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 4 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 7 2
Rank change year-on-year -10 -5 +6
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 219 397 2,084
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 6.42% 15.65% 39.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.15% 17.47% 45.84%
Number of salaries quoted 148 111 504
10th Percentile £45,000 £25,313 £38,750
25th Percentile £58,750 £48,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £66,250 £64,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.71% +7.50% -
75th Percentile £80,000 £83,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £86,500 £100,000 £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 2,394 2,272 4,546
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 70.21% 89.59% 87.14%
Number of salaries quoted 1,380 1,008 2,005
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,929 £31,250
25th Percentile £32,750 £32,851 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £49,750 £45,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.56% -18.18% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

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 4 August 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 4 August 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 +8 118 £65,000 +16.59% 50
Glasgow -13 62 £80,000 +6.67% 138
West Lothian +9 17 £67,500 +8.00%
South Lanarkshire +1 8 £72,500 - 1
Aberdeen -13 7 £65,000 +30.00% 2
Stirling -1 3 £40,000 - 1
Lanarkshire -2 1 £34,000 -57.50% 13
Banffshire - 1 £30,000 -
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 3 (1.37%) Confluence
2 2 (0.91%) FactoryTalk
2 2 (0.91%) WinCC
3 1 (0.46%) Apache
3 1 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.46%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 2 (0.91%) Simulink
2 1 (0.46%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 2 (0.91%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 32 (14.61%) AWS
2 17 (7.76%) Azure
3 7 (3.20%) SaaS
4 6 (2.74%) Azure AI
4 6 (2.74%) Azure Machine Learning
4 6 (2.74%) GCP
5 5 (2.28%) Amazon Bedrock
5 5 (2.28%) Amazon SageMaker
6 3 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (1.37%) GitHub
6 3 (1.37%) Vertex AI
7 2 (0.91%) dbt
8 1 (0.46%) Amazon ECS
8 1 (0.46%) Anthropic Claude
8 1 (0.46%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.46%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (0.46%) Dagster
8 1 (0.46%) Figma
8 1 (0.46%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 13 (5.94%) Ethernet
1 13 (5.94%) RS-232
2 9 (4.11%) Broadband
3 4 (1.83%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.91%) DNS
4 2 (0.91%) Modbus
4 2 (0.91%) Network Security
4 2 (0.91%) Profibus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.37%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.46%) Data Lake
2 1 (0.46%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.46%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 3 (1.37%) Git
1 3 (1.37%) JIRA
2 2 (0.91%) Claude Code
2 2 (0.91%) Rational DOORS
2 2 (0.91%) SonarQube
3 1 (0.46%) Appium
3 1 (0.46%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.46%) IntelliJ
3 1 (0.46%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.46%) JUnit
3 1 (0.46%) LabVIEW
3 1 (0.46%) Maven
3 1 (0.46%) MLflow
3 1 (0.46%) Mockito
3 1 (0.46%) Postman
General
1 27 (12.33%) Social Skills
2 24 (10.96%) Finance
3 12 (5.48%) Banking
3 12 (5.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 7 (3.20%) Law
5 6 (2.74%) Legal
5 6 (2.74%) Marketing
6 4 (1.83%) Aerospace
6 4 (1.83%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (1.83%) Front Office
7 3 (1.37%) Electronics
8 2 (0.91%) Automotive
8 2 (0.91%) Aviation
8 2 (0.91%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.91%) Public Sector
8 2 (0.91%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.46%) Advertising
