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 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 224 108
Rank change year-on-year +101 -116 +188
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,724 701 1,767
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.50% 1.42% 2.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.61% 1.58% 2.38%
Number of salaries quoted 1,360 378 1,206
10th Percentile £58,250 £58,750 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £65,465
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +37.48% -3.02%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year - +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 107,222 44,266 74,164
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.32% 89.67% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 73,597 26,014 44,625
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,400 £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 £75,000 £73,750
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 17 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 17 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 +92 1,541 £75,000 -16.67% 1,465
UK excluding London +118 1,211 £70,000 - 761
London +11 427 £95,000 -13.64% 807
North of England +11 312 £75,000 +7.14% 187
Work from Home -69 304 £75,000 -31.82% 611
South East +130 251 £80,000 +14.29% 155
South West +56 221 £70,000 +7.69% 86
North West -12 197 £75,000 +3.81% 133
East of England +97 188 £70,000 +7.69% 136
Midlands +76 136 £70,000 -6.67% 64
West Midlands +33 77 £70,000 -6.67% 34
Yorkshire +13 68 £70,000 - 41
East Midlands +13 59 £60,000 -14.29% 30
Scotland +9 52 £75,000 +15.38% 90
North East -31 47 £90,000 +800.00% 14
Wales -29 46 £70,000 - 19
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 32

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

For the 6 months to 17 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 1,719 (99.71%) Software Engineering
2 272 (15.78%) Python
3 250 (14.50%) Agile
4 249 (14.44%) C#
5 234 (13.57%) C++
6 222 (12.88%) AWS
7 219 (12.70%) Java
8 201 (11.66%) CI/CD
9 196 (11.37%) AI
10 182 (10.56%) Mentoring
11 167 (9.69%) .NET
12 162 (9.40%) Full-Stack Development
13 140 (8.12%) TypeScript
14 128 (7.42%) DevOps
15 127 (7.37%) Microservices
16 125 (7.25%) React
17 110 (6.38%) Azure
18 107 (6.21%) Linux
19 106 (6.15%) Security Cleared
20 104 (6.03%) Test Automation
21 94 (5.45%) SDLC
22 93 (5.39%) Code Quality
22 93 (5.39%) JavaScript
23 90 (5.22%) Technical Leadership
24 87 (5.05%) Kubernetes
24 87 (5.05%) Problem-Solving
25 83 (4.81%) Node.js
26 81 (4.70%) Degree
27 79 (4.58%) SaaS
27 79 (4.58%) 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 (0.93%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.41%) Apache
3 4 (0.23%) Confluence
4 3 (0.17%) CMS
4 3 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.17%) WinCC
5 2 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.12%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.12%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.058%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.058%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.17%) Blender
1 3 (0.17%) Maya
2 1 (0.058%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 222 (12.88%) AWS
2 110 (6.38%) Azure
3 79 (4.58%) SaaS
4 72 (4.18%) GCP
5 43 (2.49%) Serverless
6 39 (2.26%) GitHub
7 25 (1.45%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.16%) GitHub Copilot
9 17 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (0.93%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.58%) Amazon S3
12 10 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (0.46%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 6 (0.35%) Amazon SQS
14 6 (0.35%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.35%) Supabase
15 5 (0.29%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.29%) Dynamics 365
16 4 (0.23%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (0.99%) RS-232
2 14 (0.81%) Modbus
3 13 (0.75%) Bluetooth
3 13 (0.75%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.70%) Profibus
5 10 (0.58%) Multicast
5 10 (0.58%) Wireless
6 9 (0.52%) RS-485
6 9 (0.52%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.46%) Broadband
7 8 (0.46%) HTTP
8 7 (0.41%) TCP/IP
9 5 (0.29%) Internet
10 4 (0.23%) Firewall
11 2 (0.12%) RS-422
12 1 (0.058%) BGP
12 1 (0.058%) DNS
12 1 (0.058%) LTE
12 1 (0.058%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (3.65%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.80%) MySQL
3 28 (1.62%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.04%) Redis
5 17 (0.99%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.87%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.81%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
9 9 (0.52%) DynamoDB
10 7 (0.41%) Big Data
11 6 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
13 4 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.23%) Delta Lake
14 3 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.17%) MariaDB
15 2 (0.12%) DocumentDB
15 2 (0.12%) Flink
15 2 (0.12%) Neo4j
15 2 (0.12%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (3.36%) Git
2 27 (1.57%) JIRA
3 25 (1.45%) GitLab
4 18 (1.04%) TeamCity
5 16 (0.93%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.58%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.52%) Jenkins
8 6 (0.35%) Mocha
