Backend Developer Job Trends

Backend Developer
UK

The median Backend Developer salary in the UK is £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 23 July 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 599 592 630
Rank change year-on-year -7 +38 -19
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 170 98 218
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.20% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.22% 0.25%
Number of salaries quoted 143 82 176
10th Percentile £50,000 £45,200 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £55,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £66,296 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.59% +10.49% -14.29%
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £89,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -20.00%

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 94,649 44,285 87,735
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.33% 90.20% 94.76%
Number of salaries quoted 64,854 26,220 61,542
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year - +1.85% -10.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £71,082
90th Percentile £96,250 £96,250 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -10 161 £70,000 +7.69% 24
UK excluding London -44 81 £60,000 - 10
London +5 78 £95,000 +18.75% 19
Work from Home -9 53 £90,000 +50.00% 15
South East +20 47 £70,000 +27.27% 8
North of England -30 22 £60,000 +4.35% 1
North West -5 14 £60,000 +4.35% 1
South West -49 12 £42,500 -29.17% 1
Yorkshire -25 7 £65,000 +8.33%
East of England -13 1 £62,500 -5.73%
East Midlands -30 1 £75,000 +33.33%
Midlands -42 1 £75,000 +25.00%
North East -53 1 £40,000 -27.27%

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

For the 6 months to 23 July 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 49 (28.82%) Microservices
2 48 (28.24%) CI/CD
3 47 (27.65%) AWS
4 46 (27.06%) Docker
4 46 (27.06%) Python
5 43 (25.29%) Java
6 39 (22.94%) Agile
7 37 (21.76%) Kubernetes
8 35 (20.59%) Problem-Solving
9 31 (18.24%) Clean Code
10 29 (17.06%) Git
11 28 (16.47%) AI
11 28 (16.47%) Node.js
12 27 (15.88%) Software Engineering
13 26 (15.29%) RESTful
14 24 (14.12%) SQL
15 23 (13.53%) DevOps
15 23 (13.53%) GCP
15 23 (13.53%) TDD
16 22 (12.94%) Azure
17 21 (12.35%) Containerisation
17 21 (12.35%) Event-Driven
17 21 (12.35%) OOP
17 21 (12.35%) TypeScript
18 20 (11.76%) PHP
19 19 (11.18%) C#
19 19 (11.18%) Computer Science
19 19 (11.18%) Degree
19 19 (11.18%) MySQL
19 19 (11.18%) Spring

