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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 331 465 419
Rank change year-on-year +134 -46 -20
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 587 220 473
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.55% 0.44% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.58% 0.49% 0.60%
Number of salaries quoted 311 136 302
10th Percentile £47,500 £47,575 £45,000
25th Percentile £51,747 £50,000 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £65,000 £62,000 £65,188
90th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -6.25%

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 100,959 44,891 79,128
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.99% 89.94% 95.07%
Number of salaries quoted 69,008 26,549 52,423
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £72,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,679 £47,863 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.06% -4.27% -6.54%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 +126 545 £60,000 +9.09% 176
UK excluding London +109 509 £60,000 +9.09% 160
South East +100 221 £60,000 - 51
South West +5 108 £65,000 +23.57% 36
North of England -26 74 £51,772 -5.51% 24
Work from Home +12 62 £56,000 +13.87% 48
London -6 53 £95,000 +35.71% 39
East of England +11 47 £62,500 -26.47% 23
Midlands -20 40 £60,000 +9.09% 6
North West -32 38 £55,000 +0.38% 18
Yorkshire -4 24 £50,000 +4.10% 9
East Midlands -6 20 £60,000 +46.34% 2
West Midlands -22 20 £50,000 -9.09% 4
Scotland - 17 £49,050 - 18
North East - 12 £47,500 - 1
Wales -57 2 £66,300 +6.94% 2

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

For the 6 months to 19 August 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.

1 156 (26.58%) Systems Engineering
2 86 (14.65%) BPSS Clearance
3 81 (13.80%) Degree
4 60 (10.22%) Technical Leadership
5 56 (9.54%) Python
6 49 (8.35%) Azure
6 49 (8.35%) Software Engineering
7 48 (8.18%) Requirements Management
8 47 (8.01%) AI
9 43 (7.33%) Data Pipeline
10 40 (6.81%) SQL
11 39 (6.64%) Rational DOORS
12 38 (6.47%) AWS
12 38 (6.47%) Problem-Solving
13 33 (5.62%) Agile
13 33 (5.62%) GCP
14 31 (5.28%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
15 30 (5.11%) MATLAB
15 30 (5.11%) Physics
15 30 (5.11%) Siemens
16 29 (4.94%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 29 (4.94%) Semantic Search
16 29 (4.94%) Storytelling
17 28 (4.77%) Machine Learning
17 28 (4.77%) Validation
18 27 (4.60%) Power Platform
19 26 (4.43%) Data Management
19 26 (4.43%) Systems Thinking
20 25 (4.26%) Analytics
20 25 (4.26%) Chartered Engineer

