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 20 February 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 368 519 529
Rank change year-on-year +151 +10 +243
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 326 173 278
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.35% 0.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.52% 0.39% 0.39%
Number of salaries quoted 184 111 205
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,603 £45,000
25th Percentile £49,850 £48,869 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -
75th Percentile £70,000 £75,180 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,000 £72,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £54,793 £54,998
% change year-on-year +9.50% -0.37% 0.00%

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 62,593 44,758 70,993
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.28% 91.51% 94.81%
Number of salaries quoted 39,515 23,479 55,477
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 +151 304 £60,000 +9.09% 91
UK excluding London +126 287 £60,000 +9.50% 84
South East +48 93 £60,000 +9.09% 29
South West +31 74 £60,000 +14.07% 12
Midlands +38 46 £65,000 +23.81% 14
London +38 33 £82,500 +8.55% 12
North of England -26 31 £60,000 +19.87% 15
West Midlands +40 30 £60,000 +20.00% 12
East of England +39 27 £60,000 - 9
North West -15 27 £60,000 +19.87% 13
Work from Home +20 18 £75,000 -0.48% 33
East Midlands -3 16 £65,000 +18.18% 2
Scotland -12 9 £49,000 -26.53% 4
Wales +1 4 £51,935 -16.23% 1
Yorkshire -35 4 - - 1
Northern Ireland - 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 20 February 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.

1 112 (34.36%) Systems Engineering
2 88 (26.99%) BPSS Clearance
3 55 (16.87%) Degree
4 39 (11.96%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 36 (11.04%) Requirements Management
6 35 (10.74%) Validation
7 29 (8.90%) Agile
8 28 (8.59%) Cybersecurity
9 27 (8.28%) Verification and Validation
10 25 (7.67%) SysML
11 23 (7.06%) ISO/IEC 15288
12 22 (6.75%) Coaching
12 22 (6.75%) Project Planning
13 21 (6.44%) Systems Thinking
14 20 (6.13%) Rational DOORS
15 19 (5.83%) Software Engineering
16 18 (5.52%) Siemens
17 17 (5.21%) Mentoring
18 16 (4.91%) Azure
18 16 (4.91%) HNC
18 16 (4.91%) Mathematics
18 16 (4.91%) Physics
18 16 (4.91%) Simulink
19 14 (4.29%) AI
19 14 (4.29%) Broadband
19 14 (4.29%) Customer Requirements
19 14 (4.29%) Information Assurance
19 14 (4.29%) Machine Learning
19 14 (4.29%) MATLAB
19 14 (4.29%) 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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (0.31%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 16 (4.91%) Simulink
2 6 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.92%) CATIA
4 1 (0.31%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 16 (4.91%) Azure
2 8 (2.45%) Entra ID
2 8 (2.45%) Google Workspace
3 6 (1.84%) AWS
4 5 (1.53%) GCP
5 3 (0.92%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (0.61%) Azure Machine Learning
6 2 (0.61%) Copilot Studio
6 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Copilot
6 2 (0.61%) Vertex AI
7 1 (0.31%) Amazon S3
7 1 (0.31%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (0.31%) Cloud Composer
7 1 (0.31%) Cohesity
7 1 (0.31%) Dagster
7 1 (0.31%) dbt
7 1 (0.31%) Nutanix
7 1 (0.31%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.29%) Broadband
2 4 (1.23%) Tactical Data Link
3 2 (0.61%) 5G
3 2 (0.61%) 802.11
3 2 (0.61%) Internet
3 2 (0.61%) LAN
3 2 (0.61%) Network Security
3 2 (0.61%) VoIP
3 2 (0.61%) WAN
3 2 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.61%) Wireless
3 2 (0.61%) WLAN
4 1 (0.31%) Multicast
4 1 (0.31%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.31%) BigQuery
