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 12 June 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 185 134
Rank change year-on-year +46 -51 +153
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,281 794 2,145
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.38% 1.79% 2.01%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.47% 2.00% 2.12%
Number of salaries quoted 1,040 460 1,566
10th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £78,810 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.83% +21.25% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £103,125 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £130,500 £102,500
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 87,018 39,622 101,237
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.99% 89.50% 94.70%
Number of salaries quoted 59,614 22,403 73,185
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,750 £38,569
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -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 12 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 12 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 +55 1,124 £75,000 -6.25% 212
UK excluding London +76 896 £70,000 +3.70% 168
London -4 317 £97,500 +2.63% 58
Work from Home -41 302 £70,000 -11.18% 77
South East +129 234 £75,000 +15.38% 55
North of England -42 208 £75,000 +7.14% 40
South West +49 154 £70,000 -6.67% 25
North West -33 125 £75,000 +7.14% 24
East of England +46 106 £70,000 +18.64% 27
Midlands +58 100 £65,000 -10.34% 19
Scotland +18 72 £67,500 +4.25% 2
West Midlands +29 67 £69,305 -4.41% 12
Yorkshire +2 60 £70,000 -11.84% 5
East Midlands -3 33 £65,000 -7.14% 7
North East -34 23 £80,000 +45.45% 11
Wales -26 21 £56,250 -13.46% 1
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 5

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

For the 6 months to 12 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 1,274 (99.45%) Software Engineering
2 210 (16.39%) C++
3 204 (15.93%) C#
4 188 (14.68%) Java
4 188 (14.68%) Python
5 179 (13.97%) Agile
6 171 (13.35%) AWS
7 168 (13.11%) .NET
8 149 (11.63%) Full-Stack Development
9 128 (9.99%) CI/CD
10 113 (8.82%) Microservices
11 108 (8.43%) Mentoring
12 104 (8.12%) Azure
13 96 (7.49%) Linux
14 95 (7.42%) React
15 94 (7.34%) TypeScript
16 91 (7.10%) DevOps
17 88 (6.87%) JavaScript
18 87 (6.79%) AI
19 86 (6.71%) SaaS
20 81 (6.32%) Security Cleared
20 81 (6.32%) SQL
21 79 (6.17%) C
21 79 (6.17%) Test Automation
22 78 (6.09%) SDLC
23 77 (6.01%) Kubernetes
24 76 (5.93%) Computer Science
25 75 (5.85%) Degree
26 66 (5.15%) Docker
27 65 (5.07%) Node.js

