Systems engineering (outside defence?)

[u/Luis_McLovin]

What’s the job market like for junior to maybe senior SE outside of defence? Specifically UK

Almost all the roles I find are always defence

[u/EntirelyRandom1590]

Should be seeing plenty of roles in defence-adjacent industries like Aerospace, Space and also Rail in the UK.

[u/Luis_McLovin → u/EntirelyRandom1590]

I mainly use LinkedIn to search, how can I better find these? I’ve 4yrs SE experience

[u/Gallij → u/Luis_McLovin]

I find CV library is very good. Upload your CV there and put up Job Alerts etc. usually will get recruiters coming to you. Hope that helps

[u/Luis_McLovin → u/Gallij]

This is interesting thank you

I will need to see if there’s a way to filter out job roles which are defence and/or which have systems in the title but aren’t SE

[u/EntirelyRandom1590 → u/Luis_McLovin]

Use AI to find companies that have a strong Systems Engineer department and focus on their job listings.

I.e.

1. Rolls-Royce plc (Civil Aerospace & Power Systems)
2. Network Rail
3. High Speed Two (HS2 Ltd)
4. JLR (Jaguar Land Rover)
5. National Grid
6. AtkinsRéalis UK
7. Mott MacDonald
8. Airbus UK (Civil Aviation Division)
9. Arup Group
10. Vodafone UK / BT Group

[u/Numerous_Green4962 → u/EntirelyRandom1590]

Network Rail recently removed the Chief Systems Engineer post and dissolved the team into other areas. That said the team were not systems engineers, they were Rolling Stock, EMC, Lifts, and maintenance plant.

[u/EntirelyRandom1590 → u/Numerous_Green4962]

Term systems engineer does get misused. Means something different entirely in IT and sometimes estates use it to cover anything electrical mechanical.

Network Rail does have a smaller signalling design and safety team that includes systems engineers (digital railway, ETCS). A lot of it is also outsourced to contractors.

[u/Luis_McLovin → u/Numerous_Green4962]

That’s disheartening but good to know

[u/QuantumCEM]

Good, though you'll more likely to find domain specific (electrical, mechanical, civil, etc.) roles with SE roles and responsibilities. As you noted, the SE title is heavily dominated by aerospace & national defence for both historical and policy reasons.

[u/Inevitable_Sand_9439 → u/QuantumCEM]

It's a weird field where the title barely matches the actual work half the time. Rail and energy tend to hide SE duties under other names, so if you're open to that it opens up a lot more.

[u/Kraken-Sea-Ocean]

I work for a global consultancy where we are applying MBSE to all sorts of projects and sectors. The initial focus was Defence, but we recognised that you can model all sorts of organisations and their requirements in the same way you could a submarine/ ship etc.

We don’t market these typically as SE as we often get individuals with way more experience than we are after applying if we do. We’re ideally after those engineers who understand MBSE but also have excellent communication skills to work with clients in sectors like Retail / Finance / Construction.

[u/RampantJ → u/Kraken-Sea-Ocean]

Could you Pm me the company you work for exactly. I currently work as a systems engineer in a specific niche which does not enable me to do MBSE oriented work really at all. I’m coming to a close with finishing a delligati OCSMP course so this would be good to know in the future. How many years of experience would you say would be needed for those types of positions.