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 January 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 433 473 542
Rank change year-on-year +40 +69 +239
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 218 250 178
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.46% 0.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.41% 0.49% 0.35%
Number of salaries quoted 114 126 127
10th Percentile £47,778 £46,250 £47,500
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,869 £51,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,250 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -6.25% +2.13%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,000 £75,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £54,793 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.50% -0.38% -

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 53,448 50,590 50,228
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.53% 92.97% 95.23%
Number of salaries quoted 32,896 26,513 38,772
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,125 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,738 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £59,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +1.69% -1.67%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,261
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +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 4 January 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 January 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 +79 202 £60,000 +9.09% 155
UK excluding London +54 193 £60,000 +9.50% 140
South East +22 63 £55,000 - 60
South West +16 54 £60,000 +4.35% 20
Midlands +34 26 £65,000 +13.04% 24
North of England -11 26 £60,000 +19.87% 11
North West +4 22 £60,000 +19.87% 7
London +51 20 £82,500 +8.55% 52
West Midlands +42 16 £48,608 -2.79% 15
East of England - 13 £60,000 - 16
East Midlands +2 10 £65,000 +8.33% 9
Work from Home +35 9 £75,000 +7.14% 79
Scotland -9 5 £50,500 -12.98% 12
Yorkshire -13 4 - - 2
Wales +7 3 £51,935 +48.38% 1
Northern Ireland - 3 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 4 January 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 83 (38.07%) Systems Engineering
2 67 (30.73%) BPSS Clearance
3 37 (16.97%) Degree
4 31 (14.22%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 26 (11.93%) Requirements Management
6 19 (8.72%) Agile
6 19 (8.72%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 18 (8.26%) Coaching
8 16 (7.34%) Cybersecurity
8 16 (7.34%) HNC
8 16 (7.34%) HND
8 16 (7.34%) Rational DOORS
9 15 (6.88%) Customer Requirements
9 15 (6.88%) Project Planning
9 15 (6.88%) Software Engineering
9 15 (6.88%) SysML
9 15 (6.88%) Validation
10 13 (5.96%) Siemens
10 13 (5.96%) Verification and Validation
11 12 (5.50%) Collaborative Working
12 11 (5.05%) Systems Thinking
13 10 (4.59%) Acceptance Criteria
13 10 (4.59%) Cryptography
13 10 (4.59%) Mathematics
13 10 (4.59%) Physics
13 10 (4.59%) Signal Processing
13 10 (4.59%) Simulink
14 9 (4.13%) Technical Leadership
15 8 (3.67%) AI
15 8 (3.67%) IBM

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 1 (0.46%) Confluence
Applications
1 10 (4.59%) Simulink
2 3 (1.38%) CATIA
3 2 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 6 (2.75%) Azure
2 3 (1.38%) AWS
2 3 (1.38%) Entra ID
2 3 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
2 3 (1.38%) Power Platform
3 2 (0.92%) Google Workspace
4 1 (0.46%) Amazon S3
4 1 (0.46%) Cohesity
4 1 (0.46%) GitHub
4 1 (0.46%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.38%) 5G
1 3 (1.38%) 802.11
1 3 (1.38%) Broadband
1 3 (1.38%) Internet
1 3 (1.38%) LAN
1 3 (1.38%) Network Security
1 3 (1.38%) VoIP
1 3 (1.38%) WAN
1 3 (1.38%) Wi-Fi
1 3 (1.38%) Wireless
1 3 (1.38%) WLAN
2 1 (0.46%) DNS
2 1 (0.46%) Multicast
2 1 (0.46%) SAN
2 1 (0.46%) SSH
2 1 (0.46%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.38%) Power BI
