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 4 October 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 318 490 427
Rank change year-on-year +172 -63 -55
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 675 184 399
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.37% 0.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.62% 0.41% 0.56%
Number of salaries quoted 396 97 230
10th Percentile £48,125 £46,250 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £49,092
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £65,325 £62,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £77,000 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -4.00%

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 109,737 44,641 70,718
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.84% 89.74% 95.32%
Number of salaries quoted 74,771 25,775 40,993
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £35,750 £40,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,396 £54,987 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.20% -0.02% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,500 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% -6.50% -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 4 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Systems Engineer in the UK

Senior Systems Engineer
Top 17 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 4 October 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 +153 615 £60,000 +9.09% 628
UK excluding London +154 600 £60,000 +9.09% 476
South East +127 290 £55,000 -8.33% 124
South West +23 125 £65,000 +18.18% 53
North of England -37 72 £55,000 +0.38% 69
Work from Home 0 65 £60,000 +26.32% 287
East of England +11 53 £62,000 -29.14% 73
London -33 47 £100,000 +25.00% 192
North West -30 35 £57,500 +4.94% 39
Scotland - 31 £55,000 - 78
Midlands -42 27 £60,000 +9.09% 48
Yorkshire -22 23 £50,000 +29.87% 18
East Midlands -36 17 £60,000 +8.11% 11
North East - 14 £55,000 - 12
West Midlands -46 10 £50,000 -9.09% 37
Wales -72 1 £66,300 +6.94% 27
Northern Ireland -80 1 - - 9

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

For the 6 months to 4 October 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.

1 146 (21.63%) Systems Engineering
2 84 (12.44%) Degree
3 75 (11.11%) BPSS Clearance
4 62 (9.19%) Technical Leadership
5 48 (7.11%) Software Engineering
6 42 (6.22%) Requirements Management
7 37 (5.48%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
7 37 (5.48%) Rational DOORS
8 35 (5.19%) Agile
8 35 (5.19%) Physics
9 34 (5.04%) Problem-Solving
9 34 (5.04%) Python
10 32 (4.74%) MATLAB
11 31 (4.59%) Customer Requirements
11 31 (4.59%) Siemens
11 31 (4.59%) Systems Thinking
12 30 (4.44%) Continuous Improvement
12 30 (4.44%) SysML
13 29 (4.30%) Mathematics
14 28 (4.15%) AI
14 28 (4.15%) Azure
14 28 (4.15%) Chartered Engineer
14 28 (4.15%) Validation
15 25 (3.70%) Microsoft
16 23 (3.41%) Change Management
17 22 (3.26%) Coaching
17 22 (3.26%) Simulink
18 21 (3.11%) Data Pipeline
19 20 (2.96%) DevOps
19 20 (2.96%) Docker

