Software Engineering Job Trends in Scotland

Software Engineering
UK > Scotland

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in Scotland requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 6 2
Rank change year-on-year -11 -4 +5
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 212 416 2,171
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 6.30% 16.65% 39.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.91% 18.51% 45.77%
Number of salaries quoted 149 129 522
10th Percentile £45,000 £31,663 £38,300
25th Percentile £60,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £64,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.78% +7.50% -2.44%
75th Percentile £78,750 £82,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £91,000 £95,506 £80,000
UK median annual salary £72,500 £75,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.33% +20.00% -10.71%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Scotland

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Scotland.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,380 2,248 4,743
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 70.69% 89.99% 87.33%
Number of salaries quoted 1,394 1,000 2,142
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,929 £30,800
25th Percentile £32,375 £32,851 £40,833
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,000 £47,500 £53,250
Median % change year-on-year +1.05% -10.80% -3.18%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Scotland

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in Scotland.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in Scotland

Software Engineering
Salary Trend in Scotland

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Software Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Salary Histogram in Scotland

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in Scotland over the 6 months to 26 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineering in Scotland

Software Engineering
Job Locations in Scotland

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineering within the Scotland region over the 6 months to 26 July 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
Edinburgh +8 120 £65,000 +1.96% 30
Glasgow -21 50 £80,000 +7.38% 46
West Lothian +9 18 £67,500 +3.85%
South Lanarkshire +1 8 £72,500 - 1
Aberdeen -13 8 £65,000 +30.00% 2
Stirling -3 3 £40,000 -
Banffshire - 2 £30,000 -
Lanarkshire -4 1 £34,000 -57.50% 11
Software Engineering
UK

