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 6 June 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 198 137
Rank change year-on-year +53 -61 +154
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,248 765 2,076
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.35% 1.74% 2.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.44% 1.95% 2.11%
Number of salaries quoted 1,015 456 1,507
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £78,810 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.83% +21.25% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £100,625 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £130,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,250 £60,000
% change year-on-year +7.28% +8.75% -7.69%

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 86,631 39,275 98,433
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.87% 89.41% 94.84%
Number of salaries quoted 58,552 22,114 71,335
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £99,273 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -6.54%

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 6 June 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 6 June 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 +45 1,093 £75,000 -6.25% 821
UK excluding London +68 870 £70,000 +7.28% 500
London +8 313 £95,000 - 365
Work from Home -36 301 £70,000 -11.18% 346
South East +124 226 £75,000 +15.38% 91
North of England -55 198 £75,000 +7.14% 138
South West +58 154 £70,000 -1.75% 61
North West -52 117 £75,000 +7.14% 92
East of England +46 101 £70,000 +18.64% 67
Midlands +52 96 £65,000 -10.34% 67
Scotland +18 75 £67,500 +4.65% 33
West Midlands +18 63 £69,653 -3.93% 53
Yorkshire -1 58 £70,000 -11.84% 26
East Midlands +1 33 £65,000 -7.14% 14
North East -36 23 £80,000 +45.45% 20
Wales -29 19 £56,250 -13.46% 9
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 38

