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 4 October 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 236 120
Rank change year-on-year +122 -116 +171
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,837 653 1,571
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.55% 1.31% 2.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.67% 1.46% 2.22%
Number of salaries quoted 1,408 332 1,050
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +28.57% +5.66%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
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 109,737 44,641 70,718
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.84% 89.74% 95.32%
Number of salaries quoted 74,771 25,775 40,993
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £35,750 £40,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,396 £54,987 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.20% -0.02% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,500 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% -6.50% -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 4 October 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 4 October 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 +109 1,648 £75,000 -16.67% 1,860
UK excluding London +132 1,307 £70,000 - 1,553
London +23 449 £95,000 -13.64% 689
North of England +15 350 £75,000 +7.14% 344
Work from Home -48 326 £80,000 -27.27% 1,436
South East +133 254 £80,000 +14.29% 236
South West +75 241 £70,000 +7.69% 166
North West -7 215 £75,000 +7.14% 182
East of England +104 205 £70,000 +7.69% 199
Midlands +79 144 £70,000 -6.67% 182
Yorkshire +24 80 £70,000 +7.69% 100
West Midlands +28 76 £70,000 -6.67% 84
East Midlands +16 68 £60,000 -14.29% 98
Scotland +23 61 £75,000 +13.21% 240
North East -17 55 £80,000 +700.00% 65
Wales -27 47 £70,000 - 124
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 74

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

For the 6 months to 4 October 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 1,835 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 283 (15.41%) Python
3 257 (13.99%) Agile
4 252 (13.72%) C#
5 236 (12.85%) AWS
6 232 (12.63%) C++
6 232 (12.63%) Java
7 217 (11.81%) AI
8 212 (11.54%) CI/CD
9 180 (9.80%) Mentoring
10 169 (9.20%) Full-Stack Development
11 165 (8.98%) .NET
12 148 (8.06%) TypeScript
13 133 (7.24%) Microservices
14 126 (6.86%) DevOps
15 124 (6.75%) React
16 109 (5.93%) Security Cleared
17 107 (5.82%) Azure
18 105 (5.72%) Test Automation
19 101 (5.50%) Linux
20 96 (5.23%) Code Quality
20 96 (5.23%) Kubernetes
21 95 (5.17%) SDLC
22 89 (4.84%) Problem-Solving
23 88 (4.79%) Technical Leadership
24 85 (4.63%) Degree
25 83 (4.52%) Docker
25 83 (4.52%) JavaScript
26 81 (4.41%) Node.js
27 79 (4.30%) Continuous Improvement

