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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 207 108
Rank change year-on-year +77 -99 +170
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,567 777 1,909
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.46% 1.56% 2.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.55% 1.73% 2.41%
Number of salaries quoted 1,211 444 1,347
10th Percentile £57,500 £56,250 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £55,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £83,750 £65,465
Median % change year-on-year -10.45% +27.93% -3.02%
75th Percentile £90,000 £111,250 £89,375
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 100,959 44,891 79,128
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.99% 89.94% 95.07%
Number of salaries quoted 69,008 26,549 52,423
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £72,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,679 £47,863 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.06% -4.27% -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 19 August 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 19 August 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 +84 1,399 £75,000 -12.03% 466
UK excluding London +99 1,091 £70,000 - 255
London -6 387 £95,000 -11.63% 265
Work from Home -71 294 £75,000 -12.03% 184
North of England -11 274 £75,000 +7.14% 65
South East +136 241 £80,000 +14.29% 46
South West +58 209 £70,000 - 40
North West -21 167 £75,000 +7.14% 38
East of England +89 166 £70,000 +7.69% 49
Midlands +55 116 £69,305 -6.03% 20
Yorkshire +27 67 £70,000 -8.98% 9
West Midlands +25 66 £70,000 -6.67% 6
East Midlands +25 50 £60,000 -14.29% 14
Scotland -9 49 £68,750 +5.77% 29
North East -28 40 £90,000 +800.00% 18
Wales -31 33 £65,000 - 7
Northern Ireland - 3 £75,000 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 19 August 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 1,562 (99.68%) Software Engineering
2 263 (16.78%) Python
3 249 (15.89%) C#
4 233 (14.87%) C++
5 231 (14.74%) Agile
6 222 (14.17%) Java
7 210 (13.40%) AWS
8 190 (12.13%) CI/CD
9 175 (11.17%) Mentoring
10 169 (10.78%) .NET
11 165 (10.53%) AI
12 159 (10.15%) Full-Stack Development
13 126 (8.04%) TypeScript
14 123 (7.85%) DevOps
14 123 (7.85%) Microservices
15 118 (7.53%) React
16 110 (7.02%) Azure
17 108 (6.89%) Security Cleared
18 107 (6.83%) Linux
19 102 (6.51%) Test Automation
20 101 (6.45%) JavaScript
21 88 (5.62%) SDLC
21 88 (5.62%) Technical Leadership
22 86 (5.49%) Code Quality
22 86 (5.49%) Problem-Solving
23 85 (5.42%) SQL
24 83 (5.30%) SaaS
25 82 (5.23%) Degree
26 79 (5.04%) C
27 78 (4.98%) Kubernetes

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 (1.02%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.45%) Apache
3 4 (0.26%) Confluence
4 3 (0.19%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.19%) WinCC
5 2 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.13%) Cloud Foundry
5 2 (0.13%) CMS
6 1 (0.064%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (0.19%) Blender
1 3 (0.19%) Maya
2 1 (0.064%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 210 (13.40%) AWS
2 110 (7.02%) Azure
3 83 (5.30%) SaaS
4 64 (4.08%) GCP
5 43 (2.74%) GitHub
6 38 (2.43%) Serverless
7 22 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
8 21 (1.34%) Anthropic Claude
9 20 (1.28%) GitHub Copilot
10 16 (1.02%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.64%) Amazon S3
12 10 (0.64%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (0.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 6 (0.38%) Amazon SQS
14 6 (0.38%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.38%) Supabase
15 5 (0.32%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.32%) Dynamics 365
15 5 (0.32%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.28%) RS-232
2 14 (0.89%) Modbus
3 13 (0.83%) Bluetooth
3 13 (0.83%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.77%) Multicast
4 12 (0.77%) Profibus
4 12 (0.77%) Wireless
5 9 (0.57%) RS-485
5 9 (0.57%) ZigBee
6 8 (0.51%) HTTP
7 7 (0.45%) Broadband
8 4 (0.26%) Firewall
8 4 (0.26%) TCP/IP
9 1 (0.064%) BGP
9 1 (0.064%) DNS
9 1 (0.064%) LTE
9 1 (0.064%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (3.89%) PostgreSQL
2 33 (2.11%) MySQL
3 28 (1.79%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.15%) MongoDB
4 18 (1.15%) NoSQL
4 18 (1.15%) Redis
4 18 (1.15%) SQL Server
5 9 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
5 9 (0.57%) Big Data
6 8 (0.51%) DynamoDB
7 7 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
8 5 (0.32%) Geospatial Data
9 4 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.26%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.19%) DocumentDB
10 3 (0.19%) MariaDB
10 3 (0.19%) Neo4j
11 2 (0.13%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.13%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 59 (3.77%) Git
2 30 (1.91%) JIRA
3 26 (1.66%) GitLab
4 20 (1.28%) Claude Code
5 15 (0.96%) TeamCity
6 11 (0.70%) Jenkins
7 10 (0.64%) Visual Studio Code
8 6 (0.38%) Mocha
8 6 (0.38%) Selenium
9 5 (0.32%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.32%) NUnit
