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 1 March 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 464 527 530
Rank change year-on-year +63 +3 +39
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 217 144 294
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.31% 0.31% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.34% 0.34% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 160 106 256
10th Percentile £34,750 £43,804 £41,250
25th Percentile £46,250 £52,554 £47,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £63,750 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +2.00% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £76,875
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,625 £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 64,106 42,650 74,151
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.47% 91.24% 94.73%
Number of salaries quoted 40,466 23,050 57,474
10th Percentile £29,500 £32,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,000 £39,085
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 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 1 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 1 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 +76 187 £55,000 -12.70% 69
UK excluding London +91 161 £50,000 -9.09% 65
Work from Home +56 61 £70,000 +26.54% 43
South East +27 57 £50,000 -9.09% 23
London -4 43 £85,000 +9.68% 11
East of England +12 28 £55,000 -0.58% 15
South West +2 24 £51,000 -4.67% 8
North of England -2 22 £47,500 -7.32% 12
Scotland +5 19 £100,000 +100.00% 2
Midlands -5 12 £52,500 +61.54% 3
West Midlands +19 10 £53,750 +65.38% 2
Yorkshire -30 10 £33,250 -30.00% 4
North West +6 6 £50,000 -9.09% 6
North East - 6 £70,000 - 2
East Midlands -30 2 £26,265 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 217 (100.00%) Linux
2 48 (22.12%) AWS
3 46 (21.20%) Python
4 42 (19.35%) Security Cleared
5 41 (18.89%) Bash
6 40 (18.43%) Ansible
6 40 (18.43%) Software Engineering
7 39 (17.97%) Red Hat
8 38 (17.51%) DevOps
9 33 (15.21%) Problem-Solving
9 33 (15.21%) Windows
10 32 (14.75%) Degree
11 29 (13.36%) SaaS
12 28 (12.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 27 (12.44%) Terraform
14 25 (11.52%) Azure
14 25 (11.52%) Platform Engineering
15 24 (11.06%) Embedded Linux
16 23 (10.60%) SQL
17 22 (10.14%) CentOS
17 22 (10.14%) High Availability
17 22 (10.14%) Infrastructure as Code
18 21 (9.68%) C
18 21 (9.68%) C++
18 21 (9.68%) DNS
18 21 (9.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 20 (9.22%) Microsoft
20 19 (8.76%) Active Directory
21 18 (8.29%) Kubernetes
21 18 (8.29%) Perl

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 7 (3.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.30%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.30%) WebSphere
3 4 (1.84%) Apache
3 4 (1.84%) Tomcat
3 4 (1.84%) WebSphere Application Server
4 3 (1.38%) OpenStack
5 2 (0.92%) nginx
6 1 (0.46%) JBoss
Applications
1 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 48 (22.12%) AWS
2 29 (13.36%) SaaS
3 25 (11.52%) Azure
4 13 (5.99%) GCP
5 12 (5.53%) Amazon EC2
6 11 (5.07%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (4.61%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (4.15%) Amazon EKS
8 9 (4.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 7 (3.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (3.23%) Route 53
10 5 (2.30%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (2.30%) Amazon ElastiCache
10 5 (2.30%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 5 (2.30%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (2.30%) CloudFront
10 5 (2.30%) Google Workspace
10 5 (2.30%) IaaS
10 5 (2.30%) PaaS
11 4 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 21 (9.68%) DNS
2 10 (4.61%) Firewall
3 9 (4.15%) DHCP
3 9 (4.15%) SAN
4 7 (3.23%) HTTP
5 6 (2.76%) SSL
6 5 (2.30%) PuTTY
6 5 (2.30%) SSH
6 5 (2.30%) TCP/IP
7 3 (1.38%) Ethernet
7 3 (1.38%) InfiniBand
7 3 (1.38%) SNMP
7 3 (1.38%) VPN
8 2 (0.92%) iSCSI
8 2 (0.92%) Modbus
8 2 (0.92%) NAS
8 2 (0.92%) Network Security
8 2 (0.92%) Remote Desktop
8 2 (0.92%) RS-232
8 2 (0.92%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (4.15%) Amazon RDS
2 6 (2.76%) MySQL
2 6 (2.76%) PostgreSQL
2 6 (2.76%) SQL Server
3 5 (2.30%) Amazon Aurora
4 4 (1.84%) DB2
5 1 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.46%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 5 (2.30%) GitLab
2 3 (1.38%) Jenkins
2 3 (1.38%) JIRA
3 2 (0.92%) Git
3 2 (0.92%) Visual Studio
4 1 (0.46%) Ant
4 1 (0.46%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.46%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.46%) Maven
4 1 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 38 (17.51%) Social Skills
