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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 171 113 110
Rank change year-on-year -58 -3 -23
Contract jobs citing Unix 593 764 1,015
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 2.14% 2.23%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.40% 15.18% 14.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 391 467 711
10th Percentile £204 £350 £363
25th Percentile £391 £420 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.39% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £628 £648 £650
90th Percentile £738 £764 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £503
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.47% -6.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 6 11
10th Percentile £26.30 £38.25 £22.00
25th Percentile £26.38 £40.50 £26.63
Median hourly rate £28.00 £41.00 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.71% -34.92% -10.00%
75th Percentile £42.13 £50.13 £77.75
90th Percentile £49.70 £59.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.50 £47.00 £69.00
% change year-on-year +15.96% -31.88% +5.34%

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 4,781 5,033 6,851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.18% 14.09% 15.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,092 3,100 4,660
10th Percentile £175 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £608
90th Percentile £662 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £440 £440
% change year-on-year -9.09% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 200 347
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.96 £14.86
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.00 £17.75
Median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% +56.25% +28.00%
75th Percentile £52.58 £67.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -50.00% +81.82% +22.22%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 -51 491 £498 -5.24% 147
UK excluding London -55 304 £450 -5.26% 143
London -33 239 £565 -0.26% 30
Work from Home -83 152 £472 -5.60% 123
South East -19 84 £208 -50.60% 43
North of England -34 78 £475 -18.10% 26
Scotland -7 60 £450 -3.12% 8
Midlands -51 59 £485 -3.72% 25
West Midlands -43 53 £495 -5.71% 16
North West -7 44 £468 -12.96% 15
Yorkshire -40 32 £613 -2.78% 9
South West -34 14 £700 +47.37% 24
East Midlands -18 6 £434 +16.61% 8
East of England -24 6 £500 +25.00% 17
North East -3 4 £500 -9.09% 3
Wales -1 3 £265 +64.43% 4
Northern Ireland -8 3 - - 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 41 (6.91%) Apache
2 36 (6.07%) WebLogic
3 32 (5.40%) Confluence
4 20 (3.37%) SharePoint
5 18 (3.04%) JBoss
6 13 (2.19%) WebSphere
7 9 (1.52%) IIS
7 9 (1.52%) Tomcat
8 8 (1.35%) iPlanet
8 8 (1.35%) Tuxedo
8 8 (1.35%) WebSphere Application Server
9 7 (1.18%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (1.01%) nginx
10 6 (1.01%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.84%) Apache Spark
11 5 (0.84%) Microsoft Exchange
12 4 (0.67%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
13 2 (0.34%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.34%) SAS
Applications
1 19 (3.20%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.34%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (1.69%) Oracle EBS
1 10 (1.69%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.84%) ION MarketView
2 5 (0.84%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (0.84%) Oracle Assets
2 5 (0.84%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.67%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.67%) SAP IBP
4 3 (0.51%) Kondor
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle BPM
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle E-Business Tax
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.17%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.17%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 156 (26.31%) AWS
2 111 (18.72%) Azure
3 35 (5.90%) GCP
4 30 (5.06%) GitHub
5 27 (4.55%) SaaS
6 20 (3.37%) AWS CloudFormation
7 19 (3.20%) Azure Monitor
7 19 (3.20%) Sauce Labs
8 18 (3.04%) Amazon EC2
9 16 (2.70%) Amazon S3
9 16 (2.70%) OpenShift
10 14 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (2.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 11 (1.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 11 (1.85%) Cloud Computing
