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 9 January 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 514 540 589
Rank change year-on-year +26 +49 +34
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 131 174 134
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.32% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.24% 0.35% 0.26%
Number of salaries quoted 115 116 116
10th Percentile £52,500 £23,750 £43,500
25th Percentile £56,875 £48,750 £50,921
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £60,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -7.69% -4.97%
75th Percentile £95,000 £73,125 £80,000
90th Percentile £107,500 £84,375 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £52,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% -4.55% -4.35%

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 54,127 49,926 51,946
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.61% 92.94% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 33,436 25,964 39,996
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,200 £30,625
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £96,250
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 9 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Backend Developer in the UK

Backend Developer
Top 12 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 9 January 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 +46 126 £75,000 +25.00% 118
London +72 66 £90,000 +10.77% 20
UK excluding London -12 51 £60,000 +14.29% 110
Work from Home +42 41 £60,000 - 76
North of England -2 24 £60,000 +14.29% 20
North West +15 19 £63,750 +21.43% 11
South East +33 15 £60,000 -4.00% 36
Yorkshire -13 5 £35,000 -30.00% 6
South West -18 5 £62,500 -3.85% 13
West Midlands +9 4 £52,000 -20.00% 3
Midlands -1 4 £52,000 -16.80% 11
East of England +20 3 £55,000 +18.92% 20

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

For the 6 months to 9 January 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 60 (45.80%) Python
2 44 (33.59%) CI/CD
2 44 (33.59%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (25.95%) AWS
3 34 (25.95%) Containerisation
4 33 (25.19%) AI
5 32 (24.43%) Microservices
6 30 (22.90%) Docker
6 30 (22.90%) Insurtech
7 29 (22.14%) Agile
7 29 (22.14%) DevOps
7 29 (22.14%) FastAPI
8 28 (21.37%) Java
8 28 (21.37%) Node.js
9 26 (19.85%) Kubernetes
10 24 (18.32%) Software Engineering
11 23 (17.56%) Flask
11 23 (17.56%) PHP
12 22 (16.79%) Spring
12 22 (16.79%) SQL
13 21 (16.03%) Clean Code
13 21 (16.03%) Git
13 21 (16.03%) MySQL
13 21 (16.03%) Spring Boot
14 20 (15.27%) RESTful
15 19 (14.50%) Code Quality
15 19 (14.50%) PostgreSQL
16 18 (13.74%) Azure
16 18 (13.74%) Django
16 18 (13.74%) JavaScript

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 10 (7.63%) Apache
1 10 (7.63%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (5.34%) Apache Solr
3 4 (3.05%) Camunda
3 4 (3.05%) nginx
4 1 (0.76%) CMS
4 1 (0.76%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.76%) Umbraco
Cloud Services
1 34 (25.95%) AWS
2 18 (13.74%) Azure
3 15 (11.45%) GCP
4 11 (8.40%) Amazon SQS
5 10 (7.63%) SaaS
6 9 (6.87%) Serverless
7 8 (6.11%) AWS Lambda
8 7 (5.34%) GitHub
9 2 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.76%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.76%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (16.03%) MySQL
2 19 (14.50%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (12.98%) NoSQL
4 16 (12.21%) MongoDB
5 15 (11.45%) Relational Database
6 7 (5.34%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (4.58%) RDBMS
8 5 (3.82%) Redis
9 4 (3.05%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.76%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.76%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.76%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.76%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 21 (16.03%) Git
2 13 (9.92%) Jenkins
3 11 (8.40%) GitLab
4 4 (3.05%) Bitbucket
4 4 (3.05%) SonarQube
4 4 (3.05%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.76%) JUnit
5 1 (0.76%) Mockito
General
1 19 (14.50%) Social Skills
2 15 (11.45%) Finance
3 11 (8.40%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (5.34%) Marketing
5 6 (4.58%) Electronics
5 6 (4.58%) Manufacturing
5 6 (4.58%) Public Sector
5 6 (4.58%) Telecoms
6 3 (2.29%) Back Office
6 3 (2.29%) Retail
7 1 (0.76%) Automotive
7 1 (0.76%) Games
7 1 (0.76%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (22.14%) FastAPI
2 28 (21.37%) Node.js
3 23 (17.56%) Flask
4 22 (16.79%) Spring
5 21 (16.03%) Spring Boot
6 20 (15.27%) RESTful
7 18 (13.74%) Django
8 15 (11.45%) REST
9 12 (9.16%) Kafka
10 10 (7.63%) .NET
10 10 (7.63%) Hibernate
10 10 (7.63%) JPA
10 10 (7.63%) Pandas
11 5 (3.82%) .NET Core
11 5 (3.82%) NestJS
11 5 (3.82%) RabbitMQ
12 3 (2.29%) Web Services
13 2 (1.53%) React
14 1 (0.76%) Laravel
14 1 (0.76%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 23 (17.56%) Cloud Native
2 12 (9.16%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (7.63%) Distributed Architecture
3 10 (7.63%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (6.11%) IoT
5 7 (5.34%) Data Structures
6 5 (3.82%) Algorithms
7 3 (2.29%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.53%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 1 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.76%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 10 (7.63%) Windows
2 7 (5.34%) Linux
2 7 (5.34%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (33.59%) CI/CD
1 44 (33.59%) Problem-Solving
2 34 (25.95%) Containerisation
3 33 (25.19%) AI
4 32 (24.43%) Microservices
5 30 (22.90%) Insurtech
6 29 (22.14%) Agile
6 29 (22.14%) DevOps
7 24 (18.32%) Software Engineering
8 21 (16.03%) Clean Code
9 19 (14.50%) Code Quality
10 15 (11.45%) Event-Driven
10 15 (11.45%) Infrastructure as Code
10 15 (11.45%) OOP
10 15 (11.45%) TDD
11 14 (10.69%) Mentoring
11 14 (10.69%) Roadmaps
11 14 (10.69%) Test Automation
12 13 (9.92%) Computer Science
13 11 (8.40%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 60 (45.80%) Python
2 28 (21.37%) Java
3 23 (17.56%) PHP
4 22 (16.79%) SQL
5 18 (13.74%) JavaScript
6 16 (12.21%) TypeScript
7 10 (7.63%) C#
8 9 (6.87%) Go
9 8 (6.11%) Elixir
9 8 (6.11%) Ruby
10 1 (0.76%) Perl
10 1 (0.76%) Scala
10 1 (0.76%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 9 (6.87%) Degree
1 9 (6.87%) Security Cleared
2 7 (5.34%) DV Cleared
3 3 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (1.53%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (12.21%) QA
2 1 (0.76%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 30 (22.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 26 (19.85%) Kubernetes
2 10 (7.63%) Terraform
3 7 (5.34%) Ansible
Vendors
1 10 (7.63%) Google
2 7 (5.34%) Atlassian
2 7 (5.34%) Microsoft
2 7 (5.34%) Oracle
3 6 (4.58%) SAP
4 1 (0.76%) AppDynamics
4 1 (0.76%) IBM
4 1 (0.76%) Moogsoft
4 1 (0.76%) Splunk