Unix Job Trends

Unix
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Unix skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 334 239 225
Rank change year-on-year -95 -14 -24
Permanent jobs citing Unix 347 674 799
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.58% 1.25% 1.47%
As % of the Operating Systems category 7.05% 8.36% 9.40%
Number of salaries quoted 198 250 550
10th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £42,500
25th Percentile £50,250 £50,000 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £61,250 £60,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -11.11% +3.85%
75th Percentile £78,790 £80,000 £84,056
90th Percentile £89,125 £93,778 £96,539
UK excluding London median annual salary £56,965 £57,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -0.93% -8.00% +25.00%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring operating system skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 4,923 8,058 8,500
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 8.24% 15.00% 15.59%
Number of salaries quoted 3,653 4,552 6,956
10th Percentile £27,000 £28,250 £27,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £36,250 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £44,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £72,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,850 £88,750 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £37,500 £45,819 £45,000
% change year-on-year -18.16% +1.82% -

Unix
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Unix relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Unix job vacancy trend in the UK

Unix
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Unix.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Unix

Unix
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Unix over the 6 months to 9 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Unix in the UK

Unix
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Unix within the UK over the 6 months to 9 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -77 316 £59,000 -0.21% 160
UK excluding London -111 182 £56,965 -0.93% 148
London +6 150 £76,250 +10.02% 34
Work from Home -23 132 £72,500 +4.61% 97
South West +20 47 £56,250 -21.87% 16
South East +13 47 £58,000 +11.54% 44
East of England +8 38 £43,085 -25.07% 26
North of England -97 17 £55,000 +4.76% 26
Midlands -38 13 £73,801 +31.79% 22
Wales +3 9 £65,000 +34.57% 9
West Midlands -30 9 £74,401 +24.00% 14
Scotland -35 9 £73,801 +6.48% 9
Yorkshire -31 6 £25,750 -67.86% 8
North West -63 6 £66,901 +33.80% 15
North East +2 5 £73,801 +47.60% 3
East Midlands -16 4 £40,000 -27.27% 8
Northern Ireland -16 2 £73,801 -18.00% 3

