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 28 June 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 197 124
Rank change year-on-year +62 -73 +166
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,364 786 2,209
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.43% 1.70% 2.09%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.52% 1.90% 2.21%
Number of salaries quoted 1,109 452 1,608
10th Percentile £56,250 £52,550 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £63,063 £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 £105,313 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £105,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +12.50% -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 89,842 41,384 100,134
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.09% 89.50% 94.73%
Number of salaries quoted 61,632 23,849 72,187
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% +8.57% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £51,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -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 28 June 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 28 June 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 +61 1,203 £75,000 -9.09% 220
UK excluding London +95 969 £70,000 +3.70% 165
London -12 322 £95,000 -7.32% 75
Work from Home -32 309 £70,000 -12.50% 73
South East +140 247 £75,000 +15.38% 43
North of England -29 237 £75,000 +0.67% 35
South West +45 160 £70,000 -6.67% 30
North West -26 144 £75,000 - 23
East of England +70 122 £70,000 +18.64% 34
Midlands +51 110 £65,000 -10.34% 16
West Midlands +32 69 £68,403 -8.80% 5
Scotland +21 67 £67,500 +4.25% 2
Yorkshire +10 63 £70,000 -12.50% 2
East Midlands +17 41 £65,000 -7.14% 11
North East -32 30 £85,000 +54.55% 10
Wales -24 23 £56,250 -13.46% 3
Northern Ireland - 3 £75,000 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 28 June 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 1,359 (99.63%) Software Engineering
2 227 (16.64%) C#
3 224 (16.42%) C++
4 207 (15.18%) Python
5 198 (14.52%) AWS
6 193 (14.15%) Java
7 189 (13.86%) Agile
8 174 (12.76%) .NET
9 155 (11.36%) Full-Stack Development
10 144 (10.56%) CI/CD
11 122 (8.94%) Mentoring
12 119 (8.72%) Microservices
13 114 (8.36%) Azure
14 110 (8.06%) React
15 108 (7.92%) AI
16 107 (7.84%) TypeScript
17 103 (7.55%) Linux
18 102 (7.48%) DevOps
19 99 (7.26%) SaaS
20 95 (6.96%) JavaScript
21 93 (6.82%) Security Cleared
22 88 (6.45%) SQL
23 87 (6.38%) Test Automation
24 83 (6.09%) Degree
24 83 (6.09%) Kubernetes
25 82 (6.01%) C
25 82 (6.01%) Computer Science
26 81 (5.94%) SDLC
27 76 (5.57%) Node.js
28 75 (5.50%) 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 (1.17%) SharePoint Server
2 3 (0.22%) Apache
2 3 (0.22%) Apache Solr
2 3 (0.22%) FactoryTalk
2 3 (0.22%) WinCC
3 2 (0.15%) CMS
3 2 (0.15%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (0.22%) Blender
1 3 (0.22%) Maya
Cloud Services
1 198 (14.52%) AWS
2 114 (8.36%) Azure
3 99 (7.26%) SaaS
4 55 (4.03%) GCP
5 36 (2.64%) GitHub
6 32 (2.35%) Serverless
7 24 (1.76%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (1.25%) Anthropic Claude
8 17 (1.25%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 14 (1.03%) Azure DevOps
10 13 (0.95%) Azure AKS
11 11 (0.81%) GitHub Copilot
12 8 (0.59%) Azure Event Grid
13 6 (0.44%) Amazon S3
13 6 (0.44%) AWS Lambda
13 6 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
14 5 (0.37%) Azure AI
14 5 (0.37%) Pulumi
15 4 (0.29%) Copilot Studio
15 4 (0.29%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.76%) RS-232
2 17 (1.25%) Ethernet
3 16 (1.17%) Multicast
4 14 (1.03%) Modbus
5 13 (0.95%) Bluetooth
6 12 (0.88%) Profibus
6 12 (0.88%) Wireless
7 11 (0.81%) Broadband
8 9 (0.66%) HTTP
8 9 (0.66%) RS-485
8 9 (0.66%) ZigBee
9 1 (0.073%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
1 26 (1.91%) SQL Server
2 23 (1.69%) MySQL
3 20 (1.47%) NoSQL
4 12 (0.88%) MongoDB
5 8 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (0.51%) Big Data
7 6 (0.44%) Redis
7 6 (0.44%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
9 4 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.29%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.29%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.22%) DocumentDB
10 3 (0.22%) MariaDB
10 3 (0.22%) Neo4j
11 2 (0.15%) BigQuery
12 1 (0.073%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 58 (4.25%) Git
2 29 (2.13%) JIRA
3 24 (1.76%) GitLab
4 22 (1.61%) TeamCity
5 17 (1.25%) Claude Code
6 13 (0.95%) Visual Studio Code
7 11 (0.81%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.22%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.22%) Eclipse
8 3 (0.22%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.15%) Eclipse RCP
9 2 (0.15%) GDB
