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 31 January 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 404 493 526
Rank change year-on-year +89 +33 +262
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Systems Engineer 271 214 253
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.42% 0.41% 0.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.47% 0.45% 0.38%
Number of salaries quoted 149 118 186
10th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £46,873
25th Percentile £48,750 £48,869 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £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 57,953 47,926 66,478
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.86% 92.23% 95.09%
Number of salaries quoted 36,028 24,691 52,048
10th Percentile £28,750 £33,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
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 £79,535 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -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 31 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 31 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 +102 252 £60,000 +9.09% 85
UK excluding London +92 241 £60,000 +9.50% 77
South East +51 74 £52,500 -4.55% 29
South West +38 69 £60,000 +14.07% 13
Midlands +40 33 £65,000 +23.81% 14
North of England -31 30 £57,500 +14.87% 9
North West -4 26 £57,500 +14.87% 7
London +39 25 £82,500 +8.55% 15
East of England +45 21 £60,000 - 10
West Midlands +42 20 £42,215 -15.57% 9
Work from Home +20 13 £75,000 -0.48% 37
East Midlands +3 13 £65,000 +18.18% 5
Scotland -10 8 £49,000 -15.57% 2
Yorkshire -16 4 - - 2
Wales +2 3 £51,935 +48.38% 1
Northern Ireland - 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 31 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.

1 100 (36.90%) Systems Engineering
2 82 (30.26%) BPSS Clearance
3 47 (17.34%) Degree
4 39 (14.39%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 35 (12.92%) Requirements Management
6 25 (9.23%) Agile
6 25 (9.23%) Cybersecurity
7 23 (8.49%) Coaching
7 23 (8.49%) Validation
8 22 (8.12%) SysML
9 21 (7.75%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 21 (7.75%) Systems Thinking
9 21 (7.75%) Verification and Validation
10 20 (7.38%) Project Planning
11 19 (7.01%) HNC
12 18 (6.64%) Customer Requirements
12 18 (6.64%) Rational DOORS
13 17 (6.27%) HND
14 15 (5.54%) Mathematics
14 15 (5.54%) Physics
14 15 (5.54%) Siemens
14 15 (5.54%) Simulink
14 15 (5.54%) Software Engineering
15 13 (4.80%) Acceptance Criteria
15 13 (4.80%) Information Assurance
15 13 (4.80%) MATLAB
16 12 (4.43%) Collaborative Working
16 12 (4.43%) Mentoring
17 11 (4.06%) Platform Engineering
18 10 (3.69%) Cryptography

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:

Applications
1 15 (5.54%) Simulink
2 4 (1.48%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.11%) CATIA
Cloud Services
1 9 (3.32%) Azure
2 6 (2.21%) Entra ID
2 6 (2.21%) Google Workspace
3 3 (1.11%) AWS
4 2 (0.74%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (0.37%) Amazon S3
5 1 (0.37%) Cohesity
5 1 (0.37%) GitHub
5 1 (0.37%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.95%) Broadband
2 3 (1.11%) 5G
2 3 (1.11%) 802.11
2 3 (1.11%) Internet
2 3 (1.11%) LAN
2 3 (1.11%) Network Security
2 3 (1.11%) VoIP
2 3 (1.11%) WAN
2 3 (1.11%) Wi-Fi
2 3 (1.11%) Wireless
2 3 (1.11%) WLAN
3 1 (0.37%) Multicast
3 1 (0.37%) Software-Defined Radio
3 1 (0.37%) Tactical Data Link
Development Applications
1 18 (6.64%) Rational DOORS
2 5 (1.85%) JIRA
3 3 (1.11%) Apache Continuum
4 2 (0.74%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.74%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.37%) CircleCI
General
1 23 (8.49%) Social Skills
2 20 (7.38%) Aerospace
3 17 (6.27%) Military
4 14 (5.17%) Avionics
5 13 (4.80%) Electronics
6 11 (4.06%) Games
6 11 (4.06%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (2.21%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.85%) Automotive
8 5 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.85%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.74%) Aviation
9 2 (0.74%) Finance
10 1 (0.37%) Advertising
10 1 (0.37%) Marketing
10 1 (0.37%) Retail
10 1 (0.37%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.21%) GraphQL
1 6 (2.21%) LDAP
1 6 (2.21%) OAuth
1 6 (2.21%) OpenID
1 6 (2.21%) REST
1 6 (2.21%) SAML
1 6 (2.21%) SOAP
2 3 (1.11%) 802.1X
3 2 (0.74%) Akka
4 1 (0.37%) DPDK
4 1 (0.37%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 17 (6.27%) Management Information System
2 8 (2.95%) Cyber Threat
3 7 (2.58%) SCADA
4 6 (2.21%) Cyberattack
5 4 (1.48%) CCTV
5 4 (1.48%) Virtual Team
6 3 (1.11%) BYOD
6 3 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (1.11%) IoT
7 2 (0.74%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.74%) Over-the-Top Content
7 2 (0.74%) Verilog
7 2 (0.74%) VHDL
7 2 (0.74%) Video\Live Streaming
8 1 (0.37%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.37%) FPGA
8 1 (0.37%) GNSS
8 1 (0.37%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.37%) Sports Betting
8 1 (0.37%) VxBlock/Vblock
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.95%) Linux
2 6 (2.21%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.74%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (36.90%) Systems Engineering
2 39 (14.39%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
3 35 (12.92%) Requirements Management
4 25 (9.23%) Agile
4 25 (9.23%) Cybersecurity
5 23 (8.49%) Coaching
5 23 (8.49%) Validation
6 22 (8.12%) SysML
7 21 (7.75%) Systems Thinking
7 21 (7.75%) Verification and Validation
8 20 (7.38%) Project Planning
9 18 (6.64%) Customer Requirements
10 15 (5.54%) Mathematics
10 15 (5.54%) Physics
10 15 (5.54%) Software Engineering
11 13 (4.80%) Acceptance Criteria
11 13 (4.80%) Information Assurance
12 12 (4.43%) Collaborative Working
12 12 (4.43%) Mentoring
13 11 (4.06%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 13 (4.80%) MATLAB
2 7 (2.58%) PowerShell
3 6 (2.21%) Bash
3 6 (2.21%) T-SQL
4 4 (1.48%) Java
5 3 (1.11%) SQL
6 2 (0.74%) Scala
7 1 (0.37%) C
7 1 (0.37%) C#
7 1 (0.37%) C++
7 1 (0.37%) Rust
Qualifications
1 82 (30.26%) BPSS Clearance
2 47 (17.34%) Degree
3 19 (7.01%) HNC
4 17 (6.27%) HND
5 8 (2.95%) Chartered Engineer
6 1 (0.37%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.37%) SC Cleared
6 1 (0.37%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.75%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 6 (2.21%) NCSC
2 6 (2.21%) NIST
3 3 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 3 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.74%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 6 (2.21%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.11%) Docker
3 1 (0.37%) Firmware
3 1 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 8 (2.95%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.74%) BMC PATROL
3 1 (0.37%) Ansible
Vendors
1 15 (5.54%) Siemens
2 6 (2.21%) NVIDIA
3 5 (1.85%) IBM
4 4 (1.48%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.11%) Ruckus Wireless
5 3 (1.11%) VMware
6 2 (0.74%) Allen-Bradley
7 1 (0.37%) Solarflare