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 12 October 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 584 548 484
Rank change year-on-year -36 -64 +7
Permanent jobs requiring a Linux Engineer 229 124 295
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.25% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.28% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 166 99 217
10th Percentile £51,250 £38,500 £37,000
25th Percentile £60,000 £41,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £63,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% +14.55% -5.17%
75th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £91,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £63,451 £43,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +45.86% -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 109,200 44,128 68,675
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 89.77% 95.37%
Number of salaries quoted 74,173 25,691 39,257
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £35,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £53,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.35% -2.73% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £45,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +20.22% -8.50% -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 12 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 12 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 -40 216 £65,000 +5.69% 146
UK excluding London -34 170 £63,451 +45.86% 87
London -72 51 £92,500 +27.59% 68
East of England -8 49 £70,000 +64.71% 17
North of England -25 45 £60,000 +26.32% 6
Work from Home -54 43 £63,451 -12.48% 60
North West +3 42 £60,000 +33.33% 5
Midlands -27 25 £60,000 - 11
South East -42 23 £60,000 -14.29% 26
South West -51 22 £80,000 - 12
East Midlands - 20 £67,500 - 6
Scotland +3 6 £64,226 +51.12% 13
West Midlands -42 5 £60,000 +9.09% 5
Yorkshire -39 3 £32,500 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 12 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.

1 229 (100.00%) Linux
2 92 (40.17%) Software Engineering
3 58 (25.33%) Embedded Linux
4 48 (20.96%) Python
5 47 (20.52%) Red Hat
6 43 (18.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 40 (17.47%) Ansible
8 39 (17.03%) Bash
8 39 (17.03%) Terraform
9 37 (16.16%) CI/CD
10 36 (15.72%) AWS
11 33 (14.41%) C++
12 30 (13.10%) Infrastructure as Code
12 30 (13.10%) Kubernetes
13 29 (12.66%) Azure
13 29 (12.66%) C
13 29 (12.66%) DevOps
14 27 (11.79%) Docker
15 26 (11.35%) Security Cleared
16 25 (10.92%) Containerisation
17 23 (10.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 23 (10.04%) Windows
18 22 (9.61%) Git
19 20 (8.73%) CentOS
20 19 (8.30%) Configuration Management
20 19 (8.30%) Ubuntu
20 19 (8.30%) Yocto
21 18 (7.86%) Continuous Improvement
21 18 (7.86%) Firewall
22 16 (6.99%) Degree

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 3 (1.31%) Apache
1 3 (1.31%) IIS
1 3 (1.31%) nginx
1 3 (1.31%) OpenStack
1 3 (1.31%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 36 (15.72%) AWS
2 29 (12.66%) Azure
3 12 (5.24%) GCP
4 10 (4.37%) OpenShift
5 9 (3.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 9 (3.93%) Amazon ECR
5 9 (3.93%) Amazon ECS
5 9 (3.93%) SaaS
6 8 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (2.62%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (1.31%) Entra ID
8 3 (1.31%) Microsoft Copilot
8 3 (1.31%) Power Automate
9 2 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (0.87%) Google Workspace
9 2 (0.87%) IaaS
9 2 (0.87%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (7.86%) Firewall
2 15 (6.55%) DNS
3 12 (5.24%) TCP/IP
3 12 (5.24%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (4.80%) Wireless
5 7 (3.06%) DHCP
6 6 (2.62%) VPN
7 4 (1.75%) Intrusion Detection
8 3 (1.31%) iSCSI
8 3 (1.31%) SAN
8 3 (1.31%) VoIP
9 2 (0.87%) Remote Desktop
9 2 (0.87%) VLAN
10 1 (0.44%) 5G
10 1 (0.44%) Ethernet
10 1 (0.44%) LTE
10 1 (0.44%) NGN
10 1 (0.44%) SNMP
10 1 (0.44%) Structured Cabling
10 1 (0.44%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (5.68%) MySQL
2 11 (4.80%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (1.75%) KDB
4 3 (1.31%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 22 (9.61%) Git
2 14 (6.11%) GitLab
3 3 (1.31%) PetaLinux
4 2 (0.87%) JIRA
5 1 (0.44%) CMake
5 1 (0.44%) GDB
