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 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 235 122
Rank change year-on-year +119 -113 +177
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,846 643 1,523
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.57% 1.29% 2.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.69% 1.44% 2.20%
Number of salaries quoted 1,395 323 1,023
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% +5.66%
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 £62,500
% change year-on-year +2.86% +12.00% -

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 109,260 44,699 69,182
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.68% 89.81% 95.36%
Number of salaries quoted 74,288 25,844 39,771
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,210 £53,688 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.42% -2.39% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -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 9 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 9 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 +117 1,659 £75,000 -16.67% 1,315
UK excluding London +139 1,315 £72,000 +2.86% 691
London +31 452 £95,000 -13.64% 715
North of England +18 351 £75,000 +5.26% 170
Work from Home -33 329 £80,000 -27.27% 563
South East +139 260 £80,000 +18.52% 125
South West +68 243 £70,000 +7.69% 71
North West -4 217 £75,000 +0.67% 121
East of England +103 206 £70,000 +7.69% 117
Midlands +78 142 £70,000 -6.67% 64
Yorkshire +32 79 £70,000 -6.67% 32
West Midlands +23 72 £70,000 -6.67% 34
East Midlands +28 70 £60,000 -14.29% 30
Scotland +34 62 £75,000 +11.11% 92
North East -21 55 £80,000 +700.00% 17
Wales -30 47 £70,000 - 15
Northern Ireland - 4 £75,000 - 44

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

For the 6 months to 9 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 1,844 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 285 (15.44%) Python
3 252 (13.65%) Agile
4 245 (13.27%) C#
5 238 (12.89%) AWS
6 234 (12.68%) Java
7 225 (12.19%) C++
8 221 (11.97%) AI
9 214 (11.59%) CI/CD
10 180 (9.75%) Mentoring
11 171 (9.26%) Full-Stack Development
12 163 (8.83%) .NET
13 146 (7.91%) TypeScript
14 134 (7.26%) Microservices
15 125 (6.77%) DevOps
16 119 (6.45%) React
17 108 (5.85%) Azure
17 108 (5.85%) Security Cleared
17 108 (5.85%) Test Automation
18 100 (5.42%) Kubernetes
19 99 (5.36%) Linux
20 96 (5.20%) Code Quality
20 96 (5.20%) SDLC
21 89 (4.82%) Problem-Solving
21 89 (4.82%) Technical Leadership
22 85 (4.60%) Degree
22 85 (4.60%) Docker
23 80 (4.33%) Node.js
24 79 (4.28%) Continuous Improvement
24 79 (4.28%) JavaScript

