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 3 January 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 487 504 473
Rank change year-on-year +17 -31 +119
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Developer 157 205 240
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.37% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.40% 0.48%
Number of salaries quoted 142 177 208
10th Percentile £45,750 £52,500 £47,500
25th Percentile £55,000 £57,500 £55,938
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £70,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £85,000 £87,500
90th Percentile £82,250 £126,500 £112,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +3.85% +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 53,599 50,905 49,610
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.53% 92.99% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 32,992 26,750 38,370
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,200 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £59,526
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +0.80% -0.79%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -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 3 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 3 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 -2 117 £65,000 -7.14% 119
UK excluding London +53 116 £62,500 -7.41% 109
Work from Home +56 67 £64,000 +2.40% 108
South East -5 32 £70,000 - 40
North of England +36 27 £65,000 -13.33% 21
London +27 25 £68,500 -31.50% 32
North West +43 18 £50,000 -20.00% 11
Midlands +28 17 £60,000 - 15
Wales +14 17 £55,000 +24.03% 2
South West +3 12 £65,000 -1.89% 12
East Midlands - 11 £55,200 - 7
Yorkshire 0 8 £65,000 -13.33% 7
West Midlands +29 6 £65,000 +8.33% 7
Northern Ireland 0 6 £70,000 -6.67% 1
East of England +22 4 £80,000 +8.47% 15
North East +10 3 £65,000 -13.33% 3
Scotland -2 3 £65,000 +15.56% 4

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

For the 6 months to 3 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 67 (42.68%) C#
2 58 (36.94%) .NET
3 37 (23.57%) Azure
4 32 (20.38%) Agile
5 30 (19.11%) Software Engineering
6 29 (18.47%) SQL Server
7 26 (16.56%) ASP.NET
8 25 (15.92%) Microsoft
9 24 (15.29%) Mentoring
10 21 (13.38%) Python
11 20 (12.74%) SQL
12 19 (12.10%) Problem-Solving
12 19 (12.10%) SaaS
13 18 (11.46%) .NET Core
13 18 (11.46%) AWS
14 17 (10.83%) CI/CD
14 17 (10.83%) TDD
15 16 (10.19%) .NET Framework
15 16 (10.19%) Collaborative Culture
15 16 (10.19%) DevOps
16 15 (9.55%) JavaScript
16 15 (9.55%) React
16 15 (9.55%) Serverless
16 15 (9.55%) TypeScript
17 14 (8.92%) Java
17 14 (8.92%) RESTful
17 14 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 13 (8.28%) Full-Stack Development
18 13 (8.28%) Microservices
19 12 (7.64%) Docker

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 2 (1.27%) HCL Notes
1 2 (1.27%) IIS
1 2 (1.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (1.27%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.27%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 37 (23.57%) Azure
2 19 (12.10%) SaaS
3 18 (11.46%) AWS
4 15 (9.55%) Serverless
5 11 (7.01%) GitHub
6 8 (5.10%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (4.46%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (3.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (3.82%) Azure Service Bus
8 6 (3.82%) OpenShift
9 5 (3.18%) Azure Event Grid
10 4 (2.55%) Azure Functions
11 3 (1.91%) Azure Logic Apps
12 2 (1.27%) Amazon S3
12 2 (1.27%) Azure API Management
12 2 (1.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (1.27%) GCP
12 2 (1.27%) GitHub Copilot
13 1 (0.64%) Azure AKS
13 1 (0.64%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.91%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (18.47%) SQL Server
2 7 (4.46%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (3.82%) DynamoDB
3 6 (3.82%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (3.18%) MySQL
5 3 (1.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (1.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (1.27%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (1.27%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 1 (0.64%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.64%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.64%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 8 (5.10%) Git
1 8 (5.10%) Jenkins
1 8 (5.10%) Selenium
2 7 (4.46%) GitLab
3 6 (3.82%) Cucumber
3 6 (3.82%) JUnit
4 3 (1.91%) JIRA
5 2 (1.27%) Cypress.io
5 2 (1.27%) TeamCity
5 2 (1.27%) WebDriver
6 1 (0.64%) git-flow
6 1 (0.64%) Moq
General
1 25 (15.92%) Social Skills
2 11 (7.01%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.82%) Health Technology
3 6 (3.82%) Publishing
3 6 (3.82%) Tech for Good
4 4 (2.55%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.27%) Automotive
6 2 (1.27%) Law
6 2 (1.27%) Legal
6 2 (1.27%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (36.94%) .NET
2 26 (16.56%) ASP.NET
3 18 (11.46%) .NET Core
4 16 (10.19%) .NET Framework
5 15 (9.55%) React
6 14 (8.92%) RESTful
7 10 (6.37%) Laravel
8 8 (5.10%) HTML
8 8 (5.10%) Spring
8 8 (5.10%) Spring Boot
9 7 (4.46%) CSS
9 7 (4.46%) Django
9 7 (4.46%) Flask
10 6 (3.82%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (3.82%) pytest
10 6 (3.82%) Swagger
11 5 (3.18%) AngularJS
12 4 (2.55%) Vue
12 4 (2.55%) WPF
13 3 (1.91%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.46%) Legacy Systems
2 5 (3.18%) Cloud Native
3 4 (2.55%) Onboarding
4 3 (1.91%) Mobile App
4 3 (1.91%) Virtual Team
5 2 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.27%) Over-the-Top Content
5 2 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (1.27%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 2 (1.27%) Video\Live Streaming
6 1 (0.64%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.64%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (0.64%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.82%) Windows
2 1 (0.64%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (20.38%) Agile
2 30 (19.11%) Software Engineering
3 24 (15.29%) Mentoring
4 19 (12.10%) Problem-Solving
5 17 (10.83%) CI/CD
5 17 (10.83%) TDD
6 16 (10.19%) Collaborative Culture
6 16 (10.19%) DevOps
7 14 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 13 (8.28%) Full-Stack Development
8 13 (8.28%) Microservices
9 12 (7.64%) Event-Driven
10 11 (7.01%) Pair Programming
10 11 (7.01%) Scrum
10 11 (7.01%) Software Testing
11 10 (6.37%) Propensity Modelling
11 10 (6.37%) Technical Leadership
12 9 (5.73%) API Integration
12 9 (5.73%) Continuous Improvement
12 9 (5.73%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 67 (42.68%) C#
2 21 (13.38%) Python
3 20 (12.74%) SQL
4 15 (9.55%) JavaScript
4 15 (9.55%) TypeScript
5 14 (8.92%) Java
6 12 (7.64%) PHP
7 8 (5.10%) Scala
8 6 (3.82%) Delphi
9 3 (1.91%) C++
9 3 (1.91%) F#
9 3 (1.91%) Haskell
9 3 (1.91%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.91%) VB.NET
10 2 (1.27%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.64%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 10 (6.37%) Degree
2 7 (4.46%) Security Cleared
3 6 (3.82%) SC Cleared
4 5 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.64%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.64%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.37%) QA
2 4 (2.55%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.64%) EU AI Act
3 1 (0.64%) HL7
3 1 (0.64%) NIST
System Software
1 12 (7.64%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (6.37%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.46%) Grafana
3 1 (0.64%) Terraform
Vendors
1 25 (15.92%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.73%) Oracle
3 2 (1.27%) Lotus
3 2 (1.27%) Syncfusion
3 2 (1.27%) Telerik
3 2 (1.27%) Zend
4 1 (0.64%) Foundry
4 1 (0.64%) Xamarin