Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £77,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 December 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 256 163 268
Rank change year-on-year -93 +105 -19
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 497 1,006 584
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.77% 1.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.93% 1.89% 1.26%
Number of salaries quoted 405 655 443
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,750 £56,562
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £70,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.71% +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £115,000 £122,500 £101,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £65,000

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 53,173 53,172 46,462
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.28% 93.59% 95.22%
Number of salaries quoted 32,782 28,551 36,094
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £43,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £93,634 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £48,589 £52,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -7.45% - -

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 19 December 2025.

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 19 December 2025. 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 -88 437 £75,000 +7.14% 612
UK excluding London -92 284 £65,000 - 576
London -46 190 £100,000 +6.67% 111
Work from Home -110 178 £82,500 +10.00% 350
South West -5 64 £65,000 +8.33% 82
North of England -39 63 £75,000 +15.38% 107
South East -68 58 £65,000 - 144
Scotland -17 40 £70,000 +12.00% 45
North West -10 32 £75,000 +15.38% 53
East of England -21 32 £67,500 - 93
Yorkshire -12 26 £75,000 +14.57% 45
Midlands -2 21 £65,000 +2.36% 90
East Midlands -7 12 £65,000 +8.33% 38
West Midlands +12 9 £75,000 +16.73% 48
Wales -8 6 - - 13
North East -22 5 £75,000 +22.95% 9

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

For the 6 months to 19 December 2025, 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.

1 484 (97.38%) Software Engineering
2 124 (24.95%) AWS
3 123 (24.75%) Java
4 121 (24.35%) Agile
5 90 (18.11%) TypeScript
6 88 (17.71%) Python
7 80 (16.10%) C#
8 76 (15.29%) CI/CD
9 73 (14.69%) JavaScript
10 72 (14.49%) Mentoring
11 66 (13.28%) React
12 65 (13.08%) .NET
13 63 (12.68%) Kubernetes
14 62 (12.47%) Microservices
15 61 (12.27%) C++
16 59 (11.87%) Azure
17 57 (11.47%) Full-Stack Development
18 56 (11.27%) DevOps
19 43 (8.65%) AI
19 43 (8.65%) Linux
20 41 (8.25%) Degree
21 40 (8.05%) Amazon Athena
21 40 (8.05%) Apache
21 40 (8.05%) dbt
21 40 (8.05%) gRPC
21 40 (8.05%) Problem-Solving
21 40 (8.05%) Snowflake
22 39 (7.85%) Apache Airflow
22 39 (7.85%) Apache Arrow
22 39 (7.85%) Apache Iceberg

