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 6 October 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 232 119
Rank change year-on-year +114 -113 +173
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,844 645 1,545
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.56% 1.30% 2.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.68% 1.45% 2.21%
Number of salaries quoted 1,405 324 1,034
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £58,938
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 £72,000 £70,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +2.86% +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 109,799 44,474 69,871
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.81% 89.76% 95.31%
Number of salaries quoted 74,691 25,606 40,305
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,718 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,589 £54,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% -0.91% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,000 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,566 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.11% -6.87% -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 6 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 6 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 +110 1,656 £75,000 -16.67% 1,468
UK excluding London +132 1,312 £72,000 +2.86% 920
London +25 453 £95,000 -13.64% 693
North of England +22 350 £75,000 +7.14% 215
Work from Home -40 331 £80,000 -27.27% 770
South East +140 256 £80,000 +14.29% 175
South West +67 242 £70,000 +7.69% 104
North West -7 216 £75,000 +3.81% 137
East of England +111 209 £70,000 +7.69% 144
Midlands +65 141 £70,000 -6.67% 92
Yorkshire +31 79 £70,000 +7.69% 53
West Midlands +30 74 £70,000 -6.67% 47
East Midlands +30 67 £60,000 -14.29% 45
Scotland +22 62 £75,000 +11.11% 121
North East -21 55 £80,000 +700.00% 25
Wales -21 47 £70,000 - 35
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 43

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

For the 6 months to 6 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 1,842 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 285 (15.46%) Python
3 257 (13.94%) Agile
4 249 (13.50%) C#
5 236 (12.80%) AWS
6 234 (12.69%) Java
7 232 (12.58%) C++
8 218 (11.82%) AI
9 212 (11.50%) CI/CD
10 182 (9.87%) Mentoring
11 170 (9.22%) Full-Stack Development
12 162 (8.79%) .NET
13 149 (8.08%) TypeScript
14 133 (7.21%) Microservices
15 125 (6.78%) DevOps
16 124 (6.72%) React
17 108 (5.86%) Azure
17 108 (5.86%) Security Cleared
18 106 (5.75%) Test Automation
19 103 (5.59%) Linux
20 97 (5.26%) Code Quality
20 97 (5.26%) Kubernetes
21 95 (5.15%) SDLC
22 89 (4.83%) Problem-Solving
23 88 (4.77%) Technical Leadership
24 86 (4.66%) Degree
25 85 (4.61%) Docker
26 83 (4.50%) JavaScript
27 81 (4.39%) Node.js
28 79 (4.28%) Continuous Improvement

