Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 21 November 2025.

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

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 255 127 289
Rank change year-on-year -128 +162 -67
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 534 1,346 574
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.00% 2.00% 1.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.11% 2.11% 1.16%
Number of salaries quoted 366 889 461
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £56,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £103,750 £95,000 £81,250
90th Percentile £122,500 £122,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 48,105 63,733 49,629
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.16% 94.54% 95.38%
Number of salaries quoted 30,175 35,701 38,478
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,500 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,048 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.74% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £76,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £51,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -7.77% -1.90% -

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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025. 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 -110 471 £80,000 +14.29% 625
London -30 261 £100,000 +11.11% 346
UK excluding London -149 257 £70,000 +7.69% 318
Work from Home -125 162 £87,500 +9.38% 364
North of England -43 67 £75,000 +15.38% 66
Scotland -20 49 £77,500 +19.23% 48
South West -49 49 £65,000 +8.33% 47
South East -107 46 £65,000 - 88
North West -8 35 £75,000 +15.38% 44
Midlands +2 23 £70,298 +8.15% 25
Yorkshire -5 23 £75,000 +15.38% 19
East of England -63 17 £65,000 -3.70% 38
West Midlands +10 13 £75,000 +15.38% 13
East Midlands +10 10 £67,500 +3.85% 12
North East -15 9 £75,000 +23.49% 3
Wales -8 6 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 21 November 2025, 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.

1 528 (98.88%) Software Engineering
2 225 (42.13%) Agile
3 192 (35.96%) AWS
4 185 (34.64%) Java
5 158 (29.59%) Python
6 129 (24.16%) TypeScript
7 114 (21.35%) CI/CD
8 96 (17.98%) React
9 95 (17.79%) SDLC
10 92 (17.23%) JavaScript
11 89 (16.67%) Kubernetes
12 84 (15.73%) Problem-Solving
13 77 (14.42%) Azure
14 72 (13.48%) C#
15 71 (13.30%) Microservices
16 68 (12.73%) AI
17 66 (12.36%) C++
18 63 (11.80%) Computer Science
19 62 (11.61%) Operational Stability
20 60 (11.24%) Apache
21 59 (11.05%) Amazon Athena
21 59 (11.05%) Apache Iceberg
21 59 (11.05%) Asset Management
21 59 (11.05%) Data Lake
21 59 (11.05%) gRPC
21 59 (11.05%) Investment Management
22 58 (10.86%) Full-Stack Development
22 58 (10.86%) Protocol Buffers
23 57 (10.67%) DevOps
24 55 (10.30%) Apache Airflow

