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 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 569 565 643
Rank change year-on-year -4 +78 -30
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 172 100 250
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.23% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.25% 0.27%
Number of salaries quoted 149 90 219
10th Percentile £48,750 £48,750 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £57,500 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% +8.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £100,000 £82,500 £77,500
90th Percentile - £95,000 £98,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year - +14.29% -12.50%

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 86,118 39,518 92,024
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.34% 89.61% 94.63%
Number of salaries quoted 56,984 22,887 67,462
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -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 20 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Backend Developer in the UK

Backend Developer
Top 11 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 20 May 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 +12 164 £83,750 +34.00% 34
London +47 95 £95,000 +18.75% 17
UK excluding London -52 65 £60,000 - 17
Work from Home +23 59 £80,000 +33.33% 21
South East +10 33 £60,000 -7.69% 2
North of England -27 20 £60,000 +4.35% 8
North West +8 13 £60,000 +4.35% 5
South West -54 13 £42,500 -34.62% 5
Yorkshire -43 6 £65,000 +11.59% 3
East of England -28 1 £62,500 -5.73%
North East - 1 £40,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 20 May 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 51 (29.65%) Python
2 41 (23.84%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (22.67%) CI/CD
4 38 (22.09%) AWS
5 36 (20.93%) Docker
6 34 (19.77%) Clean Code
7 33 (19.19%) Microservices
8 32 (18.60%) Software Engineering
9 31 (18.02%) Java
9 31 (18.02%) Kubernetes
10 27 (15.70%) AI
10 27 (15.70%) RESTful
11 24 (13.95%) Node.js
12 23 (13.37%) Containerisation
12 23 (13.37%) PHP
13 22 (12.79%) Agile
13 22 (12.79%) TDD
14 21 (12.21%) OOP
15 19 (11.05%) Computer Science
15 19 (11.05%) Degree
15 19 (11.05%) TypeScript
16 17 (9.88%) MySQL
17 16 (9.30%) GCP
17 16 (9.30%) Laravel
18 15 (8.72%) Azure
18 15 (8.72%) DevOps
18 15 (8.72%) Spring
19 14 (8.14%) C#
19 14 (8.14%) Computer Science Degree
19 14 (8.14%) Git

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 (2.33%) nginx
2 3 (1.74%) Apache
2 3 (1.74%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.58%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.58%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 38 (22.09%) AWS
2 16 (9.30%) GCP
3 15 (8.72%) Azure
4 12 (6.98%) SaaS
5 10 (5.81%) GitHub
6 8 (4.65%) Serverless
7 5 (2.91%) Amazon ECS
7 5 (2.91%) Amazon SQS
8 4 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
8 4 (2.33%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.74%) Azure AKS
9 3 (1.74%) GitHub Copilot
10 2 (1.16%) Azure App Service
10 2 (1.16%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.16%) Azure Functions
10 2 (1.16%) Azure Storage
10 2 (1.16%) Cloud Functions
10 2 (1.16%) Cloud Run
10 2 (1.16%) Figma
11 1 (0.58%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.07%) Broadband
2 3 (1.74%) VPN
3 1 (0.58%) AMQP
3 1 (0.58%) HTTP
3 1 (0.58%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (9.88%) MySQL
2 10 (5.81%) MongoDB
2 10 (5.81%) NoSQL
3 9 (5.23%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (3.49%) Relational Database
5 5 (2.91%) Redis
6 4 (2.33%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.58%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.58%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.58%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (8.14%) Git
2 6 (3.49%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.74%) JUnit
4 2 (1.16%) CircleCI
4 2 (1.16%) Cypress.io
4 2 (1.16%) GitLab
4 2 (1.16%) JIRA
4 2 (1.16%) Liquibase
4 2 (1.16%) Mockito
4 2 (1.16%) PHPUnit
4 2 (1.16%) Selenium
5 1 (0.58%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 15 (8.72%) Social Skills
2 7 (4.07%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (4.07%) Public Sector
3 4 (2.33%) Digital Health
3 4 (2.33%) Finance
4 3 (1.74%) Retail
5 2 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (0.58%) Banking
6 1 (0.58%) Games
6 1 (0.58%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (15.70%) RESTful
2 24 (13.95%) Node.js
3 16 (9.30%) Laravel
4 15 (8.72%) Spring
5 13 (7.56%) FastAPI
6 12 (6.98%) Django
6 12 (6.98%) Spring Boot
7 11 (6.40%) .NET
7 11 (6.40%) .NET Core
7 11 (6.40%) Flask
8 9 (5.23%) REST
9 8 (4.65%) RabbitMQ
9 8 (4.65%) React
10 7 (4.07%) Kafka
11 6 (3.49%) JPA
12 5 (2.91%) gRPC
12 5 (2.91%) Java EE
12 5 (2.91%) NestJS
13 4 (2.33%) Elastic Stack
13 4 (2.33%) LAMP
Miscellaneous
1 31 (18.02%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (8.72%) Algorithms
2 15 (8.72%) Data Structures
3 13 (7.56%) Cloud Native
4 6 (3.49%) PropTech
5 5 (2.91%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.91%) Distributed Architecture
5 5 (2.91%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (2.91%) Over-the-Top Content
5 5 (2.91%) Video\Live Streaming
6 4 (2.33%) Blockchain
6 4 (2.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (1.74%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.16%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.58%) Sports Betting
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (23.84%) Problem-Solving
2 39 (22.67%) CI/CD
3 34 (19.77%) Clean Code
4 33 (19.19%) Microservices
5 32 (18.60%) Software Engineering
6 27 (15.70%) AI
7 23 (13.37%) Containerisation
8 22 (12.79%) Agile
8 22 (12.79%) TDD
9 21 (12.21%) OOP
10 19 (11.05%) Computer Science
11 15 (8.72%) DevOps
12 14 (8.14%) Insurtech
13 13 (7.56%) OO
13 13 (7.56%) OOD
13 13 (7.56%) Refactoring
14 12 (6.98%) Event-Driven
15 11 (6.40%) Migration
15 11 (6.40%) Roadmaps
15 11 (6.40%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 51 (29.65%) Python
2 31 (18.02%) Java
3 23 (13.37%) PHP
4 19 (11.05%) TypeScript
5 14 (8.14%) C#
6 13 (7.56%) SQL
7 9 (5.23%) JavaScript
8 6 (3.49%) Scala
9 5 (2.91%) Go
10 3 (1.74%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 19 (11.05%) Degree
2 14 (8.14%) Computer Science Degree
2 14 (8.14%) Security Cleared
3 11 (6.40%) SC Cleared
4 3 (1.74%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.16%) QA
System Software
1 36 (20.93%) Docker
Systems Management
1 31 (18.02%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.74%) Ansible
2 3 (1.74%) Kibana
2 3 (1.74%) Terraform
3 2 (1.16%) Podman
Vendors
1 8 (4.65%) Google
1 8 (4.65%) Oracle
2 5 (2.91%) Typelevel
3 3 (1.74%) AppDynamics
3 3 (1.74%) IBM
4 2 (1.16%) Atlassian
4 2 (1.16%) Microsoft
5 1 (0.58%) Foundry
5 1 (0.58%) Red Hat