Linux Engineer Job Trends

Linux Engineer
UK

The median Linux Engineer salary in the UK is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 September 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 573 534 495
Rank change year-on-year -39 -39 -7
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 236 135 310
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.27% 0.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.31% 0.42%
Number of salaries quoted 171 109 230
10th Percentile £46,250 £38,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £81,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £42,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +52.94% -19.05% +5.00%

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 106,427 44,033 73,876
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.44% 89.62% 95.26%
Number of salaries quoted 73,226 25,764 44,965
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,131 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,319 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.85% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 15 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Linux Engineer in the UK

Linux Engineer
Top 14 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 15 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
England -21 225 £67,500 +22.73% 204
UK excluding London +8 184 £65,000 +52.94% 93
East of England +6 52 £85,000 +106.06% 30
North of England -21 52 £60,000 +41.18% 9
North West +12 48 £60,000 +41.18% 6
London -64 46 £88,750 +22.41% 115
Work from Home -52 40 £62,500 -12.28% 62
South East -23 32 £70,000 - 29
South West -58 24 £80,000 - 6
Midlands -44 18 £60,000 +29.73% 12
East Midlands -18 14 £53,750 +34.38% 1
Scotland +2 6 £64,226 +38.87% 5
West Midlands -43 4 £60,000 -7.69% 11
Yorkshire - 4 £32,500 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 15 September 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.

1 236 (100.00%) Linux
2 90 (38.14%) Software Engineering
3 53 (22.46%) Embedded Linux
4 52 (22.03%) Red Hat
5 51 (21.61%) Python
6 43 (18.22%) Bash
7 41 (17.37%) Ansible
8 38 (16.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 37 (15.68%) AWS
9 37 (15.68%) Terraform
10 35 (14.83%) Kubernetes
11 34 (14.41%) Docker
12 33 (13.98%) CI/CD
13 31 (13.14%) Security Cleared
14 30 (12.71%) DevOps
15 29 (12.29%) Azure
15 29 (12.29%) C++
16 28 (11.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 26 (11.02%) C
18 25 (10.59%) Containerisation
19 23 (9.75%) Infrastructure as Code
20 21 (8.90%) Ubuntu
20 21 (8.90%) Windows
21 19 (8.05%) CentOS
21 19 (8.05%) Degree
22 18 (7.63%) Continuous Improvement
22 18 (7.63%) Git
22 18 (7.63%) Problem-Solving
22 18 (7.63%) Unix
23 17 (7.20%) Firewall

