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 23 February 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 366 508 535
Rank change year-on-year +142 +27 +226
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 332 168 279
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.35% 0.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.53% 0.38% 0.39%
Number of salaries quoted 188 108 206
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,683 £45,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,869 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -
75th Percentile £70,000 £72,188 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,000 £72,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £54,793 £54,995
% change year-on-year +9.50% -0.37% -0.01%

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 62,963 43,992 71,553
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.36% 91.41% 94.79%
Number of salaries quoted 39,692 23,186 55,777
10th Percentile £29,000 £32,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,268
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 23 February 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 23 February 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 +148 310 £60,000 +9.09% 92
UK excluding London +141 293 £60,000 +9.50% 91
South East +63 95 £60,000 +9.09% 34
South West +33 76 £60,000 +14.07% 15
Midlands +42 49 £65,000 +23.81% 13
London +32 33 £82,500 +8.55% 9
West Midlands +38 31 £60,000 +20.00% 11
North of England -36 30 £60,000 +19.87% 14
East of England +36 27 £60,000 - 7
North West -7 26 £60,000 +19.87% 12
Work from Home +16 18 £75,000 -0.48% 29
East Midlands -7 18 £65,000 +18.18% 2
Scotland -10 9 £49,000 -26.53% 7
Wales +7 4 £51,935 -16.23% 1
Yorkshire -32 4 - - 1
Northern Ireland - 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 23 February 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.

1 114 (34.34%) Systems Engineering
2 89 (26.81%) BPSS Clearance
3 55 (16.57%) Degree
4 40 (12.05%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 36 (10.84%) Requirements Management
5 36 (10.84%) Validation
6 29 (8.73%) Agile
7 28 (8.43%) Cybersecurity
7 28 (8.43%) Verification and Validation
8 26 (7.83%) SysML
9 24 (7.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 23 (6.93%) Project Planning
11 22 (6.63%) Coaching
12 21 (6.33%) Systems Thinking
13 20 (6.02%) Rational DOORS
14 18 (5.42%) Siemens
14 18 (5.42%) Software Engineering
15 17 (5.12%) Azure
15 17 (5.12%) Mentoring
16 16 (4.82%) HNC
16 16 (4.82%) Mathematics
16 16 (4.82%) Physics
16 16 (4.82%) Simulink
17 14 (4.22%) AI
17 14 (4.22%) Broadband
17 14 (4.22%) Customer Requirements
17 14 (4.22%) Information Assurance
17 14 (4.22%) Machine Learning
17 14 (4.22%) MATLAB
17 14 (4.22%) Platform Engineering

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 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 16 (4.82%) Simulink
2 6 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.90%) CATIA
4 1 (0.30%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 17 (5.12%) Azure
2 8 (2.41%) Entra ID
2 8 (2.41%) Google Workspace
3 6 (1.81%) AWS
4 5 (1.51%) GCP
5 4 (1.20%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (0.60%) Azure Machine Learning
6 2 (0.60%) Copilot Studio
6 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Copilot
6 2 (0.60%) Vertex AI
7 1 (0.30%) Amazon S3
7 1 (0.30%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (0.30%) Cloud Composer
7 1 (0.30%) Cohesity
7 1 (0.30%) Dagster
7 1 (0.30%) dbt
7 1 (0.30%) Nutanix
7 1 (0.30%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.22%) Broadband
2 5 (1.51%) Tactical Data Link
3 2 (0.60%) 5G
3 2 (0.60%) 802.11
3 2 (0.60%) Internet
3 2 (0.60%) LAN
3 2 (0.60%) Network Security
3 2 (0.60%) VoIP
3 2 (0.60%) WAN
3 2 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.60%) Wireless
3 2 (0.60%) WLAN
4 1 (0.30%) Multicast
4 1 (0.30%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.30%) BigQuery
1 1 (0.30%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 20 (6.02%) Rational DOORS
2 5 (1.51%) JIRA
3 3 (0.90%) Apache Continuum
4 2 (0.60%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.60%) TeamCity
General
1 24 (7.23%) Aerospace
1 24 (7.23%) Social Skills
2 19 (5.72%) Electronics
3 18 (5.42%) Military
4 11 (3.31%) Games
5 10 (3.01%) Avionics
5 10 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
6 8 (2.41%) Manufacturing
7 7 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.51%) Automotive
8 5 (1.51%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (0.90%) Finance
10 2 (0.60%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (0.60%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.30%) Advertising
11 1 (0.30%) Law
11 1 (0.30%) Marketing
11 1 (0.30%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.41%) GraphQL
1 8 (2.41%) LDAP
1 8 (2.41%) OAuth
1 8 (2.41%) OpenID
1 8 (2.41%) REST
1 8 (2.41%) SAML
1 8 (2.41%) SOAP
2 2 (0.60%) 802.1X
2 2 (0.60%) Akka
2 2 (0.60%) LangChain
2 2 (0.60%) LangGraph
3 1 (0.30%) Kafka
3 1 (0.30%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.42%) Management Information System
2 10 (3.01%) Cyber Threat
3 8 (2.41%) Cyberattack
3 8 (2.41%) SCADA
4 5 (1.51%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (1.20%) Virtual Team
6 3 (0.90%) CCTV
6 3 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (0.60%) BYOD
7 2 (0.60%) Client/Server
7 2 (0.60%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.60%) IoT
7 2 (0.60%) Over-the-Top Content
7 2 (0.60%) Public Cloud
7 2 (0.60%) Verilog
7 2 (0.60%) VHDL
7 2 (0.60%) Video\Live Streaming
8 1 (0.30%) Embedded Systems
8 1 (0.30%) Social Media
8 1 (0.30%) VxBlock/Vblock
Operating Systems
1 12 (3.61%) Linux
2 9 (2.71%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.60%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (34.34%) Systems Engineering
2 40 (12.05%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 36 (10.84%) Requirements Management
3 36 (10.84%) Validation
4 29 (8.73%) Agile
5 28 (8.43%) Cybersecurity
5 28 (8.43%) Verification and Validation
6 26 (7.83%) SysML
7 23 (6.93%) Project Planning
8 22 (6.63%) Coaching
9 21 (6.33%) Systems Thinking
10 18 (5.42%) Software Engineering
11 17 (5.12%) Mentoring
12 16 (4.82%) Mathematics
12 16 (4.82%) Physics
13 14 (4.22%) AI
13 14 (4.22%) Customer Requirements
13 14 (4.22%) Information Assurance
13 14 (4.22%) Machine Learning
13 14 (4.22%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 14 (4.22%) MATLAB
2 9 (2.71%) PowerShell
3 8 (2.41%) Bash
3 8 (2.41%) T-SQL
4 7 (2.11%) Java
5 6 (1.81%) Python
6 5 (1.51%) SQL
7 3 (0.90%) C++
7 3 (0.90%) Scala
8 2 (0.60%) C
8 2 (0.60%) Rust
9 1 (0.30%) C#
Qualifications
1 89 (26.81%) BPSS Clearance
2 55 (16.57%) Degree
3 16 (4.82%) HNC
4 13 (3.92%) HND
5 8 (2.41%) Chartered Engineer
6 3 (0.90%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.30%) PhD
8 1 (0.30%) SC Cleared
8 1 (0.30%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (7.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 8 (2.41%) NCSC
2 8 (2.41%) NIST
3 4 (1.20%) IEC 61508
3 4 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 8 (2.41%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.60%) Docker
3 2 (0.60%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.60%) KVM
4 1 (0.30%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (3.31%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.60%) BMC PATROL
3 1 (0.30%) Ansible
Vendors
1 18 (5.42%) Siemens
2 9 (2.71%) NVIDIA
3 8 (2.41%) Microsoft
4 5 (1.51%) IBM
4 5 (1.51%) VMware
5 4 (1.20%) Allen-Bradley
6 2 (0.60%) Foundry
6 2 (0.60%) Google
6 2 (0.60%) Ruckus Wireless