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 6 (0.33%) 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
1 238 (12.89%) AWS
2 108 (5.85%) Azure
3 73 (3.95%) GCP
4 66 (3.58%) SaaS
5 47 (2.55%) Serverless
6 34 (1.84%) GitHub
7 28 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
8 16 (0.87%) Anthropic Claude
8 16 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (0.81%) GitHub Copilot
10 12 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (0.54%) Amazon S3
12 8 (0.43%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 6 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
13 6 (0.33%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (0.33%) Supabase
14 5 (0.27%) Azure AI
14 5 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (0.27%) Vercel
Communications & Networking
1 12 (0.65%) RS-232
2 11 (0.60%) Ethernet
3 10 (0.54%) Modbus
3 10 (0.54%) Profibus
3 10 (0.54%) TCP/IP
4 9 (0.49%) Bluetooth
4 9 (0.49%) Internet
4 9 (0.49%) Multicast
4 9 (0.49%) Wireless
5 8 (0.43%) Broadband
6 7 (0.38%) RS-485
6 7 (0.38%) ZigBee
7 4 (0.22%) Firewall
7 4 (0.22%) HTTP
7 4 (0.22%) MQTT
8 2 (0.11%) RS-422
9 1 (0.054%) BGP
9 1 (0.054%) DNS
9 1 (0.054%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (3.74%) PostgreSQL
2 29 (1.57%) MySQL
3 27 (1.46%) Relational Database
4 19 (1.03%) Redis
5 17 (0.92%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.81%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.76%) SQL Server
8 11 (0.60%) DynamoDB
9 10 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
10 6 (0.33%) 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
14 2 (0.11%) Data Lake
14 2 (0.11%) Flink
14 2 (0.11%) MariaDB
14 2 (0.11%) Power BI
14 2 (0.11%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 51 (2.76%) Git
2 25 (1.35%) JIRA
3 24 (1.30%) GitLab
4 21 (1.14%) TeamCity
5 16 (0.87%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.54%) Jenkins
7 8 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
8 7 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
9 6 (0.33%) Mocha
10 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
10 5 (0.27%) NUnit
10 5 (0.27%) Selenium
10 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
11 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
12 3 (0.16%) Eclipse RCP
12 3 (0.16%) JUnit
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
13 2 (0.11%) Appium
13 2 (0.11%) Bitbucket
13 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 142 (7.69%) Finance
2 126 (6.83%) Social Skills
3 64 (3.47%) Electronics
4 61 (3.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 54 (2.93%) Banking
6 45 (2.44%) Public Sector
7 42 (2.28%) Analytical Skills
8 41 (2.22%) Law
9 36 (1.95%) Manufacturing
10 32 (1.73%) Aerospace
11 25 (1.35%) Retail
12 17 (0.92%) Financial Institution
12 17 (0.92%) Marketing
12 17 (0.92%) Military
13 16 (0.87%) Front Office
14 14 (0.76%) Games
15 10 (0.54%) Health Technology
16 9 (0.49%) Legal
17 8 (0.43%) Aviation
17 8 (0.43%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 163 (8.83%) .NET
2 119 (6.45%) React
3 80 (4.33%) Node.js
4 74 (4.01%) Terraform
5 65 (3.52%) Spring
6 47 (2.55%) RESTful
7 43 (2.33%) Spring Boot
8 42 (2.28%) Kafka
8 42 (2.28%) WPF
9 31 (1.68%) Next.js
10 25 (1.35%) FastAPI
11 24 (1.30%) AngularJS
12 23 (1.25%) REST
13 18 (0.98%) Vue
14 16 (0.87%) Django
15 13 (0.70%) OpenAPI
15 13 (0.70%) React Native
16 12 (0.65%) FIX Protocol
16 12 (0.65%) RabbitMQ
17 11 (0.60%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 126 (6.83%) Cloud Native
2 62 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
4 50 (2.71%) Robotics
5 41 (2.22%) Algorithms
6 35 (1.90%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.57%) AI Agents
7 29 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
8 28 (1.52%) Product Ownership
9 24 (1.30%) Blog
10 20 (1.08%) Cyber Threat
10 20 (1.08%) Public Cloud
11 13 (0.70%) Blockchain
11 13 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
12 12 (0.65%) Derivative
12 12 (0.65%) Virtual Team
13 11 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
14 10 (0.54%) Device Driver
14 10 (0.54%) Equities
14 10 (0.54%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 99 (5.36%) Linux
2 29 (1.57%) Embedded Linux
3 17 (0.92%) Windows
4 12 (0.65%) 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 1,844 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 252 (13.65%) Agile
3 221 (11.97%) AI
4 214 (11.59%) CI/CD
5 180 (9.75%) Mentoring
6 171 (9.26%) Full-Stack Development
7 134 (7.26%) Microservices
8 125 (6.77%) DevOps
9 108 (5.85%) Test Automation
10 96 (5.20%) Code Quality
10 96 (5.20%) SDLC
11 89 (4.82%) Problem-Solving
11 89 (4.82%) Technical Leadership
12 79 (4.28%) Continuous Improvement
13 69 (3.74%) Fintech
14 66 (3.58%) Event-Driven
15 65 (3.52%) Computer Science
16 62 (3.36%) Containerisation
17 60 (3.25%) Infrastructure as Code
18 55 (2.98%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 285 (15.44%) Python
2 245 (13.27%) C#
3 234 (12.68%) Java
4 225 (12.19%) C++
5 146 (7.91%) TypeScript
6 79 (4.28%) JavaScript
7 75 (4.06%) SQL
8 60 (3.25%) C
9 38 (2.06%) Go
10 37 (2.00%) Rust
11 19 (1.03%) PHP
12 16 (0.87%) Scala
13 15 (0.81%) Kotlin
14 14 (0.76%) Embedded C
14 14 (0.76%) Ruby
15 13 (0.70%) F#
15 13 (0.70%) Haskell
16 11 (0.60%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.54%) Julia
18 8 (0.43%) R
Qualifications
1 108 (5.85%) Security Cleared
2 85 (4.60%) Degree
3 73 (3.95%) SC Cleared
4 48 (2.60%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (0.76%) 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 36 (1.95%) QA
2 18 (0.98%) 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%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 85 (4.60%) Docker
2 42 (2.28%) Firmware
3 16 (0.87%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 100 (5.42%) Kubernetes
2 21 (1.14%) Grafana
3 12 (0.65%) Ansible
4 3 (0.16%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.11%) kaniko
5 2 (0.11%) Plesk
5 2 (0.11%) Puppet
6 1 (0.054%) Argo
6 1 (0.054%) Istio
6 1 (0.054%) Kibana
6 1 (0.054%) Podman
Vendors
1 23 (1.25%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.92%) Salesforce
3 14 (0.76%) RedGate
4 9 (0.49%) Foundry
4 9 (0.49%) Google
4 9 (0.49%) Splunk
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 4 (0.22%) New Relic
10 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.16%) Revolut
10 3 (0.16%) Rockwell
11 2 (0.11%) ADVA
11 2 (0.11%) Okta
11 2 (0.11%) Thales
12 1 (0.054%) Virgin Media