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 6 October 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 586 538 483
Rank change year-on-year -48 -55 -2
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 109,799 44,474 69,871
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.81% 89.76% 95.31%
Number of salaries quoted 74,691 25,606 40,305
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,718 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,589 £54,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% -0.91% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,000 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,566 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.11% -6.87% -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 6 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 6 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 -28 221 £66,250 +10.42% 184
UK excluding London -35 175 £65,000 +49.43% 97
East of England +4 52 £70,000 +64.71% 19
London -78 51 £92,500 +27.59% 95
North of England -36 45 £60,000 +37.14% 10
Work from Home -45 44 £63,451 -12.48% 69
North West -1 42 £60,000 +41.18% 8
South East -32 26 £70,000 - 37
South West -52 24 £80,000 - 8
Midlands -42 22 £60,000 - 10
East Midlands - 17 £67,500 - 4
Scotland -2 6 £64,226 +51.12% 12
West Midlands -37 5 £60,000 +9.09% 6
Yorkshire -31 3 £32,500 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 6 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 91 (38.89%) Software Engineering
3 56 (23.93%) Embedded Linux
4 50 (21.37%) Python
5 48 (20.51%) Red Hat
6 43 (18.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 41 (17.52%) Bash
8 39 (16.67%) Ansible
9 38 (16.24%) AWS
9 38 (16.24%) Terraform
10 36 (15.38%) CI/CD
11 34 (14.53%) Kubernetes
12 32 (13.68%) C++
12 32 (13.68%) Docker
13 29 (12.39%) C
14 28 (11.97%) Azure
14 28 (11.97%) DevOps
14 28 (11.97%) Infrastructure as Code
15 27 (11.54%) Security Cleared
16 25 (10.68%) Containerisation
16 25 (10.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 24 (10.26%) Windows
18 21 (8.97%) Firewall
18 21 (8.97%) Git
19 20 (8.55%) Degree
20 19 (8.12%) Ubuntu
20 19 (8.12%) Yocto
21 18 (7.69%) CentOS
21 18 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
22 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
4 11 (4.70%) Wi-Fi
5 10 (4.27%) Wireless
6 7 (2.99%) DHCP
6 7 (2.99%) VPN
7 6 (2.56%) iSCSI
7 6 (2.56%) SAN
8 5 (2.14%) Remote Desktop
9 4 (1.71%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (1.28%) VoIP
11 2 (0.85%) VLAN
12 1 (0.43%) 5G
12 1 (0.43%) Ethernet
12 1 (0.43%) LTE
12 1 (0.43%) NGN
12 1 (0.43%) SNMP
12 1 (0.43%) WireGuard
12 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 21 (8.97%) 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 19 (8.12%) 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 25 (10.68%) Embedded Systems
2 13 (5.56%) Device Driver
2 13 (5.56%) 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 56 (23.93%) 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 13 (5.56%) 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 91 (38.89%) Software Engineering
2 43 (18.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 36 (15.38%) CI/CD
4 28 (11.97%) DevOps
4 28 (11.97%) Infrastructure as Code
5 25 (10.68%) Containerisation
6 18 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
7 17 (7.26%) Configuration Management
7 17 (7.26%) Problem-Solving
8 15 (6.41%) Low Latency
8 15 (6.41%) Migration
9 13 (5.56%) AI
9 13 (5.56%) Open Source
10 12 (5.13%) Collaborative Culture
11 11 (4.70%) Capacity Planning
11 11 (4.70%) Collaborative Engineering
11 11 (4.70%) Computer Science
11 11 (4.70%) ITIL
12 9 (3.85%) Disaster Recovery
12 9 (3.85%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 50 (21.37%) Python
2 41 (17.52%) Bash
3 32 (13.68%) C++
4 29 (12.39%) C
5 14 (5.98%) Shell Script
6 13 (5.56%) Embedded C
7 8 (3.42%) PowerShell
8 7 (2.99%) Korn
9 5 (2.14%) Embedded C++
10 4 (1.71%) SQL
11 3 (1.28%) Java
11 3 (1.28%) MATLAB
11 3 (1.28%) Perl
11 3 (1.28%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.85%) Rust
13 1 (0.43%) C#
13 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