Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £90,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 13 October 2025.

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

6 months to
13 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 235 120 286
Rank change year-on-year -115 +166 -103
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 633 1,485 606
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.29% 2.08% 1.07%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.44% 2.18% 1.12%
Number of salaries quoted 316 998 493
10th Percentile £60,000 £50,000 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £59,438 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £115,000 £95,000 £81,250
90th Percentile £135,000 £122,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £63,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year +10.24% +1.60% -2.91%

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 44,035 68,087 54,004
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.76% 95.37% 95.62%
Number of salaries quoted 25,680 38,799 41,765
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £32,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -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 13 October 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 13 October 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 -101 586 £90,000 +28.57% 304
UK excluding London -116 356 £70,000 +10.24% 264
Work from Home -64 341 £110,000 +29.41% 225
London -33 258 £110,000 +15.79% 91
North of England +24 227 £70,000 +16.67% 68
North West +67 206 £74,500 +16.86% 37
Scotland -47 37 £67,500 +12.50% 18
South East -141 33 £67,500 +3.85% 78
South West -57 32 £65,000 +8.33% 23
Midlands -31 13 £75,000 +15.38% 27
East of England -76 12 £65,000 -3.70% 38
Yorkshire -24 11 £75,000 +25.00% 22
North East -6 10 £10,000 -82.14% 9
West Midlands -19 7 £75,000 +15.38% 11
East Midlands -14 6 £70,000 +7.69% 16
Wales -12 2 - - 12

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

For the 6 months to 13 October 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.

1 630 (99.53%) Software Engineering
2 422 (66.67%) Agile
3 386 (60.98%) AWS
4 378 (59.72%) Java
5 368 (58.14%) Python
6 296 (46.76%) JavaScript
7 281 (44.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 256 (40.44%) Azure
9 253 (39.97%) Microservices
10 242 (38.23%) C++
11 236 (37.28%) .NET
12 230 (36.33%) Finance
13 220 (34.76%) Machine Learning
14 219 (34.60%) Mentoring
15 211 (33.33%) Rust
16 210 (33.18%) Linux
17 208 (32.86%) GCP
18 205 (32.39%) Go
19 203 (32.07%) Scrum
20 195 (30.81%) User Experience
20 195 (30.81%) Node.js
21 194 (30.65%) Security Cleared
22 188 (29.70%) Cloud Security
23 187 (29.54%) Data Engineering
24 184 (29.07%) DV Cleared
25 182 (28.75%) AWS Certification
26 181 (28.59%) Site Reliability Engineering
27 179 (28.28%) Self-Motivation
28 178 (28.12%) Linux Command Line
28 178 (28.12%) Cyberattack