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Scotland 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 2 (0.94%) Confluence
1 2 (0.94%) FactoryTalk
1 2 (0.94%) WinCC
2 1 (0.47%) Apache
2 1 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 1 (0.47%) Adobe XD
1 1 (0.47%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 24 (11.32%) AWS
2 14 (6.60%) Azure
3 7 (3.30%) SaaS
4 6 (2.83%) Azure AI
4 6 (2.83%) Azure Machine Learning
5 4 (1.89%) Amazon Bedrock
5 4 (1.89%) Amazon SageMaker
6 3 (1.42%) GCP
6 3 (1.42%) GitHub
6 3 (1.42%) Vertex AI
7 2 (0.94%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (0.47%) Amazon ECS
8 1 (0.47%) Anthropic Claude
8 1 (0.47%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.47%) Dagster
8 1 (0.47%) dbt
8 1 (0.47%) Figma
8 1 (0.47%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 14 (6.60%) Ethernet
1 14 (6.60%) RS-232
2 9 (4.25%) Broadband
3 2 (0.94%) Modbus
3 2 (0.94%) Network Security
3 2 (0.94%) Profibus
3 2 (0.94%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.47%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.42%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.47%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.47%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 2 (0.94%) Git
1 2 (0.94%) JIRA
1 2 (0.94%) SonarQube
2 1 (0.47%) Appium
2 1 (0.47%) Cucumber
2 1 (0.47%) IntelliJ
2 1 (0.47%) Jenkins
2 1 (0.47%) JUnit
2 1 (0.47%) LabVIEW
2 1 (0.47%) Maven
2 1 (0.47%) MLflow
2 1 (0.47%) Mockito
2 1 (0.47%) Postman
2 1 (0.47%) Rational DOORS
General
1 19 (8.96%) Social Skills
2 16 (7.55%) Finance
3 11 (5.19%) Banking
4 5 (2.36%) Legal
5 4 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (1.42%) Front Office
7 2 (0.94%) Aerospace
7 2 (0.94%) Analytical Skills
7 2 (0.94%) Aviation
7 2 (0.94%) Electronics
7 2 (0.94%) Public Sector
8 1 (0.47%) Advertising
8 1 (0.47%) Automotive
8 1 (0.47%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.47%) Law
8 1 (0.47%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.47%) Marketing
8 1 (0.47%) Tech for Good
8 1 (0.47%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 144 (67.92%) Software Engineer
2 60 (28.30%) Senior
3 50 (23.58%) Senior Software Engineer
4 35 (16.51%) Embedded Engineer
4 35 (16.51%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 25 (11.79%) Lead
6 20 (9.43%) Senior Embedded Engineer
6 20 (9.43%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
7 19 (8.96%) Developer
8 18 (8.49%) Principal Engineer
9 16 (7.55%) Principal Software Engineer
10 15 (7.08%) Technical Leader
11 12 (5.66%) C++ Software Engineer
12 10 (4.72%) Full-Stack Developer
12 10 (4.72%) Java Engineer
13 9 (4.25%) Engineering Manager
14 8 (3.77%) Java Software Engineer
15 7 (3.30%) .NET Developer
15 7 (3.30%) C Software Engineer
15 7 (3.30%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (6.60%) Yocto
2 11 (5.19%) React
3 9 (4.25%) .NET
3 9 (4.25%) AWS CDK
4 7 (3.30%) Jakarta EE
4 7 (3.30%) JSP
4 7 (3.30%) Next.js
5 4 (1.89%) LangChain
6 3 (1.42%) RESTful
6 3 (1.42%) Semantic Kernel
7 2 (0.94%) Node.js
8 1 (0.47%) AngularJS
8 1 (0.47%) CSS3
8 1 (0.47%) Entity Framework
8 1 (0.47%) NumPy
8 1 (0.47%) OAuth
8 1 (0.47%) OAuth2
8 1 (0.47%) OpenCV
8 1 (0.47%) Spring Batch
8 1 (0.47%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 24 (11.32%) Cloud Native
2 17 (8.02%) Educational Technology
3 14 (6.60%) Device Driver
4 5 (2.36%) AI Agents
4 5 (2.36%) Legacy Code
4 5 (2.36%) Mobile App
5 4 (1.89%) Embedded Systems
5 4 (1.89%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (1.42%) Enterprise Cloud
6 3 (1.42%) Renewable Energy
6 3 (1.42%) SCADA
7 2 (0.94%) NHS
8 1 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.47%) CAN bus
8 1 (0.47%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.47%) Distributed Architecture
8 1 (0.47%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (9.43%) Linux
2 14 (6.60%) Embedded Linux
3 2 (0.94%) Unix
4 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.47%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (23.11%) Agile
2 28 (13.21%) Full-Stack Development
3 26 (12.26%) Mentoring
4 25 (11.79%) CI/CD
5 24 (11.32%) Code Quality
6 22 (10.38%) Observability
7 21 (9.91%) DevOps
7 21 (9.91%) Infrastructure as Code
8 17 (8.02%) Technical Leadership
9 16 (7.55%) Scrum
10 14 (6.60%) Microservices
10 14 (6.60%) SDLC
11 13 (6.13%) Coaching
12 12 (5.66%) Problem-Solving
13 11 (5.19%) Collaborative Culture
13 11 (5.19%) Continuous Improvement
14 10 (4.72%) AI
15 8 (3.77%) LLM
15 8 (3.77%) Machine Learning
16 7 (3.30%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 30 (14.15%) Java
2 27 (12.74%) C++
3 22 (10.38%) C
4 19 (8.96%) Embedded C
4 19 (8.96%) JavaScript
5 18 (8.49%) Python
6 17 (8.02%) TypeScript
7 4 (1.89%) PHP
8 3 (1.42%) SQL
9 2 (0.94%) C#
10 1 (0.47%) Ada
10 1 (0.47%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.47%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.47%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 7 (3.30%) Security Cleared
2 5 (2.36%) SC Cleared
3 3 (1.42%) Degree
4 2 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.94%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.47%) Chartered Engineer
5 1 (0.47%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.25%) QA
2 5 (2.36%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.94%) IEC 61131
4 1 (0.47%) IEC 61508
4 1 (0.47%) ISO 22301
4 1 (0.47%) MISRA
4 1 (0.47%) MISRA C
4 1 (0.47%) NCSC
System Software
1 7 (3.30%) Firmware
2 2 (0.94%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (2.36%) Kubernetes
1 5 (2.36%) Terraform
2 2 (0.94%) Grafana
3 1 (0.47%) Functional Safety
3 1 (0.47%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (2.83%) Foundry
2 4 (1.89%) Google
3 3 (1.42%) Databricks
3 3 (1.42%) Siemens
4 2 (0.94%) Microsoft
4 2 (0.94%) Rockwell
5 1 (0.47%) Adobe
5 1 (0.47%) IBM
5 1 (0.47%) NVIDIA
5 1 (0.47%) Red Hat
5 1 (0.47%) YouTube