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 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 222 109
Rank change year-on-year +99 -113 +184
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,750 700 1,734
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.51% 1.43% 2.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.62% 1.59% 2.35%
Number of salaries quoted 1,376 376 1,180
10th Percentile £58,500 £58,250 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £90,000 £66,500
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +35.34% -1.48%
75th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £95,000
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 108,248 44,029 73,823
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.20% 89.64% 95.26%
Number of salaries quoted 74,086 25,880 44,136
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £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 21 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 21 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 +87 1,567 £75,000 -16.67% 1,460
UK excluding London +119 1,234 £70,000 - 765
London +10 431 £95,000 -13.64% 815
North of England -4 319 £75,000 +7.14% 196
Work from Home -74 300 £80,000 -27.27% 602
South East +127 252 £80,000 +14.29% 137
South West +63 227 £70,000 -6.67% 92
North West -16 198 £75,000 +7.14% 135
East of England +93 194 £70,000 +7.69% 125
Midlands +68 138 £70,000 -6.67% 68
West Midlands +20 77 £70,000 -6.67% 35
Yorkshire +19 72 £70,000 -3.45% 43
East Midlands +24 61 £60,000 -14.29% 33
Scotland +21 52 £75,000 +15.38% 98
North East -22 49 £90,000 +800.00% 19
Wales -26 47 £70,000 - 13
Northern Ireland - 5 £75,000 - 40

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,746 (99.77%) Software Engineering
2 276 (15.77%) Python
3 252 (14.40%) C#
4 249 (14.23%) Agile
5 234 (13.37%) C++
6 221 (12.63%) AWS
7 217 (12.40%) Java
8 200 (11.43%) AI
9 199 (11.37%) CI/CD
10 179 (10.23%) Mentoring
11 166 (9.49%) .NET
12 163 (9.31%) Full-Stack Development
13 142 (8.11%) TypeScript
14 126 (7.20%) DevOps
15 125 (7.14%) Microservices
15 125 (7.14%) React
16 107 (6.11%) Security Cleared
17 106 (6.06%) Azure
18 104 (5.94%) Linux
19 101 (5.77%) Test Automation
20 95 (5.43%) SDLC
21 93 (5.31%) Code Quality
22 90 (5.14%) JavaScript
23 89 (5.09%) Technical Leadership
24 87 (4.97%) Problem-Solving
25 86 (4.91%) Kubernetes
26 81 (4.63%) Degree
26 81 (4.63%) Node.js
27 79 (4.51%) SQL
28 77 (4.40%) Docker

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 (0.91%) SharePoint Server
2 7 (0.40%) Apache
3 4 (0.23%) Confluence
4 3 (0.17%) CMS
4 3 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
4 3 (0.17%) WinCC
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.11%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.057%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.057%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.17%) Blender
1 3 (0.17%) Maya
2 1 (0.057%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 221 (12.63%) AWS
2 106 (6.06%) Azure
3 75 (4.29%) SaaS
4 69 (3.94%) GCP
5 46 (2.63%) Serverless
6 38 (2.17%) GitHub
7 24 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.14%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (0.91%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (0.80%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.57%) Amazon S3
13 9 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (0.46%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 6 (0.34%) Amazon SQS
15 6 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (0.34%) Supabase
16 5 (0.29%) Azure AI
16 5 (0.29%) Dynamics 365
17 4 (0.23%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 16 (0.91%) RS-232
2 14 (0.80%) Modbus
3 13 (0.74%) Bluetooth
4 12 (0.69%) Ethernet
4 12 (0.69%) Profibus
5 10 (0.57%) Multicast
5 10 (0.57%) Wireless
6 9 (0.51%) RS-485
6 9 (0.51%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.46%) Broadband
7 8 (0.46%) HTTP
8 7 (0.40%) Internet
8 7 (0.40%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.23%) Firewall
10 2 (0.11%) RS-422
11 1 (0.057%) BGP
11 1 (0.057%) DNS
11 1 (0.057%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (3.54%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (1.77%) MySQL
3 28 (1.60%) Relational Database
4 18 (1.03%) Redis
5 17 (0.97%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.86%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.80%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
9 9 (0.51%) DynamoDB
10 7 (0.40%) Big Data
11 6 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
13 4 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.23%) Delta Lake
14 3 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.17%) MariaDB
15 2 (0.11%) Apache Cassandra
15 2 (0.11%) Hadoop
15 2 (0.11%) Neo4j
15 2 (0.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (3.31%) Git
2 27 (1.54%) JIRA
3 25 (1.43%) GitLab
4 17 (0.97%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.80%) Claude Code
6 10 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.46%) Jenkins
8 6 (0.34%) Mocha
8 6 (0.34%) Selenium
9 5 (0.29%) Jasmine
9 5 (0.29%) NUnit
9 5 (0.29%) Visual Studio
10 4 (0.23%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
