Linux Job Trends

Linux
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Linux skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 30 37
Rank change year-on-year -46 +7 +2
Permanent jobs citing Linux 1,658 3,319 3,205
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.80% 6.12% 6.04%
As % of the Operating Systems category 33.60% 40.84% 37.65%
Number of salaries quoted 1,067 1,874 2,448
10th Percentile £33,600 £35,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,063 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,980 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £82,500 £79,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £51,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -6.36% - +4.76%

All Operating Systems
UK

Linux falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring operating system skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 4,934 8,126 8,512
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 8.34% 14.98% 16.05%
Number of salaries quoted 3,661 4,608 6,964
10th Percentile £27,000 £28,250 £27,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £36,250 £34,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £44,720 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.56% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,250 £72,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £88,750 £86,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £37,500 £46,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -18.48% +2.22% -

Linux
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Linux relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Linux job vacancy trend in the UK

Linux
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Linux.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Linux

Linux
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Linux over the 6 months to 5 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Linux in the UK

Linux
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Linux within the UK over the 6 months to 5 January 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 -49 1,478 £60,000 - 1,538
UK excluding London -59 949 £51,500 -6.36% 1,398
London -11 582 £80,000 +6.67% 393
Work from Home -26 557 £62,500 +4.17% 784
South West -4 246 £60,000 +12.68% 156
South East -79 207 £52,500 -8.70% 480
North of England -45 186 £50,000 -4.76% 243
Midlands -75 141 £47,500 +5.56% 213
East of England -42 97 £45,000 -18.18% 221
West Midlands -63 96 £52,500 +16.67% 106
North West -49 83 £57,500 +9.52% 109
Yorkshire -19 67 £34,000 -28.42% 102
East Midlands -64 44 £37,500 -21.05% 97
Scotland -59 43 £59,000 +7.27% 75
North East +8 36 £51,500 -8.44% 32
Wales +12 33 £71,901 +46.42% 26
Northern Ireland -27 5 £73,801 -18.00% 15

