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 28 July 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 203 120
Rank change year-on-year +68 -83 +170
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Software Engineer 1,455 801 1,939
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.43% 1.62% 2.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.52% 1.80% 2.32%
Number of salaries quoted 1,155 468 1,397
10th Percentile £55,300 £56,250 £50,000
25th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £80,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.83% +23.85% -7.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £111,250 £86,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £110,000
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 95,905 44,405 83,583
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.37% 90.07% 94.76%
Number of salaries quoted 65,604 26,372 57,917
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £96,250 £96,250 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.87%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +76 1,301 £75,000 -12.03% 367
UK excluding London +92 1,025 £70,000 - 177
London -14 348 £95,000 -11.63% 218
Work from Home -69 298 £72,500 -14.71% 123
North of England -13 251 £75,000 +0.67% 43
South East +152 247 £80,000 +14.29% 29
South West +52 186 £70,000 - 36
East of England +83 155 £70,000 +9.80% 30
North West -27 153 £75,000 - 32
Midlands +52 111 £67,500 -6.90% 19
Yorkshire +14 66 £70,000 -8.98% 4
West Midlands +34 65 £70,000 -5.08% 4
Scotland 0 48 £67,500 +3.85% 7
East Midlands +18 46 £65,000 -7.14% 15
North East -28 32 £85,000 +61.90% 7
Wales -44 24 £56,250 -13.46% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £75,000 - 9

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

For the 6 months to 28 July 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 1,450 (99.66%) Software Engineering
2 254 (17.46%) Python
3 242 (16.63%) C++
4 240 (16.49%) C#
5 206 (14.16%) Agile
6 203 (13.95%) Java
7 199 (13.68%) AWS
8 169 (11.62%) .NET
9 163 (11.20%) CI/CD
10 154 (10.58%) AI
11 153 (10.52%) Full-Stack Development
12 145 (9.97%) Mentoring
13 114 (7.84%) Azure
13 114 (7.84%) Microservices
13 114 (7.84%) TypeScript
14 112 (7.70%) React
15 110 (7.56%) DevOps
16 108 (7.42%) Linux
17 102 (7.01%) JavaScript
18 101 (6.94%) Security Cleared
19 95 (6.53%) Test Automation
20 86 (5.91%) SaaS
21 85 (5.84%) C
21 85 (5.84%) SDLC
22 83 (5.70%) Degree
23 81 (5.57%) SQL
24 77 (5.29%) Problem-Solving
25 76 (5.22%) Code Quality
25 76 (5.22%) Kubernetes
26 75 (5.15%) Computer Science

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 (1.10%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.34%) Apache
3 3 (0.21%) Apache Solr
3 3 (0.21%) Confluence
3 3 (0.21%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (0.21%) WinCC
4 1 (0.069%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.069%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.069%) CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.21%) Blender
1 3 (0.21%) Maya
2 1 (0.069%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 199 (13.68%) AWS
2 114 (7.84%) Azure
3 86 (5.91%) SaaS
4 60 (4.12%) GCP
5 37 (2.54%) GitHub
6 34 (2.34%) Serverless
7 22 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
8 20 (1.37%) Anthropic Claude
9 14 (0.96%) GitHub Copilot
10 13 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (0.82%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 8 (0.55%) Amazon S3
12 8 (0.55%) AWS Lambda
13 7 (0.48%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (0.41%) Azure AKS
15 5 (0.34%) Amazon SQS
15 5 (0.34%) Azure AI
15 5 (0.34%) Pulumi
15 5 (0.34%) Supabase
16 4 (0.27%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.51%) RS-232
2 15 (1.03%) Ethernet
3 14 (0.96%) Modbus
3 14 (0.96%) Multicast
4 13 (0.89%) Bluetooth
5 12 (0.82%) Profibus
5 12 (0.82%) Wireless
6 9 (0.62%) RS-485
6 9 (0.62%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.55%) HTTP
8 7 (0.48%) Broadband
9 1 (0.069%) Firewall
9 1 (0.069%) LTE
9 1 (0.069%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (2.96%) PostgreSQL
2 28 (1.92%) MySQL
3 21 (1.44%) SQL Server
4 18 (1.24%) NoSQL
5 15 (1.03%) MongoDB
5 15 (1.03%) Redis
5 15 (1.03%) Relational Database
6 10 (0.69%) Big Data
7 8 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
9 4 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.27%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.27%) DynamoDB
9 4 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.21%) DocumentDB
10 3 (0.21%) MariaDB
10 3 (0.21%) Neo4j
11 2 (0.14%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.14%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 59 (4.05%) Git
2 32 (2.20%) JIRA
3 25 (1.72%) GitLab
4 19 (1.31%) Claude Code
5 16 (1.10%) TeamCity
6 11 (0.76%) Visual Studio Code
7 9 (0.62%) Jenkins
8 4 (0.27%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.27%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.27%) NUnit
8 4 (0.27%) Selenium
8 4 (0.27%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.21%) Eclipse RCP
9 3 (0.21%) Jasmine
9 3 (0.21%) Mocha
9 3 (0.21%) Rational Rhapsody
10 2 (0.14%) GDB
10 2 (0.14%) JUnit
10 2 (0.14%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.069%) WinDbg
General
1 127 (8.73%) Finance
2 85 (5.84%) Social Skills
3 63 (4.33%) Electronics
4 50 (3.44%) Banking
5 44 (3.02%) Manufacturing
6 43 (2.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 38 (2.61%) Analytical Skills
7 38 (2.61%) Public Sector
8 25 (1.72%) Law
9 20 (1.37%) Retail
10 15 (1.03%) Automotive
11 13 (0.89%) Financial Institution
12 12 (0.82%) Back Office
13 11 (0.76%) Military
14 10 (0.69%) Aerospace
15 9 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
16 8 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (0.55%) Marketing
17 7 (0.48%) Billing
17 7 (0.48%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 169 (11.62%) .NET
2 112 (7.70%) React
3 71 (4.88%) Node.js
4 48 (3.30%) WPF
5 47 (3.23%) Spring
6 33 (2.27%) RESTful
7 30 (2.06%) Spring Boot
8 27 (1.86%) Next.js
9 26 (1.79%) REST
10 21 (1.44%) Kafka
11 18 (1.24%) AngularJS
12 17 (1.17%) FastAPI
13 16 (1.10%) Vue
14 15 (1.03%) Django
15 14 (0.96%) Boost C++ Libraries
15 14 (0.96%) FIX Protocol
15 14 (0.96%) pytest
15 14 (0.96%) React Native
16 13 (0.89%) .NET Core
16 13 (0.89%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 104 (7.15%) Cloud Native
2 53 (3.64%) Legacy Systems
3 49 (3.37%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (3.30%) Algorithms
5 36 (2.47%) Robotics
6 32 (2.20%) Embedded Systems
7 29 (1.99%) Greenfield Project
8 19 (1.31%) Product Ownership
9 17 (1.17%) Derivative
10 16 (1.10%) AI Agents
10 16 (1.10%) Device Driver
11 14 (0.96%) Equities
11 14 (0.96%) Fixed Income
11 14 (0.96%) Public Cloud
12 11 (0.76%) Client/Server
13 10 (0.69%) Cyber Threat
13 10 (0.69%) Legacy Applications
14 9 (0.62%) Blockchain
14 9 (0.62%) Renewable Energy
15 8 (0.55%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 108 (7.42%) Linux
2 28 (1.92%) Embedded Linux
3 19 (1.31%) FreeRTOS
4 16 (1.10%) Windows
5 4 (0.27%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.21%) Unix
7 1 (0.069%) Android
7 1 (0.069%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,450 (99.66%) Software Engineering
2 206 (14.16%) Agile
3 163 (11.20%) CI/CD
4 154 (10.58%) AI
5 153 (10.52%) Full-Stack Development
6 145 (9.97%) Mentoring
7 114 (7.84%) Microservices
8 110 (7.56%) DevOps
9 95 (6.53%) Test Automation
10 85 (5.84%) SDLC
11 77 (5.29%) Problem-Solving
12 76 (5.22%) Code Quality
13 75 (5.15%) Computer Science
14 67 (4.60%) Technical Leadership
15 65 (4.47%) Fintech
16 61 (4.19%) Continuous Improvement
17 48 (3.30%) Machine Learning
18 46 (3.16%) Containerisation
19 44 (3.02%) Software Testing
20 42 (2.89%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 254 (17.46%) Python
2 242 (16.63%) C++
3 240 (16.49%) C#
4 203 (13.95%) Java
5 114 (7.84%) TypeScript
6 102 (7.01%) JavaScript
7 85 (5.84%) C
8 81 (5.57%) SQL
9 49 (3.37%) Rust
10 29 (1.99%) Go
11 21 (1.44%) Embedded C
12 15 (1.03%) Scala
13 14 (0.96%) Ruby
14 13 (0.89%) F#
14 13 (0.89%) Haskell
15 12 (0.82%) PHP
16 11 (0.76%) MATLAB
17 10 (0.69%) Julia
18 8 (0.55%) R
18 8 (0.55%) VB
Qualifications
1 101 (6.94%) Security Cleared
2 83 (5.70%) Degree
3 71 (4.88%) SC Cleared
4 50 (3.44%) DV Cleared
5 25 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (1.03%) Master's Degree
7 10 (0.69%) PhD
8 5 (0.34%) AWS Certification
8 5 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.14%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.069%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.069%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.069%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (2.82%) QA
2 15 (1.03%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.41%) IEC 61508
3 6 (0.41%) MISRA
3 6 (0.41%) MISRA C
4 5 (0.34%) GDPR
5 3 (0.21%) DO-178B
5 3 (0.21%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.069%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.069%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 74 (5.09%) Docker
2 50 (3.44%) Firmware
3 22 (1.51%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.14%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.14%) KVM
4 2 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.069%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 76 (5.22%) Kubernetes
2 48 (3.30%) Terraform
3 19 (1.31%) Grafana
4 6 (0.41%) Ansible
4 6 (0.41%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.21%) Functional Safety
5 3 (0.21%) Plesk
6 2 (0.14%) Puppet
7 1 (0.069%) kaniko
Vendors
1 18 (1.24%) Microsoft
2 8 (0.55%) Google
2 8 (0.55%) Siemens
3 7 (0.48%) Splunk
4 5 (0.34%) Databricks
4 5 (0.34%) Intel
4 5 (0.34%) OpenAI
5 4 (0.27%) Foundry
6 3 (0.21%) Rockwell
6 3 (0.21%) Salesforce
7 2 (0.14%) ADVA
7 2 (0.14%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle
7 2 (0.14%) VMware
8 1 (0.069%) New Relic
8 1 (0.069%) Palantir
8 1 (0.069%) Revolut
8 1 (0.069%) TOWER Software
8 1 (0.069%) Virgin Media