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 14 January 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 488 503 466
Rank change year-on-year +15 -37 +116
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Developer 166 200 265
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 149 171 232
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 54,426 49,714 53,040
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.72% 92.90% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,710 25,743 40,880
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,625 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,000 £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 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,609 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.96% +5.22% -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 14 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 14 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 +63 124 £65,000 -3.70% 57
England +12 124 £65,000 -7.14% 63
Work from Home +39 70 £64,000 +2.81% 49
North of England +24 32 £65,000 -13.33% 8
South East +15 32 £70,000 - 25
London +10 26 £68,500 -31.50% 15
North West +33 24 £57,500 -8.00% 6
Wales +22 17 £55,000 +24.03% 2
Midlands +29 16 £60,000 - 4
South West +8 14 £65,000 -1.89% 9
East Midlands - 11 £55,200 - 2
Yorkshire -8 7 £65,000 -13.33% 1
Northern Ireland -6 6 £70,000 -6.67% 1
West Midlands +17 5 £65,000 +8.33% 2
Scotland +1 5 £65,000 +13.04% 2
East of England +24 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 14 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 66 (39.76%) C#
2 60 (36.14%) .NET
3 38 (22.89%) Azure
4 34 (20.48%) Agile
4 34 (20.48%) Software Engineering
5 30 (18.07%) SQL Server
6 28 (16.87%) ASP.NET
7 26 (15.66%) Microsoft
8 23 (13.86%) Mentoring
9 21 (12.65%) Python
10 20 (12.05%) SQL
11 19 (11.45%) .NET Core
11 19 (11.45%) Problem-Solving
11 19 (11.45%) SaaS
11 19 (11.45%) TDD
12 18 (10.84%) AWS
12 18 (10.84%) Collaborative Culture
13 16 (9.64%) .NET Framework
13 16 (9.64%) CI/CD
14 15 (9.04%) DevOps
14 15 (9.04%) JavaScript
14 15 (9.04%) React
14 15 (9.04%) Serverless
15 14 (8.43%) Docker
15 14 (8.43%) Java
15 14 (8.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 14 (8.43%) TypeScript
16 13 (7.83%) Full-Stack Development
16 13 (7.83%) Pair Programming
16 13 (7.83%) RESTful

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 (1.20%) HCL Notes
1 2 (1.20%) IIS
1 2 (1.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 2 (1.20%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.20%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 38 (22.89%) Azure
2 19 (11.45%) SaaS
3 18 (10.84%) AWS
4 15 (9.04%) Serverless
5 11 (6.63%) GitHub
6 8 (4.82%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (3.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (3.61%) Azure Service Bus
8 6 (3.61%) OpenShift
9 5 (3.01%) Azure Event Grid
10 4 (2.41%) Azure Functions
11 3 (1.81%) Azure Logic Apps
12 2 (1.20%) Amazon S3
12 2 (1.20%) Azure API Management
12 2 (1.20%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (1.20%) GCP
12 2 (1.20%) GitHub Copilot
13 1 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
13 1 (0.60%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.01%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (18.07%) SQL Server
2 7 (4.22%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (3.61%) DynamoDB
3 6 (3.61%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (3.01%) MySQL
5 3 (1.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (1.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (1.20%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 1 (0.60%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.60%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.60%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (6.02%) Jenkins
2 8 (4.82%) Git
2 8 (4.82%) Selenium
3 7 (4.22%) GitLab
4 6 (3.61%) Cucumber
4 6 (3.61%) JUnit
5 4 (2.41%) TeamCity
6 3 (1.81%) JIRA
7 2 (1.20%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.20%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.60%) git-flow
8 1 (0.60%) Moq
General
1 25 (15.06%) Social Skills
2 11 (6.63%) Public Sector
3 6 (3.61%) Health Technology
3 6 (3.61%) Publishing
3 6 (3.61%) Tech for Good
4 4 (2.41%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.20%) Automotive
6 2 (1.20%) Law
6 2 (1.20%) Legal
6 2 (1.20%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.20%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (36.14%) .NET
2 28 (16.87%) ASP.NET
3 19 (11.45%) .NET Core
4 16 (9.64%) .NET Framework
5 15 (9.04%) React
6 13 (7.83%) RESTful
7 10 (6.02%) Laravel
8 8 (4.82%) Spring
8 8 (4.82%) Spring Boot
9 7 (4.22%) Django
9 7 (4.22%) Flask
9 7 (4.22%) HTML
10 6 (3.61%) CSS
10 6 (3.61%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (3.61%) pytest
10 6 (3.61%) Swagger
11 4 (2.41%) Akka
11 4 (2.41%) AngularJS
11 4 (2.41%) Vue
11 4 (2.41%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.22%) Legacy Systems
2 4 (2.41%) Cloud Native
2 4 (2.41%) Onboarding
2 4 (2.41%) Over-the-Top Content
2 4 (2.41%) Video\Live Streaming
3 3 (1.81%) Mobile App
3 3 (1.81%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (1.20%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (0.60%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.60%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.61%) Windows
2 1 (0.60%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (20.48%) Agile
1 34 (20.48%) Software Engineering
2 23 (13.86%) Mentoring
3 19 (11.45%) Problem-Solving
3 19 (11.45%) TDD
4 18 (10.84%) Collaborative Culture
5 16 (9.64%) CI/CD
6 15 (9.04%) DevOps
7 14 (8.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 13 (7.83%) Full-Stack Development
8 13 (7.83%) Pair Programming
8 13 (7.83%) Scrum
9 12 (7.23%) Event-Driven
9 12 (7.23%) Microservices
10 11 (6.63%) Software Testing
11 10 (6.02%) Propensity Modelling
11 10 (6.02%) Technical Leadership
12 9 (5.42%) API Integration
12 9 (5.42%) Continuous Improvement
12 9 (5.42%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 66 (39.76%) C#
2 21 (12.65%) Python
3 20 (12.05%) SQL
4 15 (9.04%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.43%) Java
5 14 (8.43%) TypeScript
6 12 (7.23%) PHP
7 10 (6.02%) Scala
8 6 (3.61%) Delphi
9 3 (1.81%) C++
9 3 (1.81%) F#
9 3 (1.81%) Haskell
9 3 (1.81%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.81%) VB.NET
10 2 (1.20%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.60%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 10 (6.02%) Degree
2 7 (4.22%) Security Cleared
3 6 (3.61%) SC Cleared
4 5 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.60%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.60%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.02%) QA
2 4 (2.41%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.60%) EU AI Act
3 1 (0.60%) HL7
3 1 (0.60%) NIST
System Software
1 14 (8.43%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (7.23%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.22%) Grafana
3 1 (0.60%) Terraform
Vendors
1 26 (15.66%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.42%) Oracle
3 2 (1.20%) Lotus
3 2 (1.20%) Syncfusion
3 2 (1.20%) Telerik
3 2 (1.20%) Zend
4 1 (0.60%) Foundry
4 1 (0.60%) Xamarin