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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 200 129 127
Rank change year-on-year -71 -2 -45
Contract jobs citing Unix 580 637 838
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.45% 2.06% 1.88%
As % of the Operating Systems category 11.98% 14.37% 13.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 383 356 574
10th Percentile £204 £350 £363
25th Percentile £381 £423 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -11.43% -4.55% -0.09%
75th Percentile £614 £658 £665
90th Percentile £738 £756 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £435 £465 £500
% change year-on-year -6.30% -7.10% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 7 22
10th Percentile £22.48 £38.70 £22.01
25th Percentile £25.72 £40.50 £24.54
Median hourly rate £27.50 £41.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% +2.50% -38.22%
75th Percentile £28.75 £59.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £29.20 £69.50 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.44 £47.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -43.74% +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 4,840 4,434 6,238
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.10% 14.32% 14.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,214 2,778 4,189
10th Percentile £178 £199 £181
25th Percentile £263 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -7.37% +2.70% -10.19%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £689 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £408 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -9.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 154 386
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.15 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.96 £16.94
Median hourly rate £23.50 £29.89 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.38% +18.38% -1.87%
75th Percentile £54.38 £64.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.00 £69.63 £72.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.50 £25.15
% change year-on-year -18.18% +9.35% -1.90%

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 13 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
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 13 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 -50 502 £475 -13.64% 96
UK excluding London -61 295 £435 -6.30% 76
London -23 233 £539 -10.21% 32
Work from Home -67 166 £454 -8.38% 51
North of England -24 100 £465 -20.85% 16
South East -21 83 £208 -53.32% 22
Midlands -37 65 £450 -2.17% 16
West Midlands -28 61 £450 -4.05% 14
North West -4 59 £458 -16.82% 14
Yorkshire -56 38 £500 -20.63%
Scotland -41 37 £420 -6.67% 8
South West -27 11 £700 +33.33% 7
North East -12 5 £563 +50.00% 2
East Midlands -33 4 £465 +10.06% 2
Wales -7 1 £265 +64.60% 2
East of England -38 1 £440 +3.53% 7

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 31 (5.34%) Apache
2 30 (5.17%) WebLogic
3 21 (3.62%) Confluence
4 16 (2.76%) JBoss
4 16 (2.76%) SharePoint
5 10 (1.72%) Tuxedo
6 9 (1.55%) Apache Spark
6 9 (1.55%) Tomcat
7 7 (1.21%) IIS
7 7 (1.21%) WebSphere
8 6 (1.03%) CICS
8 6 (1.03%) iPlanet
8 6 (1.03%) WebSphere Application Server
9 5 (0.86%) nginx
9 5 (0.86%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.86%) SAS
10 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.34%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.34%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 15 (2.59%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.17%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (1.03%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.86%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.52%) Kondor
4 3 (0.52%) Oracle BRM
5 2 (0.34%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.34%) Summit
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 136 (23.45%) AWS
2 87 (15.00%) Azure
3 31 (5.34%) GCP
4 27 (4.66%) GitHub
5 21 (3.62%) AWS CloudFormation
5 21 (3.62%) SaaS
6 15 (2.59%) Sauce Labs
6 15 (2.59%) Serverless
7 14 (2.41%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (2.41%) OpenShift
8 11 (1.90%) Cloud Computing
9 10 (1.72%) Amazon S3
10 9 (1.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (1.55%) Entra ID