11 3 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.17%) Eclipse RCP
11 3 (0.17%) JUnit
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.11%) Appium
12 2 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 143 (8.17%) Finance
2 121 (6.91%) Social Skills
3 69 (3.94%) Electronics
4 56 (3.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 55 (3.14%) Banking
6 45 (2.57%) Public Sector
7 41 (2.34%) Manufacturing
8 40 (2.29%) Analytical Skills
9 37 (2.11%) Law
10 25 (1.43%) Aerospace
11 21 (1.20%) Retail
12 17 (0.97%) Marketing
13 14 (0.80%) Military
14 13 (0.74%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.69%) Automotive
16 11 (0.63%) Games
17 10 (0.57%) Front Office
17 10 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.51%) Legal
18 9 (0.51%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (9.49%) .NET
2 125 (7.14%) React
3 81 (4.63%) Node.js
4 66 (3.77%) Terraform
5 64 (3.66%) Spring
6 49 (2.80%) WPF
7 43 (2.46%) RESTful
8 41 (2.34%) Spring Boot
9 38 (2.17%) Kafka
10 30 (1.71%) Next.js
11 27 (1.54%) REST
12 26 (1.49%) AngularJS
13 20 (1.14%) Vue
14 18 (1.03%) FastAPI
15 16 (0.91%) React Native
16 15 (0.86%) Django
17 13 (0.74%) CSS
18 12 (0.69%) FIX Protocol
19 11 (0.63%) .NET Core
19 11 (0.63%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 114 (6.51%) Cloud Native
2 57 (3.26%) Distributed Systems
3 55 (3.14%) Legacy Systems
4 46 (2.63%) Algorithms
4 46 (2.63%) Robotics
5 38 (2.17%) Embedded Systems
6 28 (1.60%) Greenfield Project
7 25 (1.43%) AI Agents
8 24 (1.37%) Product Ownership
9 22 (1.26%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.09%) Blog
11 16 (0.91%) Cyber Threat
12 14 (0.80%) Blockchain
13 13 (0.74%) Derivative
13 13 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
14 12 (0.69%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.63%) Device Driver
15 11 (0.63%) Fixed Income
15 11 (0.63%) Legacy Applications
16 10 (0.57%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 104 (5.94%) Linux
2 28 (1.60%) Embedded Linux
3 21 (1.20%) FreeRTOS
4 18 (1.03%) Windows
5 8 (0.46%) Unix
6 7 (0.40%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.29%) Android
8 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.057%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,746 (99.77%) Software Engineering
2 249 (14.23%) Agile
3 200 (11.43%) AI
4 199 (11.37%) CI/CD
5 179 (10.23%) Mentoring
6 163 (9.31%) Full-Stack Development
7 126 (7.20%) DevOps
8 125 (7.14%) Microservices
9 101 (5.77%) Test Automation
10 95 (5.43%) SDLC
11 93 (5.31%) Code Quality
12 89 (5.09%) Technical Leadership
13 87 (4.97%) Problem-Solving
14 73 (4.17%) Continuous Improvement
15 71 (4.06%) Fintech
16 70 (4.00%) Computer Science
17 58 (3.31%) Machine Learning
18 56 (3.20%) Event-Driven
19 55 (3.14%) Infrastructure as Code
20 53 (3.03%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 276 (15.77%) Python
2 252 (14.40%) C#
3 234 (13.37%) C++
4 217 (12.40%) Java
5 142 (8.11%) TypeScript
6 90 (5.14%) JavaScript
7 79 (4.51%) SQL
8 75 (4.29%) C
9 40 (2.29%) Rust
10 33 (1.89%) Go
11 17 (0.97%) Embedded C
12 16 (0.91%) PHP
12 16 (0.91%) Scala
13 14 (0.80%) Ruby
14 13 (0.74%) F#
14 13 (0.74%) Haskell
15 12 (0.69%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.69%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.57%) Julia
17 8 (0.46%) R
Qualifications
1 107 (6.11%) Security Cleared
2 81 (4.63%) Degree
3 71 (4.06%) SC Cleared
4 52 (2.97%) DV Cleared
5 23 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (0.86%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.51%) PhD
8 8 (0.46%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (0.34%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.23%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.11%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.057%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.057%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (2.23%) QA
2 18 (1.03%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.34%) 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 (0.23%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.17%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.11%) SLA
8 1 (0.057%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 77 (4.40%) Docker
2 54 (3.09%) Firmware
3 22 (1.26%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.057%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 86 (4.91%) Kubernetes
2 19 (1.09%) Grafana
3 11 (0.63%) Ansible
4 5 (0.29%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.17%) Plesk
6 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.11%) kaniko
6 2 (0.11%) Puppet
7 1 (0.057%) Argo
7 1 (0.057%) Istio
7 1 (0.057%) Kibana
7 1 (0.057%) Podman
Vendors
1 23 (1.31%) Microsoft
2 17 (0.97%) Salesforce
3 11 (0.63%) Google
4 10 (0.57%) RedGate
5 9 (0.51%) Splunk
6 8 (0.46%) Sage
6 8 (0.46%) Siemens
7 7 (0.40%) Databricks
8 6 (0.34%) Foundry
8 6 (0.34%) Oracle
9 5 (0.29%) Intel
9 5 (0.29%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.17%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.17%) New Relic
10 3 (0.17%) Revolut
10 3 (0.17%) Rockwell
11 2 (0.11%) ADVA
11 2 (0.11%) Okta
11 2 (0.11%) Thales
12 1 (0.057%) Virgin Media