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 1 October 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 235 118
Rank change year-on-year +116 -117 +174
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,829 663 1,606
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.55% 1.34% 2.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.67% 1.49% 2.25%
Number of salaries quoted 1,416 341 1,079
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +28.57% +3.70%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £72,500 £70,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.57% +16.67% -4.00%

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 109,576 44,426 71,253
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.91% 89.79% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 74,908 25,599 41,366
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,750
25th Percentile £40,875 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £74,258 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 1 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 1 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 +108 1,645 £75,000 -16.67% 1,354
UK excluding London +128 1,300 £72,500 +3.57% 747
London +26 448 £95,000 -13.64% 723
North of England +13 347 £75,000 +7.14% 180
Work from Home -46 324 £80,000 -27.27% 566
South East +131 257 £80,000 +14.29% 126
South West +65 240 £70,000 +7.69% 95
North West -6 214 £75,000 +7.14% 124
East of England +106 204 £70,000 +7.69% 117
Midlands +71 143 £70,000 -6.67% 72
Yorkshire +33 80 £70,000 +7.69% 38
West Midlands +21 77 £70,000 -6.67% 30
East Midlands +26 66 £60,000 -14.29% 42
Scotland +30 57 £75,000 +15.38% 116
North East -23 53 £80,000 +700.00% 18
Wales -28 47 £70,000 - 15
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 33

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

For the 6 months to 1 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 1,826 (99.84%) Software Engineering
2 287 (15.69%) Python
3 256 (14.00%) Agile
4 250 (13.67%) C#
5 235 (12.85%) AWS
6 233 (12.74%) C++
7 232 (12.68%) Java
8 215 (11.76%) AI
9 212 (11.59%) CI/CD
10 183 (10.01%) Mentoring
11 169 (9.24%) Full-Stack Development
12 164 (8.97%) .NET
13 152 (8.31%) TypeScript
14 132 (7.22%) Microservices
15 128 (7.00%) DevOps
15 128 (7.00%) React
16 108 (5.90%) Azure
16 108 (5.90%) Security Cleared
17 106 (5.80%) Test Automation
18 102 (5.58%) Linux
19 97 (5.30%) SDLC
20 95 (5.19%) Code Quality
20 95 (5.19%) Kubernetes
21 90 (4.92%) Problem-Solving
22 89 (4.87%) Technical Leadership
23 86 (4.70%) Degree
24 85 (4.65%) JavaScript
25 84 (4.59%) Docker
26 83 (4.54%) Node.js
27 80 (4.37%) Continuous Improvement