1 1 (0.31%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 20 (6.13%) Rational DOORS
2 5 (1.53%) JIRA
3 3 (0.92%) Apache Continuum
4 2 (0.61%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.61%) TeamCity
General
1 24 (7.36%) Social Skills
2 23 (7.06%) Aerospace
3 19 (5.83%) Electronics
4 18 (5.52%) Military
5 11 (3.37%) Games
6 10 (3.07%) Avionics
6 10 (3.07%) Organisational Skills
7 8 (2.45%) Manufacturing
8 7 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.53%) Automotive
9 5 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (0.61%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (0.61%) Finance
10 2 (0.61%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.31%) Advertising
11 1 (0.31%) Law
11 1 (0.31%) Marketing
11 1 (0.31%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.45%) GraphQL
1 8 (2.45%) LDAP
1 8 (2.45%) OAuth
1 8 (2.45%) OpenID
1 8 (2.45%) REST
1 8 (2.45%) SAML
1 8 (2.45%) SOAP
2 2 (0.61%) 802.1X
2 2 (0.61%) Akka
2 2 (0.61%) LangChain
2 2 (0.61%) LangGraph
3 1 (0.31%) Kafka
3 1 (0.31%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.52%) Management Information System
2 10 (3.07%) Cyber Threat
3 9 (2.76%) SCADA
4 8 (2.45%) Cyberattack
5 5 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.23%) Virtual Team
7 3 (0.92%) CCTV
7 3 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.61%) BYOD
8 2 (0.61%) Client/Server
8 2 (0.61%) Data Centre
8 2 (0.61%) IoT
8 2 (0.61%) Over-the-Top Content
8 2 (0.61%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.61%) Verilog
8 2 (0.61%) VHDL
8 2 (0.61%) Video\Live Streaming
9 1 (0.31%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.31%) Embedded Systems
9 1 (0.31%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 12 (3.68%) Linux
2 9 (2.76%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.61%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (34.36%) Systems Engineering
2 39 (11.96%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 36 (11.04%) Requirements Management
4 35 (10.74%) Validation
5 29 (8.90%) Agile
6 28 (8.59%) Cybersecurity
7 27 (8.28%) Verification and Validation
8 25 (7.67%) SysML
9 22 (6.75%) Coaching
9 22 (6.75%) Project Planning
10 21 (6.44%) Systems Thinking
11 19 (5.83%) Software Engineering
12 17 (5.21%) Mentoring
13 16 (4.91%) Mathematics
13 16 (4.91%) Physics
14 14 (4.29%) AI
14 14 (4.29%) Customer Requirements
14 14 (4.29%) Information Assurance
14 14 (4.29%) Machine Learning
14 14 (4.29%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 14 (4.29%) MATLAB
2 9 (2.76%) PowerShell
3 8 (2.45%) Bash
3 8 (2.45%) T-SQL
4 7 (2.15%) Java
5 6 (1.84%) Python
6 5 (1.53%) SQL
7 3 (0.92%) C++
7 3 (0.92%) Scala
8 2 (0.61%) C
8 2 (0.61%) Rust
9 1 (0.31%) C#
Qualifications
1 88 (26.99%) BPSS Clearance
2 55 (16.87%) Degree
3 16 (4.91%) HNC
4 13 (3.99%) HND
5 8 (2.45%) Chartered Engineer
6 3 (0.92%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.31%) PhD
8 1 (0.31%) SC Cleared
8 1 (0.31%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (7.06%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 8 (2.45%) NCSC
2 8 (2.45%) NIST
3 4 (1.23%) IEC 61508
3 4 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 2 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 8 (2.45%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.61%) Docker
3 2 (0.61%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.61%) KVM
4 1 (0.31%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (3.37%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.61%) BMC PATROL
3 1 (0.31%) Ansible
Vendors
1 18 (5.52%) Siemens
2 9 (2.76%) NVIDIA
3 7 (2.15%) Microsoft
4 5 (1.53%) IBM
4 5 (1.53%) VMware
5 4 (1.23%) Allen-Bradley
6 2 (0.61%) Foundry
6 2 (0.61%) Google
6 2 (0.61%) Ruckus Wireless