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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 223 168 117
Rank change year-on-year -55 -51 -25
Contract jobs citing Unix 639 531 771
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 1.60% 1.99%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.29% 12.11% 14.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 393 353 518
10th Percentile £350 £336 £325
25th Percentile £415 £410 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% -2.91% -6.36%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £708 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £470
% change year-on-year -2.63% +1.06% -10.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 7
10th Percentile £21.50 £43.87 -
25th Percentile £43.81 £52.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +99.09% -58.49%
75th Percentile £54.25 £55.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £55.35 £62.50 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £54.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.11% +15.26% -26.00%

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 5,201 4,383 5,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.72% 13.24% 13.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,296 2,796 3,598
10th Percentile £193 £190 £200
25th Percentile £318 £308 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +0.67% -5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 264 332
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.50 £12.43
25th Percentile £17.53 £18.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.92 £24.58 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.45% -10.62% -31.25%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.80 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.65 £67.70 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £23.00 £39.25
% change year-on-year +15.91% -41.40% +42.73%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 August 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 -31 531 £494 -1.20% 119
UK excluding London -52 357 £463 -2.63% 84
London -70 206 £550 +7.32% 60
Work from Home -23 176 £500 +5.26% 51
North of England -23 115 £480 -4.43% 22
South East -29 104 £431 -4.17% 22
Midlands -2 88 £461 -3.40% 6
North West +3 86 £475 +6.26% 15
West Midlands -5 80 £460 -7.54% 5
Scotland -54 39 £304 -36.00% 7
Yorkshire -33 22 £500 -23.08% 4
East of England -22 10 £700 +40.00% 2
North East - 10 £480 - 3
South West -44 8 £600 - 19
East Midlands -15 7 £463 +17.83% 1
Wales -10 6 £383 +35.40% 2
Northern Ireland -2 1 - - 5

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 34 (5.32%) Confluence
2 31 (4.85%) SAS
3 17 (2.66%) Apache Airflow
4 13 (2.03%) Apache
4 13 (2.03%) SharePoint
5 12 (1.88%) Apache Spark
6 10 (1.56%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 8 (1.25%) WebLogic
8 7 (1.10%) NetWeaver
9 6 (0.94%) OpenStack
9 6 (0.94%) Tuxedo
10 5 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.63%) CICS
11 4 (0.63%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
12 3 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.31%) IIS
13 2 (0.31%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.31%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 14 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.10%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.94%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (0.94%) SAP PSCD
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
3 4 (0.63%) Summit
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 131 (20.50%) AWS
2 85 (13.30%) Azure
3 42 (6.57%) GitHub
4 31 (4.85%) GCP
5 25 (3.91%) GitHub Actions
5 25 (3.91%) IaaS
6 23 (3.60%) AWS Lambda
6 23 (3.60%) Serverless
7 22 (3.44%) Entra ID
8 21 (3.29%) Amazon S3
9 18 (2.82%) PaaS
10 17 (2.66%) SaaS
11 15 (2.35%) OpenShift
11 15 (2.35%) Power Platform
12 14 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
13 12 (1.88%) Snowflake
14 9 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
14 9 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.41%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (1.41%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 28 (4.38%) DNS
