Senior Software Engineer Job Trends

Senior Software Engineer
UK

The median Senior Software Engineer salary in the UK is £77,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 December 2025.

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

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 252 141 278
Rank change year-on-year -111 +137 -45
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 520 1,259 577
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.94% 1.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.06% 2.06% 1.19%
Number of salaries quoted 391 836 457
10th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £48,750
25th Percentile £65,000 £58,938 £56,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.71% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £118,750 £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 48,887 61,129 48,339
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.28% 94.26% 95.30%
Number of salaries quoted 30,843 33,997 37,695
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,750 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,656 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.95% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.52% - -

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 1 December 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 1 December 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 -95 461 £77,500 +10.71% 185
UK excluding London -123 269 £70,000 +7.69% 168
London -40 232 £100,000 +11.11% 58
Work from Home -116 172 £85,000 +12.75% 145
North of England -49 66 £75,000 +20.00% 21
South West -31 62 £65,000 +8.33% 36
South East -88 48 £65,000 - 50
Scotland -27 42 £76,250 +17.31% 21
North West -5 32 £75,000 +20.00% 11
Yorkshire -3 26 £75,000 +14.97% 7
Midlands +13 25 £70,000 +7.69% 19
East of England -52 20 £65,000 -3.70% 27
West Midlands +29 13 £75,000 +15.38% 4
East Midlands +11 12 £65,000 - 14
North East -15 8 £75,000 +22.95% 3
Wales -8 6 - - 4

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

For the 6 months to 1 December 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.

1 510 (98.08%) Software Engineering
2 174 (33.46%) Agile
3 164 (31.54%) AWS
3 164 (31.54%) Java
4 126 (24.23%) Python
5 112 (21.54%) TypeScript
6 97 (18.65%) CI/CD
7 87 (16.73%) JavaScript
8 80 (15.38%) React
9 78 (15.00%) Kubernetes
10 76 (14.62%) C#
11 69 (13.27%) Microservices
12 68 (13.08%) Azure
13 63 (12.12%) Mentoring
14 61 (11.73%) C++
15 60 (11.54%) Problem-Solving
16 59 (11.35%) SDLC
17 58 (11.15%) .NET
18 57 (10.96%) DevOps
18 57 (10.96%) Full-Stack Development
19 54 (10.38%) Amazon Athena
19 54 (10.38%) Apache
19 54 (10.38%) gRPC
20 53 (10.19%) AI
20 53 (10.19%) Apache Iceberg
20 53 (10.19%) Asset Management
20 53 (10.19%) Data Lake
20 53 (10.19%) Investment Management
20 53 (10.19%) Protocol Buffers
21 52 (10.00%) dbt

