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 20 July 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 594 574 646
Rank change year-on-year -20 +72 -30
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 168 97 230
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.20% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.22% 0.25%
Number of salaries quoted 142 82 185
10th Percentile £50,000 £45,200 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £55,313 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £66,296 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.59% +10.49% -14.29%
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £89,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -19.52%

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 94,139 44,347 91,129
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.26% 89.90% 94.76%
Number of salaries quoted 64,646 26,264 64,457
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year - +2.80% -10.83%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,250 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 July 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 20 July 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 +8 159 £70,000 +7.69% 20
UK excluding London -53 81 £60,000 - 9
London +14 77 £95,000 +18.75% 14
Work from Home -6 52 £90,000 +50.00% 11
South East +19 47 £70,000 +27.27% 7
North of England -19 22 £60,000 +4.35% 1
North West -7 14 £60,000 +4.35% 1
South West -52 12 £42,500 -32.00% 1
Yorkshire -19 7 £65,000 +8.33%
East Midlands -23 1 £75,000 +33.33%
East of England -24 1 £62,500 -5.73%
Midlands -41 1 £75,000 +25.00%
North East -45 1 £40,000 -27.27%

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

For the 6 months to 20 July 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 48 (28.57%) Microservices
2 45 (26.79%) AWS
2 45 (26.79%) Docker
2 45 (26.79%) Python
3 44 (26.19%) CI/CD
4 42 (25.00%) Java
5 37 (22.02%) Agile
6 36 (21.43%) Kubernetes
7 35 (20.83%) Problem-Solving
8 30 (17.86%) Clean Code
9 28 (16.67%) Software Engineering
10 27 (16.07%) AI
10 27 (16.07%) Git
10 27 (16.07%) Node.js
11 24 (14.29%) RESTful
12 23 (13.69%) GCP
12 23 (13.69%) TDD
13 21 (12.50%) Azure
13 21 (12.50%) OOP
13 21 (12.50%) SQL
13 21 (12.50%) TypeScript
14 20 (11.90%) Containerisation
14 20 (11.90%) DevOps
14 20 (11.90%) PHP
15 19 (11.31%) Computer Science
15 19 (11.31%) Degree
15 19 (11.31%) Event-Driven
15 19 (11.31%) MySQL
16 18 (10.71%) C#
16 18 (10.71%) Spring

