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 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 216 106
Rank change year-on-year +90 -110 +184
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,624 759 1,882
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.48% 1.51% 2.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.57% 1.69% 2.43%
Number of salaries quoted 1,265 426 1,311
10th Percentile £57,500 £56,625 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £85,000 £65,465
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +29.84% -3.02%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £93,750
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 103,220 45,012 77,418
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.88% 89.83% 95.16%
Number of salaries quoted 70,861 26,764 49,481
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £74,521 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £91,250
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 31 August 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 31 August 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 +72 1,458 £75,000 -16.67% 659
UK excluding London +98 1,135 £70,000 - 303
London +2 402 £95,000 -11.63% 425
Work from Home -75 300 £80,000 -7.38% 272
North of England -12 292 £75,000 +3.45% 55
South East +138 246 £80,000 +14.29% 55
South West +56 217 £70,000 +7.69% 42
North West -20 179 £75,000 +0.67% 40
East of England +98 176 £70,000 +7.69% 56
Midlands +63 119 £70,000 -5.08% 29
West Midlands +28 70 £70,000 -6.67% 12
Yorkshire +13 67 £70,000 -8.98% 11
East Midlands +19 49 £60,000 -14.29% 17
North East -26 46 £85,000 +750.00% 4
Scotland -8 45 £70,000 +7.69% 48
Wales -36 37 £66,000 +1.54% 7
Northern Ireland - 3 £75,000 - 15

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

For the 6 months to 31 August 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 1,618 (99.63%) Software Engineering
2 269 (16.56%) Python
3 246 (15.15%) C#
4 233 (14.35%) Agile
5 232 (14.29%) C++
6 222 (13.67%) Java
7 216 (13.30%) AWS
8 193 (11.88%) CI/CD
9 176 (10.84%) Mentoring
10 172 (10.59%) AI
11 164 (10.10%) .NET
12 154 (9.48%) Full-Stack Development
13 130 (8.00%) TypeScript
14 122 (7.51%) DevOps
14 122 (7.51%) Microservices
15 117 (7.20%) React
16 109 (6.71%) Linux
17 108 (6.65%) Azure
18 107 (6.59%) Security Cleared
19 101 (6.22%) Test Automation
20 97 (5.97%) JavaScript
21 89 (5.48%) Technical Leadership
22 88 (5.42%) SDLC
23 85 (5.23%) Problem-Solving
24 84 (5.17%) SaaS
25 83 (5.11%) Code Quality
25 83 (5.11%) SQL
26 81 (4.99%) Degree
27 79 (4.86%) Node.js
28 78 (4.80%) C

