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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 182 120 111
Rank change year-on-year -62 -9 -30
Contract jobs citing Unix 585 673 908
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.58% 2.09% 2.13%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.44% 14.92% 14.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 402 650
10th Percentile £204 £348 £355
25th Percentile £373 £419 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £663 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £782
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.89% -5.00% -7.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 7 10
10th Percentile £26.28 £38.70 £21.88
25th Percentile £26.31 £40.50 £24.31
Median hourly rate £27.75 £41.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year -32.32% -27.11% -13.13%
75th Percentile £29.31 £59.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £29.43 £69.50 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £47.00 £61.50
% change year-on-year - -23.58% +11.82%

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 4,703 4,511 6,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.70% 13.99% 14.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,093 2,812 4,297
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £265 £317 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £669 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -2.94% -1.16% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 343 172 311
10th Percentile £15.04 £16.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.94 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% +8.33% +20.00%
75th Percentile £62.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.59 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £28.00 £26.09
% change year-on-year -10.18% +7.32% +15.96%

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 January 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
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 January 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 -47 484 £479 -12.95% 121
UK excluding London -46 300 £447 -5.89% 108
London -32 230 £565 -1.74% 33
Work from Home -77 157 £454 -8.38% 95
North of England -22 85 £475 -24.60% 20
South East -18 81 £208 -51.69% 35
Midlands -39 64 £483 -3.37% 13
West Midlands -30 59 £483 -8.59% 10
Scotland -20 57 £450 - 7
North West -7 48 £468 -18.57% 14
Yorkshire -40 35 £495 -29.29% 4
South West -16 10 £700 +33.33% 12
East Midlands -26 5 £437 +23.80% 2
North East -11 4 £500 -9.09% 2
East of England -31 4 £500 +25.00% 18
Wales -4 1 £265 +64.51% 7
Northern Ireland -13 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 39 (6.67%) Apache
2 37 (6.32%) WebLogic
3 28 (4.79%) Confluence
4 19 (3.25%) SharePoint
5 18 (3.08%) JBoss
6 10 (1.71%) Tomcat
7 9 (1.54%) IIS
7 9 (1.54%) Tuxedo
7 9 (1.54%) WebSphere
8 8 (1.37%) iPlanet
8 8 (1.37%) WebSphere Application Server
9 7 (1.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 7 (1.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (1.03%) nginx
11 5 (0.85%) Apache Spark
11 5 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
12 3 (0.51%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.34%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.34%) SAS
14 1 (0.17%) CICS
Applications
1 18 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.17%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (1.71%) Oracle EBS
1 10 (1.71%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (0.85%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (0.85%) Oracle Assets
2 5 (0.85%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.68%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.51%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.51%) Kondor
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle BPM
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle BRM
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (0.51%) SAP IBP
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.17%) Finacle
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle CRM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle E-Business Tax
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.17%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 152 (25.98%) AWS
2 106 (18.12%) Azure
3 32 (5.47%) GCP
4 28 (4.79%) GitHub
5 23 (3.93%) SaaS
6 22 (3.76%) AWS CloudFormation
