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 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 232 121
Rank change year-on-year +111 -111 +173
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,874 634 1,488
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.58% 1.29% 2.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.71% 1.44% 2.20%
Number of salaries quoted 1,391 318 1,003
10th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +28.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £87,500 £115,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year - +7.69% +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 109,883 44,162 67,664
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.51% 89.77% 95.35%
Number of salaries quoted 74,751 25,776 38,845
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £35,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £53,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.35% -2.73% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -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 15 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 15 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 +113 1,684 £75,000 -16.67% 146
UK excluding London +130 1,336 £70,000 - 128
London +28 460 £95,000 -13.64% 34
North of England +20 356 £75,000 +7.14% 30
Work from Home -34 340 £80,000 -27.27% 144
South East +132 259 £80,000 +18.52% 33
South West +67 247 £70,000 +7.69% 26
North West -5 219 £75,000 +0.67% 18
East of England +98 209 £70,000 +7.69% 17
Midlands +83 148 £70,000 -6.67% 17
Yorkshire +32 79 £70,000 -6.67% 4
West Midlands +24 77 £70,000 -6.67% 11
East Midlands +36 71 £60,000 -14.29% 6
Scotland +40 65 £75,000 +11.11% 6
North East -18 58 £80,000 +700.00% 8
Wales -22 47 £70,000 -
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 15 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 1,872 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 286 (15.26%) Python
3 253 (13.50%) Agile
4 247 (13.18%) AWS
4 247 (13.18%) Java
5 245 (13.07%) C#
6 230 (12.27%) AI
7 223 (11.90%) CI/CD
8 220 (11.74%) C++
9 182 (9.71%) Full-Stack Development
10 179 (9.55%) Mentoring
11 168 (8.96%) .NET
12 142 (7.58%) TypeScript
13 140 (7.47%) Microservices
14 129 (6.88%) DevOps
15 116 (6.19%) React
16 114 (6.08%) Test Automation
17 112 (5.98%) Azure
18 109 (5.82%) Security Cleared
19 104 (5.55%) Kubernetes
20 98 (5.23%) Linux
21 96 (5.12%) SDLC
22 95 (5.07%) Code Quality
23 90 (4.80%) Problem-Solving
23 90 (4.80%) Technical Leadership
24 88 (4.70%) Docker
25 87 (4.64%) Degree
26 80 (4.27%) Continuous Improvement
26 80 (4.27%) Terraform
27 78 (4.16%) JavaScript

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 (0.85%) SharePoint Server
2 6 (0.32%) Apache
3 3 (0.16%) CMS
3 3 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.16%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.16%) WinCC
4 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
4 2 (0.11%) Confluence
5 1 (0.053%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.053%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.16%) Blender
1 3 (0.16%) Maya
2 1 (0.053%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 247 (13.18%) AWS
2 112 (5.98%) Azure
3 77 (4.11%) GCP
4 69 (3.68%) SaaS
5 48 (2.56%) Serverless
6 34 (1.81%) GitHub
7 31 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
8 21 (1.12%) Anthropic Claude
9 20 (1.07%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (0.75%) GitHub Copilot
11 13 (0.69%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (0.64%) AWS Lambda
13 11 (0.59%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 10 (0.53%) Amazon S3
15 8 (0.43%) AWS CloudFormation
16 6 (0.32%) Amazon SQS
16 6 (0.32%) Supabase
17 5 (0.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 5 (0.27%) Datadog
17 5 (0.27%) Vercel
Communications & Networking
1 11 (0.59%) RS-232
2 10 (0.53%) Ethernet
2 10 (0.53%) Modbus
2 10 (0.53%) Profibus
2 10 (0.53%) TCP/IP
2 10 (0.53%) Wireless
3 9 (0.48%) Bluetooth
3 9 (0.48%) Internet
3 9 (0.48%) Multicast
4 8 (0.43%) Broadband
5 7 (0.37%) RS-485
5 7 (0.37%) ZigBee
6 4 (0.21%) Firewall
6 4 (0.21%) MQTT
7 3 (0.16%) HTTP
7 3 (0.16%) RS-422
8 1 (0.053%) BGP
8 1 (0.053%) DNS
8 1 (0.053%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (3.84%) PostgreSQL
2 29 (1.55%) MySQL
3 27 (1.44%) Relational Database
4 19 (1.01%) Redis
5 16 (0.85%) MongoDB
5 16 (0.85%) SQL Server
6 14 (0.75%) NoSQL
7 12 (0.64%) DynamoDB
8 11 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
9 7 (0.37%) Big Data
10 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
11 4 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.21%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.21%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.16%) Power BI
13 2 (0.11%) CockroachDB
13 2 (0.11%) Data Lake
13 2 (0.11%) Flink
13 2 (0.11%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 50 (2.67%) Git
2 25 (1.33%) JIRA
3 24 (1.28%) TeamCity
4 22 (1.17%) GitLab
5 18 (0.96%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.53%) Jenkins
7 7 (0.37%) Rational Rhapsody