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 1 (0.60%) Apache
1 1 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (0.60%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 1 (0.60%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 45 (26.79%) AWS
2 23 (13.69%) GCP
3 21 (12.50%) Azure
4 11 (6.55%) GitHub
5 8 (4.76%) SaaS
6 7 (4.17%) Serverless
7 5 (2.98%) GitHub Copilot
8 4 (2.38%) Amazon ECS
8 4 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (2.38%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (1.79%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.79%) Azure AKS
9 3 (1.79%) Cloud Functions
9 3 (1.79%) Cloud Run
10 2 (1.19%) Anthropic Claude
10 2 (1.19%) Azure App Service
10 2 (1.19%) Azure Storage
10 2 (1.19%) ChatGPT
10 2 (1.19%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.17%) Broadband
2 1 (0.60%) AMQP
2 1 (0.60%) HTTP
2 1 (0.60%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (11.31%) MySQL
2 12 (7.14%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (6.55%) NoSQL
4 9 (5.36%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.57%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.38%) Redis
7 2 (1.19%) Apache Cassandra
7 2 (1.19%) Couchbase
7 2 (1.19%) Pinecone
7 2 (1.19%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.60%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.60%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (16.07%) Git
2 6 (3.57%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.98%) JUnit
4 3 (1.79%) PHPUnit
4 3 (1.79%) Selenium
5 2 (1.19%) CircleCI
5 2 (1.19%) Cucumber
5 2 (1.19%) Cypress.io
5 2 (1.19%) JIRA
5 2 (1.19%) JMeter
5 2 (1.19%) Liquibase
5 2 (1.19%) Mockito
6 1 (0.60%) Crashlytics
6 1 (0.60%) GitLab
6 1 (0.60%) NUnit
6 1 (0.60%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 13 (7.74%) Social Skills
2 9 (5.36%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.57%) Finance
4 4 (2.38%) Advertising
4 4 (2.38%) Digital Health
5 2 (1.19%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (1.19%) Banking
5 2 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (1.19%) Retail
6 1 (0.60%) Front Office
6 1 (0.60%) Games
6 1 (0.60%) Investment Banking
6 1 (0.60%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (16.07%) Node.js
2 24 (14.29%) RESTful
3 18 (10.71%) Spring
4 16 (9.52%) Spring Boot
5 15 (8.93%) Laravel
6 14 (8.33%) .NET
7 11 (6.55%) .NET Core
7 11 (6.55%) Kafka
7 11 (6.55%) REST
8 8 (4.76%) FastAPI
9 7 (4.17%) Flask
9 7 (4.17%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (4.17%) React
10 6 (3.57%) JPA
11 5 (2.98%) Django
11 5 (2.98%) gRPC
11 5 (2.98%) Jakarta EE
11 5 (2.98%) LAMP
12 4 (2.38%) Vert.x
13 3 (1.79%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 39 (23.21%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (10.12%) Algorithms
2 17 (10.12%) Data Structures
3 11 (6.55%) Greenfield Project
3 11 (6.55%) PropTech
4 9 (5.36%) Cloud Native
5 5 (2.98%) AI Agents
5 5 (2.98%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.98%) Over-the-Top Content
5 5 (2.98%) Video\Live Streaming
6 4 (2.38%) Blockchain
6 4 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.79%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (1.19%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 1 (0.60%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.60%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (28.57%) Microservices
2 44 (26.19%) CI/CD
3 37 (22.02%) Agile
4 35 (20.83%) Problem-Solving
5 30 (17.86%) Clean Code
6 28 (16.67%) Software Engineering
7 27 (16.07%) AI
8 23 (13.69%) TDD
9 21 (12.50%) OOP
10 20 (11.90%) Containerisation
10 20 (11.90%) DevOps
11 19 (11.31%) Computer Science
11 19 (11.31%) Event-Driven
12 15 (8.93%) OO
12 15 (8.93%) OOD
12 15 (8.93%) Refactoring
13 14 (8.33%) Event-Driven Architecture
14 11 (6.55%) API Design
15 10 (5.95%) API Development
15 10 (5.95%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 45 (26.79%) Python
2 42 (25.00%) Java
3 21 (12.50%) SQL
3 21 (12.50%) TypeScript
4 20 (11.90%) PHP
5 18 (10.71%) C#
6 9 (5.36%) Go
7 7 (4.17%) JavaScript
8 5 (2.98%) Scala
9 3 (1.79%) PL/SQL
10 2 (1.19%) C++
11 1 (0.60%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.60%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.60%) VB
11 1 (0.60%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 19 (11.31%) Degree
2 17 (10.12%) Computer Science Degree
3 14 (8.33%) Security Cleared
4 11 (6.55%) SC Cleared
5 3 (1.79%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.17%) QA
2 1 (0.60%) Data Quality
2 1 (0.60%) HL7
System Software
1 45 (26.79%) Docker
Systems Management
1 36 (21.43%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.57%) Terraform
3 5 (2.98%) Kibana
4 3 (1.79%) Ansible
5 2 (1.19%) Grafana
5 2 (1.19%) Podman
Vendors
1 10 (5.95%) Google
2 9 (5.36%) Oracle
3 5 (2.98%) OpenAI
3 5 (2.98%) Typelevel
4 4 (2.38%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.79%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.79%) IBM
6 2 (1.19%) Splunk
7 1 (0.60%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.60%) Bloomberg
7 1 (0.60%) Foundry
7 1 (0.60%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.60%) Refinitiv
7 1 (0.60%) SAP