Java Job Trends

Java
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Java skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 42 22
Rank change year-on-year -30 -20 -5
Permanent jobs citing Java 1,819 2,815 4,673
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 3.00% 5.27% 8.33%
As % of the Programming Languages category 15.54% 15.63% 21.54%
Number of salaries quoted 1,186 1,657 3,285
10th Percentile £41,250 £41,594 £42,500
25th Percentile £56,250 £55,000 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £78,000 £70,576
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +10.52% -5.90%
75th Percentile £105,000 £110,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £125,000 £130,000 £120,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £62,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -

All Programming Languages
UK

Java falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 11,702 18,009 21,692
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 19.29% 33.71% 38.68%
Number of salaries quoted 8,533 10,526 17,698
10th Percentile £32,500 £37,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £82,500 £85,000 £82,548
90th Percentile £102,500 £110,000 £105,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000

Java
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Java relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Java job vacancy trend in the UK

Java
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Java.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Java

Java
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Java over the 6 months to 16 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Java in the UK

Java
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Java within the UK over the 6 months to 16 January 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 -26 1,598 £75,000 -6.25% 1,002
UK excluding London -43 842 £65,000 +4.00% 851
London -11 840 £100,000 - 296
Work from Home -15 709 £70,000 -12.50% 462
North of England -4 285 £70,000 +16.67% 191
South East -58 184 £60,000 -14.29% 264
Yorkshire +30 152 £72,500 +31.82% 74
South West -19 142 £65,000 - 144
North West -13 122 £70,000 +16.67% 86
Scotland -32 92 £85,000 +30.77% 55
Midlands -7 91 £51,844 +15.21% 88
West Midlands +5 72 £50,000 -11.11% 43
East of England -75 31 £47,500 -13.64% 77
Wales -21 20 £75,000 +56.56% 34
East Midlands -32 19 £57,500 +64.29% 44
North East -30 13 £65,000 +4.00% 32
Northern Ireland -16 6 £95,000 +72.73% 11

