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 17 February 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 214 192 219
Rank change year-on-year -22 +27 +51
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 703 786 1,070
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.60% 1.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.14% 1.75% 1.50%
Number of salaries quoted 551 526 825
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 £95,938 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £116,250 £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 61,522 44,882 71,097
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.20% 91.58% 94.87%
Number of salaries quoted 38,726 23,250 55,591
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,259
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 17 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 17 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 -2 602 £75,000 +7.14% 202
UK excluding London -25 434 £70,000 +7.69% 174
Work from Home -53 238 £72,500 +3.57% 163
London +16 235 £95,000 +5.56% 81
South East -15 107 £70,000 +7.69% 33
South West +34 89 £65,000 - 30
North of England -33 86 £75,000 +15.38% 33
Scotland -14 68 £67,500 +5.88% 39
North West -14 42 £70,000 +7.69% 20
East of England -19 42 £70,000 +3.70% 21
Midlands +19 35 £65,000 +8.33% 16
Yorkshire -27 34 £75,000 -4.91% 9
East Midlands 0 18 £65,000 -3.70% 6
West Midlands +19 17 £65,000 +8.33% 10
North East -19 10 £75,000 +36.36% 4
Wales -13 7 £60,000 -7.69% 5

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 689 (98.01%) Software Engineering
2 130 (18.49%) AWS
3 125 (17.78%) Java
4 112 (15.93%) .NET
5 107 (15.22%) Agile
6 101 (14.37%) C#
7 98 (13.94%) CI/CD
8 94 (13.37%) Full-Stack Development
9 87 (12.38%) Microservices
10 80 (11.38%) C++
10 80 (11.38%) Kubernetes
10 80 (11.38%) Python
11 79 (11.24%) Azure
11 79 (11.24%) Mentoring
12 75 (10.67%) React
13 71 (10.10%) DevOps
14 63 (8.96%) TypeScript
15 60 (8.53%) Linux
16 52 (7.40%) Problem-Solving
17 51 (7.25%) Test Automation
18 50 (7.11%) Computer Science
18 50 (7.11%) Degree
19 49 (6.97%) GCP
20 48 (6.83%) Fintech
20 48 (6.83%) SaaS
21 47 (6.69%) JavaScript
21 47 (6.69%) SDLC
21 47 (6.69%) SQL
22 46 (6.54%) Containerisation
22 46 (6.54%) Docker

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 9 (1.28%) Apache
2 8 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.43%) CMS
4 2 (0.28%) 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
1 130 (18.49%) AWS
2 79 (11.24%) Azure
3 49 (6.97%) GCP
4 48 (6.83%) SaaS
5 28 (3.98%) GitHub
6 16 (2.28%) Amazon EKS
7 14 (1.99%) Azure AKS
8 11 (1.56%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.42%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 10 (1.42%) GitHub Copilot
10 9 (1.28%) Azure Event Grid
10 9 (1.28%) dbt
10 9 (1.28%) Snowflake
11 8 (1.14%) Serverless
11 8 (1.14%) Stripe
12 5 (0.71%) 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 (1.85%) Multicast
2 10 (1.42%) HTTP
3 7 (1.00%) Ethernet
3 7 (1.00%) RS-232
4 4 (0.57%) Broadband
5 1 (0.14%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (4.41%) SQL Server
2 20 (2.84%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (2.70%) NoSQL
4 11 (1.56%) Elasticsearch
5 10 (1.42%) BigQuery
6 9 (1.28%) Amazon Athena
6 9 (1.28%) MongoDB
7 8 (1.14%) Apache Arrow
7 8 (1.14%) Apache Iceberg
7 8 (1.14%) Apache Ignite
7 8 (1.14%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.14%) Dremio
8 7 (1.00%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.85%) Redis
10 4 (0.57%) DynamoDB
10 4 (0.57%) MySQL
11 3 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
12 2 (0.28%) MariaDB
13 1 (0.14%) Big Data
13 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 30 (4.27%) Git
2 22 (3.13%) JIRA
3 18 (2.56%) TeamCity
4 8 (1.14%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.85%) 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 (0.28%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.28%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.28%) Xcode
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%) Rational Statemate
9 1 (0.14%) Selenium
9 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio
General
1 142 (20.20%) Finance
2 61 (8.68%) Banking
3 44 (6.26%) Social Skills
4 23 (3.27%) Financial Institution
4 23 (3.27%) Retail
