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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 220 164 115
Rank change year-on-year -56 -49 -17
Contract jobs citing Unix 645 579 777
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.75% 2.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.09% 12.95% 14.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 409 378 488
10th Percentile £350 £300 £350
25th Percentile £419 £403 £417
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £521
Median % change year-on-year - -4.08% -5.23%
75th Percentile £592 £612 £625
90th Percentile £717 £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 5 5
10th Percentile £43.81 £30.34 -
25th Percentile £45.67 £36.48 -
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% +128.99% -63.77%
75th Percentile £55.00 £55.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £74.11 £64.00 -
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 5,335 4,472 5,434
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.77% 13.54% 14.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,366 2,860 3,510
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £305 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £585
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £447 £450
% change year-on-year +0.67% -0.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 390 269 281
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £15.22
25th Percentile £17.05 £18.82 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.47% -47.05% +5.57%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.75 £68.00
90th Percentile £74.36 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +3.38% -49.70% +14.29%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -51 527 £500 - 234
UK excluding London -71 339 £475 - 108
London -80 217 £550 +4.27% 162
Work from Home -29 189 £500 +4.60% 102
North of England -29 121 £475 -8.83% 20
South East -51 92 £459 +8.64% 28
North West +4 87 £475 +5.20% 6
Midlands -14 72 £470 -8.74% 9
West Midlands -14 65 £473 -9.13% 9
Scotland -56 42 £440 -7.37% 11
Yorkshire -49 26 £500 -23.08% 7
South West -46 14 £663 -11.67% 25
North East -37 11 £475 - 7
East of England -33 8 £700 +40.00% 7
East Midlands -13 6 £456 +16.24%
Wales -13 3 £383 +35.40% 4
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 6

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 (4.34%) SAS
3 17 (2.64%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 16 (2.48%) Apache Airflow
5 14 (2.17%) SharePoint
6 12 (1.86%) Apache Spark
6 12 (1.86%) WebLogic
7 11 (1.71%) Apache
8 7 (1.09%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.78%) WebLogic Portal
10 4 (0.62%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.62%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.47%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.31%) CICS
12 2 (0.31%) CMS
12 2 (0.31%) IIS
12 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.31%) nginx
12 2 (0.31%) Oracle Service Bus
13 1 (0.16%) 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 12 (1.86%) 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
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.47%) Summit
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 147 (22.79%) AWS
2 91 (14.11%) Azure
3 47 (7.29%) GitHub
4 43 (6.67%) GCP
5 30 (4.65%) GitHub Actions
6 28 (4.34%) AWS Lambda
6 28 (4.34%) Serverless
7 26 (4.03%) Amazon S3
8 24 (3.72%) IaaS
9 21 (3.26%) Entra ID
10 18 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (2.79%) SaaS
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%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (1.71%) Snowflake
