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 14 February 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 208 195 216
Rank change year-on-year -13 +21 +59
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 699 794 1,062
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.60% 1.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.14% 1.74% 1.50%
Number of salaries quoted 549 534 820
10th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,000 £57,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £122,500 £101,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year +7.69% +4.00% -3.85%

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 61,135 45,530 70,841
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.16% 91.70% 94.89%
Number of salaries quoted 38,457 23,722 55,462
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,493
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 14 February 2026.

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 14 February 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 -2 600 £75,000 +7.14% 200
UK excluding London -22 424 £70,000 +7.69% 158
London +24 241 £95,000 +5.56% 52
Work from Home -55 234 £75,000 +7.14% 157
South East -26 105 £70,000 +7.69% 33
South West +19 88 £65,000 - 29
North of England -24 83 £75,000 +15.38% 35
Scotland -13 66 £68,750 +10.00% 28
North West -10 41 £70,000 +7.69% 25
East of England -23 41 £70,000 +3.70% 21
Midlands +15 34 £65,000 +8.33% 13
Yorkshire -19 32 £75,000 -4.91% 9
East Midlands -9 18 £65,000 +8.33% 5
West Midlands +18 16 £65,000 +4.00% 8
North East -20 10 £75,000 +36.36% 1
Wales -5 7 £60,000 -7.69% 3

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

For the 6 months to 14 February 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.

1 685 (98.00%) Software Engineering
2 129 (18.45%) AWS
3 127 (18.17%) Java
4 109 (15.59%) .NET
4 109 (15.59%) Agile
5 102 (14.59%) C#
6 97 (13.88%) CI/CD
7 93 (13.30%) Full-Stack Development
8 86 (12.30%) Microservices
9 82 (11.73%) Python
10 81 (11.59%) C++
11 80 (11.44%) Kubernetes
12 79 (11.30%) Mentoring
13 75 (10.73%) Azure
14 72 (10.30%) React
15 69 (9.87%) DevOps
16 65 (9.30%) TypeScript
17 60 (8.58%) Linux
18 50 (7.15%) Problem-Solving
18 50 (7.15%) Test Automation
19 49 (7.01%) Computer Science
19 49 (7.01%) Degree
19 49 (7.01%) JavaScript
20 47 (6.72%) Fintech
20 47 (6.72%) GCP
20 47 (6.72%) SaaS
20 47 (6.72%) SQL
21 46 (6.58%) SDLC
22 44 (6.29%) Docker
23 43 (6.15%) Containerisation