5 20 (2.84%) Law
6 17 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (2.13%) Games
8 14 (1.99%) Back Office
9 12 (1.71%) Tech for Good
10 10 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.28%) Automotive
12 8 (1.14%) Front Office
12 8 (1.14%) Investment Banking
13 7 (1.00%) Public Sector
14 5 (0.71%) Aerospace
14 5 (0.71%) Analytical Skills
14 5 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.71%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.57%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (15.93%) .NET
2 75 (10.67%) React
3 36 (5.12%) RESTful
4 32 (4.55%) Node.js
5 30 (4.27%) REST
6 24 (3.41%) React Native
7 23 (3.27%) .NET Core
8 18 (2.56%) GraphQL
9 17 (2.42%) .NET Framework
9 17 (2.42%) AngularJS
10 15 (2.13%) Ruby on Rails
11 14 (1.99%) Spring
12 13 (1.85%) Boost C++ Libraries
12 13 (1.85%) FIX Protocol
12 13 (1.85%) pytest
13 12 (1.71%) Spring Boot
14 11 (1.56%) Django
15 10 (1.42%) CSS
15 10 (1.42%) Entity Framework
15 10 (1.42%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 67 (9.53%) Cloud Native
2 26 (3.70%) Distributed Systems
3 25 (3.56%) Algorithms
4 22 (3.13%) Derivative
5 21 (2.99%) Embedded Systems
5 21 (2.99%) Equities
5 21 (2.99%) Fixed Income
6 13 (1.85%) IoT
7 11 (1.56%) CAN bus
7 11 (1.56%) Hedge funds
7 11 (1.56%) Public Cloud
8 10 (1.42%) Greenfield Project
8 10 (1.42%) Legacy Code
9 9 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (1.28%) Robotics
10 8 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 8 (1.14%) Pricing Data
11 7 (1.00%) Blog
11 7 (1.00%) Device Driver
12 5 (0.71%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 60 (8.53%) Linux
2 19 (2.70%) Embedded Linux
3 17 (2.42%) Android
4 6 (0.85%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.28%) Unix
6 1 (0.14%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 689 (98.01%) Software Engineering
2 107 (15.22%) Agile
3 98 (13.94%) CI/CD
4 94 (13.37%) Full-Stack Development
5 87 (12.38%) Microservices
6 79 (11.24%) Mentoring
7 71 (10.10%) DevOps
8 52 (7.40%) Problem-Solving
9 51 (7.25%) Test Automation
10 50 (7.11%) Computer Science
11 48 (6.83%) Fintech
12 47 (6.69%) SDLC
13 46 (6.54%) Containerisation
14 44 (6.26%) Technical Leadership
15 42 (5.97%) AI
16 35 (4.98%) Scrum
17 34 (4.84%) Clean Code
18 32 (4.55%) Continuous Improvement
19 28 (3.98%) User Experience
20 26 (3.70%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 125 (17.78%) Java
2 101 (14.37%) C#
3 80 (11.38%) C++
3 80 (11.38%) Python
4 63 (8.96%) TypeScript
5 47 (6.69%) JavaScript
5 47 (6.69%) SQL
6 36 (5.12%) C
7 25 (3.56%) Rust
8 23 (3.27%) Go
9 19 (2.70%) Kotlin
10 16 (2.28%) PHP
11 15 (2.13%) Ruby
12 8 (1.14%) Embedded C
13 6 (0.85%) Delphi
14 4 (0.57%) Scala
14 4 (0.57%) VB
15 3 (0.43%) Bash
15 3 (0.43%) Swift
16 2 (0.28%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 50 (7.11%) Degree
2 23 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
3 19 (2.70%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.42%) Master's Degree
5 15 (2.13%) SC Cleared
6 7 (1.00%) PhD
7 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.14%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.14%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.99%) QA
2 11 (1.56%) IEC 61508
2 11 (1.56%) MISRA
2 11 (1.56%) MISRA C
3 6 (0.85%) 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 46 (6.54%) Docker
2 7 (1.00%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.00%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (0.85%) Firmware
4 2 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.28%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.28%) KVM
4 2 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 80 (11.38%) Kubernetes
2 31 (4.41%) Terraform
3 16 (2.28%) Grafana
4 11 (1.56%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.28%) Ansible
5 2 (0.28%) Argo
6 1 (0.14%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 13 (1.85%) Google
2 9 (1.28%) Microsoft
3 8 (1.14%) HubSpot
4 2 (0.28%) Adobe
4 2 (0.28%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (0.28%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.28%) SAP
4 2 (0.28%) VMware
5 1 (0.14%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.14%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.14%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.14%) New Relic