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 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 605 586 585
Rank change year-on-year -19 -1 +2
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 188 102 224
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.20% 0.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.23% 0.29%
Number of salaries quoted 152 82 156
10th Percentile £50,000 £47,100 £35,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +12.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £88,125 £85,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +13.04% +9.52% -16.00%

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 103,220 45,012 77,418
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.88% 89.83% 95.16%
Number of salaries quoted 70,861 26,764 49,481
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £74,521 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -9 176 £70,000 +3.70% 23
UK excluding London -76 92 £65,000 +13.04% 14
London -2 83 £87,500 +9.38% 13
South East +21 57 £67,500 +28.57% 5
Work from Home -43 40 £92,500 +54.17% 17
North of England -80 21 £62,500 +4.17% 4
South West -61 12 £42,500 -29.17% 1
North West -29 9 £60,000 -4.00%
Yorkshire -32 8 £65,000 +8.33% 1
Midlands -35 4 £80,000 +52.38% 2
North East -57 4 £75,000 +36.36% 3
West Midlands -27 3 £80,000 +33.33% 1
East Midlands -26 1 £75,000 +85.47% 1

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

For the 6 months to 31 August 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 (30.32%) AWS
1 57 (30.32%) Java
2 56 (29.79%) Docker
2 56 (29.79%) Microservices
3 50 (26.60%) CI/CD
3 50 (26.60%) Kubernetes
4 49 (26.06%) Agile
5 38 (20.21%) Git
6 35 (18.62%) Python
7 31 (16.49%) Node.js
8 30 (15.96%) Azure
8 30 (15.96%) RESTful
9 29 (15.43%) Event-Driven
10 28 (14.89%) DevOps
10 28 (14.89%) GCP
10 28 (14.89%) TDD
11 25 (13.30%) .NET
11 25 (13.30%) C#
11 25 (13.30%) Problem-Solving
11 25 (13.30%) SQL
11 25 (13.30%) TypeScript
12 24 (12.77%) AI
12 24 (12.77%) OOP
12 24 (12.77%) PHP
13 23 (12.23%) Kafka
14 22 (11.70%) Containerisation
14 22 (11.70%) MySQL
14 22 (11.70%) Spring
15 21 (11.17%) Clean Code
16 20 (10.64%) 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 4 (2.13%) Apache
1 4 (2.13%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 3 (1.60%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 57 (30.32%) AWS
2 30 (15.96%) Azure
3 28 (14.89%) GCP
4 15 (7.98%) GitHub
5 12 (6.38%) Serverless
6 8 (4.26%) Amazon ECS
6 8 (4.26%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (3.72%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (3.19%) Amazon S3
8 6 (3.19%) Amazon SQS
8 6 (3.19%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (3.19%) GitHub Copilot
8 6 (3.19%) SaaS
9 5 (2.66%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (2.66%) Anthropic Claude
10 4 (2.13%) Cloud Computing
11 3 (1.60%) Amazon EC2
11 3 (1.60%) Cloud Run
11 3 (1.60%) CloudFront
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.13%) Broadband
2 3 (1.60%) HTTP
3 1 (0.53%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (11.70%) MySQL
2 18 (9.57%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (6.91%) NoSQL
4 10 (5.32%) MongoDB
5 7 (3.72%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.66%) DynamoDB
7 4 (2.13%) Pinecone
7 4 (2.13%) Redis
7 4 (2.13%) SQL Server
8 2 (1.06%) Amazon Athena
8 2 (1.06%) Amazon Aurora
8 2 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (1.06%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.06%) Couchbase
8 2 (1.06%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (1.06%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 38 (20.21%) Git
2 8 (4.26%) Jenkins
3 6 (3.19%) JUnit
4 4 (2.13%) Cucumber
4 4 (2.13%) Mockito
4 4 (2.13%) PHPUnit
