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 16 May 2026.

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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 485 557 552
Rank change year-on-year +72 -5 +7
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 239 97 359
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.22% 0.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.28% 0.25% 0.39%
Number of salaries quoted 182 80 300
10th Percentile £40,500 £38,500 £38,876
25th Percentile £50,000 £44,375 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £61,750 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +2.92% -
75th Percentile £83,750 £78,125 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £86,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £48,750 £56,000
% change year-on-year +23.08% -12.95% +6.67%

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 85,212 39,160 91,339
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.30% 89.49% 94.62%
Number of salaries quoted 56,182 22,791 67,021
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £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 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,344 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.48% +4.69% -5.66%

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 16 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 16 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 +77 219 £65,000 +6.56% 40
UK excluding London +84 186 £60,000 +23.08% 39
South East +39 65 £50,000 -28.57% 9
Work from Home +56 61 £70,000 +19.15% 13
London -17 47 £97,500 +34.48% 10
East of England +28 44 £70,000 +36.59% 14
South West -27 26 £57,500 -14.81% 2
North of England -16 24 £60,000 +33.33% 5
Scotland +6 15 £100,000 +100.00% 8
North West +7 14 £60,000 +37.14% 2
Midlands -21 12 £40,000 - 2
Yorkshire -46 8 £57,000 +20.00% 3
East Midlands -26 6 £33,133 -17.17% 2
West Midlands -36 6 £52,500 +10.53%
North East -38 2 £47,500 -20.83%

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

For the 6 months to 16 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.

1 239 (100.00%) Linux
2 55 (23.01%) Red Hat
3 53 (22.18%) Python
4 51 (21.34%) Bash
4 51 (21.34%) Software Engineering
5 47 (19.67%) Ansible
5 47 (19.67%) AWS
5 47 (19.67%) DevOps
6 42 (17.57%) Security Cleared
7 37 (15.48%) Terraform
8 36 (15.06%) Problem-Solving
9 35 (14.64%) High Availability
10 32 (13.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 31 (12.97%) SaaS
12 29 (12.13%) Kubernetes
13 28 (11.72%) Azure
13 28 (11.72%) Embedded Linux
13 28 (11.72%) Infrastructure as Code
14 27 (11.30%) Platform Engineering
15 25 (10.46%) CentOS
16 24 (10.04%) Degree
16 24 (10.04%) Docker
17 23 (9.62%) Ubuntu
18 21 (8.79%) CI/CD
19 20 (8.37%) Active Directory
20 19 (7.95%) Azure DevOps
20 19 (7.95%) DNS
20 19 (7.95%) DV Cleared
20 19 (7.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
20 19 (7.95%) Microsoft

