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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 220 168 114
Rank change year-on-year -52 -54 -17
Contract jobs citing Unix 644 535 773
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.21% 1.61% 1.99%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.49% 12.15% 14.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 391 352 519
10th Percentile £325 £350 £330
25th Percentile £413 £410 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -1.38% -7.82%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £694 £740
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 5,158 4,403 5,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.67% 13.28% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,254 2,816 3,612
10th Percentile £192 £200 £200
25th Percentile £319 £313 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £461 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.87% -2.89% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £662 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £450 £474
% change year-on-year +1.11% -5.06% +5.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 359 260 334
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.50 £12.44
25th Percentile £17.55 £18.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £25.77 £24.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.38% -12.73% -35.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £55.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.10 £67.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.33 £22.56 £45.00
% change year-on-year +16.71% -49.87% +53.58%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -31 534 £487 -1.04% 395
UK excluding London -43 370 £463 -2.63% 147
London -88 195 £559 +11.88% 289
Work from Home -7 180 £500 +5.26% 129
North of England -8 125 £480 +2.07% 28
South East -31 109 £425 -5.56% 42
North West +6 94 £478 +6.82% 18
Midlands +4 88 £461 -2.89% 11
West Midlands +3 80 £460 -4.17% 10
Scotland -50 39 £304 -37.64% 18
Yorkshire -40 25 £500 -4.76% 6
East of England -20 10 £700 +40.00% 13
North East - 9 £471 - 4
East Midlands -6 7 £463 +23.33% 1
Wales -12 6 £383 +35.40% 3
South West -48 6 £600 - 23
Northern Ireland -1 1 - - 11

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 (5.28%) Confluence
2 31 (4.81%) SAS
3 17 (2.64%) Apache Airflow
4 13 (2.02%) Apache
4 13 (2.02%) Apache Spark
5 8 (1.24%) WebLogic
6 7 (1.09%) NetWeaver
6 7 (1.09%) SharePoint
7 6 (0.93%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.93%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.62%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.62%) CICS
9 4 (0.62%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 4 (0.62%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
10 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.31%) CMS
11 2 (0.31%) IIS
11 2 (0.31%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 12 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.09%) Notepad++
3 6 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.93%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.93%) SAP PSCD
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle FAH
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle iProcurement
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.62%) Summit
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.31%) 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
1 129 (20.03%) AWS
2 83 (12.89%) Azure
3 38 (5.90%) GitHub
4 29 (4.50%) GCP
5 26 (4.04%) AWS Lambda
6 24 (3.73%) GitHub Actions
6 24 (3.73%) Serverless
7 23 (3.57%) Entra ID
7 23 (3.57%) IaaS
8 22 (3.42%) Amazon S3
9 18 (2.80%) PaaS
10 17 (2.64%) SaaS
11 15 (2.33%) Power Platform
12 14 (2.17%) OpenShift
13 13 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
13 13 (2.02%) Snowflake
14 9 (1.40%) Amazon EC2
14 9 (1.40%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 31 (4.81%) Firewall
2 30 (4.66%) DNS
3 25 (3.88%) SAN
4 24 (3.73%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.33%) HTTP
