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 16 June 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 196 131
Rank change year-on-year +57 -65 +159
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,311 789 2,202
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.41% 1.77% 2.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.50% 1.98% 2.15%
Number of salaries quoted 1,066 456 1,609
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £79,405 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.55% +22.16% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £105,000 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £132,500 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +12.50% -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 87,667 39,868 102,544
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.98% 89.44% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 60,134 22,590 73,956
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,501 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 +60 1,151 £75,000 -6.25% 774
UK excluding London +88 921 £70,000 +3.70% 460
London -1 318 £95,000 -5.00% 363
Work from Home -37 309 £70,000 -11.18% 305
South East +139 239 £75,000 +15.38% 93
North of England -32 226 £75,000 +7.14% 115
South West +55 156 £70,000 -9.68% 64
North West -29 136 £75,000 +0.67% 89
East of England +50 106 £70,000 +18.64% 70
Midlands +68 101 £65,000 -10.34% 45
Scotland +8 71 £67,500 +4.25% 31
West Midlands +32 68 £69,305 -4.41% 30
Yorkshire +5 62 £70,000 -11.84% 10
East Midlands +7 33 £65,000 -7.14% 15
North East -34 28 £80,000 +45.45% 16
Wales -30 21 £56,250 -13.46% 12
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 34

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

For the 6 months to 16 June 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 1,306 (99.62%) Software Engineering
2 213 (16.25%) C++
3 208 (15.87%) C#
4 196 (14.95%) Python
5 192 (14.65%) Java
6 185 (14.11%) Agile
7 179 (13.65%) AWS
8 169 (12.89%) .NET
9 151 (11.52%) Full-Stack Development
10 133 (10.14%) CI/CD
11 115 (8.77%) Microservices
12 111 (8.47%) Mentoring
13 107 (8.16%) Azure
14 100 (7.63%) Linux
15 99 (7.55%) React
16 97 (7.40%) TypeScript
17 94 (7.17%) DevOps
18 92 (7.02%) AI
19 88 (6.71%) JavaScript
19 88 (6.71%) SaaS
20 86 (6.56%) Security Cleared
21 83 (6.33%) SQL
21 83 (6.33%) Test Automation
22 82 (6.25%) Kubernetes
23 79 (6.03%) C
23 79 (6.03%) SDLC
24 78 (5.95%) Computer Science
25 76 (5.80%) Degree
26 73 (5.57%) Docker
27 66 (5.03%) Node.js