General
1 36 (15.72%) Social Skills
2 17 (7.42%) Finance
3 11 (4.80%) Banking
4 6 (2.62%) Telecoms
5 5 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (2.18%) Electronics
6 4 (1.75%) Aerospace
6 4 (1.75%) Front Office
6 4 (1.75%) Legal
6 4 (1.75%) Retail
7 3 (1.31%) Automotive
7 3 (1.31%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.44%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (17.03%) Terraform
2 19 (8.30%) Yocto
3 4 (1.75%) FIX Protocol
4 2 (0.87%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (0.44%) QML
5 1 (0.44%) Qt
5 1 (0.44%) Qt Quick
Miscellaneous
1 25 (10.92%) Embedded Systems
2 14 (6.11%) Device Driver
2 14 (6.11%) IoT
3 10 (4.37%) FPGA
4 9 (3.93%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (3.49%) Data Centre
5 8 (3.49%) Linux Command Line
6 7 (3.06%) Algorithms
6 7 (3.06%) Robotics
7 4 (1.75%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (1.75%) Fixed Income
8 3 (1.31%) Clustering
8 3 (1.31%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.87%) Cloud Native
9 2 (0.87%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.87%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.87%) Product Ownership
9 2 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.44%) Digital Signage
10 1 (0.44%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 229 (100.00%) Linux
2 58 (25.33%) Embedded Linux
3 23 (10.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 23 (10.04%) Windows
4 20 (8.73%) CentOS
5 19 (8.30%) Ubuntu
6 11 (4.80%) Unix
7 9 (3.93%) Rocky
8 7 (3.06%) AIX
8 7 (3.06%) Windows Server
9 4 (1.75%) Debian
10 3 (1.31%) Android
10 3 (1.31%) Robot Operating System
10 3 (1.31%) Solaris
11 2 (0.87%) macOS
12 1 (0.44%) OpenWrt
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (40.17%) Software Engineering
2 43 (18.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 37 (16.16%) CI/CD
4 30 (13.10%) Infrastructure as Code
5 29 (12.66%) DevOps
6 25 (10.92%) Containerisation
7 19 (8.30%) Configuration Management
8 18 (7.86%) Continuous Improvement
9 16 (6.99%) Problem-Solving
10 15 (6.55%) Low Latency
10 15 (6.55%) Migration
11 13 (5.68%) Collaborative Culture
11 13 (5.68%) Collaborative Engineering
11 13 (5.68%) Open Source
12 12 (5.24%) AI
13 11 (4.80%) Capacity Planning
13 11 (4.80%) Computer Science
14 10 (4.37%) Device Driver Development
15 9 (3.93%) Deployment Automation
15 9 (3.93%) Virtual Environments
Programming Languages
1 48 (20.96%) Python
2 39 (17.03%) Bash
3 33 (14.41%) C++
4 29 (12.66%) C
5 14 (6.11%) Embedded C
5 14 (6.11%) Shell Script
6 5 (2.18%) Embedded C++
6 5 (2.18%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.75%) Korn
7 4 (1.75%) SQL
8 3 (1.31%) Java
8 3 (1.31%) MATLAB
8 3 (1.31%) Perl
8 3 (1.31%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.87%) Rust
10 1 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 26 (11.35%) Security Cleared
2 16 (6.99%) Degree
3 8 (3.49%) DV Cleared
4 5 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (1.75%) ITIL Certification
5 4 (1.75%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.75%) SC Cleared
6 3 (1.31%) RHCE
6 3 (1.31%) RHCSA
7 2 (0.87%) IBM AIX Certification
8 1 (0.44%) Azure 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 4 (1.75%) SLA
3 1 (0.44%) JTAG
System Software
1 27 (11.79%) Docker
2 6 (2.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.18%) vSphere
4 2 (0.87%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.87%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 2 (0.87%) Firmware
4 2 (0.87%) KVM
5 1 (0.44%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.44%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.44%) LXC
5 1 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 40 (17.47%) Ansible
2 30 (13.10%) Kubernetes
3 9 (3.93%) Grafana
3 9 (3.93%) Nagios
4 7 (3.06%) Puppet
5 5 (2.18%) vCenter Server
6 3 (1.31%) Podman
6 3 (1.31%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.87%) Argo
7 2 (0.87%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 47 (20.52%) Red Hat
2 12 (5.24%) VMware
3 9 (3.93%) Rapid7
3 9 (3.93%) Splunk
4 7 (3.06%) Microsoft
5 4 (1.75%) Oracle
6 3 (1.31%) Citrix
6 3 (1.31%) SonicWALL
6 3 (1.31%) YouTube
7 2 (0.87%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.87%) Dell
7 2 (0.87%) Google
7 2 (0.87%) IBM
8 1 (0.44%) Apple
8 1 (0.44%) Veeam