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 12 March 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 544 532 611
Rank change year-on-year -12 +79 +5
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 138 125 215
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.29% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.32% 0.27%
Number of salaries quoted 122 104 190
10th Percentile £45,625 £45,000 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £53,750 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £65,000 £60,625
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% +7.22% -13.39%
75th Percentile £100,000 £75,000 £88,438
90th Percentile - £92,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -16.67%

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 67,520 39,640 79,197
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.81% 90.72% 94.60%
Number of salaries quoted 42,919 22,979 60,984
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £38,750 £43,750 £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 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,983 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.06% +9.97% -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 12 March 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 12 March 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 +7 135 £80,000 +23.08% 55
London +64 81 £95,000 +18.75% 38
Work from Home -4 52 £80,000 +33.33% 24
UK excluding London -61 45 £60,000 - 23
South East -6 17 £60,000 +4.35% 8
North of England -35 16 £58,750 +11.90% 10
North West -14 10 £60,000 +14.29% 6
South West -31 5 £62,500 -3.85% 2
Yorkshire -43 5 £35,000 -39.91% 3
West Midlands -15 4 £52,000 -13.33%
Midlands -48 4 £52,000 -13.33% 1
East of England -9 3 £55,000 -17.04% 2
North East - 1 £40,000 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 12 March 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 (44.93%) Python
2 41 (29.71%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (28.26%) CI/CD
4 33 (23.91%) Microservices
5 32 (23.19%) AI
6 31 (22.46%) Software Engineering
7 29 (21.01%) Clean Code
8 28 (20.29%) AWS
9 27 (19.57%) Insurtech
10 26 (18.84%) Containerisation
10 26 (18.84%) Docker
11 24 (17.39%) FastAPI
11 24 (17.39%) Java
11 24 (17.39%) Node.js
12 23 (16.67%) RESTful
13 22 (15.94%) PHP
14 21 (15.22%) Django
14 21 (15.22%) MySQL
15 20 (14.49%) Flask
15 20 (14.49%) Kubernetes
16 19 (13.77%) Spring
17 18 (13.04%) Spring Boot
18 16 (11.59%) OOP
18 16 (11.59%) SQL
18 16 (11.59%) TDD
19 15 (10.87%) Git
20 14 (10.14%) Computer Science
20 14 (10.14%) DevOps
20 14 (10.14%) MongoDB
21 13 (9.42%) Agile

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 9 (6.52%) Apache
1 9 (6.52%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (2.90%) Apache Solr
2 4 (2.90%) nginx
3 1 (0.72%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.72%) CMS
3 1 (0.72%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.72%) Umbraco
Cloud Services
1 28 (20.29%) AWS
2 13 (9.42%) GCP
3 11 (7.97%) Azure
4 10 (7.25%) Amazon SQS
5 9 (6.52%) GitHub
6 8 (5.80%) SaaS
7 6 (4.35%) Serverless
8 5 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.72%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (0.72%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.72%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.72%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.90%) Broadband
2 3 (2.17%) VPN
3 1 (0.72%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (15.22%) MySQL
2 14 (10.14%) MongoDB
3 12 (8.70%) NoSQL
4 10 (7.25%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (5.07%) Redis
5 7 (5.07%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.90%) Apache Cassandra
6 4 (2.90%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.72%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.72%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.72%) SQL Server
7 1 (0.72%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (10.87%) Git
2 6 (4.35%) Jenkins
3 4 (2.90%) GitLab
4 2 (1.45%) JUnit
5 1 (0.72%) Mockito
General
1 17 (12.32%) Social Skills
2 9 (6.52%) Finance
3 7 (5.07%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (2.17%) Retail
5 2 (1.45%) Back Office
5 2 (1.45%) Marketing
6 1 (0.72%) Automotive
6 1 (0.72%) Electronics
6 1 (0.72%) Games
6 1 (0.72%) Law
6 1 (0.72%) Manufacturing
6 1 (0.72%) Public Sector
6 1 (0.72%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (17.39%) FastAPI
1 24 (17.39%) Node.js
2 23 (16.67%) RESTful
3 21 (15.22%) Django
4 20 (14.49%) Flask
5 19 (13.77%) Spring
6 18 (13.04%) Spring Boot
7 12 (8.70%) Kafka
8 9 (6.52%) Hibernate
8 9 (6.52%) JPA
8 9 (6.52%) Pandas
9 8 (5.80%) .NET
10 7 (5.07%) .NET Core
10 7 (5.07%) NestJS
11 6 (4.35%) Laravel
11 6 (4.35%) REST
12 5 (3.62%) RabbitMQ
13 4 (2.90%) gRPC
14 2 (1.45%) LAMP
14 2 (1.45%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 19 (13.77%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (13.04%) Cloud Native
3 11 (7.97%) Data Structures
4 9 (6.52%) Algorithms
4 9 (6.52%) Distributed Architecture
4 9 (6.52%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (3.62%) Data Centre
6 4 (2.90%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (2.90%) Over-the-Top Content
6 4 (2.90%) Video\Live Streaming
7 3 (2.17%) Blockchain
7 3 (2.17%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.72%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 4 (2.90%) Linux
1 4 (2.90%) Windows
1 4 (2.90%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (29.71%) Problem-Solving
2 39 (28.26%) CI/CD
3 33 (23.91%) Microservices
4 32 (23.19%) AI
5 31 (22.46%) Software Engineering
6 29 (21.01%) Clean Code
7 27 (19.57%) Insurtech
8 26 (18.84%) Containerisation
9 16 (11.59%) OOP
9 16 (11.59%) TDD
10 14 (10.14%) Computer Science
10 14 (10.14%) DevOps
11 13 (9.42%) Agile
12 12 (8.70%) Roadmaps
12 12 (8.70%) Technology Roadmap
13 11 (7.97%) Event-Driven
14 10 (7.25%) Code Quality
14 10 (7.25%) Fintech
15 9 (6.52%) Data Engineering
15 9 (6.52%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 62 (44.93%) Python
2 24 (17.39%) Java
3 22 (15.94%) PHP
4 16 (11.59%) SQL
5 13 (9.42%) TypeScript
6 12 (8.70%) JavaScript
7 7 (5.07%) C#
8 5 (3.62%) Scala
9 4 (2.90%) Go
10 1 (0.72%) Perl
10 1 (0.72%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 13 (9.42%) Degree
2 8 (5.80%) Security Cleared
3 5 (3.62%) Computer Science Degree
4 4 (2.90%) DV Cleared
4 4 (2.90%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (0.72%) QA
System Software
1 26 (18.84%) Docker
Systems Management
1 20 (14.49%) Kubernetes
2 4 (2.90%) Ansible
3 1 (0.72%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (3.62%) Google
1 5 (3.62%) Oracle
2 4 (2.90%) Atlassian
2 4 (2.90%) Microsoft
2 4 (2.90%) Typelevel
3 1 (0.72%) Red Hat
3 1 (0.72%) SAP