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

For the 6 months to 6 June 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 1,240 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 204 (16.35%) C++
3 197 (15.79%) C#
4 183 (14.66%) Java
5 180 (14.42%) Python
6 175 (14.02%) Agile
7 166 (13.30%) AWS
8 163 (13.06%) .NET
9 146 (11.70%) Full-Stack Development
10 126 (10.10%) CI/CD
11 108 (8.65%) Microservices
12 105 (8.41%) Mentoring
13 102 (8.17%) Azure
14 95 (7.61%) Linux
15 93 (7.45%) React
16 92 (7.37%) DevOps
17 91 (7.29%) TypeScript
18 89 (7.13%) JavaScript
19 83 (6.65%) AI
19 83 (6.65%) SaaS
20 79 (6.33%) Security Cleared
21 78 (6.25%) C
21 78 (6.25%) SDLC
22 77 (6.17%) SQL
22 77 (6.17%) Test Automation
23 75 (6.01%) Kubernetes
24 74 (5.93%) Computer Science
24 74 (5.93%) Degree
25 66 (5.29%) Docker
26 62 (4.97%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.28%) SharePoint Server
2 4 (0.32%) Apache Solr
3 3 (0.24%) Apache
3 3 (0.24%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.24%) WinCC
4 2 (0.16%) CMS
4 2 (0.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (0.24%) Blender
1 3 (0.24%) Maya
Cloud Services
1 166 (13.30%) AWS
2 102 (8.17%) Azure
3 83 (6.65%) SaaS
4 48 (3.85%) GCP
5 36 (2.88%) GitHub
6 29 (2.32%) Serverless
7 18 (1.44%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 17 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
9 16 (1.28%) Anthropic Claude
10 15 (1.20%) Azure AKS
11 13 (1.04%) GitHub Copilot
12 12 (0.96%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (0.72%) Azure Event Grid
14 6 (0.48%) Stripe
15 5 (0.40%) Amazon S3
15 5 (0.40%) Amazon SQS
16 4 (0.32%) Amazon OpenSearch
16 4 (0.32%) AWS Lambda
16 4 (0.32%) IaaS
16 4 (0.32%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.76%) RS-232
2 17 (1.36%) Ethernet
3 16 (1.28%) Multicast
4 12 (0.96%) Modbus
5 11 (0.88%) Bluetooth
5 11 (0.88%) HTTP
6 10 (0.80%) Profibus
6 10 (0.80%) Wireless
7 7 (0.56%) RS-485
7 7 (0.56%) ZigBee
8 6 (0.48%) Broadband
9 1 (0.080%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (2.40%) SQL Server
2 22 (1.76%) NoSQL
3 17 (1.36%) MySQL
4 15 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (1.04%) MongoDB
6 9 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
8 7 (0.56%) Big Data
9 4 (0.32%) DocumentDB
9 4 (0.32%) Geospatial Data
9 4 (0.32%) Neo4j
9 4 (0.32%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.24%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.24%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.24%) MariaDB
10 3 (0.24%) Redis
11 1 (0.080%) Db2
11 1 (0.080%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 51 (4.09%) Git
2 23 (1.84%) JIRA
3 19 (1.52%) TeamCity
4 18 (1.44%) GitLab
5 16 (1.28%) Claude Code
6 13 (1.04%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.72%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.24%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.16%) GDB
9 2 (0.16%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.080%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.080%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.080%) LabVIEW
10 1 (0.080%) NUnit
10 1 (0.080%) Selenium
10 1 (0.080%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.080%) Xcode
10 1 (0.080%) Yeoman
General
1 134 (10.74%) Finance
2 62 (4.97%) Banking
3 53 (4.25%) Social Skills
4 43 (3.45%) Electronics
5 30 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 29 (2.32%) Manufacturing
6 29 (2.32%) Public Sector
7 20 (1.60%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (1.60%) Automotive
8 19 (1.52%) Retail
9 18 (1.44%) Law
10 14 (1.12%) Back Office
10 14 (1.12%) Financial Institution
11 13 (1.04%) Tech for Good
12 12 (0.96%) Aerospace
12 12 (0.96%) Games
13 11 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.56%) Agriculture
14 7 (0.56%) Military
14 7 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 163 (13.06%) .NET
2 93 (7.45%) React
3 61 (4.89%) Node.js
4 40 (3.21%) WPF
5 39 (3.13%) REST
6 33 (2.64%) Spring
7 30 (2.40%) RESTful
8 23 (1.84%) .NET Core
8 23 (1.84%) Spring Boot
9 22 (1.76%) React Native
10 17 (1.36%) .NET Framework
11 16 (1.28%) AngularJS
11 16 (1.28%) Boost C++ Libraries
11 16 (1.28%) FIX Protocol
11 16 (1.28%) pytest
12 15 (1.20%) Ruby on Rails
12 15 (1.20%) Yocto
13 14 (1.12%) Vue
14 13 (1.04%) Next.js
15 12 (0.96%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 87 (6.97%) Cloud Native
2 54 (4.33%) Algorithms
3 37 (2.96%) Embedded Systems
3 37 (2.96%) Legacy Systems
4 25 (2.00%) Distributed Systems
5 20 (1.60%) Greenfield Project
6 18 (1.44%) Derivative
7 16 (1.28%) Equities
7 16 (1.28%) Fixed Income
7 16 (1.28%) IoT
8 15 (1.20%) Device Driver
8 15 (1.20%) Robotics
9 14 (1.12%) CAN bus
10 11 (0.88%) Public Cloud
11 10 (0.80%) AI Agents
12 9 (0.72%) Client/Server
12 9 (0.72%) Product Ownership
12 9 (0.72%) Sports Betting
13 8 (0.64%) Legacy Applications
14 7 (0.56%) Blog
Operating Systems
1 95 (7.61%) Linux
2 31 (2.48%) Embedded Linux
3 17 (1.36%) FreeRTOS
4 9 (0.72%) Android
5 6 (0.48%) Windows
6 4 (0.32%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.080%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,240 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 175 (14.02%) Agile
3 146 (11.70%) Full-Stack Development
4 126 (10.10%) CI/CD
5 108 (8.65%) Microservices
6 105 (8.41%) Mentoring
7 92 (7.37%) DevOps
8 83 (6.65%) AI
9 78 (6.25%) SDLC
10 77 (6.17%) Test Automation
11 74 (5.93%) Computer Science
12 62 (4.97%) Problem-Solving
13 60 (4.81%) Containerisation
14 56 (4.49%) Fintech
15 52 (4.17%) Technical Leadership
16 46 (3.69%) Continuous Improvement
17 45 (3.61%) Scrum
18 43 (3.45%) Embedded Software Development
18 43 (3.45%) Low Latency
19 41 (3.29%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 204 (16.35%) C++
2 197 (15.79%) C#
3 183 (14.66%) Java
4 180 (14.42%) Python
5 91 (7.29%) TypeScript
6 89 (7.13%) JavaScript
7 78 (6.25%) C
8 77 (6.17%) SQL
9 43 (3.45%) Rust
10 26 (2.08%) Go
11 20 (1.60%) Embedded C
12 18 (1.44%) PHP
13 15 (1.20%) Ruby
14 12 (0.96%) Scala
15 9 (0.72%) Julia
15 9 (0.72%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.72%) MATLAB
16 8 (0.64%) F#
16 8 (0.64%) Haskell
17 7 (0.56%) VB
Qualifications
1 79 (6.33%) Security Cleared
2 74 (5.93%) Degree
3 61 (4.89%) SC Cleared
4 28 (2.24%) DV Cleared
5 22 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (1.76%) Master's Degree
6 13 (1.04%) PhD
7 3 (0.24%) AWS Certification
7 3 (0.24%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.16%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.080%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (2.32%) QA
2 15 (1.20%) IEC 61508
2 15 (1.20%) MISRA
2 15 (1.20%) MISRA C
3 9 (0.72%) Accessibility
4 4 (0.32%) GDPR
5 3 (0.24%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.24%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.080%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 66 (5.29%) Docker
2 44 (3.53%) Firmware
3 19 (1.52%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.16%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.16%) KVM
4 2 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.080%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 75 (6.01%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.21%) Terraform
3 20 (1.60%) Grafana
4 12 (0.96%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.40%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.24%) Ansible
6 3 (0.24%) Plesk
7 1 (0.080%) Argo
Vendors
1 8 (0.64%) Microsoft
2 7 (0.56%) Siemens
3 6 (0.48%) HubSpot
4 5 (0.40%) Google
5 3 (0.24%) Rockwell
5 3 (0.24%) Splunk
6 2 (0.16%) OpenAI
6 2 (0.16%) VMware
7 1 (0.080%) Foundry
7 1 (0.080%) Palantir
7 1 (0.080%) TOWER Software