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 29 September 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 227 117
Rank change year-on-year +106 -110 +179
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,808 663 1,612
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.54% 1.35% 2.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.65% 1.51% 2.25%
Number of salaries quoted 1,406 341 1,079
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +28.57% +7.69%
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 109,377 44,042 71,502
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.96% 89.72% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 74,715 25,470 41,572
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,750
25th Percentile £41,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £73,750 £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 29 September 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 29 September 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 +103 1,625 £75,000 -16.67% 1,151
UK excluding London +132 1,284 £72,250 +3.21% 629
London +15 442 £95,000 -13.64% 609
North of England +12 341 £75,000 +7.14% 148
Work from Home -48 321 £80,000 -27.27% 488
South East +131 256 £80,000 +14.29% 104
South West +59 238 £70,000 +7.69% 87
North West -6 213 £75,000 +7.14% 98
East of England +103 198 £70,000 +7.69% 94
Midlands +66 144 £70,000 -6.67% 67
West Midlands +25 79 £70,000 -6.67% 30
Yorkshire +29 75 £70,000 +7.69% 32
East Midlands +16 65 £60,000 -14.29% 37
Scotland +27 56 £75,000 +15.83% 86
North East -26 53 £80,000 +700.00% 18
Wales -27 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 29 September 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 1,805 (99.83%) Software Engineering
2 285 (15.76%) Python
3 256 (14.16%) Agile
4 250 (13.83%) C#
5 235 (13.00%) C++
6 234 (12.94%) AWS
7 231 (12.78%) Java
8 211 (11.67%) AI
9 209 (11.56%) CI/CD
10 179 (9.90%) Mentoring
11 169 (9.35%) Full-Stack Development
12 164 (9.07%) .NET
13 150 (8.30%) TypeScript
14 129 (7.13%) Microservices
15 128 (7.08%) DevOps
15 128 (7.08%) React
16 107 (5.92%) Azure
17 106 (5.86%) Security Cleared
17 106 (5.86%) Test Automation
18 103 (5.70%) Linux
19 96 (5.31%) Code Quality
19 96 (5.31%) SDLC
20 94 (5.20%) Kubernetes
21 89 (4.92%) Problem-Solving
22 87 (4.81%) Technical Leadership
23 85 (4.70%) JavaScript
24 83 (4.59%) Docker
25 82 (4.54%) Degree
26 81 (4.48%) Continuous Improvement
27 80 (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 (0.88%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.39%) Apache
3 4 (0.22%) Confluence
4 3 (0.17%) CMS
4 3 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.17%) WinCC
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.055%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.055%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.17%) Blender
1 3 (0.17%) Maya
2 1 (0.055%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 234 (12.94%) AWS
2 107 (5.92%) Azure
3 72 (3.98%) GCP
3 72 (3.98%) SaaS
4 47 (2.60%) Serverless
5 37 (2.05%) GitHub
6 26 (1.44%) Amazon EKS
7 18 (1.00%) GitHub Copilot
8 16 (0.88%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (0.77%) Anthropic Claude
10 12 (0.66%) AWS Lambda
11 11 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (0.55%) Amazon S3
13 8 (0.44%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 7 (0.39%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
15 6 (0.33%) Supabase
16 5 (0.28%) Azure AI
16 5 (0.28%) Dynamics 365
17 4 (0.22%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (0.83%) RS-232
2 14 (0.77%) Ethernet
3 13 (0.72%) Modbus
4 12 (0.66%) Bluetooth
5 11 (0.61%) Profibus
6 9 (0.50%) Multicast
6 9 (0.50%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.50%) Wireless
7 8 (0.44%) Broadband
7 8 (0.44%) Internet
7 8 (0.44%) RS-485
7 8 (0.44%) ZigBee
8 6 (0.33%) HTTP
9 4 (0.22%) Firewall
10 2 (0.11%) MQTT
10 2 (0.11%) RS-422
11 1 (0.055%) BGP
11 1 (0.055%) DNS
11 1 (0.055%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (3.76%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.71%) MySQL
3 28 (1.55%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.00%) Redis
5 17 (0.94%) MongoDB
6 16 (0.88%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.77%) SQL Server
8 11 (0.61%) DynamoDB
9 10 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (0.39%) Big Data
11 6 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (0.28%) Geospatial Data
13 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.22%) Delta Lake
14 3 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.17%) MariaDB
15 2 (0.11%) DocumentDB
15 2 (0.11%) Flink
15 2 (0.11%) Neo4j
15 2 (0.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 57 (3.15%) Git
2 26 (1.44%) JIRA
3 25 (1.38%) GitLab
4 19 (1.05%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.77%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.44%) Jenkins
8 6 (0.33%) Mocha
8 6 (0.33%) Selenium
9 5 (0.28%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.28%) NUnit
