Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £77,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 7 December 2025.

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

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 257 143 279
Rank change year-on-year -114 +136 -30
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 506 1,187 579
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.90% 1.91% 1.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.00% 2.03% 1.20%
Number of salaries quoted 399 785 454
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,938 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.71% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £82,250
90th Percentile £115,500 £122,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -

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 50,704 58,391 48,070
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.90% 94.00% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 31,404 32,367 37,457
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £58,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.17% -3.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.52% - -

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 December 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 December 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 -105 449 £77,500 +10.71% 272
UK excluding London -110 270 £70,000 +7.69% 226
London -40 215 £100,000 +11.11% 98
Work from Home -115 176 £82,500 +10.00% 214
South West -20 63 £65,000 +8.33% 49
North of England -43 62 £75,000 +20.00% 32
South East -90 50 £65,000 - 53
Scotland -33 39 £75,000 +17.65% 35
North West -4 32 £75,000 +20.00% 22
East of England -43 28 £65,000 -3.70% 33
Yorkshire -8 26 £75,000 +14.57% 9
Midlands +1 22 £67,500 +3.85% 21
West Midlands +11 11 £75,000 +15.38% 8
East Midlands +3 11 £65,000 - 12
Wales -13 6 - - 7
North East -26 4 £75,000 +22.95% 1

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

For the 6 months to 7 December 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.

1 496 (98.02%) Software Engineering
2 150 (29.64%) Agile
3 148 (29.25%) AWS
4 144 (28.46%) Java
5 110 (21.74%) Python
6 102 (20.16%) TypeScript
7 88 (17.39%) CI/CD
8 81 (16.01%) JavaScript
9 77 (15.22%) C#
10 74 (14.62%) Kubernetes
10 74 (14.62%) React
11 69 (13.64%) Mentoring
12 66 (13.04%) Microservices
13 65 (12.85%) Azure
14 62 (12.25%) C++
15 59 (11.66%) .NET
16 56 (11.07%) DevOps
17 55 (10.87%) Full-Stack Development
18 49 (9.68%) AI
18 49 (9.68%) Amazon Athena
18 49 (9.68%) Apache
18 49 (9.68%) gRPC
19 48 (9.49%) Apache Iceberg
19 48 (9.49%) Asset Management
19 48 (9.49%) Data Lake
19 48 (9.49%) dbt
19 48 (9.49%) Investment Management
19 48 (9.49%) Problem-Solving
19 48 (9.49%) Protocol Buffers
19 48 (9.49%) Snowflake

