Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 14 November 2025.

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

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 266 127 286
Rank change year-on-year -139 +159 -67
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 515 1,373 577
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.97% 2.02% 1.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.08% 2.13% 1.15%
Number of salaries quoted 359 908 463
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £56,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £105,000 £95,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £123,500 £122,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 47,621 64,483 50,300
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.89% 94.87% 95.49%
Number of salaries quoted 29,449 36,300 38,919
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,500 £50,055 £52,500
% change year-on-year -7.10% -4.66% -

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 -129 458 £80,000 +14.29% 654
London -38 256 £102,500 +13.89% 332
UK excluding London -164 243 £70,000 +7.69% 337
Work from Home -151 159 £87,500 +9.38% 418
North of England -42 71 £75,000 +20.00% 75
South West -54 47 £65,000 +8.33% 53
Scotland -35 45 £67,500 +3.85% 39
South East -127 40 £65,000 - 85
North West 0 37 £75,000 +20.00% 47
Yorkshire -16 23 £75,000 +25.00% 22
Midlands -7 20 £72,649 +11.77% 24
East of England -63 15 £65,000 -3.70% 49
West Midlands -2 12 £75,000 +15.38% 9
North East -14 11 £73,750 +12.66% 6
East Midlands -2 8 £70,000 +7.69% 15
Wales -15 5 - - 6

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

For the 6 months to 14 November 2025, 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.

1 512 (99.42%) Software Engineering
2 227 (44.08%) Agile
3 196 (38.06%) AWS
4 190 (36.89%) Java
5 166 (32.23%) Python
6 137 (26.60%) TypeScript
7 112 (21.75%) CI/CD
8 99 (19.22%) React
9 95 (18.45%) Kubernetes
9 95 (18.45%) SDLC
10 94 (18.25%) JavaScript
11 84 (16.31%) Problem-Solving
12 77 (14.95%) Azure
13 74 (14.37%) Microservices
14 70 (13.59%) C#
15 69 (13.40%) AI
16 66 (12.82%) C++
17 64 (12.43%) Apache
18 63 (12.23%) Amazon Athena
18 63 (12.23%) Apache Iceberg
18 63 (12.23%) Asset Management
18 63 (12.23%) Data Lake
18 63 (12.23%) gRPC
18 63 (12.23%) Investment Management
19 62 (12.04%) Operational Stability
19 62 (12.04%) Protocol Buffers
20 60 (11.65%) Full-Stack Development
21 59 (11.46%) Apache Airflow
21 59 (11.46%) Apache Arrow
21 59 (11.46%) Apache Ignite

