Linux Engineer Job Trends

Linux Engineer
UK

The median Linux Engineer salary in the UK is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 29 May 2026.

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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 508 555 543
Rank change year-on-year +47 -12 +11
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 238 96 382
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.22% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.27% 0.25% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 187 78 319
10th Percentile £43,000 £38,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £41,250 £47,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £61,750 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +2.92% -
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £86,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £45,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +33.33% -18.18% +4.76%

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 87,064 38,294 94,653
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.44% 89.31% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 57,954 21,519 69,253
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.90% +1.93% -6.54%

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 29 May 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 29 May 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 +57 218 £65,000 +3.17% 23
UK excluding London +72 186 £60,000 +33.33% 18
South East +25 61 £50,000 -28.57% 8
Work from Home +53 57 £70,000 +12.00% 7
East of England +21 50 £70,000 +75.00% 9
London -23 46 £85,000 +17.24% 7
South West -33 26 £57,500 -32.35%
North of England -40 21 £60,000 +37.14% 1
Scotland +7 15 £100,000 +100.00%
North West -1 14 £60,000 +41.18% 1
Midlands -27 13 £40,000 - 1
East Midlands -29 9 £40,000 - 1
Yorkshire -51 5 £80,000 +68.42%
West Midlands -35 4 £52,500 +10.53%
North East -35 2 £47,500 -20.83%

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

For the 6 months to 29 May 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.

1 238 (100.00%) Linux
2 54 (22.69%) Red Hat
2 54 (22.69%) Software Engineering
3 50 (21.01%) Bash
3 50 (21.01%) Python
4 46 (19.33%) DevOps
5 45 (18.91%) Ansible
5 45 (18.91%) AWS
6 39 (16.39%) Security Cleared
7 36 (15.13%) Terraform
8 35 (14.71%) Embedded Linux
9 34 (14.29%) High Availability
9 34 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
10 30 (12.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 29 (12.18%) SaaS
12 28 (11.76%) Infrastructure as Code
12 28 (11.76%) Kubernetes
13 26 (10.92%) Azure
14 25 (10.50%) Platform Engineering
15 24 (10.08%) Docker
16 23 (9.66%) CentOS
16 23 (9.66%) Ubuntu
17 21 (8.82%) CI/CD
18 20 (8.40%) Degree
19 19 (7.98%) Active Directory
19 19 (7.98%) Azure DevOps
19 19 (7.98%) DV Cleared
19 19 (7.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
20 18 (7.56%) Microsoft
21 17 (7.14%) DNS

