Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £79,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 3 December 2025.

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

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 246 146 269
Rank change year-on-year -100 +123 -25
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 526 1,225 569
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.93% 1.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 2.05% 1.19%
Number of salaries quoted 397 814 448
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,938 £56,188
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £79,500 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.57% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £119,250 £122,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -

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 49,330 59,759 47,838
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.32% 94.19% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 31,185 33,142 37,246
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,000 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.52% - -

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 3 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 3 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 -92 467 £77,500 +10.71% 285
UK excluding London -115 271 £70,000 +7.69% 247
London -35 235 £100,000 +11.11% 97
Work from Home -118 175 £85,000 +13.33% 238
North of England -42 66 £75,000 +20.00% 34
South West -30 63 £65,000 +8.33% 51
South East -88 48 £65,000 - 90
Scotland -22 42 £76,250 +17.31% 20
North West -5 32 £75,000 +20.00% 20
Yorkshire -3 26 £75,000 +14.97% 13
Midlands +19 25 £70,000 +7.69% 19
East of England -36 21 £65,000 -3.70% 34
West Midlands +18 13 £75,000 +15.38% 8
East Midlands +8 12 £65,000 - 11
North East -15 8 £75,000 +22.95% 1
Wales -9 6 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 3 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.

1 516 (98.10%) Software Engineering
2 174 (33.08%) Agile
3 165 (31.37%) AWS
3 165 (31.37%) Java
4 126 (23.95%) Python
5 112 (21.29%) TypeScript
6 97 (18.44%) CI/CD
7 87 (16.54%) JavaScript
8 79 (15.02%) React
9 78 (14.83%) Kubernetes
10 77 (14.64%) C#
11 70 (13.31%) Microservices
12 69 (13.12%) Azure
13 65 (12.36%) Mentoring
14 61 (11.60%) Problem-Solving
15 60 (11.41%) C++
16 59 (11.22%) .NET
17 58 (11.03%) Full-Stack Development
17 58 (11.03%) SDLC
18 57 (10.84%) DevOps
19 55 (10.46%) AI
20 54 (10.27%) Amazon Athena
20 54 (10.27%) Apache
21 53 (10.08%) Apache Iceberg
21 53 (10.08%) Asset Management
21 53 (10.08%) Data Lake
21 53 (10.08%) gRPC
21 53 (10.08%) Investment Management
22 52 (9.89%) dbt
22 52 (9.89%) Protocol Buffers

