Linux Engineer Job Trends

Linux Engineer
UK

The median Linux Engineer salary in the UK is £57,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 April 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 466 528 538
Rank change year-on-year +62 +10 +25
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 237 109 343
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.27% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.32% 0.30% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 175 96 285
10th Percentile £36,500 £41,250 £41,100
25th Percentile £46,250 £52,500 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £79,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £88,125 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £56,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% -1.79% +1.82%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 73,166 36,757 84,704
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.18% 89.95% 94.57%
Number of salaries quoted 46,994 23,163 63,811
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,550
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -4.76%

Linux Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Linux Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Linux Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Linux Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Linux Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Linux Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Linux Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Linux Engineer over the 6 months to 1 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Linux Engineer in the UK

Linux Engineer
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Linux Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 1 April 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 +58 207 £57,500 -11.54% 44
UK excluding London +64 178 £50,000 -9.09% 41
South East +22 65 £50,000 -16.67% 15
Work from Home +31 61 £70,000 +26.54% 22
London -23 46 £97,500 +23.81% 5
East of England -3 32 £56,250 +2.27% 14
South West -17 26 £53,000 -3.64% 7
North of England -36 26 £53,500 +15.05% 3
Scotland -5 18 £100,000 +81.82% 2
Yorkshire -40 12 £34,000 -28.42%
Midlands -26 11 £52,500 +31.25% 1
West Midlands -7 8 £53,750 +13.16% 1
North West -20 8 £58,000 +28.89% 2
North East -21 6 £70,000 +16.67% 1
East Midlands -44 3 £26,265 -34.34%

Linux Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 April 2026, Linux Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Linux Engineer in the job title.

1 237 (100.00%) Linux
2 52 (21.94%) Python
3 48 (20.25%) AWS
4 47 (19.83%) Security Cleared
5 46 (19.41%) Software Engineering
6 45 (18.99%) Ansible
7 43 (18.14%) Bash
8 42 (17.72%) DevOps
9 40 (16.88%) Red Hat
10 39 (16.46%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (13.50%) SaaS
12 31 (13.08%) Terraform
13 30 (12.66%) High Availability
14 29 (12.24%) Azure
14 29 (12.24%) CentOS
14 29 (12.24%) Platform Engineering
15 28 (11.81%) Degree
15 28 (11.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
16 27 (11.39%) Infrastructure as Code
16 27 (11.39%) Windows
17 25 (10.55%) Embedded Linux
18 24 (10.13%) DNS
19 22 (9.28%) Kubernetes
19 22 (9.28%) Perl
19 22 (9.28%) SQL
20 21 (8.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
21 20 (8.44%) Active Directory
21 20 (8.44%) C++
21 20 (8.44%) Microsoft
22 19 (8.02%) C

