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 26 July 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 595 589 626
Rank change year-on-year -6 +37 -22
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 177 98 211
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.20% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.22% 0.25%
Number of salaries quoted 149 81 170
10th Percentile £49,750 £45,000 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £53,750 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +8.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,000 £74,688
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -20.00%

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 95,392 44,432 84,355
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.35% 90.12% 94.77%
Number of salaries quoted 65,258 26,408 58,586
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £96,250 £96,250 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.12%

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 26 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 26 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 -12 168 £70,000 +7.69% 26
UK excluding London -51 84 £60,000 - 13
London +17 82 £95,000 +18.75% 18
Work from Home -16 53 £90,000 +50.00% 16
South East +13 50 £70,000 +27.27% 9
North of England -35 22 £60,000 +4.35% 3
North West -4 14 £60,000 +4.35% 1
South West -56 12 £42,500 -29.17% 1
Yorkshire -32 7 £65,000 +8.33%
East of England -22 1 £62,500 -5.73%
East Midlands -35 1 £75,000 +33.33%
Midlands -47 1 £75,000 +25.00%
North East -49 1 £40,000 -27.27% 2

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

For the 6 months to 26 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 52 (29.38%) AWS
2 51 (28.81%) Docker
3 50 (28.25%) Microservices
4 48 (27.12%) CI/CD
5 46 (25.99%) Java
5 46 (25.99%) Python
6 43 (24.29%) Agile
7 42 (23.73%) Kubernetes
8 35 (19.77%) Problem-Solving
9 32 (18.08%) Git
10 30 (16.95%) Clean Code
11 28 (15.82%) RESTful
12 27 (15.25%) AI
12 27 (15.25%) GCP
12 27 (15.25%) Node.js
13 26 (14.69%) Software Engineering
13 26 (14.69%) TDD
14 24 (13.56%) DevOps
14 24 (13.56%) OOP
14 24 (13.56%) SQL
15 23 (12.99%) Azure
15 23 (12.99%) Event-Driven
15 23 (12.99%) PHP
16 22 (12.43%) Containerisation
16 22 (12.43%) MySQL
17 21 (11.86%) TypeScript
18 20 (11.30%) C#
18 20 (11.30%) Spring
19 18 (10.17%) Computer Science
19 18 (10.17%) Degree

