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 18 February 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 487 519 445
Rank change year-on-year +32 -74 +154
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Developer 186 163 408
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.33% 0.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.36% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 167 134 367
10th Percentile £50,000 £52,500 £46,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £54,063 £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 £72,500 £85,000 £90,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £115,000 £112,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £66,250 £60,000
% change year-on-year -1.89% +10.42% -

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 61,931 45,044 70,794
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.23% 91.56% 94.85%
Number of salaries quoted 38,987 23,380 55,351
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,250
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 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 18 February 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 18 February 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 +38 138 £65,000 -7.14% 32
UK excluding London +39 133 £65,000 -1.89% 32
Work from Home +20 62 £65,000 +13.04% 23
South East +9 35 £65,000 -7.14% 9
North of England +7 35 £65,000 -13.33% 7
North West +29 30 £65,000 -7.14% 6
London +14 30 £75,000 -31.82% 7
South West 0 17 £65,000 +1.96% 5
Midlands +20 15 £60,000 - 5
Wales +8 15 £55,000 +0.60% 3
East Midlands - 10 £57,600 - 2
Scotland -12 6 £65,000 +18.18%
Northern Ireland -19 6 £70,000 -6.67% 1
West Midlands +14 5 £65,000 +8.33% 3
East of England +16 4 £80,000 - 2
Yorkshire -24 4 £67,500 -10.00%
North East - 1 £55,200 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 18 February 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 61 (32.80%) C#
2 59 (31.72%) .NET
3 43 (23.12%) Azure
3 43 (23.12%) Software Engineering
4 32 (17.20%) Agile
5 31 (16.67%) SQL Server
6 27 (14.52%) Mentoring
7 26 (13.98%) Microsoft
8 25 (13.44%) ASP.NET
9 22 (11.83%) .NET Core
10 21 (11.29%) CI/CD
11 20 (10.75%) DevOps
11 20 (10.75%) SaaS
12 19 (10.22%) Java
13 18 (9.68%) AWS
13 18 (9.68%) Docker
14 17 (9.14%) Collaborative Culture
14 17 (9.14%) JavaScript
14 17 (9.14%) Microservices
15 16 (8.60%) .NET Framework
15 16 (8.60%) Kubernetes
15 16 (8.60%) PHP
15 16 (8.60%) Problem-Solving
15 16 (8.60%) Python
15 16 (8.60%) SQL
16 14 (7.53%) Full-Stack Development
16 14 (7.53%) Laravel
16 14 (7.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 13 (6.99%) Event-Driven
17 13 (6.99%) Serverless

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 (0.54%) Confluence
1 1 (0.54%) IIS
Cloud Services
1 43 (23.12%) Azure
2 20 (10.75%) SaaS
3 18 (9.68%) AWS
4 13 (6.99%) Serverless
5 11 (5.91%) GitHub
6 8 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (3.76%) Azure Service Bus
7 7 (3.76%) OpenShift
8 6 (3.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (3.23%) Azure Event Grid
9 5 (2.69%) Azure Functions
10 4 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (2.15%) Azure Logic Apps
10 4 (2.15%) GCP
11 3 (1.61%) Amazon S3
12 2 (1.08%) Azure API Management
12 2 (1.08%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (1.08%) GitHub Copilot
13 1 (0.54%) Azure AKS
13 1 (0.54%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.69%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (16.67%) SQL Server
2 8 (4.30%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.69%) MySQL
4 2 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (1.08%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.54%) DTS
5 1 (0.54%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.54%) Hadoop
5 1 (0.54%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.54%) Redis
5 1 (0.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (5.91%) Git
1 11 (5.91%) Jenkins
2 7 (3.76%) Selenium
3 6 (3.23%) Cucumber
3 6 (3.23%) GitLab
3 6 (3.23%) JUnit
4 4 (2.15%) JIRA
4 4 (2.15%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.54%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.54%) git-flow
5 1 (0.54%) Moq
5 1 (0.54%) WebDriver
General
1 21 (11.29%) Social Skills
2 8 (4.30%) Public Sector
3 4 (2.15%) Finance
4 2 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (0.54%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (0.54%) Billing
5 1 (0.54%) Health Technology
5 1 (0.54%) Law
5 1 (0.54%) Publishing
5 1 (0.54%) Tech for Good
5 1 (0.54%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (31.72%) .NET
2 25 (13.44%) ASP.NET
3 22 (11.83%) .NET Core
4 16 (8.60%) .NET Framework
5 14 (7.53%) Laravel
6 12 (6.45%) React
7 10 (5.38%) RESTful
7 10 (5.38%) Spring
7 10 (5.38%) Spring Boot
8 7 (3.76%) Django
8 7 (3.76%) Flask
8 7 (3.76%) HTML
9 6 (3.23%) CSS
9 6 (3.23%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (3.23%) pytest
10 5 (2.69%) AngularJS
10 5 (2.69%) Vue
11 4 (2.15%) Akka
11 4 (2.15%) WPF
12 3 (1.61%) Blazor
Miscellaneous
1 6 (3.23%) Cloud Native
1 6 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
2 4 (2.15%) Over-the-Top Content
2 4 (2.15%) Video\Live Streaming
2 4 (2.15%) Virtual Team
3 3 (1.61%) Onboarding
4 2 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (0.54%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.54%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.54%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (0.54%) Low-Code
5 1 (0.54%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.54%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.54%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 5 (2.69%) Windows
2 1 (0.54%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (23.12%) Software Engineering
2 32 (17.20%) Agile
3 27 (14.52%) Mentoring
4 21 (11.29%) CI/CD
5 20 (10.75%) DevOps
6 17 (9.14%) Collaborative Culture
6 17 (9.14%) Microservices
7 16 (8.60%) Problem-Solving
8 14 (7.53%) Full-Stack Development
8 14 (7.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 13 (6.99%) Event-Driven
9 13 (6.99%) TDD
10 12 (6.45%) Containerisation
11 11 (5.91%) Scrum
12 10 (5.38%) API Integration
12 10 (5.38%) Architectural Patterns
12 10 (5.38%) Test Automation
13 9 (4.84%) Continuous Improvement
14 8 (4.30%) Fintech
14 8 (4.30%) Propensity Modelling
Programming Languages
1 61 (32.80%) C#
2 19 (10.22%) Java
3 17 (9.14%) JavaScript
4 16 (8.60%) PHP
4 16 (8.60%) Python
4 16 (8.60%) SQL
5 10 (5.38%) Scala
6 6 (3.23%) Delphi
6 6 (3.23%) TypeScript
7 5 (2.69%) F#
7 5 (2.69%) Haskell
8 3 (1.61%) VB.NET
9 1 (0.54%) C++
9 1 (0.54%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.54%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 6 (3.23%) Degree
1 6 (3.23%) Security Cleared
2 3 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
2 3 (1.61%) SC Cleared
3 1 (0.54%) Azure Certification
3 1 (0.54%) DV Cleared
3 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.61%) QA
2 2 (1.08%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.54%) EU AI Act
3 1 (0.54%) HL7
3 1 (0.54%) NIST
System Software
1 18 (9.68%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (8.60%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.76%) Grafana
3 2 (1.08%) Terraform
Vendors
1 26 (13.98%) Microsoft
2 6 (3.23%) Oracle
3 2 (1.08%) Syncfusion
3 2 (1.08%) Telerik
3 2 (1.08%) Zend
4 1 (0.54%) Dynatrace
4 1 (0.54%) Foundry
4 1 (0.54%) Xamarin