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 14 May 2026.

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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 539 563 629
Rank change year-on-year +24 +66 -25
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 174 100 255
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.23% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.26% 0.28%
Number of salaries quoted 150 91 224
10th Percentile £48,500 £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 £99,375 £82,500 £77,500
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% -12.50%

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 84,582 38,850 91,176
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.27% 89.47% 94.56%
Number of salaries quoted 55,708 22,832 66,939
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,670 £52,686
Median % change year-on-year -4.63% +9.46% -12.19%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £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% -5.66%

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 +31 167 £81,250 +25.00% 30
London +45 95 £95,000 +18.75% 18
UK excluding London -63 67 £60,000 - 14
Work from Home +3 61 £80,000 +33.33% 16
South East +14 35 £60,000 -7.69% 6
North of England -15 19 £60,000 +4.35% 5
North West +8 13 £60,000 +4.35% 3
South West -38 12 £42,500 -34.62% 2
Yorkshire -60 5 £65,000 +11.59% 2
East of England -26 2 £43,250 -34.76% 1
West Midlands -39 1 £24,000 -60.00%
Midlands -59 1 £24,000 -60.00% 1
North East - 1 £40,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 14 May 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 53 (30.46%) Python
2 42 (24.14%) Problem-Solving
3 41 (23.56%) CI/CD
4 38 (21.84%) AWS
5 37 (21.26%) Docker
6 35 (20.11%) Microservices
7 34 (19.54%) Clean Code
8 33 (18.97%) Software Engineering
9 32 (18.39%) Java
9 32 (18.39%) Kubernetes
10 28 (16.09%) RESTful
11 27 (15.52%) AI
11 27 (15.52%) PHP
12 25 (14.37%) Node.js
13 24 (13.79%) Agile
13 24 (13.79%) Containerisation
13 24 (13.79%) TDD
14 23 (13.22%) OOP
15 22 (12.64%) Computer Science
16 20 (11.49%) Degree
17 19 (10.92%) MySQL
18 18 (10.34%) TypeScript
19 17 (9.77%) Azure
20 16 (9.20%) C#
20 16 (9.20%) DevOps
20 16 (9.20%) GCP
20 16 (9.20%) Laravel
20 16 (9.20%) Spring
21 15 (8.62%) Insurtech
21 15 (8.62%) SQL

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 4 (2.30%) Apache
1 4 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
1 4 (2.30%) nginx
2 1 (0.57%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.57%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 38 (21.84%) AWS
2 17 (9.77%) Azure
3 16 (9.20%) GCP
4 13 (7.47%) SaaS
5 11 (6.32%) GitHub
6 8 (4.60%) Serverless
7 6 (3.45%) Amazon SQS
8 5 (2.87%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (2.30%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (2.30%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (1.72%) Azure AKS
10 3 (1.72%) GitHub Copilot
11 2 (1.15%) Azure App Service
11 2 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (1.15%) Azure Functions
11 2 (1.15%) Azure Storage
11 2 (1.15%) Cloud Functions
11 2 (1.15%) Cloud Run
11 2 (1.15%) Figma
12 1 (0.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.02%) Broadband
2 3 (1.72%) VPN
3 1 (0.57%) AMQP
3 1 (0.57%) HTTP
3 1 (0.57%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (10.92%) MySQL
2 11 (6.32%) MongoDB
3 10 (5.75%) NoSQL
4 9 (5.17%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (3.45%) Redis
5 6 (3.45%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.30%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.57%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.57%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (8.05%) Git
2 6 (3.45%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.72%) JUnit
4 2 (1.15%) CircleCI
4 2 (1.15%) Cypress.io
4 2 (1.15%) GitLab
4 2 (1.15%) JIRA
4 2 (1.15%) Liquibase
4 2 (1.15%) Mockito
4 2 (1.15%) PHPUnit
4 2 (1.15%) Selenium
5 1 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 16 (9.20%) Social Skills
2 7 (4.02%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (4.02%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.45%) Finance
4 4 (2.30%) Digital Health
5 3 (1.72%) Retail
6 2 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.57%) Banking
7 1 (0.57%) Games
7 1 (0.57%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (16.09%) RESTful
2 25 (14.37%) Node.js
3 16 (9.20%) Laravel
3 16 (9.20%) Spring
4 13 (7.47%) FastAPI
4 13 (7.47%) Spring Boot
5 12 (6.90%) Django
6 11 (6.32%) .NET
6 11 (6.32%) .NET Core
6 11 (6.32%) Flask
7 9 (5.17%) REST
8 8 (4.60%) Kafka
8 8 (4.60%) RabbitMQ
8 8 (4.60%) React
9 7 (4.02%) JPA
10 6 (3.45%) NestJS
11 5 (2.87%) gRPC
11 5 (2.87%) Java EE
12 4 (2.30%) Elastic Stack
12 4 (2.30%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 31 (17.82%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (8.62%) Algorithms
2 15 (8.62%) Data Structures
3 13 (7.47%) Cloud Native
4 6 (3.45%) Distributed Architecture
4 6 (3.45%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (3.45%) PropTech
5 5 (2.87%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.87%) Over-the-Top Content
5 5 (2.87%) Video\Live Streaming
6 4 (2.30%) Blockchain
6 4 (2.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (2.30%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (1.72%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.15%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.57%) Sports Betting
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (24.14%) Problem-Solving
2 41 (23.56%) CI/CD
3 35 (20.11%) Microservices
4 34 (19.54%) Clean Code
5 33 (18.97%) Software Engineering
6 27 (15.52%) AI
7 24 (13.79%) Agile
7 24 (13.79%) Containerisation
7 24 (13.79%) TDD
8 23 (13.22%) OOP
9 22 (12.64%) Computer Science
10 16 (9.20%) DevOps
11 15 (8.62%) Insurtech
12 13 (7.47%) Event-Driven
12 13 (7.47%) OO
12 13 (7.47%) OOD
12 13 (7.47%) Refactoring
13 12 (6.90%) Migration
14 11 (6.32%) Roadmaps
14 11 (6.32%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 53 (30.46%) Python
2 32 (18.39%) Java
3 27 (15.52%) PHP
4 18 (10.34%) TypeScript
5 16 (9.20%) C#
6 15 (8.62%) SQL
7 9 (5.17%) JavaScript
8 6 (3.45%) Scala
9 5 (2.87%) Go
10 3 (1.72%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.57%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 20 (11.49%) Degree
2 14 (8.05%) Computer Science Degree
3 13 (7.47%) Security Cleared
4 11 (6.32%) SC Cleared
5 2 (1.15%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.15%) 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
1 8 (4.60%) Oracle
2 5 (2.87%) Typelevel
3 3 (1.72%) AppDynamics
3 3 (1.72%) IBM
4 2 (1.15%) Atlassian
4 2 (1.15%) Microsoft
5 1 (0.57%) Foundry
5 1 (0.57%) Red Hat