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 17 July 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 336 448 479
Rank change year-on-year +112 +31 -25
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 548 246 453
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.55% 0.50% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.59% 0.56% 0.49%
Number of salaries quoted 302 160 317
10th Percentile £47,500 £47,683 £43,239
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,869 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £65,975 £62,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £75,574 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%

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 93,213 44,199 93,038
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.22% 89.97% 94.76%
Number of salaries quoted 63,958 26,129 66,038
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £39,390
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,550
Median % change year-on-year - +4.66% -12.42%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 17 July 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 17 July 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 +103 512 £60,000 +9.09% 104
UK excluding London +87 471 £60,000 +9.09% 83
South East +81 187 £60,000 - 35
South West +4 98 £65,000 +23.57% 21
North of England -40 63 £51,772 +3.43% 10
London +16 60 £82,500 +3.13% 20
Work from Home +3 59 £56,000 +2.20% 35
Midlands 0 53 £60,000 +9.09% 7
East of England +26 49 £60,000 -29.41% 11
North West -40 37 £55,000 +9.88% 6
West Midlands -3 31 £50,000 -9.09% 3
East Midlands +1 22 £60,000 +25.00% 4
Scotland +20 18 £49,000 -34.98% 1
Yorkshire -25 14 £50,861 +5.89% 2
North East - 12 £47,500 - 2
Wales -49 3 £66,300 +6.94% 1

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

For the 6 months to 17 July 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.

1 150 (27.37%) Systems Engineering
2 86 (15.69%) BPSS Clearance
3 82 (14.96%) Degree
4 56 (10.22%) Technical Leadership
5 51 (9.31%) Python
6 47 (8.58%) Azure
7 46 (8.39%) Requirements Management
8 44 (8.03%) AI
9 39 (7.12%) Rational DOORS
9 39 (7.12%) Software Engineering
10 38 (6.93%) Validation
11 37 (6.75%) Problem-Solving
12 36 (6.57%) AWS
13 35 (6.39%) Machine Learning
13 35 (6.39%) SQL
14 34 (6.20%) Agile
15 32 (5.84%) Data Pipeline
15 32 (5.84%) GCP
16 31 (5.66%) Siemens
17 29 (5.29%) MATLAB
17 29 (5.29%) Storytelling
18 28 (5.11%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
19 27 (4.93%) Analytics
20 26 (4.74%) Data Engineering
20 26 (4.74%) Data Management
20 26 (4.74%) Generative AI
20 26 (4.74%) Physics
20 26 (4.74%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
20 26 (4.74%) Semantic Search
20 26 (4.74%) SysML

