Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £82,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 7 November 2025.

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

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 240 126 296
Rank change year-on-year -114 +170 -89
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 558 1,390 580
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.10% 2.04% 1.09%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.22% 2.15% 1.14%
Number of salaries quoted 342 920 469
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £56,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £82,500 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.86% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £110,000 £95,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £134,250 £122,500 £96,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £64,500
% change year-on-year +7.69% +0.78% -0.77%

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 45,700 64,689 50,755
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.10% 95.04% 95.50%
Number of salaries quoted 28,478 36,679 39,389
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,219 £42,631
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £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 7 November 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 7 November 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 -116 506 £82,500 +17.86% 1,059
UK excluding London -145 287 £70,000 +7.69% 791
London -38 254 £107,500 +19.44% 481
Work from Home -118 221 £95,000 +18.75% 539
North of England -9 136 £75,000 +22.45% 123
North West +37 100 £75,000 +20.00% 74
South West -54 43 £65,000 +8.33% 72
Scotland -38 41 £67,500 +5.88% 64
South East -132 37 £65,000 - 366
Yorkshire -8 23 £75,000 +25.00% 30
Midlands -22 16 £72,649 +11.77% 47
North East -10 13 £72,500 +10.75% 19
West Midlands 0 11 £75,000 +15.38% 14
East of England -57 10 £65,000 -3.70% 74
East Midlands 0 5 £70,000 +7.69% 32
Wales -12 4 - - 11

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

For the 6 months to 7 November 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.

1 556 (99.64%) Software Engineering
2 296 (53.05%) Agile
3 267 (47.85%) AWS
4 254 (45.52%) Java
5 238 (42.65%) Python
6 164 (29.39%) JavaScript
7 147 (26.34%) TypeScript
8 141 (25.27%) Azure
9 136 (24.37%) Microservices
10 126 (22.58%) C++
11 117 (20.97%) .NET
12 109 (19.53%) Mentoring
13 108 (19.35%) CI/CD
14 105 (18.82%) Machine Learning
15 103 (18.46%) React
16 102 (18.28%) Linux
17 101 (18.10%) GCP
18 95 (17.03%) Rust
19 93 (16.67%) Kubernetes
19 93 (16.67%) SDLC
20 92 (16.49%) Go
20 92 (16.49%) Scrum
21 81 (14.52%) Problem-Solving
21 81 (14.52%) User Experience
22 80 (14.34%) Node.js
23 77 (13.80%) Security Cleared
24 73 (13.08%) Data Engineering
25 69 (12.37%) AI
25 69 (12.37%) Investment Management
26 68 (12.19%) Apache

