UK Tech Salaries 2026: Cyber +12.5%, Developers +4.2%

Two stories about technology jobs are running at the same time in August 2026, and they look like they contradict each other. One is about cuts: the global technology sector has already shed more jobs this year than in the whole of 2025, UK graduate vacancies are at their lowest since 2020, and the ONS puts private-sector regular pay growth at just 2.8%. The other is about demand: employers say they cannot find enough people with AI, data and security skills, and nearly half of data and analytics vacancies now mention AI.

Both stories are true, and the ONS’s own pay data shows where the line between them falls. We took the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, the most detailed measure of what UK jobs actually pay, and compared every technology occupation across the 2024 and 2025 surveys and back to 2021. The result is not a tech slump or a tech boom. It is a split.

The short version

• Specialists are still being bid up. Cyber security professionals saw median full-time pay rise 12.5% to £54,647 in the latest survey, data analysts 10.5% to £38,572, and IT business analysts, architects and systems designers 9.6% to £60,288, now the highest-paid mainstream IT occupation.
• Generalist roles have stalled. Programmers and software developers, the largest tech occupation at 360,000 jobs, rose 4.2% to £56,914, flat in real terms. IT managers rose 2.6%, IT project managers 0.4%, and IT operations technicians fell 0.3%.
• The developer boom was real and it is over. Developer pay rose 33.6% between 2021 and 2025, almost nine points ahead of the UK median, but year-on-year growth has slowed every year since 2023: 10.6%, then 9.0%, then 4.2%.
• Some IT roles have gone backwards since 2021 once inflation is counted. IT managers, IT support technicians and IT operations technicians have all seen pay rise by less than prices over four years.

How we measured it

ASHE is taken from a 1% sample of PAYE records every April. For each occupation we use the median gross annual pay of full-time employees. The latest survey is April 2025; ASHE 2026 is due in the autumn. For the four-year view we compare against 2021, the first year on the current SOC 2020 occupation codes, so every series is like for like. The UK-wide full-time median rose from £31,285 to £39,039 over the same four years (+24.8%), and CPIH inflation was roughly 23%. Market context comes from the ONS labour market overview published on 18 August 2026.

The usual caveat applies: these are changes in the median for an occupation, not the pay rise any individual received, and smaller occupations can move around from one survey to the next.

Tech pay, occupation by occupation

Occupation	Jobs	Median FT pay 2025	Change 2024–25	Change 2021–25
IT business analysts, architects and systems designers	168,000	£60,288	+9.6%	+21.8%
IT project managers	31,000	£58,373	+0.4%	+22.3%
Programmers and software development professionals	360,000	£56,914	+4.2%	+33.6%
IT managers	213,000	£56,438	+2.6%	+19.4%
Cyber security professionals	27,000	£54,647	+12.5%	+9.7%
Information technology professionals n.e.c.	62,000	£54,107	+3.5%	+39.4%
IT network professionals	38,000	£48,907	+7.2%	+24.9%
IT quality and testing professionals	20,000	£47,118	+13.0%	+21.9%
Data analysts	68,000	£38,572	+10.5%	+21.9%
Database administrators and web content technicians	39,000	£37,995	+9.7%	+27.9%
IT operations technicians	69,000	£35,259	−0.3%	+18.0%
IT user support technicians	152,000	£35,128	+6.5%	+18.8%
Graphic and multimedia designers	52,000	£32,510	+2.5%	+25.0%
UK, all full-time employees		£39,039	+4.3%	+24.8%

Across the whole “Information technology professionals” group (SOC 213, 918,000 jobs) the median rose 4.7% to £56,348. That is a shade above the national 4.3%, which is why a single headline number for “tech pay” tells you almost nothing: it averages a 12.5% rise and a 0.3% fall.

The developer boom, year by year

The 2021 to 2023 hiring boom was real, and it shows up clearly in the pay of the country’s 360,000 programmers and software developers.

Year	Developer median (FT)	Change	UK median (FT)	Change
2021	£42,592		£31,285
2022	£45,277	+6.3%	£33,000	+5.5%
2023	£50,087	+10.6%	£34,963	+5.9%
2024	£54,615	+9.0%	£37,430	+7.1%
2025	£56,914	+4.2%	£39,039	+4.3%

In 2023 developers outran the national median by almost five points, and in 2024 by two. Then, in the survey taken in April 2025, they fell fractionally behind it. That is the plateau, and it arrived a full year before the 2026 layoff headlines. The decade-long pattern of software work being a reliable route to above-average pay growth has not reversed, but it has paused, and the reasons in this month’s market data are the obvious ones: fewer vacancies overall, a private sector growing pay at 2.8%, and employers rebalancing their hiring towards specific skills rather than general development capacity.