16 9 (1.40%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.50%) Firewall
2 27 (4.19%) DNS
2 27 (4.19%) TCP/IP
3 21 (3.26%) SAN
4 14 (2.17%) HTTP
5 12 (1.86%) DHCP
6 11 (1.71%) SSH
7 10 (1.55%) NAS
7 10 (1.55%) SSL
8 8 (1.24%) LAN
8 8 (1.24%) WAN
9 7 (1.09%) LTE
9 7 (1.09%) Network Security
9 7 (1.09%) PuTTY
9 7 (1.09%) WinSCP
10 6 (0.93%) 5G
10 6 (0.93%) Diameter Protocol
10 6 (0.93%) Radio Access Network
10 6 (0.93%) VoLTE
10 6 (0.93%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (9.15%) Oracle Database
2 58 (8.99%) SQL Server
3 48 (7.44%) Relational Database
4 46 (7.13%) PostgreSQL
5 41 (6.36%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (4.03%) MongoDB
7 25 (3.88%) MySQL
8 21 (3.26%) Db2
8 21 (3.26%) Oracle Database 11g
9 18 (2.79%) NoSQL
10 17 (2.64%) Metadata
11 16 (2.48%) Data Lake
11 16 (2.48%) DataStage
11 16 (2.48%) RDBMS
12 14 (2.17%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.17%) Oracle Database 12c
12 14 (2.17%) Power BI
13 13 (2.02%) BusinessObjects
13 13 (2.02%) Oracle Reports
13 13 (2.02%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 78 (12.09%) Git
2 68 (10.54%) Jenkins
3 54 (8.37%) JIRA
4 50 (7.75%) GitLab
5 22 (3.41%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.02%) Sonatype Nexus
7 12 (1.86%) JUnit
7 12 (1.86%) SonarQube
8 11 (1.71%) Bitbucket
8 11 (1.71%) Mockito
9 10 (1.55%) Maven
10 9 (1.40%) Oracle Forms
11 8 (1.24%) eggPlant
11 8 (1.24%) Selenium
12 7 (1.09%) Gradle
13 5 (0.78%) HP UFT
13 5 (0.78%) JMeter
13 5 (0.78%) LoadRunner
13 5 (0.78%) Oracle APEX
13 5 (0.78%) SoapUI
General
1 164 (25.43%) Finance
2 146 (22.64%) Social Skills
3 106 (16.43%) Banking
4 103 (15.97%) Analytical Skills
5 52 (8.06%) Public Sector
6 29 (4.50%) Investment Banking
7 22 (3.41%) Front Office
8 20 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.71%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.24%) Retail
11 5 (0.78%) Financial Institution
11 5 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (0.78%) Military
12 4 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
12 4 (0.62%) Legal
12 4 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.47%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.31%) Billing
14 2 (0.31%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 139 (21.55%) Developer
2 104 (16.12%) Senior
3 65 (10.08%) Unix Engineer
4 64 (9.92%) Data Engineer
5 54 (8.37%) Senior Developer
6 49 (7.60%) Java Developer
7 42 (6.51%) DBA
8 33 (5.12%) Python Developer
9 31 (4.81%) Linux Engineer
10 30 (4.65%) Analyst
10 30 (4.65%) Support Engineer
11 28 (4.34%) Oracle DBA
12 26 (4.03%) Consultant
13 24 (3.72%) Administrator
13 24 (3.72%) Architect
14 21 (3.26%) Senior Java Developer
15 18 (2.79%) DevOps Engineer
16 17 (2.64%) Applications Support
17 15 (2.33%) Lead
18 13 (2.02%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (10.70%) Kafka
2 50 (7.75%) Terraform
3 43 (6.67%) REST
4 41 (6.36%) Middleware
4 41 (6.36%) RESTful
5 33 (5.12%) Spring
6 32 (4.96%) Spring Boot
7 26 (4.03%) XML
8 23 (3.57%) Web Services
9 22 (3.41%) .NET
10 20 (3.10%) HTML
10 20 (3.10%) SOAP
11 18 (2.79%) CSS
12 15 (2.33%) Django
12 15 (2.33%) Flask
12 15 (2.33%) Pandas
12 15 (2.33%) RabbitMQ
13 13 (2.02%) FastAPI
13 13 (2.02%) PySpark
14 12 (1.86%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.29%) Onboarding
2 36 (5.58%) Legacy Systems
2 36 (5.58%) Linux Command Line
3 33 (5.12%) Data Centre
4 32 (4.96%) Distributed Systems
5 28 (4.34%) Cloud Native
6 20 (3.10%) Fixed Income
6 20 (3.10%) Management Information System
6 20 (3.10%) Replication
7 18 (2.79%) Clustering
8 17 (2.64%) Derivative
9 15 (2.33%) Mainframe
10 13 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (2.02%) Virtual Team
11 12 (1.86%) PKI
