Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £75,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 3 February 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 214 187 217
Rank change year-on-year -27 +30 +48
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 665 836 1,037
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.63% 1.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.14% 1.77% 1.48%
Number of salaries quoted 522 539 795
10th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,000 £57,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £95,000 £96,875 £80,250
90th Percentile £102,500 £122,500 £99,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,500 £65,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year +3.85% +4.00% -3.85%

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 58,384 47,304 69,847
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.96% 92.02% 95.00%
Number of salaries quoted 36,350 24,185 54,854
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,625 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.71%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,648 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,439 £50,000
% change year-on-year -8.15% +8.88% -4.76%

Senior Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Senior Software Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Senior Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Software Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Senior Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Senior Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Senior Software Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Software Engineer over the 6 months to 3 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Software Engineer in the UK

Senior Software Engineer
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Software Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 3 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 -18 571 £75,000 +7.14% 249
UK excluding London -33 396 £67,500 +3.85% 198
London +19 235 £95,000 +5.56% 91
Work from Home -68 226 £73,750 +5.36% 206
South East -26 96 £70,000 +7.69% 51
South West +23 81 £65,000 +4.00% 32
North of England -39 80 £75,000 +15.38% 44
Scotland -23 61 £67,500 +8.00% 25
North West 0 40 £70,000 +7.69% 32
East of England -24 39 £70,000 +3.70% 22
Midlands +16 32 £65,000 +8.33% 21
Yorkshire -14 30 £75,000 -4.91% 10
East Midlands +8 18 £65,000 +8.33% 9
West Midlands +20 14 £65,000 +5.26% 12
North East -22 10 £75,000 +36.36% 2
Wales -5 7 £60,000 -4.00% 5

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

For the 6 months to 3 February 2026, Senior Software Engineer 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 Engineer in the job title.

1 652 (98.05%) Software Engineering
2 126 (18.95%) AWS
3 120 (18.05%) Java
4 111 (16.69%) Agile
5 102 (15.34%) .NET
6 100 (15.04%) C#
7 96 (14.44%) CI/CD
8 90 (13.53%) Full-Stack Development
9 83 (12.48%) Microservices
10 79 (11.88%) Mentoring
11 78 (11.73%) Python
12 75 (11.28%) Azure
12 75 (11.28%) Kubernetes
13 74 (11.13%) React
14 72 (10.83%) C++
15 69 (10.38%) DevOps
16 65 (9.77%) TypeScript
17 55 (8.27%) Problem-Solving
18 54 (8.12%) Linux
19 52 (7.82%) JavaScript
20 48 (7.22%) Computer Science
20 48 (7.22%) Degree
20 48 (7.22%) SQL
21 46 (6.92%) SDLC
21 46 (6.92%) Test Automation
22 44 (6.62%) Docker
22 44 (6.62%) GCP
22 44 (6.62%) Technical Leadership
23 42 (6.32%) Containerisation
23 42 (6.32%) Fintech