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 5 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (1.69%) OpenStack
3 3 (1.27%) Apache
3 3 (1.27%) IIS
3 3 (1.27%) nginx
3 3 (1.27%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 37 (15.68%) AWS
2 29 (12.29%) Azure
3 12 (5.08%) GCP
3 12 (5.08%) SaaS
4 10 (4.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 10 (4.24%) Amazon ECR
4 10 (4.24%) Amazon ECS
4 10 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
5 9 (3.81%) Microsoft 365
6 8 (3.39%) OpenShift
7 3 (1.27%) Entra ID
7 3 (1.27%) Microsoft Copilot
7 3 (1.27%) Power Automate
8 2 (0.85%) Google Workspace
8 2 (0.85%) IaaS
8 2 (0.85%) PaaS
9 1 (0.42%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.42%) GitHub
9 1 (0.42%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 17 (7.20%) Firewall
2 13 (5.51%) DNS
3 11 (4.66%) TCP/IP
4 9 (3.81%) Wi-Fi
5 8 (3.39%) Wireless
6 6 (2.54%) iSCSI
6 6 (2.54%) SAN
7 5 (2.12%) DHCP
7 5 (2.12%) Remote Desktop
7 5 (2.12%) VPN
8 4 (1.69%) Intrusion Detection
9 3 (1.27%) VoIP
10 2 (0.85%) LTE
10 2 (0.85%) VLAN
11 1 (0.42%) Ethernet
11 1 (0.42%) HTTP
11 1 (0.42%) LAN
11 1 (0.42%) NGN
11 1 (0.42%) SNMP
11 1 (0.42%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.78%) MySQL
2 10 (4.24%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.12%) KDB
4 5 (2.12%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.42%) InfluxDB
5 1 (0.42%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 18 (7.63%) Git
2 13 (5.51%) GitLab
3 3 (1.27%) PetaLinux
4 2 (0.85%) GDB
4 2 (0.85%) JIRA
5 1 (0.42%) CMake
5 1 (0.42%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.42%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.42%) WinDbg
General
1 40 (16.95%) Social Skills
2 14 (5.93%) Finance
3 12 (5.08%) Banking
4 9 (3.81%) Telecoms
5 6 (2.54%) Aerospace
6 5 (2.12%) Electronics
6 5 (2.12%) Front Office
6 5 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.27%) Legal
8 3 (1.27%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
8 3 (1.27%) Retail
9 1 (0.42%) Automotive
9 1 (0.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (15.68%) Terraform
2 16 (6.78%) Yocto
3 5 (2.12%) FIX Protocol
4 2 (0.85%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (0.42%) QML
5 1 (0.42%) Qt
5 1 (0.42%) Qt Quick
Miscellaneous
1 23 (9.75%) Embedded Systems
2 11 (4.66%) Device Driver
2 11 (4.66%) IoT
3 10 (4.24%) Data Centre
4 9 (3.81%) FPGA
5 7 (2.97%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (2.97%) Robotics
6 6 (2.54%) Algorithms
7 5 (2.12%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.12%) Fixed Income
7 5 (2.12%) Linux Command Line
7 5 (2.12%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.27%) Clustering
8 3 (1.27%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.85%) Product Ownership
9 2 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.42%) Distributed Computing
10 1 (0.42%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.42%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 236 (100.00%) Linux
2 53 (22.46%) Embedded Linux
3 28 (11.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 21 (8.90%) Ubuntu
4 21 (8.90%) Windows
5 19 (8.05%) CentOS
6 18 (7.63%) Unix
7 8 (3.39%) AIX
8 6 (2.54%) Rocky
8 6 (2.54%) Windows Server
9 5 (2.12%) Solaris
10 3 (1.27%) Debian
10 3 (1.27%) Mac OS
10 3 (1.27%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.42%) Android
11 1 (0.42%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (38.14%) Software Engineering
2 38 (16.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 33 (13.98%) CI/CD
4 30 (12.71%) DevOps
5 25 (10.59%) Containerisation
6 23 (9.75%) Infrastructure as Code
7 18 (7.63%) Continuous Improvement
7 18 (7.63%) Problem-Solving
8 16 (6.78%) Configuration Management
8 16 (6.78%) Migration
9 14 (5.93%) Low Latency
9 14 (5.93%) Open Source
10 11 (4.66%) AI
10 11 (4.66%) High Availability
10 11 (4.66%) ITIL
11 10 (4.24%) Agile
11 10 (4.24%) Capacity Planning
11 10 (4.24%) Computer Science
11 10 (4.24%) Deployment Automation
11 10 (4.24%) Virtual Environments
Programming Languages
1 51 (21.61%) Python
2 43 (18.22%) Bash
3 29 (12.29%) C++
4 26 (11.02%) C
5 14 (5.93%) Shell Script
6 10 (4.24%) Embedded C
7 8 (3.39%) PowerShell
8 7 (2.97%) Korn
9 5 (2.12%) Perl
10 4 (1.69%) Embedded C++
11 3 (1.27%) Java
11 3 (1.27%) MATLAB
11 3 (1.27%) PL/SQL
11 3 (1.27%) SQL
12 2 (0.85%) Rust
13 1 (0.42%) C#
13 1 (0.42%) Go
13 1 (0.42%) PHP
Qualifications
1 31 (13.14%) Security Cleared
2 19 (8.05%) Degree
3 11 (4.66%) DV Cleared
4 6 (2.54%) SC Cleared
5 4 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (1.69%) ITIL Certification
5 4 (1.69%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.69%) RHCE
6 3 (1.27%) RHCSA
7 2 (0.85%) IBM AIX Certification
8 1 (0.42%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.42%) CCNA
8 1 (0.42%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.42%) Linux+ Certification
8 1 (0.42%) MCSE
8 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.51%) QA
2 4 (1.69%) SLA
3 1 (0.42%) JTAG
System Software
1 34 (14.41%) Docker
2 8 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.54%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 5 (2.12%) Active Directory
5 3 (1.27%) vSphere
6 2 (0.85%) Firmware
6 2 (0.85%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.85%) KVM
6 2 (0.85%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 41 (17.37%) Ansible
2 35 (14.83%) Kubernetes
3 10 (4.24%) Grafana
3 10 (4.24%) Nagios
4 6 (2.54%) Podman
4 6 (2.54%) Puppet
5 3 (1.27%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.42%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.42%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 52 (22.03%) Red Hat
2 12 (5.08%) VMware
3 10 (4.24%) Microsoft
3 10 (4.24%) Rapid7
3 10 (4.24%) Splunk
4 6 (2.54%) Oracle
5 5 (2.12%) Dell
6 3 (1.27%) Citrix
6 3 (1.27%) SonicWALL
6 3 (1.27%) YouTube
7 2 (0.85%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.85%) Google
7 2 (0.85%) IBM
7 2 (0.85%) Mirantis
8 1 (0.42%) Apple
8 1 (0.42%) Cisco
8 1 (0.42%) Fortinet
8 1 (0.42%) Juniper
8 1 (0.42%) Veeam