Java
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 76 (4.18%) Apache
2 69 (3.79%) Apache Spark
3 63 (3.46%) Apache Airflow
4 28 (1.54%) Confluence
5 24 (1.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 16 (0.88%) JBoss
7 14 (0.77%) WebSphere
8 13 (0.71%) OpenStack
9 12 (0.66%) IIS
10 7 (0.38%) Anypoint
11 6 (0.33%) Camunda
11 6 (0.33%) Mule
12 5 (0.27%) nginx
12 5 (0.27%) SharePoint
13 4 (0.22%) Appian
14 3 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.16%) Liferay
14 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
14 3 (0.16%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 12 (0.66%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.27%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.16%) Simulink
6 2 (0.11%) Windchill
7 1 (0.055%) EngageOne
7 1 (0.055%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.055%) Trello
Business Applications
1 37 (2.03%) Oracle ERP
2 7 (0.38%) Fidessa
2 7 (0.38%) Maximo
3 5 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.27%) Shopify
4 2 (0.11%) Adaptiv
4 2 (0.11%) Dynamics NAV
4 2 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.11%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.055%) Bloomberg AIM
5 1 (0.055%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.055%) TIBCO iProcess
Cloud Services
1 823 (45.24%) AWS
2 392 (21.55%) Azure
3 206 (11.32%) GCP
4 155 (8.52%) Serverless
5 127 (6.98%) GitHub
6 114 (6.27%) SaaS
7 103 (5.66%) Amazon EKS
8 93 (5.11%) AWS Lambda
9 81 (4.45%) Amazon S3
10 78 (4.29%) Amazon ECS
11 56 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
11 56 (3.08%) OpenShift
12 55 (3.02%) AWS CloudFormation
13 54 (2.97%) Snowflake
14 51 (2.80%) dbt
15 39 (2.14%) Amazon EC2
16 37 (2.03%) OCI
17 36 (1.98%) AWS Step Functions
18 34 (1.87%) GitHub Copilot
19 33 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 35 (1.92%) TCP/IP
2 22 (1.21%) HTTP
3 17 (0.93%) AMQP
4 15 (0.82%) Broadband
5 13 (0.71%) Firewall
6 11 (0.60%) Internet
7 10 (0.55%) SSH
8 9 (0.49%) Multicast
8 9 (0.49%) VPN
9 7 (0.38%) DNS
9 7 (0.38%) VLAN
10 5 (0.27%) Bluetooth
10 5 (0.27%) PuTTY
10 5 (0.27%) SAN
11 4 (0.22%) Intrusion Detection
11 4 (0.22%) Kerberos
11 4 (0.22%) Modbus
11 4 (0.22%) SMTP
11 4 (0.22%) Wireshark
11 4 (0.22%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (8.36%) PostgreSQL
2 130 (7.15%) Relational Database
3 117 (6.43%) NoSQL
4 98 (5.39%) SQL Server
5 79 (4.34%) MongoDB
6 66 (3.63%) Data Warehouse
7 62 (3.41%) MySQL
8 55 (3.02%) Big Data
9 53 (2.91%) DynamoDB
9 53 (2.91%) Hadoop
9 53 (2.91%) RDBMS
10 49 (2.69%) Data Lake
11 41 (2.25%) Elasticsearch
12 37 (2.03%) Amazon RDS
13 34 (1.87%) Amazon Athena
13 34 (1.87%) Apache Iceberg
14 31 (1.70%) Apache Ignite
14 31 (1.70%) Tableau
15 28 (1.54%) Apache Arrow
15 28 (1.54%) Dremio
Development Applications
1 227 (12.48%) Jenkins
2 161 (8.85%) Git
3 128 (7.04%) Selenium
4 121 (6.65%) JIRA
5 100 (5.50%) GitLab
6 72 (3.96%) JUnit
7 66 (3.63%) Cucumber
8 62 (3.41%) Cypress.io
9 60 (3.30%) Postman
10 51 (2.80%) Maven
11 49 (2.69%) WebDriver
12 45 (2.47%) SoapUI
12 45 (2.47%) TeamCity
13 39 (2.14%) Bitbucket
13 39 (2.14%) Oracle Forms
14 38 (2.09%) JMeter
14 38 (2.09%) SonarQube
15 35 (1.92%) Team Foundation Server
16 29 (1.59%) Mockito
17 19 (1.04%) REST Assured
General
1 546 (30.02%) Finance
2 477 (26.22%) Social Skills
3 239 (13.14%) Banking
4 147 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
5 107 (5.88%) Front Office
6 103 (5.66%) Public Sector
7 98 (5.39%) Law
8 96 (5.28%) Investment Banking
9 87 (4.78%) Financial Institution
9 87 (4.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (3.46%) Retail
11 35 (1.92%) Games
12 32 (1.76%) Back Office
13 31 (1.70%) Aerospace
13 31 (1.70%) Telecoms
14 26 (1.43%) Manufacturing
15 24 (1.32%) Marketing
16 23 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
17 21 (1.15%) Billing
17 21 (1.15%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 634 (34.85%) Developer
2 427 (23.47%) Senior
3 366 (20.12%) Software Engineer
4 358 (19.68%) Java Developer
5 223 (12.26%) Lead
6 210 (11.54%) Java Engineer
7 132 (7.26%) Full-Stack Developer
8 126 (6.93%) Senior Developer
9 122 (6.71%) Java Software Engineer
10 119 (6.54%) Senior Software Engineer
11 105 (5.77%) Architect
12 96 (5.28%) Senior Java Engineer
13 85 (4.67%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 84 (4.62%) Full-Stack Java Developer
15 80 (4.40%) Senior Java Developer
16 78 (4.29%) Cloud Engineer
17 76 (4.18%) AWS Engineer
18 65 (3.57%) Software Developer
19 59 (3.24%) Applications Engineer
20 58 (3.19%) Senior Java Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 382 (21.00%) Spring
2 323 (17.76%) React
3 321 (17.65%) Spring Boot
4 207 (11.38%) REST
5 191 (10.50%) Kafka
6 182 (10.01%) RESTful
7 167 (9.18%) .NET
8 146 (8.03%) AngularJS
9 145 (7.97%) Node.js
10 140 (7.70%) HTML
11 114 (6.27%) SOAP
12 107 (5.88%) CSS
13 77 (4.23%) Hibernate
14 72 (3.96%) JSON
15 66 (3.63%) Web Services
16 62 (3.41%) Elastic Stack
17 60 (3.30%) XML
18 49 (2.69%) Vue
19 45 (2.47%) OAuth
20 42 (2.31%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 272 (14.95%) Cloud Native
