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 26 July 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 203 120
Rank change year-on-year +68 -83 +172
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,446 810 1,947
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.43% 1.64% 2.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.52% 1.82% 2.31%
Number of salaries quoted 1,153 477 1,405
10th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £80,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +23.08% -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 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +12.50% -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 95,392 44,432 84,355
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.35% 90.12% 94.77%
Number of salaries quoted 65,258 26,408 58,586
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% - -5.12%

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 26 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 26 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 +69 1,291 £75,000 -12.03% 373
UK excluding London +91 1,022 £70,000 +3.70% 188
London -22 343 £95,000 -10.59% 212
Work from Home -69 298 £72,500 -12.12% 121
South East +138 249 £80,000 +14.29% 31
North of England -17 244 £75,000 +3.45% 45
South West +55 187 £70,000 - 38
East of England +81 154 £70,000 +12.00% 36
North West -33 149 £75,000 - 29
Midlands +53 111 £67,500 -6.90% 17
West Midlands +30 66 £70,000 -5.08% 4
Yorkshire +12 64 £70,000 -6.67% 7
Scotland +6 50 £67,500 +3.85% 8
East Midlands +8 45 £65,000 -7.14% 13
North East -34 31 £90,000 +63.64% 9
Wales -40 24 £56,250 -13.46% 7
Northern Ireland - 3 £75,000 - 9

