The (UK) Junior Software Developer Guide — Part 1
You can find Part 2 of this article here: https://medium.com/@johncpeden/the-uk-junior-software-developer-guide-part-1-e0f3e57c17c2
What follows is my guide to help you become a junior software developer. Specifically, I’d like to discuss jobs, salary and some tips to help you land a decent role that can set you off on your journey.
I’ll admit that this article is also a bit of an experiment for me. It would appear that loads of people are searching for ‘junior software developer’ in the UK and it’s related terms so I thought it would be a nice opportunity to flex my SEO muscles whilst offering something of value to the community that I’ve been part of for the past 10 years or so.
Junior Software Developer Salary
Given that I’m based in the UK and almost all of my work experience as a developer has been for UK companies, I’d like to focus on junior software developer salaries here at home. Now, depending on when you are reading this article and how ridiculous the market is at any time you might find that my figures aren’t entirely accurate. There’s also some regional differences and a junior software engineer in London can expect to be paid a bit more than one in Edinburgh, although you might be surprised that the difference isn’t quite as large as you’d expect.
COVID Has (Mostly) Increased Developer Salaries
COVID brought about massive changes to the World but a major one that the tech community benefited from was an uptick in the number of positions being offered remotely. London is, without question, the UK’s technology hub…at least for digital work. As a result, tech companies have been crawling over each other for years competing for the same limited pool of talent and driving wages up as a result. In 2010, you might have seen junior developers being paid £25–30K as a starting salary in London and maybe £20–25K outside of the capital.
Developer salaries in the UK have risen overall
With tech firms now able to recruit developers from across the UK, these artificially inflated wages have been diluted a bit in London and the rest of the country has benefitted enromously. Tech firms can now pay a remote developer in Leeds £25K, who is happy with that figure when compared to what their elder peers might have been getting a few years ago but the employer in London is also happy as they haven’t had to cough up top dollar to get a high-quality developer.
Junior software development pays pretty damn well
Either way, what I can safely say is that junior development roles typically pay pretty well right from the get-go and a career in software development offers a great route for anyone keen to earn decent money. While the average junior developer salary is very respectable here in the UK, you won’t be a junior for very long as software development offers so many great learning opportunities and the market continues to evolve at breakneck speed.
How much does Glassdoor say junior developers are paid?
In terms of absolute figures for salaries (on 3 May 2022) Glassdoor reports with ‘very high confidence’ that the average UK salary for a junior software developer is £27,034:
Do bear in mind that this is the average though. You’ll find that junior developer salaries will vary by region to a small extent (see my points above about what COVID has done for remote salaries) and by programming language and end client to a larger extent. In simple terms, a junior Java developer at a bank in London is likely to earn quite a bit more than a junior WordPress developer working at an agency in Blackpool.
What does a junior software developer do?
Since we’ve established that being a junior software developer pays well above the UK median salary and offers a great route to even larger salaries in a relatively short period of time, it’s worth discussing what might be expected of you as a junior.
What’s the difference between junior and senior software development?
The work of a junior software engineer isn’t going to differ greatly from that of a senior. You won’t be asked to work on drastically less important areas of a project simply because of your title but expectation will be reduced and you’ll typically find yourself working with more guidance than a senior.
Engineering managers and the senior leadership team probably won’t defer to you for your opinion the way they might for a technical lead or a principle engineer but that isn’t to say you won’t have value to offer. You might have more experience with a particular package or library that someone wants to use because you’ve done some reading around it or — having been working on a project for a few weeks — might have a more intimate understanding of a particular piece of code that is being discussed.
What are the responsibilities of a junior developer?
What a junior software developer should know and their associated responsibilities really depends on the type of company they’re working at, its size and the type of developer they are. The skills and responsibilities of a junior backend developer working at an investment bank will be quite different from a junior front end developer working for a small agency. I’ve attempted to cover off some skills that are worth focusing on later in this article.
What are the best locations in the UK for a junior software developer?
In the past, this was a reasonably easy question to answer. Most of the best (read well-paid) software development jobs could be found in London closely followed by major cities like Manchester.
As a result of COVID driving the vast majority of tech companies to allow their teams to work remotely, almost every job you’ll see advertised these days is at least hybrid. Many are fully remote and almost none that I’ve seen carry the expectation that developers (at any level) should be working on-site from Monday to Friday.
Will I need to work on site as a junior developer?
That said, you still might be expected to be in the office one or two days a week in some cases and it’s probably helpful if that office is within striking distance of your home rather than a long train ride and an overnight stay.
In all likelihood, you’ll find junior development jobs in every major city in the UK these days but that being said I’ve found it incredibly helpful to work from a tech hub like Manchester. I’ve moved around a lot (largely due to being a contractor) and as former co-workers do the same, my network has built itself.
