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 5 October 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 240 120
Rank change year-on-year +120 -120 +177
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,844 650 1,569
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.56% 1.31% 2.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.68% 1.46% 2.22%
Number of salaries quoted 1,408 329 1,048
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +28.57% +3.70%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
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 109,627 44,572 70,730
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.83% 89.76% 95.32%
Number of salaries quoted 74,613 25,684 40,879
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £35,750 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £54,824 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.71% -0.32% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,500 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.28% -7.00% -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 5 October 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 5 October 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 +116 1,655 £75,000 -17.81% 1,378
UK excluding London +141 1,312 £70,000 - 832
London +26 452 £95,000 -13.64% 673
North of England +20 352 £75,000 +7.14% 201
Work from Home -44 331 £80,000 -27.27% 688
South East +129 254 £80,000 +14.29% 142
South West +73 242 £70,000 +7.69% 96
North West -8 216 £75,000 +3.81% 129
East of England +111 206 £70,000 +7.69% 129
Midlands +73 144 £70,000 -6.67% 86
Yorkshire +24 80 £70,000 +7.69% 45
West Midlands +31 77 £70,000 -6.67% 41
East Midlands +21 67 £60,000 -14.29% 45
Scotland +25 62 £75,000 +11.11% 103
North East -17 56 £80,000 +700.00% 28
Wales -21 47 £70,000 - 31
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 51

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

For the 6 months to 5 October 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 1,842 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 285 (15.46%) Python
3 257 (13.94%) Agile
4 250 (13.56%) C#
5 236 (12.80%) AWS
6 233 (12.64%) Java
7 232 (12.58%) C++
8 218 (11.82%) AI
9 212 (11.50%) CI/CD
10 181 (9.82%) Mentoring
11 171 (9.27%) Full-Stack Development
12 163 (8.84%) .NET
13 149 (8.08%) TypeScript
14 133 (7.21%) Microservices
15 125 (6.78%) DevOps
16 124 (6.72%) React
17 109 (5.91%) Security Cleared
18 107 (5.80%) Azure
19 106 (5.75%) Test Automation
20 102 (5.53%) Linux
21 97 (5.26%) Code Quality
22 96 (5.21%) Kubernetes
23 95 (5.15%) SDLC
24 90 (4.88%) Problem-Solving
25 88 (4.77%) Technical Leadership
26 86 (4.66%) Degree
27 84 (4.56%) Docker
28 83 (4.50%) JavaScript
29 81 (4.39%) Node.js
30 79 (4.28%) Continuous Improvement

