Skin toxicity has been reported for IMRT of head and neck cancer. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dose in the build-up region delivered by a 6 MV treatment plan for which important skin toxicity was observed. We also investigated if the different designs of the treatment head of an Elekta and a Varian linear accelerator, especially the lower position of the Varian multi-leaf collimator, give rise to different build-up doses. For regular square open beams, the build-up dose along the central beam axis is higher for the Varian machine than for the Elekta machine, both for 6 MV and 18 MV. At the Elekta machine at 18 MV, the superficial dose of a diamond shaped 10 x 10 cm2 field is 3.6% lower than the superficial dose of a regular 10 x 10 cm2 field. This effect is not seen at 6 MV. At the Varian machine, the superficial dose of the diamond shaped field is respectively 3.5 and 14.2% higher than the superficial dose of the regular 10 x 10 cm2 field for 6 MV and 18 MV. Despite the differences measured in build-up dose for single beams between the Elekta and the Varian linear accelerator, there were no measurable differences in superficial dose when a typical IMRT dose plan of 6 MV for a head and neck tumour is executed at the two machines.