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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 213 171 129
Rank change year-on-year -42 -42 -39
Contract jobs citing Unix 632 518 781
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.20% 1.60% 1.80%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.49% 11.80% 13.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 370 323 515
10th Percentile £310 £358 £332
25th Percentile £408 £406 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £491 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.65% -6.57% -4.55%
75th Percentile £571 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £669 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £472 £450
% change year-on-year -2.81% +4.94% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 6 20
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 £22.28
25th Percentile £31.86 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +36.88% -37.68%
75th Percentile £53.75 £55.00 -
90th Percentile £55.00 £62.50 £55.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £54.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.17% +36.88% -32.85%

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 5,062 4,388 5,961
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.64% 13.59% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,243 2,836 3,899
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £316 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.05% -2.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £690
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £460
% change year-on-year - -2.17% +0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 343 237 441
10th Percentile £15.76 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.98 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.50 £23.00 £24.86
Median % change year-on-year +15.22% -7.46% -41.52%
75th Percentile £63.75 £49.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.18 £66.70 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.47 £20.75 £30.50
% change year-on-year +27.57% -31.97% +2.87%

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 9 July 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 9 July 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 9 July 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 -37 534 £480 +1.05% 123
UK excluding London -46 370 £459 -2.81% 89
London -77 196 £550 +10.00% 55
Work from Home -14 183 £480 +6.67% 60
North of England -29 119 £480 +7.38% 33
South East -6 117 £425 -22.73% 17
North West +9 91 £475 +12.56% 29
Midlands -1 88 £459 +2.00% 11
West Midlands -3 82 £459 -0.22% 11
Scotland -47 38 £425 -10.53% 4
Yorkshire -53 23 £500 -4.76% 2
East of England -27 10 £700 +55.56% 4
North East -26 7 £480 +28.00% 2
Wales -10 6 £383 +35.40% 5
East Midlands -15 5 £463 +18.29%
South West -42 5 £600 - 14
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 2

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 36 (5.70%) Confluence
2 27 (4.27%) SAS
3 18 (2.85%) Apache
4 16 (2.53%) Apache Spark
5 15 (2.37%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (1.90%) WebLogic
7 10 (1.58%) CICS
8 7 (1.11%) NetWeaver
8 7 (1.11%) SharePoint
8 7 (1.11%) Tuxedo
9 6 (0.95%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.79%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.47%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.32%) IIS
13 2 (0.32%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.32%) Oracle Spatial
Applications
1 13 (2.06%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.11%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.95%) SAP PSCD
2 6 (0.95%) Summit
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
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 EBS R12
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 118 (18.67%) AWS
2 77 (12.18%) Azure
3 29 (4.59%) GitHub
4 25 (3.96%) GCP
5 24 (3.80%) Entra ID
6 23 (3.64%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (3.48%) Serverless
8 21 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
9 20 (3.16%) Amazon S3
10 18 (2.85%) IaaS
10 18 (2.85%) OpenShift
10 18 (2.85%) PaaS
11 17 (2.69%) SaaS
12 14 (2.22%) Power Platform
13 11 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (1.58%) Snowflake
15 9 (1.42%) Amazon EC2
16 8 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (1.27%) Azure Key Vault
17 7 (1.11%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (5.06%) Firewall
2 26 (4.11%) DNS
3 22 (3.48%) SAN
4 17 (2.69%) TCP/IP
5 15 (2.37%) NAS
6 13 (2.06%) HTTP
6 13 (2.06%) SSH
7 9 (1.42%) SSL
8 8 (1.27%) Network Security
8 8 (1.27%) Wireless
8 8 (1.27%) Wireshark
9 7 (1.11%) 5G
9 7 (1.11%) DHCP
9 7 (1.11%) FTP
9 7 (1.11%) PuTTY
9 7 (1.11%) VPN
9 7 (1.11%) WinSCP
10 6 (0.95%) Ethernet
10 6 (0.95%) Internet
10 6 (0.95%) VoLTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (11.87%) SQL Server
2 48 (7.59%) Oracle Database
3 45 (7.12%) Relational Database
4 35 (5.54%) MySQL
5 31 (4.91%) MongoDB
5 31 (4.91%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (3.32%) Data Warehouse
6 21 (3.32%) Db2
7 20 (3.16%) DataStage
8 19 (3.01%) Metadata
9 17 (2.69%) KDB
10 16 (2.53%) Big Data
10 16 (2.53%) BusinessObjects
11 15 (2.37%) NoSQL
12 14 (2.22%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.22%) Kdb+
12 14 (2.22%) Oracle Database 11g
12 14 (2.22%) Power BI
12 14 (2.22%) Sybase ASE
13 13 (2.06%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 56 (8.86%) Jenkins
1 56 (8.86%) JIRA
2 50 (7.91%) GitLab
3 43 (6.80%) Git
4 23 (3.64%) Artifactory
5 15 (2.37%) Mockito
6 10 (1.58%) Bitbucket
7 9 (1.42%) Maven
7 9 (1.42%) Oracle Forms
8 7 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.63%) CA Gen
9 4 (0.63%) JDeveloper
9 4 (0.63%) JUnit
9 4 (0.63%) Selenium
9 4 (0.63%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.47%) Android Studio
10 3 (0.47%) Eclipse
10 3 (0.47%) Introscope
10 3 (0.47%) MSI
10 3 (0.47%) Xcode
General
1 160 (25.32%) Finance
2 139 (21.99%) Social Skills
3 97 (15.35%) Banking
4 82 (12.97%) Analytical Skills
5 65 (10.28%) Public Sector
6 31 (4.91%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (3.16%) Front Office
9 12 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
9 12 (1.90%) Retail
9 12 (1.90%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.42%) Financial Institution
10 9 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (0.95%) Advertising
11 6 (0.95%) Military
12 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.32%) Billing
13 2 (0.32%) Law
13 2 (0.32%) Local Government
13 2 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 129 (20.41%) Developer
2 78 (12.34%) Senior
3 65 (10.28%) Data Engineer
4 54 (8.54%) Unix Engineer
5 47 (7.44%) Java Developer
6 43 (6.80%) Support Engineer
7 40 (6.33%) DBA
8 38 (6.01%) Analyst
9 36 (5.70%) Senior Developer
10 28 (4.43%) Oracle DBA
11 26 (4.11%) Consultant
11 26 (4.11%) Python Developer
12 25 (3.96%) Architect
13 20 (3.16%) Administrator
14 19 (3.01%) Site Reliability Engineer
15 18 (2.85%) Senior Java Developer
15 18 (2.85%) Technical Support
16 17 (2.69%) Linux Engineer
16 17 (2.69%) Site Engineer
17 16 (2.53%) Applications Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (8.54%) Kafka
2 44 (6.96%) REST
3 36 (5.70%) Middleware
4 28 (4.43%) RESTful
5 26 (4.11%) XML
6 23 (3.64%) Spring
7 21 (3.32%) Spring Boot
8 17 (2.69%) CSS
9 16 (2.53%) Web Services
10 15 (2.37%) ActiveMQ
10 15 (2.37%) JAX-RS
11 14 (2.22%) LDAP
11 14 (2.22%) Oracle GoldenGate
11 14 (2.22%) SOAP
12 13 (2.06%) HTML
13 12 (1.90%) Pandas
14 11 (1.74%) RabbitMQ
15 10 (1.58%) .NET
15 10 (1.58%) Flask
15 10 (1.58%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 41 (6.49%) Onboarding
2 37 (5.85%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.70%) Legacy Systems
4 31 (4.91%) Data Centre
5 26 (4.11%) Management Information System
6 21 (3.32%) Cloud Native
6 21 (3.32%) Mainframe
7 19 (3.01%) Derivative
8 18 (2.85%) Fixed Income
8 18 (2.85%) Replication
9 13 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
9 13 (2.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 12 (1.90%) Equities
11 11 (1.74%) Clustering
12 10 (1.58%) BYOD
12 10 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (1.58%) Market Risk
12 10 (1.58%) PKI
12 10 (1.58%) Virtual Team
12 10 (1.58%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 415 (65.66%) Linux
2 161 (25.47%) Windows
3 63 (9.97%) Solaris
4 45 (7.12%) Windows Server
5 33 (5.22%) AIX
6 30 (4.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (2.22%) Mac OS X
8 10 (1.58%) Oracle Linux
