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 29 July 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 600 572 633
Rank change year-on-year -28 +61 -31
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 174 102 203
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.21% 0.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.23% 0.25%
Number of salaries quoted 147 84 163
10th Percentile £49,500 £45,600 £37,750
25th Percentile £60,000 £53,750 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,648 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.63% +9.41% -14.29%
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,000 £74,375
90th Percentile £100,000 £88,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £51,250
% change year-on-year - +17.07% -18.00%

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 95,972 44,419 82,565
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.36% 90.03% 94.80%
Number of salaries quoted 65,619 26,374 56,860
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% - -5.66%

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 29 July 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 29 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 -16 165 £70,000 +7.69% 21
UK excluding London -55 83 £60,000 - 11
London +17 81 £95,000 +18.75% 13
Work from Home -27 53 £90,000 +50.00% 14
South East +10 51 £70,000 +27.27% 9
North of England -41 21 £60,000 +2.13% 2
North West -25 13 £60,000 -
South West -50 12 £42,500 -29.17%
Yorkshire -24 7 £65,000 +8.33%
East Midlands -30 1 £75,000 +33.33%
Midlands -48 1 £75,000 +25.00%
North East -51 1 £40,000 -27.27% 2

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

For the 6 months to 29 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 (27.59%) AWS
1 48 (27.59%) Docker
2 46 (26.44%) Microservices
3 45 (25.86%) CI/CD
4 43 (24.71%) Java
4 43 (24.71%) Python
5 42 (24.14%) Agile
6 41 (23.56%) Kubernetes
7 33 (18.97%) Problem-Solving
8 32 (18.39%) Git
9 28 (16.09%) Clean Code
10 27 (15.52%) AI
10 27 (15.52%) Node.js
11 26 (14.94%) GCP
11 26 (14.94%) TDD
12 25 (14.37%) RESTful
13 24 (13.79%) OOP
13 24 (13.79%) Software Engineering
13 24 (13.79%) SQL
14 23 (13.22%) Azure
14 23 (13.22%) PHP
15 22 (12.64%) DevOps
15 22 (12.64%) Event-Driven
16 21 (12.07%) MySQL
17 20 (11.49%) C#
17 20 (11.49%) Containerisation
17 20 (11.49%) TypeScript
18 17 (9.77%) .NET
18 17 (9.77%) Computer Science
18 17 (9.77%) 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 2 (1.15%) Apache
1 2 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 2 (1.15%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 48 (27.59%) AWS
2 26 (14.94%) GCP
3 23 (13.22%) Azure
4 10 (5.75%) GitHub
5 7 (4.02%) SaaS
5 7 (4.02%) Serverless
6 5 (2.87%) Amazon ECS
6 5 (2.87%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.87%) GitHub Copilot
7 4 (2.30%) Amazon SQS
7 4 (2.30%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
8 3 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (1.72%) Azure AKS
8 3 (1.72%) Cloud Functions
8 3 (1.72%) Cloud Run
9 2 (1.15%) Anthropic Claude
9 2 (1.15%) Azure App Service
9 2 (1.15%) ChatGPT
9 2 (1.15%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.45%) Broadband
2 2 (1.15%) HTTP
3 1 (0.57%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (12.07%) MySQL
2 13 (7.47%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (5.75%) NoSQL
4 8 (4.60%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.45%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.30%) Redis
7 3 (1.72%) SQL Server
8 2 (1.15%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.15%) Couchbase
8 2 (1.15%) DynamoDB
