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 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 210 106
Rank change year-on-year +86 -104 +185
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,628 754 1,869
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.48% 1.51% 2.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.58% 1.68% 2.41%
Number of salaries quoted 1,268 423 1,311
10th Percentile £57,500 £57,100 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £55,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £85,000 £65,465
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +29.84% -3.02%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £93,750
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 103,220 44,750 77,447
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.83% 89.79% 95.18%
Number of salaries quoted 70,976 26,578 49,466
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,750 £73,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £91,250
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 2 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 2 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 +86 1,460 £75,000 -16.67% 1,087
UK excluding London +110 1,135 £70,000 - 497
London +6 405 £95,000 -11.63% 693
Work from Home -68 302 £80,000 -8.57% 436
North of England -2 293 £75,000 +7.14% 107
South East +133 243 £80,000 +14.29% 95
South West +56 217 £70,000 +7.69% 54
North West -18 181 £75,000 +0.67% 79
East of England +92 176 £70,000 +7.69% 101
Midlands +58 119 £70,000 -5.08% 39
West Midlands +29 70 £70,000 -6.67% 15
Yorkshire +4 66 £70,000 -6.67% 17
East Midlands +16 49 £60,000 -14.29% 24
Scotland -2 47 £70,000 +5.66% 70
North East -23 46 £85,000 +750.00% 11
Wales -37 37 £66,000 +1.54% 10
Northern Ireland - 3 £75,000 - 28

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

For the 6 months to 2 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 1,622 (99.63%) Software Engineering
2 270 (16.58%) Python
3 247 (15.17%) C#
4 234 (14.37%) Agile
5 231 (14.19%) C++
6 221 (13.57%) Java
7 219 (13.45%) AWS
8 196 (12.04%) CI/CD
9 180 (11.06%) Mentoring
10 174 (10.69%) AI
11 165 (10.14%) .NET
12 159 (9.77%) Full-Stack Development
13 133 (8.17%) TypeScript
14 125 (7.68%) DevOps
14 125 (7.68%) Microservices
15 120 (7.37%) React
16 110 (6.76%) Azure
17 109 (6.70%) Linux
18 108 (6.63%) Security Cleared
19 102 (6.27%) Test Automation
20 98 (6.02%) JavaScript
21 90 (5.53%) SDLC
21 90 (5.53%) Technical Leadership
22 87 (5.34%) Problem-Solving
23 85 (5.22%) Code Quality
24 83 (5.10%) SQL
25 82 (5.04%) Degree
25 82 (5.04%) SaaS
26 80 (4.91%) Node.js
27 78 (4.79%) Kubernetes