11 12 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.71%) Data Structures
12 11 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (1.71%) Private Cloud
12 11 (1.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 436 (67.60%) Linux
2 151 (23.41%) Windows
3 72 (11.16%) Solaris
4 43 (6.67%) Windows Server
5 40 (6.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 31 (4.81%) AIX
7 9 (1.40%) Oracle Linux
8 8 (1.24%) HPUX
9 7 (1.09%) SUSE
9 7 (1.09%) VMS
10 5 (0.78%) CentOS
10 5 (0.78%) 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
14 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (24.50%) CI/CD
2 132 (20.47%) Agile
3 113 (17.52%) DevOps
4 109 (16.90%) Problem-Solving
5 108 (16.74%) Migration
6 99 (15.35%) Test Automation
7 81 (12.56%) High Availability
8 77 (11.94%) Root Cause Analysis
9 71 (11.01%) Data Modelling
10 66 (10.23%) Performance Tuning
11 65 (10.08%) Continuous Improvement
12 64 (9.92%) ITIL
13 60 (9.30%) Infrastructure as Code
14 59 (9.15%) ETL
15 58 (8.99%) Data Pipeline
16 57 (8.84%) Containerisation
16 57 (8.84%) Runbook
17 54 (8.37%) Analytics
17 54 (8.37%) Microservices
18 52 (8.06%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 252 (39.07%) SQL
2 250 (38.76%) Python
3 131 (20.31%) Java
4 127 (19.69%) Shell Script
5 90 (13.95%) PL/SQL
6 61 (9.46%) Bash
7 51 (7.91%) PowerShell
8 44 (6.82%) Perl
9 34 (5.27%) JavaScript
10 29 (4.50%) C#
11 21 (3.26%) C++
12 15 (2.33%) C
13 8 (1.24%) Go
14 7 (1.09%) MUMPS
15 6 (0.93%) ABAP
15 6 (0.93%) Korn
15 6 (0.93%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.93%) Scala
15 6 (0.93%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.78%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 233 (36.12%) Security Cleared
2 192 (29.77%) SC Cleared
3 60 (9.30%) Degree
4 34 (5.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (3.26%) DV Cleared
6 14 (2.17%) CISSP
6 14 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (1.40%) CISM
8 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.09%) CRISC
9 7 (1.09%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (0.93%) CESG Certified Professional
10 6 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
10 6 (0.93%) GIAC
10 6 (0.93%) ISEB
10 6 (0.93%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.78%) RHCE
11 5 (0.78%) SANS
12 4 (0.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.43%) NIST
3 31 (4.81%) QA
4 30 (4.65%) 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%) WCAG
System Software
1 68 (10.54%) Docker
2 39 (6.05%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.64%) 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 80 (12.40%) Kubernetes
2 63 (9.77%) Ansible
3 37 (5.74%) Grafana
4 30 (4.65%) Oracle RMAN
5 25 (3.88%) Prometheus
6 21 (3.26%) Data Guard
7 17 (2.64%) Progress Chef
8 15 (2.33%) Control-M
8 15 (2.33%) Puppet
9 11 (1.71%) Kibana
10 9 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (1.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 7 (1.09%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 5 (0.78%) HP Fortify
13 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
13 5 (0.78%) NetBackup
13 5 (0.78%) Oracle ZFS
13 5 (0.78%) Tivoli
14 4 (0.62%) HAProxy
14 4 (0.62%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 248 (38.45%) Oracle
2 54 (8.37%) IBM
3 48 (7.44%) Microsoft
3 48 (7.44%) Splunk
4 40 (6.20%) BeyondTrust
5 30 (4.65%) CyberArk
5 30 (4.65%) Informatica
5 30 (4.65%) Red Hat
6 29 (4.50%) Sybase
7 28 (4.34%) VMware
8 23 (3.57%) Talend
9 22 (3.41%) SAP
10 20 (3.10%) ServiceNow
11 18 (2.79%) Denodo
12 15 (2.33%) Dynatrace
13 14 (2.17%) Google
14 11 (1.71%) BT
14 11 (1.71%) SaltStack
14 11 (1.71%) Solace
15 10 (1.55%) AppDynamics