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 11 March 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 457 526 542
Rank change year-on-year +69 +16 +30
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 223 134 313
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.31% 0.31% 0.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.34% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 163 104 265
10th Percentile £33,000 £45,900 £41,000
25th Percentile £46,250 £55,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £70,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +16.67% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £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 66,980 39,779 79,178
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.76% 90.72% 94.60%
Number of salaries quoted 42,499 22,997 60,965
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £39,000 £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 £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 11 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 11 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 +34 193 £55,000 -21.43% 60
UK excluding London +89 168 £50,000 -9.09% 51
South East +33 61 £50,000 -13.04% 17
Work from Home +57 59 £70,000 +26.54% 38
London -15 42 £100,000 +29.03% 9
East of England +8 31 £55,000 -0.58% 11
South West -1 24 £51,000 -1.92% 10
North of England -16 21 £47,500 -13.64% 10
Scotland +1 18 £100,000 +66.67% 1
Midlands -8 13 £52,500 +31.25% 2
Yorkshire -30 11 £34,000 -28.42% 3
West Midlands +2 10 £53,750 +65.38% 1
North East -12 6 £70,000 +16.67% 1
North West -7 4 £50,000 -9.09% 6
East Midlands -32 3 £26,265 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 223 (100.00%) Linux
2 47 (21.08%) Python
3 46 (20.63%) AWS
4 44 (19.73%) Software Engineering
5 43 (19.28%) Security Cleared
6 41 (18.39%) Ansible
6 41 (18.39%) Bash
7 38 (17.04%) DevOps
8 37 (16.59%) Red Hat
9 35 (15.70%) Problem-Solving
10 30 (13.45%) Degree
10 30 (13.45%) SaaS
11 29 (13.00%) Windows
12 28 (12.56%) Terraform
13 27 (12.11%) Embedded Linux
13 27 (12.11%) High Availability
13 27 (12.11%) Platform Engineering
13 27 (12.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 26 (11.66%) Azure
14 26 (11.66%) CentOS
15 24 (10.76%) Infrastructure as Code
16 23 (10.31%) DNS
16 23 (10.31%) SQL
17 22 (9.87%) C
18 21 (9.42%) C++
19 20 (8.97%) Active Directory
19 20 (8.97%) Kubernetes
19 20 (8.97%) Microsoft
20 19 (8.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
20 19 (8.52%) 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 8 (3.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.24%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.79%) Apache
3 4 (1.79%) OpenStack
4 2 (0.90%) nginx
4 2 (0.90%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.90%) WebSphere
4 2 (0.90%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 46 (20.63%) AWS
2 30 (13.45%) SaaS
3 26 (11.66%) Azure
4 15 (6.73%) GCP
5 12 (5.38%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (4.93%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (4.48%) Amazon EC2
8 8 (3.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (3.14%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (3.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (2.24%) Amazon ElastiCache
10 5 (2.24%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 5 (2.24%) CloudFront
10 5 (2.24%) GitHub
10 5 (2.24%) Google Workspace
10 5 (2.24%) IaaS
10 5 (2.24%) PaaS
10 5 (2.24%) Route 53
11 4 (1.79%) Amazon ECR
12 3 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 23 (10.31%) DNS
2 11 (4.93%) Firewall
3 10 (4.48%) SAN
4 9 (4.04%) DHCP
4 9 (4.04%) HTTP
5 6 (2.69%) TCP/IP
6 5 (2.24%) PuTTY
6 5 (2.24%) SSH
7 4 (1.79%) SSL
7 4 (1.79%) VPN
8 3 (1.35%) Ethernet
8 3 (1.35%) InfiniBand
8 3 (1.35%) iSCSI
8 3 (1.35%) Remote Desktop
8 3 (1.35%) SNMP
9 2 (0.90%) Modbus
9 2 (0.90%) NAS
9 2 (0.90%) RS-232
9 2 (0.90%) RS-485
9 2 (0.90%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.59%) MySQL
2 7 (3.14%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (2.24%) Amazon Aurora
3 5 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.24%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.90%) DB2
4 2 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.45%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 6 (2.69%) GitLab
2 3 (1.35%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.90%) Git
3 2 (0.90%) JIRA
3 2 (0.90%) Visual Studio
4 1 (0.45%) Bitbucket
General
1 41 (18.39%) Social Skills
2 22 (9.87%) Finance
3 14 (6.28%) Public Sector
4 11 (4.93%) Manufacturing
5 9 (4.04%) Retail
