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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 228 164 114
Rank change year-on-year -64 -50 -17
Contract jobs citing Unix 644 566 770
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.73% 2.02%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.09% 12.80% 14.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 408 372 487
10th Percentile £342 £300 £350
25th Percentile £418 £403 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -5.45%
75th Percentile £592 £612 £622
90th Percentile £718 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £471
% change year-on-year - +0.80% -10.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 4 5
10th Percentile £43.81 £41.81 -
25th Percentile £45.67 £49.81 -
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +130.04% -63.77%
75th Percentile £55.00 £58.75 £28.75
90th Percentile £74.11 £65.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -58.69%

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 5,326 4,423 5,380
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.78% 13.51% 14.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,366 2,826 3,480
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £305 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £452 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.76% -4.84% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £675 £685
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £449 £450
% change year-on-year +0.33% -0.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 385 265 279
10th Percentile £14.47 £15.50 £15.22
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.51 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +2.47% -48.21% +5.84%
75th Percentile £65.22 £58.75 £68.38
90th Percentile £74.54 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.33 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +4.69% -52.10% +20.00%

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 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 9 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 9 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 -52 526 £500 - 416
UK excluding London -73 340 £475 - 163
London -83 216 £550 +4.76% 303
Work from Home -20 190 £500 +5.26% 263
North of England -30 119 £475 -8.83% 30
South East -56 94 £459 +7.06% 51
North West -3 85 £475 +5.91% 14
Midlands -17 72 £470 -8.74% 8
West Midlands -15 65 £473 -9.13% 7
Scotland -61 43 £430 -9.47% 17
Yorkshire -45 26 £500 -23.08% 7
South West -46 14 £663 -11.67% 34
North East -37 11 £475 - 9
East of England -24 8 £700 +40.00% 14
East Midlands -15 6 £456 +16.24% 1
Wales -15 3 £383 +35.40% 4
Northern Ireland -4 1 - - 8

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 (5.12%) Confluence
2 28 (4.35%) SAS
3 17 (2.64%) Apache Airflow
4 16 (2.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 14 (2.17%) SharePoint
6 12 (1.86%) Apache Spark
7 11 (1.71%) Apache
7 11 (1.71%) WebLogic
8 7 (1.09%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.78%) WebLogic Portal
9 5 (0.78%) WebSphere
10 4 (0.62%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.47%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.31%) CICS
12 2 (0.31%) CMS
12 2 (0.31%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.31%) IIS
12 2 (0.31%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Application Server
12 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 14 (2.17%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.09%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (1.71%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.93%) Oracle EBS R12
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%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.62%) Summit
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 147 (22.83%) AWS
2 87 (13.51%) Azure
3 47 (7.30%) GitHub
4 42 (6.52%) GCP
5 30 (4.66%) GitHub Actions
6 29 (4.50%) AWS Lambda
6 29 (4.50%) Serverless
7 27 (4.19%) Amazon S3
8 24 (3.73%) IaaS
9 21 (3.26%) Entra ID
10 18 (2.80%) SaaS
11 16 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
11 16 (2.48%) PaaS
12 14 (2.17%) OpenShift
12 14 (2.17%) Power Platform
