Demand for programmers who know system admin stuff

[techlists at phpcoderusa.com]

Hi,

I've watched more than a few of NetworkChuck's videos.  Here he is on a 
programmer's channel talking about programmers learning networking.   
I've always thought all web programmers have some Linux skills, and 
maybe that is not what he is talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlN-vMF13QY&t=0s

How does this work for hosting admin?  Is there the same demand in the 
hosting admin niche?  If so what exactly should one know and what types 
of jobs can they get?

He mentions Python - is that the programming language to know for server 
automation?  He also mentioned Perl.  I thought Perl was/is dead?

I'm a PHP developer and find a lot of hosting tools such as Plesk and 
ISPConfig are written in PHP and use MySQL.

Your Thoughts?

Thanks!!