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 79 (12.48%) Apache
2 75 (11.85%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (0.79%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.32%) Confluence
5 1 (0.16%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.16%) JBoss
5 1 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 2 (0.32%) Simulink
2 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 386 (60.98%) AWS
2 256 (40.44%) Azure
3 208 (32.86%) GCP
4 75 (11.85%) dbt
4 75 (11.85%) Snowflake
5 14 (2.21%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (2.21%) GitHub
6 13 (2.05%) Serverless
7 11 (1.74%) Amazon EC2
8 10 (1.58%) Amazon EKS
9 9 (1.42%) Amazon S3
10 8 (1.26%) Amazon ECS
10 8 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (1.11%) SaaS
12 6 (0.95%) Amazon Bedrock
12 6 (0.95%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 6 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (0.95%) Azure Event Grid
13 5 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.79%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.11%) Multicast
2 4 (0.63%) HTTPS
3 3 (0.47%) SSL
4 2 (0.32%) Internet
5 1 (0.16%) AMQP
5 1 (0.16%) DNS
5 1 (0.16%) GSM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (12.48%) Amazon Athena
1 79 (12.48%) Apache Iceberg
1 79 (12.48%) Data Lake
2 75 (11.85%) Apache Arrow
2 75 (11.85%) Apache Ignite
2 75 (11.85%) Dremio
3 26 (4.11%) Relational Database
4 23 (3.63%) PostgreSQL
5 19 (3.00%) MySQL
5 19 (3.00%) NoSQL
6 12 (1.90%) KDB
7 10 (1.58%) DynamoDB
7 10 (1.58%) MongoDB
8 9 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
8 9 (1.42%) Azure SQL Database
8 9 (1.42%) Big Data
9 8 (1.26%) Kdb+
9 8 (1.26%) SQL Server
10 7 (1.11%) Redis
11 5 (0.79%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 28 (4.42%) Git
2 13 (2.05%) JIRA
3 8 (1.26%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.26%) Vite
4 7 (1.11%) JUnit
5 4 (0.63%) rollup.js
6 3 (0.47%) GitLab
6 3 (0.47%) Maven
6 3 (0.47%) Mockito
7 2 (0.32%) Ant
7 2 (0.32%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.32%) Moq
7 2 (0.32%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.32%) SpecFlow
7 2 (0.32%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.32%) webpack
8 1 (0.16%) gcov
8 1 (0.16%) Gradle
8 1 (0.16%) Postman
8 1 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 281 (44.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 230 (36.33%) Finance
3 170 (26.86%) Banking
4 103 (16.27%) Law
5 92 (14.53%) Front Office
6 82 (12.95%) Investment Banking
7 48 (7.58%) Social Skills
8 17 (2.69%) Marketing
9 14 (2.21%) Retail
10 13 (2.05%) Financial Institution
11 11 (1.74%) Analytical Skills
12 7 (1.11%) Automotive
12 7 (1.11%) Legal
12 7 (1.11%) Manufacturing
13 6 (0.95%) Games
13 6 (0.95%) Health Technology
13 6 (0.95%) Military
14 5 (0.79%) Public Sector
15 4 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
15 4 (0.63%) Private Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (37.28%) .NET
2 195 (30.81%) Node.js
3 97 (15.32%) React
4 79 (12.48%) gRPC
5 78 (12.32%) Protocol Buffers
6 75 (11.85%) NumPy
6 75 (11.85%) Pandas
6 75 (11.85%) SciPy
7 37 (5.85%) AngularJS
7 37 (5.85%) RESTful
8 36 (5.69%) Spring
9 34 (5.37%) Kafka
10 25 (3.95%) REST
10 25 (3.95%) Spring Boot
11 24 (3.79%) Web Services
12 22 (3.48%) OAuth
13 21 (3.32%) OpenID
14 19 (3.00%) GraphQL
15 17 (2.69%) CSS
16 15 (2.37%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 179 (28.28%) Self-Motivation
2 178 (28.12%) Cyberattack
2 178 (28.12%) Linux Command Line
3 103 (16.27%) Derivative
4 91 (14.38%) Equities
5 82 (12.95%) Fixed Income
6 75 (11.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 75 (11.85%) Hedge funds
6 75 (11.85%) Pricing Data
7 73 (11.53%) Cloud Native
8 44 (6.95%) Distributed Systems
9 32 (5.06%) Algorithms
10 21 (3.32%) Greenfield Project
11 16 (2.53%) Public Cloud
12 15 (2.37%) Data Structures
13 12 (1.90%) AI Agents
13 12 (1.90%) Legacy Code
13 12 (1.90%) Product Ownership
14 10 (1.58%) Management Information System
15 7 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 210 (33.18%) Linux
2 10 (1.58%) Unix
3 4 (0.63%) Android
3 4 (0.63%) Apple iOS
3 4 (0.63%) Windows
4 1 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 630 (99.53%) Software Engineering
2 422 (66.67%) Agile
3 253 (39.97%) Microservices
4 220 (34.76%) Machine Learning
5 219 (34.60%) Mentoring
6 203 (32.07%) Scrum
7 195 (30.81%) User Experience
8 188 (29.70%) Cloud Security
9 187 (29.54%) Data Engineering
10 181 (28.59%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 101 (15.96%) CI/CD
12 90 (14.22%) SDLC
13 85 (13.43%) Investment Management
14 82 (12.95%) Problem-Solving
15 79 (12.48%) Asset Management
16 67 (10.58%) AI
17 62 (9.79%) Operational Stability
18 61 (9.64%) Full-Stack Development
19 53 (8.37%) DevOps
20 51 (8.06%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 378 (59.72%) Java
2 368 (58.14%) Python
3 296 (46.76%) JavaScript
4 242 (38.23%) C++
5 211 (33.33%) Rust
6 205 (32.39%) Go
7 161 (25.43%) TypeScript
8 58 (9.16%) C#
9 39 (6.16%) SQL
10 24 (3.79%) C
11 11 (1.74%) Kotlin
11 11 (1.74%) Ruby
12 5 (0.79%) MATLAB
13 4 (0.63%) Lua
13 4 (0.63%) Scala
13 4 (0.63%) Shell Script
14 3 (0.47%) BrightScript
14 3 (0.47%) Objective-C
15 2 (0.32%) Embedded C
15 2 (0.32%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 194 (30.65%) Security Cleared
2 184 (29.07%) DV Cleared
3 182 (28.75%) AWS Certification
4 178 (28.12%) AWS Certified Developer
4 178 (28.12%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 28 (4.42%) Degree
6 9 (1.42%) Master's Degree
7 6 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (0.79%) PhD
9 4 (0.63%) SC Cleared
10 2 (0.32%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (0.16%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.16%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.00%) QA
2 11 (1.74%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.63%) WCAG
4 2 (0.32%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.32%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.32%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.32%) JTAG
5 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.16%) PSD2
System Software
1 51 (8.06%) Docker
2 5 (0.79%) Firmware
3 4 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (0.63%) Virtual Servers
4 2 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 87 (13.74%) Kubernetes
2 43 (6.79%) Terraform
3 11 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.95%) Ansible
5 3 (0.47%) Grafana
6 2 (0.32%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.16%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 14 (2.21%) Google
2 12 (1.90%) Microsoft
3 10 (1.58%) Ping Identity
4 9 (1.42%) Databricks
5 7 (1.11%) Oracle
6 6 (0.95%) ForgeRock
6 6 (0.95%) OpenAI
7 5 (0.79%) MuleSoft
8 4 (0.63%) Facebook
8 4 (0.63%) MKS
8 4 (0.63%) Vertica
9 3 (0.47%) Roku
10 2 (0.32%) Atlassian
10 2 (0.32%) Avaloq
10 2 (0.32%) Splunk
11 1 (0.16%) CA Agile Central
11 1 (0.16%) Dynatrace
11 1 (0.16%) IBM
11 1 (0.16%) QNX
11 1 (0.16%) SendGrid