10 9 (1.55%) OCI
10 9 (1.55%) Snowflake
11 8 (1.38%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
11 8 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
12 7 (1.21%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 30 (5.17%) Firewall
2 20 (3.45%) DNS
2 20 (3.45%) HTTP
3 19 (3.28%) Wireless
4 16 (2.76%) SSH
5 14 (2.41%) TCP/IP
6 9 (1.55%) Network Security
7 7 (1.21%) FTP
7 7 (1.21%) InfiniBand
7 7 (1.21%) Kerberos
8 6 (1.03%) Ethernet
8 6 (1.03%) NetScaler
8 6 (1.03%) Wireshark
9 5 (0.86%) NAS
9 5 (0.86%) SAN
9 5 (0.86%) VPN
10 4 (0.69%) DHCP
10 4 (0.69%) Ethernet VPN
10 4 (0.69%) FIX Connectivity
11 3 (0.52%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (9.66%) MongoDB
2 54 (9.31%) Relational Database
3 49 (8.45%) MySQL
4 42 (7.24%) Oracle Database
5 29 (5.00%) NoSQL
6 26 (4.48%) PostgreSQL
7 24 (4.14%) SQL Server
8 23 (3.97%) Elasticsearch
9 18 (3.10%) KDB
9 18 (3.10%) Kdb+
10 16 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
11 14 (2.41%) Big Data
12 13 (2.24%) Amazon RDS
13 11 (1.90%) Data Lake
14 9 (1.55%) Tick Data
15 8 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
15 8 (1.38%) Hadoop
16 7 (1.21%) DataStage
16 7 (1.21%) Metadata
16 7 (1.21%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 52 (8.97%) Jenkins
2 45 (7.76%) Git
3 32 (5.52%) GitLab
3 32 (5.52%) JIRA
4 25 (4.31%) Mockito
5 24 (4.14%) Eclipse
6 20 (3.45%) JUnit
7 17 (2.93%) Xcode
8 16 (2.76%) Browser DevTools
9 15 (2.59%) Android Studio
10 13 (2.24%) Selenium
10 13 (2.24%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (1.72%) Bitbucket
12 9 (1.55%) IntelliJ
12 9 (1.55%) Maven
12 9 (1.55%) MSI
13 6 (1.03%) Bitbucket Server
13 6 (1.03%) CA Release Automation
13 6 (1.03%) SoapUI
14 5 (0.86%) Gradle
General
1 162 (27.93%) Social Skills
2 148 (25.52%) Finance
3 77 (13.28%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (9.66%) Banking
5 46 (7.93%) Public Sector
6 25 (4.31%) Front Office
7 19 (3.28%) Influencing Skills
8 15 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (2.59%) Investment Banking
9 12 (2.07%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.21%) Legal
10 7 (1.21%) Military
10 7 (1.21%) Telecoms
11 5 (0.86%) Law
12 4 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.52%) Billing
13 3 (0.52%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.34%) Marketing
14 2 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 123 (21.21%) Developer
2 103 (17.76%) Senior
3 57 (9.83%) Java Developer
4 43 (7.41%) Technical Support
5 41 (7.07%) Analyst
6 33 (5.69%) Unix Engineer
7 32 (5.52%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 32 (5.52%) Support Engineer
8 31 (5.34%) Senior Developer
9 30 (5.17%) DevOps Engineer
10 28 (4.83%) Linux Engineer
11 26 (4.48%) Site Engineer
12 25 (4.31%) Software Engineer
12 25 (4.31%) Technical Engineer
13 23 (3.97%) Senior Java Developer
13 23 (3.97%) Technical Support Engineer
14 22 (3.79%) Kafka Engineer
14 22 (3.79%) Lead
15 21 (3.62%) C++ Software Engineer
15 21 (3.62%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (14.66%) Kafka
2 41 (7.07%) REST
3 35 (6.03%) React
4 34 (5.86%) SOAP
5 28 (4.83%) XML
6 26 (4.48%) Middleware
7 24 (4.14%) CSS
8 23 (3.97%) ActiveMQ
8 23 (3.97%) JAX-RS
9 22 (3.79%) AngularJS
9 22 (3.79%) HTML
10 21 (3.62%) JSON
11 17 (2.93%) Elastic Stack
11 17 (2.93%) Spring
12 16 (2.76%) Ajax
12 16 (2.76%) GraphQL
13 15 (2.59%) HTML5
14 12 (2.07%) Hibernate
14 12 (2.07%) J2EE
15 10 (1.72%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.69%) Management Information System
2 22 (3.79%) Onboarding
3 20 (3.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 19 (3.28%) Linux Command Line
5 18 (3.10%) Mobile App
6 17 (2.93%) Cloud Native
7 15 (2.59%) Data Centre
8 13 (2.24%) Equities
8 13 (2.24%) Fixed Income
9 12 (2.07%) Algorithms
10 11 (1.90%) Derivative
10 11 (1.90%) Greenfield Project
10 11 (1.90%) Security Posture
11 9 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
11 9 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (1.55%) Replication
12 8 (1.38%) Enterprise Cloud
12 8 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (1.38%) Tandem
13 7 (1.21%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 395 (68.10%) Linux
2 178 (30.69%) Windows
3 30 (5.17%) Mac OS X
