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 15 January 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 428 474 529
Rank change year-on-year +46 +55 +286
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 232 249 186
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.38% 0.46% 0.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.42% 0.50% 0.35%
Number of salaries quoted 125 128 142
10th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £47,625
25th Percentile £49,000 £48,869 £51,244
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% - -2.61%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £67,188
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,000 £74,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £54,897 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.30% -0.19% -

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 54,710 49,797 52,819
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.74% 92.91% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,899 25,819 40,678
10th Percentile £28,560 £33,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £95,325
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -5.18%

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 15 January 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 15 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 +63 215 £60,000 +9.09% 96
UK excluding London +42 206 £60,000 +9.30% 88
South East +27 66 £52,500 -4.55% 31
South West +13 59 £60,000 +6.67% 16
Midlands +38 27 £65,000 +13.04% 16
North of England -22 25 £60,000 +19.87% 6
London +56 21 £82,500 +8.55% 20
North West -3 21 £60,000 +19.87% 5
East of England - 17 £60,000 - 15
West Midlands +33 16 £42,215 -15.57% 7
Work from Home +25 11 £75,000 +7.14% 53
East Midlands -8 11 £65,000 +8.33% 9
Scotland -3 6 £50,500 -12.98% 4
Yorkshire -19 4 - - 1
Wales +5 3 £51,935 +48.38% 1
Northern Ireland - 3 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 15 January 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 86 (37.07%) Systems Engineering
2 69 (29.74%) BPSS Clearance
3 41 (17.67%) Degree
4 34 (14.66%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 29 (12.50%) Requirements Management
6 21 (9.05%) Agile
7 20 (8.62%) Coaching
7 20 (8.62%) Cybersecurity
8 18 (7.76%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 18 (7.76%) Validation
9 17 (7.33%) SysML
10 16 (6.90%) HNC
10 16 (6.90%) HND
10 16 (6.90%) Project Planning
10 16 (6.90%) Verification and Validation
11 15 (6.47%) Customer Requirements
11 15 (6.47%) Software Engineering
11 15 (6.47%) Systems Thinking
12 14 (6.03%) Rational DOORS
12 14 (6.03%) Siemens
13 12 (5.17%) Acceptance Criteria
13 12 (5.17%) Collaborative Working
13 12 (5.17%) Mathematics
13 12 (5.17%) Physics
13 12 (5.17%) Simulink
14 10 (4.31%) Cryptography
14 10 (4.31%) Information Assurance
14 10 (4.31%) MATLAB
15 9 (3.88%) Mentoring
15 9 (3.88%) Platform Engineering

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:

Applications
1 12 (5.17%) Simulink
2 3 (1.29%) CATIA
3 2 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 7 (3.02%) Azure
2 4 (1.72%) Entra ID
2 4 (1.72%) Google Workspace
3 3 (1.29%) AWS
4 2 (0.86%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (0.86%) Power Platform
5 1 (0.43%) Amazon S3
5 1 (0.43%) Cohesity
5 1 (0.43%) GitHub
5 1 (0.43%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.59%) Broadband
2 3 (1.29%) 5G
2 3 (1.29%) 802.11
2 3 (1.29%) Internet
2 3 (1.29%) LAN
2 3 (1.29%) Network Security
2 3 (1.29%) VoIP
2 3 (1.29%) WAN
2 3 (1.29%) Wi-Fi
2 3 (1.29%) Wireless
2 3 (1.29%) WLAN
3 1 (0.43%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.86%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 14 (6.03%) Rational DOORS
2 3 (1.29%) Apache Continuum
2 3 (1.29%) JIRA
3 2 (0.86%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.86%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.43%) CircleCI
General
1 21 (9.05%) Social Skills
2 18 (7.76%) Aerospace
3 14 (6.03%) Avionics
3 14 (6.03%) Military
4 11 (4.74%) Electronics
4 11 (4.74%) Games
4 11 (4.74%) Influencing Skills
5 7 (3.02%) Manufacturing
6 5 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.72%) Automotive
7 4 (1.72%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (0.86%) Aviation
8 2 (0.86%) Finance
9 1 (0.43%) Marketing
9 1 (0.43%) Retail
9 1 (0.43%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.72%) GraphQL
1 4 (1.72%) LDAP
1 4 (1.72%) OAuth
1 4 (1.72%) OpenID
1 4 (1.72%) REST
1 4 (1.72%) SAML
1 4 (1.72%) SOAP
2 3 (1.29%) 802.1X
3 2 (0.86%) Akka
4 1 (0.43%) DPDK
Miscellaneous
1 13 (5.60%) Management Information System
2 9 (3.88%) SCADA
3 6 (2.59%) Cyber Threat
4 4 (1.72%) CCTV
4 4 (1.72%) Cyberattack
4 4 (1.72%) Virtual Team
5 3 (1.29%) BYOD
5 3 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (1.29%) IoT
6 2 (0.86%) Data Centre
6 2 (0.86%) Industry 4.0
6 2 (0.86%) Manufacturing Execution System
6 2 (0.86%) Over-the-Top Content
6 2 (0.86%) Verilog
6 2 (0.86%) VHDL
6 2 (0.86%) Video\Live Streaming
7 1 (0.43%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.43%) Self-Driving Car
7 1 (0.43%) Sports Betting
7 1 (0.43%) VxBlock/Vblock
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.02%) Linux
2 5 (2.16%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.86%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (37.07%) Systems Engineering
2 34 (14.66%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 29 (12.50%) Requirements Management
4 21 (9.05%) Agile
5 20 (8.62%) Coaching
5 20 (8.62%) Cybersecurity
6 18 (7.76%) Validation
7 17 (7.33%) SysML
8 16 (6.90%) Project Planning
8 16 (6.90%) Verification and Validation
9 15 (6.47%) Customer Requirements
9 15 (6.47%) Software Engineering
9 15 (6.47%) Systems Thinking
10 12 (5.17%) Acceptance Criteria
10 12 (5.17%) Collaborative Working
10 12 (5.17%) Mathematics
10 12 (5.17%) Physics
11 10 (4.31%) Cryptography
11 10 (4.31%) Information Assurance
12 9 (3.88%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 10 (4.31%) MATLAB
2 5 (2.16%) PowerShell
3 4 (1.72%) Bash
3 4 (1.72%) Java
3 4 (1.72%) SQL
3 4 (1.72%) T-SQL
4 2 (0.86%) Python
4 2 (0.86%) Scala
5 1 (0.43%) C
5 1 (0.43%) C#
5 1 (0.43%) C++
5 1 (0.43%) Rust
Qualifications
1 69 (29.74%) BPSS Clearance
2 41 (17.67%) Degree
3 16 (6.90%) HNC
3 16 (6.90%) HND
4 7 (3.02%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (7.76%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 4 (1.72%) NCSC
2 4 (1.72%) NIST
3 3 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 2 (0.86%) IEC 61508
4 2 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 4 (1.72%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.29%) Docker
3 1 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (3.02%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.86%) BMC PATROL
3 1 (0.43%) Ansible
Vendors
1 14 (6.03%) Siemens
2 5 (2.16%) NVIDIA
3 4 (1.72%) Allen-Bradley
3 4 (1.72%) IBM
4 3 (1.29%) Ruckus Wireless
4 3 (1.29%) VMware
5 2 (0.86%) Microsoft
6 1 (0.43%) Solarflare