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 July 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 205 118
Rank change year-on-year +71 -87 +170
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,465 802 1,910
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.44% 1.63% 2.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.53% 1.81% 2.31%
Number of salaries quoted 1,163 468 1,375
10th Percentile £55,850 £56,250 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £80,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.83% +23.85% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £111,250 £86,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £110,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year - +16.67% -4.00%

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 95,972 44,419 82,565
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.36% 90.03% 94.80%
Number of salaries quoted 65,619 26,374 56,860
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £96,250 £96,250 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 29 July 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 29 July 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 +72 1,310 £75,000 -12.03% 414
UK excluding London +96 1,031 £70,000 - 189
London -6 352 £95,000 -11.63% 254
Work from Home -74 297 £72,500 -14.71% 140
North of England -16 251 £75,000 +2.04% 47
South East +137 247 £80,000 +14.29% 31
South West +53 188 £70,000 - 36
East of England +73 158 £70,000 +9.80% 33
North West -28 153 £75,000 - 36
Midlands +51 111 £67,500 -6.90% 20
Yorkshire +23 66 £70,000 -8.98% 4
West Midlands +20 65 £70,000 -5.08% 4
Scotland -1 48 £67,500 +3.85% 7
East Midlands +14 46 £65,000 -7.14% 16
North East -33 32 £85,000 +61.90% 7
Wales -38 25 £57,500 -14.81% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £75,000 - 10

