Programmer
UK

The median Programmer salary in the UK is £45,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 20 August 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 574 411
Rank change year-on-year +287 -163 +246
Permanent jobs requiring a Programmer 705 118 474
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.24% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 0.26% 0.60%
Number of salaries quoted 462 70 296
10th Percentile £32,500 £30,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,750 £41,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £43,695
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +14.43% -20.38%
75th Percentile £50,000 £63,750 £50,250
90th Percentile £60,000 £75,184 £55,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
% change year-on-year - +12.50% -15.79%

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 101,050 44,873 78,946
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.99% 89.93% 95.07%
Number of salaries quoted 69,068 26,506 52,274
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £72,250
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,171 £48,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.77% -4.00% -6.54%

Programmer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Programmer job vacancy trend in the UK

Programmer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Programmer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Programmer job vacancies in the UK

Programmer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Programmer over the 6 months to 20 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Programmer in the UK

Programmer
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Programmer within the UK over the 6 months to 20 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
UK excluding London +245 674 £45,000 - 95
England +283 672 £45,000 -10.00% 99
Midlands +143 285 £40,000 -11.11% 23
West Midlands +107 208 £40,500 -10.00% 12
South East +81 130 £50,000 - 28
North of England +57 110 £47,500 -9.52% 24
South West +7 87 £40,000 - 8
East Midlands +36 77 £40,000 -11.11% 11
North West +21 48 £50,000 -9.09% 10
East of England -4 39 £41,801 -16.40% 10
Work from Home -13 39 £65,000 -7.14% 20
Yorkshire 0 37 £40,000 -3.03% 8
North East - 25 £39,250 - 7
London -44 20 £44,750 -36.07% 12
Wales -51 12 £40,000 +42.86%
Scotland +1 7 £40,000 -46.57% 6
Northern Ireland -82 4 £80,000 -

Programmer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 August 2026, Programmer 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 Programmer in the job title.

1 114 (16.17%) CAD
2 59 (8.37%) Continuous Improvement
3 48 (6.81%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (4.11%) C++
5 27 (3.83%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 25 (3.55%) Fusion 360
6 25 (3.55%) Software Engineering
7 18 (2.55%) Microsoft
8 16 (2.27%) Siemens
9 13 (1.84%) ALPHACAM
9 13 (1.84%) Python
10 12 (1.70%) AWS
10 12 (1.70%) Mathematics
10 12 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
10 12 (1.70%) Workflow
11 11 (1.56%) 3D Modelling
11 11 (1.56%) Calypso
11 11 (1.56%) Fluid Mechanics
11 11 (1.56%) HNC
11 11 (1.56%) ISO 9001
11 11 (1.56%) Motion Control
11 11 (1.56%) QA
12 10 (1.42%) AI
12 10 (1.42%) Machine Learning
12 10 (1.42%) Process Improvement
13 9 (1.28%) Collaborative Working
14 8 (1.13%) Mentoring
14 8 (1.13%) OOP
15 7 (0.99%) Customer Service
15 7 (0.99%) Validation

