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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 226 175 117
Rank change year-on-year -51 -58 -19
Contract jobs citing Unix 645 533 769
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.21% 1.62% 1.97%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.49% 12.17% 14.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 388 350 515
10th Percentile £322 £350 £331
25th Percentile £413 £410 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £498 £508
Median % change year-on-year -2.18% -1.97% -7.73%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £694 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -2.63% +5.56% -16.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 6 8
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 -
25th Percentile £35.85 £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 £53.88 £55.00 £58.13
90th Percentile £55.20 £62.50 £73.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.02 £54.75 £52.50
% change year-on-year -8.64% +4.29% -18.21%

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 5,164 4,381 5,453
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.67% 13.33% 13.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,262 2,811 3,624
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £318 £313 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £662 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £457 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +1.44% -5.16% +5.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 356 256 336
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.50 £12.46
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £25.92 £24.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -12.73% -35.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £55.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.25 £67.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £22.53 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.33% -43.68% +36.52%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -35 537 £486 -1.13% 176
UK excluding London -39 374 £463 -2.63% 87
London -78 194 £550 +10.00% 114
Work from Home -15 182 £500 +5.54% 77
North of England -19 125 £480 +3.11% 23
South East -21 113 £425 -5.56% 18
North West +6 94 £478 +6.82% 17
Midlands -2 88 £461 -2.89% 10
West Midlands -10 80 £460 -4.17% 9
Scotland -52 39 £365 -25.23% 11
Yorkshire -39 25 £500 -4.76% 4
East of England -24 10 £700 +40.00% 6
North East - 9 £471 - 2
East Midlands -11 7 £463 +23.33% 1
Wales -5 6 £383 +35.40% 3
South West -40 6 £600 - 14
Northern Ireland -2 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 (5.27%) Confluence
2 31 (4.81%) SAS
3 17 (2.64%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (2.17%) Apache
4 14 (2.17%) Apache Spark
5 8 (1.24%) WebLogic
6 7 (1.09%) NetWeaver
7 6 (0.93%) CICS
7 6 (0.93%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.93%) Tuxedo
8 5 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (0.78%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.62%) Adobe Experience Manager
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%) IIS
11 2 (0.31%) nginx
11 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Portal
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 (20.00%) AWS
2 81 (12.56%) Azure
3 37 (5.74%) GitHub
4 28 (4.34%) GCP
5 26 (4.03%) AWS Lambda
6 25 (3.88%) Entra ID
6 25 (3.88%) Serverless
7 23 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
8 22 (3.41%) Amazon S3
9 21 (3.26%) IaaS
10 18 (2.79%) PaaS
11 17 (2.64%) SaaS
12 15 (2.33%) OpenShift
13 14 (2.17%) Power Platform
14 13 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
14 13 (2.02%) Snowflake
15 9 (1.40%) Amazon EC2
15 9 (1.40%) Amazon ECS
15 9 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (1.24%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 32 (4.96%) Firewall