2 1 (0.46%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 16 (7.34%) Rational DOORS
2 4 (1.83%) JIRA
3 3 (1.38%) Apache Continuum
4 1 (0.46%) CircleCI
4 1 (0.46%) Git
4 1 (0.46%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.46%) TeamCity
General
1 19 (8.72%) Social Skills
2 18 (8.26%) Aerospace
3 14 (6.42%) Electronics
4 13 (5.96%) Avionics
5 12 (5.50%) Military
6 11 (5.05%) Games
6 11 (5.05%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (3.67%) Manufacturing
8 5 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.83%) Automotive
10 3 (1.38%) Finance
11 2 (0.92%) Aviation
11 2 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.46%) Marketing
12 1 (0.46%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.38%) 802.1X
1 3 (1.38%) LDAP
2 2 (0.92%) GraphQL
2 2 (0.92%) OAuth
2 2 (0.92%) OpenID
2 2 (0.92%) REST
2 2 (0.92%) SAML
2 2 (0.92%) SOAP
3 1 (0.46%) Akka
3 1 (0.46%) DPDK
Miscellaneous
1 11 (5.05%) Management Information System
1 11 (5.05%) SCADA
2 5 (2.29%) Algorithms
3 4 (1.83%) CCTV
3 4 (1.83%) Cyber Threat
3 4 (1.83%) Data Centre
3 4 (1.83%) Virtual Team
4 3 (1.38%) BYOD
4 3 (1.38%) Industry 4.0
4 3 (1.38%) IoT
4 3 (1.38%) Manufacturing Execution System
5 2 (0.92%) Cyberattack
5 2 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (0.92%) Embedded Systems
5 2 (0.92%) Verilog
5 2 (0.92%) VHDL
6 1 (0.46%) Product Ownership
6 1 (0.46%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.46%) Self-Driving Car
6 1 (0.46%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.67%) Linux
2 5 (2.29%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.92%) Windows
4 1 (0.46%) Solaris
4 1 (0.46%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (38.07%) Systems Engineering
2 31 (14.22%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 26 (11.93%) Requirements Management
4 19 (8.72%) Agile
5 18 (8.26%) Coaching
6 16 (7.34%) Cybersecurity
7 15 (6.88%) Customer Requirements
7 15 (6.88%) Project Planning
7 15 (6.88%) Software Engineering
7 15 (6.88%) SysML
7 15 (6.88%) Validation
8 13 (5.96%) Verification and Validation
9 12 (5.50%) Collaborative Working
10 11 (5.05%) Systems Thinking
11 10 (4.59%) Acceptance Criteria
11 10 (4.59%) Cryptography
11 10 (4.59%) Mathematics
11 10 (4.59%) Physics
11 10 (4.59%) Signal Processing
12 9 (4.13%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 8 (3.67%) MATLAB
2 4 (1.83%) Java
2 4 (1.83%) Python
2 4 (1.83%) SQL
3 3 (1.38%) Bash
3 3 (1.38%) PowerShell
4 2 (0.92%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.46%) Bourne shell
5 1 (0.46%) C
5 1 (0.46%) C#
5 1 (0.46%) C++
5 1 (0.46%) C-shell
5 1 (0.46%) Perl
5 1 (0.46%) Rust
5 1 (0.46%) Scala
5 1 (0.46%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 67 (30.73%) BPSS Clearance
2 37 (16.97%) Degree
3 16 (7.34%) HNC
3 16 (7.34%) HND
4 5 (2.29%) Chartered Engineer
5 1 (0.46%) DBS Check
5 1 (0.46%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.46%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (8.72%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 3 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 2 (0.92%) IEC 61508
3 2 (0.92%) NCSC
3 2 (0.92%) NIST
4 1 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.46%) SLA
System Software
1 3 (1.38%) Active Directory
1 3 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.92%) Docker
3 1 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (2.75%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.92%) Ansible
3 1 (0.46%) Oracle ZFS
3 1 (0.46%) Terraform
3 1 (0.46%) VxRail
Vendors
1 13 (5.96%) Siemens
2 8 (3.67%) IBM
3 5 (2.29%) Allen-Bradley
3 5 (2.29%) NVIDIA
3 5 (2.29%) VMware
4 3 (1.38%) Ruckus Wireless
5 2 (0.92%) EMC
5 2 (0.92%) Microsoft
6 1 (0.46%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.46%) HP
6 1 (0.46%) Qualys
6 1 (0.46%) Red Hat
6 1 (0.46%) Solarflare
6 1 (0.46%) Splunk
6 1 (0.46%) VocaLink