4 28 (4.83%) Windows Server
5 27 (4.66%) Solaris
6 25 (4.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (2.93%) Android
8 14 (2.41%) AIX
8 14 (2.41%) Mac OS
9 12 (2.07%) CentOS
10 4 (0.69%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.17%) VMS
12 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.17%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (28.10%) Agile
2 127 (21.90%) Problem-Solving
3 107 (18.45%) DevOps
4 97 (16.72%) CI/CD
5 71 (12.24%) Microservices
6 64 (11.03%) Computer Science
7 63 (10.86%) Incident Response
8 58 (10.00%) OO
9 57 (9.83%) Observability
9 57 (9.83%) TDD
9 57 (9.83%) Test Automation
10 56 (9.66%) Software Engineering
11 54 (9.31%) Infrastructure as Code
12 49 (8.45%) Containerisation
13 48 (8.28%) Migration
14 47 (8.10%) Data Modelling
15 46 (7.93%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 43 (7.41%) Analytics
17 42 (7.24%) Continuous Improvement
17 42 (7.24%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 226 (38.97%) Python
2 207 (35.69%) SQL
3 165 (28.45%) Java
4 97 (16.72%) Shell Script
5 78 (13.45%) Bash
6 73 (12.59%) Perl
7 53 (9.14%) JavaScript
8 47 (8.10%) C++
9 46 (7.93%) PowerShell
10 30 (5.17%) C#
11 25 (4.31%) PL/SQL
12 14 (2.41%) Korn
12 14 (2.41%) Scala
13 13 (2.24%) Go
14 9 (1.55%) PHP
15 8 (1.38%) Groovy
16 6 (1.03%) COBOL
16 6 (1.03%) Search Processing Language
17 5 (0.86%) TypeScript
18 4 (0.69%) C
Qualifications
1 126 (21.72%) Security Cleared
2 91 (15.69%) Degree
2 91 (15.69%) SC Cleared
3 49 (8.45%) Computer Science Degree
4 26 (4.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (1.55%) DV Cleared
5 9 (1.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 8 (1.38%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.03%) OSCP
8 5 (0.86%) CISSP
8 5 (0.86%) GPEN
8 5 (0.86%) GWAPT
8 5 (0.86%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.86%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (0.86%) RHCE
9 3 (0.52%) CISM
10 2 (0.34%) CCSP
10 2 (0.34%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.34%) GCFA
10 2 (0.34%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.10%) SLA
2 16 (2.76%) QA
3 9 (1.55%) Data Quality
4 8 (1.38%) NIST
5 6 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.69%) GMP
6 4 (0.69%) NCSC
7 3 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.52%) FATCA
7 3 (0.52%) HIPAA
7 3 (0.52%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.52%) SEPA
7 3 (0.52%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.17%) GDPR
8 1 (0.17%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.17%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 81 (13.97%) Docker
2 18 (3.10%) Active Directory
3 11 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.03%) KVM
4 6 (1.03%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 5 (0.86%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.69%) GPFS
6 4 (0.69%) NFS
6 4 (0.69%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.52%) QEMU
7 3 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.34%) GridGain
9 1 (0.17%) Ceph
9 1 (0.17%) HDFS
9 1 (0.17%) iptables
9 1 (0.17%) Lustre
9 1 (0.17%) Postfix
9 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.17%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 82 (14.14%) Kubernetes
2 64 (11.03%) Ansible
3 61 (10.52%) Terraform
4 34 (5.86%) Grafana
5 31 (5.34%) Puppet
6 25 (4.31%) Prometheus
7 15 (2.59%) Kibana
8 12 (2.07%) Progress Chef
9 7 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.21%) Tivoli
10 6 (1.03%) CA Single Sign-On
10 6 (1.03%) CA Wily
10 6 (1.03%) NetBackup
10 6 (1.03%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 6 (1.03%) Red Hat Satellite
10 6 (1.03%) SCCM
11 5 (0.86%) Dell DRAC
11 5 (0.86%) ITRS Geneos
11 5 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
11 5 (0.86%) Salt
Vendors
1 171 (29.48%) Oracle
2 88 (15.17%) Splunk
3 71 (12.24%) Microsoft
4 43 (7.41%) IBM
5 35 (6.03%) ServiceNow
6 22 (3.79%) Red Hat
6 22 (3.79%) VMware
7 16 (2.76%) Cisco
8 15 (2.59%) AppDynamics
9 13 (2.24%) CyberArk
10 12 (2.07%) BeyondTrust
11 10 (1.72%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.55%) webMethods
13 8 (1.38%) Confluent
13 8 (1.38%) CrowdStrike
14 7 (1.21%) Ab Initio
14 7 (1.21%) Aruba
14 7 (1.21%) Dell
14 7 (1.21%) Fujitsu
14 7 (1.21%) Veritas