Senior Systems Engineer Job Trends

Senior System Engineer
UK

The median Senior System Engineer salary in the UK is £60,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 23 May 2026.

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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 320 455 483
Rank change year-on-year +135 +28 +167
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 535 194 456
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.58% 0.46% 0.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.62% 0.51% 0.49%
Number of salaries quoted 296 141 327
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,683 £44,296
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,869 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £54,793 £57,495
Median % change year-on-year +9.50% -4.70% -4.18%
75th Percentile £65,000 £62,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £72,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £54,793 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.50% -0.38% -

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 86,622 38,048 92,177
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.38% 89.26% 94.63%
Number of salaries quoted 57,427 21,318 67,552
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,913 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -6.32%

Senior Systems Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Senior Systems Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Systems Engineer
Salary Trend

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

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

Senior Systems Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Systems Engineer over the 6 months to 23 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Systems Engineer in the UK

Senior Systems Engineer
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Systems Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 23 May 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 +125 497 £60,000 +9.50% 73
UK excluding London +117 462 £60,000 +9.50% 62
South East +89 162 £60,000 - 32
South West +7 102 £60,000 +14.07% 8
Midlands +26 68 £60,000 +9.09% 6
North of England -64 64 £55,000 +9.88% 5
London +22 62 £82,500 +8.55% 16
West Midlands +4 44 £50,000 - 5
Work from Home +13 40 £50,000 -12.89% 20
North West -35 40 £55,000 +9.88% 2
East of England +23 38 £60,000 -29.41% 12
Scotland +25 25 £49,000 -34.98% 2
East Midlands -13 24 £62,500 +13.64% 1
Yorkshire -29 18 £50,861 -11.64%
North East - 6 - - 3
Wales -33 3 £66,300 +6.94% 1

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

For the 6 months to 23 May 2026, Senior 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 Senior Systems Engineer in the job title.