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 60 (11.24%) Apache
2 55 (10.30%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (0.94%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.37%) Confluence
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.19%) JBoss
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.19%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 192 (35.96%) AWS
2 77 (14.42%) Azure
3 55 (10.30%) dbt
3 55 (10.30%) Snowflake
4 40 (7.49%) GCP
5 21 (3.93%) GitHub
6 17 (3.18%) Amazon EKS
7 15 (2.81%) SaaS
8 13 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (2.25%) Serverless
10 9 (1.69%) Amazon EC2
11 8 (1.50%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (1.31%) Amazon S3
12 7 (1.31%) AWS Lambda
13 6 (1.12%) Amazon Bedrock
13 6 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
14 5 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
14 5 (0.94%) Kong
15 4 (0.75%) Amazon SageMaker
15 4 (0.75%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.87%) Multicast
2 4 (0.75%) HTTP
3 3 (0.56%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.56%) RS-232
3 3 (0.56%) SSL
4 2 (0.37%) Internet
5 1 (0.19%) AMQP
5 1 (0.19%) DNS
5 1 (0.19%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (11.05%) Amazon Athena
1 59 (11.05%) Apache Iceberg
1 59 (11.05%) Data Lake
2 55 (10.30%) Apache Arrow
2 55 (10.30%) Apache Ignite
2 55 (10.30%) Dremio
3 29 (5.43%) Relational Database
4 28 (5.24%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (4.68%) NoSQL
6 16 (3.00%) MySQL
7 12 (2.25%) KDB
8 10 (1.87%) DynamoDB
8 10 (1.87%) SQL Server
9 9 (1.69%) Azure SQL Database
9 9 (1.69%) Big Data
9 9 (1.69%) MongoDB
10 8 (1.50%) Kdb+
10 8 (1.50%) Redis
11 6 (1.12%) RDBMS
12 5 (0.94%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 32 (5.99%) Git
2 18 (3.37%) JIRA
3 8 (1.50%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.50%) Vite
4 7 (1.31%) JUnit
5 6 (1.12%) TeamCity
6 4 (0.75%) rollup.js
7 3 (0.56%) Maven
7 3 (0.56%) Mockito
8 2 (0.37%) Ant
8 2 (0.37%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.37%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.37%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.37%) webpack
9 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.19%) JBehave
9 1 (0.19%) LabVIEW
9 1 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.19%) Rational Statemate
General
1 228 (42.70%) Finance
2 160 (29.96%) Banking
3 111 (20.79%) Law
4 109 (20.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 72 (13.48%) Front Office
6 62 (11.61%) Investment Banking
7 53 (9.93%) Social Skills
8 21 (3.93%) Financial Institution
9 19 (3.56%) Marketing
10 14 (2.62%) Retail
11 11 (2.06%) Analytical Skills
12 8 (1.50%) Back Office
12 8 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (1.31%) Games
13 7 (1.31%) Legal
14 6 (1.12%) Health Technology
15 5 (0.94%) Electronics
15 5 (0.94%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.94%) Public Sector
15 5 (0.94%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (17.98%) React
2 59 (11.05%) gRPC
3 58 (10.86%) Protocol Buffers
4 55 (10.30%) NumPy
4 55 (10.30%) Pandas
4 55 (10.30%) SciPy
5 53 (9.93%) .NET
6 44 (8.24%) RESTful
7 30 (5.62%) Spring
8 27 (5.06%) AngularJS
8 27 (5.06%) Kafka
9 21 (3.93%) Spring Boot
10 20 (3.75%) CSS
10 20 (3.75%) GraphQL
11 16 (3.00%) FastAPI
12 15 (2.81%) .NET Core
12 15 (2.81%) FIX Protocol
12 15 (2.81%) Node.js
12 15 (2.81%) OpenID
12 15 (2.81%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 86 (16.10%) Derivative
2 80 (14.98%) Cloud Native
3 74 (13.86%) Equities
4 65 (12.17%) Fixed Income
5 55 (10.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 55 (10.30%) Hedge funds
5 55 (10.30%) Pricing Data
6 44 (8.24%) Distributed Systems
7 32 (5.99%) Algorithms
8 21 (3.93%) Public Cloud
9 18 (3.37%) Greenfield Project
10 13 (2.43%) Data Structures
10 13 (2.43%) Legacy Code
11 10 (1.87%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.87%) Product Ownership
12 9 (1.69%) AI Agents
12 9 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (1.12%) Virtual Team
14 5 (0.94%) Embedded Systems
15 4 (0.75%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 43 (8.05%) Linux
2 10 (1.87%) Unix
3 8 (1.50%) Android
4 6 (1.12%) Embedded Linux
5 5 (0.94%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.37%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 528 (98.88%) Software Engineering
2 225 (42.13%) Agile
3 114 (21.35%) CI/CD
4 95 (17.79%) SDLC
5 84 (15.73%) Problem-Solving
6 71 (13.30%) Microservices
7 68 (12.73%) AI
8 63 (11.80%) Computer Science
9 62 (11.61%) Operational Stability
10 59 (11.05%) Asset Management
10 59 (11.05%) Investment Management
11 58 (10.86%) Full-Stack Development
12 57 (10.67%) DevOps
13 55 (10.30%) Mentoring
14 43 (8.05%) Mathematics
15 42 (7.87%) Machine Learning
16 41 (7.68%) Community of Practice
16 41 (7.68%) Continuous Improvement
17 40 (7.49%) Fintech
18 38 (7.12%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 185 (34.64%) Java
2 158 (29.59%) Python
3 129 (24.16%) TypeScript
4 92 (17.23%) JavaScript
5 72 (13.48%) C#
6 66 (12.36%) C++
7 44 (8.24%) SQL
8 30 (5.62%) Rust
9 29 (5.43%) C
10 27 (5.06%) Go
11 15 (2.81%) Kotlin
12 11 (2.06%) Ruby
13 6 (1.12%) Delphi
13 6 (1.12%) PHP
14 5 (0.94%) Embedded C
15 4 (0.75%) Lua
15 4 (0.75%) Scala
15 4 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 2 (0.37%) Bash
16 2 (0.37%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 40 (7.49%) Degree
2 15 (2.81%) Security Cleared
3 14 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
4 10 (1.87%) Master's Degree
5 6 (1.12%) SC Cleared
6 5 (0.94%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.94%) PhD
7 4 (0.75%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.19%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.19%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (4.12%) QA
2 12 (2.25%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.75%) WCAG
4 2 (0.37%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.37%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.37%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.37%) JTAG
5 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.19%) ECSS
5 1 (0.19%) PSD2
System Software
1 47 (8.80%) Docker
2 7 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.31%) Virtual Servers
3 5 (0.94%) Firmware
4 2 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 89 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 46 (8.61%) Terraform
3 9 (1.69%) Grafana
4 6 (1.12%) Ansible
4 6 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.19%) Argo
Vendors
1 19 (3.56%) Google
2 12 (2.25%) Microsoft
3 9 (1.69%) Databricks
4 7 (1.31%) Oracle
5 6 (1.12%) OpenAI
6 5 (0.94%) MuleSoft
7 4 (0.75%) Facebook
7 4 (0.75%) MKS
7 4 (0.75%) Vertica
8 3 (0.56%) CA Agile Central
9 2 (0.37%) Atlassian
9 2 (0.37%) Avaloq
9 2 (0.37%) Roku
9 2 (0.37%) SAP
10 1 (0.19%) Dynatrace
10 1 (0.19%) ForgeRock
10 1 (0.19%) Green Hills
10 1 (0.19%) HubSpot
10 1 (0.19%) SendGrid
10 1 (0.19%) Splunk