7 20 (3.42%) Sauce Labs
8 19 (3.25%) Azure Monitor
9 16 (2.74%) Amazon EC2
9 16 (2.74%) OpenShift
10 14 (2.39%) Amazon S3
11 11 (1.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 11 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (1.88%) Cloud Computing
11 11 (1.88%) Serverless
11 11 (1.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 10 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
13 9 (1.54%) Microsoft 365
13 9 (1.54%) OCI
14 8 (1.37%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 38 (6.50%) Firewall
2 29 (4.96%) TCP/IP
3 28 (4.79%) DNS
4 26 (4.44%) HTTP
5 20 (3.42%) Wireless
6 17 (2.91%) SSL
7 16 (2.74%) SSH
8 15 (2.56%) Network Security
9 10 (1.71%) Kerberos
10 7 (1.20%) SAN
11 6 (1.03%) DHCP
12 5 (0.85%) FTP
13 4 (0.68%) FIX Connectivity
13 4 (0.68%) VPN
13 4 (0.68%) Wireshark
14 3 (0.51%) Broadband
14 3 (0.51%) GPRS
14 3 (0.51%) GSM
14 3 (0.51%) Unified Communications
14 3 (0.51%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (9.40%) MySQL
1 55 (9.40%) Relational Database
2 53 (9.06%) MongoDB
3 45 (7.69%) Oracle Database
4 27 (4.62%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (4.44%) NoSQL
6 23 (3.93%) Elasticsearch
7 18 (3.08%) SQL Server
8 14 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
9 11 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
9 11 (1.88%) Data Lake
9 11 (1.88%) KDB
9 11 (1.88%) Kdb+
10 10 (1.71%) Amazon Redshift
11 8 (1.37%) Big Data
11 8 (1.37%) Hadoop
11 8 (1.37%) RDBMS
12 7 (1.20%) Oracle Reports
13 6 (1.03%) Couchbase
13 6 (1.03%) Redis
Development Applications
1 65 (11.11%) Jenkins
2 53 (9.06%) Git
3 43 (7.35%) JIRA
4 29 (4.96%) Eclipse
5 28 (4.79%) GitLab
6 26 (4.44%) JUnit
7 25 (4.27%) Xcode
8 23 (3.93%) Mockito
9 21 (3.59%) Browser DevTools
10 20 (3.42%) Android Studio
11 15 (2.56%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (2.39%) Selenium
13 13 (2.22%) Bitbucket
13 13 (2.22%) Maven
14 9 (1.54%) IntelliJ
14 9 (1.54%) SoapUI
15 8 (1.37%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (1.37%) CA Release Automation
15 8 (1.37%) MSI
15 8 (1.37%) Subversion
General
1 187 (31.97%) Social Skills
2 161 (27.52%) Finance
3 69 (11.79%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (9.57%) Banking
5 37 (6.32%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.79%) Front Office
7 14 (2.39%) Financial Institution
8 13 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
9 11 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
10 10 (1.71%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.20%) Legal
11 7 (1.20%) Military
12 5 (0.85%) Law
13 4 (0.68%) General Ledger
14 3 (0.51%) Back Office
14 3 (0.51%) Billing
14 3 (0.51%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.51%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.34%) Marketing
15 2 (0.34%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 107 (18.29%) Developer
2 101 (17.26%) Senior
3 47 (8.03%) Technical Support
4 46 (7.86%) Java Developer
5 43 (7.35%) Analyst
6 35 (5.98%) DevOps Engineer
7 33 (5.64%) Support Engineer
8 31 (5.30%) Unix Engineer
9 28 (4.79%) Linux Engineer
9 28 (4.79%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 28 (4.79%) Technical Engineer
10 26 (4.44%) Senior Developer
10 26 (4.44%) Technical Support Engineer
11 24 (4.10%) Software Engineer
12 23 (3.93%) Site Engineer
13 22 (3.76%) Kafka Engineer
14 21 (3.59%) Consultant
14 21 (3.59%) Platform Engineer
14 21 (3.59%) UX Engineer
15 20 (3.42%) C++ Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (14.70%) Kafka
2 40 (6.84%) React
3 38 (6.50%) REST
4 37 (6.32%) SOAP
5 33 (5.64%) AngularJS
6 32 (5.47%) CSS
7 24 (4.10%) Middleware
8 23 (3.93%) HTML
8 23 (3.93%) XML
9 21 (3.59%) ActiveMQ
9 21 (3.59%) Ajax
9 21 (3.59%) GraphQL
9 21 (3.59%) Spring
10 19 (3.25%) JSON
11 18 (3.08%) JAX-RS
12 17 (2.91%) Hibernate
13 15 (2.56%) HTML5
13 15 (2.56%) J2EE
13 15 (2.56%) LDAP
14 14 (2.39%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.64%) Management Information System
2 23 (3.93%) Mobile App
3 20 (3.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 20 (3.42%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.91%) Cloud Native
5 15 (2.56%) Security Posture
6 14 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
6 14 (2.39%) Linux Command Line
7 13 (2.22%) Algorithms
7 13 (2.22%) Data Centre
8 12 (2.05%) Replication
8 12 (2.05%) Tandem
9 11 (1.88%) Fixed Income
10 10 (1.71%) Equities
11 9 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