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 40 (8.05%) Apache
2 39 (7.85%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.40%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.20%) CMS
4 1 (0.20%) Confluence
4 1 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.20%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.20%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 124 (24.95%) AWS
2 59 (11.87%) Azure
3 40 (8.05%) dbt
3 40 (8.05%) Snowflake
4 35 (7.04%) GCP
5 21 (4.23%) SaaS
6 20 (4.02%) GitHub
7 11 (2.21%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.61%) GitHub Copilot
9 7 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (1.21%) Serverless
11 5 (1.01%) Azure AKS
11 5 (1.01%) Cloud Run
11 5 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (0.80%) Stripe
13 3 (0.60%) Amazon S3
13 3 (0.60%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 3 (0.60%) Azure Event Grid
13 3 (0.60%) Firebase
13 3 (0.60%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.41%) Multicast
2 8 (1.61%) HTTP
3 3 (0.60%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.60%) RS-232
4 1 (0.20%) AMQP
4 1 (0.20%) DNS
4 1 (0.20%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (8.05%) Amazon Athena
2 39 (7.85%) Apache Arrow
2 39 (7.85%) Apache Iceberg
2 39 (7.85%) Apache Ignite
2 39 (7.85%) Data Lake
2 39 (7.85%) Dremio
3 21 (4.23%) PostgreSQL
4 19 (3.82%) NoSQL
5 14 (2.82%) SQL Server
6 12 (2.41%) Relational Database
7 9 (1.81%) MongoDB
8 8 (1.61%) BigQuery
8 8 (1.61%) MySQL
9 7 (1.41%) Redis
10 6 (1.21%) Azure SQL Database
10 6 (1.21%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (0.80%) DynamoDB
12 2 (0.40%) GIS
12 2 (0.40%) MariaDB
12 2 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 29 (5.84%) Git
2 19 (3.82%) JIRA
3 6 (1.21%) TeamCity
4 4 (0.80%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.60%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.60%) JBehave
5 3 (0.60%) JUnit
6 2 (0.40%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.40%) GitLab
6 2 (0.40%) Maven
6 2 (0.40%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.20%) Android Studio
7 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.20%) Gradle
7 1 (0.20%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.20%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.20%) Rational Statemate
7 1 (0.20%) Selenium
7 1 (0.20%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.20%) webpack
General
1 126 (25.35%) Finance
2 71 (14.29%) Banking
3 40 (8.05%) Front Office
4 39 (7.85%) Investment Banking
5 35 (7.04%) Social Skills
6 17 (3.42%) Financial Institution
7 16 (3.22%) Retail
8 14 (2.82%) Law
9 12 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.41%) Games
12 6 (1.21%) Back Office
12 6 (1.21%) Health Technology
13 5 (1.01%) Electronics
13 5 (1.01%) Manufacturing
13 5 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (1.01%) Public Sector
13 5 (1.01%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.80%) Analytical Skills
14 4 (0.80%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (13.28%) React
2 65 (13.08%) .NET
3 40 (8.05%) gRPC
4 39 (7.85%) NumPy
4 39 (7.85%) Pandas
4 39 (7.85%) Protocol Buffers
4 39 (7.85%) SciPy
5 30 (6.04%) RESTful
6 24 (4.83%) AngularJS
7 20 (4.02%) GraphQL
8 19 (3.82%) React Native
9 17 (3.42%) .NET Core
9 17 (3.42%) REST
10 14 (2.82%) Spring
11 13 (2.62%) Node.js
11 13 (2.62%) Spring Boot
12 12 (2.41%) Boost C++ Libraries
12 12 (2.41%) FIX Protocol
12 12 (2.41%) pytest
12 12 (2.41%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 52 (10.46%) Derivative
2 51 (10.26%) Cloud Native
2 51 (10.26%) Equities
2 51 (10.26%) Fixed Income
3 40 (8.05%) Hedge funds
4 39 (7.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 39 (7.85%) Pricing Data
5 21 (4.23%) Distributed Systems
6 18 (3.62%) Algorithms
7 12 (2.41%) Greenfield Project
8 11 (2.21%) Legacy Code
9 9 (1.81%) Embedded Systems
9 9 (1.81%) Public Cloud
10 7 (1.41%) Blog
10 7 (1.41%) Data Structures
11 5 (1.01%) Robotics
12 4 (0.80%) AI Agents
12 4 (0.80%) IoT
12 4 (0.80%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 43 (8.65%) Linux
2 13 (2.62%) Android
3 9 (1.81%) Embedded Linux
4 6 (1.21%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.40%) Unix
5 2 (0.40%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 484 (97.38%) Software Engineering
2 121 (24.35%) Agile
3 76 (15.29%) CI/CD
4 72 (14.49%) Mentoring
5 62 (12.47%) Microservices
6 57 (11.47%) Full-Stack Development
7 56 (11.27%) DevOps
8 43 (8.65%) AI
9 40 (8.05%) Problem-Solving
10 39 (7.85%) Asset Management
10 39 (7.85%) Computer Science
10 39 (7.85%) Investment Management
10 39 (7.85%) Technical Leadership
11 35 (7.04%) Fintech
12 32 (6.44%) Clean Code
13 31 (6.24%) Containerisation
14 30 (6.04%) SDLC
14 30 (6.04%) Test Automation
15 23 (4.63%) OOP
16 22 (4.43%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 123 (24.75%) Java
2 90 (18.11%) TypeScript
3 88 (17.71%) Python
4 80 (16.10%) C#
5 73 (14.69%) JavaScript
6 61 (12.27%) C++
7 38 (7.65%) SQL
8 25 (5.03%) C
9 21 (4.23%) Rust
10 19 (3.82%) Go
11 14 (2.82%) Kotlin
12 12 (2.41%) Ruby
13 8 (1.61%) PHP
14 6 (1.21%) Delphi
15 5 (1.01%) Embedded C
16 3 (0.60%) Bash
16 3 (0.60%) Swift
17 2 (0.40%) BrightScript
17 2 (0.40%) MATLAB
17 2 (0.40%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 41 (8.25%) Degree
2 19 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
3 11 (2.21%) Master's Degree
3 11 (2.21%) Security Cleared
4 5 (1.01%) SC Cleared
5 3 (0.60%) PhD
6 2 (0.40%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.20%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.20%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (4.02%) QA
2 8 (1.61%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.60%) IEC 61508
3 3 (0.60%) MISRA
3 3 (0.60%) MISRA C
4 2 (0.40%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.40%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.40%) JTAG
5 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.20%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.20%) ECSS
5 1 (0.20%) GDPR
5 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.20%) PSD2
System Software
1 32 (6.44%) Docker
2 7 (1.41%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.41%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (1.21%) Firmware
4 3 (0.60%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 63 (12.68%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.62%) Terraform
3 8 (1.61%) Grafana
4 3 (0.60%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.40%) Ansible
5 2 (0.40%) Argo
6 1 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 12 (2.41%) Google
2 11 (2.21%) Microsoft
3 3 (0.60%) HubSpot
4 2 (0.40%) Adobe
4 2 (0.40%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.40%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (0.40%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.40%) Oracle
4 2 (0.40%) Roku
4 2 (0.40%) SAP
5 1 (0.20%) Avaloq
5 1 (0.20%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.20%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.20%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.20%) MuleSoft
5 1 (0.20%) New Relic
5 1 (0.20%) SendGrid