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 24 September 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 223 112
Rank change year-on-year +99 -111 +188
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,770 684 1,692
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.39% 2.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.63% 1.55% 2.32%
Number of salaries quoted 1,387 361 1,133
10th Percentile £58,750 £57,750 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +33.33% -
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £72,500 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +7.41% +12.50% -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 108,916 44,178 72,902
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.10% 89.68% 95.28%
Number of salaries quoted 74,482 25,948 42,900
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,250
25th Percentile £40,552 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,250 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.73% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,769
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 24 September 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 24 September 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 +99 1,588 £75,000 -16.67% 1,233
UK excluding London +123 1,251 £72,500 +7.41% 655
London +24 436 £95,000 -13.64% 672
North of England +8 326 £75,000 +7.14% 159
Work from Home -68 307 £80,000 -27.27% 534
South East +121 253 £80,000 +14.29% 117
South West +56 232 £70,000 +7.69% 89
North West -11 205 £75,000 +7.14% 110
East of England +100 199 £70,000 +7.69% 102
Midlands +63 136 £70,000 -6.67% 63
West Midlands +20 74 £70,000 -6.67% 31
Yorkshire +20 72 £70,000 +7.69% 33
East Midlands +29 62 £60,000 -14.29% 32
Scotland +15 54 £75,000 +15.83% 81
North East -29 49 £90,000 +800.00% 16
Wales -32 46 £70,000 - 12
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 38

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

For the 6 months to 24 September 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 1,767 (99.83%) Software Engineering
2 283 (15.99%) Python
3 256 (14.46%) Agile
4 253 (14.29%) C#
5 235 (13.28%) C++
6 230 (12.99%) AWS
7 225 (12.71%) Java
8 208 (11.75%) AI
9 203 (11.47%) CI/CD
10 183 (10.34%) Mentoring
11 167 (9.44%) .NET
12 166 (9.38%) Full-Stack Development
13 150 (8.47%) TypeScript
14 130 (7.34%) React
15 129 (7.29%) DevOps
15 129 (7.29%) Microservices
16 110 (6.21%) Azure
17 106 (5.99%) Security Cleared
18 105 (5.93%) Test Automation
19 103 (5.82%) Linux
20 96 (5.42%) SDLC
21 95 (5.37%) Code Quality
22 91 (5.14%) Kubernetes
23 90 (5.08%) JavaScript
23 90 (5.08%) Technical Leadership
24 89 (5.03%) Problem-Solving
25 82 (4.63%) Degree
25 82 (4.63%) Node.js
26 80 (4.52%) Docker
27 78 (4.41%) 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 (0.90%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.40%) Apache
3 4 (0.23%) Confluence
4 3 (0.17%) CMS
4 3 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.17%) WinCC
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.056%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.056%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.17%) Blender
1 3 (0.17%) Maya
2 1 (0.056%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 230 (12.99%) AWS
2 110 (6.21%) Azure
3 75 (4.24%) SaaS
4 72 (4.07%) GCP
5 47 (2.66%) Serverless
6 39 (2.20%) GitHub
7 24 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.13%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.90%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (0.79%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.56%) Amazon S3
12 10 (0.56%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (0.45%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 6 (0.34%) Amazon SQS
14 6 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.34%) Supabase
15 5 (0.28%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.28%) Dynamics 365
16 4 (0.23%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (0.90%) RS-232
2 14 (0.79%) Modbus
3 13 (0.73%) Bluetooth
3 13 (0.73%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.68%) Profibus
5 10 (0.56%) Multicast
5 10 (0.56%) Wireless
6 9 (0.51%) RS-485
6 9 (0.51%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.45%) Broadband
7 8 (0.45%) HTTP
7 8 (0.45%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.40%) Internet
9 4 (0.23%) Firewall
10 2 (0.11%) MQTT
10 2 (0.11%) RS-422
11 1 (0.056%) BGP
11 1 (0.056%) DNS
11 1 (0.056%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (3.62%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.75%) MySQL
3 28 (1.58%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.02%) Redis
5 17 (0.96%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.85%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.79%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (0.56%) DynamoDB
9 7 (0.40%) Big Data
10 6 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
11 5 (0.28%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (0.23%) Delta Lake
13 3 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.17%) MariaDB
14 2 (0.11%) DocumentDB
14 2 (0.11%) Flink
14 2 (0.11%) Neo4j
14 2 (0.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (3.28%) Git
2 27 (1.53%) JIRA
3 25 (1.41%) GitLab
4 17 (0.96%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.79%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.56%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.45%) Jenkins
8 6 (0.34%) Mocha
8 6 (0.34%) Selenium