1 28 (4.38%) Firewall
2 25 (3.91%) SAN
3 23 (3.60%) TCP/IP
4 15 (2.35%) HTTP
5 13 (2.03%) NAS
6 11 (1.72%) DHCP
6 11 (1.72%) SSL
7 10 (1.56%) SSH
8 8 (1.25%) Network Security
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 (0.94%) 5G
10 6 (0.94%) Diameter Protocol
10 6 (0.94%) Radio Access Network
10 6 (0.94%) VoLTE
10 6 (0.94%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (10.49%) SQL Server
2 53 (8.29%) Oracle Database
3 42 (6.57%) Relational Database
4 40 (6.26%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (5.01%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (4.38%) MySQL
7 24 (3.76%) MongoDB
8 19 (2.97%) Db2
8 19 (2.97%) Metadata
9 16 (2.50%) BusinessObjects
9 16 (2.50%) DataStage
9 16 (2.50%) Oracle Database 11g
9 16 (2.50%) Sybase ASE
10 15 (2.35%) Oracle Database 12c
10 15 (2.35%) Power BI
11 14 (2.19%) Amazon Aurora
11 14 (2.19%) NoSQL
11 14 (2.19%) Oracle Reports
11 14 (2.19%) RDBMS
12 12 (1.88%) KDB
Development Applications
1 69 (10.80%) Jenkins
2 60 (9.39%) Git
3 57 (8.92%) JIRA
4 51 (7.98%) GitLab
5 23 (3.60%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.03%) Mockito
7 11 (1.72%) Bitbucket
7 11 (1.72%) Sonatype Nexus
8 10 (1.56%) JUnit
9 9 (1.41%) Maven
9 9 (1.41%) Oracle Forms
10 8 (1.25%) Selenium
10 8 (1.25%) SonarQube
11 7 (1.10%) eggPlant
12 5 (0.78%) HP UFT
12 5 (0.78%) JMeter
12 5 (0.78%) LoadRunner
12 5 (0.78%) Postman
12 5 (0.78%) SoapUI
13 4 (0.63%) CA Gen
General
1 152 (23.79%) Finance
2 144 (22.54%) Social Skills
3 98 (15.34%) Banking
4 93 (14.55%) Analytical Skills
5 52 (8.14%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.69%) Investment Banking
7 23 (3.60%) Front Office
8 21 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.72%) Retail
9 11 (1.72%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (0.94%) Financial Institution
11 6 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.78%) Advertising
12 5 (0.78%) Military
13 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.31%) Back Office
14 2 (0.31%) Billing
14 2 (0.31%) Law
14 2 (0.31%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 129 (20.19%) Developer
2 92 (14.40%) Senior
3 70 (10.95%) Data Engineer
4 63 (9.86%) Unix Engineer
5 48 (7.51%) Java Developer
6 44 (6.89%) Senior Developer
7 40 (6.26%) Support Engineer
8 39 (6.10%) DBA
9 34 (5.32%) Analyst
10 29 (4.54%) Python Developer
11 27 (4.23%) Oracle DBA
12 25 (3.91%) Consultant
13 23 (3.60%) Architect
13 23 (3.60%) Linux Engineer
14 22 (3.44%) Administrator
15 18 (2.82%) Applications Support
15 18 (2.82%) Senior Java Developer
16 14 (2.19%) Lead
17 13 (2.03%) Automation Engineer
18 12 (1.88%) Unix Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (10.33%) Kafka
2 44 (6.89%) REST
3 39 (6.10%) Middleware
3 39 (6.10%) RESTful
4 32 (5.01%) Spring
5 29 (4.54%) Spring Boot
6 27 (4.23%) XML
7 22 (3.44%) Web Services
8 19 (2.97%) .NET
8 19 (2.97%) SOAP
9 18 (2.82%) CSS
10 17 (2.66%) HTML
11 15 (2.35%) Pandas
11 15 (2.35%) RabbitMQ
12 14 (2.19%) ActiveMQ
13 13 (2.03%) FastAPI
13 13 (2.03%) Flask
13 13 (2.03%) JAX-RS
13 13 (2.03%) JDBC
13 13 (2.03%) Oracle GoldenGate
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.73%) Onboarding
2 38 (5.95%) Legacy Systems
3 37 (5.79%) Linux Command Line
4 35 (5.48%) Data Centre
5 28 (4.38%) Distributed Systems
6 27 (4.23%) Cloud Native
7 21 (3.29%) Fixed Income
7 21 (3.29%) Management Information System
8 20 (3.13%) Replication
9 18 (2.82%) Derivative
10 16 (2.50%) Clustering
11 15 (2.35%) Mainframe
12 13 (2.03%) Virtual Team
13 12 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (1.88%) PKI
14 11 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.72%) Market Risk
15 10 (1.56%) Data Structures
15 10 (1.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 10 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 416 (65.10%) Linux
2 152 (23.79%) Windows
3 68 (10.64%) Solaris
4 39 (6.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 37 (5.79%) Windows Server
6 32 (5.01%) AIX
7 10 (1.56%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.25%) HPUX