12 11 (1.85%) Serverless
13 10 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
14 9 (1.52%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
14 9 (1.52%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 38 (6.41%) Firewall
2 31 (5.23%) HTTP
2 31 (5.23%) TCP/IP
3 29 (4.89%) DNS
4 20 (3.37%) SSL
4 20 (3.37%) Wireless
5 17 (2.87%) SSH
6 15 (2.53%) Network Security
7 11 (1.85%) DHCP
7 11 (1.85%) SAN
8 10 (1.69%) Kerberos
9 6 (1.01%) VPN
10 5 (0.84%) FTP
11 4 (0.67%) Internet
11 4 (0.67%) Wireshark
12 3 (0.51%) Broadband
12 3 (0.51%) GPRS
12 3 (0.51%) GSM
12 3 (0.51%) Unified Communications
12 3 (0.51%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (9.11%) MongoDB
2 53 (8.94%) MySQL
2 53 (8.94%) Relational Database
3 50 (8.43%) Oracle Database
4 30 (5.06%) NoSQL
5 24 (4.05%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (3.37%) SQL Server
7 19 (3.20%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (2.53%) KDB
9 14 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (2.19%) Amazon RDS
10 13 (2.19%) Kdb+
11 11 (1.85%) Data Lake
12 10 (1.69%) Amazon Redshift
13 9 (1.52%) Big Data
13 9 (1.52%) DB2
13 9 (1.52%) RDBMS
14 8 (1.35%) Hadoop
15 6 (1.01%) Couchbase
15 6 (1.01%) Redis
Development Applications
1 65 (10.96%) Jenkins
2 62 (10.46%) Git
3 48 (8.09%) JIRA
4 32 (5.40%) GitLab
5 30 (5.06%) Eclipse
6 27 (4.55%) JUnit
7 24 (4.05%) Xcode
8 23 (3.88%) Mockito
9 20 (3.37%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (3.20%) Android Studio
11 16 (2.70%) Maven
11 16 (2.70%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (2.53%) Bitbucket
12 15 (2.53%) Selenium
13 12 (2.02%) IntelliJ
14 10 (1.69%) SoapUI
15 8 (1.35%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (1.35%) CA Release Automation
15 8 (1.35%) Gradle
15 8 (1.35%) Subversion
General
1 187 (31.53%) Social Skills
2 163 (27.49%) Finance
3 76 (12.82%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (8.77%) Banking
5 39 (6.58%) Public Sector
6 23 (3.88%) Front Office
7 21 (3.54%) Financial Institution
8 13 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
9 10 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (1.69%) Investment Banking
10 8 (1.35%) Legal
11 7 (1.18%) Military
12 6 (1.01%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.01%) Telecoms
13 5 (0.84%) Back Office
14 4 (0.67%) General Ledger
14 4 (0.67%) Marketing
15 3 (0.51%) Law
15 3 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
15 3 (0.51%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 124 (20.91%) Developer
2 96 (16.19%) Senior
3 49 (8.26%) Java Developer
4 43 (7.25%) Technical Support
5 41 (6.91%) Analyst
6 37 (6.24%) DevOps Engineer
7 33 (5.56%) Support Engineer
8 27 (4.55%) Senior Developer
8 27 (4.55%) Technical Engineer
9 25 (4.22%) Technical Support Engineer
10 24 (4.05%) Linux Engineer
11 22 (3.71%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 21 (3.54%) Software Engineer
13 20 (3.37%) Platform Engineer
13 20 (3.37%) UX Engineer
14 19 (3.20%) Lead
15 18 (3.04%) Administrator
15 18 (3.04%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
15 18 (3.04%) Kafka Engineer
15 18 (3.04%) Unix Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (13.49%) Kafka
2 43 (7.25%) SOAP
3 39 (6.58%) REST
4 38 (6.41%) React
5 34 (5.73%) AngularJS
6 32 (5.40%) CSS
7 31 (5.23%) Middleware
8 27 (4.55%) Spring
8 27 (4.55%) XML
9 23 (3.88%) HTML
10 22 (3.71%) JSON
11 21 (3.54%) ActiveMQ
12 20 (3.37%) Ajax
12 20 (3.37%) GraphQL
13 18 (3.04%) Hibernate
13 18 (3.04%) JAX-RS
14 17 (2.87%) J2EE
15 15 (2.53%) LDAP
16 14 (2.36%) HTML5
17 13 (2.19%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 35 (5.90%) Management Information System
2 23 (3.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 22 (3.71%) Mobile App
4 19 (3.20%) Onboarding
5 18 (3.04%) Cloud Native
6 17 (2.87%) Data Centre
6 17 (2.87%) Security Posture
7 15 (2.53%) Algorithms
7 15 (2.53%) Distributed Systems
8 14 (2.36%) Linux Command Line
9 13 (2.19%) Fixed Income
9 13 (2.19%) Tandem
10 11 (1.85%) Replication
11 10 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (1.69%) Equities
11 10 (1.69%) Legacy Applications
11 10 (1.69%) Private Cloud
12 9 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
12 9 (1.52%) PKI
13 8 (1.35%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 423 (71.33%) Linux