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

For the 6 months to 26 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 1,441 (99.65%) Software Engineering
2 254 (17.57%) Python
3 244 (16.87%) C++
4 240 (16.60%) C#
5 205 (14.18%) Agile
6 202 (13.97%) Java
7 196 (13.55%) AWS
8 169 (11.69%) .NET
9 161 (11.13%) CI/CD
10 153 (10.58%) Full-Stack Development
11 150 (10.37%) AI
12 142 (9.82%) Mentoring
13 115 (7.95%) Azure
14 114 (7.88%) TypeScript
15 113 (7.81%) Microservices
16 111 (7.68%) React
17 110 (7.61%) Linux
18 107 (7.40%) DevOps
19 102 (7.05%) JavaScript
19 102 (7.05%) Security Cleared
20 96 (6.64%) Test Automation
21 87 (6.02%) SaaS
22 86 (5.95%) C
22 86 (5.95%) SDLC
23 85 (5.88%) Degree
24 83 (5.74%) SQL
25 77 (5.33%) Computer Science
25 77 (5.33%) Kubernetes
26 76 (5.26%) Docker
26 76 (5.26%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.11%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.35%) Apache
3 3 (0.21%) Apache Solr
3 3 (0.21%) Confluence
3 3 (0.21%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.21%) WinCC
4 1 (0.069%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.069%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.069%) CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.21%) Blender
1 3 (0.21%) Maya
2 1 (0.069%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 196 (13.55%) AWS
2 115 (7.95%) Azure
3 87 (6.02%) SaaS
4 59 (4.08%) GCP
5 37 (2.56%) GitHub
6 33 (2.28%) Serverless
7 22 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.38%) Anthropic Claude
9 14 (0.97%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (0.97%) GitHub Copilot
10 13 (0.90%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 8 (0.55%) Amazon S3
11 8 (0.55%) Azure AKS
12 7 (0.48%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (0.48%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.35%) Amazon SQS
13 5 (0.35%) Azure AI
13 5 (0.35%) Pulumi
13 5 (0.35%) Supabase
14 4 (0.28%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.59%) RS-232
2 16 (1.11%) Ethernet
3 14 (0.97%) Modbus
3 14 (0.97%) Multicast
4 13 (0.90%) Bluetooth
5 12 (0.83%) Profibus
5 12 (0.83%) Wireless
6 9 (0.62%) RS-485
6 9 (0.62%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.55%) HTTP
8 7 (0.48%) Broadband
9 1 (0.069%) Firewall
9 1 (0.069%) LTE
9 1 (0.069%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
2 28 (1.94%) MySQL
3 23 (1.59%) SQL Server
4 18 (1.24%) NoSQL
5 15 (1.04%) MongoDB
5 15 (1.04%) Redis
6 14 (0.97%) Relational Database
7 10 (0.69%) Big Data
8 8 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
9 5 (0.35%) Geospatial Data
10 4 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.28%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.28%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.21%) DocumentDB
11 3 (0.21%) MariaDB
11 3 (0.21%) Neo4j
12 2 (0.14%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.14%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 60 (4.15%) Git
2 32 (2.21%) JIRA
3 26 (1.80%) GitLab
4 19 (1.31%) Claude Code
5 16 (1.11%) TeamCity
6 12 (0.83%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.62%) Jenkins
8 4 (0.28%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.28%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.28%) NUnit
8 4 (0.28%) Selenium
8 4 (0.28%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.21%) Eclipse RCP
9 3 (0.21%) Jasmine
9 3 (0.21%) Mocha
9 3 (0.21%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.14%) GDB
10 2 (0.14%) JUnit
10 2 (0.14%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.069%) LabVIEW
General
1 123 (8.51%) Finance
2 83 (5.74%) Social Skills
3 63 (4.36%) Electronics
4 51 (3.53%) Banking
5 44 (3.04%) Manufacturing
6 42 (2.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 38 (2.63%) Analytical Skills
8 37 (2.56%) Public Sector
9 24 (1.66%) Law
10 19 (1.31%) Retail
11 15 (1.04%) Automotive
12 13 (0.90%) Financial Institution
13 12 (0.83%) Back Office
14 11 (0.76%) Military
15 10 (0.69%) Aerospace
16 9 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
17 8 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.48%) Billing
18 7 (0.48%) Marketing
18 7 (0.48%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 169 (11.69%) .NET
2 111 (7.68%) React
3 72 (4.98%) Node.js
4 48 (3.32%) WPF
5 46 (3.18%) Spring
6 33 (2.28%) RESTful
7 29 (2.01%) Spring Boot
8 28 (1.94%) REST
9 27 (1.87%) Next.js
10 20 (1.38%) Kafka
11 18 (1.24%) AngularJS
12 17 (1.18%) FastAPI
13 16 (1.11%) Vue
14 15 (1.04%) Django
15 14 (0.97%) .NET Core
15 14 (0.97%) Boost C++ Libraries
15 14 (0.97%) FIX Protocol
15 14 (0.97%) pytest
15 14 (0.97%) React Native
15 14 (0.97%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 102 (7.05%) Cloud Native
2 53 (3.67%) Legacy Systems
3 49 (3.39%) Algorithms
4 47 (3.25%) Distributed Systems
5 35 (2.42%) Robotics
6 32 (2.21%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (2.01%) Greenfield Project
8 19 (1.31%) Product Ownership
9 17 (1.18%) Device Driver
10 16 (1.11%) Derivative
11 15 (1.04%) AI Agents
12 14 (0.97%) Equities
12 14 (0.97%) Fixed Income
13 13 (0.90%) Public Cloud
14 11 (0.76%) Client/Server
15 10 (0.69%) Legacy Applications
16 9 (0.62%) Cyber Threat
16 9 (0.62%) IoT
16 9 (0.62%) Renewable Energy
17 8 (0.55%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 110 (7.61%) Linux
2 29 (2.01%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.31%) FreeRTOS
4 16 (1.11%) Windows
5 4 (0.28%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.21%) Unix
7 2 (0.14%) Android
8 1 (0.069%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,441 (99.65%) Software Engineering
2 205 (14.18%) Agile
3 161 (11.13%) CI/CD
4 153 (10.58%) Full-Stack Development
5 150 (10.37%) AI
6 142 (9.82%) Mentoring
7 113 (7.81%) Microservices
8 107 (7.40%) DevOps
9 96 (6.64%) Test Automation
10 86 (5.95%) SDLC
11 77 (5.33%) Computer Science
12 76 (5.26%) Problem-Solving
13 74 (5.12%) Code Quality
14 66 (4.56%) Fintech
15 65 (4.50%) Technical Leadership
16 61 (4.22%) Continuous Improvement
17 49 (3.39%) Containerisation
18 47 (3.25%) Machine Learning
19 45 (3.11%) Software Testing
20 43 (2.97%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 254 (17.57%) Python
2 244 (16.87%) C++
3 240 (16.60%) C#
4 202 (13.97%) Java
5 114 (7.88%) TypeScript
6 102 (7.05%) JavaScript
7 86 (5.95%) C
8 83 (5.74%) SQL
9 50 (3.46%) Rust
10 29 (2.01%) Go
11 22 (1.52%) Embedded C
12 15 (1.04%) Scala
13 13 (0.90%) F#
13 13 (0.90%) Haskell
13 13 (0.90%) PHP
13 13 (0.90%) Ruby
14 11 (0.76%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.69%) Julia
16 8 (0.55%) R
16 8 (0.55%) VB
Qualifications
1 102 (7.05%) Security Cleared
2 85 (5.88%) Degree
3 72 (4.98%) SC Cleared
4 50 (3.46%) DV Cleared
5 26 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (1.11%) Master's Degree
7 10 (0.69%) PhD
8 5 (0.35%) AWS Certification
8 5 (0.35%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.14%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.069%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.069%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (2.84%) QA
2 15 (1.04%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.41%) IEC 61508
3 6 (0.41%) MISRA
3 6 (0.41%) MISRA C
4 5 (0.35%) GDPR
5 3 (0.21%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.21%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.069%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.069%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 76 (5.26%) Docker
2 49 (3.39%) Firmware
3 22 (1.52%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.14%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.14%) KVM
4 2 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.069%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 77 (5.33%) Kubernetes
2 47 (3.25%) Terraform
3 19 (1.31%) Grafana
4 6 (0.41%) Ansible
4 6 (0.41%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.21%) Functional Safety
5 3 (0.21%) Plesk
6 2 (0.14%) Puppet
7 1 (0.069%) kaniko
Vendors
1 18 (1.24%) Microsoft
2 8 (0.55%) Google
2 8 (0.55%) Siemens
3 7 (0.48%) Splunk
4 5 (0.35%) Databricks
4 5 (0.35%) Intel
4 5 (0.35%) OpenAI
5 4 (0.28%) Foundry
6 3 (0.21%) Rockwell
7 2 (0.14%) ADVA
7 2 (0.14%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle
7 2 (0.14%) Salesforce
7 2 (0.14%) VMware
8 1 (0.069%) New Relic
8 1 (0.069%) Palantir
8 1 (0.069%) Revolut
8 1 (0.069%) TOWER Software
8 1 (0.069%) Virgin Media