Average developer salaries in London/UK for different languages 2019-2020
Tags: career
Published: 2020-12-30 13:56:35

Originally posted on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mesetatron/status/1344257890530504704), I thought I'd add here for posterity.

I did a lot of hiring (and also job-searching myself) in the last few years, in London, and in the Tech Industry. I've amassed a fair amount of research (which to be honest was mostly Googling, and only a little bit talking to recruiters and those doing hiring). So I thought I'd share them while they were still somewhat relevant.

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Python Developers have quite a wide range as salaries are different between Python web backend devs, and Python AI engineers. These figures are skewed mostly Python backend

Python Developer (FT)
Junior £40-60k
Senior £70-100k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £50/hr
Senior £75/hr
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Javascript on the Frontend. I find this to have lower entry-level salaries than Python. The upper end does reach to 100k and beyond, but those are head/lead positions (covered later)

Full Time
Junior £30-45k
Senior £60-80k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £45/hr
Senior £75/hr
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Javascript Backend developers (primarily node.js) are a smaller group. Salaries seem to be higher, particularly freelance/contract, not sure why (higher demand?)

Full Time
Junior £40-60k
Senior £65-90k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £60/hr
Senior £80/hr
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PHP developers have average salaries that are noticeable lower than Javascript and Python developers across both full-time and freelance/contract positions

Full Time
Junior £30-50k
Senior £50-65k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £40/hr
Senior £55/hr
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Java developers. A LOT of data (lots of positions at larger companies). This might not be a full picture as there were a lot of lead/principal positions with higher salaries than senior

Full Time
Junior £40-65k
Senior £70-80k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £45/hr
Senior £70/hr
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C#/.NET developer average salaries. Again, lead/principal positions go higher than Senior

Full Time
Junior £30-50k
Senior £55-75k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £50/hr
Senior £70/hr
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C++ developer average salaries were surprisingly low to me given how specialized they can be. Perhaps I'm not seeing the specialists in the figure, and these reflect lower demand?

Full Time
Junior £30-45k
Senior £50-70k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £40/hr
Senior £75/hr
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iOS and Android developer average salaries came out around the same figures, so I'm lumping them together. Interestingly a higher starting salaries than several other languages

Full Time
Junior £45-70k
Senior £75-90k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £45/hr
Senior £70/hr
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Game devs. Poor game devs have average salaries that are a whole level lower than the other languages. You could be a senior in this industry being paid the same as a junior in another

Full Time
Junior £25-35k
Senior £40-55k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £35/hr
Senior £50/hr
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SDET/Test engineers average salaries. Again, these figures may not tell the whole story because this is a very diverse group and may include AQA as well

Full Time
Junior £35-50k
Senior £55-75k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £40/hr
Senior £65/hr
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SysAdmin average salaries. This one as again difficult to separate as it's mixed in with network engineers, and security engineers

Full Time
Junior £30-50k
Senior £55-90k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £40/hr
Senior £75/hr
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DevOps average salaries, including SRE. Some say a good devops person is worth their weight in gold. The salaries show it; the upper end goes high

Full Time
Junior £35-60k
Senior £65-120k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £55/hr
Senior £95/hr
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UI/UX/Designer. I don't have as much data on these as it's not my area of focus, so I'm grouping them together; but in reality there's a lot more detail missing from this list

Full Time
Junior £45-60k
Senior £65-80k

Freelance/Contract
Junior £40/hr
Senior £70/hr
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Onto the leadership team positions. There's not much data on contract/freelance positions as they tend to be full-time positions

Project Manager average salaries. Again, not the full picture, it varies a lot from company to company

Full Time
Junior £35-55k
Senior £60-90k
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Head of department. At larger companies, this is who a project manager reports to, or sometimes other Heads (as with Head of Engineering). Again, hard to gauge, as it's very company-specific. There's also no concept of junior/senior at this level.

Head of department: £60-140k
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VP. Some companies only have a "Head of" between project mgrs and exec team; others only "VP of" between. Larger companies have "Head of" reporting to "VP of". These salaries are hard to find, company-specific, and hard to separate from bonus package, so, uncertain

VP: £110-150k
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CxO. At the top of the technical leadership, you have your CTO, CIO and sometimes CSO. Again, as with all leadership positions, hard to pin down what is an "average" is it's highly dependant on company (with special case of startups being much lower)

CxO: £140-200k and beyond?
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That was all the info I had to share. These numbers come from my research and hiring activities over the last 3 years in London while working in the tech industry. Take with a grain of salt. Some info may be a couple years old, and things may have changed since then

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