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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 163 119
Rank change year-on-year -58 -44 -22
Contract jobs citing Unix 634 558 776
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.72% 2.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.07% 12.67% 14.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 398 364 501
10th Percentile £342 £304 £335
25th Percentile £418 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £592 £606 £600
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -16.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 6 6
10th Percentile £39.35 £43.87 -
25th Percentile £43.81 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £25.65
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +113.45% -62.21%
75th Percentile £55.00 £55.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £73.63 £62.50 £50.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -57.28%

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 5,252 4,403 5,434
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.80% 13.54% 14.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,334 2,798 3,543
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £308 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
Number of hourly rates quoted 370 269 306
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.55 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.51 £18.13
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £35.58
Median % change year-on-year +2.47% -29.32% -16.28%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.33 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +4.69% -47.05% +28.21%

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 September 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 -45 519 £500 - 413
UK excluding London -75 336 £475 - 171
London -67 214 £550 +4.76% 296
Work from Home -18 184 £500 +5.26% 127
North of England -37 115 £475 -15.56% 35
South East -53 95 £459 +2.00% 49
North West -5 83 £475 +6.26% 20
Midlands -22 71 £471 -8.50% 10
West Midlands -15 64 £474 -8.89% 9
Scotland -61 42 £367 -22.74% 18
Yorkshire -51 24 £500 -23.08% 8
South West -39 14 £663 -1.85% 34
North East -36 11 £475 - 7
East of England -27 8 £700 +40.00% 13
East Midlands -15 6 £456 +16.24% 1
Wales -13 4 £383 +35.40% 3
Northern Ireland -4 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 33 (5.21%) Confluence
2 28 (4.42%) SAS
3 17 (2.68%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (2.21%) SharePoint
5 12 (1.89%) Apache Spark
6 11 (1.74%) Apache
6 11 (1.74%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 7 (1.10%) OpenStack
8 6 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 6 (0.95%) WebSphere
9 4 (0.63%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
10 3 (0.47%) NetWeaver
10 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.32%) CICS
11 2 (0.32%) CMS
11 2 (0.32%) IIS
11 2 (0.32%) nginx
11 2 (0.32%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.32%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 14 (2.21%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.10%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (0.95%) SAP PSCD
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle Assets
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle E-Business Tax
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle FAH
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle Internet Expenses
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle iProcurement
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
2 4 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
2 4 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.63%) Summit
3 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
3 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.32%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 140 (22.08%) AWS
2 87 (13.72%) Azure
3 47 (7.41%) GitHub
4 40 (6.31%) GCP
5 30 (4.73%) GitHub Actions
6 24 (3.79%) AWS Lambda
6 24 (3.79%) IaaS
6 24 (3.79%) Serverless
7 22 (3.47%) Amazon S3
8 21 (3.31%) Entra ID
9 18 (2.84%) SaaS
10 16 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (2.52%) PaaS
11 14 (2.21%) OpenShift
11 14 (2.21%) Power Platform
12 12 (1.89%) Snowflake