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 (1.22%) SharePoint Server
2 3 (0.23%) Apache
2 3 (0.23%) Apache Solr
2 3 (0.23%) FactoryTalk
2 3 (0.23%) WinCC
3 2 (0.15%) CMS
3 2 (0.15%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (0.23%) Blender
1 3 (0.23%) Maya
Cloud Services
1 179 (13.65%) AWS
2 107 (8.16%) Azure
3 88 (6.71%) SaaS
4 51 (3.89%) GCP
5 36 (2.75%) GitHub
6 30 (2.29%) Serverless
7 20 (1.53%) Amazon EKS
8 18 (1.37%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 16 (1.22%) Anthropic Claude
10 15 (1.14%) Azure AKS
11 12 (0.92%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (0.92%) GitHub Copilot
12 9 (0.69%) Azure Event Grid
13 5 (0.38%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.38%) Amazon SQS
13 5 (0.38%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.38%) Pulumi
13 5 (0.38%) Stripe
14 4 (0.31%) GitHub Actions
14 4 (0.31%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.75%) RS-232
2 17 (1.30%) Ethernet
3 16 (1.22%) Multicast
4 13 (0.99%) Modbus
5 12 (0.92%) Bluetooth
6 11 (0.84%) Profibus
6 11 (0.84%) Wireless
7 10 (0.76%) HTTP
8 9 (0.69%) Broadband
9 8 (0.61%) RS-485
9 8 (0.61%) ZigBee
10 1 (0.076%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (2.29%) SQL Server
2 21 (1.60%) NoSQL
3 20 (1.53%) MySQL
4 19 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (0.92%) MongoDB
6 8 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
6 8 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
7 7 (0.53%) Big Data
8 5 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
8 5 (0.38%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.31%) Redis
10 3 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.23%) DocumentDB
10 3 (0.23%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.23%) MariaDB
10 3 (0.23%) Neo4j
11 2 (0.15%) BigQuery
11 2 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.15%) Delta Lake
12 1 (0.076%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 55 (4.20%) Git
2 26 (1.98%) JIRA
3 21 (1.60%) GitLab
4 20 (1.53%) TeamCity
5 16 (1.22%) Claude Code
6 13 (0.99%) Visual Studio Code
7 10 (0.76%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.23%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.15%) Eclipse
9 2 (0.15%) GDB
9 2 (0.15%) JUnit
9 2 (0.15%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.15%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.076%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.076%) LabVIEW
10 1 (0.076%) NUnit
10 1 (0.076%) Selenium
10 1 (0.076%) WinDbg
10 1 (0.076%) Xcode
General
1 137 (10.45%) Finance
2 60 (4.58%) Banking
3 57 (4.35%) Social Skills
4 44 (3.36%) Electronics
5 33 (2.52%) Public Sector
6 31 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 31 (2.36%) Manufacturing
7 24 (1.83%) Analytical Skills
8 20 (1.53%) Automotive
8 20 (1.53%) Retail
9 18 (1.37%) Law
10 14 (1.07%) Back Office
10 14 (1.07%) Financial Institution
11 12 (0.92%) Aerospace
11 12 (0.92%) Games
11 12 (0.92%) Tech for Good
12 10 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
14 7 (0.53%) Agriculture
14 7 (0.53%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 169 (12.89%) .NET
2 99 (7.55%) React
3 66 (5.03%) Node.js
4 40 (3.05%) WPF
5 37 (2.82%) REST
6 36 (2.75%) Spring
7 33 (2.52%) RESTful
8 27 (2.06%) Spring Boot
9 23 (1.75%) .NET Core
10 22 (1.68%) React Native
11 19 (1.45%) Next.js
12 17 (1.30%) .NET Framework
12 17 (1.30%) AngularJS
12 17 (1.30%) Ruby on Rails
13 16 (1.22%) Boost C++ Libraries
13 16 (1.22%) FIX Protocol
13 16 (1.22%) pytest
14 15 (1.14%) Yocto
15 14 (1.07%) Vue
16 12 (0.92%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 93 (7.09%) Cloud Native
2 54 (4.12%) Algorithms
3 48 (3.66%) Legacy Systems
4 37 (2.82%) Embedded Systems
5 31 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
6 30 (2.29%) Greenfield Project
7 17 (1.30%) Derivative
8 16 (1.22%) Equities
8 16 (1.22%) Fixed Income
8 16 (1.22%) IoT
9 15 (1.14%) Device Driver
9 15 (1.14%) Robotics
10 12 (0.92%) CAN bus
11 11 (0.84%) AI Agents
11 11 (0.84%) Product Ownership
12 10 (0.76%) Public Cloud
13 9 (0.69%) Sports Betting
14 8 (0.61%) Client/Server
14 8 (0.61%) Legacy Applications
15 7 (0.53%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 100 (7.63%) Linux
2 30 (2.29%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (1.37%) FreeRTOS
4 8 (0.61%) Android
4 8 (0.61%) Windows
5 3 (0.23%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.076%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,306 (99.62%) Software Engineering
2 185 (14.11%) Agile
3 151 (11.52%) Full-Stack Development
4 133 (10.14%) CI/CD
5 115 (8.77%) Microservices
6 111 (8.47%) Mentoring
7 94 (7.17%) DevOps
8 92 (7.02%) AI
9 83 (6.33%) Test Automation
10 79 (6.03%) SDLC
11 78 (5.95%) Computer Science
12 64 (4.88%) Problem-Solving
13 60 (4.58%) Containerisation
14 57 (4.35%) Fintech
15 52 (3.97%) Technical Leadership
16 51 (3.89%) Code Quality
17 49 (3.74%) Continuous Improvement
18 45 (3.43%) Scrum
19 44 (3.36%) Mathematics
20 40 (3.05%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 213 (16.25%) C++
2 208 (15.87%) C#
3 196 (14.95%) Python
4 192 (14.65%) Java
5 97 (7.40%) TypeScript
6 88 (6.71%) JavaScript
7 83 (6.33%) SQL
8 79 (6.03%) C
9 45 (3.43%) Rust
10 26 (1.98%) Go
11 20 (1.53%) Embedded C
12 17 (1.30%) PHP
12 17 (1.30%) Ruby
13 12 (0.92%) Scala
14 10 (0.76%) Julia
14 10 (0.76%) MATLAB
15 9 (0.69%) VB
16 8 (0.61%) F#
16 8 (0.61%) Haskell
17 7 (0.53%) R
Qualifications
1 86 (6.56%) Security Cleared
2 76 (5.80%) Degree
3 66 (5.03%) SC Cleared
4 34 (2.59%) DV Cleared
5 24 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (1.60%) Master's Degree
7 14 (1.07%) PhD
8 3 (0.23%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.23%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.15%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.076%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (2.29%) QA
2 13 (0.99%) IEC 61508
2 13 (0.99%) MISRA
2 13 (0.99%) MISRA C
3 12 (0.92%) Accessibility
4 5 (0.38%) GDPR
5 3 (0.23%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.23%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.076%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 73 (5.57%) Docker
2 47 (3.59%) Firmware
3 21 (1.60%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.15%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.15%) KVM
4 2 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.076%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 82 (6.25%) Kubernetes
2 42 (3.20%) Terraform
3 20 (1.53%) Grafana
4 10 (0.76%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.38%) Ansible
5 5 (0.38%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.23%) Plesk
Vendors
1 9 (0.69%) Microsoft
2 8 (0.61%) Siemens
3 6 (0.46%) Google
4 5 (0.38%) HubSpot
4 5 (0.38%) Splunk
5 3 (0.23%) OpenAI
5 3 (0.23%) Rockwell
6 2 (0.15%) Databricks
6 2 (0.15%) Foundry
6 2 (0.15%) VMware
7 1 (0.076%) Intel
7 1 (0.076%) Palantir
7 1 (0.076%) TOWER Software