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 3 (0.16%) CMS
3 3 (0.16%) Confluence
3 3 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.16%) WinCC
4 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
5 1 (0.054%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.054%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.054%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.16%) Blender
1 3 (0.16%) Maya
2 1 (0.054%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 236 (12.80%) AWS
2 108 (5.86%) Azure
3 71 (3.85%) GCP
4 66 (3.58%) SaaS
5 49 (2.66%) Serverless
6 36 (1.95%) GitHub
7 26 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (0.92%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
10 15 (0.81%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (0.54%) Amazon S3
14 8 (0.43%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 6 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
15 6 (0.33%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (0.33%) Supabase
16 5 (0.27%) Azure AI
16 5 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
17 4 (0.22%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.76%) RS-232
2 13 (0.70%) Ethernet
3 12 (0.65%) Modbus
4 11 (0.60%) Bluetooth
4 11 (0.60%) Profibus
5 10 (0.54%) TCP/IP
5 10 (0.54%) Wireless
6 9 (0.49%) Internet
6 9 (0.49%) Multicast
7 8 (0.43%) Broadband
7 8 (0.43%) RS-485
7 8 (0.43%) ZigBee
8 5 (0.27%) HTTP
9 4 (0.22%) Firewall
9 4 (0.22%) MQTT
10 2 (0.11%) RS-422
11 1 (0.054%) BGP
11 1 (0.054%) DNS
11 1 (0.054%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (3.69%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.68%) MySQL
3 28 (1.52%) Relational Database
4 18 (0.98%) Redis
5 16 (0.87%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.81%) NoSQL
7 13 (0.70%) SQL Server
8 11 (0.60%) DynamoDB
9 10 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (0.38%) Big Data
11 5 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
11 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (0.22%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.16%) MariaDB
14 2 (0.11%) Data Lake
14 2 (0.11%) Flink
14 2 (0.11%) Power BI
14 2 (0.11%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 54 (2.93%) Git
2 25 (1.36%) JIRA
3 24 (1.30%) GitLab
4 19 (1.03%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.76%) Claude Code
6 9 (0.49%) Jenkins
6 9 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
7 7 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
8 6 (0.33%) Mocha
9 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.27%) NUnit
9 5 (0.27%) Selenium
9 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
11 3 (0.16%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.16%) JUnit
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.11%) Appium
12 2 (0.11%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 142 (7.70%) Finance
2 126 (6.83%) Social Skills
3 66 (3.58%) Electronics
4 59 (3.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 54 (2.93%) Banking
6 44 (2.39%) Public Sector
7 42 (2.28%) Analytical Skills
8 39 (2.11%) Law
9 38 (2.06%) Manufacturing
10 31 (1.68%) Aerospace
11 23 (1.25%) Retail
12 17 (0.92%) Marketing
12 17 (0.92%) Military
13 15 (0.81%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.76%) Front Office
15 13 (0.70%) Games
16 10 (0.54%) Automotive
16 10 (0.54%) Health Technology
17 9 (0.49%) Legal
18 8 (0.43%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 162 (8.79%) .NET
2 124 (6.72%) React
3 81 (4.39%) Node.js
4 72 (3.90%) Terraform
5 66 (3.58%) Spring
6 47 (2.55%) RESTful
7 45 (2.44%) WPF
8 44 (2.39%) Spring Boot
9 43 (2.33%) Kafka
10 30 (1.63%) Next.js
11 26 (1.41%) AngularJS
12 24 (1.30%) FastAPI
12 24 (1.30%) REST
13 20 (1.08%) Vue
14 16 (0.87%) Django
15 13 (0.70%) React Native
16 12 (0.65%) CSS
16 12 (0.65%) OpenAPI
17 11 (0.60%) FIX Protocol
17 11 (0.60%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 124 (6.72%) Cloud Native
2 62 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
4 49 (2.66%) Robotics
5 42 (2.28%) Algorithms
6 36 (1.95%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
8 28 (1.52%) AI Agents
8 28 (1.52%) Product Ownership
9 23 (1.25%) Blog
10 22 (1.19%) Public Cloud
11 19 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (0.70%) Blockchain
12 13 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (0.65%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.60%) Derivative
14 11 (0.60%) Device Driver
14 11 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
15 10 (0.54%) Fixed Income
16 9 (0.49%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 103 (5.59%) Linux
2 30 (1.63%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (0.98%) Windows
4 15 (0.81%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.54%) Android
5 10 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.43%) Unix
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.054%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,842 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 257 (13.94%) Agile
3 218 (11.82%) AI
4 212 (11.50%) CI/CD
5 182 (9.87%) Mentoring
6 170 (9.22%) Full-Stack Development
7 133 (7.21%) Microservices
8 125 (6.78%) DevOps
9 106 (5.75%) Test Automation
10 97 (5.26%) Code Quality
11 95 (5.15%) SDLC
12 89 (4.83%) Problem-Solving
13 88 (4.77%) Technical Leadership
14 79 (4.28%) Continuous Improvement
15 69 (3.74%) Fintech
16 67 (3.63%) Computer Science
17 65 (3.52%) Event-Driven
18 61 (3.31%) Containerisation
19 60 (3.25%) Infrastructure as Code
20 56 (3.04%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 285 (15.46%) Python
2 249 (13.50%) C#
3 234 (12.69%) Java
4 232 (12.58%) C++
5 149 (8.08%) TypeScript
6 83 (4.50%) JavaScript
7 76 (4.12%) SQL
8 66 (3.58%) C
9 39 (2.11%) Rust
10 37 (2.01%) Go
11 19 (1.03%) PHP
12 16 (0.87%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.87%) Scala
13 15 (0.81%) Kotlin
14 14 (0.76%) Ruby
15 13 (0.70%) F#
15 13 (0.70%) Haskell
16 12 (0.65%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.54%) Julia
18 8 (0.43%) R
Qualifications
1 108 (5.86%) Security Cleared
2 86 (4.66%) Degree
3 75 (4.07%) SC Cleared
4 49 (2.66%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.81%) Master's Degree
7 13 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (0.60%) 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 (0.054%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.054%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (1.90%) QA
2 19 (1.03%) 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%) SLA
8 1 (0.054%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.054%) MISRA
8 1 (0.054%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.054%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 85 (4.61%) Docker
2 45 (2.44%) Firmware
3 19 (1.03%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 97 (5.26%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.08%) Grafana
3 12 (0.65%) Ansible
4 4 (0.22%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.16%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.054%) Argo
7 1 (0.054%) Functional Safety
7 1 (0.054%) Istio
7 1 (0.054%) Kibana
7 1 (0.054%) Podman
Vendors
1 22 (1.19%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.92%) Salesforce
3 13 (0.70%) RedGate
4 9 (0.49%) Google
4 9 (0.49%) Splunk
5 8 (0.43%) Foundry
5 8 (0.43%) Sage
5 8 (0.43%) Siemens
6 7 (0.38%) Databricks
7 6 (0.33%) OpenAI
7 6 (0.33%) Oracle
8 5 (0.27%) Intel
9 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.16%) New Relic
9 3 (0.16%) Revolut
9 3 (0.16%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.11%) ADVA
10 2 (0.11%) Okta
10 2 (0.11%) Thales
11 1 (0.054%) Virgin Media