Backend Developer Job Trends

Backend Developer
UK

The median Backend Developer salary in the UK is £75,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 July 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 583 577 648
Rank change year-on-year -6 +71 -64
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 169 99 263
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.21% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.24% 0.26%
Number of salaries quoted 147 83 214
10th Percentile £48,750 £45,400 £37,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £56,875 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% +8.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £97,500 £85,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £97,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -18.03%

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 90,787 41,821 99,953
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.11% 89.76% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 62,361 24,209 72,015
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £56,673 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% +7.95% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £51,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.87%

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 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 1 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 +13 160 £75,000 +15.38% 46
London +13 85 £95,000 +18.75% 30
UK excluding London -51 73 £60,000 - 25
Work from Home +8 59 £80,000 +33.33% 27
South East +6 38 £70,000 - 14
North of England -33 23 £60,000 +4.35% 3
North West -3 15 £60,000 +4.35% 2
South West -51 12 £42,500 -34.62%
Yorkshire -29 7 £65,000 +8.33%
East of England -24 1 £62,500 -5.73% 4
East Midlands -29 1 £75,000 +25.00% 1
Midlands -54 1 £75,000 +25.00% 1
North East - 1 £40,000 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 1 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 46 (27.22%) Python
2 44 (26.04%) Microservices
3 41 (24.26%) CI/CD
4 40 (23.67%) Java
5 38 (22.49%) AWS
6 37 (21.89%) Docker
7 34 (20.12%) Problem-Solving
8 30 (17.75%) Agile
8 30 (17.75%) Clean Code
9 29 (17.16%) Kubernetes
10 28 (16.57%) Software Engineering
11 24 (14.20%) Node.js
12 23 (13.61%) AI
12 23 (13.61%) RESTful
13 20 (11.83%) Computer Science
13 20 (11.83%) Containerisation
13 20 (11.83%) Degree
13 20 (11.83%) Git
14 19 (11.24%) SQL
14 19 (11.24%) TypeScript
15 18 (10.65%) Azure
15 18 (10.65%) TDD
16 17 (10.06%) C#
16 17 (10.06%) Computer Science Degree
16 17 (10.06%) DevOps
16 17 (10.06%) Spring
17 16 (9.47%) Event-Driven
17 16 (9.47%) OOP
18 15 (8.88%) GCP
18 15 (8.88%) Laravel

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 (1.18%) Apache
1 2 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.59%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 1 (0.59%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 38 (22.49%) AWS
2 18 (10.65%) Azure
3 15 (8.88%) GCP
4 10 (5.92%) GitHub
5 9 (5.33%) SaaS
6 6 (3.55%) Serverless
7 4 (2.37%) Amazon ECS
7 4 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (2.37%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (1.78%) Amazon EKS
8 3 (1.78%) Amazon SQS
8 3 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (1.78%) Azure AKS
8 3 (1.78%) GitHub Copilot
9 2 (1.18%) Azure App Service
9 2 (1.18%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 2 (1.18%) Azure Storage
9 2 (1.18%) Cloud Functions
9 2 (1.18%) Cloud Run
9 2 (1.18%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.14%) Broadband
2 1 (0.59%) AMQP
2 1 (0.59%) HTTP
2 1 (0.59%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (7.10%) MySQL
2 11 (6.51%) NoSQL
3 10 (5.92%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (4.73%) MongoDB
5 5 (2.96%) Redis
6 4 (2.37%) Relational Database
7 2 (1.18%) Apache Cassandra
7 2 (1.18%) Couchbase
7 2 (1.18%) Pinecone
7 2 (1.18%) SQL Server
8 1 (0.59%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.59%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.59%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 20 (11.83%) Git
2 6 (3.55%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.96%) JUnit
4 2 (1.18%) CircleCI
4 2 (1.18%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.18%) Cypress.io
4 2 (1.18%) JIRA
4 2 (1.18%) JMeter
4 2 (1.18%) Liquibase
4 2 (1.18%) Mockito
4 2 (1.18%) PHPUnit
4 2 (1.18%) Selenium
5 1 (0.59%) GitLab
5 1 (0.59%) NUnit
5 1 (0.59%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 12 (7.10%) Social Skills
2 7 (4.14%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.55%) Finance
4 4 (2.37%) Advertising
4 4 (2.37%) Digital Health
5 2 (1.18%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (1.18%) Retail
6 1 (0.59%) Banking
6 1 (0.59%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (14.20%) Node.js
2 23 (13.61%) RESTful
3 17 (10.06%) Spring
4 15 (8.88%) Laravel
4 15 (8.88%) Spring Boot
5 14 (8.28%) .NET
6 11 (6.51%) .NET Core
7 10 (5.92%) Kafka
8 9 (5.33%) REST
9 8 (4.73%) FastAPI
10 7 (4.14%) Flask
10 7 (4.14%) React
11 5 (2.96%) Django
11 5 (2.96%) gRPC
11 5 (2.96%) Java EE
11 5 (2.96%) JPA
11 5 (2.96%) RabbitMQ
12 4 (2.37%) LAMP
12 4 (2.37%) Vert.x
13 3 (1.78%) NestJS
Miscellaneous
1 34 (20.12%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (10.06%) Algorithms
2 17 (10.06%) Data Structures
3 10 (5.92%) Cloud Native
4 9 (5.33%) PropTech
5 6 (3.55%) Greenfield Project
6 5 (2.96%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.96%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.96%) Over-the-Top Content
6 5 (2.96%) Video\Live Streaming
7 4 (2.37%) Blockchain
7 4 (2.37%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.78%) AI Agents
9 2 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 2 (1.18%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.59%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.59%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (26.04%) Microservices
2 41 (24.26%) CI/CD
3 34 (20.12%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (17.75%) Agile
4 30 (17.75%) Clean Code
5 28 (16.57%) Software Engineering
6 23 (13.61%) AI
7 20 (11.83%) Computer Science
7 20 (11.83%) Containerisation
8 18 (10.65%) TDD
9 17 (10.06%) DevOps
10 16 (9.47%) Event-Driven
10 16 (9.47%) OOP
11 15 (8.88%) OO
11 15 (8.88%) OOD
11 15 (8.88%) Refactoring
12 11 (6.51%) API Design
13 10 (5.92%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 10 (5.92%) Migration
13 10 (5.92%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 46 (27.22%) Python
2 40 (23.67%) Java
3 19 (11.24%) SQL
3 19 (11.24%) TypeScript
4 17 (10.06%) C#
5 15 (8.88%) PHP
6 9 (5.33%) Go
7 6 (3.55%) JavaScript
8 5 (2.96%) Scala
9 3 (1.78%) PL/SQL
10 2 (1.18%) C++
11 1 (0.59%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.59%) VB
11 1 (0.59%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 20 (11.83%) Degree
2 17 (10.06%) Computer Science Degree
3 14 (8.28%) Security Cleared
4 11 (6.51%) SC Cleared
5 3 (1.78%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.96%) QA
System Software
1 37 (21.89%) Docker
Systems Management
1 29 (17.16%) Kubernetes
2 5 (2.96%) Kibana
3 3 (1.78%) Ansible
3 3 (1.78%) Terraform
4 2 (1.18%) Grafana
4 2 (1.18%) Podman
Vendors
1 9 (5.33%) Oracle
2 6 (3.55%) Google
3 5 (2.96%) Typelevel
4 4 (2.37%) Microsoft
5 3 (1.78%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.78%) IBM
5 3 (1.78%) OpenAI
6 2 (1.18%) Splunk
7 1 (0.59%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.59%) Foundry
7 1 (0.59%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.59%) SAP