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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 7 3
Rank change year-on-year -10 -4 +1
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 256 299 2,996
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 7.82% 15.35% 47.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.04% 16.46% 51.59%
Number of salaries quoted 154 187 535
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £50,000 £45,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £75,000 £82,751 £69,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £95,278 £98,474
UK median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.45% +16.00% -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 2,318 1,817 5,807
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 70.80% 93.28% 92.01%
Number of salaries quoted 1,284 845 2,383
10th Percentile £28,250 £26,929 £28,750
25th Percentile £31,250 £38,000 £40,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £65,000 £72,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £93,778 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -10.10%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 +4 173 £65,000 - 39
Glasgow -26 29 £72,500 +7.41% 19
West Lothian +1 24 £65,000 +18.18%
South Lanarkshire +1 7 £72,500 - 1
Aberdeen -18 7 £65,000 +18.18% 5
Banffshire - 6 £30,000 -
Fife -8 2 - -
Stirling -10 2 - -
Lanarkshire -6 1 £34,000 -54.67% 4
Dundee -9 1 £80,000 -
Midlothian - 1 - - 22
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 (0.78%) Smallworld
2 1 (0.39%) Apache
2 1 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.39%) FactoryTalk
2 1 (0.39%) WinCC
Applications
1 1 (0.39%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 1 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 22 (8.59%) Azure
2 12 (4.69%) AWS
3 9 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
4 8 (3.13%) SaaS
5 6 (2.34%) Azure Key Vault
5 6 (2.34%) dbt
5 6 (2.34%) Snowflake
6 4 (1.56%) Serverless
7 3 (1.17%) Azure AI
7 3 (1.17%) Azure Machine Learning
7 3 (1.17%) GitHub
7 3 (1.17%) Vertex AI
8 2 (0.78%) Amazon S3
8 2 (0.78%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.78%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (0.78%) GCP
8 2 (0.78%) GitHub Copilot
8 2 (0.78%) Power Automate
8 2 (0.78%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 15 (5.86%) RS-232
2 14 (5.47%) Broadband
2 14 (5.47%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.39%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.39%) Modbus
3 1 (0.39%) Network Security
3 1 (0.39%) Profibus
3 1 (0.39%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
1 3 (1.17%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.78%) GIS
2 2 (0.78%) Power BI
3 1 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.39%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.39%) MySQL
3 1 (0.39%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.39%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 2 (0.78%) Git
1 2 (0.78%) Storybook
2 1 (0.39%) Appium
2 1 (0.39%) LabVIEW
2 1 (0.39%) MLflow
2 1 (0.39%) Postman
2 1 (0.39%) SonarQube
2 1 (0.39%) Subversion
General
1 19 (7.42%) Finance
2 16 (6.25%) Social Skills
3 9 (3.52%) Games
3 9 (3.52%) Legal
4 7 (2.73%) Banking
4 7 (2.73%) Telecoms
5 3 (1.17%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (0.78%) Aviation
6 2 (0.78%) Electronics
6 2 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (0.78%) Marketing
6 2 (0.78%) Tech for Good
7 1 (0.39%) Advertising
7 1 (0.39%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.39%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 194 (75.78%) Software Engineer
