Exclusive: Are you underpaid (or overpaid)? UK IT salaries benchmarked for 2026
Are you earning what you’re worth?
The embrace of technology has consistently pushed IT salaries above inflation – but which job roles enjoy the highest compensation in 2026?
IT has done well out of the continued evolution of technology from back-office cost centre to growth engine – and, more controversially, from the explosion of AI, even as that technology disrupts jobs worldwide.
With C-level tech roles increasingly represented in the boardroom, and cybersecurity acknowledged as a critical investment, salaries at all levels continue to outpace inflation.
After a slow start, tech wages rebounded sharply in the latter half of 2025, according to whole-sector data shared with Computing by job site Indeed, reflecting both a hiring recovery and a positive comparison to 2024.
We can’t say exactly what salaries are doing this year yet. What we can do is examine recent salary information Computing has obtained exclusively from IT recruitment agency Harvey Nash, backed up by open data from Indeed, to discuss the areas of IT that have performed especially well in the last year.
The major gains are unsurprisingly in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, both key to success in 2026. Those with responsibility for these areas are among the most well-paid at the C-level.
Caveats
Before we begin, a note about the data: Harvey Nash’s information is focused on tech and digital leaders at large corporate firms, many of which would not appear on generic job boards like Indeed. That pushes the average salary much higher, but makes it a fantastic source for those in enterprise-scale positions.
Indeed’s data is different; its salary checker tool reflects information from live and recently advertised jobs sharing the same title across the UK. While it is more representative of average pay, especially at SME firms, it is likely to be affected by outliers in situations where fewer roles may be advertised, such as emerging job titles.
The classic C‑suite
Before we get to AI and security, how are established IT leader roles performing?
We’ll start with the chief information officer (CIO). In most cases this is an internally focused role; it is the CIO's job to make sure tech systems and processes run smoothly and cost-effectively.
For many years, “CIO” was shorthand for “IT executive,” though that is changing with the rise of the CDO, CISO and so on.
Harvey Nash data pegs the average UK CIO’s salary, across all sectors and regions, at £198,610, though it can be much higher.
Indeed’s data is a little different; instead of taking an average of both live and historic adverts, its salary checker tool reflects information only from currently advertised jobs sharing the same title across the UK. That makes it more likely to be affected by outliers, especially in C-level positions or new job types, where fewer roles may be advertised.
There were 104 adverts for CIO roles when we accessed the salary checker, with an average pay packet of £95,930.
Unlike the CIO, the chief technology officer (CTO) focuses less on the smooth running of technology and more on how tech can aid the smooth running of the business. If the CIO’s focus is internal, the CTO’s is external.
“The core task is to translate the company's goals into a viable technological roadmap,” as Computing Deutschland’s editor Kerstin Stief wrote in her article on the role of the CTO in 2026.
Harvey Nash’s data reflects that wide-ranging and important responsibility, showing an average salary of £175,800.
There are more than twice as many job postings for CTO positions than CIO, although at 270 this is still a comparatively small number. Indeed says the average CTO salary in the UK is £76,250.
Next up is the chief operating officer, who is in charge of the organisation’s daily operations. Although not strictly a technical role, CIOs and CTOs often report to the COO; and we have seen an increasing number of technical leaders being promoted to COO or melding it into their role (COTO, for example) in recent years.
In a surprising finding, both Harvey Nash and Indeed show the average COO salary to be lower than the CIO’s, despite the COO’s on-paper seniority: £187,030 at the former and £81,120 (based on 407 live job postings) at the latter.
Security and AI: The new power roles
A solid approach to cybersecurity – and a team to support that – has long been an important part of business continuity, but it’s only recently that it has also been acknowledged as key to business success. Long gone are the days when cyber professionals were undervalued because they were constantly being asked to prove a negative (attacks negated).
In fact, despite its relative maturity, cybersecurity is now the UK’s fastest-growing IT occupation, with a 194% increase in professionals since 2021 according to ONS data in a recent Socura report.
That is reflected in compensation: the chief information security officer (CISO) commands the highest average salary in this article, at £201,190 according to Harvey Nash. Even Indeed’s more conservative data puts the average wage at £124,350, though this is based on just 11 job postings.
Another area seeing rapid growth is artificial intelligence, which has even ushered in a new C-level role in the form of the chief AI officer (CAIO).
The CAIO not only develops and leads a holistic approach to AI across the business, but determines where to implement the technology for the best ROI.
Despite undoubtedly working in the tech sector the CAIO may not even be a technologist; they are responsible for change management and easing friction in the workforce, making soft skills just as if not more important in their role.
According to Harvey Nash, the average salary for a CAIO in 2026 is £199,500. There were no job postings on Indeed for live comparisons.
The engine room: salaries outside the C‑suite
IT isn’t simply led from the top down; it integrates at all levels of the business, and needs technical guidance to get results. With that in mind, we also examined average salaries for operational positions outside the C-level, starting with the engineering roles that make up the bulk of the tech sector.
Despite sitting outside the C-level, the head of engineering is still a senior position. They manage an organisation's engineering efforts, ensuring that projects align with business goals. The average salary is £137,000 (Harvey Nash).
Indeed lists the software engineering manager role instead, with an average salary of £75,425 (379 postings).
Outside of leadership, it should be no surprise that AI/ML engineers command the highest compensation, with an average salary of £115,900 (Harvey Nash). While that specific role doesn’t exist on Indeed, the site does list AI developer, with an average compensation of £70,679 based on 362 live postings.
Next up are the more specialised roles of site reliability engineer (Harvey Nash: £112,600 / Indeed: £74,900; 309 job postings) and platform engineer (Harvey Nash: £96,000 / Indeed: £64,370; 785 postings).
It would also be remiss not to mention software developers, who enjoy an average pay packet of £79,060, or £54,200 on Indeed for the full stack developer role (3,300 postings); and data scientists, who interpret data to help organisations make decisions. This important position has an average salary of £91,000 (Harvey Nash) / £55,270 (Indeed; 1,500 postings).
Finally is the data protection officer, a compliance role in the tech space, responsible for making sure an organisation follows laws like the GDPR. Not every organisation is required to have a DPO, but for those that are – mostly in the public sector – it is essential.
The average DPO earns a salary of £52,500, or £48,070 according to Indeed based on 249 job postings.
Disclaimers and caveats (again)
Many factors come into play when determining salaries. These include location, industry, size of organisation, size of budget, the main objective of the role, level of experience sought and how overall packages are structured. The above data is a simple average of all salaries.
We accessed Indeed’s salary tracker tool on 6th – 13th February 2026.
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