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 10 June 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 321 479 449
Rank change year-on-year +158 -30 +106
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 527 209 535
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.47% 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 0.53% 0.53%
Number of salaries quoted 288 144 375
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,660 £43,239
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,869 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £54,793 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.50% -8.68% -6.25%
75th Percentile £65,000 £62,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £75,360 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £54,793 £59,000
% change year-on-year +9.50% -7.13% -1.67%

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 86,220 39,579 100,813
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.98% 89.52% 94.70%
Number of salaries quoted 58,944 22,377 72,921
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,878 £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 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -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 10 June 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 10 June 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 +126 489 £60,000 +9.50% 82
UK excluding London +127 455 £60,000 +9.50% 75
South East +90 161 £60,000 - 33
South West +7 96 £60,000 +14.07% 15
Midlands +34 64 £60,000 +9.09% 8
North of England -47 64 £53,386 +6.66% 9
London +29 60 £82,500 +8.55% 13
East of England +23 42 £60,000 -29.41% 10
Work from Home +28 41 £50,000 -8.75% 19
West Midlands +15 41 £50,000 -9.09% 4
North West -28 38 £55,000 +9.88% 4
Scotland +37 25 £49,000 -34.98% 5
East Midlands -7 23 £65,000 +18.18% 4
Yorkshire -31 18 £50,861 +5.89%
North East - 8 - - 5
Wales -42 3 £66,300 +6.94%

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

For the 6 months to 10 June 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.

1 164 (31.12%) Systems Engineering
2 103 (19.54%) BPSS Clearance
3 65 (12.33%) Degree
4 52 (9.87%) Requirements Management
5 46 (8.73%) Technical Leadership
6 45 (8.54%) Azure
7 42 (7.97%) AI
8 40 (7.59%) Rational DOORS
9 38 (7.21%) Agile
10 36 (6.83%) Python
10 36 (6.83%) Systems Thinking
11 35 (6.64%) Machine Learning
11 35 (6.64%) Validation
12 34 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
13 33 (6.26%) ISO/IEC 15288
13 33 (6.26%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 32 (6.07%) SQL
15 31 (5.88%) AWS
15 31 (5.88%) Siemens
15 31 (5.88%) Software Engineering
16 30 (5.69%) SysML
17 29 (5.50%) Analytics
17 29 (5.50%) GCP
17 29 (5.50%) Mentoring
17 29 (5.50%) Problem-Solving
18 26 (4.93%) Data Pipeline
18 26 (4.93%) Generative AI
18 26 (4.93%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
18 26 (4.93%) Semantic Search
18 26 (4.93%) Verification and Validation

