Software Engineer Job Trends in the South East

Software Engineer
England > South East

The median Software Engineer salary in the South East is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 22 February 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 37 50
Rank change year-on-year -19 +13 +8
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 398 480 540
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 3.44% 6.01% 4.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.70% 6.83% 4.57%
Number of salaries quoted 289 199 428
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £36,200
25th Percentile £52,145 £48,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £91,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year - +12.00% -7.75%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 10,757 7,031 11,823
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 88.03% 94.20%
Number of salaries quoted 6,976 3,716 9,008
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £27,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,395 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.74% +10.79% -9.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £72,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £85,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Software Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the South East

Software Engineer
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 22 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineer in the South East

Software Engineer
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineer within the South East region over the 6 months to 22 February 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
Thames Valley +9 203 £62,500 +4.17% 43
Hampshire +13 119 £65,000 - 56
Oxfordshire +27 106 £70,000 +3.70% 22
Buckinghamshire +14 63 £45,000 -25.00% 9
Surrey -39 38 £80,000 +23.08% 20
Berkshire -53 34 £60,000 - 12
East Sussex +14 14 £82,500 +65.00% 1
Kent -64 14 £50,000 -24.53% 8
West Sussex -21 7 £65,000 +116.67% 3
Isle of Wight -9 3 £75,900 +16.77%
Software Engineer
England

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 22 February 2026, Software Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the South East region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 391 (98.24%) Software Engineering
2 92 (23.12%) C++
3 81 (20.35%) .NET
4 72 (18.09%) C#
5 71 (17.84%) Degree
6 56 (14.07%) Computer Science
7 50 (12.56%) Python
8 46 (11.56%) Azure
9 45 (11.31%) Full-Stack Development
10 44 (11.06%) Computer Science Degree
11 42 (10.55%) Agile
12 40 (10.05%) SQL
13 37 (9.30%) DevOps
14 34 (8.54%) Problem-Solving
15 33 (8.29%) SaaS
16 29 (7.29%) Security Cleared
16 29 (7.29%) SQL Server
17 28 (7.04%) CI/CD
18 27 (6.78%) JavaScript
19 26 (6.53%) C
20 24 (6.03%) SC Cleared
21 23 (5.78%) AI
21 23 (5.78%) Continuous Improvement
22 22 (5.53%) AWS
22 22 (5.53%) Linux
23 21 (5.28%) Azure DevOps
23 21 (5.28%) Java
24 17 (4.27%) React
24 17 (4.27%) SDLC
25 16 (4.02%) Energy Management

