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 13 October 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 235 120
Rank change year-on-year +114 -115 +166
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,855 633 1,485
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.57% 1.29% 2.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.69% 1.44% 2.18%
Number of salaries quoted 1,388 316 998
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £59,438
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +28.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £63,500
% change year-on-year - +10.24% +1.60%

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 109,503 44,040 68,088
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 89.76% 95.37%
Number of salaries quoted 74,366 25,685 38,800
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £35,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,750 £53,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.81% -2.73% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -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 13 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Software Engineer in the UK

Senior Software Engineer
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 Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 13 October 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 +109 1,667 £75,000 -16.67% 995
UK excluding London +136 1,319 £70,000 - 541
London +36 458 £95,000 -13.64% 526
North of England +23 351 £75,000 +7.14% 139
Work from Home -39 341 £80,000 -27.27% 428
South East +140 256 £80,000 +18.52% 103
South West +69 244 £70,000 +7.69% 62
North West -8 216 £75,000 +0.67% 96
East of England +104 210 £70,000 +7.69% 81
Midlands +67 143 £70,000 -6.67% 51
Yorkshire +33 78 £70,000 -6.67% 22
West Midlands +25 73 £70,000 -6.67% 29
East Midlands +32 70 £60,000 -14.29% 22
Scotland +31 65 £75,000 +11.11% 66
North East -23 57 £80,000 +700.00% 21
Wales -29 46 £70,000 - 12
Northern Ireland - 4 £75,000 - 34

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

For the 6 months to 13 October 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 1,853 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 286 (15.42%) Python
3 255 (13.75%) Agile
4 245 (13.21%) AWS
5 243 (13.10%) Java
6 240 (12.94%) C#
7 227 (12.24%) AI
8 223 (12.02%) C++
9 222 (11.97%) CI/CD
10 182 (9.81%) Mentoring
11 173 (9.33%) Full-Stack Development
12 161 (8.68%) .NET
13 146 (7.87%) TypeScript
14 138 (7.44%) Microservices
15 125 (6.74%) DevOps
16 117 (6.31%) React
17 113 (6.09%) Test Automation
18 109 (5.88%) Azure
19 108 (5.82%) Security Cleared
20 104 (5.61%) Kubernetes
21 99 (5.34%) Linux
22 97 (5.23%) Code Quality
22 97 (5.23%) SDLC
23 90 (4.85%) Technical Leadership
24 89 (4.80%) Problem-Solving
25 88 (4.74%) Docker
26 86 (4.64%) Degree
27 80 (4.31%) Continuous Improvement
27 80 (4.31%) Terraform
28 79 (4.26%) JavaScript

