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 7 October 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 557 535 487
Rank change year-on-year -22 -48 +6
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 234 128 302
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.26% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.29% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 169 103 220
10th Percentile £51,250 £38,500 £36,125
25th Percentile £60,000 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +9.09% -5.17%
75th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £70,625
90th Percentile £100,000 £83,750 £92,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £43,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +49.43% -17.14% +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 109,636 44,590 69,789
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.77% 89.77% 95.35%
Number of salaries quoted 74,743 25,694 40,249
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,750 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,750 £54,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.80% -0.91% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,424 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% -6.50% -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 7 October 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 7 October 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 -29 221 £67,500 +12.50% 192
UK excluding London -7 175 £65,000 +49.43% 103
East of England -2 52 £70,000 +64.71% 19
London -85 51 £92,500 +27.59% 99
North of England -31 45 £60,000 +37.14% 9
Work from Home -57 45 £63,451 -12.48% 74
North West +6 42 £60,000 +41.18% 7
South East -32 26 £70,000 - 40
Midlands -23 23 £60,000 - 10
South West -51 23 £80,000 - 10
East Midlands - 18 £67,500 - 4
Scotland +5 6 £64,226 +51.12% 14
West Midlands -49 5 £60,000 +9.09% 6
Yorkshire -30 3 £32,500 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 7 October 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.

1 234 (100.00%) Linux
2 92 (39.32%) Software Engineering
3 57 (24.36%) Embedded Linux
4 50 (21.37%) Python
5 48 (20.51%) Red Hat
6 44 (18.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 41 (17.52%) Bash
8 39 (16.67%) Ansible
9 38 (16.24%) AWS
9 38 (16.24%) Terraform
10 37 (15.81%) CI/CD
11 34 (14.53%) Kubernetes
12 33 (14.10%) C++
13 32 (13.68%) Docker
14 30 (12.82%) C
15 29 (12.39%) Infrastructure as Code
16 28 (11.97%) Azure
16 28 (11.97%) DevOps
17 27 (11.54%) Security Cleared
18 25 (10.68%) Containerisation
18 25 (10.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
19 24 (10.26%) Windows
20 22 (9.40%) Git
21 21 (8.97%) Firewall
22 20 (8.55%) Degree
22 20 (8.55%) Yocto
23 19 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
23 19 (8.12%) Ubuntu
24 18 (7.69%) CentOS
25 17 (7.26%) Configuration Management

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 (2.14%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (1.28%) Apache
2 3 (1.28%) IIS
2 3 (1.28%) nginx
2 3 (1.28%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.28%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 38 (16.24%) AWS
2 28 (11.97%) Azure
3 12 (5.13%) GCP
4 9 (3.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 9 (3.85%) Amazon ECR
4 9 (3.85%) Amazon ECS
4 9 (3.85%) Microsoft 365
4 9 (3.85%) OpenShift
4 9 (3.85%) SaaS
5 7 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (1.28%) Entra ID
6 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Copilot
6 3 (1.28%) Power Automate
7 2 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (0.85%) Google Workspace
7 2 (0.85%) IaaS
7 2 (0.85%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (8.97%) Firewall
2 16 (6.84%) DNS
3 12 (5.13%) TCP/IP
3 12 (5.13%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (4.70%) Wireless
5 7 (2.99%) DHCP
5 7 (2.99%) VPN
6 6 (2.56%) iSCSI
6 6 (2.56%) SAN
7 5 (2.14%) Remote Desktop
8 4 (1.71%) Intrusion Detection
9 3 (1.28%) VoIP
10 2 (0.85%) VLAN
11 1 (0.43%) 5G
11 1 (0.43%) Ethernet
11 1 (0.43%) LTE
11 1 (0.43%) NGN
11 1 (0.43%) SNMP
11 1 (0.43%) WireGuard
11 1 (0.43%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.84%) MySQL
2 11 (4.70%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (2.56%) SQL Server
4 5 (2.14%) KDB
4 5 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 22 (9.40%) Git
2 14 (5.98%) GitLab