13 13 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
13 13 (2.02%) AWS CloudFormation
14 12 (1.86%) Snowflake
15 10 (1.55%) Azure Data Factory
16 9 (1.40%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 28 (4.35%) DNS
1 28 (4.35%) Firewall
2 27 (4.19%) TCP/IP
3 21 (3.26%) SAN
4 15 (2.33%) HTTP
5 12 (1.86%) DHCP
6 11 (1.71%) SSH
6 11 (1.71%) SSL
7 10 (1.55%) NAS
8 7 (1.09%) LAN
8 7 (1.09%) LTE
8 7 (1.09%) PuTTY
8 7 (1.09%) WAN
8 7 (1.09%) WinSCP
9 6 (0.93%) 5G
9 6 (0.93%) Diameter Protocol
9 6 (0.93%) Internet
9 6 (0.93%) Radio Access Network
9 6 (0.93%) VoLTE
9 6 (0.93%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (9.01%) Oracle Database
2 56 (8.70%) SQL Server
3 47 (7.30%) Relational Database
4 42 (6.52%) PostgreSQL
5 40 (6.21%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (3.73%) MongoDB
7 22 (3.42%) MySQL
8 21 (3.26%) Oracle Database 11g
9 20 (3.11%) Db2
10 19 (2.95%) Metadata
11 18 (2.80%) NoSQL
12 16 (2.48%) DataStage
12 16 (2.48%) RDBMS
13 15 (2.33%) Oracle Database 12c
14 14 (2.17%) Amazon Aurora
14 14 (2.17%) Data Lake
14 14 (2.17%) Power BI
15 13 (2.02%) BusinessObjects
15 13 (2.02%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (2.02%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 79 (12.27%) Git
2 70 (10.87%) Jenkins
3 57 (8.85%) JIRA
4 51 (7.92%) GitLab
5 22 (3.42%) Artifactory
6 14 (2.17%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (1.71%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.71%) JUnit
7 11 (1.71%) SonarQube
8 10 (1.55%) Mockito
9 9 (1.40%) Maven
9 9 (1.40%) Oracle Forms
10 8 (1.24%) eggPlant
10 8 (1.24%) Selenium
11 5 (0.78%) Gradle
11 5 (0.78%) HP UFT
11 5 (0.78%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.78%) Oracle APEX
11 5 (0.78%) Postman
11 5 (0.78%) SoapUI
General
1 164 (25.47%) Finance
2 147 (22.83%) Social Skills
3 106 (16.46%) Banking
4 103 (15.99%) Analytical Skills
5 52 (8.07%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.66%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.42%) Front Office
8 21 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.71%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.24%) Retail
11 6 (0.93%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.78%) Military
13 4 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.62%) Legal
13 4 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.31%) Law
15 2 (0.31%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 140 (21.74%) Developer
2 104 (16.15%) Senior
3 65 (10.09%) Data Engineer
3 65 (10.09%) Unix Engineer
4 53 (8.23%) Senior Developer
5 48 (7.45%) Java Developer
6 39 (6.06%) DBA
7 33 (5.12%) Python Developer
8 31 (4.81%) Linux Engineer
8 31 (4.81%) Support Engineer
9 30 (4.66%) Analyst
10 25 (3.88%) Consultant
10 25 (3.88%) Oracle DBA
11 24 (3.73%) Architect
12 22 (3.42%) Administrator
13 20 (3.11%) Senior Java Developer
14 17 (2.64%) Applications Support
14 17 (2.64%) DevOps Engineer
15 15 (2.33%) Lead
16 13 (2.02%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (10.56%) Kafka
2 48 (7.45%) Terraform
3 43 (6.68%) REST
4 40 (6.21%) Middleware
4 40 (6.21%) RESTful
5 32 (4.97%) Spring
6 31 (4.81%) Spring Boot
7 26 (4.04%) XML
8 22 (3.42%) Web Services
9 21 (3.26%) .NET
10 19 (2.95%) HTML
10 19 (2.95%) SOAP
11 17 (2.64%) CSS
12 16 (2.48%) RabbitMQ
13 15 (2.33%) Django
13 15 (2.33%) Flask
13 15 (2.33%) Pandas
14 14 (2.17%) PySpark
15 13 (2.02%) FastAPI
15 13 (2.02%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.30%) Onboarding
2 37 (5.75%) Linux Command Line
3 36 (5.59%) Legacy Systems
4 32 (4.97%) Data Centre
4 32 (4.97%) Distributed Systems
5 29 (4.50%) Cloud Native
6 21 (3.26%) Fixed Income
7 20 (3.11%) Management Information System
7 20 (3.11%) Replication
8 19 (2.95%) Clustering
9 18 (2.80%) Derivative
10 15 (2.33%) Mainframe
11 13 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
11 13 (2.02%) Virtual Team
12 12 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
12 12 (1.86%) PKI
12 12 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
13 11 (1.71%) Data Structures
13 11 (1.71%) Private Cloud
13 11 (1.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 435 (67.55%) Linux
2 147 (22.83%) Windows
3 70 (10.87%) Solaris
4 41 (6.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 40 (6.21%) Windows Server