4 4 (2.13%) Selenium
5 3 (1.60%) GitLab
6 2 (1.06%) CircleCI
6 2 (1.06%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.06%) Gradle
6 2 (1.06%) JIRA
6 2 (1.06%) JMeter
6 2 (1.06%) Liquibase
6 2 (1.06%) Maven
7 1 (0.53%) Crashlytics
7 1 (0.53%) NUnit
7 1 (0.53%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.53%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 17 (9.04%) Finance
2 13 (6.91%) Social Skills
3 10 (5.32%) Public Sector
4 8 (4.26%) Games
5 7 (3.72%) Front Office
6 4 (2.13%) Advertising
6 4 (2.13%) Digital Health
6 4 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.13%) Retail
7 3 (1.60%) Banking
8 2 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.06%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (16.49%) Node.js
2 30 (15.96%) RESTful
3 25 (13.30%) .NET
4 23 (12.23%) Kafka
5 22 (11.70%) Spring
6 20 (10.64%) Spring Boot
7 17 (9.04%) REST
8 14 (7.45%) RabbitMQ
9 12 (6.38%) JPA
10 11 (5.85%) Laravel
11 10 (5.32%) .NET Core
12 9 (4.79%) Hibernate
12 9 (4.79%) Terraform
13 7 (3.72%) React
14 6 (3.19%) GraphQL
14 6 (3.19%) LAMP
14 6 (3.19%) Swagger
15 5 (2.66%) FIX Protocol
15 5 (2.66%) Jakarta EE
16 4 (2.13%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 41 (21.81%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (9.57%) Greenfield Project
3 14 (7.45%) Algorithms
3 14 (7.45%) Data Structures
4 11 (5.85%) Cloud Native
4 11 (5.85%) PropTech
5 8 (4.26%) AI Agents
6 7 (3.72%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (3.19%) Distributed Architecture
8 4 (2.13%) Derivative
8 4 (2.13%) Distributed Applications
8 4 (2.13%) Equities
8 4 (2.13%) Fixed Income
8 4 (2.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 4 (2.13%) Video\Live Streaming
9 2 (1.06%) Blockchain
9 2 (1.06%) Data Centre
9 2 (1.06%) NHS
9 2 (1.06%) Online Gambling
9 2 (1.06%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 3 (1.60%) Windows
2 2 (1.06%) Android
2 2 (1.06%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (29.79%) Microservices
2 50 (26.60%) CI/CD
3 49 (26.06%) Agile
4 29 (15.43%) Event-Driven
5 28 (14.89%) DevOps
5 28 (14.89%) TDD
6 25 (13.30%) Problem-Solving
7 24 (12.77%) AI
7 24 (12.77%) OOP
8 22 (11.70%) Containerisation
9 21 (11.17%) Clean Code
10 19 (10.11%) Software Engineering
11 17 (9.04%) Code Quality
11 17 (9.04%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 17 (9.04%) Infrastructure as Code
12 16 (8.51%) Computer Science
13 14 (7.45%) API Development
13 14 (7.45%) Migration
13 14 (7.45%) SDLC
13 14 (7.45%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 57 (30.32%) Java
2 35 (18.62%) Python
3 25 (13.30%) C#
3 25 (13.30%) SQL
3 25 (13.30%) TypeScript
4 24 (12.77%) PHP
5 8 (4.26%) Go
6 7 (3.72%) JavaScript
7 4 (2.13%) Scala
8 3 (1.60%) Kotlin
8 3 (1.60%) PL/SQL
8 3 (1.60%) VB
8 3 (1.60%) VB.NET
9 2 (1.06%) C++
10 1 (0.53%) Google Apps Script
10 1 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 16 (8.51%) Computer Science Degree
1 16 (8.51%) Degree
2 14 (7.45%) Security Cleared
3 11 (5.85%) SC Cleared
4 3 (1.60%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.85%) QA
2 2 (1.06%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.06%) HL7
System Software
1 56 (29.79%) Docker
Systems Management
1 50 (26.60%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.19%) Grafana
3 5 (2.66%) Kibana
4 3 (1.60%) Ansible
5 2 (1.06%) Podman
5 2 (1.06%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (6.38%) Google
2 10 (5.32%) Oracle
3 8 (4.26%) OpenAI
4 4 (2.13%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.60%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.60%) IBM
5 3 (1.60%) SAP
6 2 (1.06%) Bloomberg
6 2 (1.06%) Refinitiv
6 2 (1.06%) Splunk
6 2 (1.06%) Typelevel
7 1 (0.53%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.53%) Foundry