8 2 (1.15%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 32 (18.39%) Git
2 6 (3.45%) Jenkins
3 4 (2.30%) JUnit
3 4 (2.30%) PHPUnit
3 4 (2.30%) Selenium
4 2 (1.15%) CircleCI
4 2 (1.15%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.15%) Cypress.io
4 2 (1.15%) JIRA
4 2 (1.15%) JMeter
4 2 (1.15%) Liquibase
4 2 (1.15%) Mockito
5 1 (0.57%) Crashlytics
5 1 (0.57%) GitLab
5 1 (0.57%) NUnit
5 1 (0.57%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 13 (7.47%) Social Skills
2 10 (5.75%) Finance
3 9 (5.17%) Public Sector
4 4 (2.30%) Advertising
4 4 (2.30%) Digital Health
5 3 (1.72%) Banking
5 3 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (1.72%) Front Office
5 3 (1.72%) Retail
6 2 (1.15%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.15%) Investment Banking
7 1 (0.57%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (15.52%) Node.js
2 25 (14.37%) RESTful
3 17 (9.77%) .NET
3 17 (9.77%) Spring
4 15 (8.62%) Laravel
4 15 (8.62%) Spring Boot
5 12 (6.90%) Kafka
5 12 (6.90%) REST
6 10 (5.75%) .NET Core
7 8 (4.60%) RabbitMQ
8 7 (4.02%) FastAPI
8 7 (4.02%) JPA
8 7 (4.02%) React
9 6 (3.45%) Flask
9 6 (3.45%) LAMP
10 5 (2.87%) Jakarta EE
11 4 (2.30%) CSS
11 4 (2.30%) Hibernate
11 4 (2.30%) Web Services
11 4 (2.30%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (23.56%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (9.77%) Algorithms
2 17 (9.77%) Data Structures
3 15 (8.62%) Greenfield Project
4 11 (6.32%) PropTech
5 9 (5.17%) Cloud Native
6 5 (2.87%) AI Agents
6 5 (2.87%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.87%) Video\Live Streaming
7 4 (2.30%) Blockchain
7 4 (2.30%) Distributed Architecture
7 4 (2.30%) Over-the-Top Content
8 2 (1.15%) NHS
8 2 (1.15%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.57%) Derivative
9 1 (0.57%) Distributed Applications
9 1 (0.57%) Equities
9 1 (0.57%) Fixed Income
9 1 (0.57%) Online Gambling
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.15%) Windows
2 1 (0.57%) Android
2 1 (0.57%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (26.44%) Microservices
2 45 (25.86%) CI/CD
3 42 (24.14%) Agile
4 33 (18.97%) Problem-Solving
5 28 (16.09%) Clean Code
6 27 (15.52%) AI
7 26 (14.94%) TDD
8 24 (13.79%) OOP
8 24 (13.79%) Software Engineering
9 22 (12.64%) DevOps
9 22 (12.64%) Event-Driven
10 20 (11.49%) Containerisation
11 17 (9.77%) Computer Science
12 15 (8.62%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 15 (8.62%) OO
12 15 (8.62%) OOD
12 15 (8.62%) Refactoring
13 13 (7.47%) API Development
14 12 (6.90%) API Design
14 12 (6.90%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 43 (24.71%) Java
1 43 (24.71%) Python
2 24 (13.79%) SQL
3 23 (13.22%) PHP
4 20 (11.49%) C#
4 20 (11.49%) TypeScript
5 9 (5.17%) Go
6 8 (4.60%) JavaScript
7 4 (2.30%) Scala
8 3 (1.72%) PL/SQL
9 2 (1.15%) C++
9 2 (1.15%) VB
9 2 (1.15%) VB.NET
10 1 (0.57%) Google Apps Script
10 1 (0.57%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 17 (9.77%) Degree
2 16 (9.20%) Computer Science Degree
3 13 (7.47%) Security Cleared
4 10 (5.75%) SC Cleared
5 3 (1.72%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.17%) QA
2 2 (1.15%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.15%) HL7
System Software
1 48 (27.59%) Docker
Systems Management
1 41 (23.56%) Kubernetes
2 6 (3.45%) Terraform
3 5 (2.87%) Kibana
4 3 (1.72%) Ansible
5 2 (1.15%) Grafana
5 2 (1.15%) Podman
Vendors
1 11 (6.32%) Google
2 8 (4.60%) Oracle
3 5 (2.87%) OpenAI
4 4 (2.30%) Microsoft
4 4 (2.30%) Typelevel
5 3 (1.72%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.72%) IBM
6 2 (1.15%) Bloomberg
6 2 (1.15%) Refinitiv
6 2 (1.15%) SAP
6 2 (1.15%) Splunk
7 1 (0.57%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.57%) Foundry