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 29 January 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 207 185 217
Rank change year-on-year -22 +32 +45
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 655 852 966
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.04% 1.62% 1.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.14% 1.76% 1.49%
Number of salaries quoted 514 553 733
10th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,750 £56,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £104,625 £122,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £66,250 £65,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year +1.92% +4.00% -3.85%

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 57,468 48,384 64,674
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.83% 92.28% 95.12%
Number of salaries quoted 35,727 24,872 50,479
10th Percentile £28,785 £33,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.41%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,648 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +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 29 January 2026.

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 29 January 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 -16 561 £75,000 +7.14% 474
UK excluding London -40 384 £66,250 +1.92% 447
London +11 235 £95,000 +5.56% 100
Work from Home -67 222 £75,000 +7.14% 318
South East -33 92 £70,000 +7.69% 143
South West +18 78 £65,000 +1.96% 57
North of England -24 78 £75,000 +17.65% 71
Scotland -15 61 £67,500 +8.00% 40
North West +4 39 £70,000 +7.69% 39
East of England -21 38 £70,000 +3.70% 63
Midlands +6 30 £65,000 +5.26% 50
Yorkshire -11 29 £75,000 -4.91% 24
East Midlands -6 17 £65,000 +8.33% 28
West Midlands +23 13 £65,000 +2.36% 22
North East -23 10 £75,000 +36.36% 8
Wales +2 7 £60,000 -4.00% 22

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

For the 6 months to 29 January 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.

1 642 (98.02%) Software Engineering
2 131 (20.00%) AWS
3 123 (18.78%) Java
4 117 (17.86%) Agile
5 101 (15.42%) .NET
6 100 (15.27%) C#
7 96 (14.66%) CI/CD
8 87 (13.28%) Full-Stack Development
9 79 (12.06%) Mentoring
9 79 (12.06%) Microservices
9 79 (12.06%) Python
10 74 (11.30%) Azure
10 74 (11.30%) React
11 73 (11.15%) Kubernetes
12 70 (10.69%) DevOps
13 69 (10.53%) C++
14 68 (10.38%) TypeScript
15 55 (8.40%) JavaScript
16 54 (8.24%) Linux
16 54 (8.24%) Problem-Solving
17 49 (7.48%) SQL
18 48 (7.33%) Computer Science
18 48 (7.33%) Degree
19 45 (6.87%) SDLC
20 44 (6.72%) Docker
20 44 (6.72%) GCP
20 44 (6.72%) Technical Leadership
21 43 (6.56%) Containerisation
21 43 (6.56%) Test Automation
22 42 (6.41%) AI

