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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 553 549 494
Rank change year-on-year -4 -55 -25
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 222 129 340
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.26% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.29% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 168 104 257
10th Percentile £40,000 £38,500 £37,340
25th Percentile £57,500 £40,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £52,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% -4.55% -6.78%
75th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £79,625 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £63,451 £42,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +49.30% -19.05% +2.94%

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 100,959 44,891 79,128
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.99% 89.94% 95.07%
Number of salaries quoted 69,008 26,549 52,423
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 £75,000 £72,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,679 £47,863 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.06% -4.27% -6.54%

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 19 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 19 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 +7 212 £68,750 +34.15% 86
UK excluding London +13 169 £63,451 +49.30% 39
London -46 49 £96,250 +32.76% 55
East of England +3 46 £77,500 +93.75% 13
North of England -10 45 £60,000 +41.18% 4
Work from Home -17 43 £62,500 - 23
South East -7 37 £70,000 - 9
North West +8 36 £60,000 +41.18% 4
Midlands -32 19 £45,000 +12.50%
South West -49 16 £70,000 -17.65% 5
East Midlands -8 15 £40,000 -
Yorkshire - 7 £80,000 -
Scotland -5 6 £64,226 +28.45% 9
West Midlands -32 4 £60,000 -7.69%
North East -55 2 £47,500 -20.83%

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 222 (100.00%) Linux
2 74 (33.33%) Software Engineering
3 55 (24.77%) Python
4 54 (24.32%) Red Hat
5 47 (21.17%) Bash
6 44 (19.82%) Embedded Linux
7 40 (18.02%) AWS
8 38 (17.12%) Ansible
9 37 (16.67%) Docker
9 37 (16.67%) Kubernetes
10 35 (15.77%) Terraform
11 34 (15.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 33 (14.86%) DevOps
13 32 (14.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 32 (14.41%) Security Cleared
14 31 (13.96%) Azure
15 30 (13.51%) CI/CD
16 26 (11.71%) CentOS
17 25 (11.26%) Containerisation
18 24 (10.81%) C
18 24 (10.81%) Infrastructure as Code
19 23 (10.36%) Ubuntu
20 22 (9.91%) C++
21 21 (9.46%) High Availability
21 21 (9.46%) Problem-Solving
22 20 (9.01%) Firewall
22 20 (9.01%) MySQL
23 19 (8.56%) Degree
24 18 (8.11%) Git
24 18 (8.11%) Unix

