Backend Developer Job Trends

Backend Developer
UK

The median Backend Developer salary in the UK is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 June 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 559 569 634
Rank change year-on-year +10 +65 -33
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 178 99 269
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.22% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.25% 0.26%
Number of salaries quoted 154 86 223
10th Percentile £49,125 £46,000 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £57,500 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% +8.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £97,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -17.01%

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 87,667 39,868 102,544
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.98% 89.44% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 60,134 22,590 73,956
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,000 £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 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,501 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%

Backend Developer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Backend Developer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Backend Developer job vacancy trend in the UK

Backend Developer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in the UK

Backend Developer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Backend Developer over the 6 months to 16 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Backend Developer in the UK

Backend Developer
Top 13 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Backend Developer within the UK over the 6 months to 16 June 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 -6 169 £80,000 +23.08% 72
London +30 94 £95,000 +18.75% 16
UK excluding London -34 72 £60,000 - 82
Work from Home +9 59 £80,000 +33.33% 76
South East +14 35 £67,500 -3.57% 25
North of England -20 24 £60,000 +4.35% 18
North West +7 15 £60,000 +4.35% 8
South West -47 13 £42,500 -34.62% 5
Yorkshire -31 8 £65,000 +8.33% 7
East of England -27 1 £62,500 -5.73% 6
East Midlands -28 1 £75,000 +25.00% 4
Midlands -32 1 £75,000 +25.00% 7
North East - 1 £40,000 - 3

Backend Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 June 2026, Backend Developer 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 Backend Developer in the job title.

1 52 (29.21%) Python
2 44 (24.72%) Microservices
3 43 (24.16%) CI/CD
4 39 (21.91%) AWS
4 39 (21.91%) Java
5 37 (20.79%) Docker
5 37 (20.79%) Problem-Solving
6 31 (17.42%) Agile
6 31 (17.42%) Clean Code
7 29 (16.29%) Kubernetes
7 29 (16.29%) Software Engineering
8 27 (15.17%) AI
9 24 (13.48%) Node.js
9 24 (13.48%) RESTful
10 22 (12.36%) Containerisation
11 21 (11.80%) Computer Science
11 21 (11.80%) Degree
12 20 (11.24%) SQL
13 19 (10.67%) Azure
13 19 (10.67%) Git
13 19 (10.67%) Spring
13 19 (10.67%) TypeScript
14 18 (10.11%) DevOps
14 18 (10.11%) TDD
15 17 (9.55%) C#
15 17 (9.55%) Computer Science Degree
16 16 (8.99%) Laravel
16 16 (8.99%) OOP
16 16 (8.99%) PHP
16 16 (8.99%) Spring Boot