Linux Engineer Skill Set
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 8 (3.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.11%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.11%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.69%) Apache
4 2 (0.84%) nginx
4 2 (0.84%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.84%) WebSphere
4 2 (0.84%) WebSphere Application Server
Cloud Services
1 48 (20.25%) AWS
2 32 (13.50%) SaaS
3 29 (12.24%) Azure
4 16 (6.75%) GCP
5 14 (5.91%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (4.64%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (4.22%) Amazon EC2
8 9 (3.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (2.95%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (2.95%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (2.11%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (2.11%) Amazon ElastiCache
10 5 (2.11%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 5 (2.11%) CloudFront
10 5 (2.11%) GitHub
10 5 (2.11%) Google Workspace
10 5 (2.11%) IaaS
10 5 (2.11%) PaaS
10 5 (2.11%) Route 53
11 4 (1.69%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (10.13%) DNS
2 11 (4.64%) Firewall
3 10 (4.22%) HTTP
3 10 (4.22%) SAN
4 9 (3.80%) DHCP
5 5 (2.11%) PuTTY
5 5 (2.11%) SSH
5 5 (2.11%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.27%) Ethernet
6 3 (1.27%) InfiniBand
6 3 (1.27%) iSCSI
6 3 (1.27%) LAN
6 3 (1.27%) Remote Desktop
6 3 (1.27%) SNMP
6 3 (1.27%) VPN
6 3 (1.27%) WAN
7 2 (0.84%) Bluetooth
7 2 (0.84%) Network Security
7 2 (0.84%) PBX
7 2 (0.84%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.22%) MySQL
2 7 (2.95%) Amazon RDS
3 6 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.11%) Amazon Aurora
4 5 (2.11%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (0.84%) DB2
7 1 (0.42%) InfluxDB
7 1 (0.42%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.42%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.42%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 7 (2.95%) GitLab
2 4 (1.69%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.27%) Git
3 3 (1.27%) Visual Studio
4 2 (0.84%) JIRA
5 1 (0.42%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.42%) GDB
5 1 (0.42%) WinDbg
General
1 42 (17.72%) Social Skills
2 23 (9.70%) Finance
3 14 (5.91%) Public Sector
4 9 (3.80%) Manufacturing
5 8 (3.38%) Retail
6 7 (2.95%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (2.11%) Banking
7 5 (2.11%) Telecoms
8 4 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (0.84%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.84%) Analytical Skills
9 2 (0.84%) Electronics
9 2 (0.84%) Law
9 2 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.42%) German Language
10 1 (0.42%) Legal
10 1 (0.42%) Military
10 1 (0.42%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.53%) LAMP
2 5 (2.11%) Loki
3 4 (1.69%) LDAP
4 3 (1.27%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.84%) LAPP Stack
5 2 (0.84%) Middleware
5 2 (0.84%) WebSphere MQ
6 1 (0.42%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 19 (8.02%) Data Centre
2 12 (5.06%) Hedge funds
3 7 (2.95%) Driving Licence
4 6 (2.53%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.11%) Embedded Systems
5 5 (2.11%) PKI
6 4 (1.69%) Clustering
6 4 (1.69%) FPGA
6 4 (1.69%) Linux Command Line
6 4 (1.69%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.69%) Video on Demand
6 4 (1.69%) Video\Live Streaming
7 3 (1.27%) Device Driver
7 3 (1.27%) IoT
7 3 (1.27%) Robotics
8 2 (0.84%) PCIe
8 2 (0.84%) Photography
8 2 (0.84%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.84%) Raspberry Pi
9 1 (0.42%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 237 (100.00%) Linux
2 29 (12.24%) CentOS
3 28 (11.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 27 (11.39%) Windows
5 25 (10.55%) Embedded Linux
6 19 (8.02%) Ubuntu
7 16 (6.75%) Unix
8 7 (2.95%) Windows Server
9 5 (2.11%) VMS
10 4 (1.69%) Rocky
10 4 (1.69%) SUSE
11 3 (1.27%) Solaris
12 2 (0.84%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.42%) Debian
13 1 (0.42%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.42%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (19.41%) Software Engineering
2 42 (17.72%) DevOps
3 39 (16.46%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (12.66%) High Availability
5 29 (12.24%) Platform Engineering
6 27 (11.39%) Infrastructure as Code
7 21 (8.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 18 (7.59%) CI/CD
9 14 (5.91%) Disaster Recovery
10 13 (5.49%) Computer Science
10 13 (5.49%) Migration
11 12 (5.06%) Containerisation
11 12 (5.06%) Stakeholder Management
12 11 (4.64%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (4.64%) Customer Service
13 9 (3.80%) Deployment Automation
13 9 (3.80%) Logistics
13 9 (3.80%) Mathematics
14 8 (3.38%) ITIL
14 8 (3.38%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 52 (21.94%) Python
2 43 (18.14%) Bash
3 22 (9.28%) Perl
3 22 (9.28%) SQL
4 20 (8.44%) C++
5 19 (8.02%) C
6 10 (4.22%) PowerShell
7 9 (3.80%) Java
8 8 (3.38%) PHP
8 8 (3.38%) Shell Script
9 7 (2.95%) PL/SQL
10 5 (2.11%) DCL
10 5 (2.11%) Embedded C
10 5 (2.11%) Embedded C++
10 5 (2.11%) Tcl
11 2 (0.84%) Go
12 1 (0.42%) Korn
Qualifications
1 47 (19.83%) Security Cleared
2 28 (11.81%) Degree
3 18 (7.59%) DV Cleared
4 17 (7.17%) SC Cleared
5 9 (3.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (3.38%) RHCE
7 3 (1.27%) LPIC
8 2 (0.84%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.84%) Linux+ Certification
8 2 (0.84%) RHCSA
9 1 (0.42%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.42%) CISA
9 1 (0.42%) CISSP
9 1 (0.42%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.69%) SLA
2 3 (1.27%) QA
3 1 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.42%) NIST
System Software
1 20 (8.44%) Active Directory
2 14 (5.91%) Docker
3 8 (3.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (2.95%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 5 (2.11%) Firmware
5 5 (2.11%) vSphere
6 4 (1.69%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 3 (1.27%) Lustre
8 2 (0.84%) Embedded Firmware
8 2 (0.84%) Samba
9 1 (0.42%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 45 (18.99%) Ansible
2 31 (13.08%) Terraform
3 22 (9.28%) Kubernetes
4 11 (4.64%) Grafana
5 8 (3.38%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.53%) Nagios
6 6 (2.53%) Puppet
7 5 (2.11%) WSUS
8 2 (0.84%) Podman
8 2 (0.84%) Red Hat Satellite
8 2 (0.84%) Red Hat Spacewalk
Vendors
1 40 (16.88%) Red Hat
2 20 (8.44%) Microsoft
3 17 (7.17%) VMware
4 8 (3.38%) Dell
5 7 (2.95%) Google
5 7 (2.95%) IBM
6 5 (2.11%) Atlassian
6 5 (2.11%) McAfee
7 4 (1.69%) Cisco
7 4 (1.69%) Splunk
8 3 (1.27%) EMC
8 3 (1.27%) Mellanox
8 3 (1.27%) NetApp
8 3 (1.27%) Oracle
8 3 (1.27%) Rapid7
9 2 (0.84%) D-Link
9 2 (0.84%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.84%) HP
9 2 (0.84%) Mirantis
10 1 (0.42%) Juniper