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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 14 2
Rank change year-on-year +2 -12 +8
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 288 346 1,510
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 7.41% 13.54% 33.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.76% 15.04% 38.50%
Number of salaries quoted 213 74 429
10th Percentile £52,500 £41,125 £38,750
25th Percentile £63,750 £48,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +4.17% -
75th Percentile £100,000 £82,500 £72,500
90th Percentile - £92,644 £83,500
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 2,676 2,300 3,922
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 68.83% 90.02% 86.07%
Number of salaries quoted 1,580 1,012 1,646
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £32,000 £41,563
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,981 £38,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +36.79% -30.91% +4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £61,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £78,750 £81,250
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 -6 127 £85,000 +13.33% 190
Edinburgh +21 125 £70,000 +37.25% 96
West Lothian +9 14 £67,500 +20.00% 6
Aberdeen -8 9 £65,000 +18.18% 5
South Lanarkshire -3 8 £72,500 - 1
Stirling -1 3 £40,000 -
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 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
1 3 (1.04%) Confluence
2 2 (0.69%) Apache
2 2 (0.69%) FactoryTalk
2 2 (0.69%) WinCC
3 1 (0.35%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.35%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (0.35%) Ethereum
Applications
1 3 (1.04%) Simulink
2 1 (0.35%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 3 (1.04%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 45 (15.63%) AWS
2 24 (8.33%) Azure
3 12 (4.17%) GCP
4 11 (3.82%) SaaS
5 8 (2.78%) Amazon Bedrock
6 6 (2.08%) Amazon SageMaker
6 6 (2.08%) Azure AI
6 6 (2.08%) Azure Machine Learning
7 4 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (1.39%) GitHub
7 4 (1.39%) Serverless
8 3 (1.04%) Amazon S3
8 3 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (1.04%) Azure Functions
8 3 (1.04%) Azure Logic Apps
8 3 (1.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (1.04%) dbt
8 3 (1.04%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.13%) Broadband
2 8 (2.78%) Ethernet
2 8 (2.78%) RS-232
3 5 (1.74%) TCP/IP
4 3 (1.04%) DNS
4 3 (1.04%) Network Security
5 2 (0.69%) Modbus
5 2 (0.69%) Profibus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.08%) Data Lake
2 4 (1.39%) NoSQL
3 3 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (1.04%) Relational Database
3 3 (1.04%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.69%) Parquet
4 2 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.35%) Apache Iceberg
5 1 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.35%) Big Data
5 1 (0.35%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.35%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.35%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.35%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.35%) Redis
5 1 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 8 (2.78%) Git
2 3 (1.04%) Claude Code
2 3 (1.04%) JIRA
2 3 (1.04%) Rational DOORS
2 3 (1.04%) SonarQube
3 2 (0.69%) Cucumber
3 2 (0.69%) IntelliJ
3 2 (0.69%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.69%) JUnit
3 2 (0.69%) Maven
3 2 (0.69%) Mockito
4 1 (0.35%) MLflow
General
1 47 (16.32%) Finance
2 34 (11.81%) Social Skills
3 18 (6.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 14 (4.86%) Banking
5 12 (4.17%) Law
6 9 (3.13%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (3.13%) Marketing
7 7 (2.43%) Financial Institution
8 6 (2.08%) Legal
9 5 (1.74%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.74%) Front Office
9 5 (1.74%) Games
10 3 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.69%) Automotive
11 2 (0.69%) Aviation
11 2 (0.69%) Electronics
11 2 (0.69%) Public Sector