Programmer 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 6 (0.85%) Jupyter
2 3 (0.43%) SAS
3 1 (0.14%) Apache
Applications
1 25 (3.55%) Fusion 360
2 13 (1.84%) ALPHACAM
3 12 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.85%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.71%) SOLIDWORKS
6 4 (0.57%) Siemens NX
7 2 (0.28%) CATIA
8 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 12 (1.70%) AWS
2 6 (0.85%) Cloud Computing
3 2 (0.28%) Cloud Functions
3 2 (0.28%) Cloud Run
3 2 (0.28%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.85%) Broadband
2 2 (0.28%) RS-232
3 1 (0.14%) DNS
3 1 (0.14%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.85%) MongoDB
2 4 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 6 (0.85%) Visual Studio Code
2 2 (0.28%) CircleCI
2 2 (0.28%) Cypress.io
General
1 200 (28.37%) Manufacturing
2 82 (11.63%) Aerospace
3 67 (9.50%) Games
4 58 (8.23%) Automotive
5 44 (6.24%) Social Skills
6 12 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (1.28%) Finance
7 9 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
8 8 (1.13%) Retail
9 7 (0.99%) Electronics
9 7 (0.99%) Military
10 5 (0.71%) Agriculture
11 4 (0.57%) Local Government
11 4 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.43%) Analytical Skills
12 3 (0.43%) Aviation
13 1 (0.14%) Advertising
13 1 (0.14%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.83%) Unity (Game Engine)
2 6 (0.85%) Hugging Face
2 6 (0.85%) Matplotlib
2 6 (0.85%) NumPy
2 6 (0.85%) Pandas
2 6 (0.85%) scikit-learn
2 6 (0.85%) Streamlit
2 6 (0.85%) Unreal Engine
3 5 (0.71%) HTML
4 3 (0.43%) RESTful
4 3 (0.43%) XML
5 2 (0.28%) EDI
5 2 (0.28%) Leaflet
5 2 (0.28%) Node.js
5 2 (0.28%) Playwright
5 2 (0.28%) React
6 1 (0.14%) CSS
6 1 (0.14%) HTML5
6 1 (0.14%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 27 (3.83%) Virtual Reality
2 26 (3.69%) Self-Motivation
3 13 (1.84%) Mobile Games
4 8 (1.13%) Driving Licence
5 7 (0.99%) Algorithms
6 6 (0.85%) FMCG
7 4 (0.57%) Low-Code
7 4 (0.57%) Robotics
7 4 (0.57%) Smart Home
7 4 (0.57%) Video\Live Streaming
8 3 (0.43%) AS400
8 3 (0.43%) Cloud Native
8 3 (0.43%) Data Structures
8 3 (0.43%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (0.43%) iSeries
8 3 (0.43%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 2 (0.28%) Video Conferencing
10 1 (0.14%) Graphic Design
10 1 (0.14%) Hedge funds
10 1 (0.14%) Home Automation
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.14%) Linux
1 1 (0.14%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (16.17%) CAD
2 59 (8.37%) Continuous Improvement
3 48 (6.81%) Problem-Solving
4 25 (3.55%) Software Engineering
5 12 (1.70%) Mathematics
5 12 (1.70%) Workflow
6 11 (1.56%) 3D Modelling
6 11 (1.56%) Fluid Mechanics
6 11 (1.56%) Motion Control
7 10 (1.42%) AI
7 10 (1.42%) Machine Learning
7 10 (1.42%) Process Improvement
8 9 (1.28%) Collaborative Working
9 8 (1.13%) Mentoring
9 8 (1.13%) OOP
10 7 (0.99%) Customer Service
10 7 (0.99%) Validation
11 6 (0.85%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
11 6 (0.85%) LLM
11 6 (0.85%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 29 (4.11%) C++
2 13 (1.84%) Python
3 6 (0.85%) C#
3 6 (0.85%) JavaScript
4 4 (0.57%) Go
4 4 (0.57%) RPG
5 3 (0.43%) SAS Macro
6 2 (0.28%) R
7 1 (0.14%) C
7 1 (0.14%) Perl
7 1 (0.14%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 11 (1.56%) HNC
2 6 (0.85%) AWS Certification
2 6 (0.85%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
2 6 (0.85%) HND
3 4 (0.57%) Degree
4 3 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (1.56%) ISO 9001
1 11 (1.56%) QA
2 3 (0.43%) Accessibility
2 3 (0.43%) CDISC
3 1 (0.14%) GDPR
System Software
1 2 (0.28%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (0.28%) Podman
Vendors
1 18 (2.55%) Microsoft
2 16 (2.27%) Siemens
3 11 (1.56%) Calypso
4 3 (0.43%) Allen-Bradley
4 3 (0.43%) IBM
5 2 (0.28%) Google
5 2 (0.28%) Infor
6 1 (0.14%) EXTOL