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 12 May 2026.

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

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 160 190 152
Rank change year-on-year +30 -38 +128
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,143 765 1,858
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.26% 1.75% 1.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.36% 1.95% 2.03%
Number of salaries quoted 901 523 1,342
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £77,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +19.23% -7.14%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,528 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £130,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% +8.33% -7.69%

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 84,295 39,140 91,393
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.25% 89.50% 94.56%
Number of salaries quoted 55,489 23,203 67,143
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,670 £52,550
Median % change year-on-year -4.63% +9.74% -12.42%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.66%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 +32 977 £75,000 -3.23% 290
UK excluding London +42 760 £70,000 +7.69% 211
London +41 314 £95,000 - 104
Work from Home -62 290 £72,500 -6.45% 126
South East +108 199 £70,000 +7.69% 63
South West +51 150 £70,000 - 20
North of England -94 139 £75,000 +15.38% 54
East of England +33 93 £75,000 +15.38% 29
Scotland +21 85 £67,500 +5.88% 14
North West -85 83 £75,000 +11.11% 28
Midlands +32 76 £65,000 -10.34% 31
West Midlands +12 48 £70,000 -3.45% 19
Yorkshire -33 45 £70,000 -11.18% 14
East Midlands -5 28 £65,000 - 12
Wales -17 17 £60,000 -7.69% 2
North East -42 11 £80,000 +45.45% 13
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 12 May 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 1,127 (98.60%) Software Engineering
2 168 (14.70%) C++
3 164 (14.35%) Java
4 163 (14.26%) C#
5 161 (14.09%) Agile
6 153 (13.39%) AWS
7 150 (13.12%) .NET
8 139 (12.16%) Python
9 126 (11.02%) Full-Stack Development
10 109 (9.54%) Mentoring
11 106 (9.27%) CI/CD
12 97 (8.49%) Microservices
13 96 (8.40%) Azure
14 89 (7.79%) DevOps
14 89 (7.79%) React
15 88 (7.70%) Linux
16 80 (7.00%) SaaS
17 77 (6.74%) TypeScript
18 74 (6.47%) JavaScript
19 71 (6.21%) Degree
20 70 (6.12%) C
20 70 (6.12%) Test Automation
21 68 (5.95%) AI
21 68 (5.95%) Computer Science
21 68 (5.95%) SQL
22 67 (5.86%) Kubernetes
23 65 (5.69%) SDLC
24 60 (5.25%) Fintech
25 58 (5.07%) Docker
25 58 (5.07%) Security Cleared

