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 17 March 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 471 528 530
Rank change year-on-year +57 +2 +34
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 227 125 324
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.29% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.32% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 167 103 272
10th Percentile £34,000 £45,850 £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 £75,625 £80,000 £76,875
90th Percentile £100,000 £94,000 £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 68,739 38,903 80,284
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 90.47% 94.61%
Number of salaries quoted 43,768 23,119 61,505
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £39,000 £43,500 £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 £91,934
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -5.23%

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 17 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 17 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 +60 197 £55,000 -21.43% 44
UK excluding London +89 170 £50,000 -9.09% 40
South East +37 63 £50,000 -13.04% 10
Work from Home +52 59 £72,500 +31.06% 28
London -7 44 £100,000 +29.03% 12
East of England -2 31 £55,000 -0.58% 10
South West -6 24 £51,000 -4.67% 6
North of England -18 21 £47,500 -7.32% 7
Scotland -6 18 £100,000 +66.67% 8
Midlands -11 13 £52,500 +31.25%
Yorkshire -28 12 £34,000 -28.42% 5
West Midlands +16 10 £53,750 +65.38%
North East -18 6 £70,000 +16.67% 1
North West -13 3 £50,000 -1.48% 1
East Midlands -31 3 £26,265 -

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 227 (100.00%) Linux
2 50 (22.03%) Python
3 46 (20.26%) AWS
4 44 (19.38%) Security Cleared
4 44 (19.38%) Software Engineering
5 41 (18.06%) Ansible
5 41 (18.06%) Bash
6 40 (17.62%) DevOps
7 37 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
7 37 (16.30%) Red Hat
8 31 (13.66%) SaaS
9 30 (13.22%) Degree
10 29 (12.78%) High Availability
11 28 (12.33%) Platform Engineering
11 28 (12.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 28 (12.33%) Terraform
11 28 (12.33%) Windows
12 27 (11.89%) Azure
12 27 (11.89%) CentOS
12 27 (11.89%) Embedded Linux
13 26 (11.45%) Infrastructure as Code
14 24 (10.57%) DNS
15 23 (10.13%) SQL
16 22 (9.69%) C
16 22 (9.69%) Perl
17 21 (9.25%) C++
17 21 (9.25%) Microsoft
18 20 (8.81%) Active Directory
18 20 (8.81%) Kubernetes
19 19 (8.37%) Infrastructure Engineering