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 (0.87%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.38%) Apache
3 3 (0.16%) CMS
3 3 (0.16%) Confluence
3 3 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.16%) WinCC
4 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
5 1 (0.054%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.054%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.054%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.16%) Blender
1 3 (0.16%) Maya
2 1 (0.054%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 236 (12.85%) AWS
2 107 (5.82%) Azure
3 71 (3.86%) GCP
4 67 (3.65%) SaaS
5 50 (2.72%) Serverless
6 36 (1.96%) GitHub
7 26 (1.42%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (0.93%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
10 15 (0.82%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (0.54%) Amazon S3
14 8 (0.44%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 6 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
15 6 (0.33%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (0.33%) Supabase
16 5 (0.27%) Azure AI
16 5 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
17 4 (0.22%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.76%) RS-232
2 13 (0.71%) Ethernet
3 12 (0.65%) Bluetooth
3 12 (0.65%) Modbus
4 11 (0.60%) Profibus
5 10 (0.54%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.49%) Internet
6 9 (0.49%) Multicast
6 9 (0.49%) Wireless
7 8 (0.44%) Broadband
7 8 (0.44%) RS-485
7 8 (0.44%) ZigBee
8 5 (0.27%) HTTP
9 4 (0.22%) Firewall
10 3 (0.16%) MQTT
11 2 (0.11%) RS-422
12 1 (0.054%) BGP
12 1 (0.054%) DNS
12 1 (0.054%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (3.70%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.69%) MySQL
3 28 (1.52%) Relational Database
4 18 (0.98%) Redis
5 16 (0.87%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.82%) NoSQL
7 13 (0.71%) SQL Server
8 11 (0.60%) DynamoDB
9 10 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (0.38%) Big Data
11 5 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
11 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (0.22%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.16%) MariaDB
14 2 (0.11%) Apache Cassandra
14 2 (0.11%) Flink
14 2 (0.11%) Hadoop
14 2 (0.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 55 (2.99%) Git
2 25 (1.36%) JIRA
3 24 (1.31%) GitLab
4 19 (1.03%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.76%) Claude Code
6 9 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.44%) Jenkins
8 7 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
9 6 (0.33%) Mocha
10 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
10 5 (0.27%) NUnit
10 5 (0.27%) Selenium
10 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
11 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
12 3 (0.16%) Eclipse RCP
12 3 (0.16%) JUnit
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
13 2 (0.11%) Appium
13 2 (0.11%) Bitbucket
13 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 142 (7.73%) Finance
2 126 (6.86%) Social Skills
3 67 (3.65%) Electronics
4 58 (3.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 54 (2.94%) Banking
6 45 (2.45%) Public Sector
7 42 (2.29%) Analytical Skills
8 39 (2.12%) Law
9 38 (2.07%) Manufacturing
10 30 (1.63%) Aerospace
11 23 (1.25%) Retail
12 17 (0.93%) Marketing
12 17 (0.93%) Military
13 15 (0.82%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.76%) Front Office
15 13 (0.71%) Games
16 11 (0.60%) Automotive
17 10 (0.54%) Health Technology
18 9 (0.49%) Legal
19 8 (0.44%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (8.98%) .NET
2 124 (6.75%) React
3 81 (4.41%) Node.js
4 72 (3.92%) Terraform
5 66 (3.59%) Spring
6 46 (2.50%) RESTful
6 46 (2.50%) WPF
7 44 (2.40%) Spring Boot
8 42 (2.29%) Kafka
9 30 (1.63%) Next.js
10 26 (1.42%) AngularJS
11 23 (1.25%) FastAPI
11 23 (1.25%) REST
12 20 (1.09%) Vue
13 16 (0.87%) Django
14 13 (0.71%) React Native
15 12 (0.65%) CSS
16 11 (0.60%) FIX Protocol
16 11 (0.60%) OpenAPI
16 11 (0.60%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 124 (6.75%) Cloud Native
2 62 (3.38%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
4 48 (2.61%) Robotics
5 44 (2.40%) Algorithms
6 36 (1.96%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.58%) Greenfield Project
8 28 (1.52%) AI Agents
8 28 (1.52%) Product Ownership
9 23 (1.25%) Blog
10 21 (1.14%) Public Cloud
11 19 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (0.71%) Blockchain
12 13 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (0.65%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.60%) Derivative
14 11 (0.60%) Device Driver
14 11 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
15 10 (0.54%) Fixed Income
16 9 (0.49%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 101 (5.50%) Linux
2 29 (1.58%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (0.98%) Windows
4 16 (0.87%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.54%) Android
5 10 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.44%) Unix
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.054%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,835 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 257 (13.99%) Agile
3 217 (11.81%) AI
4 212 (11.54%) CI/CD
5 180 (9.80%) Mentoring
6 169 (9.20%) Full-Stack Development
7 133 (7.24%) Microservices
8 126 (6.86%) DevOps
9 105 (5.72%) Test Automation
10 96 (5.23%) Code Quality
11 95 (5.17%) SDLC
12 89 (4.84%) Problem-Solving
13 88 (4.79%) Technical Leadership
14 79 (4.30%) Continuous Improvement
15 70 (3.81%) Fintech
16 66 (3.59%) Computer Science
17 64 (3.48%) Event-Driven
18 59 (3.21%) Infrastructure as Code
19 58 (3.16%) Containerisation
20 56 (3.05%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 283 (15.41%) Python
2 252 (13.72%) C#
3 232 (12.63%) C++
3 232 (12.63%) Java
4 148 (8.06%) TypeScript
5 83 (4.52%) JavaScript
6 76 (4.14%) SQL
7 68 (3.70%) C
8 38 (2.07%) Rust
9 37 (2.01%) Go
10 17 (0.93%) Embedded C
10 17 (0.93%) PHP
11 16 (0.87%) Scala
12 15 (0.82%) Kotlin
13 14 (0.76%) Ruby
14 13 (0.71%) F#
14 13 (0.71%) Haskell
15 12 (0.65%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.54%) Julia
17 8 (0.44%) R
Qualifications
1 109 (5.93%) Security Cleared
2 85 (4.63%) Degree
3 75 (4.08%) SC Cleared
4 50 (2.72%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (0.76%) Master's Degree
7 13 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (0.54%) PhD
9 6 (0.33%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.22%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Chartered Engineer
11 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.054%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.054%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (1.91%) QA
2 19 (1.03%) Accessibility
3 7 (0.38%) DO-178B
4 6 (0.33%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.27%) GDPR
6 3 (0.16%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.054%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.054%) MISRA
8 1 (0.054%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.054%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 83 (4.52%) Docker
2 47 (2.56%) Firmware
3 20 (1.09%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 96 (5.23%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.09%) Grafana
3 11 (0.60%) Ansible
4 4 (0.22%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.16%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.054%) Argo
7 1 (0.054%) Functional Safety
7 1 (0.054%) Istio
7 1 (0.054%) Kibana
7 1 (0.054%) Podman
Vendors
1 22 (1.20%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.93%) Salesforce
3 13 (0.71%) RedGate
4 9 (0.49%) Google
4 9 (0.49%) Splunk
5 8 (0.44%) Foundry
5 8 (0.44%) Sage
5 8 (0.44%) Siemens
6 7 (0.38%) Databricks
7 6 (0.33%) OpenAI
7 6 (0.33%) Oracle
8 5 (0.27%) Intel
9 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.16%) New Relic
9 3 (0.16%) Revolut
9 3 (0.16%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.11%) ADVA
10 2 (0.11%) Okta
10 2 (0.11%) Thales
11 1 (0.054%) Virgin Media