Backend Developer 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 2 (1.12%) Apache
1 2 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.56%) nginx
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 39 (21.91%) AWS
2 19 (10.67%) Azure
3 15 (8.43%) GCP
4 11 (6.18%) GitHub
4 11 (6.18%) SaaS
5 7 (3.93%) Serverless
6 4 (2.25%) Amazon ECS
6 4 (2.25%) AWS Lambda
6 4 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (2.25%) Cloud Computing
7 3 (1.69%) Amazon EKS
7 3 (1.69%) Amazon SQS
7 3 (1.69%) Azure AKS
7 3 (1.69%) GitHub Copilot
8 2 (1.12%) Azure App Service
8 2 (1.12%) Azure Functions
8 2 (1.12%) Azure Storage
8 2 (1.12%) Cloud Functions
8 2 (1.12%) Cloud Run
8 2 (1.12%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.93%) Broadband
2 1 (0.56%) AMQP
2 1 (0.56%) HTTP
2 1 (0.56%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (7.87%) NoSQL
2 12 (6.74%) MySQL
2 12 (6.74%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (6.18%) MongoDB
4 6 (3.37%) Redis
5 5 (2.81%) Relational Database
6 3 (1.69%) Apache Cassandra
7 2 (1.12%) Couchbase
7 2 (1.12%) Pinecone
7 2 (1.12%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.56%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.56%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 19 (10.67%) Git
2 7 (3.93%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.81%) JUnit
4 2 (1.12%) CircleCI
4 2 (1.12%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.12%) Cypress.io
4 2 (1.12%) GitLab
4 2 (1.12%) JIRA
4 2 (1.12%) JMeter
4 2 (1.12%) Liquibase
4 2 (1.12%) Mockito
4 2 (1.12%) PHPUnit
4 2 (1.12%) Selenium
5 1 (0.56%) NUnit
5 1 (0.56%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 12 (6.74%) Social Skills
2 7 (3.93%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.37%) Finance
4 4 (2.25%) Advertising
4 4 (2.25%) Digital Health
5 3 (1.69%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (1.69%) Retail
6 2 (1.12%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.56%) Banking
7 1 (0.56%) Games
7 1 (0.56%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (13.48%) Node.js
1 24 (13.48%) RESTful
2 19 (10.67%) Spring
3 16 (8.99%) Laravel
3 16 (8.99%) Spring Boot
4 14 (7.87%) .NET
5 12 (6.74%) FastAPI
6 11 (6.18%) .NET Core
6 11 (6.18%) Kafka
7 10 (5.62%) Flask
7 10 (5.62%) REST
8 9 (5.06%) Django
9 7 (3.93%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (3.93%) React
10 5 (2.81%) gRPC
10 5 (2.81%) Java EE
10 5 (2.81%) JPA
11 4 (2.25%) LAMP
11 4 (2.25%) NestJS
11 4 (2.25%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 35 (19.66%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (9.55%) Algorithms
2 17 (9.55%) Data Structures
3 12 (6.74%) Cloud Native
4 8 (4.49%) PropTech
5 5 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (2.81%) Over-the-Top Content
5 5 (2.81%) Video\Live Streaming
6 4 (2.25%) Blockchain
6 4 (2.25%) Data Centre
6 4 (2.25%) Distributed Architecture
6 4 (2.25%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (1.69%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.56%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.56%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (24.72%) Microservices
2 43 (24.16%) CI/CD
3 37 (20.79%) Problem-Solving
4 31 (17.42%) Agile
4 31 (17.42%) Clean Code
5 29 (16.29%) Software Engineering
6 27 (15.17%) AI
7 22 (12.36%) Containerisation
8 21 (11.80%) Computer Science
9 18 (10.11%) DevOps
9 18 (10.11%) TDD
10 16 (8.99%) OOP
11 15 (8.43%) Event-Driven
12 14 (7.87%) OO
12 14 (7.87%) OOD
12 14 (7.87%) Refactoring
13 12 (6.74%) Insurtech
14 11 (6.18%) API Design
14 11 (6.18%) Scrum
15 10 (5.62%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 52 (29.21%) Python
2 39 (21.91%) Java
3 20 (11.24%) SQL
4 19 (10.67%) TypeScript
5 17 (9.55%) C#
6 16 (8.99%) PHP
7 9 (5.06%) Go
8 7 (3.93%) JavaScript
9 6 (3.37%) Scala
10 3 (1.69%) PL/SQL
11 2 (1.12%) C++
12 1 (0.56%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.56%) VB
12 1 (0.56%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 21 (11.80%) Degree
2 17 (9.55%) Computer Science Degree
3 14 (7.87%) Security Cleared
4 10 (5.62%) SC Cleared
5 4 (2.25%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.81%) QA
System Software
1 37 (20.79%) Docker
Systems Management
1 29 (16.29%) Kubernetes
2 5 (2.81%) Kibana
3 3 (1.69%) Ansible
3 3 (1.69%) Terraform
4 2 (1.12%) Grafana
4 2 (1.12%) Podman
Vendors
1 10 (5.62%) Oracle
2 7 (3.93%) Google
3 5 (2.81%) Typelevel
4 4 (2.25%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.69%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.69%) IBM
5 3 (1.69%) OpenAI
6 2 (1.12%) Atlassian
6 2 (1.12%) Splunk
7 1 (0.56%) Foundry
7 1 (0.56%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.56%) SAP