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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 14 3
Rank change year-on-year +7 -11 +8
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 348 321 659
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 8.32% 12.40% 18.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.20% 13.67% 22.12%
Number of salaries quoted 231 62 358
10th Percentile £52,500 £43,875 £38,250
25th Percentile £63,750 £48,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +4.17% +4.35%
75th Percentile £100,000 £82,188 £75,000
90th Percentile - £90,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £75,000 £75,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year - +15.38% -7.14%

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 2,852 2,348 2,979
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 68.15% 90.73% 83.92%
Number of salaries quoted 1,672 1,011 1,455
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £38,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +44.74% -30.91% +4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £60,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £76,250 £82,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £59,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -6.78% -1.67%

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 October 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 October 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
Glasgow -2 188 £85,000 +13.71% 420
Edinburgh +33 128 £70,000 +37.25% 196
West Lothian +2 10 £67,500 +28.57% 34
Aberdeen -5 10 £65,000 +18.18% 18
South Lanarkshire -4 8 £72,500 - 23
Stirling -5 2 £40,000 - 16
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 (0.86%) Confluence
2 2 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.57%) FactoryTalk
2 2 (0.57%) WinCC
3 1 (0.29%) Apache
3 1 (0.29%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.29%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (0.29%) Ethereum
3 1 (0.29%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.86%) Simulink
2 1 (0.29%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 3 (0.86%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 53 (15.23%) AWS
2 29 (8.33%) Azure
3 18 (5.17%) GCP
4 13 (3.74%) SaaS
5 8 (2.30%) Amazon Bedrock
6 7 (2.01%) GitHub
7 6 (1.72%) Amazon SageMaker
8 4 (1.15%) Azure AI
8 4 (1.15%) Azure Functions
8 4 (1.15%) Serverless
9 3 (0.86%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (0.86%) Azure Data Factory
9 3 (0.86%) Azure Logic Apps
9 3 (0.86%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (0.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 3 (0.86%) dbt
10 2 (0.57%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (0.57%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (0.57%) AWS Step Functions
10 2 (0.57%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.72%) Broadband
1 6 (1.72%) Ethernet
1 6 (1.72%) RS-232
2 5 (1.44%) TCP/IP
3 3 (0.86%) DNS
3 3 (0.86%) Network Security
4 2 (0.57%) Modbus
4 2 (0.57%) Profibus
5 1 (0.29%) Fibre Channel
5 1 (0.29%) iSCSI
5 1 (0.29%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.72%) Data Lake
2 5 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (1.15%) NoSQL
3 4 (1.15%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (0.86%) MongoDB
4 3 (0.86%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
5 2 (0.57%) Chroma
5 2 (0.57%) Parquet
5 2 (0.57%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.29%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.29%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.29%) Big Data
6 1 (0.29%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.29%) Redis
6 1 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 10 (2.87%) Git
2 4 (1.15%) Claude Code
2 4 (1.15%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.86%) JIRA
3 3 (0.86%) Rational DOORS
3 3 (0.86%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.57%) Cucumber
4 2 (0.57%) GitLab
4 2 (0.57%) IntelliJ
4 2 (0.57%) JUnit
4 2 (0.57%) Maven
4 2 (0.57%) Mockito
5 1 (0.29%) Browser DevTools
General
1 71 (20.40%) Finance
2 32 (9.20%) Social Skills
3 18 (5.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 17 (4.89%) Financial Institution
5 14 (4.02%) Banking
6 12 (3.45%) Law
7 10 (2.87%) Analytical Skills
7 10 (2.87%) Games
8 9 (2.59%) Marketing
9 6 (1.72%) Legal
10 5 (1.44%) Aerospace
10 5 (1.44%) Front Office
11 4 (1.15%) Electronics
12 3 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.86%) Tech for Good
