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 March 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 549 526 618
Rank change year-on-year -23 +92 +2
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 141 125 219
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.29% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.32% 0.27%
Number of salaries quoted 124 106 193
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £37,500
25th Percentile £59,688 £53,750 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £62,500 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +28.00% - -10.71%
75th Percentile £100,000 £75,000 £87,500
90th Percentile - £90,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -16.67%

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 68,588 39,043 80,162
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 90.54% 94.62%
Number of salaries quoted 43,675 23,259 61,462
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £38,750 £43,750 £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 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,934
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -5.65%

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 March 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 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 +1 138 £80,000 +23.08% 48
London +43 81 £95,000 +18.75% 34
Work from Home +2 53 £80,000 +33.33% 24
UK excluding London -68 48 £60,000 - 19
South East +5 18 £60,000 +4.35% 7
North of England -41 17 £60,000 +14.29% 8
North West -18 11 £60,000 +14.29% 5
South West -39 6 £55,000 -15.38% 2
Yorkshire -41 5 £35,000 -39.91% 3
West Midlands -23 4 £52,000 -13.33%
Midlands -48 4 £52,000 -13.33% 1
East of England -14 3 £55,000 -17.04% 1
North East - 1 £40,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 16 March 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 62 (43.97%) Python
2 41 (29.08%) CI/CD
2 41 (29.08%) Problem-Solving
3 33 (23.40%) Microservices
4 32 (22.70%) AI
5 30 (21.28%) AWS
5 30 (21.28%) Software Engineering
6 29 (20.57%) Clean Code
6 29 (20.57%) Docker
7 28 (19.86%) Containerisation
8 27 (19.15%) Insurtech
9 25 (17.73%) Node.js
10 24 (17.02%) FastAPI
10 24 (17.02%) Java
10 24 (17.02%) RESTful
11 23 (16.31%) PHP
12 22 (15.60%) MySQL
13 21 (14.89%) Django
13 21 (14.89%) Kubernetes
14 20 (14.18%) Flask
15 19 (13.48%) Spring
16 18 (12.77%) OOP
16 18 (12.77%) Spring Boot
17 17 (12.06%) TDD
18 16 (11.35%) Git
19 15 (10.64%) Computer Science
19 15 (10.64%) GCP
19 15 (10.64%) MongoDB
19 15 (10.64%) SQL
20 14 (9.93%) Agile

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 9 (6.38%) Apache
1 9 (6.38%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (2.84%) Apache Solr
2 4 (2.84%) nginx
3 1 (0.71%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.71%) CMS
3 1 (0.71%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.71%) Umbraco
Cloud Services
1 30 (21.28%) AWS
2 15 (10.64%) GCP
3 11 (7.80%) Azure
4 10 (7.09%) Amazon SQS
5 9 (6.38%) GitHub
6 8 (5.67%) SaaS
7 6 (4.26%) Serverless
8 5 (3.55%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.71%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (0.71%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.71%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.71%) Cloud Functions
9 1 (0.71%) Cloud Run
9 1 (0.71%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.55%) Broadband
2 3 (2.13%) VPN
3 1 (0.71%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (15.60%) MySQL
2 15 (10.64%) MongoDB
3 13 (9.22%) NoSQL
4 10 (7.09%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (4.96%) Redis
5 7 (4.96%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.84%) Apache Cassandra
6 4 (2.84%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.71%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.71%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.71%) SQL Server
7 1 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 16 (11.35%) Git
2 6 (4.26%) Jenkins
3 4 (2.84%) GitLab
4 2 (1.42%) JUnit
5 1 (0.71%) CircleCI
5 1 (0.71%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.71%) Mockito
5 1 (0.71%) PHPUnit
5 1 (0.71%) Selenium
General
1 17 (12.06%) Social Skills
2 10 (7.09%) Finance
3 7 (4.96%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (1.42%) Back Office
4 2 (1.42%) Marketing
4 2 (1.42%) Retail
5 1 (0.71%) Automotive
5 1 (0.71%) Electronics
5 1 (0.71%) Games
5 1 (0.71%) Law
5 1 (0.71%) Manufacturing
5 1 (0.71%) Public Sector
5 1 (0.71%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (17.73%) Node.js
2 24 (17.02%) FastAPI
2 24 (17.02%) RESTful
3 21 (14.89%) Django
4 20 (14.18%) Flask
5 19 (13.48%) Spring
6 18 (12.77%) Spring Boot
7 12 (8.51%) Kafka
8 9 (6.38%) Hibernate
8 9 (6.38%) JPA
8 9 (6.38%) Pandas
9 8 (5.67%) .NET
10 7 (4.96%) .NET Core
10 7 (4.96%) Laravel
10 7 (4.96%) NestJS
11 6 (4.26%) REST
12 5 (3.55%) RabbitMQ
13 4 (2.84%) gRPC
14 3 (2.13%) LAMP
15 2 (1.42%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 19 (13.48%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (12.77%) Cloud Native
3 11 (7.80%) Data Structures
4 9 (6.38%) Algorithms
4 9 (6.38%) Distributed Architecture
4 9 (6.38%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (3.55%) Data Centre
6 4 (2.84%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (2.84%) Over-the-Top Content
6 4 (2.84%) Video\Live Streaming
7 3 (2.13%) Blockchain
7 3 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
8 1 (0.71%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 4 (2.84%) Linux
1 4 (2.84%) Windows
1 4 (2.84%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (29.08%) CI/CD
1 41 (29.08%) Problem-Solving
2 33 (23.40%) Microservices
3 32 (22.70%) AI
4 30 (21.28%) Software Engineering
5 29 (20.57%) Clean Code
6 28 (19.86%) Containerisation
7 27 (19.15%) Insurtech
8 18 (12.77%) OOP
9 17 (12.06%) TDD
10 15 (10.64%) Computer Science
11 14 (9.93%) Agile
11 14 (9.93%) DevOps
12 12 (8.51%) Roadmaps
12 12 (8.51%) Technology Roadmap
13 10 (7.09%) Code Quality
13 10 (7.09%) Event-Driven
13 10 (7.09%) Fintech
13 10 (7.09%) Migration
14 9 (6.38%) OO
Programming Languages
1 62 (43.97%) Python
2 24 (17.02%) Java
3 23 (16.31%) PHP
4 15 (10.64%) SQL
5 13 (9.22%) JavaScript
5 13 (9.22%) TypeScript
6 7 (4.96%) C#
7 5 (3.55%) Scala
8 4 (2.84%) Go
9 1 (0.71%) Perl
9 1 (0.71%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 14 (9.93%) Degree
2 8 (5.67%) Security Cleared
3 6 (4.26%) Computer Science Degree
4 4 (2.84%) DV Cleared
4 4 (2.84%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (0.71%) QA
System Software
1 29 (20.57%) Docker
Systems Management
1 21 (14.89%) Kubernetes
2 4 (2.84%) Ansible
3 1 (0.71%) Podman
3 1 (0.71%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (4.96%) Google
2 5 (3.55%) Oracle
3 4 (2.84%) Atlassian
3 4 (2.84%) Microsoft
3 4 (2.84%) Typelevel
4 1 (0.71%) Red Hat
4 1 (0.71%) SAP