11 9 (1.54%) Greenfield Project
12 8 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
12 8 (1.37%) Legacy Applications
12 8 (1.37%) PKI
13 7 (1.20%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 404 (69.06%) Linux
2 196 (33.50%) Windows
3 29 (4.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (3.93%) Mac OS X
5 22 (3.76%) Android
6 19 (3.25%) Solaris
7 16 (2.74%) Windows Server
8 13 (2.22%) CentOS
8 13 (2.22%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.85%) AIX
10 4 (0.68%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.51%) VMS
12 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.34%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.34%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.34%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (29.23%) Agile
2 117 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
3 110 (18.80%) DevOps
4 97 (16.58%) CI/CD
5 72 (12.31%) Incident Response
6 71 (12.14%) OO
7 63 (10.77%) Microservices
8 60 (10.26%) Computer Science
8 60 (10.26%) Observability
9 57 (9.74%) Continuous Improvement
10 55 (9.40%) Software Engineering
11 54 (9.23%) Infrastructure as Code
12 53 (9.06%) Test Automation
13 50 (8.55%) Containerisation
14 49 (8.38%) TDD
15 48 (8.21%) Analytics
16 45 (7.69%) Incident Management
16 45 (7.69%) Migration
17 43 (7.35%) Data Modelling
18 42 (7.18%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 232 (39.66%) Python
2 220 (37.61%) SQL
3 159 (27.18%) Java
4 97 (16.58%) Shell Script
5 95 (16.24%) Perl
6 75 (12.82%) Bash
7 61 (10.43%) JavaScript
8 47 (8.03%) C++
9 38 (6.50%) PowerShell
10 30 (5.13%) C#
11 27 (4.62%) PL/SQL
12 16 (2.74%) Go
13 13 (2.22%) Groovy
14 12 (2.05%) Scala
15 11 (1.88%) Korn
16 9 (1.54%) PHP
16 9 (1.54%) Search Processing Language
17 8 (1.37%) TypeScript
18 4 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
18 4 (0.68%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 110 (18.80%) Security Cleared
2 87 (14.87%) Degree
3 76 (12.99%) SC Cleared
4 49 (8.38%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (4.27%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (2.22%) AWS Certification
7 12 (2.05%) CISSP
8 11 (1.88%) DV Cleared
9 10 (1.71%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 7 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (1.03%) OSCP
12 5 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
12 5 (0.85%) GPEN
12 5 (0.85%) GWAPT
12 5 (0.85%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 5 (0.85%) MCSA
12 5 (0.85%) MCSE
13 4 (0.68%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.74%) SLA
2 14 (2.39%) QA
3 9 (1.54%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.03%) NCSC
5 4 (0.68%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.68%) 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%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.17%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 90 (15.38%) Docker
2 20 (3.42%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.37%) Tivoli Directory Server
3 8 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.03%) KVM
5 5 (0.85%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.51%) GPFS
6 3 (0.51%) NFS
6 3 (0.51%) QEMU
7 2 (0.34%) GridGain
7 2 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.17%) Ceph
8 1 (0.17%) iptables
8 1 (0.17%) Lustre
8 1 (0.17%) RACF
8 1 (0.17%) Samba
8 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.17%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 78 (13.33%) Kubernetes
2 67 (11.45%) Terraform
3 66 (11.28%) Ansible
4 34 (5.81%) Grafana
5 30 (5.13%) Puppet
6 20 (3.42%) Prometheus
7 13 (2.22%) Kibana
8 12 (2.05%) Progress Chef
9 10 (1.71%) Red Hat Satellite
10 9 (1.54%) Tivoli
11 8 (1.37%) CA Single Sign-On
11 8 (1.37%) CA Wily
12 7 (1.20%) Jamf Pro
12 7 (1.20%) Nessus
12 7 (1.20%) SCCM
12 7 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
13 6 (1.03%) ITRS Geneos
13 6 (1.03%) Packer
14 5 (0.85%) CASB
14 5 (0.85%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 181 (30.94%) Oracle
2 113 (19.32%) Splunk
3 79 (13.50%) Microsoft
4 39 (6.67%) IBM
5 36 (6.15%) ServiceNow
6 29 (4.96%) AppDynamics
7 26 (4.44%) Red Hat
8 24 (4.10%) Dynatrace
9 22 (3.76%) Cisco
10 17 (2.91%) VMware
11 15 (2.56%) CyberArk
12 10 (1.71%) F5
13 9 (1.54%) Tenable
13 9 (1.54%) webMethods
14 8 (1.37%) Broadcom
14 8 (1.37%) Confluent
14 8 (1.37%) CrowdStrike
14 8 (1.37%) Google
14 8 (1.37%) MuleSoft
14 8 (1.37%) Remedy