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 10 August 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 600 592 611
Rank change year-on-year -8 +19 -30
Permanent jobs requiring a Backend Developer 184 100 204
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.20% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.22% 0.26%
Number of salaries quoted 155 82 160
10th Percentile £49,250 £47,100 £37,500
25th Percentile £56,250 £54,063 £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 £90,000 £85,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £87,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year - +14.29% -16.00%

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 99,566 44,909 78,876
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.05% 89.96% 94.99%
Number of salaries quoted 68,087 26,709 53,036
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,650 £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 £72,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £48,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% -2.50% -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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -2 176 £70,000 +7.69% 41
London -8 88 £95,000 +18.75% 30
UK excluding London -62 87 £60,000 - 15
South East +17 53 £70,000 +33.33% 7
Work from Home -16 51 £90,000 +50.00% 23
North of England -50 23 £60,000 - 4
North West -22 13 £60,000 -2.04%
South West -57 12 £42,500 -29.17% 1
Yorkshire -34 7 £65,000 +8.33%
North East -55 3 £75,000 +36.36% 4
East Midlands -24 1 £75,000 +42.86%
Midlands -41 1 £75,000 +25.00%

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

For the 6 months to 10 August 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 53 (28.80%) AWS
2 52 (28.26%) Docker
3 51 (27.72%) Microservices
4 48 (26.09%) CI/CD
4 48 (26.09%) Java
5 45 (24.46%) Kubernetes
6 44 (23.91%) Agile
7 42 (22.83%) Python
8 33 (17.93%) Git
9 30 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
10 28 (15.22%) RESTful
11 27 (14.67%) GCP
12 26 (14.13%) Clean Code
12 26 (14.13%) Node.js
12 26 (14.13%) TDD
13 25 (13.59%) Azure
13 25 (13.59%) DevOps
13 25 (13.59%) Event-Driven
14 24 (13.04%) AI
14 24 (13.04%) OOP
14 24 (13.04%) PHP
14 24 (13.04%) SQL
15 23 (12.50%) .NET
15 23 (12.50%) C#
15 23 (12.50%) Software Engineering
16 22 (11.96%) Containerisation
17 21 (11.41%) MySQL
18 20 (10.87%) TypeScript
19 19 (10.33%) Spring
20 17 (9.24%) Spring Boot

