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 15 January 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 484 515 459
Rank change year-on-year +31 -56 +141
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Developer 168 200 265
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.37% 0.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.31% 0.40% 0.50%
Number of salaries quoted 151 171 232
10th Percentile £45,750 £52,500 £46,375
25th Percentile £55,000 £57,500 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £70,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £72,500 £86,250 £87,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £125,000 £112,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.70% +8.00% +4.17%

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 54,710 49,797 52,819
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.74% 92.91% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,899 25,819 40,678
10th Percentile £28,560 £33,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £95,325
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -5.18%

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 15 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 15 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 +11 126 £65,000 -7.14% 64
UK excluding London +42 125 £65,000 -3.70% 58
Work from Home +41 71 £64,000 +2.81% 49
South East +7 33 £70,000 - 26
North of England +30 32 £65,000 -13.33% 9
London +21 27 £68,500 -31.50% 15
North West +38 24 £57,500 -8.00% 7
Wales +18 17 £55,000 +24.03% 2
Midlands +28 16 £60,000 - 3
South West -4 14 £65,000 -1.89% 9
East Midlands - 11 £55,200 - 1
Yorkshire -8 7 £65,000 -13.33% 1
Northern Ireland -6 6 £70,000 -6.67% 1
West Midlands +16 5 £65,000 +8.33% 2
Scotland -1 5 £65,000 +13.04% 2
East of England +25 4 £80,000 +8.47% 7
North East +12 3 £65,000 -13.33% 1

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

For the 6 months to 15 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 (39.88%) C#
2 61 (36.31%) .NET
3 39 (23.21%) Azure
4 34 (20.24%) Agile
4 34 (20.24%) Software Engineering
5 30 (17.86%) SQL Server
6 29 (17.26%) ASP.NET
7 26 (15.48%) Microsoft
8 23 (13.69%) Mentoring
9 21 (12.50%) Python
10 20 (11.90%) .NET Core
10 20 (11.90%) Problem-Solving
10 20 (11.90%) SQL
11 19 (11.31%) SaaS
11 19 (11.31%) TDD
12 18 (10.71%) AWS
12 18 (10.71%) Collaborative Culture
13 17 (10.12%) .NET Framework
13 17 (10.12%) CI/CD
14 16 (9.52%) DevOps
14 16 (9.52%) Serverless
15 15 (8.93%) JavaScript
15 15 (8.93%) React
16 14 (8.33%) Docker
16 14 (8.33%) Java
16 14 (8.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 14 (8.33%) TypeScript
17 13 (7.74%) Event-Driven
17 13 (7.74%) Full-Stack Development
17 13 (7.74%) Microservices

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 (1.19%) HCL Notes
1 2 (1.19%) IIS
1 2 (1.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (1.19%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.19%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 39 (23.21%) Azure
2 19 (11.31%) SaaS
3 18 (10.71%) AWS
4 16 (9.52%) Serverless
5 11 (6.55%) GitHub
6 8 (4.76%) AWS Lambda
6 8 (4.76%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (4.17%) Azure Service Bus
8 6 (3.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (3.57%) Azure Event Grid
8 6 (3.57%) OpenShift
9 5 (2.98%) Azure Functions
10 4 (2.38%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (1.19%) Amazon S3
11 2 (1.19%) Azure API Management
11 2 (1.19%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (1.19%) GCP
11 2 (1.19%) GitHub Copilot
12 1 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
12 1 (0.60%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.98%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (17.86%) SQL Server
2 7 (4.17%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (3.57%) DynamoDB
3 6 (3.57%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (2.98%) MySQL
5 3 (1.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (1.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (1.19%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (1.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 1 (0.60%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.60%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.60%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (5.95%) Jenkins
2 8 (4.76%) Git
2 8 (4.76%) Selenium
3 7 (4.17%) GitLab
4 6 (3.57%) Cucumber
4 6 (3.57%) JUnit
5 4 (2.38%) TeamCity
6 3 (1.79%) JIRA
7 2 (1.19%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.19%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.60%) git-flow
8 1 (0.60%) Moq
General
1 26 (15.48%) Social Skills
2 11 (6.55%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.57%) Health Technology
3 6 (3.57%) Publishing
3 6 (3.57%) Tech for Good
4 4 (2.38%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.19%) Automotive
6 2 (1.19%) Law
6 2 (1.19%) Legal
6 2 (1.19%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (36.31%) .NET
2 29 (17.26%) ASP.NET
3 20 (11.90%) .NET Core
4 17 (10.12%) .NET Framework
5 15 (8.93%) React
6 13 (7.74%) RESTful
7 11 (6.55%) Laravel
8 8 (4.76%) Spring
8 8 (4.76%) Spring Boot
9 7 (4.17%) Django
9 7 (4.17%) Flask
9 7 (4.17%) HTML
10 6 (3.57%) CSS
10 6 (3.57%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (3.57%) pytest
10 6 (3.57%) Swagger
11 4 (2.38%) Akka
11 4 (2.38%) AngularJS
11 4 (2.38%) Vue
11 4 (2.38%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.17%) Legacy Systems
2 4 (2.38%) Cloud Native
2 4 (2.38%) Onboarding
2 4 (2.38%) Over-the-Top Content
2 4 (2.38%) Video\Live Streaming
2 4 (2.38%) Virtual Team
3 3 (1.79%) Mobile App
4 2 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (1.19%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (0.60%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.60%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.57%) Windows
2 1 (0.60%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (20.24%) Agile
1 34 (20.24%) Software Engineering
2 23 (13.69%) Mentoring
3 20 (11.90%) Problem-Solving
4 19 (11.31%) TDD
5 18 (10.71%) Collaborative Culture
6 17 (10.12%) CI/CD
7 16 (9.52%) DevOps
8 14 (8.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 13 (7.74%) Event-Driven
9 13 (7.74%) Full-Stack Development
9 13 (7.74%) Microservices
9 13 (7.74%) Pair Programming
9 13 (7.74%) Scrum
10 11 (6.55%) Software Testing
11 10 (5.95%) Propensity Modelling
11 10 (5.95%) Technical Leadership
12 9 (5.36%) API Integration
12 9 (5.36%) Continuous Improvement
12 9 (5.36%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 67 (39.88%) C#
2 21 (12.50%) Python
3 20 (11.90%) SQL
4 15 (8.93%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.33%) Java
5 14 (8.33%) TypeScript
6 13 (7.74%) PHP
7 10 (5.95%) Scala
8 6 (3.57%) Delphi
9 3 (1.79%) C++
9 3 (1.79%) F#
9 3 (1.79%) Haskell
9 3 (1.79%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.79%) VB.NET
10 2 (1.19%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.60%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 10 (5.95%) Degree
2 7 (4.17%) Security Cleared
3 6 (3.57%) SC Cleared
4 5 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.60%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.60%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.95%) QA
2 4 (2.38%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.60%) EU AI Act
3 1 (0.60%) HL7
3 1 (0.60%) NIST
System Software
1 14 (8.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.17%) Grafana
3 1 (0.60%) Terraform
Vendors
1 26 (15.48%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.36%) Oracle
3 2 (1.19%) Lotus
3 2 (1.19%) Syncfusion
3 2 (1.19%) Telerik
3 2 (1.19%) Zend
4 1 (0.60%) Foundry
4 1 (0.60%) Xamarin