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 16 January 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 232 177 241
Rank change year-on-year -55 +64 +19
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 588 887 729
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.97% 1.66% 1.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 1.79% 1.36%
Number of salaries quoted 466 581 545
10th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,750 £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 £95,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £111,250 £122,500 £101,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £65,000

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 55,047 49,557 53,408
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.74% 92.77% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 34,113 25,668 41,151
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,500 £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 £95,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,609 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.96% +5.22% -5.25%

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 16 January 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 16 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
England -29 506 £75,000 +7.14% 476
UK excluding London -50 340 £65,000 - 455
London +8 217 £95,000 +5.56% 81
Work from Home -73 204 £77,500 +10.71% 274
South East -45 77 £67,500 +3.85% 145
North of England -18 74 £75,000 +15.38% 72
South West +5 69 £65,000 +8.33% 65
Scotland -17 54 £65,000 +4.00% 26
North West +2 38 £70,000 +7.69% 33
East of England -18 35 £70,000 +3.70% 66
Yorkshire +1 28 £75,000 +11.11% 29
Midlands +23 25 £65,000 +2.36% 55
East Midlands -3 14 £65,000 +8.33% 36
West Midlands +15 11 £65,000 +2.36% 19
North East -21 8 £75,000 +29.31% 10
Wales -1 6 £60,000 - 23

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

For the 6 months to 16 January 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.