12 3 (0.86%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.57%) Automotive
13 2 (0.57%) Aviation
14 1 (0.29%) Public Sector
14 1 (0.29%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 238 (68.39%) Software Engineer
2 88 (25.29%) Lead
3 83 (23.85%) Senior
4 61 (17.53%) Senior Software Engineer
5 60 (17.24%) Lead Software Engineer
6 25 (7.18%) Principal Engineer
7 23 (6.61%) Developer
8 21 (6.03%) Principal Software Engineer
9 17 (4.89%) Java Engineer
10 16 (4.60%) Software Manager
11 15 (4.31%) C++ Software Engineer
11 15 (4.31%) Reliability Engineer
11 15 (4.31%) Technical Leader
12 14 (4.02%) Embedded Engineer
12 14 (4.02%) Embedded Software Engineer
12 14 (4.02%) Java Software Engineer
13 13 (3.74%) Data Engineer
14 11 (3.16%) Cloud Engineer
14 11 (3.16%) Cloud Software Engineer
15 10 (2.87%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.46%) React
2 18 (5.17%) .NET
3 10 (2.87%) Terraform
4 8 (2.30%) Jakarta EE
4 8 (2.30%) JSP
4 8 (2.30%) Next.js
5 7 (2.01%) .NET Framework
5 7 (2.01%) AWS CDK
6 6 (1.72%) Yocto
7 5 (1.44%) CrewAI
7 5 (1.44%) LangChain
7 5 (1.44%) LangGraph
8 4 (1.15%) PySpark
9 3 (0.86%) AngularJS
9 3 (0.86%) Kafka
9 3 (0.86%) Ray
9 3 (0.86%) RESTful
9 3 (0.86%) Spring Boot
9 3 (0.86%) vLLM
9 3 (0.86%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.20%) Cloud Native
2 17 (4.89%) Educational Technology
3 12 (3.45%) Public Cloud
4 11 (3.16%) AI Agents
5 7 (2.01%) Data Centre
6 6 (1.72%) Device Driver
7 5 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.15%) Embedded Systems
8 4 (1.15%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.15%) Private Cloud
8 4 (1.15%) Product Ownership
9 3 (0.86%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (0.86%) SCADA
10 2 (0.57%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.57%) Credit Risk
10 2 (0.57%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.57%) Reference Data
11 1 (0.29%) Bitcoin
11 1 (0.29%) Cyber Threat
11 1 (0.29%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 14 (4.02%) Linux
2 6 (1.72%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (1.44%) Unix
4 4 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.86%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (30.17%) Agile
2 52 (14.94%) AI
3 41 (11.78%) CI/CD
4 35 (10.06%) DevOps
5 33 (9.48%) Full-Stack Development
5 33 (9.48%) Mentoring
6 29 (8.33%) Infrastructure as Code
7 27 (7.76%) Code Quality
8 26 (7.47%) Observability
9 24 (6.90%) Continuous Improvement
9 24 (6.90%) LLM
9 24 (6.90%) Problem-Solving
10 23 (6.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 23 (6.61%) SDLC
11 20 (5.75%) KYC
11 20 (5.75%) Microservices
12 19 (5.46%) Data Engineering
13 17 (4.89%) Analytics
13 17 (4.89%) Technical Leadership
14 16 (4.60%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 47 (13.51%) Java
2 41 (11.78%) Python
3 35 (10.06%) JavaScript
4 33 (9.48%) TypeScript
5 21 (6.03%) C++
6 7 (2.01%) SQL
7 6 (1.72%) C
7 6 (1.72%) Embedded C
8 4 (1.15%) C#
8 4 (1.15%) Go
8 4 (1.15%) PHP
9 3 (0.86%) MATLAB
9 3 (0.86%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.57%) Ada
10 2 (0.57%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.29%) Perl
11 1 (0.29%) Rust
Qualifications
1 15 (4.31%) Security Cleared
2 13 (3.74%) Degree
3 11 (3.16%) SC Cleared
4 5 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (1.44%) DV Cleared
5 3 (0.86%) Chartered Engineer
6 2 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.29%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.29%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.16%) QA
2 10 (2.87%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.86%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.57%) IEC 61131
5 1 (0.29%) GDPR
5 1 (0.29%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.29%) NCSC
5 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 6 (1.72%) Docker
2 2 (0.57%) Firmware
3 1 (0.29%) GPFS
3 1 (0.29%) NFS
Systems Management
1 17 (4.89%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.15%) Grafana
3 3 (0.86%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (2.87%) Databricks
2 5 (1.44%) Google
2 5 (1.44%) Siemens
2 5 (1.44%) YouTube
3 4 (1.15%) IBM
3 4 (1.15%) Microsoft
4 3 (0.86%) Foundry
4 3 (0.86%) NVIDIA
4 3 (0.86%) OpenAI
4 3 (0.86%) Red Hat
5 2 (0.57%) Mistral
5 2 (0.57%) Rockwell
6 1 (0.29%) Adobe
6 1 (0.29%) Brocade
6 1 (0.29%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.29%) EMC
6 1 (0.29%) NetApp
6 1 (0.29%) Oracle
6 1 (0.29%) Splunk
6 1 (0.29%) Veritas