13 10 (1.58%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.42%) GitHub Copilot
15 8 (1.26%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 28 (4.42%) DNS
2 27 (4.26%) Firewall
3 26 (4.10%) TCP/IP
4 21 (3.31%) SAN
5 15 (2.37%) HTTP
6 12 (1.89%) DHCP
7 11 (1.74%) SSH
7 11 (1.74%) SSL
8 10 (1.58%) NAS
9 7 (1.10%) LAN
9 7 (1.10%) LTE
9 7 (1.10%) PuTTY
9 7 (1.10%) WAN
9 7 (1.10%) WinSCP
10 6 (0.95%) 5G
10 6 (0.95%) Diameter Protocol
10 6 (0.95%) Radio Access Network
10 6 (0.95%) VoLTE
10 6 (0.95%) VoWiFi
10 6 (0.95%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (8.83%) SQL Server
2 53 (8.36%) Oracle Database
3 46 (7.26%) Relational Database
4 41 (6.47%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (6.15%) Data Warehouse
6 23 (3.63%) MongoDB
7 22 (3.47%) MySQL
8 19 (3.00%) Db2
8 19 (3.00%) Metadata
9 17 (2.68%) NoSQL
10 16 (2.52%) DataStage
10 16 (2.52%) Oracle Database 11g
10 16 (2.52%) RDBMS
11 14 (2.21%) Amazon Aurora
11 14 (2.21%) Data Lake
11 14 (2.21%) Power BI
12 13 (2.05%) BusinessObjects
12 13 (2.05%) Oracle Reports
13 12 (1.89%) KDB
13 12 (1.89%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 74 (11.67%) Git
2 70 (11.04%) Jenkins
3 57 (8.99%) JIRA
4 50 (7.89%) GitLab
5 23 (3.63%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.05%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (1.74%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.74%) JUnit
8 10 (1.58%) Mockito
8 10 (1.58%) SonarQube
9 9 (1.42%) Maven
9 9 (1.42%) Oracle Forms
10 8 (1.26%) eggPlant
10 8 (1.26%) Selenium
11 5 (0.79%) HP UFT
11 5 (0.79%) JMeter
11 5 (0.79%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.79%) Postman
11 5 (0.79%) SoapUI
12 4 (0.63%) JDeveloper
General
1 164 (25.87%) Finance
2 147 (23.19%) Social Skills
3 106 (16.72%) Banking
4 102 (16.09%) Analytical Skills
5 50 (7.89%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.73%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.47%) Front Office
8 21 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.74%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.42%) Retail
11 6 (0.95%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.79%) Military
13 4 (0.63%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.32%) Billing
15 2 (0.32%) Local Government
15 2 (0.32%) Prime Brokerage
Job Titles
1 137 (21.61%) Developer
2 103 (16.25%) Senior
3 65 (10.25%) Data Engineer
4 64 (10.09%) Unix Engineer
5 52 (8.20%) Senior Developer
6 47 (7.41%) Java Developer
7 33 (5.21%) DBA
7 33 (5.21%) Python Developer
7 33 (5.21%) Support Engineer
8 31 (4.89%) Analyst
9 30 (4.73%) Linux Engineer
10 25 (3.94%) Consultant
11 24 (3.79%) Architect
12 21 (3.31%) Administrator
12 21 (3.31%) Oracle DBA
13 19 (3.00%) Senior Java Developer
14 18 (2.84%) Applications Support
15 16 (2.52%) DevOps Engineer
16 15 (2.37%) Lead
17 13 (2.05%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (10.57%) Kafka
2 47 (7.41%) Terraform
3 44 (6.94%) REST
4 41 (6.47%) RESTful
5 39 (6.15%) Middleware
6 32 (5.05%) Spring
7 30 (4.73%) Spring Boot
8 26 (4.10%) XML
9 22 (3.47%) Web Services
10 21 (3.31%) .NET
11 19 (3.00%) HTML
11 19 (3.00%) SOAP
12 18 (2.84%) CSS
13 16 (2.52%) RabbitMQ
14 15 (2.37%) Django
14 15 (2.37%) Flask
15 14 (2.21%) Pandas
16 13 (2.05%) FastAPI
16 13 (2.05%) JDBC
16 13 (2.05%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 46 (7.26%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.99%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.68%) Legacy Systems
4 31 (4.89%) Data Centre
4 31 (4.89%) Distributed Systems
5 28 (4.42%) Cloud Native
6 21 (3.31%) Fixed Income
7 20 (3.15%) Management Information System
8 18 (2.84%) Derivative
8 18 (2.84%) Replication
9 14 (2.21%) Clustering
9 14 (2.21%) Mainframe
10 13 (2.05%) Virtual Team
11 12 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
11 12 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
11 12 (1.89%) PKI
11 12 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.74%) Data Structures
12 11 (1.74%) Market Risk
12 11 (1.74%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 426 (67.19%) Linux
2 147 (23.19%) Windows
3 69 (10.88%) Solaris
4 41 (6.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 40 (6.31%) Windows Server
6 31 (4.89%) AIX