9 5 (0.28%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.28%) NUnit
9 5 (0.28%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.23%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
11 3 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.17%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.17%) JUnit
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.11%) Appium
12 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 147 (8.31%) Finance
2 126 (7.12%) Social Skills
3 68 (3.84%) Electronics
4 55 (3.11%) Banking
4 55 (3.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 45 (2.54%) Public Sector
6 41 (2.32%) Manufacturing
7 40 (2.26%) Analytical Skills
8 37 (2.09%) Law
9 27 (1.53%) Aerospace
10 21 (1.19%) Retail
11 17 (0.96%) Marketing
12 14 (0.79%) Financial Institution
12 14 (0.79%) Military
13 12 (0.68%) Automotive
13 12 (0.68%) Games
14 11 (0.62%) Front Office
15 10 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.51%) Legal
16 9 (0.51%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 167 (9.44%) .NET
2 130 (7.34%) React
3 82 (4.63%) Node.js
4 67 (3.79%) Terraform
5 66 (3.73%) Spring
6 49 (2.77%) WPF
7 45 (2.54%) RESTful
8 43 (2.43%) Spring Boot
9 42 (2.37%) Kafka
10 30 (1.69%) Next.js
11 28 (1.58%) REST
12 26 (1.47%) AngularJS
13 21 (1.19%) FastAPI
14 20 (1.13%) Vue
15 16 (0.90%) Django
15 16 (0.90%) React Native
16 13 (0.73%) CSS
17 12 (0.68%) FIX Protocol
18 11 (0.62%) .NET Core
18 11 (0.62%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 120 (6.78%) Cloud Native
2 59 (3.33%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.11%) Legacy Systems
4 47 (2.66%) Robotics
5 46 (2.60%) Algorithms
6 38 (2.15%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.64%) Greenfield Project
8 26 (1.47%) Product Ownership
9 25 (1.41%) AI Agents
10 22 (1.24%) Public Cloud
11 19 (1.07%) Blog
12 17 (0.96%) Cyber Threat
13 13 (0.73%) Blockchain
13 13 (0.73%) Derivative
13 13 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (0.68%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.62%) Device Driver
15 11 (0.62%) Fixed Income
15 11 (0.62%) Legacy Applications
16 10 (0.56%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 103 (5.82%) Linux
2 28 (1.58%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.07%) FreeRTOS
4 18 (1.02%) Windows
5 8 (0.45%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.45%) Unix
6 6 (0.34%) Android
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.056%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,767 (99.83%) Software Engineering
2 256 (14.46%) Agile
3 208 (11.75%) AI
4 203 (11.47%) CI/CD
5 183 (10.34%) Mentoring
6 166 (9.38%) Full-Stack Development
7 129 (7.29%) DevOps
7 129 (7.29%) Microservices
8 105 (5.93%) Test Automation
9 96 (5.42%) SDLC
10 95 (5.37%) Code Quality
11 90 (5.08%) Technical Leadership
12 89 (5.03%) Problem-Solving
13 78 (4.41%) Continuous Improvement
14 70 (3.95%) Computer Science
14 70 (3.95%) Fintech
15 60 (3.39%) Event-Driven
16 58 (3.28%) Machine Learning
17 57 (3.22%) Containerisation
17 57 (3.22%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 283 (15.99%) Python
2 253 (14.29%) C#
3 235 (13.28%) C++
4 225 (12.71%) Java
5 150 (8.47%) TypeScript
6 90 (5.08%) JavaScript
7 78 (4.41%) SQL
8 73 (4.12%) C
9 41 (2.32%) Rust
10 34 (1.92%) Go
11 17 (0.96%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.90%) PHP
12 16 (0.90%) Scala
13 14 (0.79%) Ruby
14 13 (0.73%) F#
14 13 (0.73%) Haskell
14 13 (0.73%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.68%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.56%) Julia
17 8 (0.45%) R
Qualifications
1 106 (5.99%) Security Cleared
2 82 (4.63%) Degree
3 71 (4.01%) SC Cleared
4 51 (2.88%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.85%) Master's Degree
7 10 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (0.51%) PhD
9 6 (0.34%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.23%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Chartered Engineer
11 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.056%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.056%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (2.20%) QA
2 18 (1.02%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.34%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.28%) GDPR
5 4 (0.23%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.17%) IEC 61131
6 3 (0.17%) IEC 61508
6 3 (0.17%) MISRA
6 3 (0.17%) MISRA C
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.056%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 80 (4.52%) Docker
2 52 (2.94%) Firmware
3 22 (1.24%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.056%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 91 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 19 (1.07%) Grafana
3 11 (0.62%) Ansible
4 5 (0.28%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.17%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.056%) Argo
7 1 (0.056%) Istio
7 1 (0.056%) Kibana
7 1 (0.056%) Podman
Vendors
1 23 (1.30%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.96%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.62%) Google
3 11 (0.62%) RedGate
4 9 (0.51%) Splunk
5 8 (0.45%) Sage
5 8 (0.45%) Siemens
6 7 (0.40%) Databricks
6 7 (0.40%) Foundry
7 6 (0.34%) Oracle
8 5 (0.28%) Intel
8 5 (0.28%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.17%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.17%) New Relic
9 3 (0.17%) Revolut
9 3 (0.17%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.11%) ADVA
10 2 (0.11%) Okta
10 2 (0.11%) Thales
11 1 (0.056%) Virgin Media