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 27 May 2026.

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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 156 206 139
Rank change year-on-year +50 -67 +144
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,218 709 1,971
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.31% 1.67% 1.99%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.40% 1.87% 2.10%
Number of salaries quoted 976 447 1,426
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £77,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +19.23% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £81,063
90th Percentile £100,000 £132,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% +8.33% -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 86,844 37,958 93,943
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.41% 89.30% 94.71%
Number of salaries quoted 57,790 21,252 68,852
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,500 £38,500
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 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £51,058 £50,000
% change year-on-year -2.07% +2.12% -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 27 May 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 27 May 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 +45 1,053 £75,000 -4.83% 645
UK excluding London +65 831 £70,000 +7.69% 385
London +30 317 £95,000 - 308
Work from Home -34 307 £70,000 -10.26% 287
South East +126 219 £75,000 +15.38% 77
North of England -61 174 £75,000 +7.14% 108
South West +56 148 £70,000 - 57
North West -59 105 £75,000 +7.14% 78
East of England +40 103 £70,000 +18.64% 45
Midlands +40 86 £65,000 -10.34% 44
Scotland +24 81 £67,500 +8.00% 28
West Midlands +11 58 £67,500 -6.90% 31
Yorkshire -8 53 £70,000 -11.84% 16
East Midlands -8 28 £65,000 - 13
Wales -26 19 £56,250 -13.46% 7
North East -37 16 £80,000 +45.45% 15
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 23

