Linux Engineer Job Trends

Linux Engineer
UK

The median Linux Engineer salary in the UK is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 564 552 501
Rank change year-on-year -12 -51 -17
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 229 136 330
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.27% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.30% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 170 110 243
10th Percentile £46,125 £38,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £53,750 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +25.58% -2.27% -8.33%
75th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £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 103,220 45,012 77,418
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.88% 89.83% 95.16%
Number of salaries quoted 70,861 26,764 49,481
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £74,521 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £91,250
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 31 August 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 31 August 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 +2 219 £68,750 +30.95% 52
UK excluding London -15 175 £65,000 +52.94% 33
London -58 49 £95,000 +31.03% 25
East of England +17 48 £85,000 +106.06% 6
North of England -36 48 £60,000 +41.18% 7
North West +18 41 £60,000 +41.18% 4
Work from Home -49 40 £62,500 - 21
South East -8 36 £70,000 - 10
South West -54 19 £80,000 -5.88% 4
Midlands -29 18 £52,500 +13.51% 1
East Midlands -15 14 £40,000 -
Scotland -3 6 £64,226 +28.45% 3
Yorkshire - 6 £56,250 - 2
West Midlands -31 4 £60,000 -7.69% 1
North East -60 1 £47,500 -20.83% 1

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

For the 6 months to 31 August 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.

1 229 (100.00%) Linux
2 80 (34.93%) Software Engineering
3 54 (23.58%) Python
4 53 (23.14%) Red Hat
5 46 (20.09%) Bash
5 46 (20.09%) Embedded Linux
6 40 (17.47%) Ansible
7 38 (16.59%) AWS
8 37 (16.16%) Docker
8 37 (16.16%) Kubernetes
8 37 (16.16%) Terraform
9 35 (15.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 32 (13.97%) CI/CD
10 32 (13.97%) DevOps
11 31 (13.54%) Security Cleared
12 30 (13.10%) Azure
12 30 (13.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 26 (11.35%) Containerisation
14 24 (10.48%) C
14 24 (10.48%) C++
14 24 (10.48%) CentOS
14 24 (10.48%) Infrastructure as Code
15 23 (10.04%) Ubuntu
16 18 (7.86%) Degree
16 18 (7.86%) Firewall
16 18 (7.86%) Git
16 18 (7.86%) MySQL
16 18 (7.86%) Problem-Solving
16 18 (7.86%) Unix
17 17 (7.42%) High Availability

