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 1 January 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 499 510 480
Rank change year-on-year +11 -30 +119
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Developer 153 207 237
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.37% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.40% 0.48%
Number of salaries quoted 138 179 205
10th Percentile £45,525 £52,500 £47,500
25th Percentile £55,000 £57,500 £56,250
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 £82,875 £128,750 £112,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -11.11% +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 53,514 51,440 48,883
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.46% 93.14% 95.23%
Number of salaries quoted 32,905 27,168 37,760
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,200 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,956 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £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 1 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 1 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 +4 114 £65,000 -7.14% 32
UK excluding London +49 113 £60,000 -11.11% 25
Work from Home +47 66 £64,000 +2.40% 20
South East -1 32 £70,000 - 9
North of England +33 25 £65,000 -13.33% 9
London -17 24 £68,500 -31.50% 11
North West +33 17 £50,000 -20.00% 7
Midlands +29 17 £60,000 - 2
Wales +18 17 £55,000 +24.03%
South West 0 12 £65,000 -1.89% 3
East Midlands - 11 £55,200 - 2
Yorkshire -2 7 £65,000 -13.33%
West Midlands +15 6 £65,000 +8.33%
Northern Ireland -2 6 £70,000 -6.67%
East of England +22 4 £80,000 +8.47%
North East +10 3 £65,000 -13.33% 2
Scotland +2 2 £61,250 +8.89% 2

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

For the 6 months to 1 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 65 (42.48%) C#
2 55 (35.95%) .NET
3 36 (23.53%) Azure
4 32 (20.92%) Agile
5 29 (18.95%) Software Engineering
6 28 (18.30%) SQL Server
7 25 (16.34%) ASP.NET
7 25 (16.34%) Microsoft
8 24 (15.69%) Mentoring
9 21 (13.73%) Python
10 20 (13.07%) SQL
11 19 (12.42%) Problem-Solving
12 18 (11.76%) AWS
12 18 (11.76%) SaaS
13 17 (11.11%) .NET Core
13 17 (11.11%) CI/CD
13 17 (11.11%) TDD
14 16 (10.46%) .NET Framework
14 16 (10.46%) DevOps
15 15 (9.80%) Collaborative Culture
15 15 (9.80%) JavaScript
15 15 (9.80%) React
15 15 (9.80%) Serverless
15 15 (9.80%) TypeScript
16 14 (9.15%) RESTful
16 14 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 13 (8.50%) Full-Stack Development
17 13 (8.50%) Java
17 13 (8.50%) Microservices
18 12 (7.84%) 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 (1.31%) HCL Notes
1 2 (1.31%) IIS
1 2 (1.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (1.31%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.31%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 36 (23.53%) Azure
2 18 (11.76%) AWS
2 18 (11.76%) SaaS
3 15 (9.80%) Serverless
4 11 (7.19%) GitHub
5 8 (5.23%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (4.58%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (3.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 6 (3.92%) Azure Service Bus
7 6 (3.92%) OpenShift
8 5 (3.27%) Azure Event Grid
9 4 (2.61%) Azure Functions
10 3 (1.96%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (1.31%) Amazon S3
11 2 (1.31%) Azure API Management
11 2 (1.31%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (1.31%) GCP
11 2 (1.31%) GitHub Copilot
12 1 (0.65%) Azure AKS
12 1 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.96%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (18.30%) SQL Server
2 7 (4.58%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (3.92%) DynamoDB
3 6 (3.92%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (3.27%) MySQL
5 3 (1.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (1.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (1.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 1 (0.65%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.65%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.65%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 8 (5.23%) Git
1 8 (5.23%) Jenkins
1 8 (5.23%) Selenium
2 7 (4.58%) GitLab
3 6 (3.92%) Cucumber
3 6 (3.92%) JUnit
4 3 (1.96%) JIRA
5 2 (1.31%) Cypress.io
5 2 (1.31%) TeamCity
5 2 (1.31%) WebDriver
6 1 (0.65%) git-flow
6 1 (0.65%) Moq
General
1 25 (16.34%) Social Skills
2 11 (7.19%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.92%) Health Technology
3 6 (3.92%) Publishing
3 6 (3.92%) Tech for Good
4 4 (2.61%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.31%) Automotive
6 2 (1.31%) Law
6 2 (1.31%) Legal
6 2 (1.31%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (35.95%) .NET
2 25 (16.34%) ASP.NET
3 17 (11.11%) .NET Core
4 16 (10.46%) .NET Framework
5 15 (9.80%) React
6 14 (9.15%) RESTful
7 10 (6.54%) Laravel
8 8 (5.23%) HTML
8 8 (5.23%) Spring
8 8 (5.23%) Spring Boot
9 7 (4.58%) CSS
9 7 (4.58%) Django
9 7 (4.58%) Flask
10 6 (3.92%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (3.92%) pytest
10 6 (3.92%) Swagger
11 5 (3.27%) AngularJS
12 4 (2.61%) Vue
12 4 (2.61%) WPF
13 3 (1.96%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.58%) Legacy Systems
2 4 (2.61%) Cloud Native
2 4 (2.61%) Onboarding
3 3 (1.96%) Mobile App
3 3 (1.96%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.31%) Over-the-Top Content
4 2 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (1.31%) Team-Oriented Environment
4 2 (1.31%) Video\Live Streaming
5 1 (0.65%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.65%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.92%) Windows
2 1 (0.65%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (20.92%) Agile
2 29 (18.95%) Software Engineering
3 24 (15.69%) Mentoring
4 19 (12.42%) Problem-Solving
5 17 (11.11%) CI/CD
5 17 (11.11%) TDD
6 16 (10.46%) DevOps
7 15 (9.80%) Collaborative Culture
8 14 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 13 (8.50%) Full-Stack Development
9 13 (8.50%) Microservices
10 12 (7.84%) Event-Driven
11 11 (7.19%) Pair Programming
11 11 (7.19%) Scrum
11 11 (7.19%) Software Testing
12 10 (6.54%) Propensity Modelling
12 10 (6.54%) Technical Leadership
13 9 (5.88%) API Integration
13 9 (5.88%) Continuous Improvement
13 9 (5.88%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 65 (42.48%) C#
2 21 (13.73%) Python
3 20 (13.07%) SQL
4 15 (9.80%) JavaScript
4 15 (9.80%) TypeScript
5 13 (8.50%) Java
6 12 (7.84%) PHP
7 8 (5.23%) Scala
8 6 (3.92%) Delphi
9 3 (1.96%) C++
9 3 (1.96%) F#
9 3 (1.96%) Haskell
9 3 (1.96%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.96%) VB.NET
10 2 (1.31%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.65%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 10 (6.54%) Degree
2 7 (4.58%) Security Cleared
3 6 (3.92%) SC Cleared
4 5 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.65%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.65%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.54%) QA
2 4 (2.61%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.65%) EU AI Act
3 1 (0.65%) HL7
3 1 (0.65%) NIST
System Software
1 12 (7.84%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (6.54%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.58%) Grafana
3 1 (0.65%) Terraform
Vendors
1 25 (16.34%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.88%) Oracle
3 2 (1.31%) Lotus
3 2 (1.31%) Syncfusion
3 2 (1.31%) Telerik
3 2 (1.31%) Zend
4 1 (0.65%) Foundry
4 1 (0.65%) Xamarin