Senior Operations Engineer Job Trends

Senior Operations Engineer
UK

The median Senior Operations Engineer salary in the UK is £45,497 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 7 January 2026.

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

 6 months to
7 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 616 701 705
Rank change year-on-year +85 +4 +275
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Operations Engineer 26 2 13
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.044% 0.004% 0.024%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.048% 0.004% 0.025%
Number of salaries quoted 15 2 12
10th Percentile - £95,500 £42,313
25th Percentile £44,972 £96,250 £44,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,497 £97,500 £58,250
Median % change year-on-year -53.34% +67.38% -11.07%
75th Percentile £56,761 £98,750 £62,250
90th Percentile £71,500 £99,500 £63,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,497 £100,000 £60,500
% change year-on-year -54.50% +65.29% +34.44%

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 54,122 50,451 51,182
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.59% 92.94% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,399 26,377 39,403
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,200 £31,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £42,200
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +3.45% -3.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £96,539
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Senior Operations Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Senior Operations Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Operations Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Senior Operations Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Senior Operations Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Senior Operations Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Operations Engineer over the 6 months to 7 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Operations Engineer in the UK

Senior Operations Engineer
Top 11 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Operations Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 7 January 2026. 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 +109 24 £45,497 -53.34% 1
UK excluding London +71 15 £45,497 -54.50% 1
Work from Home +68 13 £45,497 -52.11% 1
North of England +25 12 £45,497 -54.50%
North East - 6 £45,497 -
North West +27 5 £45,497 -54.50%
London +53 4 - -
Midlands - 2 £70,000 -
West Midlands - 2 £70,000 -
South East - 1 £70,000 - 1
Yorkshire - 1 £41,075 -

Senior Operations Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 January 2026, Senior Operations 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 Senior Operations Engineer in the job title.

1 13 (50.00%) Mentoring
1 13 (50.00%) Windows
2 12 (46.15%) Agile
2 12 (46.15%) Problem-Solving
3 10 (38.46%) Linux
4 9 (34.62%) Containerisation
4 9 (34.62%) DevOps
4 9 (34.62%) VMware
4 9 (34.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (34.62%) Windows Server
5 8 (30.77%) Kubernetes
5 8 (30.77%) Terraform
6 7 (26.92%) Ansible
6 7 (26.92%) Azure
6 7 (26.92%) CI/CD
6 7 (26.92%) Cisco
6 7 (26.92%) Coaching
6 7 (26.92%) Firewall
6 7 (26.92%) ITIL
6 7 (26.92%) Palo Alto
6 7 (26.92%) Service Management
6 7 (26.92%) Systems Thinking
7 6 (23.08%) Continuous Improvement
7 6 (23.08%) Degree
7 6 (23.08%) PowerShell
7 6 (23.08%) Python
7 6 (23.08%) Storage Management
8 5 (19.23%) Active Directory
8 5 (19.23%) Asset Management
8 5 (19.23%) Cloud Operations

Senior Operations 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 3 (11.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (3.85%) nginx
Cloud Services
1 7 (26.92%) Azure
2 2 (7.69%) AWS
2 2 (7.69%) GCP
2 2 (7.69%) GitHub
3 1 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
3 1 (3.85%) IaaS
3 1 (3.85%) PaaS
3 1 (3.85%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (26.92%) Firewall
2 5 (19.23%) DHCP
2 5 (19.23%) DNS
3 4 (15.38%) LAN
3 4 (15.38%) WAN
3 4 (15.38%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (11.54%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.85%) MySQL
1 1 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (3.85%) Relational Database
1 1 (3.85%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 1 (3.85%) Git
1 1 (3.85%) git-flow
1 1 (3.85%) JIRA
General
1 5 (19.23%) Law
1 5 (19.23%) Police
1 5 (19.23%) Telecoms
2 2 (7.69%) Social Skills
3 1 (3.85%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (7.69%) React
2 1 (3.85%) .NET
2 1 (3.85%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 3 (11.54%) Cloud Native
2 2 (7.69%) Management Information System
3 1 (3.85%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.85%) Derivative
3 1 (3.85%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 13 (50.00%) Windows
2 10 (38.46%) Linux
3 9 (34.62%) Windows Server
4 3 (11.54%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (7.69%) Windows 10
5 2 (7.69%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (50.00%) Mentoring
2 12 (46.15%) Agile
2 12 (46.15%) Problem-Solving
3 9 (34.62%) Containerisation
3 9 (34.62%) DevOps
4 7 (26.92%) CI/CD
4 7 (26.92%) Coaching
4 7 (26.92%) ITIL
4 7 (26.92%) Service Management
4 7 (26.92%) Systems Thinking
5 6 (23.08%) Continuous Improvement
5 6 (23.08%) Storage Management
6 5 (19.23%) Asset Management
6 5 (19.23%) Cloud Operations
6 5 (19.23%) Digital Forensics
6 5 (19.23%) IT Strategy
6 5 (19.23%) SEO
6 5 (19.23%) Technology Strategy
7 4 (15.38%) Infrastructure Automation
7 4 (15.38%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 6 (23.08%) PowerShell
1 6 (23.08%) Python
2 1 (3.85%) Bash
2 1 (3.85%) Bicep
2 1 (3.85%) Java
2 1 (3.85%) SQL
2 1 (3.85%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 6 (23.08%) Degree
2 4 (15.38%) CCIE
2 4 (15.38%) CCNP
2 4 (15.38%) Cisco Certification
3 1 (3.85%) AWS Certification
3 1 (3.85%) SC Cleared
3 1 (3.85%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 9 (34.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (19.23%) Active Directory
2 5 (19.23%) Hyper-V
3 4 (15.38%) Docker
4 3 (11.54%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (30.77%) Kubernetes
1 8 (30.77%) Terraform
2 7 (26.92%) Ansible
3 4 (15.38%) CASB
4 3 (11.54%) FortiGate
5 1 (3.85%) Argo
5 1 (3.85%) Grafana
5 1 (3.85%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 9 (34.62%) VMware
2 7 (26.92%) Cisco
2 7 (26.92%) Palo Alto
3 4 (15.38%) Fortinet
3 4 (15.38%) Meraki
4 3 (11.54%) Dell
5 1 (3.85%) Google
5 1 (3.85%) Microsoft