9 2 (0.15%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.15%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.073%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.073%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.073%) GoogleTest
10 1 (0.073%) Selenium
10 1 (0.073%) WinDbg
10 1 (0.073%) Yeoman
General
1 137 (10.04%) Finance
2 66 (4.84%) Social Skills
3 59 (4.33%) Banking
4 48 (3.52%) Electronics
5 35 (2.57%) Manufacturing
6 33 (2.42%) Public Sector
7 32 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 29 (2.13%) Analytical Skills
9 21 (1.54%) Retail
10 20 (1.47%) Automotive
10 20 (1.47%) Law
11 14 (1.03%) Back Office
11 14 (1.03%) Financial Institution
12 12 (0.88%) Aerospace
12 12 (0.88%) Tech for Good
13 11 (0.81%) Games
14 10 (0.73%) Military
15 9 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
16 7 (0.51%) Agriculture
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 174 (12.76%) .NET
2 110 (8.06%) React
3 76 (5.57%) Node.js
4 42 (3.08%) WPF
5 36 (2.64%) Spring
6 35 (2.57%) RESTful
7 34 (2.49%) REST
8 27 (1.98%) Spring Boot
9 22 (1.61%) Next.js
10 21 (1.54%) .NET Core
11 20 (1.47%) React Native
12 18 (1.32%) AngularJS
12 18 (1.32%) Ruby on Rails
13 16 (1.17%) Boost C++ Libraries
13 16 (1.17%) FIX Protocol
13 16 (1.17%) pytest
14 15 (1.10%) .NET Framework
14 15 (1.10%) Vue
14 15 (1.10%) Yocto
15 13 (0.95%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 98 (7.18%) Cloud Native
2 54 (3.96%) Algorithms
3 49 (3.59%) Legacy Systems
4 36 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
4 36 (2.64%) Embedded Systems
5 31 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
6 17 (1.25%) Derivative
6 17 (1.25%) Robotics
7 16 (1.17%) Device Driver
7 16 (1.17%) Equities
7 16 (1.17%) Fixed Income
7 16 (1.17%) IoT
8 13 (0.95%) Product Ownership
9 12 (0.88%) AI Agents
10 10 (0.73%) Client/Server
11 9 (0.66%) CAN bus
11 9 (0.66%) Public Cloud
11 9 (0.66%) Sports Betting
12 8 (0.59%) Legacy Applications
12 8 (0.59%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 103 (7.55%) Linux
2 30 (2.20%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.39%) FreeRTOS
4 9 (0.66%) Windows
5 8 (0.59%) Android
6 3 (0.22%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.073%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,359 (99.63%) Software Engineering
2 189 (13.86%) Agile
3 155 (11.36%) Full-Stack Development
4 144 (10.56%) CI/CD
5 122 (8.94%) Mentoring
6 119 (8.72%) Microservices
7 108 (7.92%) AI
8 102 (7.48%) DevOps
9 87 (6.38%) Test Automation
10 82 (6.01%) Computer Science
11 81 (5.94%) SDLC
12 66 (4.84%) Problem-Solving
13 60 (4.40%) Fintech
14 57 (4.18%) Containerisation
15 56 (4.11%) Code Quality
15 56 (4.11%) Technical Leadership
16 52 (3.81%) Continuous Improvement
17 46 (3.37%) Mathematics
18 43 (3.15%) Scrum
19 39 (2.86%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 227 (16.64%) C#
2 224 (16.42%) C++
3 207 (15.18%) Python
4 193 (14.15%) Java
5 107 (7.84%) TypeScript
6 95 (6.96%) JavaScript
7 88 (6.45%) SQL
8 82 (6.01%) C
9 48 (3.52%) Rust
10 26 (1.91%) Go
11 20 (1.47%) Embedded C
12 18 (1.32%) PHP
12 18 (1.32%) Ruby
13 14 (1.03%) Scala
14 10 (0.73%) Julia
14 10 (0.73%) MATLAB
14 10 (0.73%) VB
15 9 (0.66%) F#
15 9 (0.66%) Haskell
16 8 (0.59%) R
Qualifications
1 93 (6.82%) Security Cleared
2 83 (6.09%) Degree
3 69 (5.06%) SC Cleared
4 40 (2.93%) DV Cleared
5 25 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (1.54%) Master's Degree
7 14 (1.03%) PhD
8 3 (0.22%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.22%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.15%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.073%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (2.35%) QA
2 12 (0.88%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.73%) IEC 61508
3 10 (0.73%) MISRA
3 10 (0.73%) MISRA C
4 5 (0.37%) GDPR
5 3 (0.22%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.22%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.073%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 75 (5.50%) Docker
2 49 (3.59%) Firmware
3 22 (1.61%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.15%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.15%) KVM
4 2 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.073%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 83 (6.09%) Kubernetes
2 45 (3.30%) Terraform
3 21 (1.54%) Grafana
4 7 (0.51%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.44%) Ansible
6 5 (0.37%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.22%) Plesk
Vendors
1 12 (0.88%) Microsoft
2 8 (0.59%) Siemens
3 7 (0.51%) Google
4 6 (0.44%) Splunk
5 4 (0.29%) Databricks
5 4 (0.29%) Foundry
5 4 (0.29%) OpenAI
6 3 (0.22%) HubSpot
6 3 (0.22%) Rockwell
7 2 (0.15%) ADVA
7 2 (0.15%) Intel
7 2 (0.15%) VMware
8 1 (0.073%) Palantir
8 1 (0.073%) TOWER Software