Software engineer salary, by level
A senior software engineer at a large technology firm in London earns a base salary of £120k to £165k plus a cash bonus target of 10% to 20%, so about £165k in cash. Principal sits near £305k. Equity sits on top of that and is most of a senior package.
A level only means something once you know whose ladder it is. Senior maps to Google L5, Meta E5 and Amazon SDE III, and Amazon runs a level behind the other two throughout.
Every level
Large technology firms in London, which sit at the top of a wider market: the London salary survey puts a backend engineer at £75,000 to £150,000 across employers of every size, and the UK-wide median for programmers is £56,914. These bands describe the firms at the top of that, not the country.
| Level | Base | Bonus | Total (mid) | Reached at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EntryGoogle L3 · Meta E3 · Amazon SDE I | £55k to £80k | 5% to 15% | £75k | On joining |
| MidGoogle L4 · Meta E4 · Amazon SDE II | £85k to £120k | 10% to 20% | £120k | 2y |
| SeniorGoogle L5 · Meta E5 · Amazon SDE III | £120k to £165k | 10% to 20% | £165k | 4y |
| StaffGoogle L6 · Meta E6 · Amazon Principal | £160k to £220k | 15% to 25% | £230k | 7y |
| PrincipalGoogle L7 · Meta E7 · Amazon Sr Principal | £200k to £300k | 15% to 30% | £305k | 11y |
Figures describe 2025. Bonus is a cash target and the least important of the three components. The official earnings survey puts median incentive pay for programmers at £3,946 against median pay of £56,914, which is where the bottom of these ranges comes from; the top describes the firms that run a real target.
What the cash figures leave out
Equity is missing from these bands and is most of senior technology compensation. A grant vests over four years and moves with the share price, so two people on identical offers a year apart can end up far apart. Compare offers on annualised equity, never on the headline grant. Note also that Amazon runs a level behind: their SDE I is L4 where Google and Meta start at 3.
Where these numbers come from
Robert Walters UK Salary Survey 20262026
London permanent salary ranges by role and employer size, in data, transformation and commerce and industry.
ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025 (provisional)Published 23 October 2025, describing April 2025
UK full-time gross annual pay and incentive pay percentiles by four-digit occupation. Used for the national floor under the London ranges, and for what share of pay a bonus actually is.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0
Firms that sponsor visas, which is most of large US technology and very little of the startup market. 27,379 software engineer filings sit behind the first rung, and the equity column comes from a pay report built on 245,000 submissions.
| Level | Base | Bonus | Equity a year | Total (mid) | Reached at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EntryGoogle L3 · Meta E3 · Amazon SDE I | $105k to $135k | 5% to 15% | $25k | $155k | On joining |
| MidGoogle L4 · Meta E4 · Amazon SDE II | $135k to $175k | 10% to 20% | $50k | $230k | 2y |
| SeniorGoogle L5 · Meta E5 · Amazon SDE III | $150k to $195k | 10% to 20% | $115k | $315k | 4y |
| StaffGoogle L6 · Meta E6 · Amazon Principal | $175k to $225k | 15% to 25% | $215k | $455k | 7y |
| PrincipalGoogle L7 · Meta E7 · Amazon Sr Principal | $185k to $250k | 15% to 30% | $285k | $550k | 11y |
Figures describe 2025. Base is measured from the 2025 visa disclosure filings. The bonus is a sector cash target. Equity is the subtraction: the pay report’s median total at each level, less the cash this table already shows. It is the only column here that is arithmetic rather than observation, which is also why it is one figure and not a range.
What the cash figures leave out
Equity is the majority of a senior US offer and it does not arrive as cash: a grant vests over four years and moves with the share price, so two people on identical offers a year apart end up far apart. Compare offers on annualised equity, never on the headline grant. The measured base also understates the top of the ladder, because firms commit to less base at staff and principal and load the rest into stock — which is why base is nearly flat across the last two rungs while total is not.
Where these numbers come from
US Department of Labor, H-1B Labor Condition Application disclosure data2025 filings
Offered annual base wage by employer, job title and worksite. Percentiles below are computed from those rows, not taken from anyone else’s summary.
Licence: US public domain
A crowd-sourced US technology pay report, year-end 20252025, 245,000+ self-reported data points across 5,000+ companies
Median total compensation by engineering level in the US, which is the only published figure that carries equity. Subtracting the measured cash from it is where the equity column below comes from.
Ranges, not offers. Compare every track.
Weighing it against something else
Other tracks
For what these jobs involve day to day and how people get into them, see the career path map. For open roles and deadlines, the opportunity tracker.
Getting to the next rung
Analyst to associate
Most people arrive here from a banking analyst job. This is that decision, including when to stay and when to move across.
Buyside Recruitment Bootcamp
The headhunter playbook, the modelling test and the case, for anyone crossing into private equity, hedge funds or asset management.