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 June 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 324 470 447
Rank change year-on-year +146 -23 +158
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 528 203 510
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.46% 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 0.52% 0.52%
Number of salaries quoted 290 144 366
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,683 £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% -4.00%
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 £58,250
% change year-on-year +9.50% -5.93% +5.91%

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 86,819 39,086 97,392
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.71% 89.49% 94.81%
Number of salaries quoted 58,219 21,927 70,884
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £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 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,550 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.09% +1.10% -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 4 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 4 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 +141 490 £60,000 +9.50% 142
UK excluding London +116 457 £60,000 +9.50% 103
South East +84 162 £60,000 - 43
South West +8 96 £60,000 +14.07% 15
Midlands +14 65 £60,000 +9.09% 11
North of England -56 65 £55,000 +9.88% 13
London +18 60 £82,500 +8.55% 43
West Midlands +2 42 £50,000 - 8
East of England +10 41 £60,000 -29.41% 22
Work from Home +19 40 £50,000 -8.75% 32
North West -30 40 £55,000 +9.88% 6
Scotland +31 25 £49,000 -34.98% 4
East Midlands -7 23 £65,000 +18.18% 3
Yorkshire -32 18 £50,861 +5.89%
North East - 7 - - 7
Wales -36 3 £66,300 +6.94%

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

For the 6 months to 4 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.

1 168 (31.82%) Systems Engineering
2 107 (20.27%) BPSS Clearance
3 69 (13.07%) Degree
4 54 (10.23%) Requirements Management
5 46 (8.71%) Azure
6 43 (8.14%) Technical Leadership
7 42 (7.95%) AI
8 41 (7.77%) Rational DOORS
9 40 (7.58%) Agile
10 37 (7.01%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
10 37 (7.01%) Validation
11 36 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
12 35 (6.63%) Machine Learning
12 35 (6.63%) Python
13 34 (6.44%) Siemens
13 34 (6.44%) SysML
13 34 (6.44%) Systems Thinking
14 32 (6.06%) ISO/IEC 15288
14 32 (6.06%) Software Engineering
15 31 (5.87%) AWS
15 31 (5.87%) SQL
16 30 (5.68%) Mentoring
17 29 (5.49%) Analytics
17 29 (5.49%) GCP
18 28 (5.30%) Problem-Solving
18 28 (5.30%) Verification and Validation
19 26 (4.92%) Generative AI
19 26 (4.92%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
19 26 (4.92%) Semantic Search
20 25 (4.73%) Coaching