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 (0.98%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.43%) Apache
3 4 (0.25%) Confluence
4 3 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.18%) WinCC
5 2 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.12%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.12%) Cloud Foundry
5 2 (0.12%) CMS
6 1 (0.061%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (0.18%) Blender
1 3 (0.18%) Maya
2 1 (0.061%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 219 (13.45%) AWS
2 110 (6.76%) Azure
3 82 (5.04%) SaaS
4 67 (4.12%) GCP
5 42 (2.58%) GitHub
6 38 (2.33%) Serverless
7 23 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.23%) GitHub Copilot
9 18 (1.11%) Anthropic Claude
10 17 (1.04%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.61%) Amazon S3
12 10 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (0.49%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 6 (0.37%) Amazon SQS
14 6 (0.37%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.37%) Supabase
15 5 (0.31%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.31%) Dynamics 365
16 4 (0.25%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.11%) RS-232
2 14 (0.86%) Modbus
3 13 (0.80%) Bluetooth
4 12 (0.74%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.74%) Profibus
4 12 (0.74%) Wireless
5 11 (0.68%) Multicast
6 9 (0.55%) RS-485
6 9 (0.55%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.49%) Broadband
7 8 (0.49%) HTTP
8 5 (0.31%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.25%) Firewall
10 1 (0.061%) BGP
10 1 (0.061%) DNS
10 1 (0.061%) LTE
10 1 (0.061%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (3.81%) PostgreSQL
2 33 (2.03%) MySQL
3 28 (1.72%) Relational Database
4 20 (1.23%) MongoDB
5 18 (1.11%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.11%) Redis
6 15 (0.92%) SQL Server
7 10 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
8 9 (0.55%) Big Data
8 9 (0.55%) DynamoDB
9 6 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (0.31%) Geospatial Data
11 4 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.25%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.18%) MariaDB
13 2 (0.12%) DocumentDB
13 2 (0.12%) Flink
13 2 (0.12%) Neo4j
13 2 (0.12%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (3.56%) Git
2 29 (1.78%) JIRA
3 26 (1.60%) GitLab
4 17 (1.04%) Claude Code
5 16 (0.98%) TeamCity
6 11 (0.68%) Jenkins
7 10 (0.61%) Visual Studio Code
8 6 (0.37%) Mocha
8 6 (0.37%) Selenium
9 5 (0.31%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.31%) NUnit
9 5 (0.31%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.25%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.25%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.25%) Rational Rhapsody
11 3 (0.18%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.12%) CMake
12 2 (0.12%) GDB
General
1 149 (9.15%) Finance
2 114 (7.00%) Social Skills
3 67 (4.12%) Electronics
4 56 (3.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 50 (3.07%) Banking
6 46 (2.83%) Public Sector
7 43 (2.64%) Manufacturing
8 40 (2.46%) Analytical Skills
9 36 (2.21%) Law
10 22 (1.35%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.29%) Retail
12 17 (1.04%) Marketing
13 13 (0.80%) Automotive
13 13 (0.80%) Financial Institution
14 12 (0.74%) Military
15 10 (0.61%) Back Office
15 10 (0.61%) Games
15 10 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.55%) Organisational Skills
17 8 (0.49%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (10.14%) .NET
2 120 (7.37%) React
3 80 (4.91%) Node.js
4 62 (3.81%) Terraform
5 61 (3.75%) Spring
6 49 (3.01%) WPF
7 41 (2.52%) RESTful
8 38 (2.33%) Spring Boot
9 35 (2.15%) Kafka
10 28 (1.72%) Next.js
11 27 (1.66%) REST
12 24 (1.47%) AngularJS
13 19 (1.17%) Vue
14 18 (1.11%) React Native
15 17 (1.04%) FastAPI
16 16 (0.98%) Django
17 14 (0.86%) CSS
18 13 (0.80%) FIX Protocol
19 12 (0.74%) Ruby on Rails
20 11 (0.68%) Boost C++ Libraries
Miscellaneous
1 115 (7.06%) Cloud Native
2 59 (3.62%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.38%) Legacy Systems
4 47 (2.89%) Algorithms
5 38 (2.33%) Robotics
6 35 (2.15%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.78%) Greenfield Project
8 22 (1.35%) AI Agents
8 22 (1.35%) Product Ownership
9 21 (1.29%) Public Cloud
10 16 (0.98%) Blockchain
10 16 (0.98%) Blog
11 14 (0.86%) Derivative
12 13 (0.80%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
13 12 (0.74%) Device Driver
13 12 (0.74%) Fixed Income
13 12 (0.74%) Virtual Team
14 11 (0.68%) Equities
14 11 (0.68%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 109 (6.70%) Linux
2 28 (1.72%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.17%) FreeRTOS
3 19 (1.17%) Windows
4 8 (0.49%) Unix
5 5 (0.31%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.18%) Android
7 1 (0.061%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,622 (99.63%) Software Engineering
2 234 (14.37%) Agile
3 196 (12.04%) CI/CD
4 180 (11.06%) Mentoring
5 174 (10.69%) AI
6 159 (9.77%) Full-Stack Development
7 125 (7.68%) DevOps
7 125 (7.68%) Microservices
8 102 (6.27%) Test Automation
9 90 (5.53%) SDLC
9 90 (5.53%) Technical Leadership
10 87 (5.34%) Problem-Solving
11 85 (5.22%) Code Quality
12 71 (4.36%) Computer Science
13 70 (4.30%) Fintech
14 68 (4.18%) Continuous Improvement
15 56 (3.44%) Machine Learning
16 53 (3.26%) Infrastructure as Code
17 52 (3.19%) Containerisation
18 51 (3.13%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 270 (16.58%) Python
2 247 (15.17%) C#
3 231 (14.19%) C++
4 221 (13.57%) Java
5 133 (8.17%) TypeScript
6 98 (6.02%) JavaScript
7 83 (5.10%) SQL
8 77 (4.73%) C
9 44 (2.70%) Rust
10 35 (2.15%) Go
11 18 (1.11%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.98%) Scala
13 15 (0.92%) Ruby
14 14 (0.86%) PHP
15 13 (0.80%) F#
15 13 (0.80%) Haskell
16 11 (0.68%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.68%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.61%) Julia
18 8 (0.49%) R
Qualifications
1 108 (6.63%) Security Cleared
2 82 (5.04%) Degree
3 72 (4.42%) SC Cleared
4 53 (3.26%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
6 17 (1.04%) Master's Degree
7 11 (0.68%) PhD
8 8 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (0.37%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.12%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.12%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.061%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.061%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (2.40%) QA
2 18 (1.11%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.37%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.31%) GDPR
4 5 (0.31%) IEC 61508
4 5 (0.31%) MISRA
4 5 (0.31%) MISRA C
5 4 (0.25%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.18%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.12%) SLA
8 1 (0.061%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 76 (4.67%) Docker
2 56 (3.44%) Firmware
3 22 (1.35%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.061%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 78 (4.79%) Kubernetes
2 18 (1.11%) Grafana
3 10 (0.61%) Ansible
4 5 (0.31%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.18%) Plesk
6 2 (0.12%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.12%) kaniko
6 2 (0.12%) Puppet
7 1 (0.061%) Argo
7 1 (0.061%) Istio
7 1 (0.061%) Kibana
Vendors
1 22 (1.35%) Microsoft
2 15 (0.92%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.68%) Google
4 9 (0.55%) Splunk
5 8 (0.49%) Siemens
6 7 (0.43%) Databricks
7 6 (0.37%) Oracle
7 6 (0.37%) Sage
8 5 (0.31%) Intel
8 5 (0.31%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.25%) Foundry
9 4 (0.25%) RedGate
10 3 (0.18%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.18%) New Relic
10 3 (0.18%) Revolut
10 3 (0.18%) Rockwell
11 2 (0.12%) ADVA
11 2 (0.12%) Okta
12 1 (0.061%) Palantir
12 1 (0.061%) Virgin Media