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 64 (12.43%) Apache
2 59 (11.46%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (0.97%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.39%) Confluence
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.19%) JBoss
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.19%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 196 (38.06%) AWS
2 77 (14.95%) Azure
3 59 (11.46%) dbt
3 59 (11.46%) Snowflake
4 40 (7.77%) GCP
5 21 (4.08%) GitHub
6 17 (3.30%) Amazon EKS
7 14 (2.72%) SaaS
7 14 (2.72%) Serverless
8 11 (2.14%) Amazon EC2
8 11 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.75%) Amazon S3
9 9 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
10 8 (1.55%) Amazon ECS
10 8 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (1.17%) Amazon Bedrock
11 6 (1.17%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (0.97%) Kong
13 4 (0.78%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 4 (0.78%) Azure Event Grid
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.94%) Multicast
2 3 (0.58%) SSL
3 2 (0.39%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.39%) HTTP
3 2 (0.39%) Internet
3 2 (0.39%) RS-232
4 1 (0.19%) AMQP
4 1 (0.19%) DNS
4 1 (0.19%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (12.23%) Amazon Athena
1 63 (12.23%) Apache Iceberg
1 63 (12.23%) Data Lake
2 59 (11.46%) Apache Arrow
2 59 (11.46%) Apache Ignite
2 59 (11.46%) Dremio
3 27 (5.24%) Relational Database
4 26 (5.05%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (4.85%) NoSQL
6 17 (3.30%) MySQL
7 12 (2.33%) DynamoDB
7 12 (2.33%) KDB
8 10 (1.94%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (1.94%) MongoDB
9 9 (1.75%) Big Data
9 9 (1.75%) SQL Server
10 8 (1.55%) Kdb+
11 7 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
11 7 (1.36%) Redis
12 6 (1.17%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 29 (5.63%) Git
2 16 (3.11%) JIRA
3 8 (1.55%) Vite
4 7 (1.36%) JUnit
5 6 (1.17%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.17%) TeamCity
6 4 (0.78%) rollup.js
7 3 (0.58%) Maven
7 3 (0.58%) Mockito
8 2 (0.39%) Ant
8 2 (0.39%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.39%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.39%) webpack
9 1 (0.19%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.19%) GitLab
9 1 (0.19%) Gradle
9 1 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.19%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.19%) Rational Statemate
General
1 232 (45.05%) Finance
2 163 (31.65%) Banking
3 108 (20.97%) Law
4 107 (20.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 76 (14.76%) Front Office
6 66 (12.82%) Investment Banking
7 53 (10.29%) Social Skills
8 21 (4.08%) Financial Institution
9 19 (3.69%) Marketing
10 14 (2.72%) Retail
11 11 (2.14%) Analytical Skills
12 8 (1.55%) Back Office
12 8 (1.55%) Public Sector
13 7 (1.36%) Legal
14 6 (1.17%) Games
14 6 (1.17%) Health Technology
14 6 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.97%) Electronics
15 5 (0.97%) Manufacturing
16 4 (0.78%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (19.22%) React
2 63 (12.23%) gRPC
3 62 (12.04%) Protocol Buffers
4 59 (11.46%) NumPy
4 59 (11.46%) Pandas
4 59 (11.46%) SciPy
5 53 (10.29%) .NET
6 45 (8.74%) RESTful
7 35 (6.80%) Spring
8 30 (5.83%) AngularJS
8 30 (5.83%) Kafka
9 25 (4.85%) Spring Boot
10 21 (4.08%) GraphQL
11 19 (3.69%) CSS
12 16 (3.11%) FastAPI
12 16 (3.11%) OpenID
12 16 (3.11%) REST
13 15 (2.91%) FIX Protocol
13 15 (2.91%) Node.js
13 15 (2.91%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 90 (17.48%) Derivative
2 82 (15.92%) Cloud Native
3 78 (15.15%) Equities
4 69 (13.40%) Fixed Income
5 59 (11.46%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 59 (11.46%) Hedge funds
5 59 (11.46%) Pricing Data
6 47 (9.13%) Distributed Systems
7 32 (6.21%) Algorithms
8 19 (3.69%) Greenfield Project
8 19 (3.69%) Public Cloud
9 14 (2.72%) Legacy Code
10 13 (2.52%) Data Structures
11 10 (1.94%) AI Agents
11 10 (1.94%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.94%) Product Ownership
12 9 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (1.17%) Virtual Team
14 4 (0.78%) Distributed Applications
14 4 (0.78%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 42 (8.16%) Linux
2 10 (1.94%) Unix
3 5 (0.97%) Embedded Linux
4 3 (0.58%) Android
4 3 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.39%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 512 (99.42%) Software Engineering
2 227 (44.08%) Agile
3 112 (21.75%) CI/CD
4 95 (18.45%) SDLC
5 84 (16.31%) Problem-Solving
6 74 (14.37%) Microservices
7 69 (13.40%) AI
8 63 (12.23%) Asset Management
8 63 (12.23%) Investment Management
9 62 (12.04%) Operational Stability
10 60 (11.65%) Full-Stack Development
11 58 (11.26%) Computer Science
12 57 (11.07%) DevOps
13 51 (9.90%) Mentoring
14 43 (8.35%) Continuous Improvement
14 43 (8.35%) Mathematics
15 42 (8.16%) Machine Learning
16 41 (7.96%) Community of Practice
16 41 (7.96%) Fintech
17 40 (7.77%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 190 (36.89%) Java
2 166 (32.23%) Python
3 137 (26.60%) TypeScript
4 94 (18.25%) JavaScript
5 70 (13.59%) C#
6 66 (12.82%) C++
7 45 (8.74%) SQL
8 32 (6.21%) Rust
9 30 (5.83%) Go
10 29 (5.63%) C
11 13 (2.52%) Kotlin
12 12 (2.33%) Ruby
13 6 (1.17%) Delphi
14 5 (0.97%) PHP
15 4 (0.78%) Embedded C
15 4 (0.78%) Lua
15 4 (0.78%) Scala
15 4 (0.78%) Shell Script
16 2 (0.39%) MATLAB
16 2 (0.39%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 35 (6.80%) Degree
2 16 (3.11%) Security Cleared
3 9 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (1.75%) Master's Degree
4 7 (1.36%) SC Cleared
5 5 (0.97%) DV Cleared
5 5 (0.97%) PhD
6 4 (0.78%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.19%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.19%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.19%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.66%) QA
2 11 (2.14%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.78%) WCAG
4 2 (0.39%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.39%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.39%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.39%) JTAG
5 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.19%) ECSS
5 1 (0.19%) PSD2
System Software
1 49 (9.51%) Docker
2 7 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.36%) Virtual Servers
3 4 (0.78%) Firmware
4 2 (0.39%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 95 (18.45%) Kubernetes
2 46 (8.93%) Terraform
3 9 (1.75%) Grafana
4 6 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.78%) Ansible
Vendors
1 18 (3.50%) Google
2 11 (2.14%) Microsoft
3 9 (1.75%) Databricks
4 7 (1.36%) Oracle
5 6 (1.17%) OpenAI
6 5 (0.97%) MuleSoft
7 4 (0.78%) Facebook
7 4 (0.78%) MKS
7 4 (0.78%) Vertica
8 2 (0.39%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.39%) Avaloq
8 2 (0.39%) Roku
8 2 (0.39%) SAP
9 1 (0.19%) CA Agile Central
9 1 (0.19%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.19%) ForgeRock
9 1 (0.19%) Green Hills
9 1 (0.19%) SendGrid
9 1 (0.19%) Splunk