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 13 (5.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.10%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.10%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.84%) Apache
Cloud Services
1 45 (18.91%) AWS
2 29 (12.18%) SaaS
3 26 (10.92%) Azure
4 19 (7.98%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (4.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 10 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
6 8 (3.36%) GCP
7 5 (2.10%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (2.10%) Amazon ECR
7 5 (2.10%) Amazon ECS
7 5 (2.10%) Amazon EKS
7 5 (2.10%) Amazon ElastiCache
7 5 (2.10%) Amazon OpenSearch
7 5 (2.10%) CloudFront
7 5 (2.10%) IaaS
7 5 (2.10%) PaaS
7 5 (2.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 4 (1.68%) GitHub
9 3 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.42%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 17 (7.14%) DNS
2 14 (5.88%) SAN
3 13 (5.46%) Firewall
4 10 (4.20%) HTTP
5 9 (3.78%) iSCSI
6 8 (3.36%) Remote Desktop
7 5 (2.10%) PuTTY
7 5 (2.10%) SSH
8 4 (1.68%) VPN
9 3 (1.26%) Ethernet
9 3 (1.26%) InfiniBand
9 3 (1.26%) TCP/IP
10 2 (0.84%) Bluetooth
10 2 (0.84%) Network Security
10 2 (0.84%) PBX
10 2 (0.84%) RFID
10 2 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.84%) Wireless
11 1 (0.42%) LTE
11 1 (0.42%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.88%) MySQL
2 9 (3.78%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (3.36%) SQL Server
4 5 (2.10%) Amazon Aurora
4 5 (2.10%) Amazon RDS
4 5 (2.10%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (2.10%) KDB
5 1 (0.42%) InfluxDB
5 1 (0.42%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.42%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 8 (3.36%) GitLab
2 5 (2.10%) Git
3 3 (1.26%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.26%) PetaLinux
3 3 (1.26%) Visual Studio
4 2 (0.84%) JIRA
5 1 (0.42%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.42%) GDB
5 1 (0.42%) WinDbg
General
1 39 (16.39%) Social Skills
2 20 (8.40%) Finance
3 11 (4.62%) Telecoms
4 9 (3.78%) Organisational Skills
5 7 (2.94%) Banking
6 6 (2.52%) Public Sector
7 5 (2.10%) Front Office
8 4 (1.68%) Aerospace
9 3 (1.26%) Electronics
9 3 (1.26%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.84%) Law
10 2 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.42%) German Language
11 1 (0.42%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.42%) Retail
11 1 (0.42%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.10%) FIX Protocol
1 5 (2.10%) Loki
2 4 (1.68%) Yocto
3 3 (1.26%) LAMP
4 2 (0.84%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.42%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 21 (8.82%) Data Centre
2 13 (5.46%) Embedded Systems
3 12 (5.04%) Hedge funds
4 11 (4.62%) Management Information System
5 7 (2.94%) Robotics
6 6 (2.52%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.10%) Fixed Income
7 5 (2.10%) FPGA
7 5 (2.10%) PKI
8 4 (1.68%) Clustering
8 4 (1.68%) Device Driver
8 4 (1.68%) IoT
9 3 (1.26%) Algorithms
9 3 (1.26%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.84%) PCIe
10 2 (0.84%) Photography
10 2 (0.84%) Raspberry Pi
11 1 (0.42%) Distributed Computing
11 1 (0.42%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 238 (100.00%) Linux
2 35 (14.71%) Embedded Linux
3 30 (12.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 23 (9.66%) CentOS
4 23 (9.66%) Ubuntu
5 16 (6.72%) Unix
6 14 (5.88%) Windows
7 6 (2.52%) Windows Server
8 5 (2.10%) VMS
9 4 (1.68%) Solaris
9 4 (1.68%) SUSE
10 3 (1.26%) AIX
10 3 (1.26%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.42%) Debian
11 1 (0.42%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.42%) Rocky
11 1 (0.42%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (22.69%) Software Engineering
2 46 (19.33%) DevOps
3 34 (14.29%) High Availability
3 34 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (11.76%) Infrastructure as Code
5 25 (10.50%) Platform Engineering
6 21 (8.82%) CI/CD
7 19 (7.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 13 (5.46%) Containerisation
9 12 (5.04%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 11 (4.62%) Deployment Automation
10 11 (4.62%) ITIL
11 10 (4.20%) Migration
11 10 (4.20%) Observability
12 9 (3.78%) Linux Kernel Development
12 9 (3.78%) Stakeholder Management
13 8 (3.36%) Presales
13 8 (3.36%) Time Management
14 7 (2.94%) Cloud Security
14 7 (2.94%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 50 (21.01%) Bash
1 50 (21.01%) Python
2 16 (6.72%) Perl
3 12 (5.04%) C
3 12 (5.04%) SQL
4 11 (4.62%) C++
5 9 (3.78%) PowerShell
6 8 (3.36%) PHP
7 7 (2.94%) Shell Script
8 6 (2.52%) Korn
9 5 (2.10%) DCL
9 5 (2.10%) Tcl
10 3 (1.26%) MATLAB
11 2 (0.84%) Go
12 1 (0.42%) C#
12 1 (0.42%) Embedded C
12 1 (0.42%) Embedded C++
12 1 (0.42%) Java
12 1 (0.42%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 39 (16.39%) Security Cleared
2 20 (8.40%) Degree
3 19 (7.98%) DV Cleared
4 13 (5.46%) SC Cleared
5 8 (3.36%) RHCE
6 3 (1.26%) LPIC
7 2 (0.84%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.84%) Linux+ Certification
7 2 (0.84%) RHCSA
8 1 (0.42%) CCNA
8 1 (0.42%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.42%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.42%) MCSE
8 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.10%) QA
2 3 (1.26%) SLA
System Software
1 24 (10.08%) Docker
2 19 (7.98%) Active Directory
3 9 (3.78%) Citrix Hypervisor
3 9 (3.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (2.94%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 5 (2.10%) Firmware
5 5 (2.10%) vSphere
6 3 (1.26%) Lustre
7 2 (0.84%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.84%) Samba
8 1 (0.42%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 45 (18.91%) Ansible
2 36 (15.13%) Terraform
3 28 (11.76%) Kubernetes
4 12 (5.04%) Grafana
5 7 (2.94%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.52%) Puppet
7 5 (2.10%) Nagios
7 5 (2.10%) WSUS
8 4 (1.68%) Podman
Vendors
1 54 (22.69%) Red Hat
2 18 (7.56%) Microsoft
3 15 (6.30%) VMware
4 11 (4.62%) Dell
5 6 (2.52%) Oracle
6 5 (2.10%) McAfee
6 5 (2.10%) Rapid7
6 5 (2.10%) Splunk
7 4 (1.68%) Cisco
8 3 (1.26%) EMC
8 3 (1.26%) IBM
8 3 (1.26%) Mellanox
8 3 (1.26%) Mirantis
8 3 (1.26%) NetApp
9 2 (0.84%) D-Link
10 1 (0.42%) Apple
10 1 (0.42%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.42%) Fortinet
10 1 (0.42%) Google
10 1 (0.42%) Veeam