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 23 September 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 225 112
Rank change year-on-year +102 -113 +184
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,761 682 1,668
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.39% 2.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.62% 1.55% 2.32%
Number of salaries quoted 1,385 359 1,129
10th Percentile £58,750 £57,750 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +33.33% -
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £72,250 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +7.04% +12.50% -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 108,680 43,895 71,874
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.13% 89.63% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 74,405 25,767 42,756
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,250 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.73% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
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 23 September 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 23 September 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 +102 1,579 £75,000 -16.67% 1,254
UK excluding London +121 1,245 £72,250 +7.04% 685
London +19 433 £95,000 -13.64% 675
North of England +6 320 £75,000 +7.14% 171
Work from Home -71 304 £80,000 -27.27% 529
South East +140 253 £80,000 +14.29% 120
South West +59 231 £70,000 +7.69% 92
East of England +99 199 £70,000 +7.69% 103
North West -15 199 £75,000 +7.14% 119
Midlands +58 137 £70,000 -6.67% 65
West Midlands +28 76 £70,000 -6.67% 32
Yorkshire +20 72 £70,000 +7.69% 36
East Midlands +23 61 £60,000 -14.29% 33
Scotland +21 53 £75,000 +15.83% 95
North East -33 49 £90,000 +800.00% 16
Wales -32 47 £70,000 - 14
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 31

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

For the 6 months to 23 September 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 1,757 (99.77%) Software Engineering
2 280 (15.90%) Python
3 252 (14.31%) Agile
3 252 (14.31%) C#
4 235 (13.34%) C++
5 224 (12.72%) AWS
6 220 (12.49%) Java
7 203 (11.53%) AI
8 200 (11.36%) CI/CD
9 180 (10.22%) Mentoring
10 167 (9.48%) .NET
11 165 (9.37%) Full-Stack Development
12 145 (8.23%) TypeScript
13 127 (7.21%) DevOps
13 127 (7.21%) React
14 126 (7.16%) Microservices
15 110 (6.25%) Azure
16 107 (6.08%) Security Cleared
17 104 (5.91%) Linux
18 103 (5.85%) Test Automation
19 96 (5.45%) SDLC
20 93 (5.28%) Code Quality
21 90 (5.11%) JavaScript
22 89 (5.05%) Kubernetes
22 89 (5.05%) Technical Leadership
23 88 (5.00%) Problem-Solving
24 82 (4.66%) Degree
25 81 (4.60%) Node.js
26 80 (4.54%) Docker
27 79 (4.49%) SQL

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 (0.91%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.40%) Apache
3 4 (0.23%) Confluence
4 3 (0.17%) CMS
4 3 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.17%) WinCC
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.057%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.057%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.17%) Blender
1 3 (0.17%) Maya
2 1 (0.057%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 224 (12.72%) AWS
2 110 (6.25%) Azure
3 75 (4.26%) SaaS
4 72 (4.09%) GCP
5 46 (2.61%) Serverless
6 39 (2.21%) GitHub
7 24 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.14%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.91%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (0.80%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.57%) Amazon S3
12 10 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (0.45%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 6 (0.34%) Amazon SQS
14 6 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.34%) Supabase
15 5 (0.28%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.28%) Dynamics 365
16 4 (0.23%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 16 (0.91%) RS-232
2 14 (0.80%) Modbus
3 13 (0.74%) Bluetooth
4 12 (0.68%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.68%) Profibus
5 10 (0.57%) Multicast
5 10 (0.57%) Wireless
6 9 (0.51%) RS-485
6 9 (0.51%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.45%) Broadband
7 8 (0.45%) HTTP
8 7 (0.40%) Internet
8 7 (0.40%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.23%) Firewall
10 2 (0.11%) MQTT
10 2 (0.11%) RS-422
11 1 (0.057%) BGP
11 1 (0.057%) DNS
11 1 (0.057%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (3.58%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.76%) MySQL
3 28 (1.59%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.02%) Redis
5 17 (0.97%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.85%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.80%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (0.57%) DynamoDB
9 7 (0.40%) Big Data
10 6 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
11 5 (0.28%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (0.23%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.17%) MariaDB
14 2 (0.11%) DocumentDB
14 2 (0.11%) Flink
14 2 (0.11%) Neo4j
14 2 (0.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (3.29%) Git
2 27 (1.53%) JIRA
3 25 (1.42%) GitLab
4 17 (0.97%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.80%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.45%) Jenkins
8 6 (0.34%) Mocha
8 6 (0.34%) Selenium
9 5 (0.28%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.28%) NUnit
9 5 (0.28%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.23%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
11 3 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.17%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.17%) JUnit
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.11%) Appium
12 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 145 (8.23%) Finance
2 123 (6.98%) Social Skills
3 69 (3.92%) Electronics
4 56 (3.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 55 (3.12%) Banking
6 45 (2.56%) Public Sector
7 41 (2.33%) Manufacturing
8 40 (2.27%) Analytical Skills
9 37 (2.10%) Law
10 26 (1.48%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.19%) Retail
12 17 (0.97%) Marketing
13 14 (0.80%) Military
14 13 (0.74%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.68%) Automotive
16 11 (0.62%) Games
17 10 (0.57%) Front Office
17 10 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.51%) Legal
18 9 (0.51%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 167 (9.48%) .NET
2 127 (7.21%) React
3 81 (4.60%) Node.js
4 67 (3.80%) Terraform
5 64 (3.63%) Spring
6 49 (2.78%) WPF
7 45 (2.56%) RESTful
8 41 (2.33%) Spring Boot
9 40 (2.27%) Kafka
10 30 (1.70%) Next.js
11 28 (1.59%) REST
12 26 (1.48%) AngularJS
13 21 (1.19%) FastAPI
14 20 (1.14%) Vue
15 16 (0.91%) Django
15 16 (0.91%) React Native
16 13 (0.74%) CSS
17 12 (0.68%) FIX Protocol
18 11 (0.62%) .NET Core
18 11 (0.62%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 117 (6.64%) Cloud Native
2 58 (3.29%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.12%) Legacy Systems
4 47 (2.67%) Robotics
5 46 (2.61%) Algorithms
6 38 (2.16%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.65%) Greenfield Project
8 25 (1.42%) AI Agents
8 25 (1.42%) Product Ownership
9 22 (1.25%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.08%) Blog
11 17 (0.97%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (0.74%) Blockchain
12 13 (0.74%) Derivative
12 13 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (0.68%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.62%) Device Driver
14 11 (0.62%) Fixed Income
14 11 (0.62%) Legacy Applications
15 10 (0.57%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 104 (5.91%) Linux
2 28 (1.59%) Embedded Linux
3 20 (1.14%) FreeRTOS
4 18 (1.02%) Windows
5 8 (0.45%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.45%) Unix
6 6 (0.34%) Android
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.057%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,757 (99.77%) Software Engineering
2 252 (14.31%) Agile
3 203 (11.53%) AI
4 200 (11.36%) CI/CD
5 180 (10.22%) Mentoring
6 165 (9.37%) Full-Stack Development
7 127 (7.21%) DevOps
8 126 (7.16%) Microservices
9 103 (5.85%) Test Automation
10 96 (5.45%) SDLC
11 93 (5.28%) Code Quality
12 89 (5.05%) Technical Leadership
13 88 (5.00%) Problem-Solving
14 75 (4.26%) Continuous Improvement
15 71 (4.03%) Fintech
16 70 (3.98%) Computer Science
17 58 (3.29%) Event-Driven
17 58 (3.29%) Machine Learning
18 57 (3.24%) Infrastructure as Code
19 55 (3.12%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 280 (15.90%) Python
2 252 (14.31%) C#
3 235 (13.34%) C++
4 220 (12.49%) Java
5 145 (8.23%) TypeScript
6 90 (5.11%) JavaScript
7 79 (4.49%) SQL
8 74 (4.20%) C
9 41 (2.33%) Rust
10 33 (1.87%) Go
11 17 (0.97%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.91%) PHP
12 16 (0.91%) Scala
13 14 (0.80%) Ruby
14 13 (0.74%) F#
14 13 (0.74%) Haskell
14 13 (0.74%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.68%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.57%) Julia
17 8 (0.45%) R
Qualifications
1 107 (6.08%) Security Cleared
2 82 (4.66%) Degree
3 71 (4.03%) SC Cleared
4 52 (2.95%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.85%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (0.51%) PhD
8 6 (0.34%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.23%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.057%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.057%) Chartered Engineer
11 1 (0.057%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (2.21%) QA
2 18 (1.02%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.34%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.28%) GDPR
5 4 (0.23%) DO-178B
5 4 (0.23%) IEC 61508
5 4 (0.23%) MISRA
5 4 (0.23%) MISRA C
6 3 (0.17%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.057%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 80 (4.54%) Docker
2 53 (3.01%) Firmware
3 22 (1.25%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.057%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 89 (5.05%) Kubernetes
2 19 (1.08%) Grafana
3 11 (0.62%) Ansible
4 5 (0.28%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.17%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.057%) Argo
7 1 (0.057%) Istio
7 1 (0.057%) Kibana
7 1 (0.057%) Podman
Vendors
1 23 (1.31%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.97%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.62%) Google
3 11 (0.62%) RedGate
4 9 (0.51%) Splunk
5 8 (0.45%) Sage
5 8 (0.45%) Siemens
6 7 (0.40%) Databricks
6 7 (0.40%) Foundry
7 6 (0.34%) Oracle
8 5 (0.28%) Intel
8 5 (0.28%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.17%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.17%) New Relic
9 3 (0.17%) Revolut
9 3 (0.17%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.11%) ADVA
10 2 (0.11%) Okta
10 2 (0.11%) Thales
11 1 (0.057%) Virgin Media