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 23 (3.92%) Apache Airflow
1 23 (3.92%) Apache Spark
2 15 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.36%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.51%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.51%) WinCC
Applications
1 17 (2.90%) Simulink
2 14 (2.39%) CATIA
2 14 (2.39%) Lightworks
3 8 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (1.02%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.68%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 49 (8.35%) Azure
2 38 (6.47%) AWS
3 33 (5.62%) GCP
4 27 (4.60%) Power Platform
5 23 (3.92%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 23 (3.92%) dbt
5 23 (3.92%) Snowflake
6 12 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (1.19%) OneDrive
8 5 (0.85%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (0.85%) SaaS
9 3 (0.51%) Entra ID
10 2 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (0.34%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (0.34%) Cloudflare
10 2 (0.34%) Datadog
10 2 (0.34%) GitHub
10 2 (0.34%) IaaS
10 2 (0.34%) PowerApps
10 2 (0.34%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.04%) DNS
2 10 (1.70%) Intrusion Detection
3 7 (1.19%) DHCP
4 6 (1.02%) Wireless
5 5 (0.85%) Firewall
6 4 (0.68%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.51%) Broadband
7 3 (0.51%) LAN
7 3 (0.51%) Modbus
7 3 (0.51%) Profibus
7 3 (0.51%) SSL
7 3 (0.51%) WAN
8 2 (0.34%) 3GPP
8 2 (0.34%) 5G
8 2 (0.34%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.34%) HTTP
8 2 (0.34%) Internet
8 2 (0.34%) MQTT
8 2 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.17%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.26%) Power BI
2 23 (3.92%) Amazon Redshift
2 23 (3.92%) BigQuery
2 23 (3.92%) Data Lake
2 23 (3.92%) Data Warehouse
2 23 (3.92%) Elasticsearch
2 23 (3.92%) Looker
2 23 (3.92%) Snowflake Schema
2 23 (3.92%) Tableau
3 11 (1.87%) SQL Server
4 9 (1.53%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.51%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.34%) Hadoop
6 2 (0.34%) Redis
6 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.17%) Metadata
7 1 (0.17%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 39 (6.64%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (3.92%) MLflow
3 11 (1.87%) JIRA
4 8 (1.36%) LabVIEW
5 6 (1.02%) Apache Continuum
6 2 (0.34%) NUnit
7 1 (0.17%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.17%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 123 (20.95%) Aerospace
2 71 (12.10%) Finance
3 46 (7.84%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (5.96%) Social Skills
5 31 (5.28%) Electronics
6 20 (3.41%) Military
7 18 (3.07%) Manufacturing
8 15 (2.56%) Aviation
8 15 (2.56%) Avionics
9 13 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
9 13 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.87%) Legal
11 9 (1.53%) Retail
12 8 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.85%) Local Government
14 4 (0.68%) Digital Health
14 4 (0.68%) Law
14 4 (0.68%) Telecoms
15 3 (0.51%) Public Sector
16 2 (0.34%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (4.09%) Kafka
1 24 (4.09%) PyTorch
2 23 (3.92%) LangChain
2 23 (3.92%) LlamaIndex
2 23 (3.92%) pgvector
2 23 (3.92%) scikit-learn
2 23 (3.92%) TensorFlow
3 8 (1.36%) Next.js
3 8 (1.36%) Node.js
4 6 (1.02%) .NET
4 6 (1.02%) REST
5 4 (0.68%) React
6 3 (0.51%) WinForms
7 2 (0.34%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.34%) .NET Framework
7 2 (0.34%) Entity Framework
7 2 (0.34%) gRPC
7 2 (0.34%) JSON
7 2 (0.34%) Protocol Buffers
7 2 (0.34%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 38 (6.47%) Cloud Native
2 25 (4.26%) Driving Licence
3 24 (4.09%) Clustering
3 24 (4.09%) Public Cloud
4 18 (3.07%) CCTV
5 17 (2.90%) Management Information System
6 15 (2.56%) SCADA
7 11 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
8 9 (1.53%) Robotics
9 8 (1.36%) Fibre Optics
10 6 (1.02%) Renewable Energy
11 5 (0.85%) Algorithms
11 5 (0.85%) Cyber Security Posture
11 5 (0.85%) IoT
11 5 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (0.85%) PKI
11 5 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.68%) Data Centre
12 4 (0.68%) Embedded Systems
13 3 (0.51%) Augmented Reality
Operating Systems
1 16 (2.73%) Windows
2 13 (2.21%) Linux
3 11 (1.87%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.51%) VMS
5 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.17%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (26.58%) Systems Engineering
2 60 (10.22%) Technical Leadership
3 49 (8.35%) Software Engineering
4 48 (8.18%) Requirements Management
5 47 (8.01%) AI
6 43 (7.33%) Data Pipeline
7 38 (6.47%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (5.62%) Agile
9 31 (5.28%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
10 30 (5.11%) Physics
11 29 (4.94%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
11 29 (4.94%) Semantic Search
11 29 (4.94%) Storytelling
12 28 (4.77%) Machine Learning
12 28 (4.77%) Validation
13 26 (4.43%) Data Management
13 26 (4.43%) Systems Thinking
14 25 (4.26%) Analytics
14 25 (4.26%) Data Engineering
14 25 (4.26%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 56 (9.54%) Python
2 40 (6.81%) SQL
3 30 (5.11%) MATLAB
4 15 (2.56%) PowerShell
5 6 (1.02%) C#
5 6 (1.02%) C++
6 4 (0.68%) Java
7 3 (0.51%) Bash
7 3 (0.51%) T-SQL
7 3 (0.51%) VB.NET
8 2 (0.34%) C
9 1 (0.17%) R
Qualifications
1 86 (14.65%) BPSS Clearance
2 81 (13.80%) Degree
3 25 (4.26%) Chartered Engineer
4 13 (2.21%) Master's Degree
5 11 (1.87%) Security Cleared
6 10 (1.70%) HNC
6 10 (1.70%) PhD
7 9 (1.53%) SC Cleared
8 8 (1.36%) HND
9 7 (1.19%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.34%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.17%) APMP
12 1 (0.17%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (3.92%) California Consumer Privacy Act
1 23 (3.92%) GDPR
2 20 (3.41%) ISO/IEC 15288
3 10 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 3 (0.51%) Accessibility
4 3 (0.51%) IEC 61131
4 3 (0.51%) PMO
5 2 (0.34%) IEC 61508
6 1 (0.17%) ARP4754
6 1 (0.17%) ARP4761
6 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.17%) DO-160
6 1 (0.17%) DO-254
6 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 16 (2.73%) Docker
2 13 (2.21%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.02%) vSphere
4 5 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.34%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 15 (2.56%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.85%) SCCM
2 5 (0.85%) Terraform
3 4 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.51%) Grafana
5 2 (0.34%) Ansible
6 1 (0.17%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.17%) Graylog
6 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.17%) SCOM
Vendors
1 30 (5.11%) Siemens
2 25 (4.26%) Databricks
3 23 (3.92%) Cloudera
3 23 (3.92%) Dell
4 22 (3.75%) Microsoft
5 19 (3.24%) IBM
6 13 (2.21%) Cisco
7 11 (1.87%) Rockwell
8 9 (1.53%) Allen-Bradley
9 8 (1.36%) OpenAI
10 7 (1.19%) Aruba
10 7 (1.19%) AVEVA
10 7 (1.19%) Wonderware
11 5 (0.85%) ServiceNow
11 5 (0.85%) VMware
12 2 (0.34%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.34%) iManage
12 2 (0.34%) Intapp
12 2 (0.34%) Palo Alto
12 2 (0.34%) Qualys