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 (0.99%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.43%) Apache
3 4 (0.25%) Confluence
4 3 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.18%) WinCC
5 2 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.12%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.12%) Cloud Foundry
5 2 (0.12%) CMS
6 1 (0.062%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (0.18%) Blender
1 3 (0.18%) Maya
2 1 (0.062%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 216 (13.30%) AWS
2 108 (6.65%) Azure
3 84 (5.17%) SaaS
4 64 (3.94%) GCP
5 42 (2.59%) GitHub
6 37 (2.28%) Serverless
7 22 (1.35%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.23%) Anthropic Claude
8 20 (1.23%) GitHub Copilot
9 17 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
10 12 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (0.62%) Amazon S3
11 10 (0.62%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (0.49%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 6 (0.37%) Amazon SQS
13 6 (0.37%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (0.37%) Supabase
14 5 (0.31%) Azure AI
14 5 (0.31%) Dynamics 365
15 4 (0.25%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.17%) RS-232
2 14 (0.86%) Modbus
3 13 (0.80%) Bluetooth
4 12 (0.74%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.74%) Profibus
4 12 (0.74%) Wireless
5 11 (0.68%) Multicast
6 9 (0.55%) RS-485
6 9 (0.55%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.49%) Broadband
7 8 (0.49%) HTTP
8 4 (0.25%) Firewall
8 4 (0.25%) TCP/IP
9 1 (0.062%) BGP
9 1 (0.062%) DNS
9 1 (0.062%) LTE
9 1 (0.062%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (3.76%) PostgreSQL
2 33 (2.03%) MySQL
3 28 (1.72%) Relational Database
4 20 (1.23%) MongoDB
5 18 (1.11%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.11%) Redis
6 15 (0.92%) SQL Server
7 10 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
8 9 (0.55%) Big Data
8 9 (0.55%) DynamoDB
9 6 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (0.31%) Geospatial Data
11 4 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.25%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.18%) MariaDB
13 2 (0.12%) DocumentDB
13 2 (0.12%) Flink
13 2 (0.12%) Neo4j
13 2 (0.12%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (3.57%) Git
2 29 (1.79%) JIRA
3 26 (1.60%) GitLab
4 19 (1.17%) Claude Code
5 15 (0.92%) TeamCity
6 11 (0.68%) Jenkins
7 10 (0.62%) Visual Studio Code
8 6 (0.37%) Mocha
8 6 (0.37%) Selenium
9 5 (0.31%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.31%) NUnit
10 4 (0.25%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.25%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
10 4 (0.25%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.18%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.12%) GDB
12 2 (0.12%) SonarQube
General
1 148 (9.11%) Finance
2 111 (6.83%) Social Skills
3 67 (4.13%) Electronics
4 55 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 49 (3.02%) Banking
6 45 (2.77%) Public Sector
7 43 (2.65%) Manufacturing
8 40 (2.46%) Analytical Skills
9 35 (2.16%) Law
10 22 (1.35%) Aerospace
11 20 (1.23%) Retail
12 17 (1.05%) Marketing
13 13 (0.80%) Automotive
13 13 (0.80%) Financial Institution
14 12 (0.74%) Military
15 10 (0.62%) Back Office
15 10 (0.62%) Games
15 10 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.55%) Organisational Skills
17 8 (0.49%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (10.10%) .NET
2 117 (7.20%) React
3 79 (4.86%) Node.js
4 60 (3.69%) Spring
4 60 (3.69%) Terraform
5 49 (3.02%) WPF
6 40 (2.46%) RESTful
7 37 (2.28%) Spring Boot
8 34 (2.09%) Kafka
9 28 (1.72%) Next.js
10 27 (1.66%) REST
11 23 (1.42%) AngularJS
12 18 (1.11%) React Native
13 17 (1.05%) FastAPI
13 17 (1.05%) Vue
14 16 (0.99%) Django
15 14 (0.86%) CSS
16 13 (0.80%) FIX Protocol
17 12 (0.74%) Ruby on Rails
18 11 (0.68%) Boost C++ Libraries
Miscellaneous
1 114 (7.02%) Cloud Native
2 58 (3.57%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
4 47 (2.89%) Algorithms
5 38 (2.34%) Robotics
6 35 (2.16%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.79%) Greenfield Project
8 22 (1.35%) AI Agents
8 22 (1.35%) Product Ownership
9 20 (1.23%) Public Cloud
10 15 (0.92%) Blockchain
10 15 (0.92%) Blog
11 14 (0.86%) Derivative
12 13 (0.80%) Device Driver
12 13 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (0.74%) Cyber Threat
13 12 (0.74%) Fixed Income
13 12 (0.74%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.68%) Equities
14 11 (0.68%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 109 (6.71%) Linux
2 29 (1.79%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.17%) FreeRTOS
3 19 (1.17%) Windows
4 8 (0.49%) Unix
5 5 (0.31%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.18%) Android
7 1 (0.062%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,618 (99.63%) Software Engineering
2 233 (14.35%) Agile
3 193 (11.88%) CI/CD
4 176 (10.84%) Mentoring
5 172 (10.59%) AI
6 154 (9.48%) Full-Stack Development
7 122 (7.51%) DevOps
7 122 (7.51%) Microservices
8 101 (6.22%) Test Automation
9 89 (5.48%) Technical Leadership
10 88 (5.42%) SDLC
11 85 (5.23%) Problem-Solving
12 83 (5.11%) Code Quality
13 70 (4.31%) Computer Science
14 69 (4.25%) Fintech
15 66 (4.06%) Continuous Improvement
16 56 (3.45%) Machine Learning
17 52 (3.20%) Infrastructure as Code
18 51 (3.14%) Software Architecture
19 50 (3.08%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 269 (16.56%) Python
2 246 (15.15%) C#
3 232 (14.29%) C++
4 222 (13.67%) Java
5 130 (8.00%) TypeScript
6 97 (5.97%) JavaScript
7 83 (5.11%) SQL
8 78 (4.80%) C
9 44 (2.71%) Rust
10 35 (2.16%) Go
11 19 (1.17%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.99%) Scala
13 15 (0.92%) Ruby
14 13 (0.80%) F#
14 13 (0.80%) Haskell
14 13 (0.80%) PHP
15 11 (0.68%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.68%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.62%) Julia
17 8 (0.49%) R
Qualifications
1 107 (6.59%) Security Cleared
2 81 (4.99%) Degree
3 73 (4.50%) SC Cleared
4 54 (3.33%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
6 17 (1.05%) Master's Degree
7 11 (0.68%) PhD
8 8 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (0.37%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.12%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.12%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.062%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.062%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (2.34%) QA
2 18 (1.11%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.37%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.31%) GDPR
4 5 (0.31%) IEC 61508
4 5 (0.31%) MISRA
4 5 (0.31%) MISRA C
5 4 (0.25%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.18%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.12%) SLA
8 1 (0.062%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 74 (4.56%) Docker
2 56 (3.45%) Firmware
3 22 (1.35%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.062%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 74 (4.56%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.05%) Grafana
3 10 (0.62%) Ansible
4 5 (0.31%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.18%) Plesk
6 2 (0.12%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.12%) kaniko
6 2 (0.12%) Puppet
7 1 (0.062%) Argo
7 1 (0.062%) Istio
7 1 (0.062%) Kibana
Vendors
1 21 (1.29%) Microsoft
2 15 (0.92%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.68%) Google
4 9 (0.55%) Splunk
5 8 (0.49%) Siemens
6 7 (0.43%) Databricks
7 6 (0.37%) Oracle
7 6 (0.37%) Sage
8 5 (0.31%) Intel
8 5 (0.31%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.25%) Foundry
9 4 (0.25%) RedGate
10 3 (0.18%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.18%) New Relic
10 3 (0.18%) Revolut
10 3 (0.18%) Rockwell
11 2 (0.12%) ADVA
11 2 (0.12%) Okta
12 1 (0.062%) Palantir
12 1 (0.062%) Virgin Media