2 28 (4.34%) DNS
3 25 (3.88%) SAN
4 23 (3.57%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.33%) HTTP
6 14 (2.17%) NAS
6 14 (2.17%) SSL
7 13 (2.02%) SSH
8 9 (1.40%) DHCP
8 9 (1.40%) Network Security
9 8 (1.24%) VPN
9 8 (1.24%) WAN
10 7 (1.09%) LAN
10 7 (1.09%) LTE
10 7 (1.09%) PuTTY
10 7 (1.09%) WinSCP
10 7 (1.09%) Wireless
10 7 (1.09%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.93%) FTP
11 6 (0.93%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (11.32%) SQL Server
2 50 (7.75%) Oracle Database
3 41 (6.36%) Relational Database
4 38 (5.89%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (5.27%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (4.81%) MongoDB
7 28 (4.34%) MySQL
8 20 (3.10%) Db2
9 19 (2.95%) Metadata
10 18 (2.79%) DataStage
11 16 (2.48%) BusinessObjects
11 16 (2.48%) Oracle Database 11g
12 15 (2.33%) NoSQL
12 15 (2.33%) Oracle Database 12c
13 14 (2.17%) Amazon Aurora
13 14 (2.17%) Oracle Reports
13 14 (2.17%) Power BI
13 14 (2.17%) Sybase ASE
14 13 (2.02%) Data Lake
14 13 (2.02%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 64 (9.92%) Jenkins
2 57 (8.84%) Git
2 57 (8.84%) JIRA
3 50 (7.75%) GitLab
4 23 (3.57%) Artifactory
5 18 (2.79%) 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 4 (0.62%) CA Gen
11 4 (0.62%) Gradle
11 4 (0.62%) JDeveloper
11 4 (0.62%) Selenium
11 4 (0.62%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.47%) Android Studio
12 3 (0.47%) Browser DevTools
12 3 (0.47%) Eclipse
12 3 (0.47%) Introscope
General
1 152 (23.57%) Finance
2 144 (22.33%) Social Skills
3 96 (14.88%) Banking
4 85 (13.18%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (9.92%) Public Sector
6 29 (4.50%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.72%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (3.26%) Front Office
9 12 (1.86%) Retail
10 11 (1.71%) Telecoms
11 9 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
12 7 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (0.93%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.93%) Military
14 5 (0.78%) Advertising
15 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
16 2 (0.31%) Billing
16 2 (0.31%) Corporate Banking
16 2 (0.31%) Law
16 2 (0.31%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 134 (20.78%) Developer
2 91 (14.11%) Senior
3 70 (10.85%) Data Engineer
4 63 (9.77%) Unix Engineer
5 55 (8.53%) Java Developer
6 47 (7.29%) Senior Developer
7 41 (6.36%) DBA
7 41 (6.36%) Support Engineer
8 35 (5.43%) Analyst
9 29 (4.50%) Oracle DBA
10 27 (4.19%) Python Developer
11 25 (3.88%) Consultant
12 23 (3.57%) Senior Java Developer
13 22 (3.41%) Administrator
13 22 (3.41%) Architect
13 22 (3.41%) Linux Engineer
14 17 (2.64%) Applications Support
15 13 (2.02%) DevOps Engineer
15 13 (2.02%) Technical Engineer
15 13 (2.02%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (9.77%) Kafka
2 45 (6.98%) REST
3 37 (5.74%) Middleware
4 34 (5.27%) RESTful
5 29 (4.50%) Spring
6 26 (4.03%) Spring Boot
7 20 (3.10%) XML
8 18 (2.79%) ActiveMQ
8 18 (2.79%) JAX-RS
9 17 (2.64%) CSS
10 15 (2.33%) LDAP
10 15 (2.33%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 15 (2.33%) Pandas
10 15 (2.33%) Web Services
11 13 (2.02%) FastAPI
11 13 (2.02%) Flask
11 13 (2.02%) RabbitMQ
11 13 (2.02%) SOAP
12 12 (1.86%) JDBC
13 11 (1.71%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.29%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.89%) Legacy Systems
3 36 (5.58%) Data Centre
3 36 (5.58%) Linux Command Line
4 25 (3.88%) Cloud Native
5 24 (3.72%) Distributed Systems
6 23 (3.57%) Management Information System
7 22 (3.41%) Fixed Income
8 20 (3.10%) Replication
9 18 (2.79%) Derivative
10 17 (2.64%) Mainframe
11 16 (2.48%) Clustering
12 12 (1.86%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.71%) Market Risk
14 10 (1.55%) Data Structures