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 14 (2.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (1.19%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.44%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.44%) WinCC
4 1 (0.15%) Confluence
Applications
1 22 (3.26%) Simulink
2 18 (2.67%) Lightworks
3 12 (1.78%) CATIA
4 8 (1.19%) Chatbot
5 6 (0.89%) Windchill
6 5 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 28 (4.15%) Azure
2 17 (2.52%) AWS
3 14 (2.07%) GCP
4 10 (1.48%) Microsoft 365
5 7 (1.04%) OneDrive
6 5 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (0.44%) Entra ID
7 3 (0.44%) SaaS
8 2 (0.30%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (0.30%) Azure AKS
8 2 (0.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 2 (0.30%) Azure Key Vault
8 2 (0.30%) Azure Service Bus
8 2 (0.30%) Cloudflare
8 2 (0.30%) Datadog
8 2 (0.30%) GitHub
8 2 (0.30%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.30%) IaaS
8 2 (0.30%) Power Automate
8 2 (0.30%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.22%) Wireless
2 12 (1.78%) DNS
3 10 (1.48%) Intrusion Detection
4 7 (1.04%) DHCP
5 5 (0.74%) Firewall
5 5 (0.74%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.59%) LAN
6 4 (0.59%) WAN
7 3 (0.44%) Modbus
7 3 (0.44%) Profibus
7 3 (0.44%) SSL
8 2 (0.30%) 3GPP
8 2 (0.30%) 5G
8 2 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.30%) HTTP
8 2 (0.30%) Internet
8 2 (0.30%) MQTT
8 2 (0.30%) Network Security
8 2 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.15%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.78%) NoSQL
2 10 (1.48%) SQL Server
3 3 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.30%) Hadoop
4 2 (0.30%) Redis
5 1 (0.15%) Apache Arrow
5 1 (0.15%) Apache Iceberg
5 1 (0.15%) GIS
5 1 (0.15%) KDB
5 1 (0.15%) Metadata
5 1 (0.15%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 37 (5.48%) Rational DOORS
2 10 (1.48%) JIRA
3 9 (1.33%) LabVIEW
4 4 (0.59%) Apache Continuum
5 2 (0.30%) NUnit
6 1 (0.15%) Git
6 1 (0.15%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.15%) Subversion
General
1 138 (20.44%) Aerospace
2 79 (11.70%) Finance
3 38 (5.63%) Social Skills
4 34 (5.04%) Electronics
5 32 (4.74%) Military
6 25 (3.70%) Aviation
7 22 (3.26%) Analytical Skills
8 15 (2.22%) Manufacturing
9 13 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
10 12 (1.78%) Avionics
10 12 (1.78%) Retail
11 10 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.33%) Telecoms
13 5 (0.74%) Local Government
14 4 (0.59%) Public Sector
15 3 (0.44%) Law
15 3 (0.44%) Legal
16 2 (0.30%) Automotive
16 2 (0.30%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.78%) Node.js
2 10 (1.48%) Next.js
3 5 (0.74%) .NET
3 5 (0.74%) REST
3 5 (0.74%) Terraform
4 3 (0.44%) React
4 3 (0.44%) WinForms
5 2 (0.30%) .NET Core
5 2 (0.30%) .NET Framework
5 2 (0.30%) Entity Framework
5 2 (0.30%) gRPC
5 2 (0.30%) JSON
5 2 (0.30%) MassTransit
5 2 (0.30%) MediatR
5 2 (0.30%) Protocol Buffers
5 2 (0.30%) RESTful
6 1 (0.15%) Ajax
6 1 (0.15%) FFmpeg
6 1 (0.15%) PyTorch
6 1 (0.15%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 19 (2.81%) Driving Licence
2 17 (2.52%) Cloud Native
3 16 (2.37%) CCTV
4 15 (2.22%) Data Centre
5 12 (1.78%) Fibre Optics
5 12 (1.78%) SCADA
6 11 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
7 10 (1.48%) Management Information System
7 10 (1.48%) Robotics
8 8 (1.19%) IoT
9 7 (1.04%) Embedded Systems
10 6 (0.89%) Algorithms
10 6 (0.89%) Augmented Reality
10 6 (0.89%) PKI
10 6 (0.89%) Virtual Reality
11 5 (0.74%) Cyber Security Posture
11 5 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (0.74%) Renewable Energy
12 4 (0.59%) Self-Motivation
13 3 (0.44%) Analogue Electronics
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.22%) Windows
2 14 (2.07%) Linux
3 11 (1.63%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.44%) VMS
5 1 (0.15%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (21.63%) Systems Engineering
2 62 (9.19%) Technical Leadership
3 48 (7.11%) Software Engineering
4 42 (6.22%) Requirements Management
5 37 (5.48%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
6 35 (5.19%) Agile
6 35 (5.19%) Physics
7 34 (5.04%) Problem-Solving
8 31 (4.59%) Customer Requirements
8 31 (4.59%) Systems Thinking
9 30 (4.44%) Continuous Improvement
9 30 (4.44%) SysML
10 29 (4.30%) Mathematics
11 28 (4.15%) AI
11 28 (4.15%) Validation
12 23 (3.41%) Change Management
13 22 (3.26%) Coaching
14 21 (3.11%) Data Pipeline
15 20 (2.96%) DevOps
16 19 (2.81%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 34 (5.04%) Python
2 32 (4.74%) MATLAB
3 18 (2.67%) SQL
4 17 (2.52%) PowerShell
5 6 (0.89%) C++
6 5 (0.74%) C#
7 3 (0.44%) Bash
7 3 (0.44%) Java
7 3 (0.44%) T-SQL
7 3 (0.44%) VB.NET
8 2 (0.30%) C
Qualifications
1 84 (12.44%) Degree
2 75 (11.11%) BPSS Clearance
3 28 (4.15%) Chartered Engineer
4 15 (2.22%) Security Cleared
5 12 (1.78%) Master's Degree
6 10 (1.48%) SC Cleared
7 8 (1.19%) DBS Check
7 8 (1.19%) PhD
8 6 (0.89%) HNC
8 6 (0.89%) HND
9 3 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.44%) DV Cleared
10 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.15%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.15%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 8 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 4 (0.59%) Accessibility
4 3 (0.44%) IEC 61131
5 2 (0.30%) HAZOP
6 1 (0.15%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.15%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 20 (2.96%) Docker
2 14 (2.07%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.89%) vSphere
4 5 (0.74%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.30%) Firmware
7 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 18 (2.67%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.74%) SCCM
3 4 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.44%) BMC PATROL
4 3 (0.44%) Grafana
5 2 (0.30%) Ansible
5 2 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
5 2 (0.30%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
5 2 (0.30%) SCOM
6 1 (0.15%) Graylog
6 1 (0.15%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 31 (4.59%) Siemens
2 25 (3.70%) Microsoft
3 14 (2.07%) Cisco
3 14 (2.07%) IBM
4 12 (1.78%) OpenAI
5 10 (1.48%) Google
5 10 (1.48%) Rockwell
6 7 (1.04%) Allen-Bradley
6 7 (1.04%) Aruba
6 7 (1.04%) AVEVA
6 7 (1.04%) Wonderware
7 6 (0.89%) VMware
8 5 (0.74%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.30%) Databricks
9 2 (0.30%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.30%) EMC
9 2 (0.30%) Palo Alto
9 2 (0.30%) Qualys
10 1 (0.15%) Fortinet
10 1 (0.15%) SonicWALL