6 30 (4.66%) AIX
7 10 (1.55%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.24%) HPUX
9 7 (1.09%) SUSE
9 7 (1.09%) VMS
10 5 (0.78%) CentOS
11 4 (0.62%) Mac OS X
11 4 (0.62%) zOS
12 3 (0.47%) Android
12 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
13 2 (0.31%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.31%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (24.22%) CI/CD
2 132 (20.50%) Agile
3 111 (17.24%) DevOps
4 109 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
5 108 (16.77%) Migration
6 98 (15.22%) Test Automation
7 81 (12.58%) High Availability
8 77 (11.96%) Root Cause Analysis
9 72 (11.18%) Data Modelling
10 66 (10.25%) Performance Tuning
11 65 (10.09%) Continuous Improvement
11 65 (10.09%) ITIL
12 60 (9.32%) Infrastructure as Code
13 59 (9.16%) Data Pipeline
13 59 (9.16%) ETL
14 57 (8.85%) Runbook
15 56 (8.70%) Containerisation
16 53 (8.23%) Microservices
17 52 (8.07%) Analytics
17 52 (8.07%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 254 (39.44%) SQL
2 251 (38.98%) Python
3 130 (20.19%) Java
4 128 (19.88%) Shell Script
5 90 (13.98%) PL/SQL
6 63 (9.78%) Bash
7 51 (7.92%) PowerShell
8 45 (6.99%) Perl
9 33 (5.12%) JavaScript
10 28 (4.35%) C#
11 21 (3.26%) C++
12 15 (2.33%) C
13 8 (1.24%) Go
14 7 (1.09%) Korn
14 7 (1.09%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.93%) ABAP
15 6 (0.93%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.93%) Scala
15 6 (0.93%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.78%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 231 (35.87%) Security Cleared
2 190 (29.50%) SC Cleared
3 60 (9.32%) Degree
4 33 (5.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (3.11%) DV Cleared
6 14 (2.17%) CISSP
7 13 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.40%) CISM
9 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.09%) CRISC
11 6 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.93%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (0.93%) GIAC
11 6 (0.93%) ISEB
11 6 (0.93%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.78%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (0.78%) RHCE
12 5 (0.78%) SANS
13 4 (0.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.43%) NIST
3 32 (4.97%) QA
4 31 (4.81%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.86%) GDPR
6 11 (1.71%) SLA
7 9 (1.40%) ISO 20022
8 7 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (0.93%) ISO 31000
10 5 (0.78%) GRC
10 5 (0.78%) ISO 15022
10 5 (0.78%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.31%) NCSC
13 2 (0.31%) SEPA
14 1 (0.16%) Basel III
14 1 (0.16%) ISO 8583
14 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 68 (10.56%) Docker
2 39 (6.06%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (2.80%) Oracle RAC
5 16 (2.48%) NFS
6 9 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.78%) Firmware
7 5 (0.78%) PowerHA
7 5 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.62%) GPFS
8 4 (0.62%) Postfix
8 4 (0.62%) Varnish
8 4 (0.62%) Veritas Volume Manager
8 4 (0.62%) 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 79 (12.27%) Kubernetes
2 64 (9.94%) Ansible
3 36 (5.59%) Grafana
4 30 (4.66%) Oracle RMAN
5 24 (3.73%) Prometheus
6 20 (3.11%) Data Guard
7 17 (2.64%) Progress Chef
8 16 (2.48%) Control-M
9 15 (2.33%) Puppet
10 11 (1.71%) Kibana
11 9 (1.40%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 9 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (1.09%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.93%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.78%) HP Fortify
14 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.78%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.78%) Oracle ZFS
15 4 (0.62%) HP ALM
15 4 (0.62%) vRealize
Vendors
1 247 (38.35%) Oracle
2 55 (8.54%) IBM
3 47 (7.30%) Splunk
4 45 (6.99%) Microsoft
5 40 (6.21%) BeyondTrust
6 31 (4.81%) Red Hat
7 30 (4.66%) CyberArk
7 30 (4.66%) Informatica
8 28 (4.35%) Sybase
8 28 (4.35%) VMware
9 23 (3.57%) Talend
10 22 (3.42%) SAP
11 20 (3.11%) ServiceNow
12 18 (2.80%) Denodo
13 15 (2.33%) Dynatrace
14 13 (2.02%) Google
15 11 (1.71%) AppDynamics
15 11 (1.71%) BT
15 11 (1.71%) SaltStack
15 11 (1.71%) Solace