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 (5.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.09%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.09%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.26%) Apache
4 1 (0.42%) nginx
Cloud Services
1 47 (19.67%) AWS
2 31 (12.97%) SaaS
3 28 (11.72%) Azure
4 19 (7.95%) Azure DevOps
5 11 (4.60%) Microsoft 365
6 10 (4.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 9 (3.77%) GCP
8 5 (2.09%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (2.09%) Amazon ECR
8 5 (2.09%) Amazon ECS
8 5 (2.09%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (2.09%) Amazon ElastiCache
8 5 (2.09%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 5 (2.09%) CloudFront
8 5 (2.09%) IaaS
8 5 (2.09%) PaaS
8 5 (2.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (1.67%) GitHub
10 3 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (0.84%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 19 (7.95%) DNS
2 15 (6.28%) SAN
3 14 (5.86%) Firewall
4 10 (4.18%) HTTP
5 9 (3.77%) iSCSI
6 8 (3.35%) Remote Desktop
7 5 (2.09%) PuTTY
7 5 (2.09%) SSH
8 4 (1.67%) TCP/IP
8 4 (1.67%) VPN
9 3 (1.26%) DHCP
9 3 (1.26%) Ethernet
9 3 (1.26%) InfiniBand
10 2 (0.84%) Bluetooth
10 2 (0.84%) Network Security
10 2 (0.84%) RFID
10 2 (0.84%) SNMP
10 2 (0.84%) WAN
10 2 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.84%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.86%) MySQL
2 9 (3.77%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (3.35%) SQL Server
4 5 (2.09%) Amazon Aurora
4 5 (2.09%) Amazon RDS
4 5 (2.09%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (2.09%) KDB
5 1 (0.42%) InfluxDB
5 1 (0.42%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.42%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 8 (3.35%) GitLab
2 5 (2.09%) Git
3 3 (1.26%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.26%) Visual Studio
4 2 (0.84%) JIRA
4 2 (0.84%) PetaLinux
5 1 (0.42%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.42%) GDB
5 1 (0.42%) WinDbg
General
1 44 (18.41%) Social Skills
2 21 (8.79%) Finance
3 11 (4.60%) Telecoms
4 9 (3.77%) Organisational Skills
5 7 (2.93%) Banking
5 7 (2.93%) Public Sector
6 6 (2.51%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.09%) Front Office
8 4 (1.67%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
8 4 (1.67%) Retail
9 3 (1.26%) Electronics
10 2 (0.84%) Law
10 2 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.42%) German Language
11 1 (0.42%) Military
11 1 (0.42%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.09%) FIX Protocol
1 5 (2.09%) Loki
2 3 (1.26%) LAMP
2 3 (1.26%) Yocto
3 2 (0.84%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (0.84%) Middleware
4 1 (0.42%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.42%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 19 (7.95%) Data Centre
2 12 (5.02%) Hedge funds
3 11 (4.60%) Embedded Systems
3 11 (4.60%) Management Information System
4 6 (2.51%) Cloud Native
4 6 (2.51%) Robotics
5 5 (2.09%) Fixed Income
5 5 (2.09%) FPGA
5 5 (2.09%) PKI
6 4 (1.67%) Clustering
6 4 (1.67%) Device Driver
6 4 (1.67%) Driving Licence
6 4 (1.67%) IoT
7 3 (1.26%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (0.84%) Algorithms
8 2 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (0.84%) PCIe
8 2 (0.84%) Photography
8 2 (0.84%) Raspberry Pi
9 1 (0.42%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 239 (100.00%) Linux
2 32 (13.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 28 (11.72%) Embedded Linux
4 25 (10.46%) CentOS
5 23 (9.62%) Ubuntu
6 17 (7.11%) Unix
6 17 (7.11%) Windows
7 6 (2.51%) Windows Server
8 5 (2.09%) VMS
9 4 (1.67%) Solaris
9 4 (1.67%) SUSE
10 3 (1.26%) AIX
11 2 (0.84%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.42%) Debian
12 1 (0.42%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.42%) Rocky
12 1 (0.42%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (21.34%) Software Engineering
2 47 (19.67%) DevOps
3 36 (15.06%) Problem-Solving
4 35 (14.64%) High Availability
5 28 (11.72%) Infrastructure as Code
6 27 (11.30%) Platform Engineering
7 21 (8.79%) CI/CD
8 19 (7.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 13 (5.44%) Containerisation
10 12 (5.02%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 11 (4.60%) Deployment Automation
11 11 (4.60%) ITIL
11 11 (4.60%) Migration
12 10 (4.18%) Observability
13 9 (3.77%) Linux Kernel Development
13 9 (3.77%) Stakeholder Management
14 8 (3.35%) Computer Science
14 8 (3.35%) Customer Service
14 8 (3.35%) Presales
14 8 (3.35%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 53 (22.18%) Python
2 51 (21.34%) Bash
3 18 (7.53%) Perl
4 16 (6.69%) SQL
5 15 (6.28%) C
5 15 (6.28%) C++
6 9 (3.77%) PowerShell
7 8 (3.35%) PHP
7 8 (3.35%) Shell Script
8 6 (2.51%) Korn
9 5 (2.09%) DCL
9 5 (2.09%) Java
9 5 (2.09%) Tcl
10 4 (1.67%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.84%) Embedded C
11 2 (0.84%) Embedded C++
11 2 (0.84%) Go
11 2 (0.84%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.42%) C#
Qualifications
1 42 (17.57%) Security Cleared
2 24 (10.04%) Degree
3 19 (7.95%) DV Cleared
4 15 (6.28%) SC Cleared
5 8 (3.35%) RHCE
6 5 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (1.26%) LPIC
8 2 (0.84%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.84%) Linux+ Certification
8 2 (0.84%) RHCSA
9 1 (0.42%) CCNA
9 1 (0.42%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.42%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.42%) MCSE
9 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.09%) QA
2 3 (1.26%) SLA
System Software
1 24 (10.04%) Docker
2 20 (8.37%) Active Directory
3 9 (3.77%) Citrix Hypervisor
3 9 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (2.93%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 5 (2.09%) Firmware
5 5 (2.09%) 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 47 (19.67%) Ansible
2 37 (15.48%) Terraform
3 29 (12.13%) Kubernetes
4 12 (5.02%) Grafana
5 7 (2.93%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.51%) Puppet
7 5 (2.09%) Nagios
7 5 (2.09%) WSUS
8 4 (1.67%) Podman
9 1 (0.42%) Red Hat Satellite
9 1 (0.42%) Red Hat Spacewalk
Vendors
1 55 (23.01%) Red Hat
2 19 (7.95%) Microsoft
3 15 (6.28%) VMware
4 12 (5.02%) Dell
5 7 (2.93%) Oracle
6 5 (2.09%) IBM
6 5 (2.09%) McAfee
6 5 (2.09%) Rapid7
6 5 (2.09%) Splunk
7 4 (1.67%) Cisco
8 3 (1.26%) EMC
8 3 (1.26%) Mellanox
8 3 (1.26%) Mirantis
8 3 (1.26%) NetApp
9 2 (0.84%) Atlassian
9 2 (0.84%) D-Link
9 2 (0.84%) Google
10 1 (0.42%) Apple
10 1 (0.42%) Fortinet
10 1 (0.42%) Veeam