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 29 April 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 535 542 636
Rank change year-on-year +7 +94 -27
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 174 103 253
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.24% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.27% 0.28%
Number of salaries quoted 149 93 223
10th Percentile £40,000 £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% -8.31%
75th Percentile £97,500 £77,500 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £97,500
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 83,325 37,724 90,247
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 89.06% 94.54%
Number of salaries quoted 53,544 23,378 66,484
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £53,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +13.21% -11.67%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -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 29 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 29 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 +23 168 £80,000 +23.08% 31
London +44 95 £95,000 +18.75% 19
UK excluding London -63 68 £60,000 - 13
Work from Home -6 62 £80,000 +33.33% 11
South East -2 35 £60,000 - 3
North of England -44 19 £60,000 +4.35% 4
North West -27 13 £60,000 +4.35% 3
South West -41 11 £42,500 -34.62% 4
Yorkshire -59 5 £35,000 -39.91% 1
West Midlands -46 3 £52,000 -13.33% 1
Midlands -59 3 £52,000 -13.33% 2
East of England -28 2 £43,250 -34.76%
North East - 1 £40,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 29 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 57 (32.76%) Python
2 43 (24.71%) CI/CD
2 43 (24.71%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (22.99%) AWS
4 37 (21.26%) Docker
5 36 (20.69%) Clean Code
6 34 (19.54%) Microservices
7 33 (18.97%) Java
7 33 (18.97%) Software Engineering
8 32 (18.39%) Kubernetes
8 32 (18.39%) RESTful
9 28 (16.09%) AI
9 28 (16.09%) PHP
10 26 (14.94%) Containerisation
11 25 (14.37%) OOP
11 25 (14.37%) TDD
12 23 (13.22%) Agile
12 23 (13.22%) Computer Science
13 22 (12.64%) Degree
14 21 (12.07%) Insurtech
15 20 (11.49%) MySQL
15 20 (11.49%) Node.js
16 19 (10.92%) Spring
17 17 (9.77%) Azure
17 17 (9.77%) DevOps
17 17 (9.77%) Django
17 17 (9.77%) GCP
18 16 (9.20%) FastAPI
18 16 (9.20%) Laravel
18 16 (9.20%) 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 7 (4.02%) Apache
1 7 (4.02%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (2.30%) nginx
3 1 (0.57%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.57%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 40 (22.99%) AWS
2 17 (9.77%) Azure
2 17 (9.77%) GCP
3 14 (8.05%) SaaS
4 11 (6.32%) GitHub
5 8 (4.60%) Amazon SQS
6 7 (4.02%) Serverless
7 4 (2.30%) Amazon ECS
7 4 (2.30%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (2.30%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (1.72%) GitHub Copilot
9 2 (1.15%) Azure AKS
9 2 (1.15%) Cloud Functions
9 2 (1.15%) Cloud Run
9 2 (1.15%) Figma
10 1 (0.57%) Azure AI
10 1 (0.57%) Azure App Service
10 1 (0.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 1 (0.57%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.57%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.02%) Broadband
2 3 (1.72%) VPN
3 1 (0.57%) AMQP
3 1 (0.57%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (11.49%) MySQL
2 12 (6.90%) MongoDB
3 10 (5.75%) NoSQL
4 7 (4.02%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (4.02%) Redis
4 7 (4.02%) Relational Database
5 4 (2.30%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.57%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (8.05%) Git
2 5 (2.87%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.15%) CircleCI
3 2 (1.15%) Cypress.io
3 2 (1.15%) JIRA
3 2 (1.15%) JUnit
3 2 (1.15%) PHPUnit
3 2 (1.15%) Selenium
4 1 (0.57%) GitLab
4 1 (0.57%) Liquibase
4 1 (0.57%) Mockito
4 1 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 16 (9.20%) Social Skills
2 8 (4.60%) Finance
3 7 (4.02%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (4.02%) Public Sector
4 3 (1.72%) Digital Health
5 2 (1.15%) Retail
6 1 (0.57%) Automotive
6 1 (0.57%) Banking
6 1 (0.57%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (0.57%) Games
6 1 (0.57%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (18.39%) RESTful
2 20 (11.49%) Node.js
3 19 (10.92%) Spring
4 17 (9.77%) Django
5 16 (9.20%) FastAPI
5 16 (9.20%) Laravel
5 16 (9.20%) Spring Boot
6 15 (8.62%) Flask
7 12 (6.90%) .NET
8 11 (6.32%) .NET Core
8 11 (6.32%) Kafka
9 10 (5.75%) JPA
10 9 (5.17%) REST
11 8 (4.60%) RabbitMQ
11 8 (4.60%) React
12 7 (4.02%) Hibernate
12 7 (4.02%) NestJS
12 7 (4.02%) Pandas
13 5 (2.87%) gRPC
13 5 (2.87%) Java EE
Miscellaneous
1 29 (16.67%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (8.62%) Algorithms
2 15 (8.62%) Cloud Native
2 15 (8.62%) Data Structures
3 9 (5.17%) Distributed Architecture
3 9 (5.17%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (2.87%) Data Centre
4 5 (2.87%) Over-the-Top Content
4 5 (2.87%) Video\Live Streaming
5 4 (2.30%) Blockchain
5 4 (2.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 4 (2.30%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.72%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.15%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.15%) PropTech
8 1 (0.57%) Sports Betting
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (24.71%) CI/CD
1 43 (24.71%) Problem-Solving
2 36 (20.69%) Clean Code
3 34 (19.54%) Microservices
4 33 (18.97%) Software Engineering
5 28 (16.09%) AI
6 26 (14.94%) Containerisation
7 25 (14.37%) OOP
7 25 (14.37%) TDD
8 23 (13.22%) Agile
8 23 (13.22%) Computer Science
9 21 (12.07%) Insurtech
10 17 (9.77%) DevOps
11 15 (8.62%) Migration
12 12 (6.90%) OO
12 12 (6.90%) OOD
12 12 (6.90%) Refactoring
12 12 (6.90%) Roadmaps
12 12 (6.90%) Technology Roadmap
13 11 (6.32%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 57 (32.76%) Python
2 33 (18.97%) Java
3 28 (16.09%) PHP
4 15 (8.62%) C#
5 14 (8.05%) SQL
6 12 (6.90%) TypeScript
7 7 (4.02%) JavaScript
8 6 (3.45%) Scala
9 5 (2.87%) Go
10 3 (1.72%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 22 (12.64%) Degree
2 14 (8.05%) Computer Science Degree
3 12 (6.90%) Security Cleared
4 11 (6.32%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.57%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (0.57%) QA
System Software
1 37 (21.26%) Docker
Systems Management
1 32 (18.39%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.72%) Ansible
2 3 (1.72%) Kibana
2 3 (1.72%) Terraform
3 2 (1.15%) Podman
Vendors
1 8 (4.60%) Google
2 7 (4.02%) Oracle
3 5 (2.87%) Typelevel
4 3 (1.72%) AppDynamics
4 3 (1.72%) IBM
5 1 (0.57%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.57%) Foundry
5 1 (0.57%) Microsoft
5 1 (0.57%) Red Hat