2 102 (39.84%) Senior
3 84 (32.81%) Senior Software Engineer
4 67 (26.17%) Embedded Engineer
4 67 (26.17%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 44 (17.19%) Senior Embedded Engineer
5 44 (17.19%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
6 20 (7.81%) Lead
6 20 (7.81%) Principal Engineer
7 18 (7.03%) Principal Software Engineer
8 15 (5.86%) Engineering Manager
9 11 (4.30%) Linux Engineer
9 11 (4.30%) Senior Linux Engineer
10 10 (3.91%) Developer
11 9 (3.52%) Embedded Linux Engineer
11 9 (3.52%) Embedded Linux Software Engineer
12 8 (3.13%) C Software Engineer
12 8 (3.13%) Lead Software Engineer
12 8 (3.13%) Software Engineering Manager
12 8 (3.13%) Software Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (5.47%) Yocto
2 11 (4.30%) .NET
3 10 (3.91%) React
4 9 (3.52%) AWS CDK
5 7 (2.73%) OAuth
6 6 (2.34%) GraphQL
6 6 (2.34%) OpenAPI
6 6 (2.34%) Swagger
7 4 (1.56%) Node.js
8 3 (1.17%) .NET Framework
8 3 (1.17%) AngularJS
8 3 (1.17%) LangChain
8 3 (1.17%) React Native
8 3 (1.17%) Semantic Kernel
8 3 (1.17%) Vue
9 2 (0.78%) .NET Core
9 2 (0.78%) ASP.NET
9 2 (0.78%) JSON
9 2 (0.78%) JSON-LD
9 2 (0.78%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 16 (6.25%) Cloud Native
1 16 (6.25%) Educational Technology
2 14 (5.47%) Device Driver
3 13 (5.08%) Embedded Systems
4 11 (4.30%) CAN bus
5 7 (2.73%) Onboarding
6 6 (2.34%) NHS
6 6 (2.34%) Renewable Energy
7 5 (1.95%) Legacy Code
7 5 (1.95%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.17%) Enterprise Cloud
8 3 (1.17%) SCADA
9 2 (0.78%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.78%) Low-Code
9 2 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.39%) AI Agents
10 1 (0.39%) Analytical Mindset
10 1 (0.39%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.39%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 26 (10.16%) Linux
2 23 (8.98%) Embedded Linux
3 8 (3.13%) Android
4 1 (0.39%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (24.61%) Agile
2 24 (9.38%) Coaching
3 23 (8.98%) CI/CD
4 22 (8.59%) Problem-Solving
5 21 (8.20%) DevOps
5 21 (8.20%) Full-Stack Development
5 21 (8.20%) Mentoring
6 19 (7.42%) Observability
7 17 (6.64%) Code Quality
8 16 (6.25%) Infrastructure as Code
8 16 (6.25%) Microservices
8 16 (6.25%) Scrum
9 15 (5.86%) Roadmaps
10 14 (5.47%) Cybersecurity
11 13 (5.08%) Line Management
11 13 (5.08%) SDLC
12 12 (4.69%) Technical Leadership
13 11 (4.30%) Embedded Software Development
13 11 (4.30%) Safety Engineering
14 10 (3.91%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 35 (13.67%) C
2 34 (13.28%) C++
3 22 (8.59%) Java
4 20 (7.81%) Embedded C
5 14 (5.47%) C#
6 13 (5.08%) TypeScript
7 12 (4.69%) JavaScript
7 12 (4.69%) SQL
8 11 (4.30%) Python
9 9 (3.52%) Kotlin
10 6 (2.34%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.39%) Bicep
11 1 (0.39%) Perl
11 1 (0.39%) Swift
Qualifications
1 2 (0.78%) SC Cleared
1 2 (0.78%) Security Cleared
2 1 (0.39%) Degree
2 1 (0.39%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.30%) IEC 61508
1 11 (4.30%) MISRA
1 11 (4.30%) MISRA C
2 3 (1.17%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.78%) WCAG
4 1 (0.39%) IEC 61131
4 1 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.39%) NCSC
4 1 (0.39%) NIST
4 1 (0.39%) QA
4 1 (0.39%) SLA
System Software
1 13 (5.08%) Firmware
2 5 (1.95%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.78%) Docker
Systems Management
1 11 (4.30%) Functional Safety
2 9 (3.52%) Terraform
3 5 (1.95%) Kubernetes
4 1 (0.39%) Grafana
Vendors
1 9 (3.52%) Microsoft
2 3 (1.17%) Foundry
2 3 (1.17%) Google
3 2 (0.78%) Oracle
3 2 (0.78%) Siemens
4 1 (0.39%) Adobe
4 1 (0.39%) Rockwell
4 1 (0.39%) Salesforce