Software Development Manager Job Trends in England

Software Development Manager
UK > England

The median Software Development Manager salary in England is £85,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 12 January 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 547 594 577
Rank change year-on-year +47 -17 +274
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Development Manager 50 85 113
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.096% 0.18% 0.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.11% 0.19% 0.24%
Number of salaries quoted 48 52 88
10th Percentile £56,672 £44,750 £53,025
25th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £85,000 £85,000 £76,250
Median % change year-on-year - +11.48% -10.29%
75th Percentile £100,000 £112,500 £97,188
90th Percentile - £120,000 £112,500
UK median annual salary £85,000 £85,000 £77,500
% change year-on-year - +9.68% -7.46%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in England with a recognized job title 47,437 44,591 47,245
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.80% 92.72% 95.14%
Number of salaries quoted 29,917 23,336 37,002
10th Percentile £28,697 £33,500 £31,000
25th Percentile £36,750 £45,000 £41,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +3.51% -5.75%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £97,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%

Software Development Manager
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Software Development Manager' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Software Development Manager job vacancy trend in England

Software Development Manager
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for Software Development Manager job vacancies in England.

Salary distribution trend for Software Development Manager job vacancies in England

Software Development Manager
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Development Manager in England over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Development Manager in England

Software Development Manager
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Development Manager within the England region over the 6 months to 12 January 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East +29 23 £100,000 +11.11% 2
North of England +10 18 £100,000 +115.05% 6
Yorkshire +3 18 £100,000 +233.33% 4
South West +11 6 £80,000 +23.08% 3
West Midlands +23 4 £70,000 - 1
Midlands +19 4 £70,000 - 1
London +39 3 £105,000 -12.50% 2
East of England +17 2 £82,500 +5.10% 3
Software Development Manager
UK

Software Development Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 12 January 2026, Software Development Manager job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the England region featuring Software Development Manager in the job title.

1 29 (58.00%) Agile
2 28 (56.00%) SDLC
3 26 (52.00%) Software Engineering
4 25 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 23 (46.00%) .NET
5 23 (46.00%) SaaS
6 20 (40.00%) C#
7 19 (38.00%) Product Vision
7 19 (38.00%) Resource Allocation
8 18 (36.00%) SQL Server
9 16 (32.00%) AWS
10 8 (16.00%) Project Management
11 7 (14.00%) Azure
11 7 (14.00%) Scrum
12 6 (12.00%) B2C
13 5 (10.00%) B2B
13 5 (10.00%) Cost Reduction
13 5 (10.00%) Degree
13 5 (10.00%) DevOps
13 5 (10.00%) iPaaS
14 4 (8.00%) Coaching
14 4 (8.00%) Computer Science
14 4 (8.00%) Full-Stack Development
14 4 (8.00%) ITIL
14 4 (8.00%) Mentoring
14 4 (8.00%) Product Requirements
14 4 (8.00%) SQL
14 4 (8.00%) Translating Business Requirements
15 3 (6.00%) .NET Framework
15 3 (6.00%) GDPR

Software Development Manager Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 1 (2.00%) Confluence
1 1 (2.00%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 23 (46.00%) SaaS
2 16 (32.00%) AWS
3 7 (14.00%) Azure
4 5 (10.00%) iPaaS
5 1 (2.00%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (2.00%) Azure Functions
5 1 (2.00%) Azure Logic Apps
5 1 (2.00%) GitHub
5 1 (2.00%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (2.00%) PaaS
5 1 (2.00%) Power Automate
5 1 (2.00%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.00%) PowerApps
5 1 (2.00%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (36.00%) SQL Server
2 2 (4.00%) Redis
3 1 (2.00%) MariaDB
3 1 (2.00%) MySQL
3 1 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 2 (4.00%) Jenkins
2 1 (2.00%) Git
2 1 (2.00%) JIRA
General
1 5 (10.00%) Social Skills
2 4 (8.00%) Retail
3 2 (4.00%) Finance
3 2 (4.00%) Marketing
4 1 (2.00%) Advertising
4 1 (2.00%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (46.00%) .NET
2 3 (6.00%) .NET Framework
2 3 (6.00%) JSON
2 3 (6.00%) REST
3 2 (4.00%) .NET Core
3 2 (4.00%) CSS
3 2 (4.00%) HTML
3 2 (4.00%) React
4 1 (2.00%) AngularJS
4 1 (2.00%) ASP.NET
4 1 (2.00%) ASP.NET Core
4 1 (2.00%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (2.00%) Entity Framework
4 1 (2.00%) Middleware
4 1 (2.00%) Node.js
4 1 (2.00%) RESTful
4 1 (2.00%) Smarty
4 1 (2.00%) Symfony
4 1 (2.00%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 3 (6.00%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (2.00%) Cloud Native
2 1 (2.00%) Greenfield Project
2 1 (2.00%) Management Information System
2 1 (2.00%) Mobile App
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (58.00%) Agile
2 28 (56.00%) SDLC
3 26 (52.00%) Software Engineering
4 25 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 19 (38.00%) Product Vision
5 19 (38.00%) Resource Allocation
6 8 (16.00%) Project Management
7 7 (14.00%) Scrum
8 6 (12.00%) B2C
9 5 (10.00%) B2B
9 5 (10.00%) Cost Reduction
9 5 (10.00%) DevOps
10 4 (8.00%) Coaching
10 4 (8.00%) Computer Science
10 4 (8.00%) Full-Stack Development
10 4 (8.00%) ITIL
10 4 (8.00%) Mentoring
10 4 (8.00%) Product Requirements
10 4 (8.00%) Translating Business Requirements
11 3 (6.00%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 20 (40.00%) C#
2 4 (8.00%) SQL
3 2 (4.00%) JavaScript
4 1 (2.00%) PHP
4 1 (2.00%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.00%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 5 (10.00%) Degree
2 2 (4.00%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (2.00%) CAPM
3 1 (2.00%) Master's Degree
3 1 (2.00%) PMI Certification
3 1 (2.00%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.00%) GDPR
1 3 (6.00%) QA
2 2 (4.00%) PCI DSS
3 1 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (2.00%) PMO
System Software
1 2 (4.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (4.00%) Ansible
2 1 (2.00%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (6.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.00%) Atlassian
2 1 (2.00%) HubSpot
2 1 (2.00%) Salesforce