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 68 (12.19%) Apache
2 63 (11.29%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (0.90%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.36%) Confluence
5 1 (0.18%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.18%) JBoss
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 1 (0.18%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 267 (47.85%) AWS
2 141 (25.27%) Azure
3 101 (18.10%) GCP
4 63 (11.29%) dbt
4 63 (11.29%) Snowflake
5 20 (3.58%) GitHub
6 15 (2.69%) Amazon EKS
7 14 (2.51%) Serverless
8 13 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (2.15%) SaaS
10 11 (1.97%) Amazon EC2
11 9 (1.61%) Amazon S3
11 9 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (1.43%) Amazon ECS
13 7 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (1.08%) Amazon Bedrock
14 6 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
15 5 (0.90%) Kong
16 4 (0.72%) Amazon SageMaker
16 4 (0.72%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.61%) Multicast
2 3 (0.54%) SSL
3 2 (0.36%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.36%) HTTP
3 2 (0.36%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.36%) Internet
3 2 (0.36%) RS-232
4 1 (0.18%) AMQP
4 1 (0.18%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (12.01%) Amazon Athena
1 67 (12.01%) Apache Iceberg
1 67 (12.01%) Data Lake
2 63 (11.29%) Apache Arrow
2 63 (11.29%) Apache Ignite
2 63 (11.29%) Dremio
3 27 (4.84%) Relational Database
4 25 (4.48%) PostgreSQL
5 23 (4.12%) NoSQL
6 18 (3.23%) MySQL
7 12 (2.15%) DynamoDB
7 12 (2.15%) KDB
8 11 (1.97%) Azure SQL Database
9 9 (1.61%) Big Data
9 9 (1.61%) MongoDB
10 8 (1.43%) Kdb+
10 8 (1.43%) SQL Server
11 7 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (1.08%) RDBMS
12 6 (1.08%) Redis
Development Applications
1 27 (4.84%) Git
2 15 (2.69%) JIRA
3 8 (1.43%) Vite
4 7 (1.25%) JUnit
5 6 (1.08%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.72%) rollup.js
6 4 (0.72%) TeamCity
7 3 (0.54%) Maven
7 3 (0.54%) Mockito
8 2 (0.36%) Ant
8 2 (0.36%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.36%) webpack
9 1 (0.18%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.18%) GitLab
9 1 (0.18%) Gradle
9 1 (0.18%) LabVIEW
9 1 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.18%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.18%) Rational Statemate
General
1 232 (41.58%) Finance
2 168 (30.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 164 (29.39%) Banking
4 106 (19.00%) Law
5 80 (14.34%) Front Office
6 70 (12.54%) Investment Banking
7 54 (9.68%) Social Skills
8 20 (3.58%) Financial Institution
9 18 (3.23%) Marketing
10 14 (2.51%) Retail
11 11 (1.97%) Analytical Skills
12 7 (1.25%) Back Office
12 7 (1.25%) Legal
13 6 (1.08%) Games
13 6 (1.08%) Health Technology
13 6 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
13 6 (1.08%) Public Sector
14 4 (0.72%) Military
14 4 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.72%) Private Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (20.97%) .NET
2 103 (18.46%) React
3 80 (14.34%) Node.js
4 67 (12.01%) gRPC
5 66 (11.83%) Protocol Buffers
6 63 (11.29%) NumPy
6 63 (11.29%) Pandas
6 63 (11.29%) SciPy
7 42 (7.53%) RESTful
8 36 (6.45%) Spring
9 35 (6.27%) AngularJS
10 30 (5.38%) Kafka
11 26 (4.66%) Spring Boot
12 21 (3.76%) GraphQL
12 21 (3.76%) REST
13 19 (3.41%) CSS
13 19 (3.41%) Web Services
14 17 (3.05%) FastAPI
14 17 (3.05%) OpenID
15 16 (2.87%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 93 (16.67%) Derivative
2 81 (14.52%) Equities
3 80 (14.34%) Cloud Native
4 72 (12.90%) Fixed Income
5 64 (11.47%) Self-Motivation
6 63 (11.29%) Cyberattack
6 63 (11.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 63 (11.29%) Hedge funds
6 63 (11.29%) Linux Command Line
6 63 (11.29%) Pricing Data
7 47 (8.42%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (5.56%) Algorithms
9 22 (3.94%) Greenfield Project
10 18 (3.23%) Public Cloud
11 14 (2.51%) Legacy Code
12 13 (2.33%) Data Structures
13 12 (2.15%) Product Ownership
14 11 (1.97%) AI Agents
15 10 (1.79%) Management Information System
16 9 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 102 (18.28%) Linux
2 10 (1.79%) Unix
3 4 (0.72%) Embedded Linux
4 3 (0.54%) Android
4 3 (0.54%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.54%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 556 (99.64%) Software Engineering
2 296 (53.05%) Agile
3 136 (24.37%) Microservices
4 109 (19.53%) Mentoring
5 108 (19.35%) CI/CD
6 105 (18.82%) Machine Learning
7 93 (16.67%) SDLC
8 92 (16.49%) Scrum
9 81 (14.52%) Problem-Solving
9 81 (14.52%) User Experience
10 73 (13.08%) Data Engineering
11 69 (12.37%) AI
11 69 (12.37%) Investment Management
12 67 (12.01%) Asset Management
12 67 (12.01%) Cloud Security
13 64 (11.47%) Site Reliability Engineering
14 62 (11.11%) Full-Stack Development
14 62 (11.11%) Operational Stability
15 57 (10.22%) DevOps
16 56 (10.04%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 254 (45.52%) Java
2 238 (42.65%) Python
3 164 (29.39%) JavaScript
4 147 (26.34%) TypeScript
5 126 (22.58%) C++
6 95 (17.03%) Rust
7 92 (16.49%) Go
8 67 (12.01%) C#
9 44 (7.89%) SQL
10 29 (5.20%) C
11 12 (2.15%) Kotlin
11 12 (2.15%) Ruby
12 5 (0.90%) Delphi
12 5 (0.90%) PHP
13 4 (0.72%) Embedded C
13 4 (0.72%) Lua
13 4 (0.72%) Scala
13 4 (0.72%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.36%) Bash
14 2 (0.36%) BrightScript
Qualifications
1 77 (13.80%) Security Cleared
2 68 (12.19%) DV Cleared
3 67 (12.01%) AWS Certification
4 63 (11.29%) AWS Certified Developer
4 63 (11.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 32 (5.73%) Degree
6 9 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.43%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.90%) PhD
8 5 (0.90%) SC Cleared
9 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.18%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.12%) QA
2 11 (1.97%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.72%) WCAG
4 2 (0.36%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.36%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.36%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.36%) JTAG
5 1 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.18%) ECSS
5 1 (0.18%) PSD2
System Software
1 51 (9.14%) Docker
2 7 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.25%) Virtual Servers
3 4 (0.72%) Firmware
4 2 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 93 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 46 (8.24%) Terraform
3 7 (1.25%) Grafana
3 7 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (0.72%) Ansible
Vendors
1 17 (3.05%) Google
2 13 (2.33%) Microsoft
3 9 (1.61%) Databricks
4 7 (1.25%) Oracle
5 6 (1.08%) OpenAI
6 5 (0.90%) MuleSoft
7 4 (0.72%) Facebook
7 4 (0.72%) MKS
7 4 (0.72%) Ping Identity
7 4 (0.72%) Vertica
8 2 (0.36%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.36%) Avaloq
8 2 (0.36%) ForgeRock
8 2 (0.36%) Roku
9 1 (0.18%) CA Agile Central
9 1 (0.18%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.18%) Green Hills
9 1 (0.18%) SAP
9 1 (0.18%) SendGrid
9 1 (0.18%) Splunk