Lead Systems Engineer Job Trends

Lead System Engineer
UK

The median Lead System Engineer salary in the UK is £57,560 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 31 December 2025.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 581 673 666
Rank change year-on-year +92 -7 +268
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Systems Engineer 63 43 35
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.078% 0.068%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.12% 0.083% 0.072%
Number of salaries quoted 35 12 12
10th Percentile £54,793 £53,399 £40,473
25th Percentile £55,000 £54,445 £44,725
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,560 £57,836 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -17.38% -39.13%
75th Percentile £65,000 £60,248 £85,000
90th Percentile £93,000 £63,750 -
UK excluding London median annual salary £56,000 £56,176 £70,000
% change year-on-year -0.31% -19.75% +45.83%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 53,514 51,675 48,695
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.46% 93.18% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 32,893 27,368 37,623
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,173 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,715
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Lead Systems Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Lead Systems Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Lead Systems Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Lead Systems Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Lead Systems Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Systems Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Lead Systems Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Systems Engineer over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Lead Systems Engineer in the UK

Lead Systems Engineer
Top 13 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Systems Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 31 December 2025. 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 +89 63 £57,560 -0.48% 4
UK excluding London +70 57 £56,000 -0.31% 4
Midlands - 15 £90,000 - 1
South West - 14 £60,000 - 1
North of England -7 12 £54,793 -2.46%
South East +38 10 £70,000 - 2
North West +5 10 £54,793 -
East Midlands - 9 - -
East of England +27 8 £55,000 - 1
London +62 6 £95,000 +52.00%
West Midlands - 6 £90,000 - 1
Work from Home +70 4 - - 3
Yorkshire -2 2 £30,000 -47.88%

Lead Systems Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 December 2025, Lead Systems Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Lead Systems Engineer in the job title.

1 27 (42.86%) Technical Leadership
2 25 (39.68%) Systems Engineering
3 15 (23.81%) Degree
4 13 (20.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (15.87%) Agile
5 10 (15.87%) MATLAB
5 10 (15.87%) MODAF
5 10 (15.87%) SysML
5 10 (15.87%) UML
6 9 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
7 8 (12.70%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
8 5 (7.94%) Cybersecurity
9 4 (6.35%) Siemens
10 3 (4.76%) People Management
10 3 (4.76%) QA
11 2 (3.17%) ArchestrA
11 2 (3.17%) Cost Control
11 2 (3.17%) Customer Requirements
11 2 (3.17%) FactoryTalk
11 2 (3.17%) Firewall
11 2 (3.17%) Hyper-V
11 2 (3.17%) IEC 61131
11 2 (3.17%) IEC 61508
11 2 (3.17%) Ladder Logic
11 2 (3.17%) Modbus
11 2 (3.17%) Profibus
11 2 (3.17%) Rockwell
11 2 (3.17%) Software Engineering
11 2 (3.17%) Test Automation
11 2 (3.17%) VMware

Lead Systems Engineer Skill Set
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 2 (3.17%) ArchestrA
1 2 (3.17%) FactoryTalk
1 2 (3.17%) WinCC
Cloud Services
1 1 (1.59%) AWS
1 1 (1.59%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.17%) Firewall
1 2 (3.17%) Modbus
1 2 (3.17%) Profibus
2 1 (1.59%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.59%) NoSQL
1 1 (1.59%) RDBMS
1 1 (1.59%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 1 (1.59%) Jaeger
General
1 6 (9.52%) Aeronautics
1 6 (9.52%) Aerospace
1 6 (9.52%) Automotive
2 5 (7.94%) Military
3 3 (4.76%) Social Skills
4 2 (3.17%) Manufacturing
5 1 (1.59%) Aviation
5 1 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (1.59%) Elastic Stack
1 1 (1.59%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 9 (14.29%) Driving Licence
2 8 (12.70%) SCADA
3 4 (6.35%) Operational Technology
3 4 (6.35%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 2 (3.17%) Windows
1 2 (3.17%) Windows Server
2 1 (1.59%) Linux
2 1 (1.59%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (42.86%) Technical Leadership
2 25 (39.68%) Systems Engineering
3 10 (15.87%) Agile
3 10 (15.87%) MODAF
3 10 (15.87%) SysML
3 10 (15.87%) UML
4 9 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
5 8 (12.70%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
6 5 (7.94%) Cybersecurity
7 3 (4.76%) People Management
8 2 (3.17%) Cost Control
8 2 (3.17%) Customer Requirements
8 2 (3.17%) Software Engineering
8 2 (3.17%) Test Automation
9 1 (1.59%) Budget Control
9 1 (1.59%) Continuous Integration
9 1 (1.59%) DevOps
9 1 (1.59%) High Availability
9 1 (1.59%) Product Management
9 1 (1.59%) Resource Management
Programming Languages
1 10 (15.87%) MATLAB
2 2 (3.17%) Ladder Logic
3 1 (1.59%) Bash
3 1 (1.59%) Go
3 1 (1.59%) Java
3 1 (1.59%) JavaScript
3 1 (1.59%) Python
Qualifications
1 15 (23.81%) Degree
2 13 (20.63%) BPSS Clearance
3 1 (1.59%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (4.76%) QA
2 2 (3.17%) IEC 61131
2 2 (3.17%) IEC 61508
3 1 (1.59%) DO-254
3 1 (1.59%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 2 (3.17%) Hyper-V
1 2 (3.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (1.59%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (1.59%) Ansible
1 1 (1.59%) Argo
1 1 (1.59%) Kubernetes
1 1 (1.59%) Kustomize
1 1 (1.59%) Prometheus
1 1 (1.59%) Terraform
Vendors
1 4 (6.35%) Siemens
2 2 (3.17%) Rockwell
2 2 (3.17%) VMware
3 1 (1.59%) Google