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 16 (0.86%) SharePoint Server
2 6 (0.32%) Apache
3 3 (0.16%) CMS
3 3 (0.16%) Confluence
3 3 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.16%) WinCC
4 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
5 1 (0.054%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.054%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.16%) Blender
1 3 (0.16%) Maya
2 1 (0.054%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 245 (13.21%) AWS
2 109 (5.88%) Azure
3 76 (4.10%) GCP
4 68 (3.67%) SaaS
5 45 (2.43%) Serverless
6 35 (1.89%) GitHub
7 31 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (0.92%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (0.86%) Anthropic Claude
10 15 (0.81%) GitHub Copilot
11 13 (0.70%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
13 10 (0.54%) Amazon S3
14 8 (0.43%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (0.43%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 6 (0.32%) Amazon SQS
15 6 (0.32%) Supabase
16 5 (0.27%) Azure AI
16 5 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
16 5 (0.27%) Vercel
Communications & Networking
1 12 (0.65%) RS-232
2 11 (0.59%) Ethernet
3 10 (0.54%) Modbus
3 10 (0.54%) Profibus
3 10 (0.54%) TCP/IP
4 9 (0.49%) Bluetooth
4 9 (0.49%) Internet
4 9 (0.49%) Multicast
4 9 (0.49%) Wireless
5 8 (0.43%) Broadband
6 7 (0.38%) RS-485
6 7 (0.38%) ZigBee
7 4 (0.22%) Firewall
7 4 (0.22%) HTTP
7 4 (0.22%) MQTT
8 2 (0.11%) RS-422
9 1 (0.054%) BGP
9 1 (0.054%) DNS
9 1 (0.054%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
2 29 (1.56%) MySQL
3 27 (1.46%) Relational Database
4 19 (1.02%) Redis
5 16 (0.86%) MongoDB
6 14 (0.75%) NoSQL
6 14 (0.75%) SQL Server
7 12 (0.65%) DynamoDB
8 11 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
9 7 (0.38%) Big Data
10 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
11 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.22%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.22%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.16%) Power BI
13 2 (0.11%) Apache Cassandra
13 2 (0.11%) Flink
13 2 (0.11%) Hadoop
13 2 (0.11%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 51 (2.75%) Git
2 26 (1.40%) JIRA
3 24 (1.29%) TeamCity
4 23 (1.24%) GitLab
5 16 (0.86%) Claude Code
6 11 (0.59%) Jenkins
7 7 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
7 7 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
8 6 (0.32%) Mocha
9 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.27%) NUnit
9 5 (0.27%) Selenium
9 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
11 3 (0.16%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.16%) JUnit
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
11 3 (0.16%) PetaLinux
12 2 (0.11%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 147 (7.92%) Finance
2 126 (6.79%) Social Skills
3 67 (3.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 64 (3.45%) Electronics
5 59 (3.18%) Banking
6 49 (2.64%) Public Sector
7 44 (2.37%) Law
8 42 (2.26%) Analytical Skills
9 35 (1.89%) Manufacturing
10 31 (1.67%) Aerospace
11 28 (1.51%) Retail
12 19 (1.02%) Financial Institution
13 17 (0.92%) Marketing
13 17 (0.92%) Military
14 16 (0.86%) Front Office
15 14 (0.75%) Games
16 10 (0.54%) Back Office
16 10 (0.54%) Health Technology
17 9 (0.49%) Legal
18 8 (0.43%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (8.68%) .NET
2 117 (6.31%) React
3 80 (4.31%) Terraform
4 79 (4.26%) Node.js
5 65 (3.50%) Spring
6 48 (2.59%) RESTful
7 43 (2.32%) Spring Boot
8 42 (2.26%) Kafka
9 40 (2.16%) WPF
10 31 (1.67%) Next.js
11 26 (1.40%) FastAPI
12 24 (1.29%) AngularJS
12 24 (1.29%) REST
13 19 (1.02%) Vue
14 16 (0.86%) Django
15 13 (0.70%) OpenAPI
15 13 (0.70%) React Native
16 12 (0.65%) FIX Protocol
16 12 (0.65%) RabbitMQ
17 11 (0.59%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 129 (6.95%) Cloud Native
2 66 (3.56%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (2.91%) Legacy Systems
4 52 (2.80%) Robotics
5 40 (2.16%) Algorithms
6 35 (1.89%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.56%) AI Agents
7 29 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
8 28 (1.51%) Product Ownership
9 27 (1.46%) Blog
10 22 (1.19%) Public Cloud
11 20 (1.08%) Cyber Threat
12 14 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (0.70%) Blockchain
14 12 (0.65%) Derivative
14 12 (0.65%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.59%) Device Driver
15 11 (0.59%) Legacy Applications
16 10 (0.54%) Equities
16 10 (0.54%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 99 (5.34%) Linux
2 29 (1.56%) Embedded Linux
3 17 (0.92%) Windows
4 12 (0.65%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.54%) Android
5 10 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.43%) Unix
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.054%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,853 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 255 (13.75%) Agile
3 227 (12.24%) AI
4 222 (11.97%) CI/CD
5 182 (9.81%) Mentoring
6 173 (9.33%) Full-Stack Development
7 138 (7.44%) Microservices
8 125 (6.74%) DevOps
9 113 (6.09%) Test Automation
10 97 (5.23%) Code Quality
10 97 (5.23%) SDLC
11 90 (4.85%) Technical Leadership
12 89 (4.80%) Problem-Solving
13 80 (4.31%) Continuous Improvement
14 70 (3.77%) Fintech
15 67 (3.61%) Event-Driven
16 65 (3.50%) Computer Science
17 64 (3.45%) Containerisation
18 63 (3.40%) Infrastructure as Code
19 59 (3.18%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 286 (15.42%) Python
2 243 (13.10%) Java
3 240 (12.94%) C#
4 223 (12.02%) C++
5 146 (7.87%) TypeScript
6 79 (4.26%) JavaScript
7 77 (4.15%) SQL
8 59 (3.18%) C
9 38 (2.05%) Go
9 38 (2.05%) Rust
10 19 (1.02%) PHP
11 16 (0.86%) Kotlin
12 15 (0.81%) Embedded C
12 15 (0.81%) Scala
13 14 (0.75%) Ruby
14 12 (0.65%) F#
14 12 (0.65%) Haskell
14 12 (0.65%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.54%) Julia
16 8 (0.43%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 108 (5.82%) Security Cleared
2 86 (4.64%) Degree
3 73 (3.94%) SC Cleared
4 48 (2.59%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (0.75%) Master's Degree
6 14 (0.75%) PhD
7 13 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (0.32%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.22%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Chartered Engineer
12 1 (0.054%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.054%) HND
12 1 (0.054%) MOS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (1.94%) QA
2 20 (1.08%) Accessibility
3 7 (0.38%) DO-178B
4 6 (0.32%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.27%) GDPR
6 3 (0.16%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.054%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 88 (4.74%) Docker
2 41 (2.21%) Firmware
3 15 (0.81%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 104 (5.61%) Kubernetes
2 23 (1.24%) Grafana
3 13 (0.70%) Ansible
4 2 (0.11%) kaniko
4 2 (0.11%) Plesk
4 2 (0.11%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.11%) Puppet
5 1 (0.054%) Argo
5 1 (0.054%) Istio
5 1 (0.054%) Kibana
5 1 (0.054%) Podman
Vendors
1 24 (1.29%) Microsoft
2 18 (0.97%) Salesforce
3 14 (0.75%) RedGate
4 9 (0.49%) Foundry
4 9 (0.49%) Google
4 9 (0.49%) Sage
4 9 (0.49%) Splunk
5 8 (0.43%) Siemens
6 7 (0.38%) Databricks
7 6 (0.32%) OpenAI
7 6 (0.32%) Oracle
8 5 (0.27%) Intel
9 4 (0.22%) New Relic
10 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.16%) Revolut
10 3 (0.16%) Rockwell
11 2 (0.11%) ADVA
11 2 (0.11%) Okta
11 2 (0.11%) Thales
12 1 (0.054%) Reuters