8 6 (0.35%) Selenium
8 6 (0.35%) Visual Studio
9 5 (0.29%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.29%) NUnit
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 (0.12%) CMake
12 2 (0.12%) GDB
General
1 144 (8.35%) Finance
2 121 (7.02%) Social Skills
3 69 (4.00%) Electronics
4 57 (3.31%) Banking
4 57 (3.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 46 (2.67%) Public Sector
6 41 (2.38%) Manufacturing
7 40 (2.32%) Analytical Skills
8 38 (2.20%) Law
9 25 (1.45%) Aerospace
10 23 (1.33%) Retail
11 17 (0.99%) Marketing
12 14 (0.81%) Financial Institution
12 14 (0.81%) Military
13 12 (0.70%) Automotive
14 10 (0.58%) Games
14 10 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (0.52%) Front Office
15 9 (0.52%) Legal
15 9 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 167 (9.69%) .NET
2 125 (7.25%) React
3 83 (4.81%) Node.js
4 68 (3.94%) Terraform
5 63 (3.65%) Spring
6 49 (2.84%) WPF
7 42 (2.44%) RESTful
8 40 (2.32%) Spring Boot
9 38 (2.20%) Kafka
10 30 (1.74%) Next.js
11 29 (1.68%) REST
12 26 (1.51%) AngularJS
13 19 (1.10%) Vue
14 18 (1.04%) FastAPI
14 18 (1.04%) React Native
15 15 (0.87%) Django
16 13 (0.75%) CSS
17 12 (0.70%) FIX Protocol
18 11 (0.64%) .NET Core
18 11 (0.64%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 115 (6.67%) Cloud Native
2 58 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.19%) Legacy Systems
4 47 (2.73%) Algorithms
5 43 (2.49%) Robotics
6 39 (2.26%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.68%) Greenfield Project
8 25 (1.45%) AI Agents
9 24 (1.39%) Product Ownership
10 22 (1.28%) Public Cloud
11 19 (1.10%) Blog
12 15 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
13 14 (0.81%) Blockchain
14 13 (0.75%) Derivative
14 13 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
15 12 (0.70%) Device Driver
15 12 (0.70%) Virtual Team
16 11 (0.64%) Fixed Income
16 11 (0.64%) Legacy Applications
17 10 (0.58%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 107 (6.21%) Linux
2 29 (1.68%) Embedded Linux
3 21 (1.22%) FreeRTOS
4 19 (1.10%) Windows
5 8 (0.46%) Unix
6 7 (0.41%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.29%) Android
8 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.058%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,719 (99.71%) Software Engineering
2 250 (14.50%) Agile
3 201 (11.66%) CI/CD
4 196 (11.37%) AI
5 182 (10.56%) Mentoring
6 162 (9.40%) Full-Stack Development
7 128 (7.42%) DevOps
8 127 (7.37%) Microservices
9 104 (6.03%) Test Automation
10 94 (5.45%) SDLC
11 93 (5.39%) Code Quality
12 90 (5.22%) Technical Leadership
13 87 (5.05%) Problem-Solving
14 72 (4.18%) Continuous Improvement
15 71 (4.12%) Fintech
16 70 (4.06%) Computer Science
17 59 (3.42%) Machine Learning
18 57 (3.31%) Event-Driven
19 55 (3.19%) Infrastructure as Code
20 53 (3.07%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 272 (15.78%) Python
2 249 (14.44%) C#
3 234 (13.57%) C++
4 219 (12.70%) Java
5 140 (8.12%) TypeScript
6 93 (5.39%) JavaScript
7 79 (4.58%) SQL
8 78 (4.52%) C
9 41 (2.38%) Rust
10 32 (1.86%) Go
11 18 (1.04%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.93%) Scala
13 15 (0.87%) PHP
14 14 (0.81%) Ruby
15 13 (0.75%) F#
15 13 (0.75%) Haskell
16 12 (0.70%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.64%) Kotlin
18 10 (0.58%) Julia
19 8 (0.46%) R
Qualifications
1 106 (6.15%) Security Cleared
2 81 (4.70%) Degree
3 71 (4.12%) SC Cleared
4 51 (2.96%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.87%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.52%) PhD
8 8 (0.46%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (0.35%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.23%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.12%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.058%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.058%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (2.26%) QA
2 18 (1.04%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.35%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.29%) GDPR
4 5 (0.29%) IEC 61508
4 5 (0.29%) MISRA
4 5 (0.29%) MISRA C
5 4 (0.23%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.17%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.12%) SLA
8 1 (0.058%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 77 (4.47%) Docker
2 55 (3.19%) Firmware
3 22 (1.28%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.058%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 87 (5.05%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.16%) Grafana
3 11 (0.64%) Ansible
4 5 (0.29%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.17%) Plesk
6 2 (0.12%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.12%) kaniko
6 2 (0.12%) Puppet
7 1 (0.058%) Argo
7 1 (0.058%) Istio
7 1 (0.058%) Kibana
7 1 (0.058%) Podman
Vendors
1 25 (1.45%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.99%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.64%) Google
4 9 (0.52%) RedGate
4 9 (0.52%) Splunk
5 8 (0.46%) Sage
5 8 (0.46%) Siemens
6 7 (0.41%) Databricks
7 6 (0.35%) Foundry
7 6 (0.35%) Oracle
8 5 (0.29%) Intel
8 5 (0.29%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.17%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.17%) New Relic
9 3 (0.17%) Revolut
9 3 (0.17%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.12%) ADVA
10 2 (0.12%) Okta
10 2 (0.12%) Thales
11 1 (0.058%) Virgin Media