Senior Software Engineer 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 14 (2.11%) Apache
2 13 (1.95%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.45%) CMS
4 2 (0.30%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.15%) Confluence
5 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.15%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 126 (18.95%) AWS
2 75 (11.28%) Azure
3 44 (6.62%) GCP
4 41 (6.17%) SaaS
5 27 (4.06%) GitHub
6 14 (2.11%) dbt
6 14 (2.11%) Snowflake
7 12 (1.80%) Amazon EKS
7 12 (1.80%) Azure AKS
8 11 (1.65%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.50%) GitHub Copilot
10 9 (1.35%) Serverless
10 9 (1.35%) Stripe
11 8 (1.20%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 8 (1.20%) Azure Event Grid
12 5 (0.75%) Cloud Run
13 4 (0.60%) Amazon S3
13 4 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (0.45%) Azure Service Bus
14 3 (0.45%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.95%) Multicast
2 10 (1.50%) HTTP
3 5 (0.75%) Ethernet
3 5 (0.75%) RS-232
4 4 (0.60%) Broadband
5 1 (0.15%) DNS
5 1 (0.15%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.51%) SQL Server
2 22 (3.31%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (3.01%) NoSQL
4 14 (2.11%) Amazon Athena
5 13 (1.95%) Apache Arrow
5 13 (1.95%) Apache Iceberg
5 13 (1.95%) Apache Ignite
5 13 (1.95%) Data Lake
5 13 (1.95%) Dremio
6 12 (1.80%) Relational Database
7 11 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
8 10 (1.50%) BigQuery
9 8 (1.20%) MongoDB
10 6 (0.90%) Redis
11 5 (0.75%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
12 3 (0.45%) MySQL
13 2 (0.30%) MariaDB
13 2 (0.30%) RDBMS
14 1 (0.15%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 34 (5.11%) Git
2 21 (3.16%) JIRA
3 14 (2.11%) TeamCity
4 8 (1.20%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.75%) GitLab
6 4 (0.60%) JUnit
7 3 (0.45%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.45%) JBehave
8 2 (0.30%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.30%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.30%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.30%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.30%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.30%) Xcode
9 1 (0.15%) Ant
9 1 (0.15%) Maven
9 1 (0.15%) Rational Statemate
9 1 (0.15%) Selenium
9 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 139 (20.90%) Finance
2 60 (9.02%) Banking
3 45 (6.77%) Social Skills
4 19 (2.86%) Financial Institution
4 19 (2.86%) Retail
5 17 (2.56%) Law
6 14 (2.11%) Games
6 14 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (1.95%) Front Office
7 13 (1.95%) Investment Banking
8 11 (1.65%) Tech for Good
9 10 (1.50%) Back Office
9 10 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.35%) Automotive
11 6 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
11 6 (0.90%) Public Sector
12 5 (0.75%) Aerospace
12 5 (0.75%) Analytical Skills
12 5 (0.75%) Health Technology
13 4 (0.60%) Aeronautics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (15.34%) .NET
2 74 (11.13%) React
3 36 (5.41%) RESTful
4 30 (4.51%) Node.js
4 30 (4.51%) REST
5 24 (3.61%) React Native
6 22 (3.31%) .NET Core
7 20 (3.01%) AngularJS
7 20 (3.01%) GraphQL
8 16 (2.41%) Ruby on Rails
9 15 (2.26%) .NET Framework
10 14 (2.11%) Spring
11 13 (1.95%) Boost C++ Libraries
11 13 (1.95%) FIX Protocol
11 13 (1.95%) gRPC
11 13 (1.95%) NumPy
11 13 (1.95%) Pandas
11 13 (1.95%) Protocol Buffers
11 13 (1.95%) pytest
11 13 (1.95%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 62 (9.32%) Cloud Native
2 27 (4.06%) Derivative
3 26 (3.91%) Equities
3 26 (3.91%) Fixed Income
4 24 (3.61%) Distributed Systems
5 23 (3.46%) Algorithms
6 22 (3.31%) Embedded Systems
7 16 (2.41%) Hedge funds
8 13 (1.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 13 (1.95%) Pricing Data
9 12 (1.80%) IoT
10 11 (1.65%) CAN bus
10 11 (1.65%) Public Cloud
11 10 (1.50%) Greenfield Project
12 9 (1.35%) Legacy Code
12 9 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
13 8 (1.20%) Robotics
14 7 (1.05%) Blog
14 7 (1.05%) Data Structures
15 5 (0.75%) Device Driver
Operating Systems
1 54 (8.12%) Linux
2 17 (2.56%) Android
2 17 (2.56%) Embedded Linux
3 6 (0.90%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.30%) Unix
4 2 (0.30%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 652 (98.05%) Software Engineering
2 111 (16.69%) Agile
3 96 (14.44%) CI/CD
4 90 (13.53%) Full-Stack Development
5 83 (12.48%) Microservices
6 79 (11.88%) Mentoring
7 69 (10.38%) DevOps
8 55 (8.27%) Problem-Solving
9 48 (7.22%) Computer Science
10 46 (6.92%) SDLC
10 46 (6.92%) Test Automation
11 44 (6.62%) Technical Leadership
12 42 (6.32%) Containerisation
12 42 (6.32%) Fintech
13 41 (6.17%) AI
14 34 (5.11%) Scrum
15 33 (4.96%) Clean Code
16 30 (4.51%) User Experience
17 29 (4.36%) Continuous Improvement
18 26 (3.91%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 120 (18.05%) Java
2 100 (15.04%) C#
3 78 (11.73%) Python
4 72 (10.83%) C++
5 65 (9.77%) TypeScript
6 52 (7.82%) JavaScript
7 48 (7.22%) SQL
8 32 (4.81%) C
9 24 (3.61%) Rust
10 23 (3.46%) Go
11 18 (2.71%) Kotlin
12 16 (2.41%) PHP
12 16 (2.41%) Ruby
13 7 (1.05%) Embedded C
14 6 (0.90%) Delphi
15 4 (0.60%) Scala
15 4 (0.60%) VB
16 3 (0.45%) Bash
16 3 (0.45%) Swift
17 2 (0.30%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 48 (7.22%) Degree
2 21 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
3 18 (2.71%) Security Cleared
4 16 (2.41%) Master's Degree
5 14 (2.11%) SC Cleared
6 6 (0.90%) PhD
7 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.15%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.15%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.01%) QA
2 11 (1.65%) IEC 61508
2 11 (1.65%) MISRA
2 11 (1.65%) MISRA C
3 7 (1.05%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.30%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.30%) JTAG
5 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.15%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.15%) ECSS
5 1 (0.15%) GDPR
5 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.15%) PSD2
System Software
1 44 (6.62%) Docker
2 7 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.05%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (0.90%) Firmware
4 3 (0.45%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 75 (11.28%) Kubernetes
2 28 (4.21%) Terraform
3 12 (1.80%) Grafana
4 11 (1.65%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.30%) Ansible
5 2 (0.30%) Argo
6 1 (0.15%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.15%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (2.11%) Google
2 9 (1.35%) Microsoft
3 8 (1.20%) HubSpot
4 2 (0.30%) Adobe
4 2 (0.30%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (0.30%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.30%) Oracle
4 2 (0.30%) SAP
5 1 (0.15%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.15%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.15%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.15%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.15%) MuleSoft
5 1 (0.15%) New Relic
5 1 (0.15%) SendGrid