2 176 (9.68%) Distributed Systems
3 78 (4.29%) Enterprise Software
3 78 (4.29%) Equities
4 77 (4.23%) Product Ownership
5 70 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
6 64 (3.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 55 (3.02%) Algorithms
8 53 (2.91%) Derivative
9 50 (2.75%) Fixed Income
10 42 (2.31%) Hedge funds
11 41 (2.25%) Onboarding
12 36 (1.98%) Greenfield Project
12 36 (1.98%) Management Information System
13 33 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
13 33 (1.81%) Public Cloud
14 30 (1.65%) Distributed Architecture
14 30 (1.65%) Pricing Data
15 25 (1.37%) IoT
16 23 (1.26%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 231 (12.70%) Linux
2 44 (2.42%) Windows
3 42 (2.31%) Unix
4 29 (1.59%) Android
5 11 (0.60%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.55%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.38%) CentOS
8 7 (0.38%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.27%) Debian
10 4 (0.22%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.22%) VMS
11 2 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
11 2 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.055%) AIX
12 1 (0.055%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.055%) SUSE
12 1 (0.055%) Windows Server
12 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 731 (40.19%) Agile
2 597 (32.82%) CI/CD
3 558 (30.68%) Software Engineering
4 467 (25.67%) DevOps
5 405 (22.26%) Microservices
6 347 (19.08%) Problem-Solving
7 335 (18.42%) Full-Stack Development
8 310 (17.04%) Mentoring
9 298 (16.38%) Test Automation
10 256 (14.07%) Computer Science
11 231 (12.70%) Continuous Improvement
12 204 (11.21%) Containerisation
13 195 (10.72%) AI
13 195 (10.72%) Scrum
14 164 (9.02%) SDLC
15 156 (8.58%) TDD
16 138 (7.59%) Infrastructure as Code
17 137 (7.53%) User Experience
18 134 (7.37%) Roadmaps
19 132 (7.26%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 692 (38.04%) Python
2 417 (22.92%) JavaScript
3 415 (22.81%) SQL
4 289 (15.89%) TypeScript
5 256 (14.07%) C#
6 144 (7.92%) C++
7 120 (6.60%) Go
8 95 (5.22%) C
8 95 (5.22%) Kotlin
9 83 (4.56%) Bash
10 77 (4.23%) Scala
11 71 (3.90%) PL/SQL
12 65 (3.57%) Shell Script
13 53 (2.91%) PHP
14 39 (2.14%) Groovy
15 26 (1.43%) PowerShell
16 25 (1.37%) R
16 25 (1.37%) Rust
17 23 (1.26%) Ruby
18 18 (0.99%) Perl
Qualifications
1 328 (18.03%) Degree
2 293 (16.11%) Security Cleared
3 158 (8.69%) SC Cleared
4 156 (8.58%) Computer Science Degree
5 113 (6.21%) DV Cleared
6 84 (4.62%) AWS Certification
7 66 (3.63%) Master's Degree
8 42 (2.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 42 (2.31%) ISTQB
9 41 (2.25%) Azure Certification
10 34 (1.87%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 31 (1.70%) TOGAF Certification
12 30 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
13 25 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
14 23 (1.26%) PhD
15 14 (0.77%) AWS Certified Developer
16 9 (0.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 9 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
17 8 (0.44%) HND
18 7 (0.38%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (6.71%) QA
2 49 (2.69%) Accessibility
3 22 (1.21%) Data Quality
4 21 (1.15%) GDPR
5 12 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
6 11 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (0.55%) SLA
8 9 (0.49%) PCI DSS
9 7 (0.38%) NIST
9 7 (0.38%) SOC 2
9 7 (0.38%) WCAG
10 6 (0.33%) NCSC
11 4 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.22%) EU AI Act
11 4 (0.22%) ISO 9001
11 4 (0.22%) SEPA
12 2 (0.11%) ECSS
12 2 (0.11%) MISRA
12 2 (0.11%) PSD2
12 2 (0.11%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 338 (18.58%) Docker
2 34 (1.87%) Active Directory
3 16 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (0.77%) Virtual Servers
5 9 (0.49%) HDFS
6 8 (0.44%) VMware Infrastructure
7 6 (0.33%) KVM
8 4 (0.22%) Firmware
9 2 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.11%) vSphere
10 1 (0.055%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.055%) OpenAM
10 1 (0.055%) OpenDJ
10 1 (0.055%) OpenIDM
10 1 (0.055%) Squid
10 1 (0.055%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 411 (22.59%) Kubernetes
2 189 (10.39%) Terraform
3 88 (4.84%) Ansible
4 77 (4.23%) Grafana
5 48 (2.64%) Single Sign-On
6 37 (2.03%) Argo
7 35 (1.92%) Prometheus
8 31 (1.70%) Kibana
9 20 (1.10%) HP Fortify
10 14 (0.77%) Puppet
11 13 (0.71%) Kustomize
12 11 (0.60%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.60%) Rancher
13 10 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
14 7 (0.38%) yum
15 5 (0.27%) Docker Swarm
15 5 (0.27%) logstash
16 4 (0.22%) Nagios
16 4 (0.22%) Nessus
16 4 (0.22%) Nmap
Vendors
1 149 (8.19%) Oracle
2 96 (5.28%) Microsoft
3 73 (4.01%) Google
4 34 (1.87%) Databricks
5 32 (1.76%) Splunk
6 28 (1.54%) Atlassian
7 27 (1.48%) Guidewire
8 26 (1.43%) MuleSoft
9 23 (1.26%) IBM
9 23 (1.26%) Informatica
10 22 (1.21%) Okta
10 22 (1.21%) Talend
11 18 (0.99%) Dynatrace
12 17 (0.93%) Red Hat
12 17 (0.93%) SAP
13 16 (0.88%) Salesforce
14 13 (0.71%) Dell
14 13 (0.71%) Palantir
15 11 (0.60%) Siemens
15 11 (0.60%) VMware