People I used to work alongside get promoted into positions that have allowed them to vouch for me years later which has made finding work a triviality. Equally, recruiters I’ve worked with in the past know me and are happy to put me forward for roles as I’ve been able to refer friends and colleagues to them.
In short, it’s paid to invest in the local community but that local community has had plenty to offer in terms of tech jobs for a software engineer at any level. Manchester offers a great balance of lowish living costs and great salaries for software developers. Historically, London offered higher salaries but with a much higher cost of living that wasn’t qualified by the increased rates. The massive number of roles would have meant it was easier to job hop or stay in-contract but this would no longer sway me with so much remote work being on offer these days.
Where are the best digital hubs in the UK?
Outside of Manchester and London, there has always been a reasonable amount of digital work in Edinburgh, Bristol and Leeds but I can’t honestly think of any other locations that leap out as being great digital hubs. Of course, there are certain spots in the country that might have a large tech company but not necessarily a vibrant tech community. Screwfix in Yeovil are one such example as well as the likes of Bet365 in Stoke or Santander in Milton Keynes. If I were a junior, I’d much rather find work in Manchester or London knowing that there were plenty of other roles/companies to go and work for in the future.
Can I work remotely as a junior software developer?
You might find it a little tricky to attempt to source an entirely remote junior position but I’d be shocked if you were expected to be on-site all day everyday. Almost every role I see advertised on LinkedIn these days, even junior development roles, offers hybrid working or fully-remote.
Fully remote junior developer jobs do exist…there just aren’t many of them
If you absolutely must have a fully remote junior developer job then you might want to take a look RemoteOk. This is the remote job board that is part of Nomad List which is another excellent resource if you’re looking to join the digital nomad community.
I’d say that you can absolutely work remotely as a junior software developer but that it might be a bit tricky to find 100% remote work straight out of the gate if you have no experience.
Can I work part-time as a junior software developer?
While partially remote development work is reasonably easy to find and fully remote work definitely a possibility, I’d say that part-time software development roles are not especially commonplace. As you become more experienced, you might be able to find consultancy or freelance development work that allows you to work part-time for multiple clients but in my experience, junior part-time roles are basically non-existent.
Tech companies employing developers have the expectation that you’ll be available for something like 40 hours/week so that they can bring your skills to bear on the projects they’ll have on-deck.
What is the best programming language to learn as a junior developer?
If you’re just starting out, I’m guessing that you don’t have any strong affiliations to any particular programming languages. You’ll probably notice that certain languages are more common than others if you ask for recommendations about the best programming language to learn. You might also have friends or colleagues who have told you that you should absolutely learn python, or java, or javascript but I’m not sure there is a ‘best’ language.
The most popular programming languages are obvious
There are a few common culprits and each serves a slightly different purpose. Javascript is in incredibly wide use and allows you to program effectively on the front end (Vanilla JS, React, Vue etc), back end (Node) and even when building native mobile apps (React Native). It’s deeply embedded into every facet of internet technology and isn’t going anywhere in the near future.
What is the best back-end programming language?
On the back end (data handling and manipulation), Java and .NET are very popular as is Python. While Javascript does allow you to write back end code in Node, this tends not to be used for complex back ends either because it’s not viewed as performant or because these back ends were built before Node was a viable option and it’s yet to filter down into mainstream use.
What is the best front-end programming language?
On the front end (user interfaces), learning Javascript is a prerequisite for any more advanced framework you might want to use like Vue or React, but you’ll also need some understanding of HTML (structures a web page) and CSS (styles a web page) to build anything meaningful.
Honestly, there’s no ‘best’ language but there are probably a few poor choices. PHP was very popular when I was getting into development but is no longer widely used. This is reflected in rates both for permanent and contract developers and as a result, isn’t a language I’d recommend you attempt to learn.
Does learning one programming language make it easier to learn another?
As with spoken languages, there is a great deal of crossover and learning one language will usually make it easier to learn another but the honest answer is that it doesn’t really matter. After you’ve worked on a project for six months or more, nobody will know that <insert any language here> isn’t your native/preferred language anyway.
That said, if you absolutely must have an answer, learn JavaScript. The rates are excellent, it can be used as a front-end or back-end language, there are loads of tutorials to help you and it isn’t going away anytime soon.
What can I expect in part two of the junior software developer guide?
So this article is already about 10x longer than I thought it would be and I think it makes sense to split it into two parts.
I should probably have trimmed the first piece into multiple articles but hey-ho…if you like what I’ve written than I’d be happy to go into more detail on any topic you like.
In the next part of this article, I’d like to cover how you can go about finding work. If you want a bit of a hint, you can take a look at this article:
