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 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 234 118
Rank change year-on-year +114 -116 +176
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,833 660 1,610
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.55% 1.33% 2.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.67% 1.48% 2.25%
Number of salaries quoted 1,414 338 1,083
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +28.57% +3.70%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £72,250 £70,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.21% +16.67% -4.00%

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 109,690 44,526 71,445
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.87% 89.77% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 74,912 25,656 41,522
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,750
25th Percentile £40,825 £36,250 £40,013
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,600 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,000 £73,775 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 2 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 2 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 +106 1,647 £75,000 -17.81% 1,357
UK excluding London +131 1,305 £72,250 +3.21% 747
London +19 448 £95,000 -13.64% 721
North of England +21 351 £75,000 +7.14% 179
Work from Home -45 325 £80,000 -27.27% 566
South East +144 257 £80,000 +14.29% 134
South West +69 240 £70,000 +7.69% 93
North West -4 217 £75,000 +7.14% 129
East of England +96 203 £70,000 +7.69% 115
Midlands +69 143 £70,000 -6.67% 72
Yorkshire +35 80 £70,000 +7.69% 34
West Midlands +26 77 £70,000 -6.67% 31
East Midlands +21 66 £60,000 -14.29% 41
Scotland +29 60 £75,000 +15.38% 110
North East -19 54 £80,000 +700.00% 16
Wales -31 46 £70,000 - 13
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 37