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 (0.87%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.38%) Apache
3 3 (0.16%) CMS
3 3 (0.16%) Confluence
3 3 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.16%) WinCC
4 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
5 1 (0.054%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.054%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.054%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.16%) Blender
1 3 (0.16%) Maya
2 1 (0.054%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 236 (12.80%) AWS
2 107 (5.80%) Azure
3 71 (3.85%) GCP
4 67 (3.63%) SaaS
5 49 (2.66%) Serverless
6 36 (1.95%) GitHub
7 26 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
8 17 (0.92%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
10 15 (0.81%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (0.54%) Amazon S3
14 8 (0.43%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 6 (0.33%) Amazon SQS
15 6 (0.33%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (0.33%) Supabase
16 5 (0.27%) Azure AI
16 5 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
17 4 (0.22%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 14 (0.76%) RS-232
2 13 (0.70%) Ethernet
3 12 (0.65%) Bluetooth
3 12 (0.65%) Modbus
4 11 (0.60%) Profibus
5 10 (0.54%) TCP/IP
5 10 (0.54%) Wireless
6 9 (0.49%) Internet
6 9 (0.49%) Multicast
7 8 (0.43%) Broadband
7 8 (0.43%) RS-485
7 8 (0.43%) ZigBee
8 5 (0.27%) HTTP
9 4 (0.22%) Firewall
10 3 (0.16%) MQTT
11 2 (0.11%) RS-422
12 1 (0.054%) BGP
12 1 (0.054%) DNS
12 1 (0.054%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (3.69%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.68%) MySQL
3 28 (1.52%) Relational Database
4 18 (0.98%) Redis
5 16 (0.87%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.81%) NoSQL
7 13 (0.70%) SQL Server
8 11 (0.60%) DynamoDB
9 10 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (0.38%) Big Data
11 5 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
11 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (0.22%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.16%) MariaDB
14 2 (0.11%) Data Lake
14 2 (0.11%) Flink
14 2 (0.11%) Power BI
14 2 (0.11%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 55 (2.98%) Git
2 25 (1.36%) JIRA
3 24 (1.30%) GitLab
4 19 (1.03%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.76%) Claude Code
6 9 (0.49%) Jenkins
6 9 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
7 7 (0.38%) Rational Rhapsody
8 6 (0.33%) Mocha
9 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.27%) NUnit
9 5 (0.27%) Selenium
9 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
11 3 (0.16%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.16%) JUnit
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.11%) Appium
12 2 (0.11%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 143 (7.75%) Finance
2 126 (6.83%) Social Skills
3 68 (3.69%) Electronics
4 59 (3.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 54 (2.93%) Banking
6 44 (2.39%) Public Sector
7 42 (2.28%) Analytical Skills
8 39 (2.11%) Law
9 38 (2.06%) Manufacturing
10 30 (1.63%) Aerospace
11 23 (1.25%) Retail
12 17 (0.92%) Marketing
12 17 (0.92%) Military
13 15 (0.81%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.76%) Front Office
15 13 (0.70%) Games
16 11 (0.60%) Automotive
17 10 (0.54%) Health Technology
18 9 (0.49%) Legal
19 8 (0.43%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 163 (8.84%) .NET
2 124 (6.72%) React
3 81 (4.39%) Node.js
4 72 (3.90%) Terraform
5 66 (3.58%) Spring
6 46 (2.49%) RESTful
7 45 (2.44%) WPF
8 44 (2.39%) Spring Boot
9 42 (2.28%) Kafka
10 30 (1.63%) Next.js
11 26 (1.41%) AngularJS
12 24 (1.30%) REST
13 23 (1.25%) FastAPI
14 20 (1.08%) Vue
15 16 (0.87%) Django
16 13 (0.70%) React Native
17 12 (0.65%) CSS
18 11 (0.60%) .NET Core
18 11 (0.60%) FIX Protocol
18 11 (0.60%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 123 (6.67%) Cloud Native
2 62 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
4 48 (2.60%) Robotics
5 43 (2.33%) Algorithms
6 36 (1.95%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
8 28 (1.52%) AI Agents
8 28 (1.52%) Product Ownership
9 23 (1.25%) Blog
10 22 (1.19%) Public Cloud
11 19 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (0.70%) Blockchain
12 13 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (0.65%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.60%) Derivative
14 11 (0.60%) Device Driver
14 11 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
15 10 (0.54%) Fixed Income
16 9 (0.49%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 102 (5.53%) Linux
2 29 (1.57%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (0.98%) Windows
4 16 (0.87%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.54%) Android
5 10 (0.54%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.43%) Unix
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.054%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,842 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 257 (13.94%) Agile
3 218 (11.82%) AI
4 212 (11.50%) CI/CD
5 181 (9.82%) Mentoring
6 171 (9.27%) Full-Stack Development
7 133 (7.21%) Microservices
8 125 (6.78%) DevOps
9 106 (5.75%) Test Automation
10 97 (5.26%) Code Quality
11 95 (5.15%) SDLC
12 90 (4.88%) Problem-Solving
13 88 (4.77%) Technical Leadership
14 79 (4.28%) Continuous Improvement
15 70 (3.80%) Fintech
16 67 (3.63%) Computer Science
17 64 (3.47%) Event-Driven
18 60 (3.25%) Containerisation
18 60 (3.25%) Infrastructure as Code
19 56 (3.04%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 285 (15.46%) Python
2 250 (13.56%) C#
3 233 (12.64%) Java
4 232 (12.58%) C++
5 149 (8.08%) TypeScript
6 83 (4.50%) JavaScript
7 76 (4.12%) SQL
8 68 (3.69%) C
9 39 (2.11%) Rust
10 37 (2.01%) Go
11 18 (0.98%) PHP
12 17 (0.92%) Embedded C
13 16 (0.87%) Scala
14 15 (0.81%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.76%) Ruby
16 13 (0.70%) F#
16 13 (0.70%) Haskell
17 12 (0.65%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.54%) Julia
19 8 (0.43%) R
Qualifications
1 109 (5.91%) Security Cleared
2 86 (4.66%) Degree
3 75 (4.07%) SC Cleared
4 50 (2.71%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.81%) Master's Degree
7 13 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (0.60%) PhD
9 6 (0.33%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.22%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Chartered Engineer
11 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.054%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.054%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (1.90%) QA
2 19 (1.03%) Accessibility
3 7 (0.38%) DO-178B
4 6 (0.33%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.27%) GDPR
6 3 (0.16%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.054%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.054%) MISRA
8 1 (0.054%) MISRA C
8 1 (0.054%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 84 (4.56%) Docker
2 47 (2.55%) Firmware
3 20 (1.08%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.054%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 96 (5.21%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.08%) Grafana
3 12 (0.65%) Ansible
4 4 (0.22%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.16%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.054%) Argo
7 1 (0.054%) Functional Safety
7 1 (0.054%) Istio
7 1 (0.054%) Kibana
7 1 (0.054%) Podman
Vendors
1 22 (1.19%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.92%) Salesforce
3 13 (0.70%) RedGate
4 9 (0.49%) Google
4 9 (0.49%) Splunk
5 8 (0.43%) Foundry
5 8 (0.43%) Sage
5 8 (0.43%) Siemens
6 7 (0.38%) Databricks
7 6 (0.33%) OpenAI
7 6 (0.33%) Oracle
8 5 (0.27%) Intel
9 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.16%) New Relic
9 3 (0.16%) Revolut
9 3 (0.16%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.11%) ADVA
10 2 (0.11%) Okta
10 2 (0.11%) Thales
11 1 (0.054%) Virgin Media