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 (2.17%) Apache
1 4 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 3 (1.63%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 53 (28.80%) AWS
2 27 (14.67%) GCP
3 25 (13.59%) Azure
4 10 (5.43%) GitHub
5 8 (4.35%) Serverless
6 6 (3.26%) Amazon ECS
6 6 (3.26%) Amazon SQS
6 6 (3.26%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (3.26%) SaaS
7 5 (2.72%) GitHub Copilot
8 4 (2.17%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (2.17%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (1.63%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (1.63%) Azure AKS
9 3 (1.63%) Cloud Functions
9 3 (1.63%) Cloud Run
9 3 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (1.09%) ChatGPT
10 2 (1.09%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.26%) Broadband
2 3 (1.63%) HTTP
3 1 (0.54%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (11.41%) MySQL
2 14 (7.61%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (5.43%) NoSQL
4 7 (3.80%) MongoDB
5 6 (3.26%) Relational Database
6 4 (2.17%) Redis
6 4 (2.17%) SQL Server
7 3 (1.63%) DynamoDB
8 2 (1.09%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (1.09%) Couchbase
8 2 (1.09%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (0.54%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 33 (17.93%) Git
2 6 (3.26%) Jenkins
3 4 (2.17%) JUnit
3 4 (2.17%) PHPUnit
3 4 (2.17%) Selenium
4 2 (1.09%) CircleCI
4 2 (1.09%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.09%) Cypress.io
4 2 (1.09%) JIRA
4 2 (1.09%) JMeter
4 2 (1.09%) Liquibase
4 2 (1.09%) Mockito
5 1 (0.54%) Crashlytics
5 1 (0.54%) GitLab
5 1 (0.54%) NUnit
5 1 (0.54%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.54%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 14 (7.61%) Finance
2 11 (5.98%) Social Skills
3 9 (4.89%) Public Sector
4 5 (2.72%) Front Office
5 4 (2.17%) Advertising
5 4 (2.17%) Digital Health
5 4 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (2.17%) Retail
6 3 (1.63%) Banking
6 3 (1.63%) Games
7 2 (1.09%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.54%) Analytical Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (15.22%) RESTful
2 26 (14.13%) Node.js
3 23 (12.50%) .NET
4 19 (10.33%) Spring
5 17 (9.24%) Spring Boot
6 15 (8.15%) Kafka
7 14 (7.61%) Laravel
7 14 (7.61%) REST
8 10 (5.43%) .NET Core
9 9 (4.89%) JPA
9 9 (4.89%) RabbitMQ
10 7 (3.80%) React
11 6 (3.26%) Hibernate
11 6 (3.26%) LAMP
12 5 (2.72%) FastAPI
12 5 (2.72%) Jakarta EE
13 4 (2.17%) CSS
13 4 (2.17%) HTML
13 4 (2.17%) Web Services
13 4 (2.17%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 43 (23.37%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (9.24%) Algorithms
2 17 (9.24%) Data Structures
3 16 (8.70%) Greenfield Project
4 11 (5.98%) Cloud Native
4 11 (5.98%) PropTech
5 7 (3.80%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (3.26%) Distributed Architecture
6 6 (3.26%) Video\Live Streaming
7 5 (2.72%) AI Agents
8 4 (2.17%) Blockchain
8 4 (2.17%) Data Centre
8 4 (2.17%) Over-the-Top Content
9 2 (1.09%) Derivative
9 2 (1.09%) Distributed Applications
9 2 (1.09%) Equities
9 2 (1.09%) Fixed Income
9 2 (1.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 2 (1.09%) NHS
9 2 (1.09%) Online Gambling
Operating Systems
1 3 (1.63%) Windows
2 2 (1.09%) Android
2 2 (1.09%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (27.72%) Microservices
2 48 (26.09%) CI/CD
3 44 (23.91%) Agile
4 30 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
5 26 (14.13%) Clean Code
5 26 (14.13%) TDD
6 25 (13.59%) DevOps
6 25 (13.59%) Event-Driven
7 24 (13.04%) AI
7 24 (13.04%) OOP
8 23 (12.50%) Software Engineering
9 22 (11.96%) Containerisation
10 15 (8.15%) Computer Science
10 15 (8.15%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 15 (8.15%) OO
10 15 (8.15%) OOD
10 15 (8.15%) Refactoring
11 14 (7.61%) Code Quality
11 14 (7.61%) Mentoring
11 14 (7.61%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 48 (26.09%) Java
2 42 (22.83%) Python
3 24 (13.04%) PHP
3 24 (13.04%) SQL
4 23 (12.50%) C#
5 20 (10.87%) TypeScript
6 10 (5.43%) Go
7 7 (3.80%) JavaScript
8 4 (2.17%) Scala
9 3 (1.63%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.63%) VB
9 3 (1.63%) VB.NET
10 2 (1.09%) C++
11 1 (0.54%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.54%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 15 (8.15%) Computer Science Degree
1 15 (8.15%) Degree
2 12 (6.52%) Security Cleared
3 9 (4.89%) SC Cleared
4 3 (1.63%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.89%) QA
2 2 (1.09%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.09%) HL7
System Software
1 52 (28.26%) Docker
Systems Management
1 45 (24.46%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.80%) Terraform
3 5 (2.72%) Kibana
4 3 (1.63%) Ansible
4 3 (1.63%) Grafana
5 2 (1.09%) Podman
Vendors
1 11 (5.98%) Google
2 8 (4.35%) Oracle
3 5 (2.72%) OpenAI
4 4 (2.17%) Microsoft
4 4 (2.17%) Typelevel
5 3 (1.63%) AppDynamics
5 3 (1.63%) IBM
5 3 (1.63%) SAP
6 2 (1.09%) Bloomberg
6 2 (1.09%) Refinitiv
6 2 (1.09%) Splunk
7 1 (0.54%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.54%) Foundry