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 49 (9.68%) Apache
2 47 (9.29%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.40%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.20%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.20%) CMS
4 1 (0.20%) Confluence
4 1 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.20%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.20%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 148 (29.25%) AWS
2 65 (12.85%) Azure
3 48 (9.49%) dbt
3 48 (9.49%) Snowflake
4 38 (7.51%) GCP
5 19 (3.75%) GitHub
6 18 (3.56%) SaaS
7 11 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.98%) Amazon EKS
9 7 (1.38%) GitHub Copilot
9 7 (1.38%) Serverless
10 5 (0.99%) Amazon S3
10 5 (0.99%) Cloud Run
10 5 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
11 4 (0.79%) Azure AKS
11 4 (0.79%) Azure Data Factory
12 3 (0.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (0.59%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (0.59%) Firebase
12 3 (0.59%) Stripe
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.17%) Multicast
2 7 (1.38%) HTTP
3 3 (0.59%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.59%) RS-232
4 1 (0.20%) AMQP
4 1 (0.20%) DNS
4 1 (0.20%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.20%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (9.68%) Amazon Athena
2 48 (9.49%) Apache Iceberg
2 48 (9.49%) Data Lake
3 47 (9.29%) Apache Arrow
3 47 (9.29%) Apache Ignite
3 47 (9.29%) Dremio
4 23 (4.55%) PostgreSQL
5 20 (3.95%) NoSQL
6 16 (3.16%) Relational Database
7 12 (2.37%) SQL Server
8 9 (1.78%) MongoDB
8 9 (1.78%) MySQL
9 8 (1.58%) Redis
10 7 (1.38%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (1.38%) BigQuery
11 5 (0.99%) DynamoDB
11 5 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (0.59%) Big Data
12 3 (0.59%) KDB
12 3 (0.59%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 29 (5.73%) Git
2 18 (3.56%) JIRA
3 6 (1.19%) TeamCity
4 5 (0.99%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.99%) JUnit
5 3 (0.59%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.59%) JBehave
6 2 (0.40%) GitLab
6 2 (0.40%) Maven
6 2 (0.40%) Visual Studio
6 2 (0.40%) Vite
7 1 (0.20%) Android Studio
7 1 (0.20%) Ant
7 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.20%) LabVIEW
7 1 (0.20%) Mockito
7 1 (0.20%) Selenium
7 1 (0.20%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.20%) webpack
7 1 (0.20%) Xcode
General
1 157 (31.03%) Finance
2 96 (18.97%) Banking
3 51 (10.08%) Front Office
4 49 (9.68%) Investment Banking
5 39 (7.71%) Social Skills
6 37 (7.31%) Law
7 36 (7.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.75%) Financial Institution
9 16 (3.16%) Retail
10 8 (1.58%) Games
10 8 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.58%) Marketing
11 6 (1.19%) Back Office
11 6 (1.19%) Health Technology
12 5 (0.99%) Electronics
12 5 (0.99%) Legal
12 5 (0.99%) Manufacturing
12 5 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (0.99%) Public Sector
12 5 (0.99%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (14.62%) React
2 59 (11.66%) .NET
3 49 (9.68%) gRPC
4 48 (9.49%) Protocol Buffers
5 47 (9.29%) NumPy
5 47 (9.29%) Pandas
5 47 (9.29%) SciPy
6 33 (6.52%) RESTful
7 25 (4.94%) AngularJS
8 22 (4.35%) GraphQL
9 20 (3.95%) Spring
10 18 (3.56%) Spring Boot
11 17 (3.36%) .NET Core
11 17 (3.36%) React Native
12 16 (3.16%) REST
13 15 (2.96%) Kafka
13 15 (2.96%) Node.js
14 14 (2.77%) CSS
15 13 (2.57%) FastAPI
15 13 (2.57%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 62 (12.25%) Derivative
2 60 (11.86%) Cloud Native
2 60 (11.86%) Equities
3 58 (11.46%) Fixed Income
4 47 (9.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 47 (9.29%) Hedge funds
4 47 (9.29%) Pricing Data
5 28 (5.53%) Distributed Systems
6 22 (4.35%) Algorithms
7 13 (2.57%) Greenfield Project
8 12 (2.37%) Legacy Code
8 12 (2.37%) Public Cloud
9 9 (1.78%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.19%) Embedded Systems
11 5 (0.99%) AI Agents
11 5 (0.99%) Blog
11 5 (0.99%) Robotics
12 4 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
12 4 (0.79%) Product Ownership
12 4 (0.79%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 41 (8.10%) Linux
2 12 (2.37%) Android
3 6 (1.19%) Embedded Linux
4 5 (0.99%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.79%) Unix
6 2 (0.40%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 496 (98.02%) Software Engineering
2 150 (29.64%) Agile
3 88 (17.39%) CI/CD
4 69 (13.64%) Mentoring
5 66 (13.04%) Microservices
6 56 (11.07%) DevOps
7 55 (10.87%) Full-Stack Development
8 49 (9.68%) AI
9 48 (9.49%) Asset Management
9 48 (9.49%) Investment Management
9 48 (9.49%) Problem-Solving
10 46 (9.09%) Computer Science
11 45 (8.89%) SDLC
12 37 (7.31%) Fintech
12 37 (7.31%) Technical Leadership
13 32 (6.32%) Clean Code
13 32 (6.32%) Containerisation
14 31 (6.13%) Test Automation
15 26 (5.14%) Continuous Improvement
15 26 (5.14%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 144 (28.46%) Java
2 110 (21.74%) Python
3 102 (20.16%) TypeScript
4 81 (16.01%) JavaScript
5 77 (15.22%) C#
6 62 (12.25%) C++
7 40 (7.91%) SQL
8 25 (4.94%) C
8 25 (4.94%) Rust
9 22 (4.35%) Go
10 14 (2.77%) Kotlin
11 13 (2.57%) Ruby
12 7 (1.38%) PHP
13 6 (1.19%) Delphi
14 5 (0.99%) Embedded C
15 3 (0.59%) Bash
15 3 (0.59%) Swift
16 2 (0.40%) Fortran
16 2 (0.40%) MATLAB
16 2 (0.40%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 39 (7.71%) Degree
2 19 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
3 14 (2.77%) Security Cleared
4 9 (1.78%) Master's Degree
5 6 (1.19%) SC Cleared
6 4 (0.79%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.59%) PhD
8 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.20%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.20%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.20%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.75%) QA
2 10 (1.98%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.40%) ISO 9000
3 2 (0.40%) ISO 9001
3 2 (0.40%) JTAG
4 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.20%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.20%) ECSS
4 1 (0.20%) GDPR
4 1 (0.20%) IEC 61508
4 1 (0.20%) MISRA
4 1 (0.20%) MISRA C
4 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.20%) PSD2
4 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 38 (7.51%) Docker
2 7 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.38%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (1.19%) Firmware
4 3 (0.59%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 74 (14.62%) Kubernetes
2 26 (5.14%) Terraform
3 8 (1.58%) Grafana
4 3 (0.59%) Ansible
5 2 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.20%) Argo
6 1 (0.20%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 15 (2.96%) Google
2 12 (2.37%) Microsoft
3 3 (0.59%) OpenAI
3 3 (0.59%) Oracle
4 2 (0.40%) Adobe
4 2 (0.40%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.40%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (0.40%) Databricks
4 2 (0.40%) HubSpot
4 2 (0.40%) MuleSoft
4 2 (0.40%) Roku
4 2 (0.40%) SAP
5 1 (0.20%) Avaloq
5 1 (0.20%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.20%) Facebook
5 1 (0.20%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.20%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.20%) New Relic
5 1 (0.20%) SendGrid
5 1 (0.20%) Vertica