6 14 (2.17%) SSL
7 13 (2.02%) NAS
8 10 (1.55%) DHCP
8 10 (1.55%) SSH
9 9 (1.40%) Network Security
9 9 (1.40%) VPN
10 8 (1.24%) WAN
11 7 (1.09%) LAN
11 7 (1.09%) LTE
11 7 (1.09%) PuTTY
11 7 (1.09%) WinSCP
11 7 (1.09%) Wireless
11 7 (1.09%) Wireshark
12 6 (0.93%) Internet
12 6 (0.93%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (11.02%) SQL Server
2 50 (7.76%) Oracle Database
3 42 (6.52%) Relational Database
4 39 (6.06%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (5.12%) Data Warehouse
6 32 (4.97%) MongoDB
7 28 (4.35%) MySQL
8 20 (3.11%) Db2
9 19 (2.95%) Metadata
10 16 (2.48%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.48%) DataStage
10 16 (2.48%) Oracle Database 11g
11 15 (2.33%) NoSQL
11 15 (2.33%) Oracle Database 12c
11 15 (2.33%) Power BI
12 14 (2.17%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.17%) Oracle Reports
12 14 (2.17%) RDBMS
12 14 (2.17%) Sybase ASE
13 13 (2.02%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 65 (10.09%) Jenkins
2 57 (8.85%) Git
2 57 (8.85%) JIRA
3 51 (7.92%) GitLab
4 23 (3.57%) Artifactory
5 18 (2.80%) Mockito
6 12 (1.86%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.71%) Sonatype Nexus
8 10 (1.55%) Maven
9 9 (1.40%) Oracle Forms
10 6 (0.93%) JUnit
11 5 (0.78%) SonarQube
12 4 (0.62%) CA Gen
12 4 (0.62%) Gradle
12 4 (0.62%) JDeveloper
12 4 (0.62%) Selenium
13 3 (0.47%) Android Studio
13 3 (0.47%) Browser DevTools
13 3 (0.47%) Introscope
13 3 (0.47%) Xcode
General
1 151 (23.45%) Finance
2 140 (21.74%) Social Skills
3 96 (14.91%) Banking
4 86 (13.35%) Analytical Skills
5 61 (9.47%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.66%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (3.42%) Front Office
8 12 (1.86%) Retail
9 11 (1.71%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (0.93%) Financial Institution
11 6 (0.93%) Military
12 5 (0.78%) Advertising
13 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.31%) Billing
14 2 (0.31%) Corporate Banking
14 2 (0.31%) Local Government
14 2 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 134 (20.81%) Developer
2 94 (14.60%) Senior
3 70 (10.87%) Data Engineer
4 64 (9.94%) Unix Engineer
5 54 (8.39%) Java Developer
6 48 (7.45%) Senior Developer
7 41 (6.37%) DBA
7 41 (6.37%) Support Engineer
8 36 (5.59%) Analyst
9 29 (4.50%) Oracle DBA
10 27 (4.19%) Python Developer
11 25 (3.88%) Consultant
12 23 (3.57%) Linux Engineer
12 23 (3.57%) Senior Java Developer
13 22 (3.42%) Administrator
14 21 (3.26%) Architect
15 17 (2.64%) Applications Support
16 14 (2.17%) DevOps Engineer
17 13 (2.02%) Technical Support
17 13 (2.02%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (9.94%) Kafka
2 44 (6.83%) REST
3 36 (5.59%) Middleware
4 34 (5.28%) RESTful
5 29 (4.50%) Spring
6 26 (4.04%) Spring Boot
7 21 (3.26%) XML
8 18 (2.80%) ActiveMQ
8 18 (2.80%) JAX-RS
9 17 (2.64%) CSS
10 16 (2.48%) Web Services
11 15 (2.33%) LDAP
11 15 (2.33%) Oracle GoldenGate
11 15 (2.33%) Pandas
12 14 (2.17%) SOAP
13 13 (2.02%) FastAPI
13 13 (2.02%) Flask
13 13 (2.02%) JDBC
13 13 (2.02%) RabbitMQ
14 12 (1.86%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 44 (6.83%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.90%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.59%) Legacy Systems
4 35 (5.43%) Data Centre
5 25 (3.88%) Cloud Native
6 24 (3.73%) Distributed Systems
7 21 (3.26%) Fixed Income
7 21 (3.26%) Management Information System
8 20 (3.11%) Replication
9 18 (2.80%) Derivative
10 16 (2.48%) Clustering
11 15 (2.33%) Mainframe
12 12 (1.86%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.71%) Market Risk
14 10 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
14 10 (1.55%) Data Structures
14 10 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 10 (1.55%) PKI
15 9 (1.40%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 424 (65.84%) Linux
2 157 (24.38%) Windows
3 68 (10.56%) Solaris
4 40 (6.21%) Windows Server
5 36 (5.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 33 (5.12%) AIX
7 13 (2.02%) Mac OS X
8 10 (1.55%) Oracle Linux
