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 September 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 221 108
Rank change year-on-year +96 -113 +185
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,701 708 1,819
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.50% 1.43% 2.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.61% 1.59% 2.43%
Number of salaries quoted 1,337 383 1,241
10th Percentile £57,950 £59,000 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £65,465
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +37.48% -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 105,974 44,478 74,870
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.45% 89.66% 95.26%
Number of salaries quoted 73,002 26,192 45,789
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.45% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £92,500
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 12 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 12 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 +90 1,519 £75,000 -16.67% 759
UK excluding London +111 1,191 £70,000 - 359
London +14 423 £95,000 -13.64% 451
North of England +6 307 £75,000 +7.14% 68
Work from Home -67 300 £75,000 -31.82% 3,278
South East +143 245 £80,000 +14.29% 77
South West +53 218 £70,000 +7.69% 43
North West -12 192 £75,000 +0.67% 48
East of England +94 187 £70,000 +7.69% 77
Midlands +74 132 £70,000 -6.67% 29
West Midlands +27 76 £70,000 -6.67% 9
Yorkshire +7 69 £70,000 +7.69% 14
East Midlands +16 56 £60,000 -14.29% 20
Scotland +17 53 £75,000 +13.21% 46
North East -28 46 £85,000 +750.00% 6
Wales -28 44 £70,000 - 6
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 18

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

For the 6 months to 12 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 1,695 (99.65%) Software Engineering
2 274 (16.11%) Python
3 246 (14.46%) Agile
3 246 (14.46%) C#
4 233 (13.70%) C++
5 217 (12.76%) AWS
5 217 (12.76%) Java
6 196 (11.52%) CI/CD
7 188 (11.05%) AI
8 182 (10.70%) Mentoring
9 164 (9.64%) .NET
10 157 (9.23%) Full-Stack Development
11 137 (8.05%) TypeScript
12 125 (7.35%) DevOps
12 125 (7.35%) Microservices
13 122 (7.17%) React
14 109 (6.41%) Linux
15 107 (6.29%) Azure
16 106 (6.23%) Security Cleared
17 102 (6.00%) Test Automation
18 95 (5.58%) JavaScript
19 94 (5.53%) SDLC
20 91 (5.35%) Technical Leadership
21 89 (5.23%) Code Quality
22 86 (5.06%) Problem-Solving
23 82 (4.82%) SQL
24 81 (4.76%) Degree
24 81 (4.76%) Node.js
24 81 (4.76%) SaaS
25 80 (4.70%) 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 (0.94%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.41%) Apache
3 4 (0.24%) 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 (0.059%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (0.18%) Blender
1 3 (0.18%) Maya
2 1 (0.059%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 217 (12.76%) AWS
2 107 (6.29%) Azure
3 81 (4.76%) SaaS
4 67 (3.94%) GCP
5 40 (2.35%) GitHub
6 38 (2.23%) Serverless
7 24 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
9 17 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (0.94%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.71%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.59%) Amazon S3
12 10 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (0.47%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 6 (0.35%) Amazon SQS
14 6 (0.35%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.35%) Supabase
15 5 (0.29%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.29%) Dynamics 365
16 4 (0.24%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.00%) RS-232
2 14 (0.82%) Modbus
3 13 (0.76%) Bluetooth
4 12 (0.71%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.71%) Profibus
5 11 (0.65%) Multicast
5 11 (0.65%) Wireless
6 9 (0.53%) Broadband
6 9 (0.53%) RS-485
6 9 (0.53%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.47%) HTTP
8 6 (0.35%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.24%) Firewall
9 4 (0.24%) Internet
10 2 (0.12%) RS-422
11 1 (0.059%) BGP
11 1 (0.059%) DNS
11 1 (0.059%) LTE
11 1 (0.059%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (3.59%) PostgreSQL
2 32 (1.88%) MySQL
3 28 (1.65%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.06%) Redis
5 17 (1.00%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.88%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.82%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
9 9 (0.53%) DynamoDB
10 7 (0.41%) Big Data
11 6 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
13 4 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.24%) Delta Lake
14 3 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.18%) MariaDB
15 2 (0.12%) DocumentDB
15 2 (0.12%) Flink
15 2 (0.12%) Neo4j
15 2 (0.12%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 59 (3.47%) Git
2 28 (1.65%) JIRA
3 25 (1.47%) GitLab
4 17 (1.00%) TeamCity
5 15 (0.88%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.59%) Jenkins
6 10 (0.59%) Visual Studio Code
7 6 (0.35%) Mocha
7 6 (0.35%) Selenium
7 6 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 5 (0.29%) Jasmine
8 5 (0.29%) NUnit
9 4 (0.24%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.24%) Rational Rhapsody
10 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.18%) Eclipse RCP
