Companies on the Lookout for Linux Professional According to Survey

A 2012 Linux Jobs Report released Tuesday reveals a high demand for Linux skills within corporations and as a result is triggering better salaries and bonuses for Linux professionals.

The survey was conducted by Dice, career site for technology and engineering professionals, and The Linux Foundation (News - Alert), the nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the growth of Linux.

Out of the more than 2,000 hiring managers surveyed, a whopping 81 percent said they are making hiring Linux professionals their main priority. Some managers reported that they are looking to hire within the next six months while 47 percent said they expect to add more Linux professionals in early 2012.

“Linux jobs have become some of the hottest jobs in all of tech,” said Jim Zemlin (News - Alert), executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Clearly, hiring managers throughout the IT tech sector understand this and are aggressively seeking Linux professionals. It is our job to meet this demand by ensuring developers and systems admins have access to the community networking opportunities and Linux training they need to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity.”

This year alone Dice posted nearly 11,000 jobs on its site requiring Linux experience. According to Alice Hill, managing director of Dice.com (News - Alert), the job availability for Linux developers is up 17 percent from last year.

Hill told Computerworld, “It’s really hard to find talent in a market that is competitive, and that leads to poaching and new ways to attract talent.”

The survey also found that within the last year, salaries for Linux developers and system administrators were up five percent, with bonuses averaging 15 percent. Average salaries for Linux developers are now at $86,432 compared to the previous years’ $82,575.

The salary increase it partly due to the demand of IT certification requirements from companies which before was thought of as unimportant. However, the survey reported that among the 74 percent that did go the certification route, most said it led to promotions, new jobs or pay rises.

More than one-third of the respondents with a security-related certificate, named CompTIA (News - Alert) Security+ as the most popular, however, CCNA Security was the most commonly named as the certification in the other category.

“In the last ten years, there's been no tech skill that matches Linux in terms of growth in hiring requests and size of demand and clearly it's not done,” said Hill; adding, “The best Linux candidates have options and we need more talented professionals to join the community. Linux is simply a core skill for anyone pursuing a career in software development or systems administration.”

In related news, The Linux Foundation recently added three companies to their organization: 4Linux, Erlang Solutions and Linux Professionals Institute.

In a release, the technology jobs board Dice.com noted again that while the national and international job markets continue to struggle, the IT market offers a brighter outlook.