11 2 (0.69%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.35%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 188 (65.28%) Software Engineer
2 75 (26.04%) Senior
3 56 (19.44%) Lead
4 53 (18.40%) Senior Software Engineer
5 29 (10.07%) Lead Software Engineer
6 22 (7.64%) Developer
7 21 (7.29%) Principal Engineer
8 17 (5.90%) Principal Software Engineer
9 16 (5.56%) Embedded Engineer
9 16 (5.56%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 16 (5.56%) Technical Leader
10 15 (5.21%) C++ Software Engineer
11 14 (4.86%) Java Engineer
12 12 (4.17%) Software Manager
13 11 (3.82%) Java Software Engineer
14 10 (3.47%) Full-Stack Developer
14 10 (3.47%) Senior Embedded Engineer
14 10 (3.47%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
15 9 (3.13%) Reliability Engineer
15 9 (3.13%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (5.21%) .NET
2 12 (4.17%) React
3 9 (3.13%) AWS CDK
4 8 (2.78%) Jakarta EE
4 8 (2.78%) JSP
4 8 (2.78%) Next.js
4 8 (2.78%) Terraform
4 8 (2.78%) Yocto
5 6 (2.08%) LangChain
6 5 (1.74%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.39%) PySpark
7 4 (1.39%) RESTful
8 3 (1.04%) CrewAI
8 3 (1.04%) LangGraph
8 3 (1.04%) OpenTelemetry
8 3 (1.04%) Ray
8 3 (1.04%) Semantic Kernel
8 3 (1.04%) vLLM
9 2 (0.69%) JSON
9 2 (0.69%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 31 (10.76%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.90%) Educational Technology
3 9 (3.13%) AI Agents
4 8 (2.78%) Device Driver
5 6 (2.08%) Data Centre
5 6 (2.08%) Public Cloud
6 4 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.39%) Embedded Systems
6 4 (1.39%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.39%) Product Ownership
7 3 (1.04%) Enterprise Cloud
7 3 (1.04%) Renewable Energy
7 3 (1.04%) SCADA
8 2 (0.69%) Algorithms
8 2 (0.69%) Credit Risk
8 2 (0.69%) Data Structures
8 2 (0.69%) Mobile App
8 2 (0.69%) Private Cloud
8 2 (0.69%) Reference Data
9 1 (0.35%) Bitcoin
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.21%) Linux
2 8 (2.78%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (1.74%) Unix
4 3 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.04%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (27.43%) Agile
2 40 (13.89%) AI
3 39 (13.54%) CI/CD
4 35 (12.15%) Mentoring
5 34 (11.81%) Full-Stack Development
6 32 (11.11%) DevOps
7 30 (10.42%) Code Quality
8 27 (9.38%) Infrastructure as Code
9 26 (9.03%) Continuous Improvement
9 26 (9.03%) Observability
10 22 (7.64%) Problem-Solving
11 21 (7.29%) SDLC
12 20 (6.94%) Microservices
12 20 (6.94%) Technical Leadership
13 19 (6.60%) LLM
14 15 (5.21%) Machine Learning
15 14 (4.86%) Analytics
15 14 (4.86%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 13 (4.51%) Coaching
16 13 (4.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 42 (14.58%) Java
2 37 (12.85%) Python
3 29 (10.07%) JavaScript
4 25 (8.68%) TypeScript
5 23 (7.99%) C++
6 8 (2.78%) C
6 8 (2.78%) Embedded C
7 6 (2.08%) SQL
8 4 (1.39%) PHP
9 3 (1.04%) C#
9 3 (1.04%) Go
9 3 (1.04%) MATLAB
9 3 (1.04%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.69%) Ada
Qualifications
1 14 (4.86%) Security Cleared
2 11 (3.82%) Degree
2 11 (3.82%) SC Cleared
3 5 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
3 5 (1.74%) DV Cleared
4 3 (1.04%) Chartered Engineer
5 2 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.35%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.82%) QA
2 10 (3.47%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.04%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.69%) IEC 61131
5 1 (0.35%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.35%) NCSC
System Software
1 2 (0.69%) Docker
1 2 (0.69%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (3.47%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.74%) Grafana
3 3 (1.04%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 9 (3.13%) Databricks
2 6 (2.08%) Foundry
3 5 (1.74%) Google
3 5 (1.74%) Siemens
3 5 (1.74%) YouTube
4 3 (1.04%) IBM
4 3 (1.04%) NVIDIA
4 3 (1.04%) Red Hat
5 2 (0.69%) Microsoft
5 2 (0.69%) Rockwell
6 1 (0.35%) Adobe
6 1 (0.35%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.35%) OpenAI
6 1 (0.35%) Oracle
6 1 (0.35%) Splunk