Linux
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
1 175 (10.55%) Microsoft Exchange
2 42 (2.53%) IIS
3 38 (2.29%) Apache
4 35 (2.11%) Confluence
5 31 (1.87%) SharePoint
6 26 (1.57%) Tomcat
7 24 (1.45%) WebSphere
8 17 (1.03%) nginx
9 16 (0.97%) WebSphere Application Server
10 12 (0.72%) Apache Spark
11 10 (0.60%) Apache Solr
12 9 (0.54%) CMS
13 6 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
14 5 (0.30%) Anypoint
14 5 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 5 (0.30%) WebLogic
15 4 (0.24%) ArcGIS
15 4 (0.24%) GeoServer
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle Spatial
16 3 (0.18%) WildFly
Applications
1 45 (2.71%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (1.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.24%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 4 (0.24%) Photoshop
4 4 (0.24%) Weka
5 3 (0.18%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.18%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.18%) Simulink
6 2 (0.12%) Avid Media Composer
6 2 (0.12%) CINEMA 4D
6 2 (0.12%) Pro Tools
7 1 (0.060%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.060%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.060%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Fidessa
2 8 (0.48%) Shopify
3 4 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.18%) Primavera
5 2 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.060%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.060%) Oracle 11i
6 1 (0.060%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.060%) SAP IBP
6 1 (0.060%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 533 (32.15%) Azure
2 469 (28.29%) AWS
3 283 (17.07%) Microsoft 365
4 114 (6.88%) GCP
5 89 (5.37%) AWS CloudFormation
6 79 (4.76%) GitHub
7 78 (4.70%) SaaS
8 68 (4.10%) Entra ID
9 64 (3.86%) Amazon EC2
10 63 (3.80%) OpenShift
11 61 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
12 55 (3.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 54 (3.26%) Amazon EKS
14 52 (3.14%) Serverless
15 49 (2.96%) Amazon S3
16 47 (2.83%) AWS Lambda
17 45 (2.71%) PaaS
18 43 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
19 41 (2.47%) Amazon ECS
20 38 (2.29%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 255 (15.38%) DNS
2 201 (12.12%) Firewall
3 189 (11.40%) DHCP
4 156 (9.41%) TCP/IP
5 104 (6.27%) VPN
6 59 (3.56%) VLAN
7 53 (3.20%) Ethernet
8 50 (3.02%) VoIP
9 49 (2.96%) Multicast
10 47 (2.83%) WAN
11 43 (2.59%) SSL
12 42 (2.53%) LAN
13 41 (2.47%) SAN
14 38 (2.29%) Network Security
15 36 (2.17%) Wireless
16 34 (2.05%) HTTP
17 27 (1.63%) SSH
17 27 (1.63%) Wi-Fi
18 22 (1.33%) Wireshark
19 20 (1.21%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (9.83%) Amazon RDS
2 117 (7.06%) SQL Server
3 102 (6.15%) PostgreSQL
4 90 (5.43%) MySQL
5 49 (2.96%) Relational Database
6 45 (2.71%) Elasticsearch
7 29 (1.75%) MongoDB
8 25 (1.51%) NoSQL
9 23 (1.39%) Redis
10 22 (1.33%) Oracle Database
11 19 (1.15%) DB2
12 15 (0.90%) Tableau
13 14 (0.84%) Electronic Patient Records
14 13 (0.78%) Big Data
15 12 (0.72%) Power BI
16 11 (0.66%) InfluxDB
17 9 (0.54%) Amazon Aurora
17 9 (0.54%) Hadoop
17 9 (0.54%) RDBMS
18 6 (0.36%) FileMaker
Development Applications
1 180 (10.86%) Git
2 122 (7.36%) Jenkins
3 108 (6.51%) JIRA
4 86 (5.19%) GitLab
5 33 (1.99%) Bitbucket
6 24 (1.45%) Selenium
7 21 (1.27%) JUnit
8 18 (1.09%) Robot Framework
9 15 (0.90%) Maven
10 13 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
10 13 (0.78%) TeamCity
11 12 (0.72%) Artifactory
11 12 (0.72%) Snyk
11 12 (0.72%) Subversion
12 11 (0.66%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.66%) CircleCI
13 10 (0.60%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.60%) SonarQube
14 9 (0.54%) JMeter
14 9 (0.54%) Vagrant
General
1 509 (30.70%) Social Skills
2 372 (22.44%) Finance
3 240 (14.48%) Analytical Skills
4 114 (6.88%) Banking
5 56 (3.38%) Public Sector
6 55 (3.32%) Telecoms
7 53 (3.20%) Front Office
8 51 (3.08%) Manufacturing
9 43 (2.59%) Investment Banking
10 36 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
11 34 (2.05%) Law
12 32 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 31 (1.87%) Electronics
14 30 (1.81%) Aerospace
15 28 (1.69%) Marketing
16 27 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
17 24 (1.45%) Retail
18 23 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
19 21 (1.27%) Advertising
20 17 (1.03%) Legal
Job Titles
1 311 (18.76%) Senior
2 194 (11.70%) Linux Engineer
3 166 (10.01%) Support Engineer
4 143 (8.62%) Developer
5 138 (8.32%) Software Engineer
6 123 (7.42%) Systems Engineer
7 116 (7.00%) DevOps Engineer
8 99 (5.97%) Administrator
9 95 (5.73%) Platform Engineer
10 92 (5.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 87 (5.25%) Analyst
12 76 (4.58%) Applications Support
13 74 (4.46%) Lead
14 73 (4.40%) Technical Support
15 66 (3.98%) Cloud Engineer
16 61 (3.68%) IT Support
17 59 (3.56%) C++ Developer
17 59 (3.56%) Systems Administrator
18 58 (3.50%) Linux Support
19 57 (3.44%) Senior Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (3.86%) FIX Protocol
2 54 (3.26%) Elastic Stack
3 43 (2.59%) REST
4 37 (2.23%) Node.js
5 36 (2.17%) React
6 35 (2.11%) LDAP
7 34 (2.05%) Boost C++ Libraries
8 33 (1.99%) .NET
9 28 (1.69%) CSS
10 26 (1.57%) Django
11 23 (1.39%) HTML
12 22 (1.33%) JSON
12 22 (1.33%) Kafka
12 22 (1.33%) LAMP