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 37 (10.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 26 (7.49%) Exchange Server 2003
3 22 (6.34%) WebSphere
4 21 (6.05%) Tomcat
5 16 (4.61%) WebSphere Application Server
6 9 (2.59%) Apache Spark
7 6 (1.73%) Apache
7 6 (1.73%) Confluence
7 6 (1.73%) nginx
8 5 (1.44%) Anypoint
8 5 (1.44%) WebLogic
9 4 (1.15%) IIS
9 4 (1.15%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.86%) WebLogic Portal
11 1 (0.29%) JBoss
11 1 (0.29%) NetWeaver
11 1 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.29%) SharePoint
Applications
1 18 (5.19%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (4.32%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 7 (2.02%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (1.44%) Shopify
3 4 (1.15%) NEC Housing
3 4 (1.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.86%) Fidessa
4 3 (0.86%) Primavera
5 2 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.29%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.29%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 112 (32.28%) AWS
2 73 (21.04%) Azure
3 48 (13.83%) GCP
4 38 (10.95%) AWS CloudFormation
5 27 (7.78%) Pulumi
6 26 (7.49%) Amazon ECR
7 20 (5.76%) Amazon ECS
7 20 (5.76%) dbt
7 20 (5.76%) Serverless
8 18 (5.19%) Amazon EC2
8 18 (5.19%) AWS Lambda
8 18 (5.19%) PaaS
9 16 (4.61%) SaaS
10 15 (4.32%) Amazon S3
10 15 (4.32%) GitHub
10 15 (4.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 14 (4.03%) Microsoft 365
12 13 (3.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 12 (3.46%) Amazon EKS
13 12 (3.46%) Amazon ElastiCache
Communications & Networking
1 37 (10.66%) TCP/IP
2 27 (7.78%) SSL
3 26 (7.49%) DNS
4 25 (7.20%) DHCP
5 19 (5.48%) Firewall
6 10 (2.88%) Broadband
6 10 (2.88%) VPN
6 10 (2.88%) WAN
7 9 (2.59%) SAN
7 9 (2.59%) VLAN
8 8 (2.31%) HTTPS
9 7 (2.02%) MPLS
10 6 (1.73%) 5G
10 6 (1.73%) HTTP
10 6 (1.73%) Network Security
10 6 (1.73%) Reverse Proxy
10 6 (1.73%) SD-WAN
10 6 (1.73%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (1.73%) Wireshark
11 5 (1.44%) FIX Connectivity
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (13.26%) PostgreSQL
2 37 (10.66%) Oracle Database
3 30 (8.65%) Amazon RDS
4 27 (7.78%) Oracle Database 10g
5 24 (6.92%) Relational Database
6 21 (6.05%) Elasticsearch
6 21 (6.05%) SQL Server
7 20 (5.76%) Redis
8 18 (5.19%) DB2
9 15 (4.32%) NoSQL
10 11 (3.17%) Big Data
11 8 (2.31%) Hadoop
11 8 (2.31%) Power BI
11 8 (2.31%) Tableau
12 7 (2.02%) MySQL
12 7 (2.02%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (2.02%) RDBMS
13 6 (1.73%) FileMaker
14 5 (1.44%) Amazon Redshift
14 5 (1.44%) Apache Hive
Development Applications
1 25 (7.20%) Git
2 10 (2.88%) Jenkins
2 10 (2.88%) JIRA
2 10 (2.88%) LabVIEW
3 8 (2.31%) GitLab
4 7 (2.02%) Jaeger
5 4 (1.15%) Cypress.io
5 4 (1.15%) Toad
6 3 (0.86%) CircleCI
6 3 (0.86%) Mocha
6 3 (0.86%) Oracle APEX
6 3 (0.86%) Oracle Forms
6 3 (0.86%) webpack
7 2 (0.58%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.58%) Browser DevTools
7 2 (0.58%) JUnit
8 1 (0.29%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.29%) JMeter
8 1 (0.29%) Maven
8 1 (0.29%) Xcode
General
1 87 (25.07%) Finance
2 66 (19.02%) Social Skills
3 37 (10.66%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (9.51%) Banking
5 19 (5.48%) Public Sector
6 16 (4.61%) German Language
6 16 (4.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (4.03%) Presentation Skills
7 14 (4.03%) Telecoms
8 13 (3.75%) Investment Banking
9 12 (3.46%) Electronics
10 10 (2.88%) Law
11 8 (2.31%) Manufacturing
12 7 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (1.44%) Legal
14 4 (1.15%) Back Office
14 4 (1.15%) Financial Institution
14 4 (1.15%) Front Office
14 4 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
14 4 (1.15%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 65 (18.73%) Senior
2 32 (9.22%) Administrator
3 31 (8.93%) Support Engineer
4 29 (8.36%) Applications Support
4 29 (8.36%) Linux Support
5 27 (7.78%) Systems Administrator
6 25 (7.20%) 3rd Line Support
6 25 (7.20%) Linux Engineer
7 23 (6.63%) Systems Support
8 22 (6.34%) Infrastructure Support
8 22 (6.34%) Platform Engineer
9 21 (6.05%) Developer
10 19 (5.48%) Unix Support
11 18 (5.19%) Analyst
12 13 (3.75%) Linux Support Engineer
12 13 (3.75%) Senior Platform Engineer
12 13 (3.75%) Support Analyst
13 12 (3.46%) Lead
13 12 (3.46%) Verification Engineer
14 11 (3.17%) IT Audit Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (10.66%) JSON
2 35 (10.09%) XML
3 34 (9.80%) HTML
4 30 (8.65%) Regular Expression
5 23 (6.63%) LDAP
6 20 (5.76%) Django
7 18 (5.19%) WebSphere MQ
