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 13 September 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 605 580 581
Rank change year-on-year -25 +1 -10
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 191 93 220
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.19% 0.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.21% 0.30%
Number of salaries quoted 151 74 148
10th Percentile £50,000 £50,375 £33,500
25th Percentile £56,250 £53,125 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +17.39% -14.81%
75th Percentile £90,000 £85,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,250 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £66,250 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.22% +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 106,084 44,466 74,570
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.44% 89.67% 95.26%
Number of salaries quoted 73,032 26,165 45,576
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.36% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
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 13 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Backend Developer in the UK

Backend Developer
Top 14 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 13 September 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 -8 176 £70,000 +3.70% 43
UK excluding London -60 91 £66,250 +15.22% 19
London +4 86 £90,000 +12.50% 30
South East +10 54 £70,000 +33.33% 1
Work from Home -34 42 £95,000 +52.00% 375
North of England -63 22 £65,000 +8.33% 9
South West -61 11 £42,500 -29.17% 3
North West -33 8 £60,000 -4.00% 4
Yorkshire -38 8 £65,000 +8.33% 2
North East -55 6 £75,000 +36.36% 3
Midlands -54 4 £80,000 +97.84%
West Midlands - 3 £80,000 -
Scotland +9 2 - - 5
East Midlands -34 1 £75,000 +85.47%

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

For the 6 months to 13 September 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 59 (30.89%) Java
1 59 (30.89%) Microservices
2 55 (28.80%) AWS
3 54 (28.27%) Docker
4 49 (25.65%) CI/CD
5 48 (25.13%) Agile
5 48 (25.13%) Kubernetes
6 38 (19.90%) Git
7 34 (17.80%) Azure
7 34 (17.80%) Python
8 33 (17.28%) Node.js
9 30 (15.71%) Event-Driven
9 30 (15.71%) SQL
10 29 (15.18%) RESTful
11 28 (14.66%) C#
11 28 (14.66%) DevOps
12 26 (13.61%) .NET
12 26 (13.61%) GCP
12 26 (13.61%) TypeScript
13 25 (13.09%) AI
13 25 (13.09%) TDD
14 24 (12.57%) Kafka
14 24 (12.57%) Problem-Solving
15 22 (11.52%) Spring
16 21 (10.99%) OOP
16 21 (10.99%) PHP
17 20 (10.47%) Containerisation
17 20 (10.47%) Software Engineering
17 20 (10.47%) Spring Boot
18 19 (9.95%) Code Quality