The level is still high. A developer at the median earns £56,914, 46% above the UK full-time median, and the distribution is wide: the 25th percentile is £41,141 and the 90th is £101,172. Where you sit in that range matters more this year than the direction of the median.

Where the money is going

Security. Cyber security professionals are the clearest case of demand showing up in pay. Their median slipped from £49,836 in 2021 to £45,546 in 2023, and has since recovered by 20% to £54,647, with 12.5% of that in the latest year alone. With 27,000 jobs it is a small occupation, so the figures are noisier than for developers, but the direction is consistent with what employers report about regulatory pressure and the security workload created by AI deployment.

Data. Data analysts rose 10.5% to £38,572, the biggest one-year move in the four years the occupation has been measured separately, and database administrators and web content technicians 9.7% to £37,995. These are not the best-paid tech jobs, but they are where the AI-skills demand in this summer’s vacancy data lands first: the roles that prepare, govern and interpret the data the models run on.

Architecture and analysis. IT business analysts, architects and systems designers rose 9.6% to £60,288 and now out-earn developers, IT managers and IT project managers at the median. As organisations spend on integrating AI into existing systems rather than on headcount, the premium is moving towards the people who design the systems rather than the people who write the code.

Testing. IT quality and testing professionals posted the largest one-year rise in the group, 13.0% to £47,118. It is a 20,000-job occupation and the series has been bumpy, but after two flat years it is a notable move.

Who is falling behind

The other half of the split is management and operations. IT managers, a 213,000-job occupation, rose 2.6% in the latest year and 19.4% over four, against inflation of roughly 23%: a real-terms pay cut since 2021. IT project managers jumped in 2024 and then stopped, up 0.4% to £58,373. IT operations technicians are the only tech occupation to fall in cash terms, down 0.3% to £35,259, and IT user support technicians, 152,000 jobs, are up 18.8% since 2021, also short of inflation.

The pattern is consistent with what the layoff announcements of the past 18 months have actually contained: flatter structures with fewer management layers, and first-line support and operations being the roles most directly exposed to automation. Nothing in ASHE measures job security, but when an occupation’s median pay stops moving while the market around it is still growing, it usually means employers no longer need to bid to keep people.

Graphic and multimedia designers sit at the bottom of the table on pay, £32,510, and rose only 2.5% in the latest year. For a creative occupation most visibly exposed to generative tools, a near-flat year is worth noting, though the four-year figure (+25.0%) is in line with the national average.

The gender gap has not closed

Tech’s pay gap is wider than the national average and the latest survey does not show it narrowing. Among programmers and software developers the median for men is £57,500 and for women £46,169, a gap of 19.7%. For IT business analysts and architects it is 23.2% (£61,322 against £47,113), and for IT project managers 25.5%. IT managers are the narrowest of the professional group at 13.2%. These figures cover all employees in each occupation, full- and part-time, so part of the gap reflects hours rather than rates of pay, and they compare medians rather than like-for-like roles. Even so, in a year when the pay premium has shifted towards specialist and senior architecture roles, the occupations with the widest gaps are also the ones growing fastest.

What it means if you work in tech

If you are a generalist developer, expect your pay review to track the private-sector average rather than beat it. The medians say the boom premium has gone, and with vacancies falling the usual lever of moving employer for a 15% rise is harder to pull. The roles still being bid up in the data are security, data and architecture, and the AI-skills premium in this summer’s job adverts points the same way. Our Where Do I Stand? tool will place your salary against the developer distribution above, which is the first thing to know before any conversation about pay.

If you manage or run IT operations, the data is a warning rather than a verdict. Four years of sub-inflation growth is a trend, not a blip, and the roles around you that are moving are the specialist ones. The Salary Forecast tool will show you what your occupation’s recent trajectory implies over five and ten years, and our Transition Modeller lets you test what a move into a neighbouring specialism would do to that trajectory.

If you are a graduate or career-changer trying to get in, the honest picture is that the entry point is hardest in the generalist roles: that is where the 2021 to 2023 hiring built up, and where the cuts are landing. The 10th percentile for developers is £30,752 and for data analysts £24,513, which is where a first job is realistically pitched. The specialisms with rising medians are also the ones with the steepest skills bar, and our piece on AI skills and the UK job market covers which ones employers are actually asking for.

We will update this analysis when ASHE 2026 is published. For the longer history and the full percentile breakdown, see the occupation pages linked throughout, our guide to software engineering salaries in the UK, and our look at whether AI will replace your job.

Sources: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2021 to 2025 (2025 provisional), Table 14.7a, median gross annual pay for full-time employees by 4-digit SOC 2020 occupation; gender figures are all-employee medians by sex from the same table. UK full-time median: ONS ASHE headline figures, 2021 to 2025. Inflation: ONS CPIH. Current market: ONS Labour market overview, UK: August 2026 (published 18 August 2026). Crown copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0.