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 22 September 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 322 483 414
Rank change year-on-year +161 -69 -23
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 643 196 429
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.55% 0.40% 0.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.59% 0.45% 0.59%
Number of salaries quoted 373 108 254
10th Percentile £47,750 £46,250 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,875 £49,994
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -6.98%
75th Percentile £65,000 £62,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £84,000 £75,000 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% -4.17% -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 108,269 43,856 72,591
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.18% 89.61% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 74,176 25,746 43,293
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £74,258 £74,100
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 22 September 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 22 September 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 +137 586 £60,000 +9.09% 495
UK excluding London +117 565 £60,000 +4.35% 314
South East +116 266 £56,000 -6.67% 100
South West +8 120 £65,000 +20.82% 47
North of England -50 69 £51,772 -5.51% 48
Work from Home -2 66 £57,500 +17.88% 150
London -33 50 £100,000 +33.33% 179
East of England +13 49 £60,000 -31.43% 43
North West -54 33 £55,000 +0.38% 22
Midlands -36 31 £60,000 +9.09% 27
Scotland - 28 £55,000 - 44
Yorkshire -22 24 £50,000 +29.87% 19
East Midlands -17 18 £60,000 +46.34% 3
West Midlands -51 13 £50,000 -9.09% 24
North East - 12 £47,500 - 7
Wales -74 1 £66,300 +6.94% 6
Northern Ireland -81 1 - - 3

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

For the 6 months to 22 September 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.

1 141 (21.93%) Systems Engineering
2 82 (12.75%) Degree
3 74 (11.51%) BPSS Clearance
4 59 (9.18%) Technical Leadership
5 48 (7.47%) Software Engineering
6 44 (6.84%) Requirements Management
7 39 (6.07%) Python
8 37 (5.75%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
8 37 (5.75%) Rational DOORS
9 36 (5.60%) Problem-Solving
10 34 (5.29%) Physics
11 33 (5.13%) Agile
12 32 (4.98%) AI
12 32 (4.98%) Azure
13 31 (4.82%) MATLAB
13 31 (4.82%) Systems Thinking
14 30 (4.67%) Siemens
15 28 (4.35%) Mathematics
15 28 (4.35%) SysML
16 27 (4.20%) Customer Requirements
17 26 (4.04%) Validation
18 25 (3.89%) Chartered Engineer
18 25 (3.89%) Data Pipeline
19 24 (3.73%) SQL
20 23 (3.58%) Continuous Improvement
21 21 (3.27%) AWS
21 21 (3.27%) Change Management
21 21 (3.27%) Coaching
21 21 (3.27%) Docker
21 21 (3.27%) Microsoft