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 54 (10.27%) Apache
2 51 (9.70%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.57%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.19%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.19%) CMS
4 1 (0.19%) Confluence
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.19%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 165 (31.37%) AWS
2 69 (13.12%) Azure
3 52 (9.89%) dbt
3 52 (9.89%) Snowflake
4 37 (7.03%) GCP
5 19 (3.61%) GitHub
6 17 (3.23%) SaaS
7 12 (2.28%) Amazon EKS
8 11 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.71%) Serverless
10 7 (1.33%) GitHub Copilot
11 6 (1.14%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
13 4 (0.76%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (0.76%) Amazon ECS
13 4 (0.76%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (0.76%) Azure AKS
13 4 (0.76%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 4 (0.76%) Azure Event Grid
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.90%) Multicast
2 7 (1.33%) HTTP
3 3 (0.57%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.57%) RS-232
4 1 (0.19%) AMQP
4 1 (0.19%) DNS
4 1 (0.19%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.19%) Internet
4 1 (0.19%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (10.27%) Amazon Athena
2 53 (10.08%) Apache Iceberg
2 53 (10.08%) Data Lake
3 51 (9.70%) Apache Arrow
3 51 (9.70%) Apache Ignite
3 51 (9.70%) Dremio
4 24 (4.56%) PostgreSQL
5 21 (3.99%) NoSQL
6 20 (3.80%) Relational Database
7 11 (2.09%) MySQL
7 11 (2.09%) SQL Server
8 9 (1.71%) MongoDB
9 8 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (1.33%) Redis
11 6 (1.14%) DynamoDB
11 6 (1.14%) KDB
12 5 (0.95%) Big Data
12 5 (0.95%) BigQuery
13 4 (0.76%) Kdb+
13 4 (0.76%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 29 (5.51%) Git
2 17 (3.23%) JIRA
3 6 (1.14%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.14%) TeamCity
4 5 (0.95%) JUnit
5 4 (0.76%) Vite
6 3 (0.57%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.57%) JBehave
7 2 (0.38%) Ant
7 2 (0.38%) GitLab
7 2 (0.38%) Maven
7 2 (0.38%) rollup.js
7 2 (0.38%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.38%) webpack
8 1 (0.19%) Android Studio
8 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.19%) LabVIEW
8 1 (0.19%) Rational Statemate
8 1 (0.19%) Selenium
General
1 187 (35.55%) Finance
2 118 (22.43%) Banking
3 60 (11.41%) Law
4 58 (11.03%) Front Office
4 58 (11.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 54 (10.27%) Investment Banking
6 42 (7.98%) Social Skills
7 21 (3.99%) Financial Institution
8 16 (3.04%) Retail
9 12 (2.28%) Marketing
10 9 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (1.52%) Games
12 6 (1.14%) Analytical Skills
12 6 (1.14%) Back Office
12 6 (1.14%) Health Technology
13 5 (0.95%) Electronics
13 5 (0.95%) Legal
13 5 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (0.95%) Public Sector
13 5 (0.95%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (15.02%) React
2 59 (11.22%) .NET
3 53 (10.08%) gRPC
4 52 (9.89%) Protocol Buffers
5 51 (9.70%) NumPy
5 51 (9.70%) Pandas
5 51 (9.70%) SciPy
6 37 (7.03%) RESTful
7 26 (4.94%) AngularJS
8 23 (4.37%) Spring
9 21 (3.99%) GraphQL
10 19 (3.61%) Spring Boot
11 18 (3.42%) Kafka
12 17 (3.23%) CSS
12 17 (3.23%) React Native
12 17 (3.23%) REST
13 15 (2.85%) .NET Core
13 15 (2.85%) HTML
13 15 (2.85%) Node.js
14 14 (2.66%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 70 (13.31%) Derivative
2 67 (12.74%) Cloud Native
3 65 (12.36%) Equities
4 61 (11.60%) Fixed Income
5 51 (9.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 51 (9.70%) Hedge funds
5 51 (9.70%) Pricing Data
6 32 (6.08%) Distributed Systems
7 24 (4.56%) Algorithms
8 15 (2.85%) Public Cloud
9 13 (2.47%) Greenfield Project
10 12 (2.28%) Legacy Code
11 9 (1.71%) Data Structures
12 6 (1.14%) AI Agents
12 6 (1.14%) Management Information System
12 6 (1.14%) Product Ownership
13 5 (0.95%) Blog
13 5 (0.95%) Embedded Systems
13 5 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
13 5 (0.95%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 40 (7.60%) Linux
2 10 (1.90%) Android
3 6 (1.14%) Embedded Linux
3 6 (1.14%) Unix
4 5 (0.95%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.38%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 516 (98.10%) Software Engineering
2 174 (33.08%) Agile
3 97 (18.44%) CI/CD
4 70 (13.31%) Microservices
5 65 (12.36%) Mentoring
6 61 (11.60%) Problem-Solving
7 58 (11.03%) Full-Stack Development
7 58 (11.03%) SDLC
8 57 (10.84%) DevOps
9 55 (10.46%) AI
10 53 (10.08%) Asset Management
10 53 (10.08%) Investment Management
11 48 (9.13%) Computer Science
12 41 (7.79%) Fintech
13 35 (6.65%) Containerisation
14 34 (6.46%) Technical Leadership
15 33 (6.27%) Test Automation
16 32 (6.08%) Clean Code
17 30 (5.70%) TDD
18 29 (5.51%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 165 (31.37%) Java
2 126 (23.95%) Python
3 112 (21.29%) TypeScript
4 87 (16.54%) JavaScript
5 77 (14.64%) C#
6 60 (11.41%) C++
7 41 (7.79%) SQL
8 26 (4.94%) C
8 26 (4.94%) Rust
9 22 (4.18%) Go
10 15 (2.85%) Kotlin
11 13 (2.47%) Ruby
12 6 (1.14%) Delphi
12 6 (1.14%) PHP
13 5 (0.95%) Embedded C
14 3 (0.57%) Bash
14 3 (0.57%) Swift
15 2 (0.38%) BrightScript
15 2 (0.38%) Scala
15 2 (0.38%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 37 (7.03%) Degree
2 16 (3.04%) Security Cleared
3 15 (2.85%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (1.71%) Master's Degree
5 6 (1.14%) SC Cleared
6 5 (0.95%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.57%) PhD
8 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.19%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.19%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.19%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.61%) QA
2 10 (1.90%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.38%) ISO 9000
3 2 (0.38%) ISO 9001
3 2 (0.38%) JTAG
3 2 (0.38%) WCAG
4 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.19%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.19%) ECSS
4 1 (0.19%) GDPR
4 1 (0.19%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.19%) PSD2
System Software
1 42 (7.98%) Docker
2 7 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.33%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (1.14%) Firmware
4 3 (0.57%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 78 (14.83%) Kubernetes
2 31 (5.89%) Terraform
3 8 (1.52%) Grafana
4 4 (0.76%) Ansible
5 3 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.19%) Argo
Vendors
1 15 (2.85%) Google
2 12 (2.28%) Microsoft
3 4 (0.76%) Databricks
3 4 (0.76%) OpenAI
3 4 (0.76%) Oracle
4 3 (0.57%) MuleSoft
5 2 (0.38%) Adobe
5 2 (0.38%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.38%) Avaloq
5 2 (0.38%) CA Agile Central
5 2 (0.38%) Facebook
5 2 (0.38%) MKS
5 2 (0.38%) Roku
5 2 (0.38%) SAP
5 2 (0.38%) Vertica
6 1 (0.19%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.19%) ForgeRock
6 1 (0.19%) HubSpot
6 1 (0.19%) New Relic
6 1 (0.19%) SendGrid