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 22 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 15 3 12
Rank change year-on-year -12 +9 -4
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 323 609 328
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 12.14% 18.29% 13.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.40% 21.70% 13.93%
Number of salaries quoted 62 336 265
10th Percentile £43,875 £37,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £48,000 £45,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £61,250 £60,000 £59,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% +1.69% -1.67%
75th Percentile £82,500 £75,000 £72,433
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £84,019
UK median annual salary £75,000 £65,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +15.38% -7.14% -

All Process and 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 2,410 2,807 2,354
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 90.60% 84.29% 95.89%
Number of salaries quoted 1,030 1,338 1,883
10th Percentile £26,250 £31,250 £25,000
25th Percentile £32,000 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -30.91% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £60,000 £70,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £78,750 £82,150 £81,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -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 22 October 2025.

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 22 October 2025. 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 -3 209 £75,000 +13.64% 18
Edinburgh -30 53 £55,750 -7.08% 64
Lanarkshire -6 19 - - 11
West Lothian -10 5 £52,500 -19.23% 11
North Lanarkshire -15 4 - - 1
Renfrewshire - 4 - - 6
Stirling - 3 - -
Ayrshire - 3 £58,033 - 1
South Ayrshire +9 2 - - 1
Fife +7 2 - - 11
Aberdeen -7 2 £55,000 +10.00% 6
West Dunbartonshire - 2 - -
Dundee +1 1 £65,000 - 1
Inverclyde -2 1 - -
East Ayrshire -9 1 - -
South Lanarkshire - 1 - - 4
North Ayrshire - 1 - -
Strathclyde - 1 - -
Falkirk - 1 - -
Clackmannanshire - 1 - -
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 49 (15.17%) Confluence
2 25 (7.74%) Apache Spark
3 13 (4.02%) Apache
4 8 (2.48%) Camunda
4 8 (2.48%) Oracle Workflow
5 5 (1.55%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (1.24%) Cloud Foundry
6 4 (1.24%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.31%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.31%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.31%) WinCC
Applications
1 4 (1.24%) Simulink
2 2 (0.62%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 157 (48.61%) AWS
2 98 (30.34%) Azure
3 75 (23.22%) GCP
4 22 (6.81%) GitHub
5 14 (4.33%) Amazon S3
6 12 (3.72%) Serverless
7 10 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
7 10 (3.10%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (2.48%) Amazon ECS
8 8 (2.48%) OpenShift
8 8 (2.48%) SaaS
9 7 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (2.17%) GitHub Copilot
9 7 (2.17%) npm
9 7 (2.17%) Yarn
10 6 (1.86%) Amazon EC2
10 6 (1.86%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (1.86%) Snowflake
11 5 (1.55%) Cloud Computing
11 5 (1.55%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 13 (4.02%) Bluetooth
2 11 (3.41%) RS-232
2 11 (3.41%) Wireless
3 2 (0.62%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.62%) LoRaWAN
3 2 (0.62%) Modbus
3 2 (0.62%) MQTT
4 1 (0.31%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.31%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (17.96%) SQL Server
2 26 (8.05%) Big Data
3 25 (7.74%) NoSQL
4 17 (5.26%) Amazon Athena
5 16 (4.95%) Relational Database
6 15 (4.64%) Apache Cassandra
7 14 (4.33%) Elasticsearch
8 12 (3.72%) KDB
8 12 (3.72%) Kdb+
8 12 (3.72%) PostgreSQL
9 10 (3.10%) MongoDB
10 9 (2.79%) Amazon Redshift
10 9 (2.79%) Apache Hive
10 9 (2.79%) Apache Iceberg
10 9 (2.79%) Oracle Database
11 8 (2.48%) Hadoop
11 8 (2.48%) RDBMS
12 6 (1.86%) DynamoDB
13 5 (1.55%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (1.55%) HBase
Development Applications
1 63 (19.50%) Maven
2 55 (17.03%) JIRA
3 50 (15.48%) Selenium
4 49 (15.17%) Bitbucket
4 49 (15.17%) Cucumber
4 49 (15.17%) GitLab
4 49 (15.17%) SonarQube
4 49 (15.17%) Sonatype Nexus
5 18 (5.57%) Git
5 18 (5.57%) Jenkins
6 14 (4.33%) JUnit
7 9 (2.79%) Cypress.io
8 8 (2.48%) webpack
9 7 (2.17%) Vite
10 5 (1.55%) Gradle
11 4 (1.24%) Subversion
12 2 (0.62%) Postman
12 2 (0.62%) SoapUI
12 2 (0.62%) Visual Studio
13 1 (0.31%) Storybook
General
1 254 (78.64%) Finance
2 235 (72.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 186 (57.59%) Law
4 153 (47.37%) Banking
5 80 (24.77%) Marketing
6 39 (12.07%) Social Skills
7 26 (8.05%) Analytical Skills
8 18 (5.57%) Legal
9 16 (4.95%) Investment Banking
10 13 (4.02%) Electronics
11 8 (2.48%) Private Banking
12 6 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.86%) Tech for Good
13 5 (1.55%) Games
14 4 (1.24%) Front Office
14 4 (1.24%) Publishing
