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 January 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 217 181 240
Rank change year-on-year -36 +59 +22
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 600 880 788
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.98% 1.66% 1.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.08% 1.79% 1.39%
Number of salaries quoted 474 575 588
10th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,750 £57,265
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £95,000 £95,625 £81,313
90th Percentile £108,500 £122,500 £101,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £65,000

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 55,337 49,207 56,763
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.81% 92.65% 95.19%
Number of salaries quoted 34,211 25,429 43,890
10th Percentile £28,697 £33,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £76,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,528 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -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 19 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Software Engineer in the UK

Senior Software Engineer
Top 16 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 January 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 -40 514 £75,000 +7.14% 467
UK excluding London -50 347 £65,000 - 436
London -1 219 £95,000 +5.56% 88
Work from Home -73 204 £77,500 +10.71% 255
South East -41 79 £70,000 +7.69% 143
North of England -24 74 £75,000 +15.38% 76
South West +3 71 £65,000 +8.33% 55
Scotland -17 55 £67,500 +8.00% 29
North West -8 36 £65,000 - 36
East of England -21 35 £70,000 +3.70% 60
Yorkshire -13 28 £75,000 -12.03% 31
Midlands +16 26 £65,000 +2.36% 50
East Midlands -3 15 £65,000 +8.33% 34
West Midlands +18 11 £65,000 +2.36% 15
North East -16 10 £75,000 +29.31% 9
Wales 0 7 £60,000 - 21

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

For the 6 months to 19 January 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.

1 587 (97.83%) Software Engineering
2 124 (20.67%) AWS
3 120 (20.00%) Agile
4 116 (19.33%) Java
5 94 (15.67%) C#
6 93 (15.50%) .NET
7 86 (14.33%) CI/CD
8 79 (13.17%) Full-Stack Development
8 79 (13.17%) Mentoring
8 79 (13.17%) Python
9 74 (12.33%) Microservices
10 73 (12.17%) React
11 71 (11.83%) TypeScript
12 67 (11.17%) Azure
13 64 (10.67%) DevOps
13 64 (10.67%) Kubernetes
14 59 (9.83%) C++
15 58 (9.67%) JavaScript
16 48 (8.00%) Problem-Solving
17 47 (7.83%) Linux
18 45 (7.50%) SQL
19 43 (7.17%) Computer Science
19 43 (7.17%) Technical Leadership
20 41 (6.83%) AI
20 41 (6.83%) Degree
20 41 (6.83%) SDLC
21 39 (6.50%) Docker
21 39 (6.50%) GCP
22 38 (6.33%) Containerisation
23 37 (6.17%) Fintech