3 3 (1.28%) PetaLinux
4 2 (0.85%) JIRA
5 1 (0.43%) CMake
5 1 (0.43%) GDB
General
1 38 (16.24%) Social Skills
2 17 (7.26%) Finance
3 11 (4.70%) Banking
4 7 (2.99%) Telecoms
5 6 (2.56%) Electronics
6 5 (2.14%) Aerospace
6 5 (2.14%) Front Office
6 5 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.28%) Automotive
8 3 (1.28%) Legal
8 3 (1.28%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
8 3 (1.28%) Retail
9 2 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (16.24%) Terraform
2 20 (8.55%) Yocto
3 5 (2.14%) FIX Protocol
4 2 (0.85%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (0.43%) QML
5 1 (0.43%) Qt
5 1 (0.43%) Qt Quick
Miscellaneous
1 26 (11.11%) Embedded Systems
2 14 (5.98%) Device Driver
2 14 (5.98%) IoT
3 10 (4.27%) FPGA
4 9 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (3.42%) Data Centre
6 7 (2.99%) Algorithms
6 7 (2.99%) Linux Command Line
6 7 (2.99%) Robotics
7 5 (2.14%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.14%) Fixed Income
7 5 (2.14%) Management Information System
8 4 (1.71%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (1.28%) Clustering
9 3 (1.28%) Driving Licence
10 2 (0.85%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.85%) Product Ownership
10 2 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
11 1 (0.43%) Distributed Computing
11 1 (0.43%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 234 (100.00%) Linux
2 57 (24.36%) Embedded Linux
3 25 (10.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (10.26%) Windows
5 19 (8.12%) Ubuntu
6 18 (7.69%) CentOS
7 11 (4.70%) Unix
8 8 (3.42%) Rocky
9 7 (2.99%) AIX
9 7 (2.99%) Windows Server
10 4 (1.71%) Debian
11 3 (1.28%) Android
11 3 (1.28%) Mac OS
11 3 (1.28%) Robot Operating System
11 3 (1.28%) Solaris
12 1 (0.43%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (39.32%) Software Engineering
2 44 (18.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 37 (15.81%) CI/CD
4 29 (12.39%) Infrastructure as Code
5 28 (11.97%) DevOps
6 25 (10.68%) Containerisation
7 19 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
8 17 (7.26%) Configuration Management
9 15 (6.41%) Low Latency
9 15 (6.41%) Migration
9 15 (6.41%) Problem-Solving
10 13 (5.56%) AI
10 13 (5.56%) Collaborative Culture
10 13 (5.56%) Open Source
11 12 (5.13%) Collaborative Engineering
12 11 (4.70%) Capacity Planning
12 11 (4.70%) Computer Science
12 11 (4.70%) ITIL
13 10 (4.27%) Device Driver Development
14 9 (3.85%) Virtual Environments
Programming Languages
1 50 (21.37%) Python
2 41 (17.52%) Bash
3 33 (14.10%) C++
4 30 (12.82%) C
5 14 (5.98%) Embedded C
5 14 (5.98%) Shell Script
6 8 (3.42%) PowerShell
7 7 (2.99%) Korn
8 5 (2.14%) Embedded C++
9 4 (1.71%) SQL
10 3 (1.28%) Java
10 3 (1.28%) MATLAB
10 3 (1.28%) Perl
10 3 (1.28%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.85%) Rust
12 1 (0.43%) C#
12 1 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 27 (11.54%) Security Cleared
2 20 (8.55%) Degree
3 9 (3.85%) DV Cleared
4 5 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (2.14%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.71%) ITIL Certification
5 4 (1.71%) SC Cleared
6 3 (1.28%) RHCE
6 3 (1.28%) RHCSA
7 2 (0.85%) IBM AIX Certification
8 1 (0.43%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.43%) CCNA
8 1 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.43%) Linux+ Certification
8 1 (0.43%) MCSE
8 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.98%) QA
2 4 (1.71%) SLA
3 1 (0.43%) JTAG
System Software
1 32 (13.68%) Docker
2 6 (2.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.14%) Active Directory
3 5 (2.14%) Citrix Hypervisor
3 5 (2.14%) vSphere
4 2 (0.85%) Firmware
4 2 (0.85%) KVM
5 1 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.43%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 39 (16.67%) Ansible
2 34 (14.53%) Kubernetes
3 9 (3.85%) Grafana
3 9 (3.85%) Nagios
4 6 (2.56%) Puppet
5 5 (2.14%) vCenter Server
6 4 (1.71%) Podman
7 2 (0.85%) Argo
7 2 (0.85%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.85%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 48 (20.51%) Red Hat
2 12 (5.13%) VMware
3 10 (4.27%) Microsoft
4 9 (3.85%) Rapid7
4 9 (3.85%) Splunk
5 5 (2.14%) Dell
5 5 (2.14%) Oracle
6 3 (1.28%) Citrix
6 3 (1.28%) SonicWALL
6 3 (1.28%) YouTube
7 2 (0.85%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.85%) Google
7 2 (0.85%) IBM
8 1 (0.43%) Apple
8 1 (0.43%) Veeam