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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 14 2
Rank change year-on-year 0 -12 +8
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 288 340 1,344
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 7.32% 13.43% 30.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.69% 14.93% 35.84%
Number of salaries quoted 219 71 413
10th Percentile £52,500 £45,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £63,750 £50,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% - +1.69%
75th Percentile £100,000 £82,500 £72,500
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 2,693 2,277 3,750
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 68.45% 89.96% 85.83%
Number of salaries quoted 1,596 1,000 1,592
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,946 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £32,000 £41,688
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £38,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +38.16% -30.91% +4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £61,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £77,625 £81,950
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 16 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 16 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 -4 131 £85,000 +13.33% 357
Edinburgh +23 125 £70,000 +37.25% 220
West Lothian +7 12 £67,500 +20.00% 9
Aberdeen -10 9 £65,000 +18.18% 13
South Lanarkshire -5 8 £72,500 - 1
Stirling -3 2 £40,000 - 4
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%) Confluence
2 2 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.69%) FactoryTalk
2 2 (0.69%) WinCC
3 1 (0.35%) Apache
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 46 (15.97%) AWS
2 21 (7.29%) Azure
3 13 (4.51%) GCP
4 12 (4.17%) SaaS
5 8 (2.78%) Amazon Bedrock
6 6 (2.08%) Amazon SageMaker
7 4 (1.39%) GitHub
8 3 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
8 3 (1.04%) Azure AI
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 Machine Learning
8 3 (1.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (1.04%) dbt
8 3 (1.04%) Serverless
9 2 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (0.69%) AWS Step Functions
9 2 (0.69%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (0.69%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.78%) Ethernet
1 8 (2.78%) RS-232
2 6 (2.08%) Broadband
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%) Parquet
4 2 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
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 7 (2.43%) 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
General
1 47 (16.32%) Finance
2 31 (10.76%) 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%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.35%) Advertising
12 1 (0.35%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 191 (66.32%) Software Engineer
2 72 (25.00%) Senior
3 57 (19.79%) Lead
4 52 (18.06%) Senior Software Engineer
5 31 (10.76%) Lead Software Engineer
6 21 (7.29%) Developer
6 21 (7.29%) Principal Engineer
7 17 (5.90%) Principal Software Engineer
8 16 (5.56%) Embedded Engineer
8 16 (5.56%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 16 (5.56%) Technical Leader
9 15 (5.21%) C++ Software Engineer
10 14 (4.86%) Java Engineer
11 12 (4.17%) Software Manager
12 11 (3.82%) Java Software Engineer
13 10 (3.47%) Full-Stack Developer
13 10 (3.47%) Senior Embedded Engineer
13 10 (3.47%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
14 9 (3.13%) Reliability Engineer
14 9 (3.13%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.56%) .NET
2 12 (4.17%) React
3 8 (2.78%) AWS CDK
3 8 (2.78%) Jakarta EE
3 8 (2.78%) JSP
3 8 (2.78%) Next.js
3 8 (2.78%) Yocto
4 7 (2.43%) Terraform
5 6 (2.08%) .NET Framework
6 4 (1.39%) PySpark
7 3 (1.04%) CrewAI
7 3 (1.04%) LangChain
7 3 (1.04%) LangGraph
7 3 (1.04%) OpenTelemetry
7 3 (1.04%) Ray
7 3 (1.04%) RESTful
7 3 (1.04%) vLLM
8 2 (0.69%) Apache Avro
8 2 (0.69%) Spring Batch
8 2 (0.69%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.38%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.90%) Educational Technology
3 9 (3.13%) AI Agents
4 8 (2.78%) Device Driver
5 7 (2.43%) Public Cloud
6 6 (2.08%) Data Centre
7 4 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.39%) Embedded Systems
7 4 (1.39%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.39%) Product Ownership
8 3 (1.04%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (1.04%) SCADA
9 2 (0.69%) Algorithms
9 2 (0.69%) Credit Risk
9 2 (0.69%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.69%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.69%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.69%) Reference Data
10 1 (0.35%) Analytical Mindset
10 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 78 (27.08%) Agile
2 38 (13.19%) CI/CD
3 36 (12.50%) AI
4 33 (11.46%) Full-Stack Development
5 32 (11.11%) Mentoring
6 31 (10.76%) DevOps
7 27 (9.38%) Code Quality
8 26 (9.03%) Infrastructure as Code
9 23 (7.99%) Continuous Improvement
10 22 (7.64%) Observability
10 22 (7.64%) Problem-Solving
11 21 (7.29%) SDLC
12 17 (5.90%) Technical Leadership
13 16 (5.56%) Microservices
14 15 (5.21%) LLM
15 14 (4.86%) Analytics
15 14 (4.86%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 13 (4.51%) Coaching
16 13 (4.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 13 (4.51%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 39 (13.54%) Java
2 33 (11.46%) Python
3 30 (10.42%) JavaScript
4 26 (9.03%) TypeScript
5 23 (7.99%) C++
6 8 (2.78%) C
6 8 (2.78%) Embedded C
7 5 (1.74%) 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 9 (3.13%) 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%) Firmware
2 1 (0.35%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (3.13%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.39%) Grafana
3 3 (1.04%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (3.47%) Databricks
2 5 (1.74%) Siemens
2 5 (1.74%) YouTube
3 3 (1.04%) Foundry
3 3 (1.04%) IBM
3 3 (1.04%) NVIDIA
3 3 (1.04%) Red Hat
4 2 (0.69%) Google
4 2 (0.69%) Microsoft
4 2 (0.69%) Rockwell
5 1 (0.35%) Adobe
5 1 (0.35%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.35%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle
5 1 (0.35%) Splunk