2 196 (33.05%) Windows
3 30 (5.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (3.88%) Mac OS X
4 23 (3.88%) Windows Server
5 21 (3.54%) Android
6 17 (2.87%) CentOS
7 11 (1.85%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.85%) Solaris
8 6 (1.01%) AIX
8 6 (1.01%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.51%) VMS
9 3 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.34%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.34%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.34%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 180 (30.35%) Agile
2 124 (20.91%) Problem-Solving
3 115 (19.39%) DevOps
4 110 (18.55%) CI/CD
5 71 (11.97%) OO
6 68 (11.47%) Incident Response
7 66 (11.13%) Microservices
8 60 (10.12%) Continuous Improvement
9 59 (9.95%) Computer Science
10 57 (9.61%) Infrastructure as Code
11 56 (9.44%) Test Automation
12 55 (9.27%) Software Engineering
13 51 (8.60%) Containerisation
14 47 (7.93%) Observability
14 47 (7.93%) TDD
15 46 (7.76%) Analytics
16 43 (7.25%) Performance Tuning
17 40 (6.75%) Incident Management
17 40 (6.75%) ITIL
17 40 (6.75%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 240 (40.47%) Python
2 231 (38.95%) SQL
3 162 (27.32%) Java
4 102 (17.20%) Shell Script
5 96 (16.19%) Perl
6 72 (12.14%) Bash
7 63 (10.62%) JavaScript
8 49 (8.26%) C++
9 35 (5.90%) PowerShell
10 31 (5.23%) C#
10 31 (5.23%) PL/SQL
11 15 (2.53%) Go
12 13 (2.19%) Groovy
12 13 (2.19%) Korn
13 12 (2.02%) Scala
14 9 (1.52%) PHP
14 9 (1.52%) Search Processing Language
14 9 (1.52%) TypeScript
15 7 (1.18%) C
16 4 (0.67%) JCL
Qualifications
1 103 (17.37%) Security Cleared
2 85 (14.33%) Degree
3 71 (11.97%) SC Cleared
4 46 (7.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (4.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (2.36%) DV Cleared
7 13 (2.19%) AWS Certification
8 12 (2.02%) CISSP
9 10 (1.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 7 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (1.01%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 6 (1.01%) OSCP
12 5 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (0.84%) CompTIA Security+
12 5 (0.84%) GPEN
12 5 (0.84%) GWAPT
12 5 (0.84%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.84%) MCSA
12 5 (0.84%) MCSE
13 4 (0.67%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.20%) QA
2 10 (1.69%) SLA
3 9 (1.52%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.18%) NCSC
5 4 (0.67%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.67%) SOC 2
6 3 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.51%) NIST
6 3 (0.51%) SEPA
7 2 (0.34%) GMP
7 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.17%) GDPR
8 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 85 (14.33%) Docker
2 23 (3.88%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.35%) Tivoli Directory Server
3 8 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.01%) KVM
5 4 (0.67%) NFS
5 4 (0.67%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.67%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.51%) QEMU
7 2 (0.34%) GridGain
7 2 (0.34%) Samba
8 1 (0.17%) Ceph
8 1 (0.17%) GPFS
8 1 (0.17%) iptables
8 1 (0.17%) Lustre
8 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.17%) Veritas Cluster Server
8 1 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.17%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 74 (12.48%) Kubernetes
2 73 (12.31%) Terraform
3 64 (10.79%) Ansible
4 32 (5.40%) Puppet
5 28 (4.72%) Grafana
6 22 (3.71%) Prometheus
7 16 (2.70%) Progress Chef
8 10 (1.69%) Red Hat Satellite
8 10 (1.69%) Tivoli
9 9 (1.52%) Kibana
10 8 (1.35%) CA Single Sign-On
10 8 (1.35%) CA Wily
10 8 (1.35%) ITRS Geneos
11 7 (1.18%) Jamf Pro
11 7 (1.18%) Nessus
11 7 (1.18%) Packer
11 7 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (1.01%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 5 (0.84%) CASB
13 5 (0.84%) SCCM
Vendors
1 174 (29.34%) Oracle
2 103 (17.37%) Splunk
3 82 (13.83%) Microsoft
4 42 (7.08%) IBM
5 33 (5.56%) ServiceNow
6 27 (4.55%) Red Hat
7 26 (4.38%) AppDynamics
7 26 (4.38%) Dynatrace
8 21 (3.54%) VMware
9 20 (3.37%) Cisco
10 16 (2.70%) F5
11 15 (2.53%) CyberArk
12 11 (1.85%) MuleSoft
13 10 (1.69%) Google
13 10 (1.69%) SAP
13 10 (1.69%) webMethods
14 9 (1.52%) Tenable
14 9 (1.52%) TIBCO
15 8 (1.35%) Confluent
15 8 (1.35%) Okta