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 12 (3.02%) IIS
2 1 (0.25%) CMS
2 1 (0.25%) Kinematics
Applications
1 1 (0.25%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 46 (11.56%) Azure
2 33 (8.29%) SaaS
3 22 (5.53%) AWS
4 21 (5.28%) Azure DevOps
5 15 (3.77%) GCP
6 8 (2.01%) Stripe
7 5 (1.26%) GitHub
8 3 (0.75%) Serverless
9 2 (0.50%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.50%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.25%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.25%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.25%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.25%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.25%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 16 (4.02%) Wireless
2 3 (0.75%) ATM
3 2 (0.50%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.50%) SpaceWire
4 1 (0.25%) HTTP
4 1 (0.25%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (7.29%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 3 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.25%) Apache Cassandra
5 1 (0.25%) GIS
5 1 (0.25%) Pinecone
5 1 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.25%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.25%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 14 (3.52%) Git
2 7 (1.76%) Visual Studio
3 5 (1.26%) GitLab
4 3 (0.75%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.50%) Claude Code
5 2 (0.50%) JIRA
6 1 (0.25%) Appium
6 1 (0.25%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.25%) JUnit
6 1 (0.25%) Katalon Studio
6 1 (0.25%) NUnit
6 1 (0.25%) REST Assured
6 1 (0.25%) Selenium
6 1 (0.25%) TestRail
General
1 26 (6.53%) Social Skills
2 17 (4.27%) Electronics
3 11 (2.76%) Finance
4 7 (1.76%) Aerospace
4 7 (1.76%) Manufacturing
5 5 (1.26%) Military
5 5 (1.26%) Tech for Good
6 4 (1.01%) Public Sector
7 3 (0.75%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (0.75%) Aviation
7 3 (0.75%) Games
7 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
8 2 (0.50%) Law
9 1 (0.25%) Automotive
9 1 (0.25%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.25%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (20.35%) .NET
2 17 (4.27%) React
3 15 (3.77%) .NET Framework
3 15 (3.77%) WinForms
4 12 (3.02%) ASP.NET
4 12 (3.02%) Entity Framework
5 9 (2.26%) Unreal Engine
6 8 (2.01%) Laravel
7 7 (1.76%) AngularJS
7 7 (1.76%) Middleware
7 7 (1.76%) Qt
8 6 (1.51%) .NET Core
8 6 (1.51%) DirectX
8 6 (1.51%) OpenGL
8 6 (1.51%) OpenGL ES
8 6 (1.51%) Vulkan
9 5 (1.26%) REST
10 4 (1.01%) Blazor
10 4 (1.01%) Ruby on Rails
11 3 (0.75%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.02%) IoT
1 16 (4.02%) Smart Energy
2 15 (3.77%) Algorithms
3 12 (3.02%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (3.02%) Embedded Systems
4 11 (2.76%) Client/Server
5 10 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (1.01%) Robotics
6 4 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.75%) AI Agents
7 3 (0.75%) Cloud Native
7 3 (0.75%) CUDA
8 2 (0.50%) 3D Graphics
8 2 (0.50%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.50%) N-Tier
8 2 (0.50%) PMI
9 1 (0.25%) e-Learning
9 1 (0.25%) EPoS
9 1 (0.25%) FPGA
9 1 (0.25%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 22 (5.53%) Linux
2 14 (3.52%) Android
2 14 (3.52%) Windows
3 3 (0.75%) Unix
4 2 (0.50%) VxWorks
5 1 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 391 (98.24%) Software Engineering
2 56 (14.07%) Computer Science
3 45 (11.31%) Full-Stack Development
4 42 (10.55%) Agile
5 37 (9.30%) DevOps
6 34 (8.54%) Problem-Solving
7 28 (7.04%) CI/CD
8 23 (5.78%) AI
8 23 (5.78%) Continuous Improvement
9 17 (4.27%) SDLC
10 16 (4.02%) Energy Management
10 16 (4.02%) Machine Learning
10 16 (4.02%) Mathematics
10 16 (4.02%) Software Testing
10 16 (4.02%) Storage Management
11 14 (3.52%) Code Quality
11 14 (3.52%) Test Automation
12 12 (3.02%) Containerisation
12 12 (3.02%) Scrum
12 12 (3.02%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 92 (23.12%) C++
2 72 (18.09%) C#
3 50 (12.56%) Python
4 40 (10.05%) SQL
5 27 (6.78%) JavaScript
6 26 (6.53%) C
7 21 (5.28%) Java
8 16 (4.02%) Rust
9 12 (3.02%) T-SQL
10 11 (2.76%) TypeScript
11 10 (2.51%) PHP
12 6 (1.51%) Delphi
12 6 (1.51%) Ruby
13 4 (1.01%) Bash
14 3 (0.75%) Fortran
14 3 (0.75%) Go
14 3 (0.75%) Uniface
15 2 (0.50%) Embedded C++
15 2 (0.50%) MATLAB
15 2 (0.50%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 71 (17.84%) Degree
2 44 (11.06%) Computer Science Degree
3 29 (7.29%) Security Cleared
4 24 (6.03%) SC Cleared
5 13 (3.27%) Master's Degree
6 8 (2.01%) PhD
7 3 (0.75%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.50%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.50%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.50%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.02%) QA
2 4 (1.01%) ECSS
2 4 (1.01%) ISO 9001
3 2 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 1 (0.25%) Data Quality
System Software
1 15 (3.77%) Docker
2 12 (3.02%) Firmware
3 9 (2.26%) Hyper-V
3 9 (2.26%) KVM
3 9 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (2.76%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.01%) Terraform
Vendors
1 15 (3.77%) Microsoft
2 12 (3.02%) Sage
2 12 (3.02%) Xamarin
3 9 (2.26%) VMware
4 8 (2.01%) HubSpot
5 5 (1.26%) Google
5 5 (1.26%) Zoho
6 2 (0.50%) Oracle
6 2 (0.50%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.25%) NVIDIA