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 26 March 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 329 483 499
Rank change year-on-year +154 +16 +280
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 438 147 385
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.36% 0.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 0.40% 0.46%
Number of salaries quoted 237 118 279
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,809 £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% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,938 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,000 £83,000 £70,000
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 71,222 36,907 83,204
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 90.09% 94.59%
Number of salaries quoted 45,433 22,994 62,996
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,000 £38,750
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 £79,648 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -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 26 March 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 26 March 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 +163 406 £60,000 +9.09% 79
UK excluding London +120 374 £60,000 +9.50% 70
South East +60 116 £60,000 +9.09% 22
South West +36 99 £60,000 +14.07% 24
London +30 57 £82,500 +8.55% 13
Midlands +12 56 £65,000 +23.81% 7
North of England -62 42 £55,000 +9.88% 9
West Midlands +30 38 £55,000 +10.00% 4
East of England +15 35 £60,000 -11.11% 7
North West -35 35 £55,000 +9.88% 7
Work from Home -17 26 £60,000 -20.38% 20
Scotland -12 18 £49,000 -34.98% 2
East Midlands -27 18 £65,000 +18.18% 3
Yorkshire -44 7 £50,000 -9.09%
Wales -18 5 £51,935 -16.23%
Northern Ireland - 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 26 March 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.

1 159 (36.30%) Systems Engineering
2 109 (24.89%) BPSS Clearance
3 64 (14.61%) Degree
4 51 (11.64%) Requirements Management
5 44 (10.05%) Azure
6 42 (9.59%) Validation
7 41 (9.36%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
8 40 (9.13%) AI
9 38 (8.68%) Agile
9 38 (8.68%) Machine Learning
10 33 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
10 33 (7.53%) Python
11 32 (7.31%) AWS
11 32 (7.31%) Verification and Validation
12 31 (7.08%) SQL
12 31 (7.08%) SysML
13 30 (6.85%) Rational DOORS
14 29 (6.62%) Analytics
15 28 (6.39%) GCP
16 27 (6.16%) ISO/IEC 15288
16 27 (6.16%) Use Case
17 26 (5.94%) Generative AI
17 26 (5.94%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 26 (5.94%) Semantic Search
18 25 (5.71%) Coaching
18 25 (5.71%) Kafka
18 25 (5.71%) LangChain
18 25 (5.71%) Power BI
18 25 (5.71%) Power Platform
19 24 (5.48%) Apache Airflow

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 (5.48%) Apache Airflow
1 24 (5.48%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 19 (4.34%) Simulink
2 9 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.14%) CATIA
4 3 (0.68%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 44 (10.05%) Azure
2 32 (7.31%) AWS
3 28 (6.39%) GCP
4 25 (5.71%) Power Platform
5 24 (5.48%) dbt
6 23 (5.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 23 (5.25%) Snowflake
7 8 (1.83%) Entra ID
7 8 (1.83%) Google Workspace
8 6 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
9 3 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (0.68%) Serverless
10 2 (0.46%) Azure Machine Learning
10 2 (0.46%) Copilot Studio
10 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Copilot
10 2 (0.46%) Vertex AI
11 1 (0.23%) Cloud Composer
11 1 (0.23%) Dagster
11 1 (0.23%) IaaS
11 1 (0.23%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 17 (3.88%) Broadband
2 5 (1.14%) Tactical Data Link
3 2 (0.46%) Firewall
4 1 (0.23%) Multicast
4 1 (0.23%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (5.71%) Power BI
2 24 (5.48%) BigQuery
3 23 (5.25%) Amazon Redshift
3 23 (5.25%) Data Lake
3 23 (5.25%) Data Warehouse
3 23 (5.25%) Elasticsearch
3 23 (5.25%) Looker
3 23 (5.25%) Snowflake Schema
3 23 (5.25%) Tableau
4 2 (0.46%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 2 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 2 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.23%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.23%) Metadata
5 1 (0.23%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.23%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.23%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 30 (6.85%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (5.25%) MLflow