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

For the 6 months to 2 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 1,831 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 285 (15.55%) Python
3 258 (14.08%) Agile
4 251 (13.69%) C#
5 235 (12.82%) AWS
6 232 (12.66%) C++
6 232 (12.66%) Java
7 216 (11.78%) AI
8 214 (11.67%) CI/CD
9 181 (9.87%) Mentoring
10 169 (9.22%) Full-Stack Development
11 165 (9.00%) .NET
12 151 (8.24%) TypeScript
13 133 (7.26%) Microservices
14 127 (6.93%) DevOps
15 126 (6.87%) React
16 108 (5.89%) Azure
16 108 (5.89%) Security Cleared
17 107 (5.84%) Test Automation
18 101 (5.51%) Linux
19 97 (5.29%) Kubernetes
19 97 (5.29%) SDLC
20 96 (5.24%) Code Quality
21 90 (4.91%) Problem-Solving
22 89 (4.86%) Technical Leadership
23 86 (4.69%) Degree
24 85 (4.64%) Docker
25 84 (4.58%) JavaScript
26 81 (4.42%) Continuous Improvement
26 81 (4.42%) 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 (0.87%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.38%) Apache
3 4 (0.22%) Confluence
4 3 (0.16%) CMS
4 3 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.16%) WinCC
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.055%) Apache Solr
6 1 (0.055%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.055%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.16%) Blender
1 3 (0.16%) Maya
2 1 (0.055%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 235 (12.82%) AWS
2 108 (5.89%) Azure
3 72 (3.93%) GCP
4 70 (3.82%) SaaS
5 50 (2.73%) Serverless
6 36 (1.96%) GitHub
7 26 (1.42%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (0.93%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (0.76%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (0.55%) Amazon S3
14 8 (0.44%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 7 (0.38%) AWS CloudFormation
16 6 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
16 6 (0.33%) Supabase
17 5 (0.27%) Azure AI
17 5 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
18 4 (0.22%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.76%) RS-232
2 13 (0.71%) Ethernet
3 12 (0.65%) Bluetooth
3 12 (0.65%) Modbus
4 11 (0.60%) Profibus
5 10 (0.55%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.49%) Internet
6 9 (0.49%) Multicast
6 9 (0.49%) Wireless
7 8 (0.44%) Broadband
7 8 (0.44%) RS-485
7 8 (0.44%) ZigBee
8 5 (0.27%) HTTP
9 4 (0.22%) Firewall
10 3 (0.16%) MQTT
11 2 (0.11%) RS-422
12 1 (0.055%) BGP
12 1 (0.055%) DNS
12 1 (0.055%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (3.71%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.69%) MySQL
3 28 (1.53%) Relational Database
4 18 (0.98%) Redis
5 16 (0.87%) MongoDB
5 16 (0.87%) NoSQL
6 14 (0.76%) SQL Server
7 11 (0.60%) DynamoDB
8 10 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
9 7 (0.38%) Big Data
10 5 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
11 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.22%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.16%) MariaDB
13 2 (0.11%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.11%) Flink
13 2 (0.11%) Power BI
13 2 (0.11%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 56 (3.06%) Git
2 26 (1.42%) JIRA
3 25 (1.36%) GitLab
4 19 (1.04%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.76%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.44%) Jenkins
8 7 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
9 6 (0.33%) Mocha
9 6 (0.33%) Selenium
10 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
10 5 (0.27%) NUnit
10 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
11 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
12 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.16%) Eclipse RCP
12 3 (0.16%) JUnit
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
13 2 (0.11%) Appium
13 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 145 (7.91%) Finance
2 128 (6.98%) Social Skills
3 68 (3.71%) Electronics
4 58 (3.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 55 (3.00%) Banking
6 45 (2.45%) Public Sector
7 42 (2.29%) Analytical Skills
8 39 (2.13%) Law
9 38 (2.07%) Manufacturing
10 30 (1.64%) Aerospace
11 23 (1.25%) Retail
12 17 (0.93%) Marketing
12 17 (0.93%) Military
13 15 (0.82%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.76%) Front Office
15 13 (0.71%) Games
16 11 (0.60%) Automotive
17 10 (0.55%) Health Technology
18 9 (0.49%) Legal
19 8 (0.44%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (9.00%) .NET
2 126 (6.87%) React
3 81 (4.42%) Node.js
4 73 (3.98%) Terraform
5 67 (3.66%) Spring
6 48 (2.62%) RESTful
7 46 (2.51%) WPF
8 44 (2.40%) Spring Boot
9 43 (2.35%) Kafka
10 30 (1.64%) Next.js
11 26 (1.42%) AngularJS
12 23 (1.25%) FastAPI
12 23 (1.25%) REST
13 20 (1.09%) Vue
14 16 (0.87%) Django
15 13 (0.71%) CSS
15 13 (0.71%) React Native
16 11 (0.60%) FIX Protocol
16 11 (0.60%) OpenAPI
16 11 (0.60%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 126 (6.87%) Cloud Native
2 62 (3.38%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.00%) Legacy Systems
4 49 (2.67%) Robotics
5 45 (2.45%) Algorithms
6 36 (1.96%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.58%) Greenfield Project
8 28 (1.53%) Product Ownership
9 27 (1.47%) AI Agents
10 23 (1.25%) Blog
11 21 (1.15%) Public Cloud
12 19 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
13 13 (0.71%) Blockchain
13 13 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (0.65%) Derivative
14 12 (0.65%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.60%) Device Driver
15 11 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
16 10 (0.55%) Fixed Income
17 9 (0.49%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 101 (5.51%) Linux
2 29 (1.58%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (0.98%) Windows
4 17 (0.93%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.55%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.49%) Android
7 8 (0.44%) Unix
8 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.055%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,831 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 258 (14.08%) Agile
3 216 (11.78%) AI
4 214 (11.67%) CI/CD
5 181 (9.87%) Mentoring
6 169 (9.22%) Full-Stack Development
7 133 (7.26%) Microservices
8 127 (6.93%) DevOps
9 107 (5.84%) Test Automation
10 97 (5.29%) SDLC
11 96 (5.24%) Code Quality
12 90 (4.91%) Problem-Solving
13 89 (4.86%) Technical Leadership
14 81 (4.42%) Continuous Improvement
15 69 (3.76%) Fintech
16 68 (3.71%) Computer Science
17 64 (3.49%) Event-Driven
18 60 (3.27%) Infrastructure as Code
19 58 (3.16%) Containerisation
20 57 (3.11%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 285 (15.55%) Python
2 251 (13.69%) C#
3 232 (12.66%) C++
3 232 (12.66%) Java
4 151 (8.24%) TypeScript
5 84 (4.58%) JavaScript
6 78 (4.26%) SQL
7 70 (3.82%) C
8 39 (2.13%) Rust
9 37 (2.02%) Go
10 17 (0.93%) Embedded C
10 17 (0.93%) PHP
11 16 (0.87%) Scala
12 14 (0.76%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.76%) Ruby
13 13 (0.71%) F#
13 13 (0.71%) Haskell
14 12 (0.65%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.55%) Julia
16 8 (0.44%) R
Qualifications
1 108 (5.89%) Security Cleared
2 86 (4.69%) Degree
3 74 (4.04%) SC Cleared
4 50 (2.73%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.82%) Master's Degree
7 13 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (0.55%) PhD
9 6 (0.33%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.22%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Chartered Engineer
11 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.055%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.055%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (2.02%) QA
2 19 (1.04%) Accessibility
3 7 (0.38%) DO-178B
4 6 (0.33%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.27%) GDPR
6 3 (0.16%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.11%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.11%) MISRA
7 2 (0.11%) MISRA C
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.055%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 85 (4.64%) Docker
2 48 (2.62%) Firmware
3 20 (1.09%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 97 (5.29%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.09%) Grafana
3 11 (0.60%) Ansible
4 4 (0.22%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.16%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.055%) Argo
7 1 (0.055%) Functional Safety
7 1 (0.055%) Istio
7 1 (0.055%) Kibana
7 1 (0.055%) Podman
Vendors
1 22 (1.20%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.93%) Salesforce
3 13 (0.71%) RedGate
4 10 (0.55%) Google
5 9 (0.49%) Splunk
6 8 (0.44%) Foundry
6 8 (0.44%) Sage
6 8 (0.44%) Siemens
7 7 (0.38%) Databricks
8 6 (0.33%) Oracle
9 5 (0.27%) Intel
9 5 (0.27%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.16%) New Relic
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 (0.055%) Virgin Media