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 (3.52%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.76%) Apache
3 4 (1.76%) OpenStack
4 2 (0.88%) nginx
4 2 (0.88%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.88%) WebSphere
4 2 (0.88%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 46 (20.26%) AWS
2 31 (13.66%) SaaS
3 27 (11.89%) Azure
4 15 (6.61%) GCP
5 13 (5.73%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (4.85%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (4.41%) Amazon EC2
8 8 (3.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (3.08%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (3.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (2.20%) Amazon ElastiCache
10 5 (2.20%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 5 (2.20%) CloudFront
10 5 (2.20%) GitHub
10 5 (2.20%) Google Workspace
10 5 (2.20%) IaaS
10 5 (2.20%) PaaS
10 5 (2.20%) Route 53
11 4 (1.76%) Amazon ECR
12 3 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (10.57%) DNS
2 11 (4.85%) Firewall
3 10 (4.41%) HTTP
3 10 (4.41%) SAN
4 9 (3.96%) DHCP
5 6 (2.64%) TCP/IP
6 5 (2.20%) PuTTY
6 5 (2.20%) SSH
7 4 (1.76%) SSL
7 4 (1.76%) VPN
8 3 (1.32%) Ethernet
8 3 (1.32%) InfiniBand
8 3 (1.32%) iSCSI
8 3 (1.32%) Remote Desktop
8 3 (1.32%) SNMP
9 2 (0.88%) Modbus
9 2 (0.88%) NAS
9 2 (0.88%) Network Security
9 2 (0.88%) WAN
9 2 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.52%) MySQL
2 7 (3.08%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (2.20%) Amazon Aurora
3 5 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.20%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.88%) DB2
4 2 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.44%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.44%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 6 (2.64%) GitLab
2 3 (1.32%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.88%) Git
3 2 (0.88%) JIRA
3 2 (0.88%) Visual Studio
4 1 (0.44%) Bitbucket
General
1 42 (18.50%) Social Skills
2 23 (10.13%) Finance
3 14 (6.17%) Public Sector
4 11 (4.85%) Manufacturing
5 9 (3.96%) Retail
6 8 (3.52%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (2.20%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.76%) Banking
9 3 (1.32%) Electronics
9 3 (1.32%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.88%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (0.88%) Law
10 2 (0.88%) Military
10 2 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.44%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.44%) German Language
11 1 (0.44%) Legal
11 1 (0.44%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.64%) LAMP
2 5 (2.20%) Loki
3 4 (1.76%) LDAP
4 3 (1.32%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.88%) LAPP Stack
5 2 (0.88%) Middleware
5 2 (0.88%) WebSphere MQ
6 1 (0.44%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 17 (7.49%) Data Centre
2 12 (5.29%) Hedge funds
3 8 (3.52%) Driving Licence
4 6 (2.64%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.20%) Embedded Systems
5 5 (2.20%) Linux Command Line
5 5 (2.20%) PKI
6 4 (1.76%) Clustering
6 4 (1.76%) FPGA
6 4 (1.76%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.76%) Video on Demand
6 4 (1.76%) Video\Live Streaming
7 3 (1.32%) Device Driver
7 3 (1.32%) IoT
7 3 (1.32%) Robotics
8 2 (0.88%) PCIe
8 2 (0.88%) Photography
8 2 (0.88%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.88%) Raspberry Pi
9 1 (0.44%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 227 (100.00%) Linux
2 28 (12.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 28 (12.33%) Windows
3 27 (11.89%) CentOS
3 27 (11.89%) Embedded Linux
4 19 (8.37%) Ubuntu
5 13 (5.73%) Unix
6 7 (3.08%) Windows Server
7 5 (2.20%) VMS
8 4 (1.76%) Rocky
8 4 (1.76%) SUSE
9 2 (0.88%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.88%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.88%) Solaris
10 1 (0.44%) Debian
10 1 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.44%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (19.38%) Software Engineering
2 40 (17.62%) DevOps
3 37 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (12.78%) High Availability
5 28 (12.33%) Platform Engineering
6 26 (11.45%) Infrastructure as Code
7 19 (8.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 17 (7.49%) CI/CD
9 15 (6.61%) Computer Science
10 14 (6.17%) Disaster Recovery
11 13 (5.73%) Migration
12 12 (5.29%) Stakeholder Management
13 11 (4.85%) Containerisation
13 11 (4.85%) Continuous Improvement
13 11 (4.85%) Customer Service
14 10 (4.41%) Logistics
15 9 (3.96%) E-Commerce
15 9 (3.96%) Mathematics
16 8 (3.52%) ITIL
16 8 (3.52%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 50 (22.03%) Python
2 41 (18.06%) Bash
3 23 (10.13%) SQL
4 22 (9.69%) C
4 22 (9.69%) Perl
5 21 (9.25%) C++
6 10 (4.41%) Java
6 10 (4.41%) PowerShell
7 8 (3.52%) PHP
7 8 (3.52%) PL/SQL
7 8 (3.52%) Shell Script
8 7 (3.08%) Embedded C++
9 5 (2.20%) DCL
9 5 (2.20%) Embedded C
9 5 (2.20%) Tcl
10 2 (0.88%) Go
11 1 (0.44%) Korn
Qualifications
1 44 (19.38%) Security Cleared
2 30 (13.22%) Degree
3 16 (7.05%) DV Cleared
4 15 (6.61%) SC Cleared
5 11 (4.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (3.08%) RHCE
7 3 (1.32%) LPIC
8 2 (0.88%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.88%) Linux+ Certification
8 2 (0.88%) RHCSA
9 1 (0.44%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.44%) CISA
9 1 (0.44%) CISSP
9 1 (0.44%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.76%) SLA
2 2 (0.88%) MISRA
2 2 (0.88%) QA
3 1 (0.44%) Def Stans
3 1 (0.44%) GDPR
3 1 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.44%) NIST
3 1 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 20 (8.81%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.29%) Docker
3 7 (3.08%) Firmware
3 7 (3.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (2.20%) vSphere
5 4 (1.76%) Embedded Firmware
6 3 (1.32%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 3 (1.32%) Lustre
7 2 (0.88%) Samba
8 1 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 41 (18.06%) Ansible
2 28 (12.33%) Terraform
3 20 (8.81%) Kubernetes
4 10 (4.41%) Grafana
5 8 (3.52%) Prometheus
6 6 (2.64%) Puppet
7 5 (2.20%) Nagios
7 5 (2.20%) WSUS
8 3 (1.32%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.88%) Red Hat Spacewalk
10 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.44%) Podman
10 1 (0.44%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 37 (16.30%) Red Hat
2 21 (9.25%) Microsoft
3 16 (7.05%) VMware
4 8 (3.52%) Dell
5 7 (3.08%) Google
5 7 (3.08%) IBM
6 5 (2.20%) Atlassian
6 5 (2.20%) McAfee
7 4 (1.76%) Cisco
8 3 (1.32%) EMC
8 3 (1.32%) Mellanox
8 3 (1.32%) NetApp
8 3 (1.32%) Splunk
9 2 (0.88%) D-Link
9 2 (0.88%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.88%) HP
9 2 (0.88%) Oracle
9 2 (0.88%) Rapid7
10 1 (0.44%) SAP
10 1 (0.44%) Ubiquiti