3 9 (2.05%) JIRA
4 5 (1.14%) Apache Continuum
5 3 (0.68%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.46%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 34 (7.76%) Aerospace
2 28 (6.39%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (5.94%) Electronics
4 21 (4.79%) Military
4 21 (4.79%) Social Skills
5 11 (2.51%) Manufacturing
6 10 (2.28%) Finance
6 10 (2.28%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.05%) Games
8 5 (1.14%) Automotive
8 5 (1.14%) Avionics
8 5 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.14%) Legal
9 4 (0.91%) Telecoms
10 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.68%) Retail
11 2 (0.46%) Law
12 1 (0.23%) Advertising
12 1 (0.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.23%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (5.71%) Kafka
1 25 (5.71%) LangChain
2 23 (5.25%) LlamaIndex
2 23 (5.25%) pgvector
2 23 (5.25%) PyTorch
2 23 (5.25%) scikit-learn
2 23 (5.25%) TensorFlow
3 9 (2.05%) REST
4 8 (1.83%) GraphQL
4 8 (1.83%) LDAP
4 8 (1.83%) OAuth
4 8 (1.83%) OpenID
4 8 (1.83%) SAML
4 8 (1.83%) SOAP
5 2 (0.46%) Akka
5 2 (0.46%) LangGraph
6 1 (0.23%) Middleware
6 1 (0.23%) Model Context Protocol
6 1 (0.23%) React
6 1 (0.23%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 26 (5.94%) Management Information System
2 25 (5.71%) Public Cloud
3 24 (5.48%) Cloud Native
4 23 (5.25%) Clustering
5 11 (2.51%) SCADA
6 10 (2.28%) Cyber Threat
7 8 (1.83%) Cyberattack
8 7 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.91%) Driving Licence
10 4 (0.91%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.68%) CCTV
12 2 (0.46%) Client/Server
12 2 (0.46%) Data Centre
12 2 (0.46%) Over-the-Top Content
12 2 (0.46%) Verilog
12 2 (0.46%) VHDL
12 2 (0.46%) Video\Live Streaming
13 1 (0.23%) NHS
13 1 (0.23%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.11%) Linux
2 10 (2.28%) Ubuntu
3 5 (1.14%) Windows
4 1 (0.23%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (36.30%) Systems Engineering
2 51 (11.64%) Requirements Management
3 42 (9.59%) Validation
4 41 (9.36%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 40 (9.13%) AI
6 38 (8.68%) Agile
6 38 (8.68%) Machine Learning
7 33 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
8 32 (7.31%) Verification and Validation
9 31 (7.08%) SysML
10 29 (6.62%) Analytics
11 27 (6.16%) Use Case
12 26 (5.94%) Generative AI
12 26 (5.94%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
12 26 (5.94%) Semantic Search
13 25 (5.71%) Coaching
14 24 (5.48%) Data Engineering
14 24 (5.48%) Data Science
14 24 (5.48%) Mentoring
14 24 (5.48%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 33 (7.53%) Python
2 31 (7.08%) SQL
3 19 (4.34%) MATLAB
4 10 (2.28%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.83%) Bash
5 8 (1.83%) Java
5 8 (1.83%) T-SQL
6 3 (0.68%) C++
6 3 (0.68%) Scala
7 2 (0.46%) C
7 2 (0.46%) C#
7 2 (0.46%) Rust
Qualifications
1 109 (24.89%) BPSS Clearance
2 64 (14.61%) Degree
3 15 (3.42%) HNC
4 13 (2.97%) Chartered Engineer
5 10 (2.28%) HND
6 3 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.68%) Master's Degree
6 3 (0.68%) PhD
7 1 (0.23%) APMP
7 1 (0.23%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.23%) SC Cleared
7 1 (0.23%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.16%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 23 (5.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
2 23 (5.25%) GDPR
3 8 (1.83%) NCSC
3 8 (1.83%) NIST
4 6 (1.37%) IEC 61508
5 5 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 4 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.68%) PMO
8 2 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 17025
9 1 (0.23%) DO-254
System Software
1 8 (1.83%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.68%) Docker
2 3 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.46%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.46%) KVM
3 2 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 12 (2.74%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.46%) BMC PATROL
3 1 (0.23%) Ansible
Vendors
1 24 (5.48%) Siemens
2 23 (5.25%) Cloudera
2 23 (5.25%) Databricks
2 23 (5.25%) Dell
3 12 (2.74%) Microsoft
4 11 (2.51%) IBM
5 10 (2.28%) NVIDIA
6 6 (1.37%) Allen-Bradley
7 5 (1.14%) VMware
8 2 (0.46%) Foundry
8 2 (0.46%) Google
8 2 (0.46%) iManage
8 2 (0.46%) Intapp
9 1 (0.23%) Rockwell