6.42%) BeyondTrust
6 31 (4.98%) Informatica
7 30 (4.82%) CyberArk
8 29 (4.65%) Red Hat
9 27 (4.33%) Sybase
9 27 (4.33%) VMware
10 24 (3.85%) Talend
11 23 (3.69%) SAP
12 20 (3.21%) ServiceNow
13 18 (2.89%) Denodo
14 15 (2.41%) Dynatrace
15 11 (1.77%) BT
15 11 (1.77%) Solace
16 10 (1.61%) Cisco
16 10 (1.61%) HP
16 10 (1.61%) Teradata