1 575 (97.79%) Software Engineering
2 123 (20.92%) AWS
3 122 (20.75%) Agile
4 119 (20.24%) Java
5 90 (15.31%) .NET
5 90 (15.31%) C#
6 83 (14.12%) CI/CD
7 82 (13.95%) Python
8 79 (13.44%) Mentoring
9 76 (12.93%) Full-Stack Development
9 76 (12.93%) TypeScript
10 74 (12.59%) Microservices
11 72 (12.24%) React
12 66 (11.22%) Azure
13 64 (10.88%) Kubernetes
14 62 (10.54%) DevOps
15 61 (10.37%) JavaScript
16 58 (9.86%) C++
17 48 (8.16%) Problem-Solving
18 46 (7.82%) Linux
19 44 (7.48%) SQL
20 43 (7.31%) AI
20 43 (7.31%) Technical Leadership
21 42 (7.14%) Computer Science
22 40 (6.80%) Degree
22 40 (6.80%) SDLC
23 39 (6.63%) Docker
24 38 (6.46%) Containerisation
24 38 (6.46%) GCP
25 35 (5.95%) 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 27 (4.59%) Apache
2 26 (4.42%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.34%) Apache Solr
3 2 (0.34%) CMS
4 1 (0.17%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.17%) Confluence
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.17%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 123 (20.92%) AWS
2 66 (11.22%) Azure
3 38 (6.46%) GCP
4 31 (5.27%) SaaS
5 27 (4.59%) dbt
5 27 (4.59%) Snowflake
6 25 (4.25%) GitHub
7 11 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.70%) GitHub Copilot
9 9 (1.53%) Azure AKS
10 8 (1.36%) Serverless
10 8 (1.36%) Stripe
11 7 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (0.85%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 5 (0.85%) Azure Event Grid
12 5 (0.85%) Cloud Run
13 4 (0.68%) Azure Service Bus
13 4 (0.68%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (0.51%) Amazon S3
14 3 (0.51%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.21%) Multicast
2 10 (1.70%) HTTP
3 4 (0.68%) Broadband
3 4 (0.68%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.68%) RS-232
4 1 (0.17%) AMQP
4 1 (0.17%) DNS
4 1 (0.17%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (4.59%) Amazon Athena
2 26 (4.42%) Apache Arrow
2 26 (4.42%) Apache Iceberg
2 26 (4.42%) Apache Ignite
2 26 (4.42%) Data Lake
2 26 (4.42%) Dremio
3 25 (4.25%) SQL Server
4 21 (3.57%) NoSQL
4 21 (3.57%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (2.04%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.70%) BigQuery
7 8 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (1.36%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.19%) MySQL
8 7 (1.19%) Redis
9 4 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (0.68%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.34%) GIS
10 2 (0.34%) MariaDB
10 2 (0.34%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 31 (5.27%) Git
2 20 (3.40%) JIRA
3 10 (1.70%) TeamCity
4 8 (1.36%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.68%) JUnit
6 3 (0.51%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.51%) JBehave
7 2 (0.34%) Android Studio
7 2 (0.34%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.34%) GitLab
7 2 (0.34%) Maven
7 2 (0.34%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.34%) Xcode
8 1 (0.17%) Ant
8 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.17%) Rational Rhapsody
8 1 (0.17%) Rational Statemate
8 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.17%) webpack
General
1 133 (22.62%) Finance
2 64 (10.88%) Banking
3 42 (7.14%) Social Skills
4 26 (4.42%) Front Office
4 26 (4.42%) Investment Banking
5 15 (2.55%) Financial Institution
6 14 (2.38%) Law
6 14 (2.38%) Retail
7 12 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 10 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.53%) Games
10 6 (1.02%) Automotive
10 6 (1.02%) Back Office
10 6 (1.02%) Health Technology
10 6 (1.02%) Public Sector
10 6 (1.02%) Tech for Good
11 5 (0.85%) Aerospace
11 5 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (0.68%) Electronics
12 4 (0.68%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (15.31%) .NET
2 72 (12.24%) React
3 33 (5.61%) RESTful
4 27 (4.59%) gRPC
5 26 (4.42%) NumPy
5 26 (4.42%) Pandas
5 26 (4.42%) Protocol Buffers
5 26 (4.42%) REST
5 26 (4.42%) SciPy
6 24 (4.08%) React Native
7 22 (3.74%) AngularJS
8 21 (3.57%) .NET Core
9 20 (3.40%) GraphQL
10 18 (3.06%) Node.js
11 14 (2.38%) Ruby on Rails
11 14 (2.38%) Spring
12 13 (2.21%) Boost C++ Libraries
12 13 (2.21%) FIX Protocol
12 13 (2.21%) pytest
12 13 (2.21%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 58 (9.86%) Cloud Native
2 40 (6.80%) Derivative
3 39 (6.63%) Equities
3 39 (6.63%) Fixed Income
4 28 (4.76%) Hedge funds
5 26 (4.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 26 (4.42%) Pricing Data
6 21 (3.57%) Algorithms
6 21 (3.57%) Distributed Systems
7 18 (3.06%) Embedded Systems
8 13 (2.21%) Greenfield Project
9 11 (1.87%) Public Cloud
10 9 (1.53%) CAN bus
10 9 (1.53%) Legacy Code
11 8 (1.36%) Data Structures
11 8 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
12 7 (1.19%) Blog
13 6 (1.02%) IoT
14 4 (0.68%) Over-the-Top Content
14 4 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 46 (7.82%) Linux
2 15 (2.55%) Android
2 15 (2.55%) Embedded Linux
3 3 (0.51%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.34%) Unix
4 2 (0.34%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 575 (97.79%) Software Engineering
2 122 (20.75%) Agile
3 83 (14.12%) CI/CD
4 79 (13.44%) Mentoring
5 76 (12.93%) Full-Stack Development
6 74 (12.59%) Microservices
7 62 (10.54%) DevOps
8 48 (8.16%) Problem-Solving
9 43 (7.31%) AI
9 43 (7.31%) Technical Leadership
10 42 (7.14%) Computer Science
11 40 (6.80%) SDLC
12 38 (6.46%) Containerisation
13 35 (5.95%) Fintech
14 34 (5.78%) Test Automation
15 32 (5.44%) Clean Code
16 29 (4.93%) User Experience
17 28 (4.76%) Scrum
18 27 (4.59%) TDD
19 26 (4.42%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 119 (20.24%) Java
2 90 (15.31%) C#
3 82 (13.95%) Python
4 76 (12.93%) TypeScript
5 61 (10.37%) JavaScript
6 58 (9.86%) C++
7 44 (7.48%) SQL
8 28 (4.76%) C
9 18 (3.06%) Rust
10 17 (2.89%) Kotlin
11 16 (2.72%) Go
12 14 (2.38%) Ruby
13 13 (2.21%) PHP
14 6 (1.02%) Delphi
14 6 (1.02%) Embedded C
15 4 (0.68%) Scala
15 4 (0.68%) VB
16 3 (0.51%) Bash
16 3 (0.51%) Swift
17 2 (0.34%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 40 (6.80%) Degree
2 20 (3.40%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (1.70%) Master's Degree
4 9 (1.53%) Security Cleared
5 5 (0.85%) SC Cleared
6 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.34%) PhD
7 1 (0.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.17%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (3.57%) QA
2 9 (1.53%) IEC 61508
2 9 (1.53%) MISRA
2 9 (1.53%) MISRA C
3 8 (1.36%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.34%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.34%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.34%) JTAG
5 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.17%) ECSS
5 1 (0.17%) GDPR
5 1 (0.17%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.17%) PSD2
System Software
1 39 (6.63%) Docker
2 7 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.19%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (1.02%) Firmware
4 3 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 64 (10.88%) Kubernetes
2 21 (3.57%) Terraform
3 9 (1.53%) Functional Safety
4 8 (1.36%) Grafana
5 2 (0.34%) Ansible
5 2 (0.34%) Argo
6 1 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (2.38%) Google
2 10 (1.70%) Microsoft
3 7 (1.19%) HubSpot
4 2 (0.34%) Adobe
4 2 (0.34%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.34%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (0.34%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.34%) Oracle
4 2 (0.34%) SAP
5 1 (0.17%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.17%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.17%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.17%) MuleSoft
5 1 (0.17%) New Relic
5 1 (0.17%) SendGrid