Linux Administrator Job Trends

Linux Administrator
UK

The median Linux Administrator salary in the UK is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 627 608 772
Rank change year-on-year -19 +164 +121
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Administrator 55 43 70
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.076% 0.098% 0.084%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.082% 0.11% 0.089%
Number of salaries quoted 50 34 69
10th Percentile £41,025 £42,750 £42,500
25th Percentile £46,250 £47,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -14.63%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,938 £58,750
90th Percentile £76,250 £80,000 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -

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 66,799 39,870 79,089
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 90.79% 94.61%
Number of salaries quoted 42,341 23,010 60,911
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £38,984 £43,750 £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 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,793 £50,000
% change year-on-year -8.75% +9.59% -4.81%

Linux Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Linux Administrator job vacancy trend in the UK

Linux Administrator
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for Linux Administrator job vacancies in the UK

Linux Administrator
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Linux Administrator over the 6 months to 10 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Linux Administrator in the UK

Linux Administrator
Top 11 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Linux Administrator within the UK over the 6 months to 10 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 +14 55 £55,000 - 7
London +28 29 £56,250 -16.67% 2
UK excluding London -30 25 £50,000 -9.09% 5
South West -21 14 £45,000 -18.18% 1
Work from Home +33 5 £35,000 -36.36% 4
South East -24 5 £47,500 -13.64% 2
East of England +1 3 £65,000 +18.18% 1
North of England -34 2 £57,500 -
North West - 2 £57,500 -
Midlands - 1 - - 2
West Midlands - 1 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 10 March 2026, Linux Administrator 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 Administrator in the job title.

1 55 (100.00%) Linux
2 27 (49.09%) Red Hat
3 24 (43.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 19 (34.55%) Bash
4 19 (34.55%) Problem-Solving
4 19 (34.55%) VMware
5 18 (32.73%) Ansible
5 18 (32.73%) Python
6 14 (25.45%) CentOS
6 14 (25.45%) VMware Infrastructure
7 11 (20.00%) DevOps
7 11 (20.00%) DNS
7 11 (20.00%) Security Cleared
8 10 (18.18%) DV Cleared
8 10 (18.18%) Firewall
8 10 (18.18%) Infrastructure as Code
9 9 (16.36%) Nagios
10 8 (14.55%) AWS
10 8 (14.55%) Git
10 8 (14.55%) TCP/IP
10 8 (14.55%) Ubuntu
11 7 (12.73%) HTTP
11 7 (12.73%) Terraform
12 6 (10.91%) Configuration Management
12 6 (10.91%) GCP
12 6 (10.91%) Patch Management
12 6 (10.91%) RHCSA
12 6 (10.91%) Root Cause Analysis
12 6 (10.91%) SolarWinds
12 6 (10.91%) SQL

Linux Administrator 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 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Exchange
1 1 (1.82%) nginx
1 1 (1.82%) Tomcat
Cloud Services
1 8 (14.55%) AWS
2 6 (10.91%) GCP
3 5 (9.09%) Azure
4 2 (3.64%) SaaS
5 1 (1.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (1.82%) Amazon ECR
5 1 (1.82%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (1.82%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 11 (20.00%) DNS
2 10 (18.18%) Firewall
3 8 (14.55%) TCP/IP
4 7 (12.73%) HTTP
5 5 (9.09%) LAN
6 1 (1.82%) DHCP
6 1 (1.82%) Multicast
6 1 (1.82%) NAS
6 1 (1.82%) Network Security
6 1 (1.82%) SAN
6 1 (1.82%) VLAN
6 1 (1.82%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.45%) MySQL
2 1 (1.82%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 8 (14.55%) Git
2 1 (1.82%) GitLab
General
1 11 (20.00%) Finance
2 10 (18.18%) Social Skills
3 7 (12.73%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (12.73%) Banking
4 3 (5.45%) Advertising
5 2 (3.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (9.09%) WebSockets
2 4 (7.27%) LAMP
3 1 (1.82%) LEMP Stack
3 1 (1.82%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 6 (10.91%) Data Centre
2 2 (3.64%) Hybrid Cloud
2 2 (3.64%) Linux Command Line
2 2 (3.64%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 55 (100.00%) Linux
2 24 (43.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 14 (25.45%) CentOS
4 8 (14.55%) Ubuntu
5 5 (9.09%) Unix
6 2 (3.64%) Debian
7 1 (1.82%) Rocky
7 1 (1.82%) Windows
7 1 (1.82%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (34.55%) Problem-Solving
2 11 (20.00%) DevOps
3 10 (18.18%) Infrastructure as Code
4 6 (10.91%) Configuration Management
4 6 (10.91%) Patch Management
4 6 (10.91%) Root Cause Analysis
5 5 (9.09%) Customer-Centricity
5 5 (9.09%) Migration
5 5 (9.09%) Performance Monitoring
5 5 (9.09%) Security Hardening
6 4 (7.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 4 (7.27%) ITIL
7 3 (5.45%) CI/CD
7 3 (5.45%) Cybersecurity
7 3 (5.45%) Proactive Maintenance
7 3 (5.45%) Task Automation
7 3 (5.45%) Time Management
8 2 (3.64%) Collaborative Culture
8 2 (3.64%) Containerisation
8 2 (3.64%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 19 (34.55%) Bash
2 18 (32.73%) Python
3 6 (10.91%) SQL
4 4 (7.27%) Shell Script
5 3 (5.45%) Perl
5 3 (5.45%) PowerShell
6 2 (3.64%) PHP
7 1 (1.82%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 11 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 10 (18.18%) DV Cleared
3 6 (10.91%) RHCSA
4 4 (7.27%) SC Cleared
5 2 (3.64%) RHCE
6 1 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.82%) Degree
6 1 (1.82%) Linux+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.64%) QA
System Software
1 14 (25.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (7.27%) Docker
3 3 (5.45%) Firmware
3 3 (5.45%) KVM
4 1 (1.82%) Active Directory
4 1 (1.82%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.82%) Postfix
4 1 (1.82%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 18 (32.73%) Ansible
2 9 (16.36%) Nagios
3 7 (12.73%) Terraform
4 5 (9.09%) Puppet
5 4 (7.27%) Kubernetes
6 3 (5.45%) Red Hat Satellite
7 2 (3.64%) Grafana
7 2 (3.64%) Prometheus
8 1 (1.82%) Nessus
8 1 (1.82%) Progress Chef
8 1 (1.82%) Proxmox
8 1 (1.82%) WSUS
8 1 (1.82%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 27 (49.09%) Red Hat
2 19 (34.55%) VMware
3 6 (10.91%) SolarWinds
4 3 (5.45%) Cisco
4 3 (5.45%) Dell
5 1 (1.82%) Microsoft
5 1 (1.82%) Rapid7
5 1 (1.82%) Splunk
5 1 (1.82%) Veeam