14 10 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 10 (1.55%) PKI
15 9 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
15 9 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
15 9 (1.40%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 424 (65.74%) Linux
2 160 (24.81%) Windows
3 70 (10.85%) Solaris
4 43 (6.67%) Windows Server
5 35 (5.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 34 (5.27%) 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 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (21.09%) CI/CD
2 126 (19.53%) Agile
3 113 (17.52%) Problem-Solving
4 106 (16.43%) Migration
5 87 (13.49%) ITIL
6 86 (13.33%) DevOps
6 86 (13.33%) Test Automation
7 83 (12.87%) High Availability
8 76 (11.78%) Root Cause Analysis
9 64 (9.92%) Performance Tuning
10 59 (9.15%) Microservices
11 58 (8.99%) Data Modelling
12 55 (8.53%) Disaster Recovery
12 55 (8.53%) ETL
13 53 (8.22%) Data Pipeline
13 53 (8.22%) Runbook
14 50 (7.75%) Analytics
15 46 (7.13%) SIEM
16 45 (6.98%) Incident Management
17 44 (6.82%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 236 (36.59%) SQL
2 230 (35.66%) Python
3 125 (19.38%) Shell Script
4 124 (19.22%) Java
5 87 (13.49%) PL/SQL
6 54 (8.37%) Bash
6 54 (8.37%) PowerShell
7 42 (6.51%) Perl
8 32 (4.96%) JavaScript
9 26 (4.03%) C#
10 18 (2.79%) C++
11 16 (2.48%) Korn
12 12 (1.86%) C
13 8 (1.24%) COBOL
14 7 (1.09%) Scala
15 6 (0.93%) ABAP
15 6 (0.93%) Go
15 6 (0.93%) Kotlin
16 5 (0.78%) MUMPS
16 5 (0.78%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 230 (35.66%) Security Cleared
2 197 (30.54%) SC Cleared
3 61 (9.46%) Degree
4 34 (5.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.95%) CISSP
6 13 (2.02%) 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 41 (6.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 41 (6.36%) NIST
2 25 (3.88%) Data Quality
3 22 (3.41%) QA
4 15 (2.33%) SLA
5 10 (1.55%) GDPR
6 7 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (0.93%) ISO 20022
7 6 (0.93%) ISO 31000
8 5 (0.78%) GRC
9 4 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
9 4 (0.62%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.62%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.47%) ISO 15022
11 2 (0.31%) NCSC
12 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
12 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
12 1 (0.16%) SEPA
12 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 56 (8.68%) Docker
2 49 (7.60%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.19%) Oracle RAC
4 20 (3.10%) 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%) HDFS
10 4 (0.62%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.47%) GridGain
11 3 (0.47%) Hyper-V
11 3 (0.47%) KVM
11 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 2 (0.31%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 66 (10.23%) Kubernetes
2 60 (9.30%) Ansible
3 38 (5.89%) Terraform
4 37 (5.74%) Oracle RMAN
5 34 (5.27%) Grafana
6 23 (3.57%) Prometheus
7 20 (3.10%) Data Guard
8 16 (2.48%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 14 (2.17%) Progress Chef
10 13 (2.02%) Control-M
11 12 (1.86%) Puppet
12 10 (1.55%) Kibana
12 10 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (1.09%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 6 (0.93%) Nessus
14 6 (0.93%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.93%) Tivoli
15 5 (0.78%) HAProxy
15 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
15 5 (0.78%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 241 (37.36%) Oracle
2 53 (8.22%) IBM
3 48 (7.44%) Splunk
4 44 (6.82%) BeyondTrust
4 44 (6.82%) Microsoft
5 39 (6.05%) CyberArk
6 33 (5.12%) Informatica
7 29 (4.50%) Talend
8 28 (4.34%) Sybase
9 26 (4.03%) ServiceNow
9 26 (4.03%) VMware
10 23 (3.57%) Red Hat
11 21 (3.26%) Denodo
12 19 (2.95%) SAP
13 18 (2.79%) Cisco
14 14 (2.17%) Dynatrace
15 12 (1.86%) HP
16 11 (1.71%) BT
16 11 (1.71%) F5
17 10 (1.55%) Solace