Linux Engineer Job Trends

Linux Engineer
UK

The median Linux Engineer salary in the UK is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 21 March 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 470 520 543
Rank change year-on-year +50 +23 +27
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 233 117 326
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.31% 0.28% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.31% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 171 97 274
10th Percentile £32,500 £45,450 £41,000
25th Percentile £46,250 £55,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £70,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +16.67% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £79,125
90th Percentile £100,000 £92,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% - -

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 69,843 38,164 81,143
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.98% 90.31% 94.62%
Number of salaries quoted 44,555 23,016 61,790
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £39,000 £43,408 £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 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,263
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -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 21 March 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 21 March 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 +64 203 £55,000 -21.43% 41
UK excluding London +81 175 £50,000 -9.09% 35
South East +33 64 £50,000 -16.67% 12
Work from Home +46 60 £70,000 +26.54% 21
London -19 45 £98,750 +25.40% 8
East of England +4 31 £55,000 -0.58% 12
South West -11 25 £51,000 -7.27% 7
North of England -34 24 £48,750 -4.88% 3
Scotland 0 18 £100,000 +66.67% 2
Midlands -14 13 £52,500 +31.25%
Yorkshire -30 12 £34,000 -28.42% 1
West Midlands +6 10 £53,750 +13.16%
North West -15 6 £54,500 +7.39% 1
North East -19 6 £70,000 +16.67% 1
East Midlands -48 3 £26,265 -34.34%

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

For the 6 months to 21 March 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.

1 233 (100.00%) Linux
2 50 (21.46%) Python
3 48 (20.60%) Software Engineering
4 47 (20.17%) AWS
5 45 (19.31%) Security Cleared
6 43 (18.45%) Ansible
7 42 (18.03%) DevOps
8 41 (17.60%) Bash
9 38 (16.31%) Red Hat
10 37 (15.88%) Problem-Solving
11 31 (13.30%) SaaS
12 30 (12.88%) Degree
12 30 (12.88%) Terraform
13 29 (12.45%) Azure
13 29 (12.45%) CentOS
13 29 (12.45%) High Availability
13 29 (12.45%) Windows
14 28 (12.02%) Platform Engineering
14 28 (12.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 27 (11.59%) Embedded Linux
15 27 (11.59%) Infrastructure as Code
16 24 (10.30%) C++
16 24 (10.30%) DNS
17 23 (9.87%) SQL
18 22 (9.44%) C
18 22 (9.44%) Kubernetes
19 21 (9.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 21 (9.01%) Microsoft
19 21 (9.01%) Perl
20 20 (8.58%) Active Directory

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 (3.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.15%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.15%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.72%) Apache
4 2 (0.86%) nginx
4 2 (0.86%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.86%) WebSphere
4 2 (0.86%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 47 (20.17%) AWS
2 31 (13.30%) SaaS
3 29 (12.45%) Azure
4 16 (6.87%) GCP
5 14 (6.01%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (4.72%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (4.29%) Amazon EC2
8 9 (3.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (3.00%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (3.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (2.58%) GitHub
11 5 (2.15%) Amazon ECR
11 5 (2.15%) Amazon ElastiCache
11 5 (2.15%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 5 (2.15%) CloudFront
11 5 (2.15%) Google Workspace
11 5 (2.15%) IaaS
11 5 (2.15%) PaaS
11 5 (2.15%) Route 53
12 4 (1.72%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (10.30%) DNS
2 11 (4.72%) Firewall
3 10 (4.29%) HTTP
3 10 (4.29%) SAN
4 9 (3.86%) DHCP
5 7 (3.00%) TCP/IP
6 5 (2.15%) PuTTY
6 5 (2.15%) SSH
7 4 (1.72%) SSL
7 4 (1.72%) VPN
8 3 (1.29%) Ethernet
8 3 (1.29%) InfiniBand
8 3 (1.29%) iSCSI
8 3 (1.29%) LAN
8 3 (1.29%) Remote Desktop
8 3 (1.29%) SNMP
8 3 (1.29%) WAN
9 2 (0.86%) Bluetooth
9 2 (0.86%) GPRS
9 2 (0.86%) PBX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.29%) MySQL
2 7 (3.00%) Amazon RDS
3 6 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.15%) Amazon Aurora
4 5 (2.15%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (0.86%) DB2
7 1 (0.43%) InfluxDB
7 1 (0.43%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.43%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.43%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 7 (3.00%) GitLab
2 4 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.29%) Git
3 3 (1.29%) Visual Studio
4 2 (0.86%) JIRA
5 1 (0.43%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.43%) GDB
5 1 (0.43%) WinDbg
General
1 43 (18.45%) Social Skills
2 23 (9.87%) Finance
3 14 (6.01%) Public Sector
4 11 (4.72%) Manufacturing
5 9 (3.86%) Retail
6 8 (3.43%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (2.15%) Banking
7 5 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (1.29%) Electronics
8 3 (1.29%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.86%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.86%) Analytical Skills
9 2 (0.86%) Law
9 2 (0.86%) Military
9 2 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.43%) German Language
10 1 (0.43%) Legal
10 1 (0.43%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.58%) LAMP
2 5 (2.15%) Loki
3 4 (1.72%) LDAP
4 3 (1.29%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.86%) LAPP Stack
5 2 (0.86%) Middleware
5 2 (0.86%) WebSphere MQ
6 1 (0.43%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 17 (7.30%) Data Centre
2 12 (5.15%) Hedge funds
3 8 (3.43%) Driving Licence
4 6 (2.58%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.15%) Embedded Systems
5 5 (2.15%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (2.15%) PKI
6 4 (1.72%) Clustering
6 4 (1.72%) FPGA
6 4 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.72%) Video on Demand
6 4 (1.72%) Video\Live Streaming
7 3 (1.29%) Device Driver
7 3 (1.29%) IoT
7 3 (1.29%) Robotics
8 2 (0.86%) PCIe
8 2 (0.86%) Photography
8 2 (0.86%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.86%) Raspberry Pi
9 1 (0.43%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 233 (100.00%) Linux
2 29 (12.45%) CentOS
2 29 (12.45%) Windows
3 28 (12.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 27 (11.59%) Embedded Linux
5 19 (8.15%) Ubuntu
6 13 (5.58%) Unix
7 7 (3.00%) Windows Server
8 5 (2.15%) VMS
9 4 (1.72%) Rocky
9 4 (1.72%) SUSE
10 2 (0.86%) FreeRTOS
10 2 (0.86%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.86%) Solaris
11 1 (0.43%) Debian
11 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.43%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (20.60%) Software Engineering
2 42 (18.03%) DevOps
3 37 (15.88%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (12.45%) High Availability
5 28 (12.02%) Platform Engineering
6 27 (11.59%) Infrastructure as Code
7 21 (9.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 18 (7.73%) CI/CD
9 15 (6.44%) Computer Science
10 14 (6.01%) Disaster Recovery
11 13 (5.58%) Migration
12 12 (5.15%) Containerisation
12 12 (5.15%) Stakeholder Management
13 11 (4.72%) Continuous Improvement
13 11 (4.72%) Customer Service
14 10 (4.29%) Logistics
15 9 (3.86%) Deployment Automation
15 9 (3.86%) E-Commerce
15 9 (3.86%) Mathematics
16 8 (3.43%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 50 (21.46%) Python
2 41 (17.60%) Bash
3 24 (10.30%) C++
4 23 (9.87%) SQL
5 22 (9.44%) C
6 21 (9.01%) Perl
7 10 (4.29%) Java
7 10 (4.29%) PowerShell
8 8 (3.43%) PHP
8 8 (3.43%) PL/SQL
8 8 (3.43%) Shell Script
9 7 (3.00%) Embedded C++
10 5 (2.15%) DCL
10 5 (2.15%) Embedded C
10 5 (2.15%) Tcl
11 2 (0.86%) Go
12 1 (0.43%) Korn
Qualifications
1 45 (19.31%) Security Cleared
2 30 (12.88%) Degree
3 17 (7.30%) DV Cleared
4 16 (6.87%) SC Cleared
5 11 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (3.43%) RHCE
7 3 (1.29%) LPIC
8 2 (0.86%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.86%) Linux+ Certification
8 2 (0.86%) RHCSA
9 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.43%) CISA
9 1 (0.43%) CISSP
9 1 (0.43%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.72%) SLA
2 3 (1.29%) QA
3 2 (0.86%) MISRA
4 1 (0.43%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.43%) NIST
System Software
1 20 (8.58%) Active Directory
2 13 (5.58%) Docker
3 8 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (3.00%) Firmware
4 7 (3.00%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 5 (2.15%) vSphere
6 4 (1.72%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 4 (1.72%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (1.29%) Lustre
8 2 (0.86%) Samba
9 1 (0.43%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 43 (18.45%) Ansible
2 30 (12.88%) Terraform
3 22 (9.44%) Kubernetes
4 11 (4.72%) Grafana
5 8 (3.43%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.58%) Nagios
6 6 (2.58%) Puppet
7 5 (2.15%) WSUS
8 2 (0.86%) Red Hat Satellite
8 2 (0.86%) Red Hat Spacewalk
9 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.43%) Podman
9 1 (0.43%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 38 (16.31%) Red Hat
2 21 (9.01%) Microsoft
3 17 (7.30%) VMware
4 8 (3.43%) Dell
5 7 (3.00%) Google
5 7 (3.00%) IBM
6 5 (2.15%) Atlassian
6 5 (2.15%) Cisco
6 5 (2.15%) McAfee
7 4 (1.72%) Splunk
8 3 (1.29%) EMC
8 3 (1.29%) Mellanox
8 3 (1.29%) NetApp
8 3 (1.29%) Oracle
8 3 (1.29%) Rapid7
9 2 (0.86%) D-Link
9 2 (0.86%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.86%) HP
10 1 (0.43%) Juniper
10 1 (0.43%) SAP