1 173 (32.34%) Systems Engineering
2 112 (20.93%) BPSS Clearance
3 72 (13.46%) Degree
4 57 (10.65%) Requirements Management
5 45 (8.41%) Azure
6 44 (8.22%) AI
7 42 (7.85%) Technical Leadership
8 40 (7.48%) Rational DOORS
9 39 (7.29%) Validation
10 38 (7.10%) Agile
11 37 (6.92%) Machine Learning
12 36 (6.73%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
13 35 (6.54%) Cybersecurity
14 34 (6.36%) Python
14 34 (6.36%) Siemens
15 33 (6.17%) SysML
15 33 (6.17%) Systems Thinking
16 32 (5.98%) AWS
16 32 (5.98%) Mentoring
17 31 (5.79%) ISO/IEC 15288
17 31 (5.79%) SQL
18 30 (5.61%) Software Engineering
18 30 (5.61%) Verification and Validation
19 29 (5.42%) Analytics
20 28 (5.23%) GCP
21 27 (5.05%) Mathematics
21 27 (5.05%) Problem-Solving
21 27 (5.05%) Use Case
22 26 (4.86%) Generative AI
22 26 (4.86%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Senior 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 24 (4.49%) Apache Airflow
1 24 (4.49%) Apache Spark
2 11 (2.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.75%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.56%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.56%) WinCC
Applications
1 19 (3.55%) Simulink
2 11 (2.06%) CATIA
3 10 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.56%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.56%) Lightworks
Cloud Services
1 45 (8.41%) Azure
2 32 (5.98%) AWS
3 28 (5.23%) GCP
4 25 (4.67%) Power Platform
5 24 (4.49%) dbt
6 23 (4.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 23 (4.30%) Snowflake
7 10 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (1.68%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.50%) Google Workspace
10 3 (0.56%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (0.56%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.56%) Serverless
11 2 (0.37%) Azure Machine Learning
11 2 (0.37%) Copilot Studio
11 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (0.37%) SaaS
11 2 (0.37%) Vertex AI
12 1 (0.19%) Mimecast
12 1 (0.19%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (3.18%) Broadband
2 10 (1.87%) Intrusion Detection
3 5 (0.93%) Tactical Data Link
4 4 (0.75%) DHCP
4 4 (0.75%) DNS
5 3 (0.56%) Modbus
5 3 (0.56%) Profibus
6 2 (0.37%) Firewall
7 1 (0.19%) Multicast
7 1 (0.19%) RS-422
7 1 (0.19%) Software-Defined Radio
7 1 (0.19%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.19%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.67%) Power BI
2 24 (4.49%) BigQuery
3 23 (4.30%) Amazon Redshift
3 23 (4.30%) Data Lake
3 23 (4.30%) Data Warehouse
3 23 (4.30%) Elasticsearch
3 23 (4.30%) Looker
3 23 (4.30%) Snowflake Schema
3 23 (4.30%) Tableau
4 2 (0.37%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.19%) KDB
5 1 (0.19%) Metadata
5 1 (0.19%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 40 (7.48%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (4.30%) MLflow
3 10 (1.87%) JIRA
4 5 (0.93%) Apache Continuum
5 3 (0.56%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.37%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.19%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 70 (13.08%) Aerospace
2 38 (7.10%) Finance
3 30 (5.61%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (5.05%) Electronics
5 23 (4.30%) Military
6 20 (3.74%) Social Skills
7 17 (3.18%) Manufacturing
8 11 (2.06%) Avionics
9 10 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
10 9 (1.68%) Games
10 9 (1.68%) Legal
11 6 (1.12%) Retail
12 4 (0.75%) Aviation
12 4 (0.75%) Digital Health
12 4 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.56%) Local Government
13 3 (0.56%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.37%) Aeronautics
14 2 (0.37%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.67%) Kafka
1 25 (4.67%) LangChain
2 23 (4.30%) LlamaIndex
2 23 (4.30%) pgvector
2 23 (4.30%) PyTorch
2 23 (4.30%) scikit-learn
2 23 (4.30%) TensorFlow
3 9 (1.68%) REST
4 8 (1.50%) GraphQL
4 8 (1.50%) LDAP
4 8 (1.50%) OAuth
4 8 (1.50%) OpenID
4 8 (1.50%) SAML
4 8 (1.50%) SOAP
5 2 (0.37%) Akka
5 2 (0.37%) LangGraph
6 1 (0.19%) Middleware
6 1 (0.19%) Model Context Protocol
6 1 (0.19%) React
6 1 (0.19%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 26 (4.86%) Public Cloud
2 25 (4.67%) Driving Licence
3 24 (4.49%) Cloud Native
3 24 (4.49%) Management Information System
4 23 (4.30%) Clustering
5 17 (3.18%) SCADA
6 16 (2.99%) CCTV
7 8 (1.50%) Cyber Threat
7 8 (1.50%) Cyberattack
7 8 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
9 6 (1.12%) Renewable Energy
10 5 (0.93%) Embedded Systems
10 5 (0.93%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.75%) Algorithms
12 3 (0.56%) Cyber Security Posture
12 3 (0.56%) IoT
12 3 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
13 2 (0.37%) Over-the-Top Content
13 2 (0.37%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 19 (3.55%) Linux
2 9 (1.68%) Ubuntu
2 9 (1.68%) Windows
3 4 (0.75%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.56%) VMS
5 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (32.34%) Systems Engineering
2 57 (10.65%) Requirements Management
3 44 (8.22%) AI
4 42 (7.85%) Technical Leadership
5 39 (7.29%) Validation
6 38 (7.10%) Agile
7 37 (6.92%) Machine Learning
8 36 (6.73%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
9 35 (6.54%) Cybersecurity
10 33 (6.17%) SysML
10 33 (6.17%) Systems Thinking
11 32 (5.98%) Mentoring
12 30 (5.61%) Software Engineering
12 30 (5.61%) Verification and Validation
13 29 (5.42%) Analytics
14 27 (5.05%) Mathematics
14 27 (5.05%) Problem-Solving
14 27 (5.05%) Use Case
15 26 (4.86%) Generative AI
15 26 (4.86%) Semantic Search
Programming Languages
1 34 (6.36%) Python
2 31 (5.79%) SQL
3 24 (4.49%) MATLAB
4 13 (2.43%) PowerShell
5 9 (1.68%) Bash
6 8 (1.50%) T-SQL
7 4 (0.75%) Java
8 3 (0.56%) C++
8 3 (0.56%) Scala
9 2 (0.37%) C
9 2 (0.37%) C#
9 2 (0.37%) Rust
10 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 112 (20.93%) BPSS Clearance
2 72 (13.46%) Degree
3 17 (3.18%) Chartered Engineer
4 15 (2.80%) HNC
5 11 (2.06%) HND
6 8 (1.50%) Security Cleared
7 7 (1.31%) SC Cleared
8 6 (1.12%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.56%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.56%) PhD
10 1 (0.19%) APMP
10 1 (0.19%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.19%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (5.79%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 23 (4.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
2 23 (4.30%) GDPR
3 9 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 8 (1.50%) NCSC
4 8 (1.50%) NIST
5 5 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.75%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.56%) IEC 61131
7 3 (0.56%) PMO
8 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 17025
9 1 (0.19%) ARP4754
9 1 (0.19%) ARP4761
9 1 (0.19%) DO-160
9 1 (0.19%) DO-254
System Software
1 13 (2.43%) Active Directory
2 5 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.75%) vSphere
4 3 (0.56%) Docker
5 2 (0.37%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.37%) KVM
5 2 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (2.06%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.56%) SCCM
3 2 (0.37%) Ansible
3 2 (0.37%) BMC PATROL
4 1 (0.19%) Grafana
4 1 (0.19%) Graylog
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.19%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.19%) Terraform
Vendors
1 34 (6.36%) Siemens
2 23 (4.30%) Cloudera
2 23 (4.30%) Databricks
2 23 (4.30%) Dell
3 17 (3.18%) IBM
4 16 (2.99%) Microsoft
5 11 (2.06%) Allen-Bradley
5 11 (2.06%) Cisco
5 11 (2.06%) Rockwell
6 9 (1.68%) NVIDIA
7 7 (1.31%) AVEVA
7 7 (1.31%) VMware
7 7 (1.31%) Wonderware
8 3 (0.56%) Aruba
9 2 (0.37%) Foundry
9 2 (0.37%) Google
9 2 (0.37%) iManage
9 2 (0.37%) Intapp
10 1 (0.19%) Arista
10 1 (0.19%) Mellanox