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 15 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (0.62%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.47%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.47%) WinCC
Applications
1 20 (3.11%) Simulink
2 16 (2.49%) Lightworks
3 12 (1.87%) CATIA
4 8 (1.24%) Chatbot
5 6 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
5 6 (0.93%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 32 (4.98%) Azure
2 21 (3.27%) AWS
3 18 (2.80%) GCP
4 9 (1.40%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (1.24%) Power Platform
6 7 (1.09%) OneDrive
7 5 (0.78%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (0.78%) SaaS
8 4 (0.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 4 (0.62%) dbt
8 4 (0.62%) Snowflake
9 3 (0.47%) Entra ID
10 2 (0.31%) Azure AKS
10 2 (0.31%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 2 (0.31%) Azure Key Vault
10 2 (0.31%) Azure Service Bus
10 2 (0.31%) Cloudflare
10 2 (0.31%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (0.31%) Power Automate
10 2 (0.31%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.87%) DNS
2 11 (1.71%) Wireless
3 10 (1.56%) Intrusion Detection
4 7 (1.09%) DHCP
5 5 (0.78%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.62%) Firewall
6 4 (0.62%) LAN
6 4 (0.62%) WAN
7 3 (0.47%) Modbus
7 3 (0.47%) Profibus
7 3 (0.47%) SSL
8 2 (0.31%) 3GPP
8 2 (0.31%) 5G
8 2 (0.31%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.31%) HTTP
8 2 (0.31%) Internet
8 2 (0.31%) MQTT
8 2 (0.31%) Network Security
8 2 (0.31%) RS-422
8 2 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.02%) NoSQL
2 11 (1.71%) SQL Server
3 6 (0.93%) Power BI
4 4 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
4 4 (0.62%) BigQuery
4 4 (0.62%) Data Lake
4 4 (0.62%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.62%) Looker
4 4 (0.62%) Milvus
4 4 (0.62%) Snowflake Schema
4 4 (0.62%) Tableau
5 3 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.31%) Hadoop
6 2 (0.31%) Redis
6 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.16%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 37 (5.75%) Rational DOORS
2 10 (1.56%) JIRA
3 9 (1.40%) LabVIEW
4 4 (0.62%) Apache Continuum
4 4 (0.62%) MLflow
5 2 (0.31%) NUnit
6 1 (0.16%) Git
6 1 (0.16%) Subversion
General
1 135 (21.00%) Aerospace
2 78 (12.13%) Finance
3 38 (5.91%) Social Skills
4 29 (4.51%) Electronics
4 29 (4.51%) Military
5 28 (4.35%) Analytical Skills
6 24 (3.73%) Aviation
7 15 (2.33%) Avionics
7 15 (2.33%) Manufacturing
8 13 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.71%) Retail
11 9 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.09%) Legal
13 6 (0.93%) Telecoms
14 5 (0.78%) Local Government
15 4 (0.62%) Law
15 4 (0.62%) Public Sector
16 3 (0.47%) Digital Health
17 2 (0.31%) Aeronautics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.87%) Node.js
2 10 (1.56%) Next.js
3 6 (0.93%) .NET
4 5 (0.78%) PyTorch
4 5 (0.78%) REST
4 5 (0.78%) Terraform
5 4 (0.62%) Kafka
5 4 (0.62%) LangChain
5 4 (0.62%) LlamaIndex
5 4 (0.62%) pgvector
5 4 (0.62%) scikit-learn
5 4 (0.62%) TensorFlow
6 3 (0.47%) React
6 3 (0.47%) WinForms
7 2 (0.31%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.31%) .NET Framework
7 2 (0.31%) gRPC
7 2 (0.31%) MassTransit
7 2 (0.31%) MediatR
7 2 (0.31%) Protocol Buffers
Miscellaneous
1 22 (3.42%) Driving Licence
2 20 (3.11%) Cloud Native
3 19 (2.95%) CCTV
4 13 (2.02%) Data Centre
5 12 (1.87%) SCADA
6 11 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (1.71%) Management Information System
7 10 (1.56%) Robotics
8 9 (1.40%) Fibre Optics
9 8 (1.24%) IoT
10 6 (0.93%) Augmented Reality
10 6 (0.93%) Virtual Reality
11 5 (0.78%) Algorithms
11 5 (0.78%) Clustering
11 5 (0.78%) Cyber Security Posture
11 5 (0.78%) Embedded Systems
11 5 (0.78%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (0.78%) PKI
11 5 (0.78%) Public Cloud
11 5 (0.78%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.33%) Windows
2 11 (1.71%) Windows Server
3 9 (1.40%) Linux
4 3 (0.47%) VMS
5 1 (0.16%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (21.93%) Systems Engineering
2 59 (9.18%) Technical Leadership
3 48 (7.47%) Software Engineering
4 44 (6.84%) Requirements Management
5 37 (5.75%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
6 36 (5.60%) Problem-Solving
7 34 (5.29%) Physics
8 33 (5.13%) Agile
9 32 (4.98%) AI
10 31 (4.82%) Systems Thinking
11 28 (4.35%) Mathematics
11 28 (4.35%) SysML
12 27 (4.20%) Customer Requirements
13 26 (4.04%) Validation
14 25 (3.89%) Data Pipeline
15 23 (3.58%) Continuous Improvement
16 21 (3.27%) Change Management
16 21 (3.27%) Coaching
17 20 (3.11%) Workflow
18 19 (2.95%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 39 (6.07%) Python
2 31 (4.82%) MATLAB
3 24 (3.73%) SQL
4 17 (2.64%) PowerShell
5 6 (0.93%) C#
5 6 (0.93%) C++
6 3 (0.47%) Bash
6 3 (0.47%) Java
6 3 (0.47%) T-SQL
6 3 (0.47%) VB.NET
7 2 (0.31%) C
8 1 (0.16%) R
Qualifications
1 82 (12.75%) Degree
2 74 (11.51%) BPSS Clearance
3 25 (3.89%) Chartered Engineer
4 14 (2.18%) Security Cleared
5 13 (2.02%) Master's Degree
6 11 (1.71%) SC Cleared
7 8 (1.24%) PhD
8 7 (1.09%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.93%) HNC
9 6 (0.93%) HND
10 4 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.47%) DV Cleared
12 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Certification
13 1 (0.16%) Azure Certification
13 1 (0.16%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.16%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 8 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 4 (0.62%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.62%) California Consumer Privacy Act
3 4 (0.62%) GDPR
4 3 (0.47%) IEC 61131
5 1 (0.16%) ARP4754
5 1 (0.16%) ARP4761
5 1 (0.16%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.16%) DO-160
5 1 (0.16%) HAZOP
5 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.16%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 21 (3.27%) Docker
2 13 (2.02%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.93%) vSphere
4 4 (0.62%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.31%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 18 (2.80%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.78%) SCCM
3 4 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.47%) BMC PATROL
4 3 (0.47%) Grafana
5 2 (0.31%) Ansible
6 1 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.16%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.16%) Graylog
6 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 1 (0.16%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 30 (4.67%) Siemens
2 21 (3.27%) Microsoft
3 14 (2.18%) Cisco
3 14 (2.18%) IBM
4 12 (1.87%) OpenAI
5 10 (1.56%) Rockwell
6 8 (1.24%) Google
7 7 (1.09%) Allen-Bradley
7 7 (1.09%) Aruba
7 7 (1.09%) AVEVA
7 7 (1.09%) Wonderware
8 6 (0.93%) Databricks
8 6 (0.93%) VMware
9 5 (0.78%) Dell
9 5 (0.78%) ServiceNow
10 4 (0.62%) Cloudera
11 2 (0.31%) Dynatrace
11 2 (0.31%) iManage
11 2 (0.31%) Palo Alto
11 2 (0.31%) Qualys