9 8 (1.27%) HPUX
10 7 (1.11%) SUSE
11 6 (0.95%) CentOS
12 5 (0.79%) VMS
13 3 (0.47%) Android
13 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
13 3 (0.47%) Mac OS
13 3 (0.47%) OpenVMS
14 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 2 (0.32%) Ubuntu
14 2 (0.32%) zOS
15 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (20.09%) Agile
2 124 (19.62%) CI/CD
3 117 (18.51%) Problem-Solving
4 94 (14.87%) Migration
5 82 (12.97%) ITIL
6 80 (12.66%) DevOps
6 80 (12.66%) High Availability
7 69 (10.92%) Test Automation
8 66 (10.44%) Root Cause Analysis
9 59 (9.34%) Performance Tuning
10 52 (8.23%) Disaster Recovery
10 52 (8.23%) Microservices
10 52 (8.23%) Runbook
11 49 (7.75%) Observability
12 48 (7.59%) Analytics
12 48 (7.59%) Data Modelling
13 47 (7.44%) Change Management
14 46 (7.28%) Incident Management
15 42 (6.65%) ETL
15 42 (6.65%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 241 (38.13%) SQL
2 225 (35.60%) Python
3 123 (19.46%) Java
4 117 (18.51%) Shell Script
5 81 (12.82%) PL/SQL
6 53 (8.39%) PowerShell
7 52 (8.23%) Bash
8 37 (5.85%) JavaScript
9 36 (5.70%) Perl
10 25 (3.96%) C#
11 19 (3.01%) C++
12 17 (2.69%) Korn
13 12 (1.90%) COBOL
14 8 (1.27%) Scala
15 7 (1.11%) C
16 6 (0.95%) ABAP
16 6 (0.95%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.79%) Go
17 5 (0.79%) ProC
18 4 (0.63%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 216 (34.18%) Security Cleared
2 183 (28.96%) SC Cleared
3 72 (11.39%) Degree
4 33 (5.22%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (3.01%) CISSP
5 19 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (2.06%) DV Cleared
7 11 (1.74%) CompTIA Security+
8 9 (1.42%) CISM
9 7 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.11%) CRISC
10 6 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (0.95%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (0.95%) GIAC
10 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (0.95%) RHCE
11 5 (0.79%) MCSA
11 5 (0.79%) MCSE
11 5 (0.79%) SANS
12 4 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (6.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 38 (6.01%) NIST
2 23 (3.64%) QA
3 18 (2.85%) SLA
4 12 (1.90%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (0.95%) ISO 31000
7 5 (0.79%) GRC
7 5 (0.79%) ISO 20022
8 4 (0.63%) GDPR
8 4 (0.63%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.63%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.47%) FATCA
10 2 (0.32%) GMP
10 2 (0.32%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.32%) NCSC
11 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
11 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 53 (8.39%) Docker
2 46 (7.28%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.96%) Oracle RAC
4 18 (2.85%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (2.69%) NFS
6 11 (1.74%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.95%) GPFS
7 6 (0.95%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.95%) KVM
7 6 (0.95%) Postfix
7 6 (0.95%) Varnish
7 6 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.79%) vSphere
9 4 (0.63%) HDFS
9 4 (0.63%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.47%) Firmware
10 3 (0.47%) GridGain
10 3 (0.47%) PowerHA
10 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 2 (0.32%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 67 (10.60%) Kubernetes
2 62 (9.81%) Ansible
3 38 (6.01%) Terraform
4 36 (5.70%) Grafana
5 35 (5.54%) Oracle RMAN
6 25 (3.96%) Prometheus
7 18 (2.85%) Data Guard
8 15 (2.37%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 9 (1.42%) Kibana
9 9 (1.42%) Progress Chef
9 9 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (1.27%) NetBackup
10 8 (1.27%) Puppet
11 7 (1.11%) Control-M
12 6 (0.95%) HAProxy
12 6 (0.95%) IBM BigFix
12 6 (0.95%) Nessus
12 6 (0.95%) Tivoli
12 6 (0.95%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.79%) VxRail
Vendors
1 247 (39.08%) Oracle
2 52 (8.23%) IBM
3 47 (7.44%) Microsoft
4 45 (7.12%) Splunk
5 40 (6.33%) BeyondTrust
6 38 (6.01%) CyberArk
7 34 (5.38%) Talend
8 29 (4.59%) Sybase
9 27 (4.27%) Informatica
9 27 (4.27%) VMware
10 26 (4.11%) ServiceNow
11 21 (3.32%) Denodo
12 19 (3.01%) SAP
13 18 (2.85%) Cisco
13 18 (2.85%) Red Hat
14 15 (2.37%) Dynatrace
15 11 (1.74%) BT
15 11 (1.74%) CheckPoint
16 10 (1.58%) Veritas
17 9 (1.42%) Remedy