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 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 324 474 492
Rank change year-on-year +150 +18 +167
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 536 197 450
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.58% 0.45% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.62% 0.50% 0.49%
Number of salaries quoted 297 146 323
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,683 £43,591
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,869 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £54,793 £57,495
Median % change year-on-year +9.50% -4.70% -4.18%
75th Percentile £66,300 £62,375 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,000 £72,500
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 86,118 39,518 92,024
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.34% 89.61% 94.63%
Number of salaries quoted 56,984 22,887 67,462
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £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 £71,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -5.66%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 +158 499 £60,000 +9.50% 81
UK excluding London +115 461 £60,000 +9.50% 63
South East +99 162 £60,000 +2.56% 35
South West +5 103 £60,000 +14.07% 8
Midlands +25 68 £60,000 +14.29% 3
London +30 64 £82,500 +8.55% 23
North of England -47 64 £55,000 +9.88% 2
West Midlands +4 44 £50,000 - 1
Work from Home +30 40 £50,000 -21.57% 26
North West -27 40 £55,000 +9.88% 2
East of England +14 37 £60,000 -29.41% 13
Scotland +22 24 £49,000 -34.98% 3
East Midlands -10 24 £62,500 +13.64% 2
Yorkshire -33 18 £50,861 -11.64%
North East - 6 - -
Wales -25 3 £66,300 +6.94% 1

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

For the 6 months to 20 May 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.

1 175 (32.65%) Systems Engineering
2 115 (21.46%) BPSS Clearance
3 74 (13.81%) Degree
4 58 (10.82%) Requirements Management
5 45 (8.40%) Azure
6 44 (8.21%) AI
7 41 (7.65%) Rational DOORS
8 40 (7.46%) Agile
8 40 (7.46%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
9 39 (7.28%) Technical Leadership
9 39 (7.28%) Validation
10 37 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
10 37 (6.90%) Machine Learning
11 35 (6.53%) SysML
12 34 (6.34%) Python
13 33 (6.16%) Siemens
14 32 (5.97%) AWS
14 32 (5.97%) Systems Thinking
15 31 (5.78%) SQL
16 30 (5.60%) ISO/IEC 15288
16 30 (5.60%) Mentoring
16 30 (5.60%) Verification and Validation
17 29 (5.41%) Analytics
18 28 (5.22%) GCP
18 28 (5.22%) Mathematics
18 28 (5.22%) Software Engineering
19 27 (5.04%) Coaching
19 27 (5.04%) Use Case
20 26 (4.85%) Generative AI
20 26 (4.85%) MATLAB