6 8 (3.59%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (2.24%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.79%) Banking
8 4 (1.79%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.35%) Electronics
10 2 (0.90%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (0.90%) Law
10 2 (0.90%) Military
10 2 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.45%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.45%) German Language
11 1 (0.45%) Legal
11 1 (0.45%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.69%) LAMP
2 5 (2.24%) Loki
3 4 (1.79%) LDAP
4 3 (1.35%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.90%) LAPP Stack
5 2 (0.90%) Middleware
5 2 (0.90%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 16 (7.17%) Data Centre
2 11 (4.93%) Hedge funds
3 8 (3.59%) Driving Licence
4 6 (2.69%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.24%) Embedded Systems
5 5 (2.24%) PKI
6 4 (1.79%) Clustering
6 4 (1.79%) FPGA
6 4 (1.79%) Linux Command Line
6 4 (1.79%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.79%) Video on Demand
6 4 (1.79%) Video\Live Streaming
7 3 (1.35%) Device Driver
7 3 (1.35%) IoT
7 3 (1.35%) Robotics
8 2 (0.90%) PCIe
8 2 (0.90%) Photography
8 2 (0.90%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.90%) Raspberry Pi
9 1 (0.45%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 223 (100.00%) Linux
2 29 (13.00%) Windows
3 27 (12.11%) Embedded Linux
3 27 (12.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 26 (11.66%) CentOS
5 19 (8.52%) Ubuntu
6 13 (5.83%) Unix
7 7 (3.14%) Windows Server
8 5 (2.24%) VMS
9 4 (1.79%) Rocky
10 3 (1.35%) SUSE
11 2 (0.90%) FreeRTOS
11 2 (0.90%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.90%) Solaris
12 1 (0.45%) Debian
12 1 (0.45%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (19.73%) Software Engineering
2 38 (17.04%) DevOps
3 35 (15.70%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (12.11%) High Availability
4 27 (12.11%) Platform Engineering
5 24 (10.76%) Infrastructure as Code
6 19 (8.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 16 (7.17%) CI/CD
8 15 (6.73%) Computer Science
9 13 (5.83%) Disaster Recovery
10 12 (5.38%) Migration
10 12 (5.38%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (4.93%) Containerisation
11 11 (4.93%) Continuous Improvement
11 11 (4.93%) Customer Service
12 10 (4.48%) Logistics
13 9 (4.04%) E-Commerce
13 9 (4.04%) Mathematics
14 8 (3.59%) ITIL
14 8 (3.59%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 47 (21.08%) Python
2 41 (18.39%) Bash
3 23 (10.31%) SQL
4 22 (9.87%) C
5 21 (9.42%) C++
6 19 (8.52%) Perl
7 10 (4.48%) Java
8 9 (4.04%) PowerShell
9 8 (3.59%) PL/SQL
9 8 (3.59%) Shell Script
10 7 (3.14%) Embedded C++
10 7 (3.14%) PHP
11 5 (2.24%) DCL
11 5 (2.24%) Embedded C
11 5 (2.24%) Tcl
12 2 (0.90%) Go
13 1 (0.45%) Korn
Qualifications
1 43 (19.28%) Security Cleared
2 30 (13.45%) Degree
3 15 (6.73%) DV Cleared
3 15 (6.73%) SC Cleared
4 11 (4.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (3.14%) RHCE
6 3 (1.35%) LPIC
7 2 (0.90%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
7 2 (0.90%) Linux+ Certification
7 2 (0.90%) RHCSA
8 1 (0.45%) CISA
8 1 (0.45%) CISSP
8 1 (0.45%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.79%) SLA
2 2 (0.90%) MISRA
2 2 (0.90%) QA
3 1 (0.45%) Def Stans
3 1 (0.45%) GDPR
3 1 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.45%) NIST
3 1 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 20 (8.97%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.38%) Docker
3 7 (3.14%) Firmware
3 7 (3.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (2.24%) vSphere
5 4 (1.79%) Embedded Firmware
6 3 (1.35%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 3 (1.35%) Lustre
7 2 (0.90%) Samba
7 2 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 41 (18.39%) Ansible
2 28 (12.56%) Terraform
3 20 (8.97%) Kubernetes
4 10 (4.48%) Grafana
5 8 (3.59%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.69%) Puppet
7 5 (2.24%) Nagios
7 5 (2.24%) WSUS
8 3 (1.35%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.90%) Red Hat Spacewalk
10 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.45%) Podman
10 1 (0.45%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 37 (16.59%) Red Hat
2 20 (8.97%) Microsoft
3 16 (7.17%) VMware
4 8 (3.59%) Dell
5 7 (3.14%) Google
5 7 (3.14%) IBM
6 5 (2.24%) Atlassian
6 5 (2.24%) McAfee
7 4 (1.79%) Cisco
8 3 (1.35%) EMC
8 3 (1.35%) Mellanox
8 3 (1.35%) NetApp
8 3 (1.35%) Splunk
9 2 (0.90%) D-Link
9 2 (0.90%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.90%) HP
9 2 (0.90%) Oracle
9 2 (0.90%) Rapid7
10 1 (0.45%) Meraki
10 1 (0.45%) Ubiquiti