9 1 (0.46%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.46%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 145 (66.21%) Software Engineer
2 60 (27.40%) Senior
3 47 (21.46%) Senior Software Engineer
4 30 (13.70%) Embedded Engineer
4 30 (13.70%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 28 (12.79%) Lead
6 19 (8.68%) Developer
7 18 (8.22%) Principal Engineer
7 18 (8.22%) Senior Embedded Engineer
7 18 (8.22%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
8 16 (7.31%) Principal Software Engineer
8 16 (7.31%) Technical Leader
9 14 (6.39%) C++ Software Engineer
10 10 (4.57%) Full-Stack Developer
10 10 (4.57%) Java Engineer
11 8 (3.65%) Engineering Manager
11 8 (3.65%) Java Software Engineer
12 7 (3.20%) .NET Developer
12 7 (3.20%) Lead Software Engineer
12 7 (3.20%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.94%) Yocto
2 12 (5.48%) React
3 9 (4.11%) .NET
3 9 (4.11%) AWS CDK
4 8 (3.65%) Jakarta EE
4 8 (3.65%) JSP
4 8 (3.65%) Next.js
5 5 (2.28%) LangChain
6 3 (1.37%) RESTful
6 3 (1.37%) Semantic Kernel
7 2 (0.91%) CrewAI
7 2 (0.91%) LangGraph
7 2 (0.91%) Node.js
7 2 (0.91%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (0.91%) Ray
7 2 (0.91%) vLLM
8 1 (0.46%) FastAPI
8 1 (0.46%) Hugging Face
8 1 (0.46%) JWT
8 1 (0.46%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 27 (12.33%) Cloud Native
2 17 (7.76%) Educational Technology
3 13 (5.94%) Device Driver
4 6 (2.74%) AI Agents
5 5 (2.28%) Legacy Code
5 5 (2.28%) Mobile App
6 4 (1.83%) Embedded Systems
6 4 (1.83%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
7 3 (1.37%) Renewable Energy
7 3 (1.37%) SCADA
8 2 (0.91%) Algorithms
8 2 (0.91%) NHS
8 2 (0.91%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.46%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.46%) Credit Risk
9 1 (0.46%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.46%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.46%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 19 (8.68%) Linux
2 13 (5.94%) Embedded Linux
3 4 (1.83%) Unix
4 2 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.91%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (24.66%) Agile
2 31 (14.16%) CI/CD
2 31 (14.16%) Full-Stack Development
3 30 (13.70%) Mentoring
4 28 (12.79%) Code Quality
5 25 (11.42%) Infrastructure as Code
6 24 (10.96%) Observability
7 23 (10.50%) DevOps
8 19 (8.68%) Continuous Improvement
9 18 (8.22%) SDLC
9 18 (8.22%) Technical Leadership
10 17 (7.76%) AI
11 15 (6.85%) Microservices
11 15 (6.85%) Problem-Solving
11 15 (6.85%) Scrum
12 13 (5.94%) Coaching
13 11 (5.02%) Machine Learning
14 10 (4.57%) Collaborative Culture
15 9 (4.11%) Incident Response
15 9 (4.11%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 33 (15.07%) Java
2 27 (12.33%) C++
3 24 (10.96%) Python
4 21 (9.59%) JavaScript
5 19 (8.68%) TypeScript
6 17 (7.76%) C
6 17 (7.76%) Embedded C
7 4 (1.83%) PHP
8 3 (1.37%) Go
8 3 (1.37%) SQL
9 2 (0.91%) Ada
9 2 (0.91%) C#
9 2 (0.91%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.91%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.46%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 10 (4.57%) Security Cleared
2 8 (3.65%) SC Cleared
3 7 (3.20%) Degree
4 4 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
4 4 (1.83%) DV Cleared
5 2 (0.91%) Chartered Engineer
6 1 (0.46%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.57%) QA
2 7 (3.20%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.91%) IEC 61131
4 1 (0.46%) ISO 22301
4 1 (0.46%) NCSC
System Software
1 7 (3.20%) Firmware
2 2 (0.91%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (4.11%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.20%) Terraform
3 3 (1.37%) Grafana
4 2 (0.91%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (2.74%) Foundry
2 5 (2.28%) Google
3 4 (1.83%) Databricks
3 4 (1.83%) Siemens
4 2 (0.91%) IBM
4 2 (0.91%) Microsoft
4 2 (0.91%) NVIDIA
4 2 (0.91%) Red Hat
4 2 (0.91%) Rockwell
4 2 (0.91%) YouTube
5 1 (0.46%) Adobe