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 2 June 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 153 206 138
Rank change year-on-year +53 -68 +151
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,237 733 2,040
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.33% 1.68% 1.99%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.42% 1.88% 2.10%
Number of salaries quoted 1,002 448 1,479
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £77,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +19.23% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £130,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% +8.33% -7.69%

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 87,037 39,088 96,954
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.48% 89.36% 94.80%
Number of salaries quoted 58,034 21,982 70,659
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.90% +1.93% -6.54%

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 2 June 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 2 June 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 +50 1,078 £75,000 -4.83% 793
UK excluding London +71 862 £70,000 +7.69% 475
London +17 309 £95,000 - 380
Work from Home -39 301 £70,000 -9.68% 360
South East +130 224 £75,000 +15.38% 87
North of England -64 189 £75,000 +9.09% 130
South West +54 151 £70,000 - 62
North West -60 112 £75,000 +7.14% 91
East of England +54 104 £70,000 +18.64% 59
Midlands +56 96 £65,000 -10.34% 57
Scotland +24 78 £67,500 +8.00% 38
West Midlands +23 63 £69,653 -3.93% 44
Yorkshire -8 56 £70,000 -11.84% 20
East Midlands +2 33 £65,000 - 13
North East -35 21 £80,000 +45.45% 19
Wales -24 19 £56,250 -13.46% 10
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 35

