Senior Java Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer - Java
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer - Java salary in the UK is £85,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 September 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 714 539 602
Rank change year-on-year -175 +63 +125
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Java Software Engineer 78 137 191
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.067% 0.28% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.072% 0.31% 0.26%
Number of salaries quoted 60 110 154
10th Percentile £60,000 £103,750 -
25th Percentile £65,000 £105,000 £85,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £110,000 £115,000
Median % change year-on-year -22.73% -4.35% +31.43%
75th Percentile £92,500 £135,000 £148,750
90th Percentile £121,000 - -
UK excluding London median annual salary £71,250 £71,250 £65,465
% change year-on-year - +8.84% -3.73%

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 108,200 44,314 74,420
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.19% 89.66% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 74,226 26,055 44,614
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,250 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.36% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -4.76%

Senior Java Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Senior Java Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Java Software Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Senior Java Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Senior Java Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Senior Java Software Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Java Software Engineer over the 6 months to 19 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Java Software Engineer in the UK

Senior Java Software Engineer
Top 14 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Java Software Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 19 September 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 -177 73 £85,000 -22.73% 68
UK excluding London -102 45 £71,250 - 40
Work from Home -110 33 £90,000 -25.00% 32
London -161 29 £100,000 -9.09% 45
North of England -45 28 £85,000 +19.30% 17
North West +4 23 £80,000 - 10
South West - 9 £60,000 - 1
Yorkshire -39 5 £85,000 +21.43% 7
South East - 4 £90,000 - 1
Midlands - 2 £52,500 - 3
Wales - 1 £64,000 - 1
West Midlands - 1 £45,000 -
East of England - 1 £72,500 - 1
East Midlands - 1 £60,000 - 3

Senior Java Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 September 2026, Senior Java 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 Senior Java Software Engineer in the job title.

1 78 (100.00%) Java
1 78 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 26 (33.33%) Spring
3 24 (30.77%) AWS
3 24 (30.77%) Full-Stack Development
4 22 (28.21%) Microservices
5 21 (26.92%) Agile
6 15 (19.23%) Spring Boot
7 14 (17.95%) CI/CD
7 14 (17.95%) Kubernetes
7 14 (17.95%) Test Automation
8 12 (15.38%) Amazon EKS
8 12 (15.38%) Clean Code
8 12 (15.38%) Terraform
9 11 (14.10%) Continuous Deployment
9 11 (14.10%) Deployment Automation
9 11 (14.10%) GCP
9 11 (14.10%) Grafana
9 11 (14.10%) TeamCity
10 9 (11.54%) AI
10 9 (11.54%) PostgreSQL
10 9 (11.54%) SaaS
11 8 (10.26%) SQL
12 7 (8.97%) Disruptive Innovation
12 7 (8.97%) Fintech
13 6 (7.69%) Python
14 5 (6.41%) Anthropic Claude
14 5 (6.41%) Claude Code
14 5 (6.41%) Kafka
14 5 (6.41%) Relational Database

Senior Java 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 (1.28%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 24 (30.77%) AWS
2 12 (15.38%) Amazon EKS
3 11 (14.10%) GCP
4 9 (11.54%) SaaS
5 5 (6.41%) Anthropic Claude
6 1 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
6 1 (1.28%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (1.28%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (11.54%) PostgreSQL
2 5 (6.41%) Relational Database
3 2 (2.56%) MySQL
3 2 (2.56%) NoSQL
4 1 (1.28%) Db2
4 1 (1.28%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (14.10%) TeamCity
2 5 (6.41%) Claude Code
3 1 (1.28%) Bitbucket
3 1 (1.28%) Cucumber
3 1 (1.28%) JIRA
3 1 (1.28%) Selenium
General
1 15 (19.23%) Banking
1 15 (19.23%) Finance
2 11 (14.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 11 (14.10%) Law
2 11 (14.10%) Retail
3 7 (8.97%) Social Skills
4 4 (5.13%) Back Office
4 4 (5.13%) Digital Health
4 4 (5.13%) Financial Institution
4 4 (5.13%) Health Technology
5 3 (3.85%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.28%) Games
6 1 (1.28%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (33.33%) Spring
2 15 (19.23%) Spring Boot
3 12 (15.38%) Terraform
4 5 (6.41%) Kafka
4 5 (6.41%) RESTful
5 2 (2.56%) Node.js
5 2 (2.56%) RabbitMQ
6 1 (1.28%) .NET
6 1 (1.28%) CSS
6 1 (1.28%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (1.28%) Gherkin
6 1 (1.28%) HTML
6 1 (1.28%) Micronaut
6 1 (1.28%) Model Context Protocol
6 1 (1.28%) React
6 1 (1.28%) REST
6 1 (1.28%) Spring MVC
6 1 (1.28%) Swing
Miscellaneous
1 17 (21.79%) Cloud Native
2 7 (8.97%) Blog
3 5 (6.41%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 4 (5.13%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (2.56%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (2.56%) Management Information System
5 2 (2.56%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.28%) Algorithms
6 1 (1.28%) Derivative
6 1 (1.28%) Embedded Systems
6 1 (1.28%) IoT
6 1 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.28%) Renewable Energy
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 24 (30.77%) Full-Stack Development
3 22 (28.21%) Microservices
4 21 (26.92%) Agile
5 14 (17.95%) CI/CD
5 14 (17.95%) Test Automation
6 12 (15.38%) Clean Code
7 11 (14.10%) Continuous Deployment
7 11 (14.10%) Deployment Automation
8 9 (11.54%) AI
9 7 (8.97%) Disruptive Innovation
9 7 (8.97%) Fintech
10 4 (5.13%) Continuous Improvement
10 4 (5.13%) Design Thinking
10 4 (5.13%) Machine Learning
10 4 (5.13%) Roadmaps
11 3 (3.85%) Design Patterns
11 3 (3.85%) Investment Management
11 3 (3.85%) Mentoring
11 3 (3.85%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 78 (100.00%) Java
2 8 (10.26%) SQL
3 6 (7.69%) Python
4 2 (2.56%) Go
4 2 (2.56%) JavaScript
4 2 (2.56%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 1 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (1.28%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.28%) QA
System Software
1 2 (2.56%) Docker
2 1 (1.28%) Embedded Firmware
2 1 (1.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 14 (17.95%) Kubernetes
2 11 (14.10%) Grafana