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 26 January 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 483 518 452
Rank change year-on-year +35 -66 +142
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Developer 171 188 355
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.36% 0.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.39% 0.55%
Number of salaries quoted 152 159 316
10th Percentile £45,750 £52,500 £46,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £57,125 £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 £70,625 £85,000 £86,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £125,000 £112,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.70% +12.50% -

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 56,920 48,584 64,352
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.79% 92.29% 95.13%
Number of salaries quoted 35,330 24,964 50,275
10th Percentile £28,750 £33,663 £29,017
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% -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £93,750 £98,750 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -5.25%

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 26 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 26 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 +35 128 £65,000 -3.70% 54
England +15 127 £65,000 -7.14% 57
Work from Home +43 66 £64,000 +3.23% 43
South East +11 34 £65,000 -7.14% 22
North of England +32 32 £65,000 -13.33% 10
North West +46 27 £65,000 -7.14% 8
London +7 26 £69,250 -37.05% 9
Wales +21 17 £55,000 +24.03% 2
South West -2 15 £65,000 -1.89% 7
Midlands +24 14 £57,600 -4.00% 4
East Midlands - 11 £55,200 - 1
Scotland -7 6 £65,000 +18.18% 1
Northern Ireland -9 6 £70,000 -6.67% 1
East of England +14 4 £80,000 +8.47% 8
Yorkshire -8 4 £65,000 -13.33% 1
West Midlands +24 3 £60,000 - 3
North East -1 1 £55,200 -26.40% 1

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

For the 6 months to 26 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 61 (35.67%) C#
2 59 (34.50%) .NET
3 40 (23.39%) Azure
4 37 (21.64%) Software Engineering
5 31 (18.13%) Agile
6 29 (16.96%) SQL Server
7 26 (15.20%) ASP.NET
8 25 (14.62%) Microsoft
9 24 (14.04%) Mentoring
10 20 (11.70%) .NET Core
11 19 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
11 19 (11.11%) SaaS
11 19 (11.11%) SQL
12 18 (10.53%) CI/CD
13 17 (9.94%) .NET Framework
13 17 (9.94%) AWS
13 17 (9.94%) Collaborative Culture
13 17 (9.94%) Python
14 16 (9.36%) DevOps
15 15 (8.77%) Docker
15 15 (8.77%) PHP
15 15 (8.77%) TDD
16 14 (8.19%) Microservices
16 14 (8.19%) Serverless
16 14 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 13 (7.60%) Event-Driven
17 13 (7.60%) Java
17 13 (7.60%) JavaScript
17 13 (7.60%) Kubernetes
17 13 (7.60%) 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 40 (23.39%) Azure
2 19 (11.11%) SaaS
3 17 (9.94%) AWS
4 14 (8.19%) Serverless
5 11 (6.43%) GitHub
6 8 (4.68%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (4.09%) Azure Service Bus
8 6 (3.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (3.51%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (3.51%) Azure Event Grid
8 6 (3.51%) OpenShift
9 5 (2.92%) Azure Functions
10 4 (2.34%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (1.75%) GCP
12 2 (1.17%) Amazon S3
12 2 (1.17%) Azure API Management
12 2 (1.17%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (1.17%) GitHub Copilot
13 1 (0.58%) Azure AKS
13 1 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.92%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (16.96%) SQL Server
2 7 (4.09%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (2.92%) MySQL
4 4 (2.34%) DynamoDB
4 4 (2.34%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (1.17%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (1.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 1 (0.58%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.58%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.58%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.58%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 10 (5.85%) Jenkins
2 9 (5.26%) Git
3 8 (4.68%) Selenium
4 7 (4.09%) GitLab
5 6 (3.51%) Cucumber
5 6 (3.51%) JUnit
6 4 (2.34%) JIRA
6 4 (2.34%) TeamCity
7 2 (1.17%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.17%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.58%) git-flow
8 1 (0.58%) Moq
General
1 25 (14.62%) Social Skills
2 9 (5.26%) Public Sector
3 4 (2.34%) Health Technology
3 4 (2.34%) Publishing
3 4 (2.34%) Tech for Good
4 3 (1.75%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 2 (1.17%) Law
5 2 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (0.58%) Finance
6 1 (0.58%) Legal
6 1 (0.58%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (34.50%) .NET
2 26 (15.20%) ASP.NET
3 20 (11.70%) .NET Core
4 17 (9.94%) .NET Framework
5 13 (7.60%) Laravel
5 13 (7.60%) React
6 12 (7.02%) RESTful
7 7 (4.09%) Django
7 7 (4.09%) Flask
7 7 (4.09%) HTML
7 7 (4.09%) Spring
7 7 (4.09%) Spring Boot
8 6 (3.51%) CSS
8 6 (3.51%) Elastic Stack
8 6 (3.51%) pytest
9 4 (2.34%) Akka
9 4 (2.34%) AngularJS
9 4 (2.34%) Swagger
9 4 (2.34%) Vue
9 4 (2.34%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.09%) Legacy Systems
2 5 (2.92%) Cloud Native
3 4 (2.34%) Onboarding
3 4 (2.34%) Over-the-Top Content
3 4 (2.34%) Video\Live Streaming
3 4 (2.34%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.17%) Mobile App
4 2 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (1.17%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (0.58%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.58%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.58%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.51%) Windows
2 1 (0.58%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (21.64%) Software Engineering
2 31 (18.13%) Agile
3 24 (14.04%) Mentoring
4 19 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (10.53%) CI/CD
6 17 (9.94%) Collaborative Culture
7 16 (9.36%) DevOps
8 15 (8.77%) TDD
9 14 (8.19%) Microservices
9 14 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 13 (7.60%) Event-Driven
11 11 (6.43%) Full-Stack Development
11 11 (6.43%) Scrum
12 10 (5.85%) API Integration
12 10 (5.85%) Software Testing
13 9 (5.26%) Containerisation
13 9 (5.26%) Continuous Improvement
13 9 (5.26%) Pair Programming
13 9 (5.26%) Propensity Modelling
13 9 (5.26%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 61 (35.67%) C#
2 19 (11.11%) SQL
3 17 (9.94%) Python
4 15 (8.77%) PHP
5 13 (7.60%) Java
5 13 (7.60%) JavaScript
6 10 (5.85%) TypeScript
7 8 (4.68%) Scala
8 6 (3.51%) Delphi
9 3 (1.75%) F#
9 3 (1.75%) Haskell
9 3 (1.75%) VB.NET
10 2 (1.17%) C++
11 1 (0.58%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.58%) Ruby
11 1 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 10 (5.85%) Degree
2 6 (3.51%) Security Cleared
3 5 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
4 4 (2.34%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.58%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.58%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.09%) QA
2 4 (2.34%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.58%) EU AI Act
3 1 (0.58%) HL7
3 1 (0.58%) NIST
System Software
1 15 (8.77%) Docker
Systems Management
1 13 (7.60%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.09%) Grafana
3 1 (0.58%) Terraform
Vendors
1 25 (14.62%) Microsoft
2 8 (4.68%) Oracle
3 2 (1.17%) Syncfusion
3 2 (1.17%) Telerik
3 2 (1.17%) Zend
4 1 (0.58%) Foundry
4 1 (0.58%) Lotus
4 1 (0.58%) Xamarin