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 4 (0.35%) Apache Solr
2 3 (0.26%) Apache
2 3 (0.26%) CMS
3 2 (0.17%) Confluence
3 2 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
3 2 (0.17%) WinCC
Cloud Services
1 153 (13.39%) AWS
2 96 (8.40%) Azure
3 80 (7.00%) SaaS
4 53 (4.64%) GCP
5 39 (3.41%) GitHub
6 24 (2.10%) Serverless
7 18 (1.57%) GitHub Copilot
8 16 (1.40%) Azure AKS
9 15 (1.31%) Anthropic Claude
10 11 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
10 11 (0.96%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 10 (0.87%) Azure Event Grid
12 8 (0.70%) Stripe
13 6 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.52%) IaaS
14 4 (0.35%) Amazon OpenSearch
15 3 (0.26%) Amazon S3
15 3 (0.26%) Cloud Run
15 3 (0.26%) Pulumi
16 2 (0.17%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.57%) RS-232
2 16 (1.40%) Ethernet
2 16 (1.40%) HTTP
3 14 (1.22%) Multicast
4 8 (0.70%) Bluetooth
4 8 (0.70%) Modbus
5 7 (0.61%) Wireless
6 6 (0.52%) Profibus
7 5 (0.44%) Broadband
8 4 (0.35%) RS-485
8 4 (0.35%) ZigBee
9 1 (0.087%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.97%) SQL Server
2 21 (1.84%) NoSQL
3 20 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (1.05%) MySQL
5 11 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
5 11 (0.96%) MongoDB
6 8 (0.70%) BigQuery
7 6 (0.52%) Big Data
8 5 (0.44%) Redis
8 5 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.35%) DocumentDB
9 4 (0.35%) Neo4j
10 3 (0.26%) MariaDB
11 2 (0.17%) DB2
12 1 (0.087%) Amazon Athena
12 1 (0.087%) Amazon RDS
12 1 (0.087%) DynamoDB
12 1 (0.087%) Geospatial Data
12 1 (0.087%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 42 (3.67%) Git
2 23 (2.01%) JIRA
3 17 (1.49%) GitLab
4 15 (1.31%) Claude Code
5 14 (1.22%) TeamCity
6 13 (1.14%) Visual Studio Code
7 11 (0.96%) Jenkins
8 4 (0.35%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.35%) JUnit
9 3 (0.26%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.26%) JBehave
9 3 (0.26%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.17%) Android Studio
10 2 (0.17%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.17%) GDB
10 2 (0.17%) Selenium
10 2 (0.17%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.17%) Xcode
11 1 (0.087%) Eclipse
General
1 145 (12.69%) Finance
2 61 (5.34%) Banking
3 42 (3.67%) Social Skills
4 31 (2.71%) Electronics
5 24 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 20 (1.75%) Automotive
6 20 (1.75%) Manufacturing
7 17 (1.49%) Retail
8 16 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
9 15 (1.31%) Public Sector
9 15 (1.31%) Tech for Good
10 14 (1.22%) Games
10 14 (1.22%) Law
11 12 (1.05%) Analytical Skills
11 12 (1.05%) Financial Institution
12 11 (0.96%) Back Office
13 10 (0.87%) Aerospace
14 9 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.61%) Agriculture
15 7 (0.61%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (13.12%) .NET
2 89 (7.79%) React
3 53 (4.64%) Node.js
4 42 (3.67%) REST
5 32 (2.80%) RESTful
6 29 (2.54%) .NET Core
7 26 (2.27%) React Native
8 25 (2.19%) WPF
9 18 (1.57%) .NET Framework
9 18 (1.57%) Spring
10 16 (1.40%) Spring Boot
11 15 (1.31%) AngularJS
12 14 (1.22%) Boost C++ Libraries
12 14 (1.22%) FIX Protocol
12 14 (1.22%) pytest
12 14 (1.22%) Yocto
13 13 (1.14%) Ruby on Rails
14 12 (1.05%) Entity Framework
14 12 (1.05%) Vue
15 11 (0.96%) Dapper ORM
Miscellaneous
1 79 (6.91%) Cloud Native
2 45 (3.94%) Algorithms
3 34 (2.97%) Embedded Systems
4 22 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
5 17 (1.49%) IoT
5 17 (1.49%) Public Cloud
6 16 (1.40%) Derivative
7 15 (1.31%) CAN bus
7 15 (1.31%) Robotics
8 14 (1.22%) Device Driver
8 14 (1.22%) Equities
8 14 (1.22%) Fixed Income
9 11 (0.96%) Greenfield Project
10 10 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (0.79%) Sports Betting
12 7 (0.61%) FMCG
13 6 (0.52%) Augmented Reality
13 6 (0.52%) Client/Server
13 6 (0.52%) Hedge funds
13 6 (0.52%) Smart Home
Operating Systems
1 88 (7.70%) Linux
2 27 (2.36%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (1.57%) Android
4 14 (1.22%) FreeRTOS
5 6 (0.52%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.35%) Windows
7 1 (0.087%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,127 (98.60%) Software Engineering
2 161 (14.09%) Agile
3 126 (11.02%) Full-Stack Development
4 109 (9.54%) Mentoring
5 106 (9.27%) CI/CD
6 97 (8.49%) Microservices
7 89 (7.79%) DevOps
8 70 (6.12%) Test Automation
9 68 (5.95%) AI
9 68 (5.95%) Computer Science
10 65 (5.69%) SDLC
11 60 (5.25%) Fintech
12 57 (4.99%) Problem-Solving
13 56 (4.90%) Technical Leadership
14 52 (4.55%) Containerisation
15 47 (4.11%) Scrum
16 46 (4.02%) Embedded Software Development
17 44 (3.85%) Low Latency
18 42 (3.67%) Continuous Improvement
19 39 (3.41%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 168 (14.70%) C++
2 164 (14.35%) Java
3 163 (14.26%) C#
4 139 (12.16%) Python
5 77 (6.74%) TypeScript
6 74 (6.47%) JavaScript
7 70 (6.12%) C
8 68 (5.95%) SQL
9 38 (3.32%) Rust
10 27 (2.36%) Go
11 19 (1.66%) Embedded C
11 19 (1.66%) PHP
12 16 (1.40%) Kotlin
13 13 (1.14%) Ruby
14 12 (1.05%) Scala
15 8 (0.70%) F#
15 8 (0.70%) Haskell
16 5 (0.44%) MATLAB
17 4 (0.35%) VB
18 3 (0.26%) R
Qualifications
1 71 (6.21%) Degree
2 58 (5.07%) Security Cleared
3 44 (3.85%) SC Cleared
4 23 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (1.84%) Master's Degree
6 19 (1.66%) DV Cleared
7 9 (0.79%) PhD
8 3 (0.26%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.17%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.17%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (2.01%) QA
2 16 (1.40%) IEC 61508
2 16 (1.40%) MISRA
2 16 (1.40%) MISRA C
3 10 (0.87%) Accessibility
4 3 (0.26%) DO-178B
5 2 (0.17%) GDPR
5 2 (0.17%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.087%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.087%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 58 (5.07%) Docker
2 37 (3.24%) Firmware
3 16 (1.40%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.17%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.17%) KVM
4 2 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.087%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 67 (5.86%) Kubernetes
2 31 (2.71%) Terraform
3 15 (1.31%) Grafana
4 13 (1.14%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.44%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.26%) Plesk
7 2 (0.17%) Ansible
7 2 (0.17%) Argo
Vendors
1 10 (0.87%) Google
2 9 (0.79%) Microsoft
3 8 (0.70%) HubSpot
4 3 (0.26%) Siemens
5 2 (0.17%) Adobe
5 2 (0.17%) CA Agile Central
5 2 (0.17%) OpenAI
5 2 (0.17%) Rockwell
5 2 (0.17%) VMware
6 1 (0.087%) New Relic
6 1 (0.087%) TOWER Software