2 22 (10.14%) Finance
3 14 (6.45%) Public Sector
4 11 (5.07%) Manufacturing
5 9 (4.15%) Retail
6 8 (3.69%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (2.30%) Banking
8 4 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.84%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.38%) Electronics
10 2 (0.92%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (0.92%) Military
10 2 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.46%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.46%) German Language
11 1 (0.46%) Law
11 1 (0.46%) Legal
11 1 (0.46%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.76%) LAMP
1 6 (2.76%) LDAP
2 5 (2.30%) Loki
3 4 (1.84%) LAPP Stack
3 4 (1.84%) WebSphere MQ
4 3 (1.38%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (1.38%) Middleware
5 1 (0.46%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.45%) Data Centre
2 8 (3.69%) Driving Licence
2 8 (3.69%) Hedge funds
3 6 (2.76%) Linux Command Line
4 5 (2.30%) Management Information System
4 5 (2.30%) PKI
5 4 (1.84%) FPGA
5 4 (1.84%) Onboarding
5 4 (1.84%) Video on Demand
5 4 (1.84%) Video\Live Streaming
6 3 (1.38%) Clustering
7 2 (0.92%) Embedded Systems
7 2 (0.92%) PCIe
7 2 (0.92%) Photography
7 2 (0.92%) Public Cloud
7 2 (0.92%) Raspberry Pi
8 1 (0.46%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 217 (100.00%) Linux
2 33 (15.21%) Windows
3 28 (12.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (11.06%) Embedded Linux
5 22 (10.14%) CentOS
6 17 (7.83%) Ubuntu
7 15 (6.91%) Unix
8 7 (3.23%) Windows Server
9 5 (2.30%) VMS
10 4 (1.84%) Rocky
11 2 (0.92%) Debian
11 2 (0.92%) FreeRTOS
11 2 (0.92%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.92%) Solaris
11 2 (0.92%) SUSE
12 1 (0.46%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (18.43%) Software Engineering
2 38 (17.51%) DevOps
3 33 (15.21%) Problem-Solving
4 25 (11.52%) Platform Engineering
5 22 (10.14%) High Availability
5 22 (10.14%) Infrastructure as Code
6 21 (9.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 16 (7.37%) CI/CD
8 15 (6.91%) Disaster Recovery
9 14 (6.45%) Computer Science
10 12 (5.53%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (5.53%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (5.07%) Customer Service
11 11 (5.07%) Migration
12 10 (4.61%) Logistics
13 9 (4.15%) Containerisation
13 9 (4.15%) E-Commerce
13 9 (4.15%) ITIL
14 8 (3.69%) Mathematics
14 8 (3.69%) Presales
Programming Languages
1 46 (21.20%) Python
2 41 (18.89%) Bash
3 23 (10.60%) SQL
4 21 (9.68%) C
4 21 (9.68%) C++
5 18 (8.29%) Perl
6 10 (4.61%) Java
7 8 (3.69%) PL/SQL
7 8 (3.69%) PowerShell
7 8 (3.69%) Shell Script
8 7 (3.23%) Embedded C++
9 6 (2.76%) PHP
10 5 (2.30%) DCL
10 5 (2.30%) Embedded C
10 5 (2.30%) Tcl
11 1 (0.46%) Go
11 1 (0.46%) Groovy
11 1 (0.46%) Korn
Qualifications
1 42 (19.35%) Security Cleared
2 32 (14.75%) Degree
3 15 (6.91%) SC Cleared
4 14 (6.45%) DV Cleared
5 11 (5.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (3.69%) RHCE
7 5 (2.30%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.84%) ITIL Certification
9 3 (1.38%) LPIC
10 2 (0.92%) Linux+ Certification
10 2 (0.92%) RHCSA
11 1 (0.46%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
11 1 (0.46%) CISA
11 1 (0.46%) CISSP
11 1 (0.46%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.30%) SLA
2 2 (0.92%) GDPR
2 2 (0.92%) MISRA
2 2 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (0.46%) Def Stans
3 1 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.46%) NIST
3 1 (0.46%) QA
System Software
1 19 (8.76%) Active Directory
2 9 (4.15%) Docker
3 7 (3.23%) Firmware
3 7 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (2.30%) vSphere
5 4 (1.84%) Embedded Firmware
6 3 (1.38%) Lustre
6 3 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.92%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.46%) Samba
Systems Management
1 40 (18.43%) Ansible
2 27 (12.44%) Terraform
3 18 (8.29%) Kubernetes
4 8 (3.69%) Grafana
5 7 (3.23%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.76%) Puppet
7 5 (2.30%) WSUS
8 4 (1.84%) Nagios
8 4 (1.84%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.92%) Podman
9 2 (0.92%) Red Hat Spacewalk
10 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.46%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 39 (17.97%) Red Hat
2 20 (9.22%) Microsoft
3 17 (7.83%) VMware
4 9 (4.15%) IBM
5 7 (3.23%) Dell
5 7 (3.23%) Google
6 5 (2.30%) Atlassian
6 5 (2.30%) McAfee
7 4 (1.84%) Cisco
8 3 (1.38%) EMC
8 3 (1.38%) Mellanox
8 3 (1.38%) NetApp
9 2 (0.92%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.92%) HP
9 2 (0.92%) Oracle
9 2 (0.92%) Splunk
10 1 (0.46%) D-Link
10 1 (0.46%) Mirantis
10 1 (0.46%) Rapid7
10 1 (0.46%) Ubiquiti