15 3 (0.93%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.62%) Agriculture
16 2 (0.62%) Manufacturing
16 2 (0.62%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 285 (88.24%) Software Engineer
2 104 (32.20%) Java Engineer
3 103 (31.89%) Java Software Engineer
4 63 (19.50%) Lead
5 58 (17.96%) Lead Software Engineer
6 53 (16.41%) Full-Stack Engineer
7 52 (16.10%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
8 37 (11.46%) Senior
9 36 (11.15%) Senior Software Engineer
10 33 (10.22%) Python Engineer
10 33 (10.22%) Python Software Engineer
11 25 (7.74%) Lead Java Engineer
12 24 (7.43%) Developer
13 20 (6.19%) AWS Engineer
13 20 (6.19%) AWS Software Engineer
14 16 (4.95%) Software Developer
15 15 (4.64%) Embedded Engineer
15 15 (4.64%) Embedded Software Engineer
15 15 (4.64%) Java Developer
16 14 (4.33%) Developer/Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 147 (45.51%) Spring
2 132 (40.87%) React
3 117 (36.22%) Kafka
4 111 (34.37%) Spring Boot
5 64 (19.81%) HTML
6 61 (18.89%) CSS
6 61 (18.89%) Hibernate
7 58 (17.96%) JPA
8 49 (15.17%) Redux
9 40 (12.38%) AngularJS
10 33 (10.22%) RESTful
11 26 (8.05%) REST
12 19 (5.88%) .NET
13 14 (4.33%) PySpark
14 13 (4.02%) Web Services
15 10 (3.10%) .NET Core
16 9 (2.79%) JDBC
16 9 (2.79%) OpenAPI
16 9 (2.79%) Pandas
16 9 (2.79%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 76 (23.53%) Algorithms
2 59 (18.27%) Cloud Native
3 53 (16.41%) Enterprise Software
4 50 (15.48%) Product Ownership
5 14 (4.33%) Distributed Systems
6 12 (3.72%) Public Cloud
7 11 (3.41%) Reference Data
8 8 (2.48%) Derivative
8 8 (2.48%) Fixed Income
9 5 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.24%) Credit Risk
10 4 (1.24%) Distributed Applications
10 4 (1.24%) Equities
10 4 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (1.24%) Onboarding
11 3 (0.93%) Embedded Systems
11 3 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.93%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.62%) Greenfield Project
12 2 (0.62%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 6 (1.86%) Linux
2 5 (1.55%) Unix
3 4 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (1.24%) Ubuntu
3 4 (1.24%) Windows
4 3 (0.93%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.31%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 257 (79.57%) Agile
2 209 (64.71%) SDLC
3 207 (64.09%) CI/CD
4 154 (47.68%) Operational Stability
5 123 (38.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 116 (35.91%) AI
6 116 (35.91%) Full-Stack Development
7 106 (32.82%) Machine Learning
8 104 (32.20%) Community of Practice
9 80 (24.77%) Microservices
10 79 (24.46%) DevOps
10 79 (24.46%) Visualisation
11 76 (23.53%) TDD
12 73 (22.60%) Test Automation
13 66 (20.43%) Containerisation
14 61 (18.89%) Clean Code
15 60 (18.58%) Front End Development
16 57 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
17 52 (16.10%) Decision-Making
18 50 (15.48%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 213 (65.94%) Java
2 126 (39.01%) SQL
3 84 (26.01%) JavaScript
4 68 (21.05%) Python
5 30 (9.29%) TypeScript
6 24 (7.43%) C#
7 20 (6.19%) C++
8 19 (5.88%) C
9 8 (2.48%) Go
9 8 (2.48%) PL/SQL
10 5 (1.55%) PowerShell
10 5 (1.55%) Scala
11 4 (1.24%) MATLAB
11 4 (1.24%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.62%) Ada
12 2 (0.62%) Bash
12 2 (0.62%) Objective-C
12 2 (0.62%) Swift
13 1 (0.31%) Ada 95
13 1 (0.31%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 18 (5.57%) Degree
2 10 (3.10%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (1.24%) Azure Certification
3 4 (1.24%) HNC
3 4 (1.24%) HND
4 2 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.62%) SC Cleared
4 2 (0.62%) Security Cleared
5 1 (0.31%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.31%) Chartered Engineer
5 1 (0.31%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (16.10%) QA
2 9 (2.79%) Data Quality
3 3 (0.93%) NCSC
3 3 (0.93%) NIST
4 2 (0.62%) ISO 20022
4 2 (0.62%) JTAG
4 2 (0.62%) SEPA
5 1 (0.31%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.31%) IEC 61131
5 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 1 (0.31%) WCAG
System Software
1 75 (23.22%) Docker
2 15 (4.64%) Firmware
3 5 (1.55%) HDFS
4 4 (1.24%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 114 (35.29%) Kubernetes
2 24 (7.43%) Terraform
3 14 (4.33%) Grafana
4 4 (1.24%) Ansible
4 4 (1.24%) ITRS Geneos
4 4 (1.24%) Netcool
4 4 (1.24%) Netcool/OMNIbus
4 4 (1.24%) Prometheus
4 4 (1.24%) Tivoli
5 1 (0.31%) Opsgenie
5 1 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 49 (15.17%) Solace
2 48 (14.86%) Oracle
3 23 (7.12%) Splunk
4 18 (5.57%) Dynatrace
5 14 (4.33%) Databricks
6 8 (2.48%) Google
6 8 (2.48%) Microsoft
6 8 (2.48%) ServiceNow
7 6 (1.86%) Facebook
7 6 (1.86%) IBM
8 5 (1.55%) Cloudera
9 4 (1.24%) Red Hat
10 3 (0.93%) Murex
11 2 (0.62%) Avaloq
11 2 (0.62%) NVIDIA
11 2 (0.62%) Ping Identity
11 2 (0.62%) SAP
12 1 (0.31%) ESRI
12 1 (0.31%) ForgeRock
12 1 (0.31%) Rockwell