The average salary for a software engineer in London is £57,250
The Average salary for a software engineer in London is estimated to be £57,250. That’s £4,770 per month or £3,500 per month after tax (~26%).
In London, an entry-level software engineer can anticipate a starting salary of about £47,000 per year, as reported by Glassdoor. For those with more experience under their belts, senior software engineer roles can offer £60,000 per year or more, often supplemented with bonuses and equity options. We've gathered some estimates from various salary sites in London to present a clearer image of what an average engineer might earn. For more personalised information, feel free to make use of our salary calculator.
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Salary by Experience
It's a given that a developer's salary increases with experience. However, the salaries for junior and entry-level positions can vary a lot, depending on the company and the developer's education. Typically, a junior developer might earn about £40k a year, which is roughly £20k less than a senior developer with over 5 years of experience. So, let's delve into the salary ranges for the three key career stages: junior, mid-level, and senior.
Taxes in London 🇬🇧
Grasping how taxes work in London is vital because they determine what you actually take home. For example, your contract might promise you'll earn £5,000 each month. But when it comes to payday, your bank account only gets £3,500. This is because as a software engineer in London, you're likely to fall into the 40% tax bracket. So, let's break down what net pay (the amount you take home) looks like compared to your gross pay (the amount before taxes).
On a £60,000 salary, your take home pay will be £42,900 after tax and National Insurance. This equates to £3,575 per month and £825 per week. If you work 5 days per week, this is £165 per day, or £21 per hour at 40 hours per week.
Salary by type and technology
In the tech salary spectrum, there's some notable differences. Security professionals are at the top, earning an impressive £79,500 yearly, significantly more than game developers who are at the scale's lower end with £45,000, making a whopping £34,500 difference. Also noteworthy is the £8,000 salary gap between Backend developers (£57,000) and Frontend developers (£49,600), with Fullstack developers sitting comfortably in between at £50,000. Thus, the tech field reveals that your specialty can considerably impact your earnings.
Determining the most sought-after technologies in London involves studying the number of job postings over a year. Yahoo Finance did just this in 2020, discovering that SQL skills were in high demand, nearly twice as much as for developers skilled in Java. Let's take a closer look at the six top skills that are in high demand in the UK.
Salary by Company in London
While salary averages provide a broad picture, sometimes, it's more enlightening to examine specific salaries from actual companies to understand what software engineers like you are earning. Here, we're not focusing on the best companies in London but rather a selection of larger ones across the country where developers have shared their salary information. It turns out, the majority of these companies offer software engineers salaries in the range of €60k - €70k. Although these figures might not be the highest on the pay scale, they're generally regarded as quite competitive in the industry.