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 (4.48%) Apache Airflow
1 24 (4.48%) Apache Spark
2 9 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.75%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.37%) FactoryTalk
4 2 (0.37%) WinCC
Applications
1 21 (3.92%) Simulink
2 10 (1.87%) CATIA
2 10 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.56%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.56%) Lightworks
Cloud Services
1 45 (8.40%) Azure
2 32 (5.97%) AWS
3 28 (5.22%) GCP
4 25 (4.66%) Power Platform
5 24 (4.48%) dbt
6 23 (4.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 23 (4.29%) Snowflake
7 10 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (1.68%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.49%) Google Workspace
10 3 (0.56%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (0.56%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.56%) Serverless
11 2 (0.37%) Azure Machine Learning
11 2 (0.37%) Copilot Studio
11 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (0.37%) SaaS
11 2 (0.37%) Vertex AI
12 1 (0.19%) Cloud Composer
12 1 (0.19%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 17 (3.17%) Broadband
2 10 (1.87%) Intrusion Detection
3 5 (0.93%) Tactical Data Link
4 4 (0.75%) DHCP
4 4 (0.75%) DNS
5 2 (0.37%) Firewall
5 2 (0.37%) Modbus
5 2 (0.37%) Profibus
6 1 (0.19%) Multicast
6 1 (0.19%) RS-422
6 1 (0.19%) Software-Defined Radio
6 1 (0.19%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.19%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.66%) Power BI
2 24 (4.48%) BigQuery
3 23 (4.29%) Amazon Redshift
3 23 (4.29%) Data Lake
3 23 (4.29%) Data Warehouse
3 23 (4.29%) Elasticsearch
3 23 (4.29%) Looker
3 23 (4.29%) Snowflake Schema
3 23 (4.29%) Tableau
4 2 (0.37%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 2 (0.37%) 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 (7.65%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (4.29%) MLflow
3 10 (1.87%) JIRA
4 5 (0.93%) Apache Continuum
5 3 (0.56%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.37%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.19%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 68 (12.69%) Aerospace
2 37 (6.90%) Finance
3 30 (5.60%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (5.41%) Electronics
5 25 (4.66%) Military
6 20 (3.73%) Social Skills
7 17 (3.17%) Manufacturing
8 12 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.05%) Avionics
10 10 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.68%) Games
11 9 (1.68%) Legal
12 6 (1.12%) Retail
13 4 (0.75%) Aviation
13 4 (0.75%) Digital Health
13 4 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.56%) Local Government
14 3 (0.56%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.37%) Aeronautics
15 2 (0.37%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.66%) Kafka
1 25 (4.66%) LangChain
2 23 (4.29%) LlamaIndex
2 23 (4.29%) pgvector
2 23 (4.29%) PyTorch
2 23 (4.29%) scikit-learn
2 23 (4.29%) TensorFlow
3 9 (1.68%) REST
4 8 (1.49%) GraphQL
4 8 (1.49%) LDAP
4 8 (1.49%) OAuth
4 8 (1.49%) OpenID
4 8 (1.49%) SAML
4 8 (1.49%) SOAP
5 2 (0.37%) Akka
5 2 (0.37%) LangGraph
6 1 (0.19%) Middleware
6 1 (0.19%) Model Context Protocol
6 1 (0.19%) React
6 1 (0.19%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 26 (4.85%) Management Information System
1 26 (4.85%) Public Cloud
2 24 (4.48%) Cloud Native
3 23 (4.29%) Clustering
3 23 (4.29%) Driving Licence
4 17 (3.17%) CCTV
5 14 (2.61%) SCADA
6 8 (1.49%) Cyber Threat
6 8 (1.49%) Cyberattack
6 8 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (0.93%) Embedded Systems
8 5 (0.93%) Renewable Energy
8 5 (0.93%) Virtual Team
9 4 (0.75%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.56%) Cyber Security Posture
10 3 (0.56%) IoT
10 3 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.37%) Data Centre
11 2 (0.37%) Over-the-Top Content
Operating Systems
1 19 (3.54%) Linux
2 9 (1.68%) Ubuntu
2 9 (1.68%) Windows
3 4 (0.75%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.56%) VMS
5 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (32.65%) Systems Engineering
2 58 (10.82%) Requirements Management
3 44 (8.21%) AI
4 40 (7.46%) Agile
4 40 (7.46%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 39 (7.28%) Technical Leadership
5 39 (7.28%) Validation
6 37 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
6 37 (6.90%) Machine Learning
7 35 (6.53%) SysML
8 32 (5.97%) Systems Thinking
9 30 (5.60%) Mentoring
9 30 (5.60%) Verification and Validation
10 29 (5.41%) Analytics
11 28 (5.22%) Mathematics
11 28 (5.22%) Software Engineering
12 27 (5.04%) Coaching
12 27 (5.04%) Use Case
13 26 (4.85%) Generative AI
13 26 (4.85%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 34 (6.34%) Python
2 31 (5.78%) SQL
3 26 (4.85%) MATLAB
4 13 (2.43%) PowerShell
5 9 (1.68%) Bash
6 8 (1.49%) T-SQL
7 5 (0.93%) Java
8 3 (0.56%) C++
8 3 (0.56%) Scala
9 2 (0.37%) C
9 2 (0.37%) C#
9 2 (0.37%) Rust
10 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 115 (21.46%) BPSS Clearance
2 74 (13.81%) Degree
3 18 (3.36%) Chartered Engineer
4 15 (2.80%) HNC
5 11 (2.05%) HND
6 8 (1.49%) Security Cleared
7 7 (1.31%) SC Cleared
8 6 (1.12%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.56%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.56%) PhD
10 1 (0.19%) APMP
10 1 (0.19%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.19%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (5.60%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 23 (4.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
2 23 (4.29%) GDPR
3 9 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 8 (1.49%) NCSC
4 8 (1.49%) NIST
5 5 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.75%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.56%) PMO
8 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
8 2 (0.37%) 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 (2.43%) Active Directory
2 5 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.75%) vSphere
4 3 (0.56%) Docker
5 2 (0.37%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.37%) KVM
5 2 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (2.05%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.56%) SCCM
3 2 (0.37%) Ansible
3 2 (0.37%) BMC PATROL
4 1 (0.19%) Grafana
4 1 (0.19%) Graylog
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.19%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.19%) Terraform
Vendors
1 33 (6.16%) Siemens
2 23 (4.29%) Cloudera
2 23 (4.29%) Databricks
2 23 (4.29%) Dell
3 16 (2.99%) IBM
3 16 (2.99%) Microsoft
4 11 (2.05%) Cisco
5 9 (1.68%) Allen-Bradley
5 9 (1.68%) NVIDIA
6 8 (1.49%) Rockwell
7 7 (1.31%) VMware
8 5 (0.93%) AVEVA
8 5 (0.93%) Wonderware
9 3 (0.56%) Aruba
10 2 (0.37%) Foundry
10 2 (0.37%) Google
10 2 (0.37%) iManage
10 2 (0.37%) Intapp
11 1 (0.19%) Arista
11 1 (0.19%) Mellanox