10 4 (0.26%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.26%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.26%) Rational Rhapsody
10 4 (0.26%) Visual Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.19%) JUnit
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.13%) Appium
12 2 (0.13%) CMake
General
1 144 (9.19%) Finance
2 109 (6.96%) Social Skills
3 67 (4.28%) Electronics
4 55 (3.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 51 (3.25%) Banking
6 45 (2.87%) Manufacturing
7 44 (2.81%) Public Sector
8 40 (2.55%) Analytical Skills
9 35 (2.23%) Law
10 20 (1.28%) Retail
11 19 (1.21%) Aerospace
12 17 (1.08%) Marketing
13 13 (0.83%) Automotive
13 13 (0.83%) Financial Institution
14 12 (0.77%) Military
15 10 (0.64%) Back Office
15 10 (0.64%) Games
15 10 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
17 7 (0.45%) Agriculture
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 169 (10.78%) .NET
2 118 (7.53%) React
3 76 (4.85%) Node.js
4 60 (3.83%) Spring
5 49 (3.13%) WPF
6 39 (2.49%) RESTful
7 37 (2.36%) Spring Boot
8 33 (2.11%) Kafka
9 29 (1.85%) REST
10 28 (1.79%) Next.js
11 24 (1.53%) AngularJS
12 18 (1.15%) FastAPI
13 17 (1.08%) Django
13 17 (1.08%) React Native
14 16 (1.02%) Vue
15 14 (0.89%) CSS
16 13 (0.83%) .NET Core
16 13 (0.83%) FIX Protocol
17 12 (0.77%) pytest
17 12 (0.77%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 117 (7.47%) Cloud Native
2 57 (3.64%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.51%) Legacy Systems
4 48 (3.06%) Algorithms
5 35 (2.23%) Robotics
6 33 (2.11%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.85%) Greenfield Project
8 22 (1.40%) AI Agents
8 22 (1.40%) Product Ownership
9 20 (1.28%) Public Cloud
10 15 (0.96%) Blog
10 15 (0.96%) Derivative
11 14 (0.89%) Device Driver
12 13 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
12 13 (0.83%) Fixed Income
13 12 (0.77%) Equities
13 12 (0.77%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.70%) Blockchain
14 11 (0.70%) Cyber Threat
14 11 (0.70%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 107 (6.83%) Linux
2 28 (1.79%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.21%) FreeRTOS
3 19 (1.21%) Windows
4 4 (0.26%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.26%) Unix
5 2 (0.13%) Android
6 1 (0.064%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,562 (99.68%) Software Engineering
2 231 (14.74%) Agile
3 190 (12.13%) CI/CD
4 175 (11.17%) Mentoring
5 165 (10.53%) AI
6 159 (10.15%) Full-Stack Development
7 123 (7.85%) DevOps
7 123 (7.85%) Microservices
8 102 (6.51%) Test Automation
9 88 (5.62%) SDLC
9 88 (5.62%) Technical Leadership
10 86 (5.49%) Code Quality
10 86 (5.49%) Problem-Solving
11 72 (4.59%) Computer Science
11 72 (4.59%) Fintech
12 67 (4.28%) Continuous Improvement
13 54 (3.45%) Machine Learning
14 53 (3.38%) Infrastructure as Code
15 48 (3.06%) Containerisation
15 48 (3.06%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 263 (16.78%) Python
2 249 (15.89%) C#
3 233 (14.87%) C++
4 222 (14.17%) Java
5 126 (8.04%) TypeScript
6 101 (6.45%) JavaScript
7 85 (5.42%) SQL
8 79 (5.04%) C
9 45 (2.87%) Rust
10 36 (2.30%) Go
11 20 (1.28%) Embedded C
12 16 (1.02%) Scala
13 15 (0.96%) Ruby
14 14 (0.89%) PHP
15 13 (0.83%) F#
15 13 (0.83%) Haskell
16 11 (0.70%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.70%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.64%) Julia
18 8 (0.51%) R
Qualifications
1 108 (6.89%) Security Cleared
2 82 (5.23%) Degree
3 75 (4.79%) SC Cleared
4 54 (3.45%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.15%) Master's Degree
7 12 (0.77%) PhD
8 8 (0.51%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (0.38%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.13%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.13%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.064%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.064%) HND
11 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (2.55%) QA
2 18 (1.15%) Accessibility
3 5 (0.32%) Data Quality
3 5 (0.32%) GDPR
3 5 (0.32%) IEC 61508
3 5 (0.32%) MISRA
3 5 (0.32%) MISRA C
4 4 (0.26%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.19%) IEC 61131
6 2 (0.13%) SLA
7 1 (0.064%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 77 (4.91%) Docker
2 53 (3.38%) Firmware
3 22 (1.40%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.064%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 78 (4.98%) Kubernetes
2 61 (3.89%) Terraform
3 17 (1.08%) Grafana
4 10 (0.64%) Ansible
5 5 (0.32%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.19%) Plesk
7 2 (0.13%) Functional Safety
7 2 (0.13%) kaniko
7 2 (0.13%) Puppet
8 1 (0.064%) Argo
8 1 (0.064%) Istio
8 1 (0.064%) Kibana
Vendors
1 20 (1.28%) Microsoft
2 11 (0.70%) Salesforce
3 10 (0.64%) Google
4 9 (0.57%) Splunk
5 8 (0.51%) Siemens
6 7 (0.45%) Databricks
7 6 (0.38%) Oracle
8 5 (0.32%) Intel
8 5 (0.32%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.26%) Foundry
10 3 (0.19%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.19%) New Relic
10 3 (0.19%) Revolut
10 3 (0.19%) Rockwell
11 2 (0.13%) ADVA
11 2 (0.13%) Sage
12 1 (0.064%) Bloomberg
12 1 (0.064%) Palantir
12 1 (0.064%) RedGate
12 1 (0.064%) Reuters