8 16 (4.61%) Elastic Stack
8 16 (4.61%) LAPP Stack
9 12 (3.46%) OAuth
10 11 (3.17%) REST
11 10 (2.88%) Middleware
11 10 (2.88%) pytest
11 10 (2.88%) SOAP
12 8 (2.31%) FIX Protocol
13 7 (2.02%) Node.js
13 7 (2.02%) OpenTelemetry
13 7 (2.02%) RESTful
14 6 (1.73%) OAuth2
14 6 (1.73%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 69 (19.88%) Linux Command Line
2 36 (10.37%) Onboarding
3 23 (6.63%) e-Learning
3 23 (6.63%) Management Information System
4 15 (4.32%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (2.88%) PKI
5 10 (2.88%) Security Posture
6 9 (2.59%) IoT
7 8 (2.31%) Clustering
7 8 (2.31%) Data Centre
7 8 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.73%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 6 (1.73%) Hedge funds
8 6 (1.73%) Low-Code
8 6 (1.73%) Replication
8 6 (1.73%) Self-Driving Car
9 5 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (1.15%) Device Driver
10 4 (1.15%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 233 (67.15%) Linux
2 112 (32.28%) Windows
3 47 (13.54%) Solaris
4 37 (10.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 26 (7.49%) HPUX
5 26 (7.49%) Windows Server 2003
6 22 (6.34%) Windows 7
6 22 (6.34%) Windows Server 2008
7 16 (4.61%) Windows Server
8 10 (2.88%) Debian
9 8 (2.31%) Mac OS
10 6 (1.73%) AIX
11 5 (1.44%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.58%) CentOS
12 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.29%) Android
13 1 (0.29%) CoreOS
13 1 (0.29%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (21.33%) Problem-Solving
2 70 (20.17%) DevOps
3 57 (16.43%) Infrastructure as Code
3 57 (16.43%) ITIL
4 51 (14.70%) AI
5 47 (13.54%) CI/CD
5 47 (13.54%) High Availability
6 42 (12.10%) Agile
7 41 (11.82%) Data Analysis
8 37 (10.66%) Incident Management
9 35 (10.09%) Change Management
10 32 (9.22%) Computer Science
11 30 (8.65%) LLM
12 27 (7.78%) Analytics
12 27 (7.78%) Observability
13 26 (7.49%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 26 (7.49%) Test Automation
14 25 (7.20%) Open Source
15 24 (6.92%) Containerisation
15 24 (6.92%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 198 (57.06%) Python
2 62 (17.87%) SQL
3 52 (14.99%) Bash
4 43 (12.39%) PowerShell
5 34 (9.80%) JavaScript
6 29 (8.36%) Java
7 28 (8.07%) Perl
8 23 (6.63%) Shell Script
9 13 (3.75%) C#
10 12 (3.46%) Go
10 12 (3.46%) MATLAB
10 12 (3.46%) R
11 10 (2.88%) C
12 9 (2.59%) C++
13 8 (2.31%) Korn
14 5 (1.44%) PL/SQL
15 4 (1.15%) Fortran
15 4 (1.15%) TypeScript
15 4 (1.15%) VB
16 3 (0.86%) Scala
Qualifications
1 109 (31.41%) Degree
1 109 (31.41%) Security Cleared
2 93 (26.80%) SC Cleared
3 58 (16.71%) DV Cleared
4 36 (10.37%) AWS Certification
5 29 (8.36%) CCNA
5 29 (8.36%) Cisco Certification
6 25 (7.20%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (6.63%) ITIL Certification
8 22 (6.34%) CCNP
9 20 (5.76%) CISSP
10 10 (2.88%) HND
11 8 (2.31%) CISA
11 8 (2.31%) Master's Degree
11 8 (2.31%) PhD
12 7 (2.02%) ACCA
12 7 (2.02%) CIMA
12 7 (2.02%) Network+ Certification
13 6 (1.73%) GCIA
13 6 (1.73%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (15.85%) SLA
2 12 (3.46%) GDPR
3 10 (2.88%) QA
4 8 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (2.31%) NIST
5 6 (1.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 3 (0.86%) COBIT
6 3 (0.86%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 51 (14.70%) Docker
2 48 (13.83%) Active Directory
3 26 (7.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.44%) Veritas Cluster Server
5 4 (1.15%) Firmware
5 4 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (1.15%) XenApp
5 4 (1.15%) XenDesktop
6 2 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 57 (16.43%) Terraform
2 52 (14.99%) Ansible
3 36 (10.37%) Kubernetes
4 16 (4.61%) Grafana
5 14 (4.03%) Prometheus
6 12 (3.46%) AWS Copilot
7 8 (2.31%) Argo
8 7 (2.02%) Kustomize
9 6 (1.73%) Jamf Pro
10 5 (1.44%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (1.44%) SCCM
11 4 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.86%) Control-M
12 3 (0.86%) Netcool
12 3 (0.86%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 3 (0.86%) Podman
12 3 (0.86%) Puppet
13 2 (0.58%) Suricata
14 1 (0.29%) Ambari
14 1 (0.29%) VxRail
Vendors
1 64 (18.44%) Oracle
2 55 (15.85%) VMware
3 51 (14.70%) Google
4 50 (14.41%) Microsoft
5 46 (13.26%) Red Hat
6 36 (10.37%) IBM
7 33 (9.51%) Cisco
8 20 (5.76%) SAP
9 16 (4.61%) ServiceNow
10 12 (3.46%) Dell
11 11 (3.17%) Splunk
12 9 (2.59%) Workday
13 8 (2.31%) Fortinet
13 8 (2.31%) HP
13 8 (2.31%) IFS
13 8 (2.31%) Informatica
13 8 (2.31%) Juniper
13 8 (2.31%) NetApp
13 8 (2.31%) Palo Alto
14 7 (2.02%) Symantec