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 1 April 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 545 523 641
Rank change year-on-year -22 +118 -33
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 151 114 229
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.28% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.31% 0.27%
Number of salaries quoted 130 98 199
10th Percentile £45,000 £48,750 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £57,500 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% +4.00% -10.71%
75th Percentile £100,000 £81,188 £87,500
90th Percentile - £95,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year - +14.29% -8.70%

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 73,166 36,757 84,704
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.18% 89.95% 94.57%
Number of salaries quoted 46,994 23,163 63,811
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,550
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £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 £78,750 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -4.76%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -7 148 £80,000 +23.08% 41
London +30 87 £95,000 +18.75% 22
Work from Home -12 57 £80,000 +33.33% 20
UK excluding London -79 54 £60,000 - 22
South East -17 23 £60,000 +4.35% 11
North of England -46 18 £60,000 +9.09% 7
North West -17 12 £60,000 +9.09% 5
South West -38 8 £42,500 -34.62% 1
Yorkshire -49 5 £35,000 -39.91% 2
West Midlands -30 4 £52,000 -13.33% 1
Midlands -56 4 £52,000 -13.33% 2
East of England -33 3 £55,000 -17.04%
North East - 1 £40,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 1 April 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 (41.06%) Python
2 43 (28.48%) CI/CD
2 43 (28.48%) Problem-Solving
3 35 (23.18%) AWS
3 35 (23.18%) Software Engineering
4 34 (22.52%) Docker
4 34 (22.52%) Microservices
5 33 (21.85%) Clean Code
6 31 (20.53%) AI
7 29 (19.21%) Containerisation
8 27 (17.88%) RESTful
9 26 (17.22%) Java
10 25 (16.56%) Kubernetes
11 24 (15.89%) Insurtech
11 24 (15.89%) PHP
12 23 (15.23%) Node.js
13 22 (14.57%) MySQL
14 21 (13.91%) FastAPI
15 20 (13.25%) Spring
15 20 (13.25%) TDD
16 19 (12.58%) Django
16 19 (12.58%) Spring Boot
17 18 (11.92%) Flask
18 17 (11.26%) Computer Science
18 17 (11.26%) OOP
19 16 (10.60%) Agile
19 16 (10.60%) Azure
19 16 (10.60%) Degree
19 16 (10.60%) DevOps
19 16 (10.60%) GCP

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 8 (5.30%) Apache
1 8 (5.30%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (2.65%) Apache Solr
2 4 (2.65%) nginx
3 1 (0.66%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.66%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 35 (23.18%) AWS
2 16 (10.60%) Azure
2 16 (10.60%) GCP
3 9 (5.96%) Amazon SQS
3 9 (5.96%) GitHub
3 9 (5.96%) SaaS
4 8 (5.30%) Serverless
5 6 (3.97%) AWS Lambda
6 4 (2.65%) Amazon ECS
6 4 (2.65%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (0.66%) Amazon S3
7 1 (0.66%) Cloud Functions
7 1 (0.66%) Cloud Run
7 1 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.97%) Broadband
2 3 (1.99%) VPN
3 1 (0.66%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (14.57%) MySQL
2 14 (9.27%) MongoDB
3 11 (7.28%) NoSQL
4 10 (6.62%) Relational Database
5 9 (5.96%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (4.64%) Redis
7 4 (2.65%) Apache Cassandra
7 4 (2.65%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.66%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.66%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.66%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 16 (10.60%) Git
2 8 (5.30%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.99%) GitLab
4 2 (1.32%) JUnit
5 1 (0.66%) CircleCI
5 1 (0.66%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.66%) Mockito
5 1 (0.66%) PHPUnit
5 1 (0.66%) Selenium
General
1 15 (9.93%) Social Skills
2 10 (6.62%) Finance
3 7 (4.64%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (2.65%) Public Sector
5 2 (1.32%) Back Office
5 2 (1.32%) Marketing
5 2 (1.32%) Retail
6 1 (0.66%) Automotive
6 1 (0.66%) Banking
6 1 (0.66%) Digital Health
6 1 (0.66%) Electronics
6 1 (0.66%) Games
6 1 (0.66%) Manufacturing
6 1 (0.66%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (17.88%) RESTful
2 23 (15.23%) Node.js
3 21 (13.91%) FastAPI
4 20 (13.25%) Spring
5 19 (12.58%) Django
5 19 (12.58%) Spring Boot
6 18 (11.92%) Flask
7 11 (7.28%) JPA
7 11 (7.28%) Kafka
8 10 (6.62%) .NET
9 9 (5.96%) .NET Core
9 9 (5.96%) Laravel
9 9 (5.96%) REST
10 8 (5.30%) Hibernate
10 8 (5.30%) Pandas
10 8 (5.30%) RabbitMQ
11 7 (4.64%) NestJS
12 5 (3.31%) gRPC
12 5 (3.31%) React
12 5 (3.31%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 24 (15.89%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (10.60%) Cloud Native
3 12 (7.95%) Algorithms
3 12 (7.95%) Data Structures
4 10 (6.62%) Distributed Architecture
5 8 (5.30%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (3.31%) Data Centre
6 5 (3.31%) Over-the-Top Content
6 5 (3.31%) Video\Live Streaming
7 4 (2.65%) Blockchain
7 4 (2.65%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 3 (1.99%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.66%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 4 (2.65%) Linux
1 4 (2.65%) Windows
1 4 (2.65%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (28.48%) CI/CD
1 43 (28.48%) Problem-Solving
2 35 (23.18%) Software Engineering
3 34 (22.52%) Microservices
4 33 (21.85%) Clean Code
5 31 (20.53%) AI
6 29 (19.21%) Containerisation
7 24 (15.89%) Insurtech
8 20 (13.25%) TDD
9 17 (11.26%) Computer Science
9 17 (11.26%) OOP
10 16 (10.60%) Agile
10 16 (10.60%) DevOps
11 12 (7.95%) OO
11 12 (7.95%) Roadmaps
11 12 (7.95%) Technology Roadmap
12 11 (7.28%) Code Quality
13 10 (6.62%) Fintech
13 10 (6.62%) Migration
14 9 (5.96%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 62 (41.06%) Python
2 26 (17.22%) Java
3 24 (15.89%) PHP
4 14 (9.27%) SQL
5 12 (7.95%) JavaScript
5 12 (7.95%) TypeScript
6 10 (6.62%) C#
7 6 (3.97%) Scala
8 5 (3.31%) Go
9 3 (1.99%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.66%) Perl
Qualifications
1 16 (10.60%) Degree
2 10 (6.62%) Security Cleared
3 8 (5.30%) Computer Science Degree
4 7 (4.64%) SC Cleared
5 3 (1.99%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (0.66%) QA
System Software
1 34 (22.52%) Docker
Systems Management
1 25 (16.56%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.64%) Ansible
3 4 (2.65%) Terraform
4 3 (1.99%) Kibana
5 1 (0.66%) Podman
Vendors
1 7 (4.64%) Google
1 7 (4.64%) Oracle
2 5 (3.31%) Typelevel
3 4 (2.65%) Microsoft
4 3 (1.99%) AppDynamics
4 3 (1.99%) Atlassian
4 3 (1.99%) IBM
5 1 (0.66%) Red Hat
5 1 (0.66%) SAP