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 (4.38%) Apache Airflow
1 24 (4.38%) Apache Spark
2 13 (2.37%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.09%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.55%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.55%) WinCC
Applications
1 16 (2.92%) Simulink
2 12 (2.19%) CATIA
2 12 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (2.01%) Lightworks
4 3 (0.55%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 47 (8.58%) Azure
2 36 (6.57%) AWS
3 32 (5.84%) GCP
4 25 (4.56%) Power Platform
5 24 (4.38%) dbt
6 23 (4.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 23 (4.20%) Snowflake
7 11 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (0.91%) Entra ID
8 5 (0.91%) OneDrive
9 4 (0.73%) Google Workspace
10 3 (0.55%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (0.55%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (0.55%) SaaS
10 3 (0.55%) Serverless
11 2 (0.36%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.36%) Azure Machine Learning
11 2 (0.36%) IaaS
11 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (0.36%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.01%) Broadband
2 10 (1.82%) DNS
2 10 (1.82%) Intrusion Detection
3 7 (1.28%) DHCP
4 5 (0.91%) Firewall
4 5 (0.91%) Tactical Data Link
5 4 (0.73%) TCP/IP
6 3 (0.55%) LAN
6 3 (0.55%) Modbus
6 3 (0.55%) Profibus
6 3 (0.55%) WAN
7 2 (0.36%) Cisco Nexus
7 2 (0.36%) HTTP
7 2 (0.36%) Internet
7 2 (0.36%) MQTT
7 2 (0.36%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.18%) BGP
8 1 (0.18%) EIGRP
8 1 (0.18%) MPLS
8 1 (0.18%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.56%) Power BI
2 24 (4.38%) BigQuery
3 23 (4.20%) Amazon Redshift
3 23 (4.20%) Data Lake
3 23 (4.20%) Data Warehouse
3 23 (4.20%) Elasticsearch
3 23 (4.20%) Looker
3 23 (4.20%) Snowflake Schema
3 23 (4.20%) Tableau
4 9 (1.64%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.55%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.36%) Hadoop
6 2 (0.36%) Metadata
6 2 (0.36%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.18%) Apache Arrow
7 1 (0.18%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (0.18%) KDB
Development Applications
1 39 (7.12%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (4.20%) MLflow
3 11 (2.01%) JIRA
4 8 (1.46%) LabVIEW
5 4 (0.73%) Apache Continuum
6 1 (0.18%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.18%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 101 (18.43%) Aerospace
2 54 (9.85%) Finance
3 43 (7.85%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (6.39%) Electronics
4 35 (6.39%) Social Skills
5 20 (3.65%) Manufacturing
6 17 (3.10%) Military
7 14 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
8 13 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (1.82%) Avionics
10 9 (1.64%) Aviation
10 9 (1.64%) Legal
11 5 (0.91%) Law
11 5 (0.91%) Local Government
11 5 (0.91%) Retail
12 4 (0.73%) Digital Health
12 4 (0.73%) Games
13 3 (0.55%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.36%) Aeronautics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.56%) Kafka
1 25 (4.56%) LangChain
2 24 (4.38%) PyTorch
3 23 (4.20%) LlamaIndex
3 23 (4.20%) pgvector
3 23 (4.20%) scikit-learn
3 23 (4.20%) TensorFlow
4 6 (1.09%) REST
5 4 (0.73%) .NET
5 4 (0.73%) GraphQL
5 4 (0.73%) LDAP
5 4 (0.73%) OAuth
5 4 (0.73%) OpenID
5 4 (0.73%) SAML
5 4 (0.73%) SOAP
6 3 (0.55%) WinForms
7 2 (0.36%) gRPC
7 2 (0.36%) JSON
7 2 (0.36%) Next.js
7 2 (0.36%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 27 (4.93%) Cloud Native
2 26 (4.74%) Public Cloud
3 25 (4.56%) Driving Licence
4 24 (4.38%) Clustering
5 17 (3.10%) CCTV
5 17 (3.10%) SCADA
6 14 (2.55%) Management Information System
7 9 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.46%) Fibre Optics
8 8 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
9 6 (1.09%) Renewable Energy
10 5 (0.91%) Cyber Security Posture
10 5 (0.91%) IoT
10 5 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (0.91%) PKI
10 5 (0.91%) Robotics
11 4 (0.73%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (0.73%) Cyberattack
11 4 (0.73%) Data Centre
11 4 (0.73%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 18 (3.28%) Linux
2 14 (2.55%) Windows
3 11 (2.01%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.91%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.55%) VMS
6 1 (0.18%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (27.37%) Systems Engineering
2 56 (10.22%) Technical Leadership
3 46 (8.39%) Requirements Management
4 44 (8.03%) AI
5 39 (7.12%) Software Engineering
6 38 (6.93%) Validation
7 37 (6.75%) Problem-Solving
8 35 (6.39%) Machine Learning
9 34 (6.20%) Agile
10 32 (5.84%) Data Pipeline
11 29 (5.29%) Storytelling
12 28 (5.11%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
13 27 (4.93%) Analytics
14 26 (4.74%) Data Engineering
14 26 (4.74%) Data Management
14 26 (4.74%) Generative AI
14 26 (4.74%) Physics
14 26 (4.74%) Semantic Search
14 26 (4.74%) SysML
14 26 (4.74%) Systems Thinking
Programming Languages
1 51 (9.31%) Python
2 35 (6.39%) SQL
3 29 (5.29%) MATLAB
4 12 (2.19%) PowerShell
5 7 (1.28%) Java
5 7 (1.28%) T-SQL
6 6 (1.09%) C++
7 5 (0.91%) Bash
8 4 (0.73%) C#
9 3 (0.55%) VB.NET
10 2 (0.36%) C
10 2 (0.36%) Rust
11 1 (0.18%) R
11 1 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 86 (15.69%) BPSS Clearance
2 82 (14.96%) Degree
3 22 (4.01%) Chartered Engineer
4 16 (2.92%) Master's Degree
5 11 (2.01%) HNC
5 11 (2.01%) PhD
6 9 (1.64%) Security Cleared
7 8 (1.46%) SC Cleared
8 7 (1.28%) DBS Check
8 7 (1.28%) HND
9 3 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.36%) DV Cleared
11 1 (0.18%) APMP
11 1 (0.18%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
1 23 (4.20%) GDPR
2 21 (3.83%) ISO/IEC 15288
3 8 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 4 (0.73%) IEC 61508
4 4 (0.73%) NCSC
4 4 (0.73%) NIST
5 3 (0.55%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.55%) IEC 61131
5 3 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.55%) PMO
6 2 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 17025
7 1 (0.18%) ARP4754
7 1 (0.18%) ARP4761
7 1 (0.18%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.18%) DO-160
7 1 (0.18%) DO-254
System Software
1 15 (2.74%) Active Directory
2 7 (1.28%) Docker
2 7 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.09%) Hyper-V
3 6 (1.09%) vSphere
4 3 (0.55%) Firmware
4 3 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.36%) KVM
Systems Management
1 9 (1.64%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.91%) SCCM
3 3 (0.55%) Terraform
4 2 (0.36%) Ansible
4 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (0.18%) Grafana
5 1 (0.18%) Graylog
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
5 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.18%) SCOM
Vendors
1 31 (5.66%) Siemens
2 23 (4.20%) Cloudera
2 23 (4.20%) Databricks
2 23 (4.20%) Dell
3 22 (4.01%) Microsoft
4 19 (3.47%) IBM
5 13 (2.37%) Cisco
6 11 (2.01%) Allen-Bradley
6 11 (2.01%) Rockwell
7 7 (1.28%) Aruba
7 7 (1.28%) AVEVA
7 7 (1.28%) VMware
7 7 (1.28%) Wonderware
8 5 (0.91%) NVIDIA
9 2 (0.36%) Foundry
9 2 (0.36%) Google
9 2 (0.36%) iManage
9 2 (0.36%) Intapp
9 2 (0.36%) Palo Alto
9 2 (0.36%) Qualys