Senior Software Developer Job Trends

Senior Software Developer
UK

The median Senior Software Developer salary in the UK is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 31 January 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 486 513 440
Rank change year-on-year +27 -73 +158
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Developer 173 192 370
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.37% 0.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.40% 0.56%
Number of salaries quoted 154 164 331
10th Percentile £45,750 £52,500 £46,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £56,750 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £71,875 £85,000 £87,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £125,000 £112,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year - +8.33% -

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 57,953 47,926 66,478
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.86% 92.23% 95.09%
Number of salaries quoted 36,028 24,691 52,048
10th Percentile £28,750 £33,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,535 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -4.76%

Senior Software Developer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Senior Software Developer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Software Developer
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for Senior Software Developer job vacancies in the UK

Senior Software Developer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Software Developer over the 6 months to 31 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Software Developer in the UK

Senior Software Developer
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Software Developer within the UK over the 6 months to 31 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
UK excluding London +53 127 £65,000 - 38
England +9 127 £65,000 -7.14% 44
Work from Home +18 66 £64,000 +3.23% 25
South East +12 34 £65,000 -7.14% 15
North of England +19 32 £65,000 -13.33% 8
North West +37 27 £65,000 -7.14% 7
London +6 26 £70,000 -33.33% 8
Wales +14 17 £55,000 +0.60%
South West +1 15 £65,000 -1.89% 6
Midlands +19 13 £60,000 - 7
East Midlands - 10 £57,600 - 2
Scotland -10 6 £65,000 +18.18%
Northern Ireland -10 6 £70,000 -6.67%
East of England +24 4 £80,000 +8.47% 2
Yorkshire -7 4 £65,000 -13.33%
West Midlands +19 3 £60,000 - 5
North East 0 1 £55,200 -26.40% 1

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

For the 6 months to 31 January 2026, Senior Software 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 Senior Software Developer in the job title.

1 60 (34.68%) C#
2 57 (32.95%) .NET
3 41 (23.70%) Azure
4 38 (21.97%) Software Engineering
5 31 (17.92%) Agile
6 28 (16.18%) SQL Server
7 25 (14.45%) Microsoft
8 24 (13.87%) ASP.NET
8 24 (13.87%) Mentoring
9 19 (10.98%) .NET Core
9 19 (10.98%) SaaS
10 18 (10.40%) CI/CD
10 18 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
10 18 (10.40%) SQL
11 17 (9.83%) .NET Framework
11 17 (9.83%) AWS
11 17 (9.83%) Collaborative Culture
11 17 (9.83%) DevOps
11 17 (9.83%) Python
12 16 (9.25%) Docker
13 15 (8.67%) Java
13 15 (8.67%) Microservices
13 15 (8.67%) PHP
14 14 (8.09%) Kubernetes
14 14 (8.09%) Serverless
14 14 (8.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 14 (8.09%) TDD
15 13 (7.51%) Event-Driven
15 13 (7.51%) JavaScript
15 13 (7.51%) Laravel

