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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 219 161 114
Rank change year-on-year -58 -47 -15
Contract jobs citing Unix 645 569 784
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 1.74% 2.04%
As % of the Operating Systems category 12.18% 12.90% 14.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 411 372 494
10th Percentile £341 £300 £350
25th Percentile £418 £403 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £524
Median % change year-on-year - -4.53% -4.77%
75th Percentile £588 £612 £623
90th Percentile £715 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £459
% change year-on-year - +3.54% -12.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 5 5
10th Percentile - £30.34 -
25th Percentile £43.81 £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 £74.60 £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 5,295 4,411 5,436
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.78% 13.49% 14.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,336 2,820 3,502
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £300 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £581
90th Percentile £675 £675 £685
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £445 £450
% change year-on-year +1.12% -1.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 391 272 275
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £15.54
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.74 £20.15
Median hourly rate £26.00 £25.15 £49.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.38% -49.19% +6.02%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.32 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £52.75
% change year-on-year +29.22% -52.32% +14.97%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -49 527 £500 - 455
UK excluding London -69 341 £475 - 182
London -78 217 £550 +3.77% 329
Work from Home -19 191 £500 +3.95% 296
North of England -36 121 £475 -8.83% 36
South East -48 92 £459 +9.29% 49
North West -1 87 £475 +5.20% 13
Midlands -14 72 £470 -8.75% 16
West Midlands -14 65 £471 -9.38% 15
Scotland -57 43 £450 -5.26% 19
Yorkshire -45 26 £500 -23.08% 14
South West -45 14 £663 -11.67% 31
North East -31 11 £475 - 9
East of England -31 8 £700 +40.00% 15
East Midlands -16 6 £456 +16.24% 1
Wales -10 4 £383 +35.40% 7
Northern Ireland -2 1 - - 13

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 14 (2.17%) SharePoint
5 13 (2.02%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (2.02%) WebLogic
6 9 (1.40%) Apache Spark
7 8 (1.24%) 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%) nginx
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%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.31%) Oracle Service Bus
13 1 (0.16%) JBoss
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
4 3 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Applications
4 3 (0.47%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.47%) Summit
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Retail
6 1 (0.16%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 148 (22.95%) AWS
2 87 (13.49%) Azure
3 43 (6.67%) GCP
3 43 (6.67%) GitHub
4 28 (4.34%) AWS Lambda
4 28 (4.34%) Serverless
5 26 (4.03%) Amazon S3
5 26 (4.03%) GitHub Actions
6 24 (3.72%) IaaS
7 22 (3.41%) Entra ID
8 18 (2.79%) SaaS
9 16 (2.48%) PaaS
10 15 (2.33%) OpenShift
11 14 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
11 14 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (2.17%) Power Platform
12 13 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
13 11 (1.71%) Snowflake
14 10 (1.55%) Amazon ECS
15 9 (1.40%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.50%) Firewall
2 28 (4.34%) DNS
2 28 (4.34%) TCP/IP
3 20 (3.10%) 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%) VoWiFi
10 6 (0.93%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (9.15%) Oracle Database
2 56 (8.68%) SQL Server
3 51 (7.91%) Relational Database
4 48 (7.44%) PostgreSQL
5 41 (6.36%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (4.19%) MongoDB
7 24 (3.72%) MySQL
8 21 (3.26%) Db2
8 21 (3.26%) Oracle Database 11g
9 18 (2.79%) NoSQL
10 16 (2.48%) DataStage
10 16 (2.48%) RDBMS
11 14 (2.17%) Amazon Aurora
11 14 (2.17%) Metadata
11 14 (2.17%) Oracle Database 12c
11 14 (2.17%) Power BI
12 13 (2.02%) BusinessObjects
12 13 (2.02%) Oracle Reports
13 12 (1.86%) Oracle Database 10g
13 12 (1.86%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 82 (12.71%) Git
2 69 (10.70%) Jenkins
3 54 (8.37%) JIRA
4 52 (8.06%) GitLab
5 22 (3.41%) Artifactory
6 13 (2.02%) Maven
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%) Gradle
10 9 (1.40%) Oracle Forms
11 8 (1.24%) eggPlant
11 8 (1.24%) Selenium
12 5 (0.78%) HP UFT
12 5 (0.78%) JMeter
12 5 (0.78%) Oracle APEX
12 5 (0.78%) Postman
12 5 (0.78%) SoapUI
General
1 164 (25.43%) Finance
2 146 (22.64%) Social Skills
3 107 (16.59%) Banking
4 103 (15.97%) Analytical Skills
5 53 (8.22%) 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 6 (0.93%) Military
