UK IT Salary Guide 2026 — What Tech Professionals Actually Earn

UK IT Salary Guide 2026 — what tech professionals actually earn

If you're a software engineer, data professional, or cyber security specialist working in the UK in 2026, knowing what your role pays — and how that compares to other roles — is the single most useful piece of market information you can have. Salaries in UK tech have continued to climb since 2023, but the spread between roles and specialisms is wider than ever.

This guide pulls live salary data from Geekery.io's index of 8,134 UK tech job listings (live and recently expired) and breaks it down by discipline. All figures are in GBP and exclude London weighting unless otherwise noted.

The medians, at a glance

Across all 16 tech specialisms indexed on Geekery.io, the UK median tech salary is £52,500. But that average hides enormous variation between disciplines.

Role	UK median	Entry-level	Mid-level	Senior	Lead / Principal
Backend developer	£62,500	£35,000–£50,000	£55,000–£75,000	£80,000–£105,000	£110,000–£140,000
Frontend developer	£55,000	£30,000–£45,000	£50,000–£70,000	£75,000–£95,000	£100,000–£135,000
Full stack developer	£57,500	£35,000–£50,000	£55,000–£75,000	£80,000–£105,000	£110,000–£140,000
Data engineer	£57,500	£35,000–£48,000	£55,000–£75,000	£80,000–£100,000	£110,000–£135,000
Data scientist	£57,500	£38,000–£50,000	£55,000–£80,000	£85,000–£110,000	£115,000–£145,000
Cloud engineer	£65,000	£40,000–£55,000	£55,000–£80,000	£85,000–£110,000	£115,000–£150,000
DevOps / SRE	£65,000	£40,000–£55,000	£55,000–£80,000	£85,000–£110,000	£115,000–£140,000
AI / ML engineer	£70,000	£45,000–£60,000	£65,000–£95,000	£100,000–£130,000	£135,000–£175,000
Cyber security	£60,000	£28,000–£40,000	£50,000–£75,000	£80,000–£110,000	£115,000–£150,000
Mobile developer	£55,000	£35,000–£50,000	£55,000–£75,000	£80,000–£105,000	£110,000–£140,000
Games developer	£49,875	£25,000–£38,000	£40,000–£60,000	£65,000–£85,000	£90,000–£120,000
Embedded engineer	£55,000	£35,000–£48,000	£48,000–£68,000	£70,000–£90,000	£95,000–£120,000
UX/UI designer	£42,500	£30,000–£42,000	£45,000–£62,000	£65,000–£85,000	£90,000–£120,000
QA / test engineer	£45,000	£25,000–£35,000	£40,000–£55,000	£60,000–£80,000	£85,000–£110,000
IT support	£28,000–£29,750	£22,000–£28,000	£28,000–£35,000	£35,000–£48,000	£48,000–£65,000

How location affects UK tech salaries

London adds a 10–20% premium to most of these roles. So a senior backend developer earning £90,000 in Manchester could expect £100,000–£110,000 for the same role in London.

Cities with the strongest tech hiring outside London are Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Leeds, and Birmingham. Each of these has a distinct tech industry flavour — Manchester and Leeds for digital agencies and e-commerce, Bristol for aerospace and SaaS, Edinburgh for fintech and gaming, Cambridge for biotech and deep tech.

Fully remote roles within the UK have largely converged to national median pay — meaning a remote senior engineer in Cornwall now earns roughly the same as an on-site senior engineer in Manchester. That's a major shift from 2019, when remote roles paid a noticeable discount.

How seniority affects UK tech salaries

The biggest single factor in UK tech pay is seniority, not role or location. A staff-level engineer typically earns 2–3x what a junior in the same role earns. The senior-to-mid-level jump is also substantial — usually 30–50%.

The "principal" or "staff" title typically requires 8+ years of experience and a track record of leading large projects across teams. These roles exist mostly in larger employers (banks, consultancies, FAANG-adjacent companies, large SaaS platforms) and at scale-ups that have hit product-market fit.

How specialisation affects UK tech salaries

Some specialisms command premiums:

• MLOps within AI: +15–25% over general ML roles
• Platform engineering within DevOps: +20–30% over traditional sysadmin roles
• Security architecture within cyber security: +20–35% over SOC analyst roles
• Lead gameplay programming within games: smaller premium, but base salaries are higher because of AAA studio compensation
• Smart contract engineering in blockchain: +20–40% over conventional backend at the same level

How to negotiate a UK tech salary in 2026

1. Anchor on data, not feelings. Walk into a salary conversation with two or three comparable figures from live listings. Geekery.io's /salaries/ pages are built exactly for this.
2. Be specific about your specialism. "Senior backend developer" is a wide range — "senior Python engineer with FastAPI and AWS experience" is narrower and more valuable.
3. Total package matters. UK tech compensation varies widely on bonus structure, equity (mostly at scale-ups), pension match, and benefits. A £90,000 base with 15% bonus and meaningful equity is materially better than £100,000 base alone.
4. The UK tech market is still candidate-short. Despite some 2024–2025 contraction, demand for experienced engineers outstrips supply. If you're a strong mid-level or senior engineer, you have leverage.

What's next

The Geekery.io /salaries/ pages break down pay by city, experience level, and specialism — see them at /salaries/ai/, /salaries/backend/, /salaries/cloud/, /salaries/data/, and so on for each of the 16 categories.

FAQ

Q: What's the average UK tech salary in 2026?
A: The UK median across all 16 tech specialisms is £52,500. Senior engineers typically earn £80,000–£110,000. Principal and staff roles can exceed £130,000.

Q: Which UK tech jobs pay the most?
A: AI/ML engineering and cloud engineering have the highest medians at around £65,000–£70,000. Cyber security architecture and staff-level backend roles also command six-figure salaries at senior level.

Q: Do London tech jobs pay more?
A: Yes — typically 10–20% above national median. Some FAANG-equivalent roles in London pay 30–40% above national median.

Q: Is the UK tech market still good in 2026?
A: Yes for senior and specialist roles. Demand for experienced engineers, AI specialists, and security architects continues to outstrip supply.