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

For the 6 months to 2 June 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 1,229 (99.35%) Software Engineering
2 202 (16.33%) C++
3 198 (16.01%) C#
4 178 (14.39%) Java
5 175 (14.15%) Agile
5 175 (14.15%) Python
6 166 (13.42%) AWS
7 163 (13.18%) .NET
8 140 (11.32%) Full-Stack Development
9 126 (10.19%) CI/CD
10 110 (8.89%) Microservices
11 108 (8.73%) Mentoring
12 104 (8.41%) Azure
13 95 (7.68%) React
14 94 (7.60%) Linux
15 92 (7.44%) DevOps
16 89 (7.19%) TypeScript
17 88 (7.11%) JavaScript
18 83 (6.71%) SaaS
19 80 (6.47%) AI
19 80 (6.47%) SDLC
20 77 (6.22%) C
20 77 (6.22%) Security Cleared
20 77 (6.22%) Test Automation
21 76 (6.14%) Computer Science
21 76 (6.14%) Degree
21 76 (6.14%) Kubernetes
21 76 (6.14%) SQL
22 65 (5.25%) Docker
23 61 (4.93%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.29%) SharePoint Server
2 4 (0.32%) Apache Solr
3 3 (0.24%) Apache
3 3 (0.24%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.24%) WinCC
4 2 (0.16%) CMS
4 2 (0.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (0.16%) Blender
1 2 (0.16%) Maya
Cloud Services
1 166 (13.42%) AWS
2 104 (8.41%) Azure
3 83 (6.71%) SaaS
4 52 (4.20%) GCP
5 36 (2.91%) GitHub
6 29 (2.34%) Serverless
7 18 (1.46%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 17 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
9 16 (1.29%) Anthropic Claude
10 15 (1.21%) Azure AKS
11 13 (1.05%) GitHub Copilot
12 12 (0.97%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (0.73%) Azure Event Grid
14 7 (0.57%) Stripe
15 5 (0.40%) Amazon S3
15 5 (0.40%) Amazon SQS
16 4 (0.32%) Amazon OpenSearch
16 4 (0.32%) AWS Lambda
16 4 (0.32%) IaaS
16 4 (0.32%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.70%) RS-232
2 17 (1.37%) Ethernet
3 16 (1.29%) Multicast
4 11 (0.89%) HTTP
4 11 (0.89%) Modbus
5 10 (0.81%) Bluetooth
6 9 (0.73%) Profibus
6 9 (0.73%) Wireless
7 6 (0.49%) Broadband
7 6 (0.49%) RS-485
7 6 (0.49%) ZigBee
8 1 (0.081%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (2.51%) SQL Server
2 22 (1.78%) NoSQL
3 17 (1.37%) MySQL
3 17 (1.37%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (1.05%) MongoDB
5 10 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
6 8 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
7 7 (0.57%) Big Data
8 5 (0.40%) BigQuery
9 4 (0.32%) DocumentDB
9 4 (0.32%) Neo4j
9 4 (0.32%) Redis
9 4 (0.32%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.24%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.24%) Geospatial Data
10 3 (0.24%) MariaDB
11 1 (0.081%) DB2
11 1 (0.081%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 51 (4.12%) Git
2 23 (1.86%) JIRA
3 19 (1.54%) TeamCity
4 18 (1.46%) GitLab
5 16 (1.29%) Claude Code
6 13 (1.05%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.73%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.24%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.16%) GDB
9 2 (0.16%) JUnit
9 2 (0.16%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.081%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.081%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.081%) LabVIEW
10 1 (0.081%) NUnit
10 1 (0.081%) Selenium
10 1 (0.081%) WinDbg
10 1 (0.081%) Xcode
General
1 133 (10.75%) Finance
2 62 (5.01%) Banking
3 50 (4.04%) Social Skills
4 42 (3.40%) Electronics
5 30 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 29 (2.34%) Public Sector
7 28 (2.26%) Manufacturing
8 20 (1.62%) Automotive
8 20 (1.62%) Retail
9 18 (1.46%) Analytical Skills
10 17 (1.37%) Law
11 14 (1.13%) Back Office
11 14 (1.13%) Financial Institution
11 14 (1.13%) Tech for Good
12 12 (0.97%) Aerospace
12 12 (0.97%) Games
13 11 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.57%) Agriculture
14 7 (0.57%) Military
14 7 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 163 (13.18%) .NET
2 95 (7.68%) React
3 60 (4.85%) Node.js
4 40 (3.23%) WPF
5 39 (3.15%) REST
6 31 (2.51%) RESTful
7 30 (2.43%) Spring
8 25 (2.02%) .NET Core
9 23 (1.86%) Spring Boot
10 22 (1.78%) React Native
11 17 (1.37%) .NET Framework
12 16 (1.29%) AngularJS
12 16 (1.29%) Boost C++ Libraries
12 16 (1.29%) FIX Protocol
12 16 (1.29%) pytest
13 15 (1.21%) Ruby on Rails
13 15 (1.21%) Yocto
14 14 (1.13%) Next.js
14 14 (1.13%) Vue
15 12 (0.97%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 87 (7.03%) Cloud Native
2 54 (4.37%) Algorithms
3 38 (3.07%) Legacy Systems
4 37 (2.99%) Embedded Systems
5 26 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
6 22 (1.78%) Greenfield Project
7 18 (1.46%) Derivative
8 17 (1.37%) IoT
9 16 (1.29%) Equities
9 16 (1.29%) Fixed Income
10 15 (1.21%) CAN bus
10 15 (1.21%) Device Driver
10 15 (1.21%) Robotics
11 11 (0.89%) Public Cloud
12 9 (0.73%) AI Agents
12 9 (0.73%) Client/Server
12 9 (0.73%) Sports Betting
13 8 (0.65%) Legacy Applications
13 8 (0.65%) Product Ownership
14 7 (0.57%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 94 (7.60%) Linux
2 30 (2.43%) Embedded Linux
3 16 (1.29%) FreeRTOS
4 11 (0.89%) Android
5 6 (0.49%) Windows
6 4 (0.32%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.081%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,229 (99.35%) Software Engineering
2 175 (14.15%) Agile
3 140 (11.32%) Full-Stack Development
4 126 (10.19%) CI/CD
5 110 (8.89%) Microservices
6 108 (8.73%) Mentoring
7 92 (7.44%) DevOps
8 80 (6.47%) AI
8 80 (6.47%) SDLC
9 77 (6.22%) Test Automation
10 76 (6.14%) Computer Science
11 61 (4.93%) Problem-Solving
12 58 (4.69%) Containerisation
13 56 (4.53%) Fintech
14 54 (4.37%) Technical Leadership
15 48 (3.88%) Continuous Improvement
16 47 (3.80%) Embedded Software Development
17 45 (3.64%) Scrum
18 43 (3.48%) Low Latency
19 42 (3.40%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 202 (16.33%) C++
2 198 (16.01%) C#
3 178 (14.39%) Java
4 175 (14.15%) Python
5 89 (7.19%) TypeScript
6 88 (7.11%) JavaScript
7 77 (6.22%) C
8 76 (6.14%) SQL
9 41 (3.31%) Rust
10 27 (2.18%) Go
11 20 (1.62%) Embedded C
12 19 (1.54%) PHP
13 15 (1.21%) Ruby
14 12 (0.97%) Scala
15 9 (0.73%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.65%) F#
16 8 (0.65%) Haskell
16 8 (0.65%) Julia
16 8 (0.65%) MATLAB
17 7 (0.57%) VB
Qualifications
1 77 (6.22%) Security Cleared
2 76 (6.14%) Degree
3 60 (4.85%) SC Cleared
4 27 (2.18%) DV Cleared
5 24 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (1.78%) Master's Degree
7 13 (1.05%) PhD
8 3 (0.24%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.24%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.16%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.081%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (2.26%) QA
2 16 (1.29%) IEC 61508
2 16 (1.29%) MISRA
2 16 (1.29%) MISRA C
3 10 (0.81%) Accessibility
4 3 (0.24%) DO-178B
4 3 (0.24%) GDPR
4 3 (0.24%) IEC 61131
5 1 (0.081%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 65 (5.25%) Docker
2 43 (3.48%) Firmware
3 18 (1.46%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.16%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.16%) KVM
4 2 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.081%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 76 (6.14%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.23%) Terraform
3 20 (1.62%) Grafana
4 13 (1.05%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.40%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.24%) Ansible
6 3 (0.24%) Plesk
7 1 (0.081%) Argo
Vendors
1 8 (0.65%) Microsoft
2 7 (0.57%) Google
2 7 (0.57%) HubSpot
2 7 (0.57%) Siemens
3 3 (0.24%) Rockwell
3 3 (0.24%) Splunk
4 2 (0.16%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.16%) VMware
5 1 (0.081%) Palantir
5 1 (0.081%) TOWER Software