Developer experience roles top UK salary ranks with GBP £146,933
A survey conducted by Stack Overflow in July 2024 has shed light on the best-paid developer roles in the United Kingdom. The survey, which included responses from over 3,224 UK developers, provides a comprehensive overview of salaries within the software development sector. This annual research is part of Stack Overflow's global survey that tracks well-compensated roles in the field of software development.
According to the findings, developer experience roles top the list as the highest paying positions in the UK. These roles command a median salary of GBP £146,933 (USD $191,082), underscoring their importance in enhancing developer productivity and satisfaction in line with business objectives.
Engineering manager positions have seen an increase in rank, moving up from third place in 2023 to become the second best-paid roles in 2024. These roles average a salary of GBP £109,465 (USD $142,356).
Blockchain-related positions rank third with an average salary of GBP £105,648 (USD $137,392). This reflects the growing use of blockchain technology among UK businesses to enhance security, transparency, and efficiency.
Site reliability engineers hold the fourth spot with an average salary of about GBP £97,955 (USD $127,388). The increased dependence on digital technologies and the ongoing digital transformation across various industries make this an unsurprising inclusion in the top five.
The fifth highest-paid role in the UK is project managers, with an average salary of GBP £97,465 (USD $126,751).
Developer advocate roles are sixth on the list, averaging around GBP £95,506 (USD $124,203). Also known as Developer Relations (DevRel), these roles focus on bridging the gap between the company and its developer community and are relatively new but growing in importance.
AI developers appear for the first time in the top ten, earning an average salary of GBP £95,016 (USD $123,566).
Interestingly, senior executive roles, including C-Suite and VP positions, rank eighth with an average salary of GBP £94,772 (USD $123,248). The ranking might be influenced by a lower response rate from individuals at this level in this year’s survey.
Security professionals claim the ninth spot with an average salary of approximately GBP £86,201 (USD $112,102).
The list is jointly concluded by roles in design and cloud infrastructure engineering, both earning an average salary of around GBP £83,262 (USD $108,280).
Managerial roles lead the list of best-paid positions by developer specialism with an average salary of GBP £109,490 (USD $142,356). They are followed by back-end developers who earn GBP £78,364 (USD $101,910), mobile developers with a salary of GBP £72,503 (USD $94,268), data engineers at GBP £71,034 (USD $92,357), and front-end developers at GBP £63,685 (USD $82,802).
The survey also highlights the top-paying programming languages in the UK. OCaml tops the list with a median salary of GBP £107,775 (USD $140,127). Next are Scala and Solidity, both averaging GBP £97,977 (USD $127,388). Erlang follows with a median salary of GBP £93,077 (USD $121,018), while Cobol and Groovy share the fifth spot at GBP £88,179 (USD $114,649).
Globally, Erlang developers recorded the highest reported median salary. Other languages like Nim, Erlang, and Apex also saw increases in median salaries in 2024, while most other developer technologies experienced a decrease.
