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 1 June 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 550 571 645
Rank change year-on-year +21 +74 -31
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 172 99 260
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.23% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.25% 0.27%
Number of salaries quoted 149 87 225
10th Percentile £48,750 £46,200 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £57,500 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% +4.00% -10.71%
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £97,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -16.67%

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 87,195 39,235 96,338
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.47% 89.39% 94.78%
Number of salaries quoted 58,141 22,113 70,235
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,378
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 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.90% +1.93% -6.54%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 +25 164 £80,000 +23.08% 42
London +37 93 £95,000 +18.75% 18
UK excluding London -32 68 £60,000 - 26
Work from Home +30 57 £80,000 +33.33% 18
South East +13 34 £60,000 -14.29% 8
North of England -26 22 £60,000 +4.35% 13
North West -7 13 £60,000 +4.35% 9
South West -46 13 £42,500 -34.62% 3
Yorkshire -46 8 £65,000 +8.33% 4
East of England -29 1 £62,500 -5.73% 1
North East - 1 £40,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 1 June 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 (27.91%) Python
2 40 (23.26%) CI/CD
3 38 (22.09%) AWS
3 38 (22.09%) Problem-Solving
4 37 (21.51%) Microservices
5 36 (20.93%) Docker
6 34 (19.77%) Java
7 31 (18.02%) Clean Code
7 31 (18.02%) Kubernetes
8 29 (16.86%) Software Engineering
9 26 (15.12%) Agile
10 25 (14.53%) AI
11 24 (13.95%) RESTful
12 23 (13.37%) Node.js
13 22 (12.79%) Computer Science
13 22 (12.79%) Containerisation
13 22 (12.79%) Degree
14 21 (12.21%) PHP
14 21 (12.21%) TDD
15 19 (11.05%) TypeScript
16 18 (10.47%) Computer Science Degree
16 18 (10.47%) Git
16 18 (10.47%) OOP
16 18 (10.47%) Spring
17 17 (9.88%) SQL
18 16 (9.30%) DevOps
18 16 (9.30%) GCP
18 16 (9.30%) Laravel
19 15 (8.72%) Azure
19 15 (8.72%) MySQL

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 2 (1.16%) Apache
2 2 (1.16%) 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 11 (6.40%) SaaS
5 9 (5.23%) GitHub
6 8 (4.65%) Serverless
7 5 (2.91%) Amazon ECS
8 4 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
8 4 (2.33%) Amazon SQS
8 4 (2.33%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (2.33%) Cloud Computing
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
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 15 (8.72%) MySQL
2 14 (8.14%) NoSQL
3 11 (6.40%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (5.23%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.49%) Apache Cassandra
5 6 (3.49%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.33%) Redis
7 2 (1.16%) Couchbase
8 1 (0.58%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.58%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.58%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (10.47%) Git
2 8 (4.65%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.91%) JUnit
4 2 (1.16%) CircleCI
4 2 (1.16%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.16%) Cypress.io
4 2 (1.16%) GitLab
4 2 (1.16%) JIRA
4 2 (1.16%) JMeter
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 13 (7.56%) Social Skills
2 7 (4.07%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (4.07%) Public Sector
3 5 (2.91%) Finance
4 4 (2.33%) Advertising
4 4 (2.33%) Digital Health
5 3 (1.74%) Retail
6 2 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.58%) Banking
7 1 (0.58%) Games
7 1 (0.58%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (13.95%) RESTful
2 23 (13.37%) Node.js
3 18 (10.47%) Spring
4 16 (9.30%) Laravel
5 15 (8.72%) Spring Boot
6 11 (6.40%) .NET
6 11 (6.40%) .NET Core
6 11 (6.40%) FastAPI
7 10 (5.81%) Django
7 10 (5.81%) Kafka
8 9 (5.23%) Flask
8 9 (5.23%) REST
9 8 (4.65%) RabbitMQ
9 8 (4.65%) React
10 5 (2.91%) gRPC
10 5 (2.91%) Java EE
10 5 (2.91%) JPA
11 4 (2.33%) Elastic Stack
11 4 (2.33%) LAMP
11 4 (2.33%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 33 (19.19%) Distributed Systems
2 14 (8.14%) Algorithms
2 14 (8.14%) Data Structures
3 12 (6.98%) Cloud Native
4 7 (4.07%) PropTech
5 5 (2.91%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.91%) Over-the-Top Content
5 5 (2.91%) Video\Live Streaming
6 4 (2.33%) Blockchain
6 4 (2.33%) Distributed Architecture
6 4 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
6 4 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.74%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 3 (1.74%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.16%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.58%) Sports Betting
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (23.26%) CI/CD
2 38 (22.09%) Problem-Solving
3 37 (21.51%) Microservices
4 31 (18.02%) Clean Code
5 29 (16.86%) Software Engineering
6 26 (15.12%) Agile
7 25 (14.53%) AI
8 22 (12.79%) Computer Science
8 22 (12.79%) Containerisation
9 21 (12.21%) TDD
10 18 (10.47%) OOP
11 16 (9.30%) DevOps
12 14 (8.14%) Event-Driven
13 13 (7.56%) OO
13 13 (7.56%) OOD
13 13 (7.56%) Refactoring
14 12 (6.98%) Insurtech
15 11 (6.40%) Scrum
16 10 (5.81%) Migration
17 9 (5.23%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 48 (27.91%) Python
2 34 (19.77%) Java
3 21 (12.21%) PHP
4 19 (11.05%) TypeScript
5 17 (9.88%) SQL
6 14 (8.14%) C#
7 9 (5.23%) Go
7 9 (5.23%) JavaScript
8 6 (3.49%) Scala
9 3 (1.74%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 22 (12.79%) Degree
2 18 (10.47%) Computer Science Degree
3 15 (8.72%) Security Cleared
4 11 (6.40%) SC Cleared
5 4 (2.33%) 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 5 (2.91%) Kibana
3 3 (1.74%) Ansible
3 3 (1.74%) Terraform
4 2 (1.16%) Grafana
4 2 (1.16%) Podman
Vendors
1 10 (5.81%) Oracle
2 8 (4.65%) Google
3 5 (2.91%) Typelevel
4 3 (1.74%) AppDynamics
4 3 (1.74%) IBM
5 2 (1.16%) Atlassian
5 2 (1.16%) Microsoft
5 2 (1.16%) Splunk
6 1 (0.58%) Foundry
6 1 (0.58%) Red Hat