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 13 (1.86%) Apache
2 12 (1.72%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.43%) CMS
4 2 (0.29%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.14%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.14%) Confluence
5 1 (0.14%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 129 (18.45%) AWS
2 75 (10.73%) Azure
3 47 (6.72%) GCP
3 47 (6.72%) SaaS
4 27 (3.86%) GitHub
5 16 (2.29%) Amazon EKS
6 14 (2.00%) Azure AKS
7 13 (1.86%) dbt
7 13 (1.86%) Snowflake
8 11 (1.57%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.43%) GitHub Copilot
10 9 (1.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 8 (1.14%) Azure Event Grid
11 8 (1.14%) Serverless
11 8 (1.14%) Stripe
12 5 (0.72%) Cloud Run
13 4 (0.57%) Amazon S3
13 4 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (0.43%) AWS Lambda
14 3 (0.43%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.86%) Multicast
2 10 (1.43%) HTTP
3 6 (0.86%) Ethernet
3 6 (0.86%) RS-232
4 4 (0.57%) Broadband
5 1 (0.14%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.43%) SQL Server
2 19 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (2.58%) NoSQL
4 13 (1.86%) Amazon Athena
5 12 (1.72%) Apache Arrow
5 12 (1.72%) Apache Iceberg
5 12 (1.72%) Apache Ignite
5 12 (1.72%) Data Lake
5 12 (1.72%) Dremio
6 11 (1.57%) Elasticsearch
7 10 (1.43%) BigQuery
8 7 (1.00%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.00%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.86%) Redis
10 4 (0.57%) DynamoDB
10 4 (0.57%) MySQL
11 3 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
12 2 (0.29%) MariaDB
13 1 (0.14%) ClickHouse
13 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 31 (4.43%) Git
2 21 (3.00%) JIRA
3 18 (2.58%) TeamCity
4 8 (1.14%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.86%) GitLab
6 4 (0.57%) JUnit
7 3 (0.43%) Claude Code
7 3 (0.43%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.43%) JBehave
7 3 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.29%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.29%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.29%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.29%) Xcode
9 1 (0.14%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.14%) Gradle
9 1 (0.14%) NUnit
9 1 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.14%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.14%) Selenium
General
1 144 (20.60%) Finance
2 64 (9.16%) Banking
3 44 (6.29%) Social Skills
4 23 (3.29%) Financial Institution
4 23 (3.29%) Retail
5 20 (2.86%) Law
6 17 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (2.15%) Games
8 14 (2.00%) Back Office
9 12 (1.72%) Front Office
9 12 (1.72%) Investment Banking
9 12 (1.72%) Tech for Good
10 10 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.29%) Automotive
12 6 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
12 6 (0.86%) Public Sector
13 5 (0.72%) Aerospace
13 5 (0.72%) Analytical Skills
13 5 (0.72%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.57%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (15.59%) .NET
2 72 (10.30%) React
3 35 (5.01%) RESTful
4 31 (4.43%) Node.js
5 30 (4.29%) REST
6 24 (3.43%) React Native
7 23 (3.29%) .NET Core
8 19 (2.72%) GraphQL
9 17 (2.43%) .NET Framework
9 17 (2.43%) AngularJS
10 15 (2.15%) Ruby on Rails
11 14 (2.00%) Spring
12 13 (1.86%) Boost C++ Libraries
12 13 (1.86%) FIX Protocol
12 13 (1.86%) pytest
13 12 (1.72%) NumPy
13 12 (1.72%) Pandas
13 12 (1.72%) Protocol Buffers
13 12 (1.72%) SciPy
13 12 (1.72%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 66 (9.44%) Cloud Native
2 27 (3.86%) Distributed Systems
3 26 (3.72%) Derivative
4 25 (3.58%) Algorithms
4 25 (3.58%) Equities
4 25 (3.58%) Fixed Income
5 21 (3.00%) Embedded Systems
6 15 (2.15%) Hedge funds
7 13 (1.86%) IoT
8 12 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 12 (1.72%) Pricing Data
9 11 (1.57%) CAN bus
9 11 (1.57%) Legacy Code
9 11 (1.57%) Public Cloud
10 10 (1.43%) Greenfield Project
11 9 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (1.29%) Robotics
12 7 (1.00%) Blog
13 6 (0.86%) Data Structures
13 6 (0.86%) Device Driver
Operating Systems
1 60 (8.58%) Linux
2 18 (2.58%) Embedded Linux
3 17 (2.43%) Android
4 6 (0.86%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.29%) Unix
5 2 (0.29%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 685 (98.00%) Software Engineering
2 109 (15.59%) Agile
3 97 (13.88%) CI/CD
4 93 (13.30%) Full-Stack Development
5 86 (12.30%) Microservices
6 79 (11.30%) Mentoring
7 69 (9.87%) DevOps
8 50 (7.15%) Problem-Solving
8 50 (7.15%) Test Automation
9 49 (7.01%) Computer Science
10 47 (6.72%) Fintech
11 46 (6.58%) SDLC
12 43 (6.15%) Containerisation
12 43 (6.15%) Technical Leadership
13 42 (6.01%) AI
14 35 (5.01%) Clean Code
15 34 (4.86%) Scrum
16 32 (4.58%) Continuous Improvement
17 28 (4.01%) User Experience
18 26 (3.72%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 127 (18.17%) Java
2 102 (14.59%) C#
3 82 (11.73%) Python
4 81 (11.59%) C++
5 65 (9.30%) TypeScript
6 49 (7.01%) JavaScript
7 47 (6.72%) SQL
8 36 (5.15%) C
9 27 (3.86%) Rust
10 24 (3.43%) Go
11 18 (2.58%) Kotlin
12 16 (2.29%) PHP
13 15 (2.15%) Ruby
14 7 (1.00%) Embedded C
15 6 (0.86%) Delphi
16 4 (0.57%) Scala
16 4 (0.57%) VB
17 3 (0.43%) Bash
17 3 (0.43%) Swift
18 2 (0.29%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 49 (7.01%) Degree
2 22 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
3 19 (2.72%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.43%) Master's Degree
5 15 (2.15%) SC Cleared
6 7 (1.00%) PhD
7 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.14%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (3.00%) QA
2 11 (1.57%) IEC 61508
2 11 (1.57%) MISRA
2 11 (1.57%) MISRA C
3 6 (0.86%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.14%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.14%) ECSS
4 1 (0.14%) GDPR
4 1 (0.14%) ISO 9000
4 1 (0.14%) JTAG
4 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.14%) PSD2
System Software
1 44 (6.29%) Docker
2 7 (1.00%) Firmware
2 7 (1.00%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.00%) Virtual Servers
3 3 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.29%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.29%) KVM
4 2 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 80 (11.44%) Kubernetes
2 31 (4.43%) Terraform
3 16 (2.29%) Grafana
4 11 (1.57%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.29%) Ansible
5 2 (0.29%) Argo
6 1 (0.14%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 13 (1.86%) Google
2 8 (1.14%) HubSpot
2 8 (1.14%) Microsoft
3 2 (0.29%) Adobe
3 2 (0.29%) CA Agile Central
3 2 (0.29%) OpenAI
3 2 (0.29%) SAP
3 2 (0.29%) VMware
4 1 (0.14%) Dynatrace
4 1 (0.14%) ForgeRock
4 1 (0.14%) Green Hills
4 1 (0.14%) New Relic