9 8 (1.24%) HPUX
10 7 (1.09%) 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%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (21.12%) CI/CD
2 127 (19.72%) Agile
3 114 (17.70%) Problem-Solving
4 106 (16.46%) Migration
5 89 (13.82%) Test Automation
6 87 (13.51%) ITIL
7 86 (13.35%) DevOps
8 84 (13.04%) High Availability
9 76 (11.80%) Root Cause Analysis
10 64 (9.94%) Performance Tuning
11 59 (9.16%) Microservices
12 58 (9.01%) Data Modelling
13 55 (8.54%) Disaster Recovery
14 54 (8.39%) ETL
15 53 (8.23%) Data Pipeline
16 50 (7.76%) Runbook
17 49 (7.61%) Analytics
18 45 (6.99%) Containerisation
18 45 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
18 45 (6.99%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 238 (36.96%) SQL
2 229 (35.56%) Python
3 127 (19.72%) Java
4 123 (19.10%) Shell Script
5 87 (13.51%) PL/SQL
6 54 (8.39%) Bash
7 50 (7.76%) PowerShell
8 42 (6.52%) Perl
9 33 (5.12%) JavaScript
10 28 (4.35%) C#
11 19 (2.95%) C++
12 16 (2.48%) Korn
13 13 (2.02%) C
14 6 (0.93%) ABAP
14 6 (0.93%) COBOL
14 6 (0.93%) Go
14 6 (0.93%) Kotlin
14 6 (0.93%) MUMPS
14 6 (0.93%) Scala
15 5 (0.78%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 229 (35.56%) Security Cleared
2 196 (30.43%) SC Cleared
3 57 (8.85%) Degree
4 32 (4.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.95%) CISSP
6 14 (2.17%) DV Cleared
7 12 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (1.71%) CompTIA Security+
9 9 (1.40%) CISM
10 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.09%) CRISC
12 6 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 6 (0.93%) CESG Certified Professional
12 6 (0.93%) GIAC
12 6 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.78%) MCSA
13 5 (0.78%) MCSE
13 5 (0.78%) RHCE
13 5 (0.78%) SANS
14 4 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.75%) NIST
2 36 (5.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (3.88%) Data Quality
4 23 (3.57%) QA
5 15 (2.33%) SLA
6 12 (1.86%) GDPR
7 7 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.93%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.93%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.78%) GRC
10 4 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.62%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.47%) ISO 15022
11 3 (0.47%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.31%) NCSC
13 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
13 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
13 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 56 (8.70%) Docker
2 46 (7.14%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.19%) Oracle RAC
4 22 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (2.64%) NFS
6 8 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.09%) Firmware
7 7 (1.09%) PowerHA
8 6 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.78%) GPFS
9 5 (0.78%) Postfix
9 5 (0.78%) Varnish
9 5 (0.78%) vSphere
10 4 (0.62%) 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 66 (10.25%) Kubernetes
2 60 (9.32%) Ansible
3 39 (6.06%) Terraform
4 37 (5.75%) Oracle RMAN
5 33 (5.12%) Grafana
6 22 (3.42%) Prometheus
7 20 (3.11%) Data Guard
8 16 (2.48%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 15 (2.33%) Progress Chef
10 13 (2.02%) Control-M
10 13 (2.02%) Puppet
11 10 (1.55%) Kibana
11 10 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (1.09%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.93%) Nessus
13 6 (0.93%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.78%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.78%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.78%) vRealize
Vendors
1 240 (37.27%) Oracle
2 52 (8.07%) IBM
3 48 (7.45%) Splunk
4 45 (6.99%) Microsoft
5 41 (6.37%) BeyondTrust
6 36 (5.59%) CyberArk
7 33 (5.12%) Informatica
8 29 (4.50%) Talend
9 28 (4.35%) Sybase
10 27 (4.19%) VMware
11 26 (4.04%) ServiceNow
12 24 (3.73%) Red Hat
13 21 (3.26%) Denodo
14 20 (3.11%) SAP
15 18 (2.80%) Cisco
16 14 (2.17%) Dynatrace
17 12 (1.86%) HP
18 11 (1.71%) BT
18 11 (1.71%) F5
19 10 (1.55%) Solace