12 5 (0.78%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
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%) Local Government
15 2 (0.31%) Prime Brokerage
Job Titles
1 140 (21.71%) Developer
2 106 (16.43%) Senior
3 66 (10.23%) Unix Engineer
4 60 (9.30%) Data Engineer
5 54 (8.37%) Senior Developer
6 50 (7.75%) Java Developer
7 41 (6.36%) DBA
8 33 (5.12%) Linux Engineer
8 33 (5.12%) Python Developer
9 30 (4.65%) Analyst
10 29 (4.50%) Support Engineer
11 28 (4.34%) Oracle DBA
12 26 (4.03%) Consultant
13 24 (3.72%) Architect
14 22 (3.41%) Administrator
15 21 (3.26%) Senior Java Developer
16 19 (2.95%) DevOps Engineer
17 17 (2.64%) Applications Support
18 15 (2.33%) Lead
19 13 (2.02%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (10.85%) Kafka
2 52 (8.06%) Terraform
3 47 (7.29%) REST
4 42 (6.51%) Middleware
5 41 (6.36%) RESTful
6 36 (5.58%) Spring
7 35 (5.43%) Spring Boot
8 26 (4.03%) XML
9 23 (3.57%) Web Services
10 22 (3.41%) .NET
11 20 (3.10%) HTML
11 20 (3.10%) SOAP
12 18 (2.79%) CSS
13 15 (2.33%) Django
13 15 (2.33%) Flask
13 15 (2.33%) Pandas
13 15 (2.33%) RabbitMQ
14 13 (2.02%) FastAPI
15 12 (1.86%) ActiveMQ
15 12 (1.86%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.29%) Onboarding
2 36 (5.58%) Linux Command Line
3 35 (5.43%) Distributed Systems
4 33 (5.12%) Legacy Systems
5 32 (4.96%) Data Centre
6 24 (3.72%) Cloud Native
7 20 (3.10%) Fixed Income
7 20 (3.10%) Management Information System
7 20 (3.10%) Replication
8 17 (2.64%) Clustering
8 17 (2.64%) Derivative
9 15 (2.33%) Mainframe
10 13 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (2.02%) PKI
10 13 (2.02%) Virtual Team
11 12 (1.86%) Private Cloud
11 12 (1.86%) Product Ownership
12 11 (1.71%) Data Structures
12 11 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (1.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 438 (67.91%) Linux
2 149 (23.10%) Windows
3 72 (11.16%) Solaris
4 42 (6.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 42 (6.51%) Windows Server
5 31 (4.81%) AIX
6 9 (1.40%) Oracle Linux
7 8 (1.24%) HPUX
8 7 (1.09%) SUSE
8 7 (1.09%) VMS
9 6 (0.93%) 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 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (24.50%) CI/CD
2 132 (20.47%) Agile
3 111 (17.21%) DevOps
4 110 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
5 104 (16.12%) Migration
6 100 (15.50%) Test Automation
7 80 (12.40%) High Availability
8 76 (11.78%) Root Cause Analysis
9 68 (10.54%) Data Modelling
10 65 (10.08%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (9.92%) Performance Tuning
12 63 (9.77%) Infrastructure as Code
13 62 (9.61%) ITIL
14 59 (9.15%) Containerisation
14 59 (9.15%) ETL
15 56 (8.68%) Runbook
16 54 (8.37%) Data Pipeline
16 54 (8.37%) Microservices
17 51 (7.91%) Analytics
17 51 (7.91%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 250 (38.76%) SQL
2 246 (38.14%) Python
3 135 (20.93%) Java
4 124 (19.22%) Shell Script
5 90 (13.95%) PL/SQL
6 62 (9.61%) Bash
7 52 (8.06%) PowerShell
8 43 (6.67%) Perl
9 34 (5.27%) JavaScript
10 29 (4.50%) C#
11 21 (3.26%) C++
12 15 (2.33%) C
13 9 (1.40%) 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
1 231 (35.81%) Security Cleared
2 188 (29.15%) SC Cleared
3 61 (9.46%) 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%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (5.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (5.43%) NIST
3 34 (5.27%) QA
4 27 (4.19%) 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%) NCSC
12 3 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
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 71 (11.01%) Docker
2 39 (6.05%) Active Directory
3 26 (4.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.64%) Oracle RAC
5 16 (2.48%) NFS
6 9 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.62%) Firmware
8 4 (0.62%) GPFS
8 4 (0.62%) Postfix
8 4 (0.62%) PowerHA
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%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 82 (12.71%) Kubernetes
2 65 (10.08%) Ansible
3 38 (5.89%) Grafana
4 30 (4.65%) Oracle RMAN
5 26 (4.03%) Prometheus
6 21 (3.26%) Data Guard
7 18 (2.79%) Progress Chef
8 16 (2.48%) Puppet
9 15 (2.33%) Control-M
10 11 (1.71%) Kibana
11 9 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
12 8 (1.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 7 (1.09%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 5 (0.78%) HAProxy
14 5 (0.78%) HP Fortify
14 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (0.78%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.78%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.78%) ZABBIX
15 4 (0.62%) SCCM
Vendors
1 247 (38.29%) Oracle
2 53 (8.22%) IBM
3 50 (7.75%) Splunk
4 48 (7.44%) Microsoft
5 40 (6.20%) BeyondTrust
6 31 (4.81%) Red Hat
7 30 (4.65%) CyberArk
7 30 (4.65%) Informatica
8 29 (4.50%) VMware
9 28 (4.34%) Sybase
10 23 (3.57%) Talend
11 21 (3.26%) SAP
12 20 (3.10%) ServiceNow
13 18 (2.79%) Denodo
14 15 (2.33%) Dynatrace
15 14 (2.17%) Google
16 12 (1.86%) SaltStack
17 11 (1.71%) BT
17 11 (1.71%) Solace
18 10 (1.55%) AppDynamics