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 19 June 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 193 129
Rank change year-on-year +57 -64 +160
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,327 789 2,236
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.41% 1.76% 2.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.50% 1.97% 2.17%
Number of salaries quoted 1,082 456 1,637
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £80,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +23.08% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £105,000 £80,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +12.50% -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 88,240 40,152 103,220
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.99% 89.52% 94.75%
Number of salaries quoted 60,505 22,772 74,561
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,869 £38,620
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 £98,474 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -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 19 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 19 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 +57 1,166 £75,000 -6.25% 219
UK excluding London +79 934 £70,000 +3.70% 164
London -15 321 £95,000 -5.00% 71
Work from Home -41 309 £70,000 -11.18% 72
South East +136 241 £75,000 +15.38% 46
North of England -24 232 £75,000 +3.45% 40
South West +52 156 £70,000 -9.68% 24
North West -23 141 £75,000 +0.33% 25
East of England +51 109 £70,000 +18.64% 35
Midlands +61 102 £65,000 -10.34% 12
Scotland +18 71 £67,500 +3.85% 4
West Midlands +39 68 £69,305 -6.03% 5
Yorkshire +3 62 £70,000 -12.50% 2
East Midlands +4 34 £65,000 -7.14% 7
North East -31 29 £80,000 +45.45% 13
Wales -31 22 £56,250 -13.46% 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 19 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 1,322 (99.62%) Software Engineering
2 213 (16.05%) C++
3 212 (15.98%) C#
4 201 (15.15%) Python
5 192 (14.47%) Java
6 186 (14.02%) Agile
7 185 (13.94%) AWS
8 170 (12.81%) .NET
9 150 (11.30%) Full-Stack Development
10 136 (10.25%) CI/CD
11 116 (8.74%) Microservices
12 113 (8.52%) Mentoring
13 107 (8.06%) Azure
14 102 (7.69%) React
15 100 (7.54%) Linux
16 98 (7.39%) TypeScript
17 97 (7.31%) AI
18 95 (7.16%) DevOps
19 93 (7.01%) SaaS
20 89 (6.71%) JavaScript
21 85 (6.41%) Security Cleared
22 84 (6.33%) SQL
23 83 (6.25%) Test Automation
24 82 (6.18%) Kubernetes
25 79 (5.95%) C
25 79 (5.95%) Computer Science
25 79 (5.95%) SDLC
26 77 (5.80%) Degree
27 75 (5.65%) Docker
28 69 (5.20%) Node.js

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 (1.21%) SharePoint Server
2 3 (0.23%) Apache
2 3 (0.23%) Apache Solr
2 3 (0.23%) FactoryTalk
2 3 (0.23%) WinCC
3 2 (0.15%) CMS
3 2 (0.15%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (0.23%) Blender
1 3 (0.23%) Maya
Cloud Services
1 185 (13.94%) AWS
2 107 (8.06%) Azure
3 93 (7.01%) SaaS
4 51 (3.84%) GCP
5 36 (2.71%) GitHub
6 31 (2.34%) Serverless
7 21 (1.58%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (1.28%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 16 (1.21%) Anthropic Claude
10 14 (1.06%) Azure AKS
11 12 (0.90%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (0.90%) GitHub Copilot
12 8 (0.60%) Azure Event Grid
13 6 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.38%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.38%) Amazon SQS
14 5 (0.38%) Pulumi
14 5 (0.38%) Stripe
15 4 (0.30%) Azure AI
15 4 (0.30%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.73%) RS-232
2 17 (1.28%) Ethernet
3 16 (1.21%) Multicast
4 13 (0.98%) Modbus
5 12 (0.90%) Bluetooth
6 11 (0.83%) Profibus
6 11 (0.83%) Wireless
7 10 (0.75%) Broadband
7 10 (0.75%) HTTP
8 8 (0.60%) RS-485
8 8 (0.60%) ZigBee
9 1 (0.075%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (2.26%) SQL Server
2 21 (1.58%) MySQL
3 20 (1.51%) NoSQL
3 20 (1.51%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (0.90%) MongoDB
5 8 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (0.53%) Big Data
7 5 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
7 5 (0.38%) Relational Database
8 4 (0.30%) Redis
9 3 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.23%) Delta Lake
9 3 (0.23%) DocumentDB
9 3 (0.23%) DynamoDB
9 3 (0.23%) MariaDB
9 3 (0.23%) Neo4j
10 2 (0.15%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.075%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 56 (4.22%) Git
2 27 (2.03%) JIRA
3 22 (1.66%) GitLab
4 21 (1.58%) TeamCity
5 16 (1.21%) Claude Code
6 13 (0.98%) Visual Studio Code
7 10 (0.75%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.23%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.15%) Eclipse
9 2 (0.15%) GDB
9 2 (0.15%) JUnit