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 7 (0.38%) Apache
3 4 (0.22%) Confluence
4 3 (0.16%) CMS
4 3 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.16%) WinCC
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.055%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.055%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.16%) Blender
1 3 (0.16%) Maya
2 1 (0.055%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 235 (12.85%) AWS
2 108 (5.90%) Azure
3 72 (3.94%) GCP
4 70 (3.83%) SaaS
5 50 (2.73%) Serverless
6 36 (1.97%) GitHub
7 26 (1.42%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (0.93%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (0.77%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.66%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (0.55%) Amazon S3
14 8 (0.44%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 7 (0.38%) AWS CloudFormation
16 6 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
16 6 (0.33%) Supabase
17 5 (0.27%) Azure AI
17 5 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
18 4 (0.22%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.77%) RS-232
2 13 (0.71%) Ethernet
3 12 (0.66%) Bluetooth
3 12 (0.66%) Modbus
4 11 (0.60%) Profibus
5 10 (0.55%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.49%) Internet
6 9 (0.49%) Multicast
6 9 (0.49%) Wireless
7 8 (0.44%) Broadband
7 8 (0.44%) RS-485
7 8 (0.44%) ZigBee
8 5 (0.27%) HTTP
9 4 (0.22%) Firewall
10 3 (0.16%) MQTT
11 2 (0.11%) RS-422
12 1 (0.055%) BGP
12 1 (0.055%) DNS
12 1 (0.055%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.69%) MySQL
3 28 (1.53%) Relational Database
4 18 (0.98%) Redis
5 17 (0.93%) MongoDB
6 16 (0.87%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.77%) SQL Server
8 11 (0.60%) DynamoDB
9 10 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (0.38%) Big Data
11 6 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
13 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.22%) Delta Lake
14 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.16%) MariaDB
15 2 (0.11%) DocumentDB
15 2 (0.11%) Flink
15 2 (0.11%) Neo4j
15 2 (0.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 56 (3.06%) Git
2 26 (1.42%) JIRA
3 25 (1.37%) GitLab
4 19 (1.04%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.77%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.44%) Jenkins
8 7 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
9 6 (0.33%) Mocha
9 6 (0.33%) Selenium
10 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
10 5 (0.27%) NUnit
10 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
11 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
12 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
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%) CMake
General
1 146 (7.98%) Finance
2 127 (6.94%) Social Skills
3 67 (3.66%) Electronics
4 58 (3.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 55 (3.01%) Banking
6 45 (2.46%) Public Sector
7 41 (2.24%) Analytical Skills
8 39 (2.13%) Law
9 38 (2.08%) Manufacturing
10 30 (1.64%) Aerospace
11 23 (1.26%) Retail
12 17 (0.93%) Marketing
12 17 (0.93%) Military
13 15 (0.82%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.77%) Front Office
15 13 (0.71%) Games
16 11 (0.60%) Automotive
17 10 (0.55%) Health Technology
18 9 (0.49%) Legal
19 8 (0.44%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (8.97%) .NET
2 128 (7.00%) React
3 83 (4.54%) Node.js
4 72 (3.94%) Terraform
5 66 (3.61%) Spring
6 47 (2.57%) RESTful
7 46 (2.52%) WPF
8 43 (2.35%) Kafka
8 43 (2.35%) Spring Boot
9 30 (1.64%) Next.js
10 26 (1.42%) AngularJS
11 24 (1.31%) REST
12 23 (1.26%) FastAPI
13 20 (1.09%) Vue
14 16 (0.87%) Django
15 14 (0.77%) React Native
16 13 (0.71%) CSS
17 11 (0.60%) .NET Core
17 11 (0.60%) FIX Protocol
17 11 (0.60%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 125 (6.83%) Cloud Native
2 61 (3.34%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.01%) Legacy Systems
4 49 (2.68%) Robotics
5 45 (2.46%) Algorithms
6 37 (2.02%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
8 27 (1.48%) Product Ownership
9 26 (1.42%) AI Agents
10 22 (1.20%) Blog
11 20 (1.09%) Public Cloud
12 19 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
13 13 (0.71%) Blockchain
13 13 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (0.66%) Derivative
14 12 (0.66%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.60%) Device Driver
15 11 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
16 10 (0.55%) Fixed Income
17 9 (0.49%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 102 (5.58%) Linux
2 28 (1.53%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (0.98%) Windows
4 17 (0.93%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.55%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.49%) Android
7 8 (0.44%) Unix
8 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.055%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,826 (99.84%) Software Engineering
2 256 (14.00%) Agile
3 215 (11.76%) AI
4 212 (11.59%) CI/CD
5 183 (10.01%) Mentoring
6 169 (9.24%) Full-Stack Development
7 132 (7.22%) Microservices
8 128 (7.00%) DevOps
9 106 (5.80%) Test Automation
10 97 (5.30%) SDLC
11 95 (5.19%) Code Quality
12 90 (4.92%) Problem-Solving
13 89 (4.87%) Technical Leadership
14 80 (4.37%) Continuous Improvement
15 70 (3.83%) Fintech
16 69 (3.77%) Computer Science
17 62 (3.39%) Event-Driven
18 59 (3.23%) Infrastructure as Code
19 58 (3.17%) Containerisation
20 56 (3.06%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 287 (15.69%) Python
2 250 (13.67%) C#
3 233 (12.74%) C++
4 232 (12.68%) Java
5 152 (8.31%) TypeScript
6 85 (4.65%) JavaScript
7 78 (4.26%) SQL
8 71 (3.88%) C
9 39 (2.13%) Rust
10 37 (2.02%) Go
11 17 (0.93%) Embedded C
11 17 (0.93%) PHP
12 16 (0.87%) Scala
13 14 (0.77%) Kotlin
13 14 (0.77%) Ruby
14 13 (0.71%) F#
14 13 (0.71%) Haskell
15 12 (0.66%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.55%) Julia
17 8 (0.44%) R
Qualifications
1 108 (5.90%) Security Cleared
2 86 (4.70%) Degree
3 74 (4.05%) SC Cleared
4 50 (2.73%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.82%) Master's Degree
7 13 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (0.55%) 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 (0.055%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.055%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (2.02%) QA
2 19 (1.04%) 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%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.11%) MISRA
7 2 (0.11%) MISRA C
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.055%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 84 (4.59%) Docker
2 48 (2.62%) Firmware
3 20 (1.09%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.055%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 95 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.09%) Grafana
3 11 (0.60%) Ansible
4 4 (0.22%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.16%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.055%) Argo
7 1 (0.055%) Functional Safety
7 1 (0.055%) Istio
7 1 (0.055%) Kibana
7 1 (0.055%) Podman
Vendors
1 22 (1.20%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.93%) Salesforce
3 13 (0.71%) RedGate
4 10 (0.55%) Google
5 9 (0.49%) Splunk
6 8 (0.44%) Foundry
6 8 (0.44%) Sage
6 8 (0.44%) Siemens
7 7 (0.38%) Databricks
8 6 (0.33%) Oracle
9 5 (0.27%) Intel
9 5 (0.27%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.16%) New Relic
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 (0.055%) Virgin Media