8 6 (0.32%) Mocha
9 5 (0.27%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.27%) NUnit
9 5 (0.27%) Selenium
9 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio
9 5 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
10 3 (0.16%) Eclipse
10 3 (0.16%) Eclipse RCP
10 3 (0.16%) JUnit
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.16%) PetaLinux
11 2 (0.11%) CMake
11 2 (0.11%) IntelliJ
General
1 147 (7.84%) Finance
2 125 (6.67%) Social Skills
3 66 (3.52%) Electronics
3 66 (3.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 58 (3.09%) Banking
5 49 (2.61%) Public Sector
6 44 (2.35%) Law
7 42 (2.24%) Analytical Skills
8 36 (1.92%) Manufacturing
9 33 (1.76%) Aerospace
10 28 (1.49%) Retail
11 19 (1.01%) Financial Institution
12 17 (0.91%) Marketing
12 17 (0.91%) Military
13 16 (0.85%) Front Office
14 14 (0.75%) Games
15 10 (0.53%) Back Office
15 10 (0.53%) Health Technology
16 9 (0.48%) Legal
17 8 (0.43%) Aviation
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 168 (8.96%) .NET
2 116 (6.19%) React
3 80 (4.27%) Terraform
4 78 (4.16%) Node.js
5 65 (3.47%) Spring
6 50 (2.67%) RESTful
7 43 (2.29%) Spring Boot
8 42 (2.24%) Kafka
9 40 (2.13%) WPF
10 31 (1.65%) Next.js
11 26 (1.39%) FastAPI
12 24 (1.28%) REST
13 23 (1.23%) AngularJS
14 18 (0.96%) Vue
15 16 (0.85%) Django
16 15 (0.80%) OpenAPI
17 13 (0.69%) FIX Protocol
17 13 (0.69%) React Native
18 12 (0.64%) RabbitMQ
19 11 (0.59%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 129 (6.88%) Cloud Native
2 67 (3.58%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (2.88%) Legacy Systems
3 54 (2.88%) Robotics
4 39 (2.08%) Algorithms
5 34 (1.81%) Embedded Systems
6 29 (1.55%) AI Agents
6 29 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
7 27 (1.44%) Blog
7 27 (1.44%) Product Ownership
8 21 (1.12%) Public Cloud
9 20 (1.07%) Cyber Threat
10 15 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (0.69%) Blockchain
12 12 (0.64%) Derivative
12 12 (0.64%) Virtual Team
13 11 (0.59%) Legacy Applications
14 10 (0.53%) Device Driver
14 10 (0.53%) Equities
14 10 (0.53%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 98 (5.23%) Linux
2 28 (1.49%) Embedded Linux
3 17 (0.91%) Windows
4 12 (0.64%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.53%) Android
5 10 (0.53%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.43%) Unix
7 3 (0.16%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,872 (99.89%) Software Engineering
2 253 (13.50%) Agile
3 230 (12.27%) AI
4 223 (11.90%) CI/CD
5 182 (9.71%) Full-Stack Development
6 179 (9.55%) Mentoring
7 140 (7.47%) Microservices
8 129 (6.88%) DevOps
9 114 (6.08%) Test Automation
10 96 (5.12%) SDLC
11 95 (5.07%) Code Quality
12 90 (4.80%) Problem-Solving
12 90 (4.80%) Technical Leadership
13 80 (4.27%) Continuous Improvement
14 70 (3.74%) Event-Driven
15 69 (3.68%) Fintech
16 65 (3.47%) Containerisation
17 63 (3.36%) Computer Science
17 63 (3.36%) Infrastructure as Code
18 59 (3.15%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 286 (15.26%) Python
2 247 (13.18%) Java
3 245 (13.07%) C#
4 220 (11.74%) C++
5 142 (7.58%) TypeScript
6 78 (4.16%) JavaScript
7 76 (4.06%) SQL
8 58 (3.09%) C
9 39 (2.08%) Go
10 35 (1.87%) Rust
11 19 (1.01%) PHP
12 16 (0.85%) Kotlin
13 15 (0.80%) Scala
14 14 (0.75%) Ruby
15 13 (0.69%) Embedded C
16 12 (0.64%) F#
16 12 (0.64%) Haskell
16 12 (0.64%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.53%) Julia
18 8 (0.43%) R
Qualifications
1 109 (5.82%) Security Cleared
2 87 (4.64%) Degree
3 73 (3.90%) SC Cleared
4 49 (2.61%) DV Cleared
5 25 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (0.75%) Master's Degree
6 14 (0.75%) PhD
7 13 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (0.32%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.27%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Chartered Engineer
12 1 (0.053%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.053%) HND
12 1 (0.053%) MOS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (1.92%) QA
2 20 (1.07%) Accessibility
3 7 (0.37%) DO-178B
4 6 (0.32%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.27%) GDPR
6 3 (0.16%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.053%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 88 (4.70%) Docker
2 40 (2.13%) Firmware
3 14 (0.75%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.053%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 104 (5.55%) Kubernetes
2 23 (1.23%) Grafana
3 13 (0.69%) Ansible
4 2 (0.11%) kaniko
4 2 (0.11%) Plesk
4 2 (0.11%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.11%) Puppet
5 1 (0.053%) Argo
5 1 (0.053%) Istio
5 1 (0.053%) Kibana
5 1 (0.053%) Podman
Vendors
1 24 (1.28%) Microsoft
2 18 (0.96%) Salesforce
3 14 (0.75%) RedGate
4 9 (0.48%) Foundry
4 9 (0.48%) Sage
4 9 (0.48%) Splunk
5 8 (0.43%) Google
5 8 (0.43%) Siemens
6 7 (0.37%) Databricks
7 6 (0.32%) New Relic
7 6 (0.32%) OpenAI
7 6 (0.32%) Oracle
8 5 (0.27%) Intel
9 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.16%) Revolut
9 3 (0.16%) Rockwell
9 3 (0.16%) Thales
10 2 (0.11%) ADVA
10 2 (0.11%) Okta
11 1 (0.053%) Virgin Media