Developer/Software Engineer Job Trends

Software Engineer/Developer
UK

The median Software Engineer/Developer salary in the UK is £135,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 May 2026.

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

 6 months to
19 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 653 497 495
Rank change year-on-year -156 -2 +119
Permanent jobs requiring a Developer/Software Engineer 91 158 425
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.099% 0.36% 0.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.11% 0.40% 0.46%
Number of salaries quoted 80 158 339
10th Percentile £47,500 £79,018 £65,000
25th Percentile £50,000 £89,063 £85,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £135,000 £115,000 £110,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.39% +4.55% +15.79%
75th Percentile £142,500 £137,500 £142,500
90th Percentile £150,000 £141,750 £150,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +13.64%

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 85,926 39,497 91,995
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.36% 89.64% 94.62%
Number of salaries quoted 56,850 22,880 67,465
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -5.66%

Developer/Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Developer/Software Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Developer/Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Developer/Software Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Developer/Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Developer/Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Developer/Software Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Developer/Software Engineer over the 6 months to 19 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Developer/Software Engineer in the UK

Developer/Software Engineer
Top 9 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Developer/Software Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 19 May 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 -134 91 £135,000 +17.39% 2
Work from Home -35 67 £135,000 +17.39% 1
London -105 63 £135,000 +17.39% 1
UK excluding London -39 33 £55,000 -8.33% 1
North of England -9 18 £50,000 -16.67% 1
Yorkshire -35 16 £50,000 -16.67% 1
South East - 14 £55,000 -
North West - 2 - -
South West -55 1 £55,000 -35.49%

Developer/Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 May 2026, Developer/Software Engineer 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 Developer/Software Engineer in the job title.

1 86 (94.51%) Software Engineering
2 71 (78.02%) AWS
3 54 (59.34%) Full-Stack Development
4 47 (51.65%) Agile
5 46 (50.55%) JavaScript
5 46 (50.55%) Node.js
5 46 (50.55%) React
6 45 (49.45%) Investment Management
7 44 (48.35%) Portfolio Management
7 44 (48.35%) Redux
7 44 (48.35%) TypeScript
8 41 (45.05%) Python
9 37 (40.66%) Java
10 33 (36.26%) Go
10 33 (36.26%) Kafka
11 32 (35.16%) GraphQL
11 32 (35.16%) Order Management
11 32 (35.16%) Vue
12 27 (29.67%) .NET
12 27 (29.67%) C#
12 27 (29.67%) SaaS
13 26 (28.57%) Continuous Improvement
14 25 (27.47%) CSS
14 25 (27.47%) HTML
14 25 (27.47%) Microservices
14 25 (27.47%) Product Vision
14 25 (27.47%) Resource Allocation
14 25 (27.47%) SDLC
15 24 (26.37%) CQRS
16 20 (21.98%) GCP

Developer/Software Engineer 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 1 (1.10%) Apache
Cloud Services
1 71 (78.02%) AWS
2 27 (29.67%) SaaS
3 20 (21.98%) GCP
4 14 (15.38%) Azure
5 3 (3.30%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (3.30%) Amazon S3
5 3 (3.30%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (3.30%) Serverless
6 2 (2.20%) Amazon SQS
6 2 (2.20%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (1.10%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.20%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (13.19%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (4.40%) SQL Server
3 3 (3.30%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (1.10%) DynamoDB
4 1 (1.10%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (1.10%) CircleCI
1 1 (1.10%) Gatling
1 1 (1.10%) GitLab
1 1 (1.10%) Jenkins
1 1 (1.10%) JMeter
1 1 (1.10%) LoadRunner
General
1 45 (49.45%) Finance
2 44 (48.35%) Front Office
3 3 (3.30%) Aerospace
4 2 (2.20%) Manufacturing
5 1 (1.10%) Banking
5 1 (1.10%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (50.55%) Node.js
1 46 (50.55%) React
2 44 (48.35%) Redux
3 33 (36.26%) Kafka
4 32 (35.16%) GraphQL
4 32 (35.16%) Vue
5 27 (29.67%) .NET
6 25 (27.47%) CSS
6 25 (27.47%) HTML
7 13 (14.29%) AngularJS
8 3 (3.30%) RabbitMQ
8 3 (3.30%) Spring
8 3 (3.30%) Spring Boot
9 2 (2.20%) Hibernate
9 2 (2.20%) J2EE
9 2 (2.20%) JSON
9 2 (2.20%) SOAP
9 2 (2.20%) Spring Security
9 2 (2.20%) Web Services
9 2 (2.20%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 44 (48.35%) Fixed Income
2 12 (13.19%) Derivative
2 12 (13.19%) Equities
3 1 (1.10%) Blockchain
3 1 (1.10%) Cloud Native
3 1 (1.10%) Web3
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (94.51%) Software Engineering
2 54 (59.34%) Full-Stack Development
3 47 (51.65%) Agile
4 45 (49.45%) Investment Management
5 44 (48.35%) Portfolio Management
6 32 (35.16%) Order Management
7 26 (28.57%) Continuous Improvement
8 25 (27.47%) Microservices
8 25 (27.47%) Product Vision
8 25 (27.47%) Resource Allocation
8 25 (27.47%) SDLC
9 24 (26.37%) CQRS
10 12 (13.19%) Asset Management
10 12 (13.19%) Fintech
10 12 (13.19%) Line Management
10 12 (13.19%) Mentoring
11 6 (6.59%) CI/CD
11 6 (6.59%) DevOps
12 5 (5.49%) AI
12 5 (5.49%) UX Research
Programming Languages
1 46 (50.55%) JavaScript
2 44 (48.35%) TypeScript
3 41 (45.05%) Python
4 37 (40.66%) Java
5 33 (36.26%) Go
6 27 (29.67%) C#
7 14 (15.38%) SQL
8 2 (2.20%) C++
8 2 (2.20%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 1 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (1.10%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.10%) QA
System Software
1 3 (3.30%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (3.30%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.10%) Prometheus
2 1 (1.10%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (1.10%) Oracle