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 15 February 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 528 525 616
Rank change year-on-year -3 +91 +16
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 132 157 193
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.32% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.35% 0.27%
Number of salaries quoted 117 108 168
10th Percentile £52,000 £40,425 £37,500
25th Percentile £57,500 £50,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £60,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -4.00% -10.71%
75th Percentile £100,000 £75,000 £88,750
90th Percentile - £85,000 £100,000
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 61,307 45,494 70,946
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.18% 91.70% 94.90%
Number of salaries quoted 38,565 23,655 55,494
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,420
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 15 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Backend Developer in the UK

Backend Developer
Top 12 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 15 February 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 +60 129 £80,000 +23.08% 36
London +53 77 £95,000 +18.75% 8
Work from Home +6 45 £61,250 -5.77% 20
UK excluding London -52 42 £60,000 - 28
South East +20 15 £60,000 - 4
North of England -13 15 £57,500 +9.52% 14
North West +1 10 £60,000 +14.29% 10
Yorkshire -26 5 £35,000 -39.91% 1
East of England +12 4 £55,000 -17.04% 1
West Midlands +3 4 £52,000 -20.00% 1
Midlands -20 4 £52,000 -13.33% 5
South West -22 4 £68,750 +5.77% 1

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

For the 6 months to 15 February 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 64 (48.48%) Python
2 45 (34.09%) CI/CD
3 38 (28.79%) Problem-Solving
4 36 (27.27%) AI
5 35 (26.52%) Microservices
6 32 (24.24%) AWS
6 32 (24.24%) Containerisation
7 31 (23.48%) Docker
7 31 (23.48%) Insurtech
8 29 (21.97%) Node.js
8 29 (21.97%) Software Engineering
9 27 (20.45%) FastAPI
10 26 (19.70%) Java
11 24 (18.18%) Clean Code
11 24 (18.18%) Kubernetes
12 23 (17.42%) PHP
12 23 (17.42%) RESTful
13 22 (16.67%) Flask
13 22 (16.67%) MySQL
13 22 (16.67%) Spring
14 21 (15.91%) Django
14 21 (15.91%) Spring Boot
15 18 (13.64%) Agile
15 18 (13.64%) Git
16 17 (12.88%) DevOps
17 16 (12.12%) Azure
17 16 (12.12%) MongoDB
17 16 (12.12%) SQL
18 15 (11.36%) JavaScript
18 15 (11.36%) NoSQL

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 11 (8.33%) Apache
1 11 (8.33%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (5.30%) Apache Solr
3 4 (3.03%) nginx
4 1 (0.76%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.76%) CMS
4 1 (0.76%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.76%) Umbraco
Cloud Services
1 32 (24.24%) AWS
2 16 (12.12%) Azure
3 14 (10.61%) GCP
4 12 (9.09%) Amazon SQS
5 10 (7.58%) SaaS
6 9 (6.82%) GitHub
7 8 (6.06%) Serverless
8 7 (5.30%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (0.76%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.76%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.76%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.27%) VPN
2 2 (1.52%) Broadband
3 1 (0.76%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (16.67%) MySQL
2 16 (12.12%) MongoDB
3 15 (11.36%) NoSQL
4 14 (10.61%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (7.58%) Relational Database
6 7 (5.30%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (5.30%) Redis
7 4 (3.03%) Apache Cassandra
8 3 (2.27%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.76%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.76%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.76%) SQL Server
9 1 (0.76%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (13.64%) Git
2 7 (5.30%) Jenkins
3 5 (3.79%) GitLab
4 2 (1.52%) JUnit
5 1 (0.76%) Mockito
General
1 17 (12.88%) Social Skills
2 11 (8.33%) Finance
3 6 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (3.03%) Marketing
5 3 (2.27%) Electronics
5 3 (2.27%) Manufacturing
5 3 (2.27%) Public Sector
5 3 (2.27%) Retail
5 3 (2.27%) Telecoms
6 2 (1.52%) Back Office
7 1 (0.76%) Automotive
7 1 (0.76%) Games
7 1 (0.76%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (21.97%) Node.js
2 27 (20.45%) FastAPI
3 23 (17.42%) RESTful
4 22 (16.67%) Flask
4 22 (16.67%) Spring
5 21 (15.91%) Django
5 21 (15.91%) Spring Boot
6 14 (10.61%) Kafka
7 11 (8.33%) Hibernate
7 11 (8.33%) JPA
7 11 (8.33%) Pandas
8 9 (6.82%) .NET
8 9 (6.82%) REST
9 7 (5.30%) NestJS
10 6 (4.55%) .NET Core
11 5 (3.79%) RabbitMQ
12 3 (2.27%) Laravel
13 2 (1.52%) gRPC
13 2 (1.52%) React
13 2 (1.52%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 23 (17.42%) Cloud Native
2 15 (11.36%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (8.33%) Distributed Architecture
3 11 (8.33%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (6.06%) Data Structures
5 6 (4.55%) Algorithms
6 4 (3.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 3 (2.27%) Data Centre
7 3 (2.27%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.52%) Over-the-Top Content
8 2 (1.52%) Video\Live Streaming
9 1 (0.76%) Blockchain
9 1 (0.76%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 7 (5.30%) Linux
1 7 (5.30%) Windows
1 7 (5.30%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (34.09%) CI/CD
2 38 (28.79%) Problem-Solving
3 36 (27.27%) AI
4 35 (26.52%) Microservices
5 32 (24.24%) Containerisation
6 31 (23.48%) Insurtech
7 29 (21.97%) Software Engineering
8 24 (18.18%) Clean Code
9 18 (13.64%) Agile
10 17 (12.88%) DevOps
11 15 (11.36%) OOP
11 15 (11.36%) TDD
12 14 (10.61%) Event-Driven
12 14 (10.61%) Infrastructure as Code
13 13 (9.85%) Code Quality
13 13 (9.85%) Computer Science
14 11 (8.33%) Data Pipeline
14 11 (8.33%) Data Transformation
14 11 (8.33%) Migration
14 11 (8.33%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 64 (48.48%) Python
2 26 (19.70%) Java
3 23 (17.42%) PHP
4 16 (12.12%) SQL
5 15 (11.36%) JavaScript
5 15 (11.36%) TypeScript
6 8 (6.06%) C#
7 3 (2.27%) Scala
8 2 (1.52%) Go
9 1 (0.76%) Perl
9 1 (0.76%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 11 (8.33%) Degree
2 8 (6.06%) Security Cleared
3 5 (3.79%) DV Cleared
4 3 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
4 3 (2.27%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.27%) QA
2 1 (0.76%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 31 (23.48%) Docker
Systems Management
1 24 (18.18%) Kubernetes
2 7 (5.30%) Ansible
3 5 (3.79%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (5.30%) Google
1 7 (5.30%) Microsoft
2 6 (4.55%) Oracle
3 5 (3.79%) Atlassian
4 3 (2.27%) SAP
5 2 (1.52%) Typelevel
6 1 (0.76%) Red Hat