Senior Software 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 1 (0.58%) Confluence
1 1 (0.58%) HCL Notes
1 1 (0.58%) IIS
1 1 (0.58%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 1 (0.58%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.58%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 41 (23.70%) Azure
2 19 (10.98%) SaaS
3 17 (9.83%) AWS
4 14 (8.09%) Serverless
5 10 (5.78%) GitHub
6 8 (4.62%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (4.05%) Azure Service Bus
8 6 (3.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (3.47%) Azure Event Grid
8 6 (3.47%) OpenShift
9 5 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (2.89%) Azure Functions
10 4 (2.31%) Azure Logic Apps
10 4 (2.31%) GCP
11 2 (1.16%) Amazon S3
11 2 (1.16%) Azure API Management
11 2 (1.16%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (1.16%) GitHub Copilot
12 1 (0.58%) Azure AKS
12 1 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.89%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (16.18%) SQL Server
2 7 (4.05%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (2.31%) MySQL
4 3 (1.73%) DynamoDB
4 3 (1.73%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (1.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 1 (0.58%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.58%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.58%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 10 (5.78%) Jenkins
2 9 (5.20%) Git
3 8 (4.62%) Selenium
4 6 (3.47%) Cucumber
4 6 (3.47%) GitLab
4 6 (3.47%) JUnit
5 4 (2.31%) TeamCity
6 3 (1.73%) JIRA
7 2 (1.16%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.16%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.58%) git-flow
8 1 (0.58%) Moq
General
1 23 (13.29%) Social Skills
2 9 (5.20%) Public Sector
3 3 (1.73%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (1.73%) Health Technology
3 3 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3 (1.73%) Publishing
3 3 (1.73%) Tech for Good
4 2 (1.16%) Finance
4 2 (1.16%) Law
4 2 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (0.58%) Legal
5 1 (0.58%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (32.95%) .NET
2 24 (13.87%) ASP.NET
3 19 (10.98%) .NET Core
4 17 (9.83%) .NET Framework
5 13 (7.51%) Laravel
6 12 (6.94%) React
7 11 (6.36%) RESTful
8 8 (4.62%) Spring
8 8 (4.62%) Spring Boot
9 7 (4.05%) Django
9 7 (4.05%) Flask
10 6 (3.47%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (3.47%) HTML
10 6 (3.47%) pytest
11 5 (2.89%) CSS
12 4 (2.31%) Akka
12 4 (2.31%) Vue
12 4 (2.31%) WPF
13 3 (1.73%) AngularJS
13 3 (1.73%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.05%) Legacy Systems
2 5 (2.89%) Cloud Native
3 4 (2.31%) Onboarding
3 4 (2.31%) Over-the-Top Content
3 4 (2.31%) Video\Live Streaming
3 4 (2.31%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.16%) Mobile App
4 2 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (1.16%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (0.58%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.58%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.58%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.47%) Windows
2 1 (0.58%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (21.97%) Software Engineering
2 31 (17.92%) Agile
3 24 (13.87%) Mentoring
4 18 (10.40%) CI/CD
4 18 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
5 17 (9.83%) Collaborative Culture
5 17 (9.83%) DevOps
6 15 (8.67%) Microservices
7 14 (8.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 14 (8.09%) TDD
8 13 (7.51%) Event-Driven
9 11 (6.36%) Full-Stack Development
10 10 (5.78%) API Integration
10 10 (5.78%) Containerisation
10 10 (5.78%) Scrum
10 10 (5.78%) Test Automation
11 9 (5.20%) Architectural Patterns
11 9 (5.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 9 (5.20%) Propensity Modelling
12 8 (4.62%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 60 (34.68%) C#
2 18 (10.40%) SQL
3 17 (9.83%) Python
4 15 (8.67%) Java
4 15 (8.67%) PHP
5 13 (7.51%) JavaScript
6 9 (5.20%) Scala
7 8 (4.62%) TypeScript
8 6 (3.47%) Delphi
9 4 (2.31%) F#
9 4 (2.31%) Haskell
10 3 (1.73%) VB.NET
11 2 (1.16%) C++
12 1 (0.58%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.58%) Ruby
12 1 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (4.62%) Degree
2 6 (3.47%) Security Cleared
3 4 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (2.31%) SC Cleared
4 1 (0.58%) Azure Certification
4 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.05%) QA
2 4 (2.31%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.58%) EU AI Act
3 1 (0.58%) HL7
3 1 (0.58%) NIST
System Software
1 16 (9.25%) Docker
Systems Management
1 14 (8.09%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.05%) Grafana
3 1 (0.58%) Terraform
Vendors
1 25 (14.45%) Microsoft
2 7 (4.05%) Oracle
3 2 (1.16%) Syncfusion
3 2 (1.16%) Telerik
3 2 (1.16%) Zend
4 1 (0.58%) Foundry
4 1 (0.58%) Lotus
4 1 (0.58%) Xamarin