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 9 (4.05%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.25%) Apache
3 4 (1.80%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.35%) IIS
4 3 (1.35%) nginx
4 3 (1.35%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 40 (18.02%) AWS
2 31 (13.96%) Azure
3 15 (6.76%) GCP
4 14 (6.31%) SaaS
5 13 (5.86%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (5.41%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (4.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 11 (4.95%) Amazon ECR
7 11 (4.95%) Amazon ECS
8 8 (3.60%) OpenShift
9 3 (1.35%) Entra ID
9 3 (1.35%) GitHub
9 3 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (1.35%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.35%) Power Automate
10 2 (0.90%) Google Workspace
10 2 (0.90%) IaaS
10 2 (0.90%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (9.01%) Firewall
2 15 (6.76%) DNS
3 13 (5.86%) TCP/IP
4 10 (4.50%) SAN
5 9 (4.05%) iSCSI
6 8 (3.60%) Remote Desktop
7 6 (2.70%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (2.70%) Wireless
8 5 (2.25%) HTTP
9 4 (1.80%) Intrusion Detection
9 4 (1.80%) VPN
10 3 (1.35%) VoIP
11 2 (0.90%) DHCP
11 2 (0.90%) Network Security
11 2 (0.90%) PBX
12 1 (0.45%) LAN
12 1 (0.45%) LTE
12 1 (0.45%) VLAN
12 1 (0.45%) WAN
12 1 (0.45%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (9.01%) MySQL
2 11 (4.95%) Elasticsearch
3 9 (4.05%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (3.60%) SQL Server
5 5 (2.25%) KDB
6 1 (0.45%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.45%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.45%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 18 (8.11%) Git
2 12 (5.41%) GitLab
3 3 (1.35%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.35%) PetaLinux
4 2 (0.90%) GDB
4 2 (0.90%) JIRA
5 1 (0.45%) CMake
5 1 (0.45%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.45%) WinDbg
General
1 43 (19.37%) Social Skills
2 19 (8.56%) Finance
3 13 (5.86%) Banking
4 11 (4.95%) Telecoms
5 8 (3.60%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.25%) Front Office
7 4 (1.80%) Aerospace
7 4 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.80%) Electronics
8 3 (1.35%) Legal
8 3 (1.35%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
8 3 (1.35%) Retail
9 2 (0.90%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.86%) Yocto
2 5 (2.25%) FIX Protocol
3 2 (0.90%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.45%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.45%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 22 (9.91%) Embedded Systems
2 13 (5.86%) Data Centre
3 12 (5.41%) Device Driver
3 12 (5.41%) IoT
4 10 (4.50%) Management Information System
5 9 (4.05%) Robotics
6 8 (3.60%) FPGA
7 6 (2.70%) Cloud Native
7 6 (2.70%) Hedge funds
8 5 (2.25%) Algorithms
8 5 (2.25%) Fixed Income
8 5 (2.25%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (1.35%) Driving Licence
11 2 (0.90%) Clustering
11 2 (0.90%) Product Ownership
11 2 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
12 1 (0.45%) Distributed Computing
12 1 (0.45%) PKI
12 1 (0.45%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 222 (100.00%) Linux
2 44 (19.82%) Embedded Linux
3 32 (14.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 26 (11.71%) CentOS
5 23 (10.36%) Ubuntu
6 18 (8.11%) Unix
7 12 (5.41%) Windows
8 8 (3.60%) AIX
9 7 (3.15%) Windows Server
10 5 (2.25%) Rocky
10 5 (2.25%) Solaris
11 3 (1.35%) Mac OS
11 3 (1.35%) Robot Operating System
11 3 (1.35%) SUSE
12 1 (0.45%) Debian
12 1 (0.45%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (33.33%) Software Engineering
2 34 (15.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 33 (14.86%) DevOps
4 30 (13.51%) CI/CD
5 25 (11.26%) Containerisation
6 24 (10.81%) Infrastructure as Code
7 21 (9.46%) High Availability
7 21 (9.46%) Problem-Solving
8 16 (7.21%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (6.76%) Low Latency
10 14 (6.31%) Configuration Management
11 12 (5.41%) ITIL
12 11 (4.95%) Architectural Design
12 11 (4.95%) Capacity Planning
12 11 (4.95%) Computer Science
12 11 (4.95%) Deployment Automation
12 11 (4.95%) Platform Engineering
12 11 (4.95%) Virtual Environments
13 10 (4.50%) Open Source
14 9 (4.05%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 55 (24.77%) Python
2 47 (21.17%) Bash
3 24 (10.81%) C
4 22 (9.91%) C++
5 12 (5.41%) PowerShell
5 12 (5.41%) Shell Script
6 9 (4.05%) Perl
7 8 (3.60%) Embedded C
7 8 (3.60%) Korn
8 4 (1.80%) SQL
9 3 (1.35%) Embedded C++
9 3 (1.35%) Java
9 3 (1.35%) MATLAB
9 3 (1.35%) PHP
9 3 (1.35%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.90%) Go
11 1 (0.45%) C#
11 1 (0.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 32 (14.41%) Security Cleared
2 19 (8.56%) Degree
3 14 (6.31%) DV Cleared
4 6 (2.70%) RHCE
4 6 (2.70%) SC Cleared
5 5 (2.25%) RHCSA
6 3 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.35%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.90%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.90%) IBM AIX Certification
7 2 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (0.45%) CCNA
8 1 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.45%) Linux+ Certification
8 1 (0.45%) MCSE
8 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (6.31%) QA
2 6 (2.70%) SLA
System Software
1 37 (16.67%) Docker
2 9 (4.05%) Active Directory
2 9 (4.05%) Citrix Hypervisor
2 9 (4.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.90%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.90%) KVM
3 2 (0.90%) Samba
3 2 (0.90%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 2 (0.90%) vSphere
4 1 (0.45%) Firmware
4 1 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 38 (17.12%) Ansible
2 37 (16.67%) Kubernetes
3 35 (15.77%) Terraform
4 13 (5.86%) Grafana
5 11 (4.95%) Nagios
6 6 (2.70%) Podman
6 6 (2.70%) Puppet
7 2 (0.90%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.45%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.45%) WSUS
Vendors
1 54 (24.32%) Red Hat
2 13 (5.86%) Microsoft
3 11 (4.95%) Rapid7
3 11 (4.95%) Splunk
3 11 (4.95%) VMware
4 9 (4.05%) Dell
5 6 (2.70%) Oracle
6 3 (1.35%) Citrix
6 3 (1.35%) SonicWALL
6 3 (1.35%) YouTube
7 2 (0.90%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.90%) Cisco
7 2 (0.90%) D-Link
7 2 (0.90%) Google
7 2 (0.90%) IBM
7 2 (0.90%) Mirantis
8 1 (0.45%) Apple
8 1 (0.45%) Fortinet
8 1 (0.45%) McAfee
8 1 (0.45%) SAP