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 10 May 2026.

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

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 191 154
Rank change year-on-year +33 -37 +123
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,138 780 1,853
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.25% 1.78% 1.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.34% 1.99% 2.03%
Number of salaries quoted 895 534 1,338
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £76,640 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.14% +17.91% -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 84,643 39,171 91,241
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.16% 89.53% 94.56%
Number of salaries quoted 55,266 23,359 67,069
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £58,000 £52,550
Median % change year-on-year -5.17% +10.37% -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 10 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 10 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 +27 973 £75,000 -3.23% 297
UK excluding London +27 755 £70,000 +7.69% 217
London +41 315 £100,000 +5.26% 110
Work from Home -63 289 £72,500 -5.40% 137
South East +89 200 £70,000 +7.69% 65
South West +49 151 £70,000 +3.70% 20
North of England -111 136 £75,000 +15.38% 55
East of England +35 91 £70,000 +7.69% 30
Scotland +11 86 £67,500 +3.85% 17
North West -84 82 £75,000 +11.11% 30
Midlands +45 74 £65,000 -10.34% 29
West Midlands +8 46 £70,000 -3.45% 19
Yorkshire -43 43 £70,000 -11.84% 16
East Midlands -2 28 £65,000 - 10
Wales -21 16 £60,000 -7.69% 4
North East -48 11 £80,000 +45.45% 9
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 10 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 1,122 (98.59%) Software Engineering
2 168 (14.76%) C++
3 164 (14.41%) C#
4 162 (14.24%) Agile
4 162 (14.24%) Java
5 152 (13.36%) .NET
6 151 (13.27%) AWS
7 135 (11.86%) Python
8 125 (10.98%) Full-Stack Development
9 107 (9.40%) Mentoring
10 104 (9.14%) CI/CD
11 98 (8.61%) Microservices
12 95 (8.35%) Azure
13 89 (7.82%) React
14 88 (7.73%) DevOps
14 88 (7.73%) Linux
15 80 (7.03%) SaaS
16 77 (6.77%) TypeScript
17 71 (6.24%) JavaScript
18 70 (6.15%) C
18 70 (6.15%) Degree
18 70 (6.15%) Test Automation
19 69 (6.06%) SQL
20 68 (5.98%) Computer Science
20 68 (5.98%) Kubernetes
21 67 (5.89%) AI
22 66 (5.80%) SDLC
23 60 (5.27%) Fintech
24 57 (5.01%) Technical Leadership
25 56 (4.92%) Docker