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 (1.25%) SharePoint Server
2 3 (0.23%) Apache
2 3 (0.23%) Apache Solr
2 3 (0.23%) FactoryTalk
2 3 (0.23%) WinCC
3 2 (0.16%) CMS
3 2 (0.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (0.23%) Blender
1 3 (0.23%) Maya
Cloud Services
1 171 (13.35%) AWS
2 104 (8.12%) Azure
3 86 (6.71%) SaaS
4 49 (3.83%) GCP
5 37 (2.89%) GitHub
6 29 (2.26%) Serverless
7 18 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
7 18 (1.41%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 16 (1.25%) Anthropic Claude
9 15 (1.17%) Azure AKS
10 13 (1.01%) GitHub Copilot
11 12 (0.94%) Azure DevOps
12 9 (0.70%) Azure Event Grid
13 6 (0.47%) Stripe
14 5 (0.39%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.39%) Amazon SQS
14 5 (0.39%) AWS Lambda
15 4 (0.31%) IaaS
15 4 (0.31%) Pulumi
16 3 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.80%) RS-232
2 17 (1.33%) Ethernet
2 17 (1.33%) Multicast
3 13 (1.01%) Modbus
4 12 (0.94%) Bluetooth
5 11 (0.86%) HTTP
5 11 (0.86%) Profibus
5 11 (0.86%) Wireless
6 8 (0.62%) RS-485
6 8 (0.62%) ZigBee
7 6 (0.47%) Broadband
8 1 (0.078%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (2.42%) SQL Server
2 21 (1.64%) NoSQL
3 16 (1.25%) MySQL
3 16 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (0.94%) MongoDB
5 8 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (0.55%) Big Data
7 4 (0.31%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.31%) Redis
7 4 (0.31%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.23%) DocumentDB
8 3 (0.23%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.23%) MariaDB
8 3 (0.23%) Neo4j
9 2 (0.16%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.078%) Db2
10 1 (0.078%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 53 (4.14%) Git
2 24 (1.87%) JIRA
3 20 (1.56%) TeamCity
4 18 (1.41%) GitLab
5 16 (1.25%) Claude Code
6 13 (1.01%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.70%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.23%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
9 2 (0.16%) Eclipse
9 2 (0.16%) GDB
9 2 (0.16%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.078%) Android Studio
10 1 (0.078%) JUnit
10 1 (0.078%) LabVIEW
10 1 (0.078%) NUnit
10 1 (0.078%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.078%) Xcode
10 1 (0.078%) Yeoman
General
1 138 (10.77%) Finance
2 62 (4.84%) Banking
3 55 (4.29%) Social Skills
4 44 (3.43%) Electronics
5 31 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 31 (2.42%) Manufacturing
6 30 (2.34%) Public Sector
7 20 (1.56%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (1.56%) Automotive
8 19 (1.48%) Retail
9 18 (1.41%) Law
10 14 (1.09%) Back Office
10 14 (1.09%) Financial Institution
11 12 (0.94%) Aerospace
11 12 (0.94%) Games
11 12 (0.94%) Tech for Good
12 11 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
14 7 (0.55%) Agriculture
14 7 (0.55%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 168 (13.11%) .NET
2 95 (7.42%) React
3 65 (5.07%) Node.js
4 40 (3.12%) WPF
5 38 (2.97%) REST
6 36 (2.81%) Spring
7 32 (2.50%) RESTful
8 26 (2.03%) Spring Boot
9 23 (1.80%) .NET Core
10 21 (1.64%) React Native
11 17 (1.33%) .NET Framework
11 17 (1.33%) AngularJS
11 17 (1.33%) Boost C++ Libraries
11 17 (1.33%) FIX Protocol
11 17 (1.33%) Next.js
11 17 (1.33%) pytest
12 15 (1.17%) Ruby on Rails
12 15 (1.17%) Yocto
13 14 (1.09%) Vue
14 12 (0.94%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 90 (7.03%) Cloud Native
2 55 (4.29%) Algorithms
3 43 (3.36%) Legacy Systems
4 38 (2.97%) Embedded Systems
5 28 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
6 25 (1.95%) Greenfield Project
7 18 (1.41%) Derivative
8 17 (1.33%) Equities
8 17 (1.33%) Fixed Income
9 16 (1.25%) IoT
10 15 (1.17%) Device Driver
10 15 (1.17%) Robotics
11 13 (1.01%) CAN bus
12 11 (0.86%) Public Cloud
13 10 (0.78%) AI Agents
13 10 (0.78%) Product Ownership
14 9 (0.70%) Sports Betting
15 8 (0.62%) Client/Server
15 8 (0.62%) Legacy Applications
16 7 (0.55%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 96 (7.49%) Linux
2 30 (2.34%) Embedded Linux
3 18 (1.41%) FreeRTOS
4 8 (0.62%) Android
5 6 (0.47%) Windows
6 3 (0.23%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.078%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,274 (99.45%) Software Engineering
2 179 (13.97%) Agile
3 149 (11.63%) Full-Stack Development
4 128 (9.99%) CI/CD
5 113 (8.82%) Microservices
6 108 (8.43%) Mentoring
7 91 (7.10%) DevOps
8 87 (6.79%) AI
9 79 (6.17%) Test Automation
10 78 (6.09%) SDLC
11 76 (5.93%) Computer Science
12 64 (5.00%) Problem-Solving
13 60 (4.68%) Containerisation
14 56 (4.37%) Fintech
15 52 (4.06%) Technical Leadership
16 47 (3.67%) Continuous Improvement
17 45 (3.51%) Scrum
18 44 (3.43%) Code Quality
18 44 (3.43%) Low Latency
19 42 (3.28%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 210 (16.39%) C++
2 204 (15.93%) C#
3 188 (14.68%) Java
3 188 (14.68%) Python
4 94 (7.34%) TypeScript
5 88 (6.87%) JavaScript
6 81 (6.32%) SQL
7 79 (6.17%) C
8 43 (3.36%) Rust
9 26 (2.03%) Go
10 20 (1.56%) Embedded C
11 18 (1.41%) PHP
12 15 (1.17%) Ruby
13 12 (0.94%) Scala
14 9 (0.70%) Julia
14 9 (0.70%) MATLAB
15 8 (0.62%) F#
15 8 (0.62%) Haskell
15 8 (0.62%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.62%) VB
Qualifications
1 81 (6.32%) Security Cleared
2 75 (5.85%) Degree
3 62 (4.84%) SC Cleared
4 30 (2.34%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (1.72%) Master's Degree
7 14 (1.09%) PhD
8 3 (0.23%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.23%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.16%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.078%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (2.26%) QA
2 14 (1.09%) IEC 61508
2 14 (1.09%) MISRA
2 14 (1.09%) MISRA C
3 10 (0.78%) Accessibility
4 4 (0.31%) GDPR
5 3 (0.23%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.23%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.078%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 66 (5.15%) Docker
2 47 (3.67%) Firmware
3 21 (1.64%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.16%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.16%) KVM
4 2 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.078%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 77 (6.01%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.04%) Terraform
3 20 (1.56%) Grafana
4 11 (0.86%) Functional Safety
5 5 (0.39%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.23%) Ansible
6 3 (0.23%) Plesk
Vendors
1 8 (0.62%) Microsoft
1 8 (0.62%) Siemens
2 6 (0.47%) Google
2 6 (0.47%) HubSpot
3 3 (0.23%) Rockwell
3 3 (0.23%) Splunk
4 2 (0.16%) Foundry
4 2 (0.16%) OpenAI
4 2 (0.16%) VMware
5 1 (0.078%) Palantir
5 1 (0.078%) TOWER Software