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

For the 6 months to 29 July 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 1,460 (99.66%) Software Engineering
2 256 (17.47%) Python
3 241 (16.45%) C#
4 240 (16.38%) C++
5 210 (14.33%) Agile
6 204 (13.92%) Java
7 200 (13.65%) AWS
8 170 (11.60%) .NET
9 167 (11.40%) CI/CD
10 157 (10.72%) Full-Stack Development
11 155 (10.58%) AI
12 148 (10.10%) Mentoring
13 116 (7.92%) TypeScript
14 113 (7.71%) React
15 112 (7.65%) Azure
15 112 (7.65%) DevOps
15 112 (7.65%) Microservices
16 108 (7.37%) Linux
17 102 (6.96%) JavaScript
17 102 (6.96%) Security Cleared
18 98 (6.69%) Test Automation
19 85 (5.80%) SaaS
20 84 (5.73%) C
20 84 (5.73%) SDLC
20 84 (5.73%) SQL
21 83 (5.67%) Degree
22 77 (5.26%) Problem-Solving
23 76 (5.19%) Code Quality
24 75 (5.12%) Computer Science
24 75 (5.12%) 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 16 (1.09%) SharePoint Server
2 6 (0.41%) Apache
3 3 (0.20%) Apache Solr
3 3 (0.20%) Confluence
3 3 (0.20%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.20%) WinCC
4 1 (0.068%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.068%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.068%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.068%) CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.20%) Blender
1 3 (0.20%) Maya
2 1 (0.068%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 200 (13.65%) AWS
2 112 (7.65%) Azure
3 85 (5.80%) SaaS
4 60 (4.10%) GCP
5 38 (2.59%) GitHub
6 34 (2.32%) Serverless
7 22 (1.50%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.37%) Anthropic Claude
9 15 (1.02%) GitHub Copilot
10 13 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (0.82%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 8 (0.55%) Amazon S3
12 8 (0.55%) AWS Lambda
13 7 (0.48%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (0.41%) Azure AKS
14 6 (0.41%) Supabase
15 5 (0.34%) Amazon SQS
15 5 (0.34%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.34%) Pulumi
16 4 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.50%) RS-232
2 15 (1.02%) Ethernet
3 14 (0.96%) Modbus
3 14 (0.96%) Multicast
4 13 (0.89%) Bluetooth
5 12 (0.82%) Profibus
5 12 (0.82%) Wireless
6 9 (0.61%) RS-485
6 9 (0.61%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.55%) HTTP
8 7 (0.48%) Broadband
9 1 (0.068%) Firewall
9 1 (0.068%) LTE
9 1 (0.068%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
2 28 (1.91%) MySQL
3 21 (1.43%) SQL Server
4 18 (1.23%) NoSQL
5 16 (1.09%) Redis
6 15 (1.02%) MongoDB
6 15 (1.02%) Relational Database
7 10 (0.68%) Big Data
8 8 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (0.34%) DynamoDB
9 5 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
10 4 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.27%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.20%) DocumentDB
11 3 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
11 3 (0.20%) MariaDB
11 3 (0.20%) Neo4j
12 2 (0.14%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.14%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 59 (4.03%) Git
2 32 (2.18%) JIRA
3 26 (1.77%) GitLab
4 19 (1.30%) Claude Code
5 16 (1.09%) TeamCity
6 11 (0.75%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.61%) Jenkins
8 5 (0.34%) NUnit
8 5 (0.34%) Selenium
9 4 (0.27%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.27%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.27%) Jasmine
9 4 (0.27%) Mocha
9 4 (0.27%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.20%) Eclipse RCP
10 3 (0.20%) Rational Rhapsody
11 2 (0.14%) GDB
11 2 (0.14%) JUnit
11 2 (0.14%) SonarQube
12 1 (0.068%) LabVIEW
General
1 126 (8.60%) Finance
2 86 (5.87%) Social Skills
3 63 (4.30%) Electronics
4 50 (3.41%) Banking
5 44 (3.00%) Manufacturing
6 43 (2.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 38 (2.59%) Analytical Skills
7 38 (2.59%) Public Sector
8 26 (1.77%) Law
9 20 (1.37%) Retail
10 15 (1.02%) Automotive
11 12 (0.82%) Financial Institution
12 11 (0.75%) Back Office
12 11 (0.75%) Military
13 10 (0.68%) Aerospace
14 9 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
15 8 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (0.55%) Marketing
16 7 (0.48%) Agriculture
16 7 (0.48%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (11.60%) .NET
2 113 (7.71%) React
3 70 (4.78%) Node.js
4 48 (3.28%) WPF
5 47 (3.21%) Spring
6 35 (2.39%) RESTful
7 30 (2.05%) Spring Boot
8 28 (1.91%) Next.js
9 26 (1.77%) REST
10 21 (1.43%) Kafka
11 19 (1.30%) AngularJS
12 18 (1.23%) FastAPI
13 17 (1.16%) Django
14 16 (1.09%) Vue
15 14 (0.96%) Boost C++ Libraries
15 14 (0.96%) FIX Protocol
15 14 (0.96%) pytest
15 14 (0.96%) React Native
16 13 (0.89%) .NET Core
16 13 (0.89%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 106 (7.24%) Cloud Native
2 54 (3.69%) Legacy Systems
3 49 (3.34%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (3.28%) Algorithms
5 36 (2.46%) Robotics
6 31 (2.12%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.98%) Greenfield Project
8 20 (1.37%) Product Ownership
9 17 (1.16%) Derivative
10 16 (1.09%) AI Agents
10 16 (1.09%) Device Driver
11 14 (0.96%) Equities
11 14 (0.96%) Fixed Income
11 14 (0.96%) Public Cloud
12 11 (0.75%) Client/Server
13 10 (0.68%) Cyber Threat
13 10 (0.68%) Legacy Applications
14 9 (0.61%) Blockchain
14 9 (0.61%) Blog
14 9 (0.61%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 108 (7.37%) Linux
2 28 (1.91%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.30%) FreeRTOS
4 16 (1.09%) Windows
5 3 (0.20%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.20%) Unix
6 1 (0.068%) Android
6 1 (0.068%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,460 (99.66%) Software Engineering
2 210 (14.33%) Agile
3 167 (11.40%) CI/CD
4 157 (10.72%) Full-Stack Development
5 155 (10.58%) AI
6 148 (10.10%) Mentoring
7 112 (7.65%) DevOps
7 112 (7.65%) Microservices
8 98 (6.69%) Test Automation
9 84 (5.73%) SDLC
10 77 (5.26%) Problem-Solving
11 76 (5.19%) Code Quality
12 75 (5.12%) Computer Science
13 69 (4.71%) Technical Leadership
14 67 (4.57%) Fintech
15 61 (4.16%) Continuous Improvement
16 50 (3.41%) Machine Learning
17 46 (3.14%) Containerisation
18 44 (3.00%) Software Architecture
18 44 (3.00%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 256 (17.47%) Python
2 241 (16.45%) C#
3 240 (16.38%) C++
4 204 (13.92%) Java
5 116 (7.92%) TypeScript
6 102 (6.96%) JavaScript
7 84 (5.73%) C
7 84 (5.73%) SQL
8 48 (3.28%) Rust
9 28 (1.91%) Go
10 21 (1.43%) Embedded C
11 15 (1.02%) Scala
12 14 (0.96%) Ruby
13 13 (0.89%) F#
13 13 (0.89%) Haskell
14 12 (0.82%) PHP
15 11 (0.75%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.68%) Julia
17 8 (0.55%) R
17 8 (0.55%) VB
Qualifications
1 102 (6.96%) Security Cleared
2 83 (5.67%) Degree
3 72 (4.91%) SC Cleared
4 50 (3.41%) DV Cleared
5 25 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (1.09%) Master's Degree
7 10 (0.68%) PhD
8 5 (0.34%) AWS Certification
8 5 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.14%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.068%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.068%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.068%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (2.87%) QA
2 15 (1.02%) Accessibility
3 5 (0.34%) GDPR
3 5 (0.34%) IEC 61508
3 5 (0.34%) MISRA
3 5 (0.34%) MISRA C
4 3 (0.20%) DO-178B
4 3 (0.20%) IEC 61131
5 2 (0.14%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.068%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 75 (5.12%) Docker
2 50 (3.41%) Firmware
3 22 (1.50%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.14%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.14%) KVM
4 2 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.068%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 75 (5.12%) Kubernetes
2 47 (3.21%) Terraform
3 18 (1.23%) Grafana
4 6 (0.41%) Ansible
5 5 (0.34%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.20%) Plesk
7 2 (0.14%) Functional Safety
7 2 (0.14%) Puppet
8 1 (0.068%) kaniko
Vendors
1 18 (1.23%) Microsoft
2 8 (0.55%) Google
2 8 (0.55%) Siemens
3 7 (0.48%) Splunk
4 6 (0.41%) Databricks
5 5 (0.34%) Intel
5 5 (0.34%) OpenAI
6 4 (0.27%) Foundry
7 3 (0.20%) Rockwell
7 3 (0.20%) Salesforce
8 2 (0.14%) ADVA
8 2 (0.14%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.14%) Oracle
8 2 (0.14%) VMware
9 1 (0.068%) New Relic
9 1 (0.068%) Palantir
9 1 (0.068%) Revolut
9 1 (0.068%) TOWER Software
9 1 (0.068%) Virgin Media