Embedded Linux Job Trends

Embedded Linux
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Embedded Linux skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 697 612 510
Rank change year-on-year -85 -102 +175
Permanent jobs citing Embedded Linux 104 69 298
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.094% 0.14% 0.37%
As % of the Operating Systems category 1.63% 1.04% 3.02%
Number of salaries quoted 88 27 229
10th Percentile £54,625 - £45,000
25th Percentile £60,000 £43,000 £53,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £62,500 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -10.71% +18.64%
75th Percentile £75,000 £81,250 £85,000
90th Percentile £91,500 £94,400 -
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,500 £55,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +22.73% -21.43% +21.74%

All Operating Systems
UK

Embedded Linux 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 6,396 6,611 9,858
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 5.80% 13.48% 12.40%
Number of salaries quoted 4,788 4,326 6,520
10th Percentile £28,000 £27,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £41,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.43% -17.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £38,325 £45,000
% change year-on-year +10.89% -14.83% -4.58%

Embedded Linux
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Embedded Linux job vacancy trend in the UK

Embedded Linux
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Embedded Linux.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Embedded Linux

Embedded Linux
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Embedded Linux over the 6 months to 4 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Embedded Linux in the UK

Embedded Linux
Top 12 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Embedded Linux within the UK over the 6 months to 4 September 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
UK excluding London -71 98 £67,500 +22.73% 99
England -65 95 £67,500 +22.73% 130
East of England +25 53 £70,000 -9.68% 41
Work from Home -58 35 £67,500 -12.90% 49
South East -68 14 £65,000 +18.18% 34
Scotland +13 9 £67,500 +2.27% 5
East Midlands -28 9 £67,500 - 2
Midlands -33 9 £67,500 -12.90% 4
North of England -58 8 £60,000 +30.43% 8
North West - 8 £60,000 - 5
South West -69 5 £70,000 +21.74% 8
London -50 2 £52,500 - 33

Embedded Linux
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:

Cloud Services
1 6 (5.77%) Azure
2 4 (3.85%) AWS
3 3 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (1.92%) AWS IoT
4 2 (1.92%) Cloud Computing
4 2 (1.92%) GCP
4 2 (1.92%) GitHub
4 2 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 16 (15.38%) Wi-Fi
2 13 (12.50%) Wireless
3 10 (9.62%) Ethernet
4 9 (8.65%) RS-232
5 7 (6.73%) TCP/IP
6 5 (4.81%) DNS
6 5 (4.81%) Software-Defined Radio
7 4 (3.85%) VPN
7 4 (3.85%) ZigBee
8 3 (2.88%) Bluetooth
8 3 (2.88%) LTE
8 3 (2.88%) X.509
9 2 (1.92%) 5G
9 2 (1.92%) DHCP
9 2 (1.92%) Firewall
9 2 (1.92%) IPv4
9 2 (1.92%) IPv6
9 2 (1.92%) LoRaWAN
9 2 (1.92%) MQTT
9 2 (1.92%) WireGuard
Development Applications
1 13 (12.50%) Git
2 7 (6.73%) Jenkins
3 6 (5.77%) CMake
4 3 (2.88%) GDB
4 3 (2.88%) GitLab
4 3 (2.88%) PetaLinux
5 1 (0.96%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.96%) JIRA
5 1 (0.96%) Zephyr
General
1 22 (21.15%) Electronics
2 5 (4.81%) Aerospace
3 4 (3.85%) Social Skills
4 2 (1.92%) Automotive
5 1 (0.96%) Cyber-Physical System
5 1 (0.96%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (0.96%) Games
5 1 (0.96%) Manufacturing
5 1 (0.96%) Multimedia
5 1 (0.96%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 86 (82.69%) Embedded Engineer
2 59 (56.73%) Software Engineer
3 55 (52.88%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 50 (48.08%) Linux Engineer
5 49 (47.12%) Embedded Linux Engineer
6 40 (38.46%) Senior
7 35 (33.65%) Senior Embedded Engineer
8 28 (26.92%) Senior Software Engineer
9 25 (24.04%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
10 21 (20.19%) Embedded Linux Software Engineer
11 12 (11.54%) Senior Linux Engineer
12 8 (7.69%) Principal Engineer
13 5 (4.81%) C++ Software Engineer
13 5 (4.81%) Embedded C++ Engineer
13 5 (4.81%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
13 5 (4.81%) FPGA Engineer
14 4 (3.85%) Developer
14 4 (3.85%) Embedded Developer
15 3 (2.88%) Computer Vision Engineer
15 3 (2.88%) Robotics Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (33.65%) Yocto
2 5 (4.81%) Qt
3 4 (3.85%) GraphQL
4 3 (2.88%) Terraform
5 1 (0.96%) CarPlay
5 1 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.96%) Jest
5 1 (0.96%) JWT
5 1 (0.96%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.96%) Playwright
5 1 (0.96%) QML
5 1 (0.96%) Qt Quick
5 1 (0.96%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 48 (46.15%) Embedded Systems
2 25 (24.04%) Device Driver
3 21 (20.19%) IoT
4 14 (13.46%) Robotics
5 11 (10.58%) FPGA
6 10 (9.62%) Algorithms
7 5 (4.81%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (4.81%) Verilog
7 5 (4.81%) VHDL
8 3 (2.88%) ARM Cortex
9 2 (1.92%) PKI
10 1 (0.96%) Analogue Electronics
10 1 (0.96%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.96%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (0.96%) Mobile App
10 1 (0.96%) NB-IoT
10 1 (0.96%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.96%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.96%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 104 (100.00%) Linux
2 3 (2.88%) FreeRTOS
2 3 (2.88%) OpenWrt
2 3 (2.88%) Robot Operating System
3 1 (0.96%) Android
3 1 (0.96%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.96%) Debian
3 1 (0.96%) ThreadX
3 1 (0.96%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (82.69%) Software Engineering
2 21 (20.19%) CI/CD
3 17 (16.35%) Collaborative Engineering
4 16 (15.38%) Computer Science
5 13 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 12 (11.54%) Agile
7 11 (10.58%) Problem-Solving
8 9 (8.65%) Collaborative Culture
8 9 (8.65%) Scrum
8 9 (8.65%) Test Automation
8 9 (8.65%) Validation
9 8 (7.69%) Containerisation
9 8 (7.69%) Device Driver Development
9 8 (7.69%) Open Source
9 8 (7.69%) Signal Processing
9 8 (7.69%) Software Architecture
10 7 (6.73%) AI
10 7 (6.73%) DevOps
10 7 (6.73%) Embedded Software Development
11 6 (5.77%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 50 (48.08%) C++
2 42 (40.38%) C
3 28 (26.92%) Python
4 22 (21.15%) Embedded C
5 9 (8.65%) Embedded C++
6 6 (5.77%) Rust
7 4 (3.85%) Go
8 3 (2.88%) C#
8 3 (2.88%) MATLAB
9 2 (1.92%) Bash
9 2 (1.92%) JavaScript
9 2 (1.92%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.96%) Java
10 1 (0.96%) SQL
Qualifications
1 18 (17.31%) Degree
2 11 (10.58%) Security Cleared
3 8 (7.69%) Master's Degree
3 8 (7.69%) SC Cleared
4 7 (6.73%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (4.81%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.96%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (5.77%) QA
2 3 (2.88%) JTAG
System Software
1 17 (16.35%) Firmware
2 10 (9.62%) Docker
3 7 (6.73%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (1.92%) iptables
5 1 (0.96%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 2 (1.92%) Ansible
2 1 (0.96%) Grafana
2 1 (0.96%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.96%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 2 (1.92%) Google
2 1 (0.96%) Apple
2 1 (0.96%) Microsoft