We launched Circular 3 years ago for companies hiring tech talent in Madrid, Barcelona and for Remote positions with the aim of changing the way tech talent is recruited. Since our launch, we have grown our community to over 6000 in-house recruiters and opened two new markets: UK and France.
It has been an interesting 3 years, especially at Circular, and more so especially when it comes to seeing the Salaries tech professionals are asking for when looking for a change.
We wanted to create a series of articles looking at how developers report salary expectations when looking for a new position by looking at the data Circular has accrued over the last years across different positions and levels of seniority.
Today we bring you the report for the United Kingdom
The Data:
The data we will be sharing comes from the Circular database and has certain peculiarities we would like to touch on before diving into the nitty gritty.
The salary ranges we are reporting are not the salaries publicly shared by companies but the minimum salary privately collected from thousands of developers in the United Kingdom.
Average Developer’s Salary Expectations over the last 3 years in the United Kingdom
The UK self-reported salaries have seen interesting shifts over the last 3 years with a lot of fluctuation depending on the positions.
Backend Roles have seen a strong reduction in self-reported salaries with the exceptions of Backend Python and Backend Ruby roles seeing year-on-year growth in salary expectations.
Data engineering roles have seen a reduction in self-reported salaries across the board, most notably in the data engineer role.
DevOps positions have seen a striking raise from 2020, peaking in 2021 and stabilising in 2022.
Overall we have seen a continuation or increase in salaries from 2021 to 2021
Salary ranges by seniority:
Looking at the data by seniority tends to tell another story.
At Circular we measure seniority based on a metric of self-reported years of experience from the developers that are part of the Circular community.
For this study we used four seniority brackets:
6+ years experience
3-5 years experience
1-2 years experience
0-1 years experience
6+ years experience
Self-reported salaries across positions, in general, have seen increases and decreases over the last 3 years.
Backend positions have seen an increase in self-reported salaries with notable exceptions in Backend C# roles, Backend Ruby and Backend PHP roles seeing a decrease in expectations.
It's notable to mention that mobile Android roles have seen a substantial dip in self-reported salaries.
3-5 years experience
Some outlier data in Backend Ruby, mobile android and lead roles, where self-reported salaries are very high from lack of a reasonable sample. Interesting to see that over the next two years a consistent lowering of salaries was the trend.
On the other hand, we have notable examples of DevOps and Front end Roles' salaries skyrocketing year on year and in the case of DevOps, doubling.
1-2 years experience
Results are varied across all positions. Backend roles have seen both an increase and decrease in self-reported salaries. Backend Java and Backend.net have seen a drastic reduction, while the rest of Backend positions have seen a consistent increase and worth mentioning that Backen Ruby roles salaries have skyrocketed.
Worth pointing out the massive increase in salaries in Mobile Android roles year on year but in particular in 2022.
0-1 years experience
Even with pre-pandemic outlier data, we can see that there has been an increase over the last two years in self-reported salaries, showcasing a high demand for more junior roles across the board.
Positions covered in this sample:
Backend C#
Backend Java
Backend Node
Backend PHP
iOS Android
Backend Net
Data Engineer
Data Scientist
Mobile Android
Backend Python
Backend Ruby
DevOps
Front end
Full Stack
Lead
QA Engineer
