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 23 January 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 522 518 592
Rank change year-on-year -4 +74 +21
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 131 176 165
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.33% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.23% 0.36% 0.27%
Number of salaries quoted 118 117 141
10th Percentile £52,500 £23,750 £40,000
25th Percentile £57,500 £48,750 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £60,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -7.69% -5.55%
75th Percentile £100,000 £72,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £107,500 £89,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £53,250 £55,000
% change year-on-year +12.68% -3.18% -4.35%

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 56,506 49,067 60,891
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.75% 92.30% 95.18%
Number of salaries quoted 35,084 25,365 47,305
10th Percentile £28,750 £33,500 £29,800
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 £78,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -4.94%

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 23 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Backend Developer in the UK

Backend Developer
Top 12 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 23 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 +40 127 £77,500 +29.17% 46
London +62 69 £90,000 +12.50% 21
UK excluding London -37 48 £60,000 +12.68% 30
Work from Home +31 42 £60,000 -4.00% 31
North of England -4 21 £60,000 +14.29% 11
North West +7 16 £67,500 +28.57% 11
South East +33 15 £60,000 +4.35% 13
South West -19 5 £62,500 -3.85% 3
Yorkshire -20 5 £35,000 -30.00%
West Midlands +5 4 £52,000 -20.00%
Midlands -7 4 £52,000 -20.00%
East of England +19 3 £55,000 -7.40% 2

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

For the 6 months to 23 January 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 59 (45.04%) Python
2 44 (33.59%) CI/CD
3 38 (29.01%) Problem-Solving
4 33 (25.19%) AI
4 33 (25.19%) AWS
4 33 (25.19%) Containerisation
5 31 (23.66%) Insurtech
5 31 (23.66%) Microservices
6 30 (22.90%) Docker
7 28 (21.37%) Node.js
8 27 (20.61%) FastAPI
8 27 (20.61%) Java
9 26 (19.85%) Agile
9 26 (19.85%) DevOps
9 26 (19.85%) Kubernetes
9 26 (19.85%) Software Engineering
10 23 (17.56%) PHP
11 22 (16.79%) Spring
12 21 (16.03%) Flask
12 21 (16.03%) MySQL
12 21 (16.03%) Spring Boot
13 20 (15.27%) Clean Code
13 20 (15.27%) RESTful
14 19 (14.50%) Git
15 18 (13.74%) Azure
15 18 (13.74%) Django
15 18 (13.74%) SQL
16 17 (12.98%) PostgreSQL
17 16 (12.21%) Code Quality
17 16 (12.21%) Infrastructure as Code

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 11 (8.40%) Apache
1 11 (8.40%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (5.34%) Apache Solr
3 4 (3.05%) nginx
4 2 (1.53%) Camunda
5 1 (0.76%) CMS
5 1 (0.76%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.76%) Umbraco
Cloud Services
1 33 (25.19%) AWS
2 18 (13.74%) Azure
3 14 (10.69%) GCP
4 12 (9.16%) Amazon SQS
5 10 (7.63%) SaaS
6 8 (6.11%) Serverless
7 7 (5.34%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (5.34%) GitHub
8 2 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (0.76%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.76%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (16.03%) MySQL
2 17 (12.98%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (12.21%) NoSQL
4 15 (11.45%) MongoDB
5 14 (10.69%) Relational Database
6 7 (5.34%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (3.82%) RDBMS
7 5 (3.82%) Redis
8 4 (3.05%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.76%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.76%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.76%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.76%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 19 (14.50%) Git
2 10 (7.63%) Jenkins
3 8 (6.11%) GitLab
4 2 (1.53%) Bitbucket
4 2 (1.53%) SonarQube
4 2 (1.53%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.76%) JUnit
5 1 (0.76%) Mockito
General
1 16 (12.21%) Social Skills
2 15 (11.45%) Finance
3 8 (6.11%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (3.82%) Electronics
4 5 (3.82%) Manufacturing
4 5 (3.82%) Marketing
4 5 (3.82%) Public Sector
4 5 (3.82%) Telecoms
5 3 (2.29%) Back Office
5 3 (2.29%) Retail
6 1 (0.76%) Automotive
6 1 (0.76%) Games
6 1 (0.76%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (21.37%) Node.js
2 27 (20.61%) FastAPI
3 22 (16.79%) Spring
4 21 (16.03%) Flask
4 21 (16.03%) Spring Boot
5 20 (15.27%) RESTful
6 18 (13.74%) Django
7 13 (9.92%) Kafka
8 12 (9.16%) REST
9 11 (8.40%) Hibernate
9 11 (8.40%) JPA
9 11 (8.40%) Pandas
10 10 (7.63%) .NET
11 5 (3.82%) .NET Core
11 5 (3.82%) NestJS
11 5 (3.82%) RabbitMQ
12 3 (2.29%) Web Services
13 2 (1.53%) React
14 1 (0.76%) Laravel
14 1 (0.76%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 23 (17.56%) Cloud Native
2 12 (9.16%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (8.40%) Distributed Architecture
3 11 (8.40%) Legacy Systems
4 7 (5.34%) Data Structures
5 6 (4.58%) IoT
6 5 (3.82%) Algorithms
7 4 (3.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 3 (2.29%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.76%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.76%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 9 (6.87%) Windows
2 7 (5.34%) Linux
2 7 (5.34%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (33.59%) CI/CD
2 38 (29.01%) Problem-Solving
3 33 (25.19%) AI
3 33 (25.19%) Containerisation
4 31 (23.66%) Insurtech
4 31 (23.66%) Microservices
5 26 (19.85%) Agile
5 26 (19.85%) DevOps
5 26 (19.85%) Software Engineering
6 20 (15.27%) Clean Code
7 16 (12.21%) Code Quality
7 16 (12.21%) Infrastructure as Code
8 15 (11.45%) Event-Driven
8 15 (11.45%) OOP
8 15 (11.45%) TDD
9 13 (9.92%) Mentoring
9 13 (9.92%) Test Automation
10 12 (9.16%) Computer Science
10 12 (9.16%) Roadmaps
11 11 (8.40%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 59 (45.04%) Python
2 27 (20.61%) Java
3 23 (17.56%) PHP
4 18 (13.74%) SQL
5 16 (12.21%) TypeScript
6 15 (11.45%) JavaScript
7 10 (7.63%) C#
8 6 (4.58%) Elixir
8 6 (4.58%) Go
8 6 (4.58%) Ruby
9 1 (0.76%) Perl
9 1 (0.76%) Scala
9 1 (0.76%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (6.11%) Degree
2 7 (5.34%) Security Cleared
3 6 (4.58%) DV Cleared
4 2 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.76%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (8.40%) QA
2 1 (0.76%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 30 (22.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 26 (19.85%) Kubernetes
2 9 (6.87%) Terraform
3 7 (5.34%) Ansible
Vendors
1 9 (6.87%) Google
2 7 (5.34%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.58%) Atlassian
3 6 (4.58%) Oracle
4 5 (3.82%) SAP
5 1 (0.76%) AppDynamics
5 1 (0.76%) IBM
5 1 (0.76%) Moogsoft
5 1 (0.76%) Splunk