7 10 (1.58%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.26%) HPUX
9 7 (1.10%) SUSE
10 6 (0.95%) VMS
11 5 (0.79%) CentOS
12 4 (0.63%) Mac OS X
13 3 (0.47%) Android
13 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
13 3 (0.47%) zOS
14 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.32%) OpenVMS
14 2 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
15 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 154 (24.29%) CI/CD
2 127 (20.03%) Agile
3 107 (16.88%) Migration
4 104 (16.40%) DevOps
4 104 (16.40%) Problem-Solving
5 98 (15.46%) Test Automation
6 80 (12.62%) High Availability
6 80 (12.62%) Root Cause Analysis
7 68 (10.73%) ITIL
8 67 (10.57%) Data Modelling
9 65 (10.25%) Performance Tuning
10 60 (9.46%) Continuous Improvement
11 59 (9.31%) Infrastructure as Code
12 58 (9.15%) Data Pipeline
12 58 (9.15%) ETL
13 57 (8.99%) Runbook
14 54 (8.52%) Microservices
15 53 (8.36%) Containerisation
16 50 (7.89%) Change Management
16 50 (7.89%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 247 (38.96%) SQL
2 246 (38.80%) Python
3 130 (20.50%) Java
4 129 (20.35%) Shell Script
5 85 (13.41%) PL/SQL
6 61 (9.62%) Bash
7 51 (8.04%) PowerShell
8 44 (6.94%) Perl
9 34 (5.36%) JavaScript
10 28 (4.42%) C#
11 20 (3.15%) C++
12 15 (2.37%) C
13 8 (1.26%) Go
13 8 (1.26%) Korn
14 7 (1.10%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.95%) ABAP
15 6 (0.95%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.95%) Scala
15 6 (0.95%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.79%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 223 (35.17%) Security Cleared
2 183 (28.86%) SC Cleared
3 60 (9.46%) Degree
4 33 (5.21%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (3.15%) DV Cleared
6 14 (2.21%) CISSP
7 13 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.42%) CISM
9 8 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.10%) CRISC
11 6 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.95%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.95%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (0.95%) GIAC
11 6 (0.95%) ISEB
11 6 (0.95%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.79%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (0.79%) RHCE
12 5 (0.79%) SANS
13 4 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.52%) NIST
3 32 (5.05%) QA
4 31 (4.89%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.89%) GDPR
5 12 (1.89%) SLA
6 9 (1.42%) ISO 20022
7 7 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.95%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.79%) GRC
9 5 (0.79%) ISO 15022
9 5 (0.79%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.32%) NCSC
12 2 (0.32%) SEPA
13 1 (0.16%) Basel III
13 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 66 (10.41%) Docker
2 39 (6.15%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (3.00%) Oracle RAC
5 16 (2.52%) NFS
6 7 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.79%) Firmware
7 5 (0.79%) PowerHA
7 5 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.63%) GPFS
8 4 (0.63%) Postfix
8 4 (0.63%) Varnish
8 4 (0.63%) Veritas Volume Manager
8 4 (0.63%) vSphere
9 3 (0.47%) GridGain
9 3 (0.47%) Sendmail
9 3 (0.47%) VirtualBox
10 1 (0.16%) RACF
10 1 (0.16%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 75 (11.83%) Kubernetes
2 61 (9.62%) Ansible
3 35 (5.52%) Grafana
4 26 (4.10%) Oracle RMAN
5 24 (3.79%) Prometheus
6 20 (3.15%) Data Guard
7 17 (2.68%) Control-M
7 17 (2.68%) Progress Chef
8 16 (2.52%) Puppet
9 11 (1.74%) Kibana
10 9 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (1.10%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 6 (0.95%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 6 (0.95%) Tivoli
13 5 (0.79%) HP Fortify
13 5 (0.79%) ITRS Geneos
13 5 (0.79%) NetBackup
13 5 (0.79%) Oracle ZFS
14 4 (0.63%) HP ALM
14 4 (0.63%) vRealize
Vendors
1 243 (38.33%) Oracle
2 53 (8.36%) IBM
3 47 (7.41%) Splunk
4 44 (6.94%) Microsoft
5 40 (6.31%) BeyondTrust
6 31 (4.89%) Red Hat
7 30 (4.73%) CyberArk
7 30 (4.73%) Informatica
8 28 (4.42%) VMware
9 26 (4.10%) Sybase
10 23 (3.63%) Talend
11 22 (3.47%) SAP
12 20 (3.15%) ServiceNow
13 18 (2.84%) Denodo
14 15 (2.37%) Dynatrace
15 12 (1.89%) Google
16 11 (1.74%) BT
16 11 (1.74%) SaltStack
16 11 (1.74%) Solace
17 10 (1.58%) Teradata