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 54 (10.38%) Apache
2 51 (9.81%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.58%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.19%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.19%) CMS
4 1 (0.19%) Confluence
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.19%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Photoshop
Cloud Services
1 164 (31.54%) AWS
2 68 (13.08%) Azure
3 52 (10.00%) dbt
3 52 (10.00%) Snowflake
4 35 (6.73%) GCP
5 18 (3.46%) GitHub
6 16 (3.08%) SaaS
7 12 (2.31%) Amazon EKS
8 11 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.73%) Serverless
10 6 (1.15%) Amazon S3
10 6 (1.15%) GitHub Copilot
11 5 (0.96%) Azure Data Factory
11 5 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (0.77%) Amazon Bedrock
12 4 (0.77%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (0.77%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (0.77%) Azure AKS
12 4 (0.77%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 4 (0.77%) Azure Event Grid
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.92%) Multicast
2 6 (1.15%) HTTP
3 3 (0.58%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.58%) RS-232
4 1 (0.19%) AMQP
4 1 (0.19%) DNS
4 1 (0.19%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.19%) Internet
4 1 (0.19%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (10.38%) Amazon Athena
2 53 (10.19%) Apache Iceberg
2 53 (10.19%) Data Lake
3 51 (9.81%) Apache Arrow
3 51 (9.81%) Apache Ignite
3 51 (9.81%) Dremio
4 24 (4.62%) PostgreSQL
5 22 (4.23%) NoSQL
6 20 (3.85%) Relational Database
7 11 (2.12%) MySQL
7 11 (2.12%) SQL Server
8 9 (1.73%) MongoDB
9 8 (1.54%) Azure SQL Database
9 8 (1.54%) Redis
10 6 (1.15%) DynamoDB
10 6 (1.15%) KDB
11 5 (0.96%) Big Data
11 5 (0.96%) BigQuery
12 4 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
12 4 (0.77%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 29 (5.58%) Git
2 17 (3.27%) JIRA
3 6 (1.15%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.15%) JUnit
3 6 (1.15%) TeamCity
4 4 (0.77%) Vite
5 3 (0.58%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.58%) JBehave
6 2 (0.38%) Ant
6 2 (0.38%) GitLab
6 2 (0.38%) Maven
6 2 (0.38%) Mockito
6 2 (0.38%) rollup.js
6 2 (0.38%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio
6 2 (0.38%) webpack
7 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.19%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.19%) Rational Statemate
General
1 186 (35.77%) Finance
2 118 (22.69%) Banking
3 61 (11.73%) Law
4 59 (11.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 58 (11.15%) Front Office
6 54 (10.38%) Investment Banking
7 42 (8.08%) Social Skills
8 21 (4.04%) Financial Institution
9 15 (2.88%) Retail
10 12 (2.31%) Marketing
11 8 (1.54%) Games
11 8 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.15%) Analytical Skills
12 6 (1.15%) Back Office
12 6 (1.15%) Health Technology
13 5 (0.96%) Electronics
13 5 (0.96%) Legal
13 5 (0.96%) Manufacturing
13 5 (0.96%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (0.96%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (15.38%) React
2 58 (11.15%) .NET
3 54 (10.38%) gRPC
4 53 (10.19%) Protocol Buffers
5 51 (9.81%) NumPy
5 51 (9.81%) Pandas
5 51 (9.81%) SciPy
6 36 (6.92%) RESTful
7 26 (5.00%) AngularJS
8 24 (4.62%) Spring
9 20 (3.85%) GraphQL
9 20 (3.85%) Spring Boot
10 19 (3.65%) Kafka
11 17 (3.27%) CSS
12 16 (3.08%) React Native
12 16 (3.08%) REST
13 15 (2.88%) .NET Core
13 15 (2.88%) HTML
13 15 (2.88%) Node.js
14 14 (2.69%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 70 (13.46%) Derivative
2 67 (12.88%) Cloud Native
3 65 (12.50%) Equities
4 61 (11.73%) Fixed Income
5 51 (9.81%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 51 (9.81%) Hedge funds
5 51 (9.81%) Pricing Data
6 32 (6.15%) Distributed Systems
7 24 (4.62%) Algorithms
8 15 (2.88%) Public Cloud
9 13 (2.50%) Greenfield Project
10 12 (2.31%) Legacy Code
11 10 (1.92%) Data Structures
12 6 (1.15%) AI Agents
12 6 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.15%) Management Information System
12 6 (1.15%) Product Ownership
13 5 (0.96%) Blog
13 5 (0.96%) Embedded Systems
14 4 (0.77%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 41 (7.88%) Linux
2 10 (1.92%) Android
3 6 (1.15%) Embedded Linux
3 6 (1.15%) Unix
4 5 (0.96%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.38%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 510 (98.08%) Software Engineering
2 174 (33.46%) Agile
3 97 (18.65%) CI/CD
4 69 (13.27%) Microservices
5 63 (12.12%) Mentoring
6 60 (11.54%) Problem-Solving
7 59 (11.35%) SDLC
8 57 (10.96%) DevOps
8 57 (10.96%) Full-Stack Development
9 53 (10.19%) AI
9 53 (10.19%) Asset Management
9 53 (10.19%) Investment Management
10 48 (9.23%) Computer Science
11 40 (7.69%) Fintech
12 35 (6.73%) Containerisation
13 34 (6.54%) Technical Leadership
13 34 (6.54%) Test Automation
14 32 (6.15%) Clean Code
15 30 (5.77%) Operational Stability
15 30 (5.77%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 164 (31.54%) Java
2 126 (24.23%) Python
3 112 (21.54%) TypeScript
4 87 (16.73%) JavaScript
5 76 (14.62%) C#
6 61 (11.73%) C++
7 42 (8.08%) SQL
8 27 (5.19%) Rust
9 26 (5.00%) C
10 21 (4.04%) Go
11 15 (2.88%) Kotlin
12 12 (2.31%) Ruby
13 6 (1.15%) Delphi
13 6 (1.15%) PHP
14 5 (0.96%) Embedded C
15 3 (0.58%) Bash
15 3 (0.58%) Swift
16 2 (0.38%) BrightScript
16 2 (0.38%) MATLAB
16 2 (0.38%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 36 (6.92%) Degree
2 16 (3.08%) Security Cleared
3 15 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (1.73%) Master's Degree
5 6 (1.15%) SC Cleared
6 5 (0.96%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.58%) PhD
8 2 (0.38%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.19%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.19%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.65%) QA
2 10 (1.92%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.38%) ISO 9000
3 2 (0.38%) ISO 9001
3 2 (0.38%) JTAG
3 2 (0.38%) WCAG
4 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.19%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.19%) ECSS
4 1 (0.19%) GDPR
4 1 (0.19%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.19%) PSD2
System Software
1 42 (8.08%) Docker
2 7 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (1.35%) Virtual Servers
3 6 (1.15%) Firmware
4 3 (0.58%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 78 (15.00%) Kubernetes
2 32 (6.15%) Terraform
3 8 (1.54%) Grafana
4 4 (0.77%) Ansible
5 3 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.19%) Argo
Vendors
1 16 (3.08%) Google
2 12 (2.31%) Microsoft
3 4 (0.77%) Databricks
3 4 (0.77%) OpenAI
3 4 (0.77%) Oracle
4 3 (0.58%) MuleSoft
5 2 (0.38%) Adobe
5 2 (0.38%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.38%) Avaloq
5 2 (0.38%) CA Agile Central
5 2 (0.38%) Facebook
5 2 (0.38%) MKS
5 2 (0.38%) Roku
5 2 (0.38%) SAP
5 2 (0.38%) Vertica
6 1 (0.19%) ForgeRock
6 1 (0.19%) Green Hills
6 1 (0.19%) HubSpot
6 1 (0.19%) New Relic
6 1 (0.19%) SendGrid