10 3 (0.18%) JUnit
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle APEX
11 2 (0.12%) CMake
11 2 (0.12%) GDB
General
1 147 (8.64%) Finance
2 118 (6.94%) Social Skills
3 70 (4.12%) Electronics
4 57 (3.35%) Banking
4 57 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 47 (2.76%) Public Sector
6 41 (2.41%) Manufacturing
7 38 (2.23%) Analytical Skills
8 37 (2.18%) Law
9 25 (1.47%) Aerospace
10 22 (1.29%) Retail
11 17 (1.00%) Marketing
12 15 (0.88%) Financial Institution
13 14 (0.82%) Military
14 13 (0.76%) Automotive
15 10 (0.59%) Back Office
15 10 (0.59%) Games
15 10 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.53%) Front Office
16 9 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (9.64%) .NET
2 122 (7.17%) React
3 81 (4.76%) Node.js
4 63 (3.70%) Terraform
5 62 (3.64%) Spring
6 49 (2.88%) WPF
7 40 (2.35%) RESTful
8 39 (2.29%) Spring Boot
9 37 (2.18%) Kafka
10 29 (1.70%) REST
11 28 (1.65%) Next.js
12 24 (1.41%) AngularJS
13 20 (1.18%) Vue
14 18 (1.06%) FastAPI
15 17 (1.00%) React Native
16 16 (0.94%) Django
17 13 (0.76%) CSS
17 13 (0.76%) FIX Protocol
18 11 (0.65%) Boost C++ Libraries
18 11 (0.65%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 113 (6.64%) Cloud Native
2 57 (3.35%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
4 47 (2.76%) Algorithms
5 42 (2.47%) Robotics
6 36 (2.12%) Embedded Systems
7 28 (1.65%) Greenfield Project
8 22 (1.29%) AI Agents
8 22 (1.29%) Product Ownership
9 21 (1.23%) Public Cloud
10 17 (1.00%) Blog
11 15 (0.88%) Blockchain
11 15 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
12 14 (0.82%) Derivative
13 13 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (0.71%) Fixed Income
14 12 (0.71%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.65%) Device Driver
15 11 (0.65%) Equities
15 11 (0.65%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 109 (6.41%) Linux
2 28 (1.65%) Embedded Linux
3 21 (1.23%) FreeRTOS
4 19 (1.12%) Windows
5 8 (0.47%) Unix
6 6 (0.35%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.24%) Android
8 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.059%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,695 (99.65%) Software Engineering
2 246 (14.46%) Agile
3 196 (11.52%) CI/CD
4 188 (11.05%) AI
5 182 (10.70%) Mentoring
6 157 (9.23%) Full-Stack Development
7 125 (7.35%) DevOps
7 125 (7.35%) Microservices
8 102 (6.00%) Test Automation
9 94 (5.53%) SDLC
10 91 (5.35%) Technical Leadership
11 89 (5.23%) Code Quality
12 86 (5.06%) Problem-Solving
13 70 (4.12%) Computer Science
14 69 (4.06%) Continuous Improvement
14 69 (4.06%) Fintech
15 59 (3.47%) Machine Learning
16 53 (3.12%) Event-Driven
16 53 (3.12%) Infrastructure as Code
17 52 (3.06%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 274 (16.11%) Python
2 246 (14.46%) C#
3 233 (13.70%) C++
4 217 (12.76%) Java
5 137 (8.05%) TypeScript
6 95 (5.58%) JavaScript
7 82 (4.82%) SQL
8 77 (4.53%) C
9 41 (2.41%) Rust
10 33 (1.94%) Go
11 17 (1.00%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.94%) Scala
13 14 (0.82%) PHP
13 14 (0.82%) Ruby
14 13 (0.76%) F#
14 13 (0.76%) Haskell
15 11 (0.65%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.65%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.59%) Julia
17 8 (0.47%) R
Qualifications
1 106 (6.23%) Security Cleared
2 81 (4.76%) Degree
3 71 (4.17%) SC Cleared
4 51 (3.00%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.88%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.53%) PhD
8 8 (0.47%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (0.35%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.24%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.12%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.059%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.059%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (2.29%) QA
2 18 (1.06%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.35%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.29%) GDPR
4 5 (0.29%) IEC 61508
4 5 (0.29%) MISRA
4 5 (0.29%) MISRA C
5 4 (0.24%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.18%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.12%) SLA
8 1 (0.059%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 73 (4.29%) Docker
2 56 (3.29%) Firmware
3 22 (1.29%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.059%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 1 (0.059%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 80 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 19 (1.12%) Grafana
3 11 (0.65%) Ansible
4 5 (0.29%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.18%) Plesk
6 2 (0.12%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.12%) kaniko
6 2 (0.12%) Puppet
7 1 (0.059%) Argo
7 1 (0.059%) Istio
7 1 (0.059%) Kibana
7 1 (0.059%) Podman
Vendors
1 23 (1.35%) Microsoft
2 17 (1.00%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.65%) Google
4 9 (0.53%) Splunk
5 8 (0.47%) RedGate
5 8 (0.47%) Sage
5 8 (0.47%) Siemens
6 7 (0.41%) Databricks
7 6 (0.35%) Foundry
7 6 (0.35%) Oracle
8 5 (0.29%) Intel
8 5 (0.29%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.18%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.18%) New Relic
9 3 (0.18%) Revolut
9 3 (0.18%) Rockwell
10 2 (0.12%) ADVA
10 2 (0.12%) Okta
10 2 (0.12%) Thales
11 1 (0.059%) Virgin Media