Linux salary: what jobs that ask for it advertise
Postings that list Linux advertise a median $181,500 (1,846 paid postings from 470 employers), against $166,500 for other postings that list skills. Matched on function, level and industry the gap is −2%: the raw difference comes from the roles that list it, not from the skill.
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By Justin KullaLast updated
Linux pay range
From 1,846 paid postings from 470 employers that list it. Annual, in US dollars.
- Lower quarter
- $149,000
- Median
- $181,500
- Upper quarter
- $221,000
- Median without it
- $166,500
- Raw gap: +9.1%. This includes the seniority and field of the roles that list the skill.
- Gap with function, level and industry matched: −2% (about $4k a year), across 1,432 postings in 16 comparison cells.
Where Linux is asked for
The functions with the most postings that list it.
Other skills that pay well in Engineering
Skills with the highest median pay in the same function.
Questions about this data
- How much do jobs that ask for Linux pay?
- $149,000 to $221,000 for the middle half, median $181,500, from 1,846 paid postings from 470 employers. Other postings that list skills advertise a median $166,500.
- Does Linux increase pay?
- Not by this measure. Matched on function, level and industry, postings that list Linux advertise −2% against similar postings that do not.
- Which jobs list Linux most?
- Engineering (1,467 postings), Security (155 postings), Data & Analytics (81 postings).
Method, download and how to cite
Data as of November 3, 2026. Rebuilt daily.
Pay is the midpoint of the range an employer posted (or stated in the posting text), converted to a year, on live U.S. professional jobs. It is advertised pay, not what anyone is paid.
A “gap, job mix matched” compares postings inside cells of the same function, level and industry, so a group is not credited for simply holding more senior or better-paid roles. It needs 150 or more postings across at least 5 cells with 15 postings on each side, and is shown as n/a otherwise. A gap is a difference in advertised pay between postings. It does not show that a skill, an industry or an employer size causes higher pay.
Download the CSV (aggregates only; no posting, employer or person is in it). Cite as: NextChapter, “Advertised pay in U.S. job postings that list Linux”, data as of November 3, 2026, https://launchyournextchapter.com/resources/pay-data/skills/linux
See also the AI skills salary premium, which uses the same method for AI skills only, and the salary by job title pages.
More pay data
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