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 (2.09%) Apache
1 4 (2.09%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 3 (1.57%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 55 (28.80%) AWS
2 34 (17.80%) Azure
3 26 (13.61%) GCP
4 15 (7.85%) GitHub
5 12 (6.28%) Serverless
6 8 (4.19%) Amazon ECS
6 8 (4.19%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (3.66%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (3.14%) Amazon S3
8 6 (3.14%) Amazon SQS
8 6 (3.14%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (3.14%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (3.14%) GitHub Copilot
8 6 (3.14%) SaaS
9 5 (2.62%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (2.62%) Anthropic Claude
10 4 (2.09%) Cloud Computing
11 3 (1.57%) Amazon EC2
11 3 (1.57%) Azure AKS
11 3 (1.57%) CloudFront
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.57%) Broadband
1 3 (1.57%) HTTP
2 1 (0.52%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (9.95%) MySQL
2 18 (9.42%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (6.81%) NoSQL
4 10 (5.24%) MongoDB
5 7 (3.66%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.62%) DynamoDB
7 4 (2.09%) Pinecone
7 4 (2.09%) Redis
7 4 (2.09%) SQL Server
8 2 (1.05%) Amazon Athena
8 2 (1.05%) Amazon Aurora
8 2 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (1.05%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.05%) Couchbase
8 2 (1.05%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (1.05%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 38 (19.90%) Git
2 8 (4.19%) Jenkins
3 6 (3.14%) JUnit
4 4 (2.09%) Cucumber
4 4 (2.09%) Mockito
5 3 (1.57%) GitLab
5 3 (1.57%) PHPUnit
5 3 (1.57%) Selenium
6 2 (1.05%) CircleCI
6 2 (1.05%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.05%) Gradle
6 2 (1.05%) JIRA
6 2 (1.05%) JMeter
6 2 (1.05%) Liquibase
6 2 (1.05%) Maven
7 1 (0.52%) Crashlytics
7 1 (0.52%) NUnit
7 1 (0.52%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.52%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 21 (10.99%) Finance
2 16 (8.38%) Social Skills
3 11 (5.76%) Public Sector
4 8 (4.19%) Games
5 7 (3.66%) Front Office
6 4 (2.09%) Advertising
6 4 (2.09%) Digital Health
6 4 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.09%) Retail
7 3 (1.57%) Banking
7 3 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.05%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (17.28%) Node.js
2 29 (15.18%) RESTful
3 26 (13.61%) .NET
4 24 (12.57%) Kafka
5 22 (11.52%) Spring
6 20 (10.47%) Spring Boot
7 17 (8.90%) REST
8 15 (7.85%) RabbitMQ
9 12 (6.28%) JPA
10 10 (5.24%) Laravel
11 9 (4.71%) .NET Core
11 9 (4.71%) Hibernate
11 9 (4.71%) Terraform
12 8 (4.19%) React
13 6 (3.14%) GraphQL
13 6 (3.14%) Swagger
14 5 (2.62%) FIX Protocol
14 5 (2.62%) Jakarta EE
15 4 (2.09%) Spring MVC
15 4 (2.09%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 45 (23.56%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (8.90%) Greenfield Project
3 14 (7.33%) Cloud Native
4 12 (6.28%) Algorithms
4 12 (6.28%) Data Structures
5 11 (5.76%) PropTech
6 8 (4.19%) AI Agents
7 7 (3.66%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (3.14%) Distributed Architecture
9 4 (2.09%) Derivative
9 4 (2.09%) Distributed Applications
9 4 (2.09%) Equities
9 4 (2.09%) Fixed Income
9 4 (2.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 3 (1.57%) Data Centre
10 3 (1.57%) Video\Live Streaming
11 2 (1.05%) NHS
11 2 (1.05%) Online Gambling
11 2 (1.05%) Product Ownership
12 1 (0.52%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 3 (1.57%) Windows
2 2 (1.05%) Android
2 2 (1.05%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (30.89%) Microservices
2 49 (25.65%) CI/CD
3 48 (25.13%) Agile
4 30 (15.71%) Event-Driven
5 28 (14.66%) DevOps
6 25 (13.09%) AI
6 25 (13.09%) TDD
7 24 (12.57%) Problem-Solving
8 21 (10.99%) OOP
9 20 (10.47%) Containerisation
9 20 (10.47%) Software Engineering
10 19 (9.95%) Code Quality
11 18 (9.42%) Clean Code
11 18 (9.42%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 18 (9.42%) Mentoring
12 17 (8.90%) Infrastructure as Code
12 17 (8.90%) SDLC
13 15 (7.85%) Computer Science
14 14 (7.33%) API Development
14 14 (7.33%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 59 (30.89%) Java
2 34 (17.80%) Python
3 30 (15.71%) SQL
4 28 (14.66%) C#
5 26 (13.61%) TypeScript
6 21 (10.99%) PHP
7 13 (6.81%) Go
8 8 (4.19%) JavaScript
9 3 (1.57%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.57%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.57%) Scala
9 3 (1.57%) VB
9 3 (1.57%) VB.NET
10 2 (1.05%) C++
11 1 (0.52%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 15 (7.85%) Computer Science Degree
1 15 (7.85%) Degree
1 15 (7.85%) Security Cleared
2 12 (6.28%) SC Cleared
3 3 (1.57%) DV Cleared
4 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.76%) QA
2 2 (1.05%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.05%) HL7
System Software
1 54 (28.27%) Docker
Systems Management
1 48 (25.13%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.14%) Grafana
3 5 (2.62%) Kibana
4 3 (1.57%) Ansible
5 2 (1.05%) Podman
5 2 (1.05%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 11 (5.76%) Google
2 10 (5.24%) Oracle
3 8 (4.19%) OpenAI
4 4 (2.09%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.57%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.57%) IBM
5 3 (1.57%) SAP
6 2 (1.05%) Bloomberg
6 2 (1.05%) Refinitiv
6 2 (1.05%) Splunk
7 1 (0.52%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.52%) Foundry
7 1 (0.52%) Typelevel