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 (2.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.76%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.57%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.57%) WinCC
Applications
1 19 (3.60%) Simulink
2 12 (2.27%) CATIA
3 10 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.95%) Lightworks
5 3 (0.57%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 46 (8.71%) Azure
2 31 (5.87%) AWS
3 29 (5.49%) GCP
4 25 (4.73%) Power Platform
5 24 (4.55%) dbt
6 23 (4.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 23 (4.36%) Snowflake
7 10 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (1.70%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.52%) Google Workspace
10 3 (0.57%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (0.57%) OneDrive
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%) SaaS
11 2 (0.38%) Vertex AI
12 1 (0.19%) Mimecast
12 1 (0.19%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (3.22%) Broadband
2 10 (1.89%) 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 (4.73%) 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%) 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%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.19%) KDB
5 1 (0.19%) Metadata
5 1 (0.19%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 41 (7.77%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (4.36%) MLflow
3 11 (2.08%) JIRA
4 6 (1.14%) Apache Continuum
5 3 (0.57%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.38%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.19%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 72 (13.64%) Aerospace
2 39 (7.39%) Finance
3 30 (5.68%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (5.11%) Electronics
5 21 (3.98%) Military
5 21 (3.98%) Social Skills
6 17 (3.22%) Manufacturing
7 11 (2.08%) Avionics
8 10 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
9 9 (1.70%) Games
9 9 (1.70%) Legal
10 6 (1.14%) Retail
11 4 (0.76%) Aviation
11 4 (0.76%) Digital Health
11 4 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.57%) Local Government
12 3 (0.57%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.38%) Aeronautics
13 2 (0.38%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.73%) Kafka
1 25 (4.73%) LangChain
2 23 (4.36%) LlamaIndex
2 23 (4.36%) pgvector
2 23 (4.36%) PyTorch
2 23 (4.36%) scikit-learn
2 23 (4.36%) TensorFlow
3 9 (1.70%) REST
4 8 (1.52%) GraphQL
4 8 (1.52%) LDAP
4 8 (1.52%) OAuth
4 8 (1.52%) OpenID
4 8 (1.52%) SAML
4 8 (1.52%) SOAP
5 2 (0.38%) Akka
5 2 (0.38%) LangGraph
6 1 (0.19%) gRPC
6 1 (0.19%) Middleware
6 1 (0.19%) Model Context Protocol
6 1 (0.19%) React
Miscellaneous
1 26 (4.92%) Public Cloud
2 25 (4.73%) Driving Licence
2 25 (4.73%) Management Information System
3 24 (4.55%) Cloud Native
4 23 (4.36%) Clustering
5 17 (3.22%) CCTV
5 17 (3.22%) SCADA
6 8 (1.52%) Cyber Threat
6 8 (1.52%) Cyberattack
6 8 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (1.14%) Renewable Energy
8 5 (0.95%) Embedded Systems
9 4 (0.76%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.57%) Cyber Security Posture
10 3 (0.57%) IoT
10 3 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.57%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.38%) Over-the-Top Content
11 2 (0.38%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 17 (3.22%) Linux
2 7 (1.33%) Ubuntu
2 7 (1.33%) Windows
3 4 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.57%) VMS
5 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (31.82%) Systems Engineering
2 54 (10.23%) Requirements Management
3 43 (8.14%) Technical Leadership
4 42 (7.95%) AI
5 40 (7.58%) Agile
6 37 (7.01%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
6 37 (7.01%) Validation
7 36 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
8 35 (6.63%) Machine Learning
9 34 (6.44%) SysML
9 34 (6.44%) Systems Thinking
10 32 (6.06%) Software Engineering
11 30 (5.68%) Mentoring
12 29 (5.49%) Analytics
13 28 (5.30%) Problem-Solving
13 28 (5.30%) Verification and Validation
14 26 (4.92%) Generative AI
14 26 (4.92%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
14 26 (4.92%) Semantic Search
15 25 (4.73%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 35 (6.63%) Python
2 31 (5.87%) SQL
3 24 (4.55%) MATLAB
4 13 (2.46%) PowerShell
5 9 (1.70%) Bash
6 8 (1.52%) T-SQL
7 4 (0.76%) Java
8 3 (0.57%) C++
8 3 (0.57%) Scala
9 2 (0.38%) C
9 2 (0.38%) C#
9 2 (0.38%) Rust
10 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 107 (20.27%) BPSS Clearance
2 69 (13.07%) Degree
3 17 (3.22%) Chartered Engineer
4 15 (2.84%) HNC
5 11 (2.08%) 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 32 (6.06%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 23 (4.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
2 23 (4.36%) GDPR
3 10 (1.89%) 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%) DO-160
9 1 (0.19%) DO-254
System Software
1 13 (2.46%) 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 10 (1.89%) 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 34 (6.44%) Siemens
2 23 (4.36%) Cloudera
2 23 (4.36%) Databricks
2 23 (4.36%) Dell
3 18 (3.41%) IBM
4 16 (3.03%) Microsoft
5 11 (2.08%) Allen-Bradley
5 11 (2.08%) Cisco
5 11 (2.08%) Rockwell
6 7 (1.33%) AVEVA
6 7 (1.33%) NVIDIA
6 7 (1.33%) Wonderware
7 5 (0.95%) VMware
8 3 (0.57%) Aruba
9 2 (0.38%) Foundry
9 2 (0.38%) Google
9 2 (0.38%) iManage
9 2 (0.38%) Intapp
10 1 (0.19%) Arista
10 1 (0.19%) Mellanox