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 18 (2.75%) Apache
2 17 (2.60%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.31%) Apache Solr
3 2 (0.31%) CMS
4 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.15%) Confluence
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.15%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 131 (20.00%) AWS
2 74 (11.30%) Azure
3 44 (6.72%) GCP
4 41 (6.26%) SaaS
5 26 (3.97%) GitHub
6 18 (2.75%) dbt
6 18 (2.75%) Snowflake
7 12 (1.83%) Amazon EKS
7 12 (1.83%) Azure AKS
7 12 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.53%) GitHub Copilot
9 9 (1.37%) Serverless
9 9 (1.37%) Stripe
10 7 (1.07%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 7 (1.07%) Azure Event Grid
11 5 (0.76%) Cloud Run
12 4 (0.61%) Amazon S3
12 4 (0.61%) Azure Service Bus
12 4 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
13 3 (0.46%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.98%) Multicast
2 10 (1.53%) HTTP
3 5 (0.76%) Ethernet
3 5 (0.76%) RS-232
4 4 (0.61%) Broadband
5 1 (0.15%) DNS
5 1 (0.15%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.43%) SQL Server
2 22 (3.36%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (3.05%) NoSQL
4 18 (2.75%) Amazon Athena
5 17 (2.60%) Apache Arrow
5 17 (2.60%) Apache Iceberg
5 17 (2.60%) Apache Ignite
5 17 (2.60%) Data Lake
5 17 (2.60%) Dremio
6 12 (1.83%) Relational Database
7 10 (1.53%) BigQuery
7 10 (1.53%) Elasticsearch
8 9 (1.37%) MongoDB
9 6 (0.92%) Redis
10 5 (0.76%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (0.61%) MySQL
12 2 (0.31%) GIS
12 2 (0.31%) MariaDB
12 2 (0.31%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 34 (5.19%) Git
2 21 (3.21%) JIRA
3 14 (2.14%) TeamCity
4 8 (1.22%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.76%) GitLab
6 4 (0.61%) JUnit
7 3 (0.46%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.46%) JBehave
8 2 (0.31%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.31%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.31%) Maven
8 2 (0.31%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.31%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.31%) Xcode
9 1 (0.15%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.15%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.15%) Rational Statemate
9 1 (0.15%) Selenium
9 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 140 (21.37%) Finance
2 63 (9.62%) Banking
3 45 (6.87%) Social Skills
4 19 (2.90%) Financial Institution
4 19 (2.90%) Retail
5 17 (2.60%) Front Office
5 17 (2.60%) Investment Banking
5 17 (2.60%) Law
6 16 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (1.98%) Games
8 11 (1.68%) Tech for Good
9 10 (1.53%) Back Office
9 10 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.22%) Automotive
11 6 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
11 6 (0.92%) Public Sector
12 5 (0.76%) Aerospace
12 5 (0.76%) Analytical Skills
12 5 (0.76%) Health Technology
13 4 (0.61%) Aeronautics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (15.42%) .NET
2 74 (11.30%) React
3 34 (5.19%) RESTful
4 30 (4.58%) REST
5 28 (4.27%) Node.js
6 25 (3.82%) React Native
7 22 (3.36%) .NET Core
8 21 (3.21%) AngularJS
9 20 (3.05%) GraphQL
10 17 (2.60%) gRPC
10 17 (2.60%) NumPy
10 17 (2.60%) Pandas
10 17 (2.60%) Protocol Buffers
10 17 (2.60%) SciPy
11 16 (2.44%) Ruby on Rails
12 14 (2.14%) .NET Framework
12 14 (2.14%) Spring
13 13 (1.98%) Boost C++ Libraries
13 13 (1.98%) FIX Protocol
13 13 (1.98%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 62 (9.47%) Cloud Native
2 31 (4.73%) Derivative
3 30 (4.58%) Equities
3 30 (4.58%) Fixed Income
4 24 (3.66%) Distributed Systems
5 23 (3.51%) Algorithms
6 22 (3.36%) Embedded Systems
7 20 (3.05%) Hedge funds
8 17 (2.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 17 (2.60%) Pricing Data
9 12 (1.83%) IoT
10 11 (1.68%) CAN bus
10 11 (1.68%) Greenfield Project
10 11 (1.68%) Public Cloud
11 9 (1.37%) Legacy Code
11 9 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
12 7 (1.07%) Blog
12 7 (1.07%) Data Structures
13 5 (0.76%) Device Driver
13 5 (0.76%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 54 (8.24%) Linux
2 17 (2.60%) Android
2 17 (2.60%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (0.76%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.31%) Unix
4 2 (0.31%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 642 (98.02%) Software Engineering
2 117 (17.86%) Agile
3 96 (14.66%) CI/CD
4 87 (13.28%) Full-Stack Development
5 79 (12.06%) Mentoring
5 79 (12.06%) Microservices
6 70 (10.69%) DevOps
7 54 (8.24%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (7.33%) Computer Science
9 45 (6.87%) SDLC
10 44 (6.72%) Technical Leadership
11 43 (6.56%) Containerisation
11 43 (6.56%) Test Automation
12 42 (6.41%) AI
13 41 (6.26%) Fintech
14 33 (5.04%) Clean Code
14 33 (5.04%) Scrum
15 30 (4.58%) User Experience
16 29 (4.43%) Continuous Improvement
16 29 (4.43%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 123 (18.78%) Java
2 100 (15.27%) C#
3 79 (12.06%) Python
4 69 (10.53%) C++
5 68 (10.38%) TypeScript
6 55 (8.40%) JavaScript
7 49 (7.48%) SQL
8 31 (4.73%) C
9 24 (3.66%) Rust
10 23 (3.51%) Go
11 18 (2.75%) Kotlin
12 16 (2.44%) PHP
12 16 (2.44%) Ruby
13 7 (1.07%) Embedded C
14 6 (0.92%) Delphi
15 4 (0.61%) Scala
15 4 (0.61%) VB
16 3 (0.46%) Bash
16 3 (0.46%) Swift
17 2 (0.31%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 48 (7.33%) Degree
2 21 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
3 16 (2.44%) Master's Degree
3 16 (2.44%) Security Cleared
4 12 (1.83%) SC Cleared
5 6 (0.92%) PhD
6 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.15%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.15%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.15%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.05%) QA
2 11 (1.68%) IEC 61508
2 11 (1.68%) MISRA
2 11 (1.68%) MISRA C
3 7 (1.07%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.31%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.31%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.31%) JTAG
5 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.15%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.15%) ECSS
5 1 (0.15%) GDPR
5 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.15%) PSD2
System Software
1 44 (6.72%) Docker
2 7 (1.07%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.07%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (0.92%) Firmware
4 3 (0.46%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 73 (11.15%) Kubernetes
2 28 (4.27%) Terraform
3 12 (1.83%) Grafana
4 11 (1.68%) Functional Safety
5 2 (0.31%) Ansible
5 2 (0.31%) Argo
6 1 (0.15%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.15%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (2.14%) Google
2 10 (1.53%) Microsoft
3 8 (1.22%) HubSpot
4 2 (0.31%) Adobe
4 2 (0.31%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.31%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (0.31%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.31%) Oracle
4 2 (0.31%) SAP
5 1 (0.15%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.15%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.15%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.15%) MuleSoft
5 1 (0.15%) New Relic
5 1 (0.15%) SendGrid