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 23 (3.83%) Apache
2 22 (3.67%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.33%) Apache Solr
3 2 (0.33%) CMS
4 1 (0.17%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.17%) Confluence
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.17%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 124 (20.67%) AWS
2 67 (11.17%) Azure
3 39 (6.50%) GCP
4 33 (5.50%) SaaS
5 25 (4.17%) GitHub
6 23 (3.83%) dbt
6 23 (3.83%) Snowflake
7 11 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.67%) GitHub Copilot
9 9 (1.50%) Azure AKS
10 8 (1.33%) Serverless
10 8 (1.33%) Stripe
11 7 (1.17%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (0.83%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 5 (0.83%) Azure Event Grid
12 5 (0.83%) Cloud Run
13 4 (0.67%) Azure Service Bus
13 4 (0.67%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (0.50%) Firebase
14 3 (0.50%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.17%) Multicast
2 10 (1.67%) HTTP
3 4 (0.67%) Broadband
3 4 (0.67%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.67%) RS-232
4 1 (0.17%) AMQP
4 1 (0.17%) DNS
4 1 (0.17%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.17%) SQL Server
2 23 (3.83%) Amazon Athena
3 22 (3.67%) Apache Arrow
3 22 (3.67%) Apache Iceberg
3 22 (3.67%) Apache Ignite
3 22 (3.67%) Data Lake
3 22 (3.67%) Dremio
4 21 (3.50%) NoSQL
4 21 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.67%) BigQuery
7 8 (1.33%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (1.33%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.17%) Redis
9 5 (0.83%) MySQL
10 4 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
10 4 (0.67%) DynamoDB
11 2 (0.33%) GIS
11 2 (0.33%) MariaDB
11 2 (0.33%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 32 (5.33%) Git
2 21 (3.50%) JIRA
3 10 (1.67%) TeamCity
4 8 (1.33%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.67%) JUnit
6 3 (0.50%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.50%) GitLab
6 3 (0.50%) JBehave
7 2 (0.33%) Android Studio
7 2 (0.33%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.33%) Maven
7 2 (0.33%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.33%) Xcode
8 1 (0.17%) Ant
8 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.17%) Gradle
8 1 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.17%) Rational Rhapsody
8 1 (0.17%) Rational Statemate
8 1 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 131 (21.83%) Finance
2 60 (10.00%) Banking
3 42 (7.00%) Social Skills
4 22 (3.67%) Front Office
4 22 (3.67%) Investment Banking
5 15 (2.50%) Financial Institution
5 15 (2.50%) Retail
6 14 (2.33%) Law
7 12 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 10 (1.67%) Games
8 10 (1.67%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.50%) Tech for Good
10 6 (1.00%) Automotive
10 6 (1.00%) Back Office
10 6 (1.00%) Health Technology
10 6 (1.00%) Public Sector
11 5 (0.83%) Aerospace
11 5 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (0.67%) Electronics
12 4 (0.67%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (15.50%) .NET
2 73 (12.17%) React
3 33 (5.50%) RESTful
4 26 (4.33%) REST
5 24 (4.00%) React Native
6 23 (3.83%) gRPC
7 22 (3.67%) .NET Core
7 22 (3.67%) AngularJS
7 22 (3.67%) NumPy
7 22 (3.67%) Pandas
7 22 (3.67%) Protocol Buffers
7 22 (3.67%) SciPy
8 21 (3.50%) Node.js
9 20 (3.33%) GraphQL
10 15 (2.50%) Ruby on Rails
10 15 (2.50%) Spring
11 13 (2.17%) Boost C++ Libraries
11 13 (2.17%) FIX Protocol
11 13 (2.17%) pytest
11 13 (2.17%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 58 (9.67%) Cloud Native
2 36 (6.00%) Derivative
3 35 (5.83%) Equities
3 35 (5.83%) Fixed Income
4 25 (4.17%) Hedge funds
5 22 (3.67%) Distributed Systems
5 22 (3.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 22 (3.67%) Pricing Data
6 21 (3.50%) Algorithms
7 19 (3.17%) Embedded Systems
8 12 (2.00%) Greenfield Project
9 11 (1.83%) Public Cloud
10 9 (1.50%) CAN bus
10 9 (1.50%) IoT
10 9 (1.50%) Legacy Code
11 8 (1.33%) Data Structures
11 8 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
12 7 (1.17%) Blog
13 4 (0.67%) Device Driver
13 4 (0.67%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 47 (7.83%) Linux
2 15 (2.50%) Android
2 15 (2.50%) Embedded Linux
3 3 (0.50%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.33%) Unix
4 2 (0.33%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 587 (97.83%) Software Engineering
2 120 (20.00%) Agile
3 86 (14.33%) CI/CD
4 79 (13.17%) Full-Stack Development
4 79 (13.17%) Mentoring
5 74 (12.33%) Microservices
6 64 (10.67%) DevOps
7 48 (8.00%) Problem-Solving
8 43 (7.17%) Computer Science
8 43 (7.17%) Technical Leadership
9 41 (6.83%) AI
9 41 (6.83%) SDLC
10 38 (6.33%) Containerisation
11 37 (6.17%) Fintech
12 35 (5.83%) Test Automation
13 32 (5.33%) Clean Code
14 29 (4.83%) Scrum
14 29 (4.83%) User Experience
15 28 (4.67%) TDD
16 27 (4.50%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 116 (19.33%) Java
2 94 (15.67%) C#
3 79 (13.17%) Python
4 71 (11.83%) TypeScript
5 59 (9.83%) C++
6 58 (9.67%) JavaScript
7 45 (7.50%) SQL
8 28 (4.67%) C
9 19 (3.17%) Rust
10 18 (3.00%) Go
11 17 (2.83%) Kotlin
12 15 (2.50%) Ruby
13 13 (2.17%) PHP
14 6 (1.00%) Delphi
14 6 (1.00%) Embedded C
15 4 (0.67%) Scala
15 4 (0.67%) VB
16 3 (0.50%) Bash
16 3 (0.50%) Swift
17 2 (0.33%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 41 (6.83%) Degree
2 20 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
3 12 (2.00%) Security Cleared
4 11 (1.83%) Master's Degree
5 8 (1.33%) SC Cleared
6 3 (0.50%) PhD
7 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.17%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.17%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (3.50%) QA
2 9 (1.50%) IEC 61508
2 9 (1.50%) MISRA
2 9 (1.50%) MISRA C
3 8 (1.33%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.33%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.33%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.33%) JTAG
5 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.17%) ECSS
5 1 (0.17%) GDPR
5 1 (0.17%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.17%) PSD2
System Software
1 39 (6.50%) Docker
2 7 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.17%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (1.00%) Firmware
4 3 (0.50%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 64 (10.67%) Kubernetes
2 21 (3.50%) Terraform
3 9 (1.50%) Functional Safety
4 8 (1.33%) Grafana
5 2 (0.33%) Ansible
5 2 (0.33%) Argo
6 1 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (2.33%) Google
2 10 (1.67%) Microsoft
3 7 (1.17%) HubSpot
4 2 (0.33%) Adobe
4 2 (0.33%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.33%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (0.33%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle
4 2 (0.33%) SAP
5 1 (0.17%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.17%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.17%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.17%) MuleSoft
5 1 (0.17%) New Relic
5 1 (0.17%) SendGrid