9 5 (0.28%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.22%) Rational Rhapsody
11 3 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.17%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.17%) JUnit
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.11%) Appium
12 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 143 (7.91%) Finance
2 126 (6.97%) Social Skills
3 66 (3.65%) Electronics
4 57 (3.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 55 (3.04%) Banking
6 45 (2.49%) Public Sector
7 41 (2.27%) Analytical Skills
8 39 (2.16%) Law
8 39 (2.16%) Manufacturing
9 27 (1.49%) Aerospace
10 23 (1.27%) Retail
11 17 (0.94%) Marketing
12 14 (0.77%) Financial Institution
12 14 (0.77%) Military
13 13 (0.72%) Front Office
14 12 (0.66%) Games
15 11 (0.61%) Automotive
16 9 (0.50%) Health Technology
16 9 (0.50%) Legal
17 8 (0.44%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (9.07%) .NET
2 128 (7.08%) React
3 80 (4.42%) Node.js
4 72 (3.98%) Terraform
5 66 (3.65%) Spring
6 47 (2.60%) WPF
7 46 (2.54%) RESTful
8 43 (2.38%) Spring Boot
9 42 (2.32%) Kafka
10 30 (1.66%) Next.js
11 26 (1.44%) AngularJS
12 25 (1.38%) REST
13 22 (1.22%) FastAPI
14 20 (1.11%) Vue
15 16 (0.88%) Django
16 14 (0.77%) React Native
17 13 (0.72%) CSS
18 11 (0.61%) .NET Core
18 11 (0.61%) FIX Protocol
18 11 (0.61%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 123 (6.80%) Cloud Native
2 61 (3.37%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.04%) Legacy Systems
4 48 (2.65%) Robotics
5 45 (2.49%) Algorithms
6 37 (2.05%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.60%) Greenfield Project
8 27 (1.49%) Product Ownership
9 26 (1.44%) AI Agents
10 21 (1.16%) Blog
10 21 (1.16%) Public Cloud
11 18 (1.00%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (0.72%) Blockchain
12 13 (0.72%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (0.66%) Derivative
13 12 (0.66%) Device Driver
13 12 (0.66%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.61%) Legacy Applications
15 10 (0.55%) Fixed Income
16 9 (0.50%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 103 (5.70%) Linux
2 29 (1.60%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (1.00%) FreeRTOS
3 18 (1.00%) Windows
4 9 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.44%) Android
5 8 (0.44%) Unix
6 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
7 1 (0.055%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,805 (99.83%) Software Engineering
2 256 (14.16%) Agile
3 211 (11.67%) AI
4 209 (11.56%) CI/CD
5 179 (9.90%) Mentoring
6 169 (9.35%) Full-Stack Development
7 129 (7.13%) Microservices
8 128 (7.08%) DevOps
9 106 (5.86%) Test Automation
10 96 (5.31%) Code Quality
10 96 (5.31%) SDLC
11 89 (4.92%) Problem-Solving
12 87 (4.81%) Technical Leadership
13 81 (4.48%) Continuous Improvement
14 70 (3.87%) Fintech
15 69 (3.82%) Computer Science
16 61 (3.37%) Event-Driven
17 59 (3.26%) Infrastructure as Code
18 57 (3.15%) Containerisation
19 56 (3.10%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 285 (15.76%) Python
2 250 (13.83%) C#
3 235 (13.00%) C++
4 231 (12.78%) Java
5 150 (8.30%) TypeScript
6 85 (4.70%) JavaScript
7 78 (4.31%) SQL
8 70 (3.87%) C
9 40 (2.21%) Rust
10 35 (1.94%) Go
11 18 (1.00%) Embedded C
12 17 (0.94%) PHP
13 16 (0.88%) Scala
14 14 (0.77%) Kotlin
14 14 (0.77%) Ruby
15 13 (0.72%) F#
15 13 (0.72%) Haskell
15 13 (0.72%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.55%) Julia
17 8 (0.44%) R
Qualifications
1 106 (5.86%) Security Cleared
2 82 (4.54%) Degree
3 71 (3.93%) SC Cleared
4 51 (2.82%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.83%) Master's Degree
7 10 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (0.50%) 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 (2.05%) QA
2 19 (1.05%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.33%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.28%) GDPR
5 4 (0.22%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.17%) IEC 61131
6 3 (0.17%) IEC 61508
6 3 (0.17%) MISRA
6 3 (0.17%) MISRA C
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.055%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 83 (4.59%) Docker
2 49 (2.71%) Firmware
3 21 (1.16%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 94 (5.20%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.11%) Grafana
3 11 (0.61%) Ansible
4 4 (0.22%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.17%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.055%) Argo
7 1 (0.055%) Istio
7 1 (0.055%) Kibana
7 1 (0.055%) Podman
Vendors
1 22 (1.22%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.94%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.61%) RedGate
4 10 (0.55%) Google
5 9 (0.50%) Splunk
6 8 (0.44%) Sage
6 8 (0.44%) Siemens
7 7 (0.39%) Databricks
7 7 (0.39%) Foundry
8 6 (0.33%) Oracle
9 5 (0.28%) Intel
9 5 (0.28%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.17%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.17%) New Relic
10 3 (0.17%) Revolut
10 3 (0.17%) Rockwell
11 2 (0.11%) ADVA
11 2 (0.11%) Okta
11 2 (0.11%) Thales
12 1 (0.055%) Virgin Media