13 18 (1.09%) WebSphere MQ
14 17 (1.03%) Middleware
14 17 (1.03%) pytest
14 17 (1.03%) SOAP
15 16 (0.97%) LAPP Stack
15 16 (0.97%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 107 (6.45%) Legacy Systems
2 92 (5.55%) Linux Command Line
2 92 (5.55%) Management Information System
3 68 (4.10%) Embedded Systems
3 68 (4.10%) FPGA
4 60 (3.62%) Data Centre
5 53 (3.20%) Equities
6 50 (3.02%) Distributed Systems
7 46 (2.77%) Algorithms
8 45 (2.71%) Cloud Native
8 45 (2.71%) Derivative
8 45 (2.71%) e-Learning
9 44 (2.65%) Driving Licence
10 43 (2.59%) Onboarding
11 41 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
12 39 (2.35%) Hedge funds
13 32 (1.93%) Clustering
14 31 (1.87%) PKI
15 28 (1.69%) Fixed Income
15 28 (1.69%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 707 (42.64%) Windows
2 290 (17.49%) Windows Server
3 237 (14.29%) Unix
4 137 (8.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 125 (7.54%) Windows Server 2016
6 78 (4.70%) Mac OS
7 61 (3.68%) Ubuntu
8 42 (2.53%) CentOS
9 40 (2.41%) Windows 10
10 38 (2.29%) Embedded Linux
11 36 (2.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (2.05%) Debian
13 25 (1.51%) VMS
14 21 (1.27%) Solaris
15 20 (1.21%) Android
16 12 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
17 10 (0.60%) Apple iOS
17 10 (0.60%) Mac OS X
18 8 (0.48%) Kali Linux
18 8 (0.48%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 450 (27.14%) Problem-Solving
2 339 (20.45%) DevOps
3 280 (16.89%) CI/CD
4 259 (15.62%) Infrastructure as Code
5 253 (15.26%) Agile
6 193 (11.64%) Software Engineering
7 183 (11.04%) Containerisation
8 181 (10.92%) ITIL
9 173 (10.43%) Computer Science
9 173 (10.43%) Customer Service
10 162 (9.77%) Migration
11 158 (9.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 146 (8.81%) Cybersecurity
13 141 (8.50%) Continuous Improvement
14 121 (7.30%) Platform Engineering
15 120 (7.24%) Customer Experience
16 117 (7.06%) High Availability
17 114 (6.88%) Test Automation
18 113 (6.82%) Incident Response
19 110 (6.63%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 548 (33.05%) Python
2 244 (14.72%) Bash
3 243 (14.66%) SQL
4 224 (13.51%) C++
5 210 (12.67%) Java
6 206 (12.42%) PowerShell
7 148 (8.93%) C
8 130 (7.84%) JavaScript
9 57 (3.44%) Go
10 55 (3.32%) C#
11 52 (3.14%) Perl
12 51 (3.08%) Shell Script
13 46 (2.77%) TypeScript
14 37 (2.23%) PHP
15 26 (1.57%) PL/SQL
16 24 (1.45%) Rust
17 19 (1.15%) Bicep
17 19 (1.15%) R
18 18 (1.09%) Embedded C++
19 13 (0.78%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 403 (24.31%) Security Cleared
2 285 (17.19%) SC Cleared
3 263 (15.86%) Degree
4 146 (8.81%) DV Cleared
5 95 (5.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 71 (4.28%) AWS Certification
7 68 (4.10%) Cisco Certification
8 58 (3.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 52 (3.14%) CCNA
10 49 (2.96%) Azure Certification
11 46 (2.77%) CCNP
12 45 (2.71%) CISSP
13 33 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
14 32 (1.93%) ITIL Certification
15 28 (1.69%) HND
16 26 (1.57%) Master's Degree
17 21 (1.27%) DBS Check
17 21 (1.27%) MCSE
18 19 (1.15%) OSCP
19 18 (1.09%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (7.12%) Cyber Essentials
2 106 (6.39%) PCI DSS
3 57 (3.44%) QA
4 46 (2.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 42 (2.53%) SLA
6 40 (2.41%) NIST
7 37 (2.23%) GDPR
8 14 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
9 12 (0.72%) HL7
10 8 (0.48%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.36%) ISO 9001
11 6 (0.36%) MISRA
12 5 (0.30%) Data Quality
12 5 (0.30%) Def Stans
13 4 (0.24%) EU AI Act
13 4 (0.24%) SEPA
14 3 (0.18%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.12%) NCSC
15 2 (0.12%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 291 (17.55%) Active Directory
2 244 (14.72%) Docker
3 179 (10.80%) Hyper-V
4 135 (8.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 96 (5.79%) Terminal Server
6 40 (2.41%) Firmware
6 40 (2.41%) vSphere
7 25 (1.51%) Virtual Machines
8 22 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
9 18 (1.09%) Virtual Servers
10 17 (1.03%) Embedded Firmware
11 13 (0.78%) vCloud
12 9 (0.54%) NFS
13 8 (0.48%) KVM
14 7 (0.42%) Lustre
14 7 (0.42%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 7 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
14 7 (0.42%) VMware NSX
15 6 (0.36%) Squid
15 6 (0.36%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 325 (19.60%) Kubernetes
2 302 (18.21%) Ansible
3 283 (17.07%) Terraform
4 116 (7.00%) Grafana
5 99 (5.97%) Prometheus
6 54 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 34 (2.05%) Puppet
8 31 (1.87%) Argo
9 25 (1.51%) Nagios
10 19 (1.15%) Progress Chef
10 19 (1.15%) vCenter Server
10 19 (1.15%) ZABBIX
11 16 (0.97%) Nessus
12 15 (0.90%) Red Hat Satellite
13 14 (0.84%) Control-M
13 14 (0.84%) Rancher
13 14 (0.84%) SCCM
14 13 (0.78%) Docker Swarm
15 12 (0.72%) AWS Copilot
16 10 (0.60%) QRadar
Vendors
1 367 (22.14%) Microsoft
2 305 (18.40%) VMware
3 167 (10.07%) Red Hat
4 163 (9.83%) Splunk
5 121 (7.30%) Veeam
6 117 (7.06%) Oracle
7 108 (6.51%) Cisco
8 106 (6.39%) SolarWinds
9 98 (5.91%) Nimble Storage
10 96 (5.79%) Brocade
10 96 (5.79%) Tanium
11 74 (4.46%) Google
12 43 (2.59%) Dell
13 40 (2.41%) ServiceNow
14 37 (2.23%) IBM
15 32 (1.93%) Fortinet
16 26 (1.57%) Apple
16 26 (1.57%) Atlassian
16 26 (1.57%) Salesforce
17 25 (1.51%) HP