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 6 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.18%) OpenStack
3 4 (1.75%) Apache
4 3 (1.31%) IIS
4 3 (1.31%) nginx
4 3 (1.31%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 38 (16.59%) AWS
2 30 (13.10%) Azure
3 14 (6.11%) GCP
4 13 (5.68%) SaaS
5 12 (5.24%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (4.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 11 (4.80%) Amazon ECR
6 11 (4.80%) Amazon ECS
7 10 (4.37%) Microsoft 365
8 8 (3.49%) OpenShift
9 3 (1.31%) Entra ID
9 3 (1.31%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.31%) Power Automate
10 2 (0.87%) GitHub
10 2 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (0.87%) Google Workspace
10 2 (0.87%) IaaS
10 2 (0.87%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (7.86%) Firewall
2 14 (6.11%) DNS
3 12 (5.24%) TCP/IP
4 7 (3.06%) iSCSI
4 7 (3.06%) SAN
4 7 (3.06%) Wi-Fi
4 7 (3.06%) Wireless
5 6 (2.62%) Remote Desktop
6 5 (2.18%) VPN
7 4 (1.75%) DHCP
7 4 (1.75%) Intrusion Detection
8 3 (1.31%) HTTP
8 3 (1.31%) VoIP
9 2 (0.87%) LTE
10 1 (0.44%) 5G
10 1 (0.44%) LAN
10 1 (0.44%) PBX
10 1 (0.44%) VLAN
10 1 (0.44%) WAN
10 1 (0.44%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (7.86%) MySQL
2 11 (4.80%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (2.62%) SQL Server
5 5 (2.18%) KDB
6 1 (0.44%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.44%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.44%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 18 (7.86%) Git
2 14 (6.11%) GitLab
3 3 (1.31%) PetaLinux
4 2 (0.87%) GDB
4 2 (0.87%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.87%) JIRA
5 1 (0.44%) CMake
5 1 (0.44%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.44%) WinDbg
General
1 42 (18.34%) Social Skills
2 18 (7.86%) Finance
3 13 (5.68%) Banking
4 10 (4.37%) Telecoms
5 6 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.18%) Front Office
7 4 (1.75%) Aerospace
7 4 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.75%) Electronics
8 3 (1.31%) Legal
8 3 (1.31%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
8 3 (1.31%) Retail
9 1 (0.44%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (16.16%) Terraform
2 14 (6.11%) Yocto
3 5 (2.18%) FIX Protocol
4 1 (0.44%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.44%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 21 (9.17%) Embedded Systems
2 13 (5.68%) Data Centre
3 10 (4.37%) Device Driver
3 10 (4.37%) IoT
4 8 (3.49%) FPGA
5 7 (3.06%) Management Information System
5 7 (3.06%) Robotics
6 6 (2.62%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (2.62%) Linux Command Line
7 5 (2.18%) Algorithms
7 5 (2.18%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.18%) Fixed Income
7 5 (2.18%) Hedge funds
8 4 (1.75%) Clustering
9 3 (1.31%) Driving Licence
10 2 (0.87%) Product Ownership
10 2 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
11 1 (0.44%) Distributed Computing
11 1 (0.44%) Distributed Systems
11 1 (0.44%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 229 (100.00%) Linux
2 46 (20.09%) Embedded Linux
3 30 (13.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 24 (10.48%) CentOS
5 23 (10.04%) Ubuntu
6 18 (7.86%) Unix
7 16 (6.99%) Windows
8 8 (3.49%) AIX
9 6 (2.62%) Windows Server
10 5 (2.18%) Rocky
10 5 (2.18%) Solaris
11 3 (1.31%) Mac OS
11 3 (1.31%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.87%) Debian
12 2 (0.87%) SUSE
13 1 (0.44%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.44%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (34.93%) Software Engineering
2 35 (15.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 32 (13.97%) CI/CD
3 32 (13.97%) DevOps
4 26 (11.35%) Containerisation
5 24 (10.48%) Infrastructure as Code
6 18 (7.86%) Problem-Solving
7 17 (7.42%) High Availability
8 16 (6.99%) Configuration Management
8 16 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (6.55%) Low Latency
10 13 (5.68%) Migration
11 12 (5.24%) ITIL
11 12 (5.24%) Open Source
12 11 (4.80%) Architectural Design
12 11 (4.80%) Capacity Planning
12 11 (4.80%) Deployment Automation
12 11 (4.80%) Virtual Environments
13 10 (4.37%) Computer Science
13 10 (4.37%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 54 (23.58%) Python
2 46 (20.09%) Bash
3 24 (10.48%) C
3 24 (10.48%) C++
4 14 (6.11%) Shell Script
5 10 (4.37%) PowerShell
6 9 (3.93%) Perl
7 8 (3.49%) Embedded C
8 7 (3.06%) Korn
9 3 (1.31%) Embedded C++
9 3 (1.31%) Java
9 3 (1.31%) MATLAB
9 3 (1.31%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.31%) SQL
10 2 (0.87%) Go
10 2 (0.87%) PHP
10 2 (0.87%) Rust
11 1 (0.44%) C#
Qualifications
1 31 (13.54%) Security Cleared
2 18 (7.86%) Degree
3 12 (5.24%) DV Cleared
4 5 (2.18%) RHCE
4 5 (2.18%) SC Cleared
5 4 (1.75%) ITIL Certification
5 4 (1.75%) RHCSA
6 3 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.31%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.87%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.87%) IBM AIX Certification
8 1 (0.44%) CCNA
8 1 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.44%) Linux+ Certification
8 1 (0.44%) MCSE
8 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (6.11%) QA
2 5 (2.18%) SLA
3 1 (0.44%) JTAG
System Software
1 37 (16.16%) Docker
2 8 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (3.06%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 6 (2.62%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.87%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.87%) KVM
5 2 (0.87%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.87%) vSphere
6 1 (0.44%) Firmware
6 1 (0.44%) Samba
6 1 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 40 (17.47%) Ansible
2 37 (16.16%) Kubernetes
3 12 (5.24%) Grafana
4 11 (4.80%) Nagios
5 7 (3.06%) Puppet
6 6 (2.62%) Podman
7 2 (0.87%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.44%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 53 (23.14%) Red Hat
2 11 (4.80%) Microsoft
2 11 (4.80%) Rapid7
2 11 (4.80%) Splunk
2 11 (4.80%) VMware
3 6 (2.62%) Dell
3 6 (2.62%) Oracle
4 3 (1.31%) Citrix
4 3 (1.31%) SonicWALL
4 3 (1.31%) YouTube
5 2 (0.87%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.87%) Google
5 2 (0.87%) IBM
5 2 (0.87%) Mirantis
6 1 (0.44%) Cisco
6 1 (0.44%) D-Link
6 1 (0.44%) Fortinet
6 1 (0.44%) Juniper
6 1 (0.44%) SAP
6 1 (0.44%) Veeam