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 2 (1.18%) Apache
1 2 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.59%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (1.18%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 47 (27.65%) AWS
2 23 (13.53%) GCP
3 22 (12.94%) Azure
4 12 (7.06%) GitHub
5 8 (4.71%) SaaS
5 8 (4.71%) Serverless
6 5 (2.94%) Amazon ECS
6 5 (2.94%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.94%) GitHub Copilot
7 4 (2.35%) Amazon SQS
7 4 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
7 4 (2.35%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (1.76%) Amazon EKS
8 3 (1.76%) Azure AKS
8 3 (1.76%) Cloud Functions
8 3 (1.76%) Cloud Run
9 2 (1.18%) Anthropic Claude
9 2 (1.18%) ChatGPT
9 2 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.18%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.12%) Broadband
2 1 (0.59%) AMQP
2 1 (0.59%) HTTP
2 1 (0.59%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (11.18%) MySQL
2 13 (7.65%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (6.47%) NoSQL
4 9 (5.29%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.53%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.35%) Redis
7 3 (1.76%) SQL Server
8 2 (1.18%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.18%) Couchbase
8 2 (1.18%) DynamoDB
8 2 (1.18%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (0.59%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.59%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 29 (17.06%) Git
2 6 (3.53%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.94%) JUnit
4 3 (1.76%) PHPUnit
4 3 (1.76%) Selenium
5 2 (1.18%) CircleCI
5 2 (1.18%) Cucumber
5 2 (1.18%) Cypress.io
5 2 (1.18%) JIRA
5 2 (1.18%) JMeter
5 2 (1.18%) Liquibase
5 2 (1.18%) Mockito
6 1 (0.59%) Crashlytics
6 1 (0.59%) GitLab
6 1 (0.59%) NUnit
6 1 (0.59%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.59%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 14 (8.24%) Social Skills
2 9 (5.29%) Public Sector
3 7 (4.12%) Finance
4 4 (2.35%) Advertising
4 4 (2.35%) Digital Health
5 3 (1.76%) Retail
6 2 (1.18%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.18%) Banking
6 2 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.59%) Front Office
7 1 (0.59%) Games
7 1 (0.59%) Investment Banking
7 1 (0.59%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (16.47%) Node.js
2 26 (15.29%) RESTful
3 19 (11.18%) Spring
4 17 (10.00%) Spring Boot
5 15 (8.82%) .NET
5 15 (8.82%) Laravel
6 12 (7.06%) Kafka
6 12 (7.06%) REST
7 11 (6.47%) .NET Core
8 8 (4.71%) FastAPI
9 7 (4.12%) Flask
9 7 (4.12%) JPA
9 7 (4.12%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (4.12%) React
10 5 (2.94%) Django
10 5 (2.94%) gRPC
10 5 (2.94%) Jakarta EE
10 5 (2.94%) LAMP
11 4 (2.35%) Hibernate
11 4 (2.35%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 40 (23.53%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (10.00%) Algorithms
2 17 (10.00%) Data Structures
3 11 (6.47%) Greenfield Project
3 11 (6.47%) PropTech
4 10 (5.88%) Cloud Native
5 5 (2.94%) AI Agents
5 5 (2.94%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (2.94%) Over-the-Top Content
5 5 (2.94%) Video\Live Streaming
6 4 (2.35%) Blockchain
6 4 (2.35%) Distributed Architecture
7 2 (1.18%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.59%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.59%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.18%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (28.82%) Microservices
2 48 (28.24%) CI/CD
3 39 (22.94%) Agile
4 35 (20.59%) Problem-Solving
5 31 (18.24%) Clean Code
6 28 (16.47%) AI
7 27 (15.88%) Software Engineering
8 23 (13.53%) DevOps
8 23 (13.53%) TDD
9 21 (12.35%) Containerisation
9 21 (12.35%) Event-Driven
9 21 (12.35%) OOP
10 19 (11.18%) Computer Science
11 15 (8.82%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 15 (8.82%) OO
11 15 (8.82%) OOD
11 15 (8.82%) Refactoring
12 12 (7.06%) API Design
12 12 (7.06%) API Development
13 11 (6.47%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 46 (27.06%) Python
2 43 (25.29%) Java
3 24 (14.12%) SQL
4 21 (12.35%) TypeScript
5 20 (11.76%) PHP
6 19 (11.18%) C#
7 9 (5.29%) Go
8 8 (4.71%) JavaScript
9 5 (2.94%) Scala
10 3 (1.76%) PL/SQL
11 2 (1.18%) C++
11 2 (1.18%) VB
11 2 (1.18%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.59%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.59%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 19 (11.18%) Degree
2 17 (10.00%) Computer Science Degree
3 14 (8.24%) Security Cleared
4 11 (6.47%) SC Cleared
5 3 (1.76%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.71%) QA
2 1 (0.59%) Data Quality
2 1 (0.59%) HL7
System Software
1 46 (27.06%) Docker
Systems Management
1 37 (21.76%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.53%) Terraform
3 5 (2.94%) Kibana
4 3 (1.76%) Ansible
5 2 (1.18%) Grafana
5 2 (1.18%) Podman
Vendors
1 10 (5.88%) Google
2 9 (5.29%) Oracle
3 5 (2.94%) OpenAI
3 5 (2.94%) Typelevel
4 4 (2.35%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.76%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.76%) IBM
6 2 (1.18%) SAP
6 2 (1.18%) Splunk
7 1 (0.59%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.59%) Bloomberg
7 1 (0.59%) Foundry
7 1 (0.59%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.59%) Refinitiv