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

For the 6 months to 27 May 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 1,209 (99.26%) Software Engineering
2 196 (16.09%) C++
3 190 (15.60%) C#
4 181 (14.86%) Java
5 174 (14.29%) Agile
6 168 (13.79%) Python
7 164 (13.46%) AWS
8 163 (13.38%) .NET
9 136 (11.17%) Full-Stack Development
10 125 (10.26%) CI/CD
11 111 (9.11%) Mentoring
12 108 (8.87%) Microservices
13 104 (8.54%) Azure
14 96 (7.88%) DevOps
15 94 (7.72%) Linux
16 93 (7.64%) React
17 88 (7.22%) JavaScript
18 86 (7.06%) SaaS
19 84 (6.90%) TypeScript
20 79 (6.49%) AI
21 78 (6.40%) SDLC
22 77 (6.32%) Security Cleared
23 76 (6.24%) C
23 76 (6.24%) Kubernetes
23 76 (6.24%) Test Automation
24 75 (6.16%) SQL
25 74 (6.08%) Computer Science
25 74 (6.08%) Degree
26 65 (5.34%) Docker
27 64 (5.25%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.31%) SharePoint Server
2 4 (0.33%) Apache Solr
3 3 (0.25%) Apache
3 3 (0.25%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.25%) WinCC
4 2 (0.16%) CMS
4 2 (0.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (0.16%) Blender
1 2 (0.16%) Maya
Cloud Services
1 164 (13.46%) AWS
2 104 (8.54%) Azure
3 86 (7.06%) SaaS
4 54 (4.43%) GCP
5 38 (3.12%) GitHub
6 27 (2.22%) Serverless
7 19 (1.56%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 17 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
9 16 (1.31%) Anthropic Claude
10 15 (1.23%) Azure AKS
10 15 (1.23%) GitHub Copilot
11 12 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
12 10 (0.82%) Azure Event Grid
13 7 (0.57%) Stripe
14 4 (0.33%) Amazon OpenSearch
14 4 (0.33%) Amazon S3
14 4 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
14 4 (0.33%) IaaS
15 3 (0.25%) AWS CloudFormation
15 3 (0.25%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.72%) RS-232
2 17 (1.40%) Ethernet
3 16 (1.31%) Multicast
4 13 (1.07%) HTTP
5 11 (0.90%) Modbus
6 10 (0.82%) Bluetooth
7 9 (0.74%) Profibus
7 9 (0.74%) Wireless
8 6 (0.49%) RS-485
8 6 (0.49%) ZigBee
9 5 (0.41%) Broadband
10 1 (0.082%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (2.63%) SQL Server
2 21 (1.72%) NoSQL
3 19 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (1.15%) MySQL
5 12 (0.99%) MongoDB
6 10 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
8 7 (0.57%) Big Data
9 5 (0.41%) BigQuery
9 5 (0.41%) Redis
10 4 (0.33%) DocumentDB
10 4 (0.33%) Neo4j
10 4 (0.33%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.25%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.25%) Geospatial Data
11 3 (0.25%) MariaDB
12 2 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
13 1 (0.082%) DB2
13 1 (0.082%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 51 (4.19%) Git
2 23 (1.89%) JIRA
3 19 (1.56%) TeamCity
4 18 (1.48%) GitLab
5 16 (1.31%) Claude Code
6 13 (1.07%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.74%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.25%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.25%) JUnit
8 3 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.16%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.16%) GDB
9 2 (0.16%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.082%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.082%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.082%) GoogleTest
10 1 (0.082%) JBehave
10 1 (0.082%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.082%) Yeoman
General
1 142 (11.66%) Finance
2 65 (5.34%) Banking
3 49 (4.02%) Social Skills
4 40 (3.28%) Electronics
5 30 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 27 (2.22%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.22%) Public Sector
7 22 (1.81%) Retail
8 20 (1.64%) Automotive
9 19 (1.56%) Analytical Skills
10 16 (1.31%) Law
11 15 (1.23%) Financial Institution
11 15 (1.23%) Tech for Good
12 14 (1.15%) Back Office
13 13 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (0.99%) Aerospace
14 12 (0.99%) Games
15 7 (0.57%) Agriculture
15 7 (0.57%) Military
15 7 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 163 (13.38%) .NET
2 93 (7.64%) React
3 60 (4.93%) Node.js
4 40 (3.28%) REST
5 35 (2.87%) WPF
6 32 (2.63%) RESTful
7 26 (2.13%) .NET Core
7 26 (2.13%) Spring
8 23 (1.89%) React Native
8 23 (1.89%) Spring Boot
9 17 (1.40%) .NET Framework
9 17 (1.40%) AngularJS
10 16 (1.31%) Boost C++ Libraries
10 16 (1.31%) FIX Protocol
10 16 (1.31%) pytest
10 16 (1.31%) Ruby on Rails
11 15 (1.23%) Yocto
12 13 (1.07%) Vue
13 12 (0.99%) Django
13 12 (0.99%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 87 (7.14%) Cloud Native
2 53 (4.35%) Algorithms
3 36 (2.96%) Embedded Systems
4 29 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
5 25 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
6 18 (1.48%) Derivative
6 18 (1.48%) IoT
7 16 (1.31%) Equities
7 16 (1.31%) Fixed Income
8 15 (1.23%) CAN bus
8 15 (1.23%) Device Driver
8 15 (1.23%) Robotics
9 13 (1.07%) Public Cloud
10 12 (0.99%) Greenfield Project
11 9 (0.74%) Client/Server
11 9 (0.74%) Sports Betting
12 8 (0.66%) AI Agents
12 8 (0.66%) Legacy Applications
13 7 (0.57%) FMCG
13 7 (0.57%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 94 (7.72%) Linux
2 30 (2.46%) Embedded Linux
3 16 (1.31%) FreeRTOS
4 12 (0.99%) Android
5 6 (0.49%) Windows
6 4 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.082%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,209 (99.26%) Software Engineering
2 174 (14.29%) Agile
3 136 (11.17%) Full-Stack Development
4 125 (10.26%) CI/CD
5 111 (9.11%) Mentoring
6 108 (8.87%) Microservices
7 96 (7.88%) DevOps
8 79 (6.49%) AI
9 78 (6.40%) SDLC
10 76 (6.24%) Test Automation
11 74 (6.08%) Computer Science
12 64 (5.25%) Problem-Solving
13 61 (5.01%) Fintech
14 59 (4.84%) Containerisation
15 58 (4.76%) Technical Leadership
16 48 (3.94%) Continuous Improvement
17 47 (3.86%) Embedded Software Development
18 45 (3.69%) Low Latency
18 45 (3.69%) Scrum
19 40 (3.28%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 196 (16.09%) C++
2 190 (15.60%) C#
3 181 (14.86%) Java
4 168 (13.79%) Python
5 88 (7.22%) JavaScript
6 84 (6.90%) TypeScript
7 76 (6.24%) C
8 75 (6.16%) SQL
9 39 (3.20%) Rust
10 28 (2.30%) Go
11 20 (1.64%) Embedded C
12 19 (1.56%) PHP
13 16 (1.31%) Ruby
14 12 (0.99%) Scala
15 10 (0.82%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.66%) F#
16 8 (0.66%) Haskell
16 8 (0.66%) Julia
16 8 (0.66%) MATLAB
17 6 (0.49%) VB
Qualifications
1 77 (6.32%) Security Cleared
2 74 (6.08%) Degree
3 59 (4.84%) SC Cleared
4 27 (2.22%) DV Cleared
5 22 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (1.72%) Master's Degree
7 12 (0.99%) PhD
8 3 (0.25%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.16%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.082%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (2.22%) QA
2 16 (1.31%) IEC 61508
2 16 (1.31%) MISRA
2 16 (1.31%) MISRA C
3 11 (0.90%) Accessibility
4 4 (0.33%) GDPR
5 3 (0.25%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.25%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.082%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.082%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 65 (5.34%) Docker
2 42 (3.45%) Firmware
3 18 (1.48%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.16%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.16%) KVM
4 2 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.082%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 76 (6.24%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.12%) Terraform
3 20 (1.64%) Grafana
4 13 (1.07%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.41%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.25%) Plesk
7 2 (0.16%) Ansible
8 1 (0.082%) Argo
Vendors
1 8 (0.66%) Microsoft
2 7 (0.57%) Google
2 7 (0.57%) HubSpot
3 6 (0.49%) Siemens
4 3 (0.25%) Rockwell
5 2 (0.16%) OpenAI
5 2 (0.16%) Splunk
5 2 (0.16%) VMware
6 1 (0.082%) Adobe
6 1 (0.082%) Palantir
6 1 (0.082%) TOWER Software