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 (0.18%) Confluence
3 2 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
3 2 (0.18%) WinCC
Cloud Services
1 151 (13.27%) AWS
2 95 (8.35%) Azure
3 80 (7.03%) SaaS
4 54 (4.75%) GCP
5 40 (3.51%) GitHub
6 23 (2.02%) Serverless
7 18 (1.58%) GitHub Copilot
8 17 (1.49%) Azure AKS
9 15 (1.32%) Anthropic Claude
10 12 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
11 11 (0.97%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 10 (0.88%) Azure Event Grid
13 8 (0.70%) Stripe
14 6 (0.53%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (0.53%) IaaS
15 4 (0.35%) Amazon OpenSearch
16 3 (0.26%) Amazon S3
16 3 (0.26%) Cloud Run
16 3 (0.26%) Pulumi
17 2 (0.18%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.58%) RS-232
2 16 (1.41%) Ethernet
2 16 (1.41%) HTTP
3 15 (1.32%) Multicast
4 8 (0.70%) Bluetooth
4 8 (0.70%) Modbus
5 7 (0.62%) Wireless
6 6 (0.53%) Profibus
7 5 (0.44%) Broadband
8 4 (0.35%) RS-485
8 4 (0.35%) ZigBee
9 1 (0.088%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.99%) SQL Server
2 22 (1.93%) NoSQL
3 20 (1.76%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (1.05%) MySQL
5 11 (0.97%) Elasticsearch
5 11 (0.97%) MongoDB
6 8 (0.70%) BigQuery
7 6 (0.53%) 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 (0.18%) DB2
12 1 (0.088%) Amazon Athena
12 1 (0.088%) Amazon RDS
12 1 (0.088%) DynamoDB
12 1 (0.088%) Geospatial Data
12 1 (0.088%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 42 (3.69%) Git
2 24 (2.11%) JIRA
3 17 (1.49%) GitLab
4 15 (1.32%) Claude Code
4 15 (1.32%) TeamCity
5 13 (1.14%) Visual Studio Code
6 11 (0.97%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.35%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.35%) JUnit
8 3 (0.26%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.26%) JBehave
8 3 (0.26%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.18%) Android Studio
9 2 (0.18%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.18%) GDB
9 2 (0.18%) Selenium
9 2 (0.18%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.18%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.18%) Xcode
10 1 (0.088%) NUnit
General
1 147 (12.92%) Finance
2 63 (5.54%) Banking
3 42 (3.69%) Social Skills
4 31 (2.72%) Electronics
5 24 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 20 (1.76%) Automotive
6 20 (1.76%) Manufacturing
7 17 (1.49%) Retail
8 16 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
9 15 (1.32%) Law
9 15 (1.32%) Tech for Good
10 14 (1.23%) Games
11 13 (1.14%) Financial Institution
12 12 (1.05%) Back Office
12 12 (1.05%) Public Sector
13 11 (0.97%) Aerospace
13 11 (0.97%) Analytical Skills
14 8 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.62%) Agriculture
16 6 (0.53%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (13.36%) .NET
2 89 (7.82%) React
3 53 (4.66%) Node.js
4 42 (3.69%) REST
5 33 (2.90%) RESTful
6 29 (2.55%) .NET Core
7 26 (2.28%) WPF
8 25 (2.20%) React Native
9 19 (1.67%) .NET Framework
10 16 (1.41%) Spring
11 15 (1.32%) AngularJS
11 15 (1.32%) Boost C++ Libraries
11 15 (1.32%) FIX Protocol
11 15 (1.32%) pytest
12 14 (1.23%) Spring Boot
12 14 (1.23%) Yocto
13 12 (1.05%) Entity Framework
13 12 (1.05%) Vue
14 11 (0.97%) Dapper ORM
14 11 (0.97%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 79 (6.94%) Cloud Native
2 46 (4.04%) Algorithms
3 34 (2.99%) Embedded Systems
4 22 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
5 17 (1.49%) Derivative
5 17 (1.49%) IoT
5 17 (1.49%) Public Cloud
6 15 (1.32%) CAN bus
6 15 (1.32%) Equities
6 15 (1.32%) Fixed Income
6 15 (1.32%) Robotics
7 14 (1.23%) Device Driver
8 11 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
9 10 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
10 9 (0.79%) Sports Betting
11 6 (0.53%) Augmented Reality
11 6 (0.53%) FMCG
11 6 (0.53%) Hedge funds
11 6 (0.53%) Smart Home
11 6 (0.53%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 88 (7.73%) Linux
2 27 (2.37%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (1.58%) Android
4 14 (1.23%) FreeRTOS
5 6 (0.53%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.35%) Windows
7 1 (0.088%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,122 (98.59%) Software Engineering
2 162 (14.24%) Agile
3 125 (10.98%) Full-Stack Development
4 107 (9.40%) Mentoring
5 104 (9.14%) CI/CD
6 98 (8.61%) Microservices
7 88 (7.73%) DevOps
8 70 (6.15%) Test Automation
9 68 (5.98%) Computer Science
10 67 (5.89%) AI
11 66 (5.80%) SDLC
12 60 (5.27%) Fintech
13 57 (5.01%) Technical Leadership
14 55 (4.83%) Problem-Solving
15 51 (4.48%) Containerisation
16 48 (4.22%) Scrum
17 46 (4.04%) Embedded Software Development
18 45 (3.95%) Low Latency
19 40 (3.51%) Continuous Improvement
20 39 (3.43%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 168 (14.76%) C++
2 164 (14.41%) C#
3 162 (14.24%) Java
4 135 (11.86%) Python
5 77 (6.77%) TypeScript
6 71 (6.24%) JavaScript
7 70 (6.15%) C
8 69 (6.06%) SQL
9 38 (3.34%) Rust
10 27 (2.37%) Go
11 19 (1.67%) Embedded C
11 19 (1.67%) PHP
12 16 (1.41%) Kotlin
13 12 (1.05%) Scala
14 11 (0.97%) Ruby
15 8 (0.70%) F#
15 8 (0.70%) Haskell
16 5 (0.44%) MATLAB
16 5 (0.44%) VB
17 3 (0.26%) R
Qualifications
1 70 (6.15%) Degree
2 56 (4.92%) Security Cleared
3 42 (3.69%) SC Cleared
4 23 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (1.85%) Master's Degree
6 18 (1.58%) DV Cleared
7 9 (0.79%) PhD
8 3 (0.26%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.088%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.088%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (2.02%) QA
2 16 (1.41%) IEC 61508
2 16 (1.41%) MISRA
2 16 (1.41%) MISRA C
3 9 (0.79%) Accessibility
4 3 (0.26%) DO-178B
5 2 (0.18%) GDPR
5 2 (0.18%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.088%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 56 (4.92%) Docker
2 37 (3.25%) Firmware
3 16 (1.41%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.18%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.18%) KVM
4 2 (0.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.088%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 68 (5.98%) Kubernetes
2 32 (2.81%) Terraform
3 16 (1.41%) Grafana
4 13 (1.14%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.44%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.26%) Plesk
7 2 (0.18%) Ansible
7 2 (0.18%) Argo
Vendors
1 10 (0.88%) Google
2 9 (0.79%) Microsoft
3 8 (0.70%) HubSpot
4 3 (0.26%) Siemens
5 2 (0.18%) Adobe
5 2 (0.18%) CA Agile Central
5 2 (0.18%) OpenAI
5 2 (0.18%) Rockwell
5 2 (0.18%) VMware
6 1 (0.088%) New Relic
6 1 (0.088%) TOWER Software