9 2 (0.15%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.15%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.075%) LabVIEW
10 1 (0.075%) NUnit
10 1 (0.075%) Selenium
10 1 (0.075%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.075%) Storybook
10 1 (0.075%) Xcode
General
1 137 (10.32%) Finance
2 59 (4.45%) Banking
2 59 (4.45%) Social Skills
3 45 (3.39%) Electronics
4 33 (2.49%) Public Sector
5 31 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 31 (2.34%) Manufacturing
6 24 (1.81%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (1.51%) Automotive
7 20 (1.51%) Retail
8 19 (1.43%) Law
9 14 (1.06%) Back Office
9 14 (1.06%) Financial Institution
10 12 (0.90%) Aerospace
10 12 (0.90%) Games
10 12 (0.90%) Tech for Good
11 10 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
13 7 (0.53%) Agriculture
13 7 (0.53%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (12.81%) .NET
2 102 (7.69%) React
3 69 (5.20%) Node.js
4 41 (3.09%) WPF
5 37 (2.79%) REST
6 36 (2.71%) Spring
7 33 (2.49%) RESTful
8 27 (2.03%) Spring Boot
9 23 (1.73%) .NET Core
10 22 (1.66%) React Native
11 21 (1.58%) Next.js
12 18 (1.36%) Ruby on Rails
13 17 (1.28%) AngularJS
14 16 (1.21%) .NET Framework
14 16 (1.21%) Boost C++ Libraries
14 16 (1.21%) FIX Protocol
14 16 (1.21%) pytest
15 15 (1.13%) Vue
15 15 (1.13%) Yocto
16 13 (0.98%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 92 (6.93%) Cloud Native
2 54 (4.07%) Algorithms
3 49 (3.69%) Legacy Systems
4 37 (2.79%) Embedded Systems
5 32 (2.41%) Distributed Systems
6 30 (2.26%) Greenfield Project
7 17 (1.28%) Derivative
8 16 (1.21%) Equities
8 16 (1.21%) Fixed Income
8 16 (1.21%) IoT
9 15 (1.13%) Device Driver
9 15 (1.13%) Robotics
10 12 (0.90%) CAN bus
11 11 (0.83%) AI Agents
11 11 (0.83%) Product Ownership
12 10 (0.75%) Public Cloud
13 9 (0.68%) Sports Betting
14 8 (0.60%) Client/Server
14 8 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
15 7 (0.53%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 100 (7.54%) Linux
2 29 (2.19%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (1.36%) FreeRTOS
4 8 (0.60%) Android
4 8 (0.60%) Windows
5 3 (0.23%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.075%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,322 (99.62%) Software Engineering
2 186 (14.02%) Agile
3 150 (11.30%) Full-Stack Development
4 136 (10.25%) CI/CD
5 116 (8.74%) Microservices
6 113 (8.52%) Mentoring
7 97 (7.31%) AI
8 95 (7.16%) DevOps
9 83 (6.25%) Test Automation
10 79 (5.95%) Computer Science
10 79 (5.95%) SDLC
11 62 (4.67%) Problem-Solving
12 59 (4.45%) Fintech
13 58 (4.37%) Containerisation
14 52 (3.92%) Code Quality
14 52 (3.92%) Technical Leadership
15 49 (3.69%) Continuous Improvement
16 45 (3.39%) Mathematics
17 44 (3.32%) Scrum
18 40 (3.01%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 213 (16.05%) C++
2 212 (15.98%) C#
3 201 (15.15%) Python
4 192 (14.47%) Java
5 98 (7.39%) TypeScript
6 89 (6.71%) JavaScript
7 84 (6.33%) SQL
8 79 (5.95%) C
9 45 (3.39%) Rust
10 27 (2.03%) Go
11 20 (1.51%) Embedded C
12 18 (1.36%) PHP
12 18 (1.36%) Ruby
13 13 (0.98%) Scala
14 10 (0.75%) Julia
14 10 (0.75%) MATLAB
15 9 (0.68%) VB
16 8 (0.60%) F#
16 8 (0.60%) Haskell
17 7 (0.53%) R
Qualifications
1 85 (6.41%) Security Cleared
2 77 (5.80%) Degree
3 66 (4.97%) SC Cleared
4 34 (2.56%) DV Cleared
5 24 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (1.58%) Master's Degree
7 14 (1.06%) PhD
8 3 (0.23%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.23%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.15%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.075%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (2.26%) QA
2 13 (0.98%) IEC 61508
2 13 (0.98%) MISRA
2 13 (0.98%) MISRA C
3 12 (0.90%) Accessibility
4 5 (0.38%) GDPR
5 3 (0.23%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.23%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.075%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 75 (5.65%) Docker
2 47 (3.54%) Firmware
3 21 (1.58%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.15%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.15%) KVM
4 2 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.075%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 82 (6.18%) Kubernetes
2 43 (3.24%) Terraform
3 20 (1.51%) Grafana
4 10 (0.75%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.45%) Ansible
6 5 (0.38%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.23%) Plesk
Vendors
1 10 (0.75%) Microsoft
2 8 (0.60%) Siemens
3 6 (0.45%) Google
3 6 (0.45%) Splunk
4 5 (0.38%) HubSpot
5 3 (0.23%) Databricks
5 3 (0.23%) Foundry
5 3 (0.23%) OpenAI
5 3 (0.23%) Rockwell
6 2 (0.15%) VMware
7 1 (0.075%) Intel
7 1 (0.075%) Palantir
7 1 (0.075%) TOWER Software