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 (4.55%) Apache Airflow
1 24 (4.55%) Apache Spark
2 11 (2.09%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.76%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.57%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.57%) WinCC
Applications
1 16 (3.04%) Simulink
2 14 (2.66%) CATIA
3 10 (1.90%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (1.14%) Lightworks
5 3 (0.57%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 45 (8.54%) Azure
2 31 (5.88%) AWS
3 29 (5.50%) GCP
4 25 (4.74%) Power Platform
5 24 (4.55%) dbt
6 23 (4.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 23 (4.36%) Snowflake
7 10 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (1.71%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.52%) Google Workspace
10 3 (0.57%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (0.57%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.57%) SaaS
10 3 (0.57%) Serverless
11 2 (0.38%) Azure Machine Learning
11 2 (0.38%) Copilot Studio
11 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (0.38%) Vertex AI
12 1 (0.19%) Cloud Composer
12 1 (0.19%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 17 (3.23%) Broadband
2 10 (1.90%) Intrusion Detection
3 5 (0.95%) Tactical Data Link
4 4 (0.76%) DHCP
4 4 (0.76%) DNS
5 3 (0.57%) Modbus
5 3 (0.57%) Profibus
6 2 (0.38%) Firewall
6 2 (0.38%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.19%) HTTP
7 1 (0.19%) MQTT
7 1 (0.19%) Multicast
7 1 (0.19%) RS-422
7 1 (0.19%) Software-Defined Radio
7 1 (0.19%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.74%) Power BI
2 24 (4.55%) BigQuery
3 23 (4.36%) Amazon Redshift
3 23 (4.36%) Data Lake
3 23 (4.36%) Data Warehouse
3 23 (4.36%) Elasticsearch
3 23 (4.36%) Looker
3 23 (4.36%) Snowflake Schema
3 23 (4.36%) Tableau
4 2 (0.38%) Metadata
4 2 (0.38%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.38%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 2 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 2 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Arrow
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Iceberg
5 1 (0.19%) KDB
5 1 (0.19%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.19%) Parquet
5 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 40 (7.59%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (4.36%) MLflow
3 12 (2.28%) JIRA
4 7 (1.33%) Apache Continuum
5 3 (0.57%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.38%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.19%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 76 (14.42%) Aerospace
2 41 (7.78%) Finance
3 30 (5.69%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (4.93%) Electronics
5 21 (3.98%) Social Skills
6 17 (3.23%) Manufacturing
6 17 (3.23%) Military
7 11 (2.09%) Avionics
8 10 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
9 9 (1.71%) Legal
10 8 (1.52%) Games
11 6 (1.14%) Retail
12 4 (0.76%) Aviation
12 4 (0.76%) Digital Health
12 4 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.57%) Local Government
13 3 (0.57%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.38%) Aeronautics
14 2 (0.38%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.74%) Kafka
1 25 (4.74%) LangChain
2 24 (4.55%) PyTorch
3 23 (4.36%) LlamaIndex
3 23 (4.36%) pgvector
3 23 (4.36%) scikit-learn
3 23 (4.36%) TensorFlow
4 10 (1.90%) REST
5 8 (1.52%) GraphQL
5 8 (1.52%) LDAP
5 8 (1.52%) OAuth
5 8 (1.52%) OpenID
5 8 (1.52%) SAML
5 8 (1.52%) SOAP
6 2 (0.38%) Akka
6 2 (0.38%) LangGraph
6 2 (0.38%) React
7 1 (0.19%) Middleware
7 1 (0.19%) Model Context Protocol
7 1 (0.19%) Ray
Miscellaneous
1 26 (4.93%) Public Cloud
2 25 (4.74%) Driving Licence
3 23 (4.36%) Cloud Native
3 23 (4.36%) Clustering
3 23 (4.36%) Management Information System
4 17 (3.23%) CCTV
4 17 (3.23%) SCADA
5 8 (1.52%) Cyber Threat
5 8 (1.52%) Cyberattack
5 8 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
5 8 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
6 6 (1.14%) Renewable Energy
7 5 (0.95%) Embedded Systems
8 4 (0.76%) Algorithms
9 3 (0.57%) Cyber Security Posture
9 3 (0.57%) IoT
9 3 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.38%) Over-the-Top Content
10 2 (0.38%) Robotics
10 2 (0.38%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.04%) Linux
2 7 (1.33%) Windows
3 6 (1.14%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.76%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.57%) VMS
6 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (31.12%) Systems Engineering
2 52 (9.87%) Requirements Management
3 46 (8.73%) Technical Leadership
4 42 (7.97%) AI
5 38 (7.21%) Agile
6 36 (6.83%) Systems Thinking
7 35 (6.64%) Machine Learning
7 35 (6.64%) Validation
8 34 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
9 33 (6.26%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
10 31 (5.88%) Software Engineering
11 30 (5.69%) SysML
12 29 (5.50%) Analytics
12 29 (5.50%) Mentoring
12 29 (5.50%) Problem-Solving
13 26 (4.93%) Data Pipeline
13 26 (4.93%) Generative AI
13 26 (4.93%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
13 26 (4.93%) Semantic Search
13 26 (4.93%) Verification and Validation
Programming Languages
1 36 (6.83%) Python
2 32 (6.07%) SQL
3 21 (3.98%) MATLAB
4 13 (2.47%) PowerShell
5 9 (1.71%) Bash
6 8 (1.52%) T-SQL
7 5 (0.95%) Java
8 4 (0.76%) C++
9 3 (0.57%) Scala
10 2 (0.38%) C
10 2 (0.38%) Rust
11 1 (0.19%) C#
11 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 103 (19.54%) BPSS Clearance
2 65 (12.33%) Degree
3 18 (3.42%) Chartered Engineer
4 15 (2.85%) HNC
5 11 (2.09%) HND
6 8 (1.52%) Security Cleared
7 7 (1.33%) Master's Degree
7 7 (1.33%) SC Cleared
8 3 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.57%) DBS Check
8 3 (0.57%) PhD
9 1 (0.19%) APMP
9 1 (0.19%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.19%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (6.26%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 23 (4.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
2 23 (4.36%) GDPR
3 11 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 8 (1.52%) NCSC
4 8 (1.52%) NIST
5 5 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.76%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.57%) IEC 61131
7 3 (0.57%) PMO
8 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 17025
9 1 (0.19%) ARP4754
9 1 (0.19%) ARP4761
9 1 (0.19%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.19%) DO-160
9 1 (0.19%) DO-254
System Software
1 13 (2.47%) Active Directory
2 5 (0.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.76%) Docker
3 4 (0.76%) vSphere
4 2 (0.38%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.38%) KVM
4 2 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 9 (1.71%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.57%) SCCM
3 2 (0.38%) Ansible
3 2 (0.38%) BMC PATROL
3 2 (0.38%) Terraform
4 1 (0.19%) Grafana
4 1 (0.19%) Graylog
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.19%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 31 (5.88%) Siemens
2 23 (4.36%) Cloudera
2 23 (4.36%) Databricks
2 23 (4.36%) Dell
3 20 (3.80%) IBM
4 17 (3.23%) Microsoft
5 11 (2.09%) Allen-Bradley
5 11 (2.09%) Cisco
5 11 (2.09%) Rockwell
6 7 (1.33%) AVEVA
6 7 (1.33%) Wonderware
7 6 (1.14%) NVIDIA
8 5 (0.95%) VMware
9 3 (0.57%) Aruba
10 2 (0.38%) Foundry
10 2 (0.38%) Google
10 2 (0.38%) iManage
10 2 (0.38%) Intapp
11 1 (0.19%) Arista
11 1 (0.19%) Mellanox