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 3 (1.69%) Apache
1 3 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (1.13%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 52 (29.38%) AWS
2 27 (15.25%) GCP
3 23 (12.99%) Azure
4 11 (6.21%) GitHub
5 8 (4.52%) Serverless
6 7 (3.95%) SaaS
7 5 (2.82%) Amazon ECS
7 5 (2.82%) Amazon SQS
7 5 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (2.82%) GitHub Copilot
8 4 (2.26%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (2.26%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (1.69%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (1.69%) Azure AKS
9 3 (1.69%) Cloud Functions
9 3 (1.69%) Cloud Run
10 2 (1.13%) Anthropic Claude
10 2 (1.13%) ChatGPT
10 2 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (1.13%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.95%) Broadband
2 2 (1.13%) HTTP
3 1 (0.56%) AMQP
3 1 (0.56%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (12.43%) MySQL
2 13 (7.34%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (6.21%) NoSQL
4 8 (4.52%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.39%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.26%) Redis
7 3 (1.69%) SQL Server
8 2 (1.13%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.13%) Couchbase
8 2 (1.13%) DynamoDB
8 2 (1.13%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (0.56%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (18.08%) Git
2 6 (3.39%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.82%) JUnit
4 4 (2.26%) PHPUnit
4 4 (2.26%) Selenium
5 2 (1.13%) CircleCI
5 2 (1.13%) Cucumber
5 2 (1.13%) Cypress.io
5 2 (1.13%) JIRA
5 2 (1.13%) JMeter
5 2 (1.13%) Liquibase
5 2 (1.13%) Mockito
6 1 (0.56%) Crashlytics
6 1 (0.56%) GitLab
6 1 (0.56%) NUnit
6 1 (0.56%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.56%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 13 (7.34%) Social Skills
2 10 (5.65%) Finance
3 9 (5.08%) Public Sector
4 4 (2.26%) Advertising
4 4 (2.26%) Digital Health
5 3 (1.69%) Banking
5 3 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (1.69%) Front Office
5 3 (1.69%) Retail
6 2 (1.13%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.13%) Investment Banking
7 1 (0.56%) Games
7 1 (0.56%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (15.82%) RESTful
2 27 (15.25%) Node.js
3 20 (11.30%) Spring
4 18 (10.17%) Spring Boot
5 17 (9.60%) .NET
6 15 (8.47%) Laravel
7 14 (7.91%) Kafka
8 13 (7.34%) REST
9 11 (6.21%) .NET Core
10 8 (4.52%) FastAPI
10 8 (4.52%) JPA
10 8 (4.52%) RabbitMQ
11 7 (3.95%) Flask
11 7 (3.95%) React
12 6 (3.39%) LAMP
13 5 (2.82%) Django
13 5 (2.82%) gRPC
13 5 (2.82%) Hibernate
13 5 (2.82%) Jakarta EE
14 4 (2.26%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 41 (23.16%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (9.60%) Algorithms
2 17 (9.60%) Data Structures
3 15 (8.47%) Greenfield Project
4 11 (6.21%) Cloud Native
4 11 (6.21%) PropTech
5 6 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (3.39%) Video\Live Streaming
6 5 (2.82%) AI Agents
6 5 (2.82%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.82%) Distributed Architecture
6 5 (2.82%) Over-the-Top Content
7 4 (2.26%) Blockchain
8 2 (1.13%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.56%) Derivative
9 1 (0.56%) Distributed Applications
9 1 (0.56%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.56%) Equities
9 1 (0.56%) Fixed Income
9 1 (0.56%) Online Gambling
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.13%) Windows
2 1 (0.56%) Android
2 1 (0.56%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (28.25%) Microservices
2 48 (27.12%) CI/CD
3 43 (24.29%) Agile
4 35 (19.77%) Problem-Solving
5 30 (16.95%) Clean Code
6 27 (15.25%) AI
7 26 (14.69%) Software Engineering
7 26 (14.69%) TDD
8 24 (13.56%) DevOps
8 24 (13.56%) OOP
9 23 (12.99%) Event-Driven
10 22 (12.43%) Containerisation
11 18 (10.17%) Computer Science
12 15 (8.47%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 15 (8.47%) OO
12 15 (8.47%) OOD
12 15 (8.47%) Refactoring
13 13 (7.34%) Migration
14 12 (6.78%) API Design
14 12 (6.78%) API Development
Programming Languages
1 46 (25.99%) Java
1 46 (25.99%) Python
2 24 (13.56%) SQL
3 23 (12.99%) PHP
4 21 (11.86%) TypeScript
5 20 (11.30%) C#
6 10 (5.65%) Go
7 8 (4.52%) JavaScript
8 5 (2.82%) Scala
9 3 (1.69%) PL/SQL
10 2 (1.13%) C++
10 2 (1.13%) VB
10 2 (1.13%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.56%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.56%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 18 (10.17%) Degree
2 17 (9.60%) Computer Science Degree
3 14 (7.91%) Security Cleared
4 11 (6.21%) SC Cleared
5 3 (1.69%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.52%) QA
2 2 (1.13%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.56%) HL7
System Software
1 51 (28.81%) Docker
Systems Management
1 42 (23.73%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.39%) Terraform
3 5 (2.82%) Kibana
4 3 (1.69%) Ansible
5 2 (1.13%) Grafana
5 2 (1.13%) Podman
Vendors
1 11 (6.21%) Google
2 9 (5.08%) Oracle
3 5 (2.82%) OpenAI
3 5 (2.82%) Typelevel
4 4 (2.26%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.69%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.69%) IBM
6 2 (1.13%) Bloomberg
6 2 (1.13%) Refinitiv
6 2 (1.13%) SAP
6 2 (1.13%) Splunk
7 1 (0.56%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.56%) Foundry
7 1 (0.56%) Red Hat