9 7 (1.10%) Mac OS X
9 7 (1.10%) SUSE
10 5 (0.78%) CentOS
10 5 (0.78%) VMS
11 3 (0.47%) Android
11 3 (0.47%) Check Point GAiA
11 3 (0.47%) OpenVMS
12 2 (0.31%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.31%) zOS
13 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (21.75%) CI/CD
2 123 (19.25%) Agile
3 108 (16.90%) Migration
4 107 (16.74%) Problem-Solving
5 96 (15.02%) DevOps
5 96 (15.02%) Test Automation
6 84 (13.15%) High Availability
7 81 (12.68%) ITIL
8 77 (12.05%) Root Cause Analysis
9 65 (10.17%) Performance Tuning
10 59 (9.23%) Data Modelling
11 55 (8.61%) Disaster Recovery
11 55 (8.61%) ETL
12 53 (8.29%) Data Pipeline
12 53 (8.29%) Microservices
13 51 (7.98%) Continuous Improvement
14 50 (7.82%) Runbook
15 49 (7.67%) Analytics
16 47 (7.36%) Infrastructure as Code
17 45 (7.04%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 248 (38.81%) SQL
2 234 (36.62%) Python
3 130 (20.34%) Java
4 124 (19.41%) Shell Script
5 87 (13.62%) PL/SQL
6 54 (8.45%) Bash
7 48 (7.51%) PowerShell
8 46 (7.20%) Perl
9 34 (5.32%) JavaScript
10 27 (4.23%) C#
11 20 (3.13%) C++
12 15 (2.35%) C
12 15 (2.35%) Korn
13 8 (1.25%) Go
14 6 (0.94%) ABAP
14 6 (0.94%) COBOL
14 6 (0.94%) Kotlin
14 6 (0.94%) MUMPS
14 6 (0.94%) Scala
14 6 (0.94%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 228 (35.68%) Security Cleared
2 194 (30.36%) SC Cleared
3 59 (9.23%) Degree
4 29 (4.54%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.50%) CISSP
6 14 (2.19%) DV Cleared
7 13 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (1.56%) CISM
9 8 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.10%) CompTIA Security+
10 7 (1.10%) CRISC
11 6 (0.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (0.94%) CESG Certified Professional
11 6 (0.94%) GIAC
12 5 (0.78%) ISEB
12 5 (0.78%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.78%) RHCE
12 5 (0.78%) SANS
13 4 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 36 (5.63%) NIST
3 27 (4.23%) QA
4 25 (3.91%) Data Quality
5 14 (2.19%) SLA
6 12 (1.88%) GDPR
7 7 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.10%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.94%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.78%) GRC
9 5 (0.78%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.63%) ISO 15022
10 4 (0.63%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.31%) NCSC
12 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
12 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
12 1 (0.16%) SEPA
12 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 54 (8.45%) Docker
2 41 (6.42%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.91%) Oracle RAC
4 23 (3.60%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (2.66%) NFS
6 7 (1.10%) Firmware
6 7 (1.10%) PowerHA
6 7 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.78%) GPFS
8 5 (0.78%) Postfix
8 5 (0.78%) Varnish
8 5 (0.78%) vSphere
9 4 (0.63%) Sendmail
10 3 (0.47%) GridGain
10 3 (0.47%) HDFS
10 3 (0.47%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.47%) VirtualBox
11 2 (0.31%) Hyper-V
11 2 (0.31%) KVM
Systems Management
1 65 (10.17%) Kubernetes
2 59 (9.23%) Ansible
3 37 (5.79%) Terraform
4 35 (5.48%) Oracle RMAN
5 31 (4.85%) Grafana
6 20 (3.13%) Data Guard
7 19 (2.97%) Prometheus
8 18 (2.82%) Progress Chef
9 17 (2.66%) Control-M
10 16 (2.50%) Puppet
11 14 (2.19%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 11 (1.72%) Kibana
13 10 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
14 7 (1.10%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 6 (0.94%) Tivoli
16 5 (0.78%) HAProxy
16 5 (0.78%) HP Fortify
16 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
16 5 (0.78%) NetBackup
16 5 (0.78%) VxRail
Vendors
1 246 (38.50%) Oracle
2 56 (8.76%) IBM
3 45 (7.04%) Microsoft
4 42 (6.57%) Splunk
5 40 (6.26%) BeyondTrust
6 33 (5.16%) Informatica
7 31 (4.85%) CyberArk
8 30 (4.69%) Sybase
9 29 (4.54%) Talend
10 28 (4.38%) VMware
11 27 (4.23%) Red Hat
12 26 (4.07%) SAP
13 23 (3.60%) ServiceNow
14 21 (3.29%) Denodo
15 15 (2.35%) Dynatrace
16 13 (2.03%) Cisco
17 12 (1.88%) HP
18 11 (1.72%) BT
18 11 (1.72%) Solace
19 10 (1.56%) SaltStack