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 8 December 2025.

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

6 months to
8 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 81 25 72
Rank change year-on-year -56 +47 -26
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 252 744 260
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 2.57% 7.16% 3.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.81% 7.57% 3.72%
Number of salaries quoted 175 365 186
10th Percentile £40,509 £40,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £46,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% - +4.35%
75th Percentile £78,750 £70,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £82,500 £81,250
England median annual salary £75,000 £67,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year +11.11% -3.57% +1.34%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 8,966 9,829 6,982
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.56% 94.53% 94.63%
Number of salaries quoted 5,670 5,453 5,036
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £29,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £81,250
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 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
Hampshire 0 101 £65,000 +18.18% 83
Thames Valley -80 79 £60,000 - 199
Surrey -34 46 £90,000 +63.64% 51
Oxfordshire -10 36 £65,000 +8.33% 65
Buckinghamshire -21 23 £35,000 -36.36% 41
Berkshire -76 20 £60,000 - 94
Isle of Wight -10 8 £75,900 +38.00% 14
East Sussex +21 7 £82,500 +50.00% 20
Kent -56 7 £62,500 -10.71% 28
West Sussex -24 4 - - 15
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 8 December 2025, 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.

1 252 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 70 (27.78%) Agile
3 64 (25.40%) C++
4 54 (21.43%) Degree
5 51 (20.24%) C#
6 45 (17.86%) DevOps
7 40 (15.87%) .NET
8 39 (15.48%) Computer Science
8 39 (15.48%) Security Cleared
9 37 (14.68%) Azure
10 36 (14.29%) SC Cleared
11 34 (13.49%) SQL
12 33 (13.10%) C
13 29 (11.51%) Mentoring
13 29 (11.51%) Problem-Solving
14 27 (10.71%) Linux
14 27 (10.71%) Python
15 26 (10.32%) AI
15 26 (10.32%) Computer Science Degree
15 26 (10.32%) Full-Stack Development
16 24 (9.52%) CI/CD
16 24 (9.52%) Coaching
17 22 (8.73%) Azure DevOps
18 21 (8.33%) Wireless
19 19 (7.54%) Firmware
19 19 (7.54%) JavaScript
20 18 (7.14%) Innovative Thinking
20 18 (7.14%) Machine Learning
21 17 (6.75%) Digital Signal Processing
21 17 (6.75%) Embedded Firmware

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 (4.76%) IIS
2 2 (0.79%) CMS
3 1 (0.40%) ArchestrA
3 1 (0.40%) FactoryTalk
3 1 (0.40%) Kinematics
3 1 (0.40%) WinCC
Applications
1 2 (0.79%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.40%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 37 (14.68%) Azure
2 22 (8.73%) Azure DevOps
3 12 (4.76%) AWS
4 7 (2.78%) SaaS
5 5 (1.98%) GCP
5 5 (1.98%) GitHub
6 4 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
6 4 (1.59%) Serverless
7 3 (1.19%) Stripe
8 2 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.79%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (0.79%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.40%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (0.40%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.40%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.40%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (0.40%) Heroku
Communications & Networking
1 21 (8.33%) Wireless
2 17 (6.75%) Software-Defined Radio
3 3 (1.19%) ATM
4 2 (0.79%) Modbus
5 1 (0.40%) DNS
5 1 (0.40%) Firewall
5 1 (0.40%) HTTP
5 1 (0.40%) Profibus
5 1 (0.40%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (4.76%) SQL Server
1 12 (4.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
2 5 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (1.59%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (1.19%) GIS
4 3 (1.19%) NoSQL
4 3 (1.19%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.79%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.79%) Redis
6 1 (0.40%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.40%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.40%) MySQL
6 1 (0.40%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.40%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.40%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 10 (3.97%) Git
2 4 (1.59%) JIRA
3 3 (1.19%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.19%) TestRail
4 2 (0.79%) GitLab
4 2 (0.79%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.40%) Appium
5 1 (0.40%) JUnit
5 1 (0.40%) Katalon Studio
5 1 (0.40%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.40%) Selenium
General
1 24 (9.52%) Social Skills
2 22 (8.73%) Finance
3 15 (5.95%) Manufacturing
4 5 (1.98%) Automotive
4 5 (1.98%) Electronics
5 3 (1.19%) Public Sector
5 3 (1.19%) Tech for Good
6 2 (0.79%) Aviation
6 2 (0.79%) Law
7 1 (0.40%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.40%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (0.40%) Games
7 1 (0.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.40%) Military
7 1 (0.40%) Retail
7 1 (0.40%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (15.87%) .NET
2 15 (5.95%) ASP.NET
2 15 (5.95%) WinForms
3 14 (5.56%) React
4 12 (4.76%) .NET Framework
4 12 (4.76%) Entity Framework
5 8 (3.17%) Qt
6 6 (2.38%) .NET Core
7 5 (1.98%) WPF
8 4 (1.59%) AngularJS
8 4 (1.59%) Next.js
8 4 (1.59%) RESTful
8 4 (1.59%) Ruby on Rails
9 3 (1.19%) Blazor
9 3 (1.19%) Node.js
9 3 (1.19%) REST
10 2 (0.79%) ASP.NET Core
10 2 (0.79%) FastAPI
10 2 (0.79%) Laravel
10 2 (0.79%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 24 (9.52%) Embedded Systems
2 19 (7.54%) RISC-V
3 18 (7.14%) e-Learning
4 17 (6.75%) MicroBlaze
5 12 (4.76%) Manufacturing Execution System
6 11 (4.37%) Algorithms
7 9 (3.57%) IoT
8 8 (3.17%) Smart Energy
9 6 (2.38%) 3D Graphics
10 4 (1.59%) Cloud Native
11 3 (1.19%) Data Structures
11 3 (1.19%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (1.19%) Mobile App
11 3 (1.19%) Product Ownership
12 2 (0.79%) AI Agents
12 2 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
12 2 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
12 2 (0.79%) N-Tier
12 2 (0.79%) Robotics
12 2 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 27 (10.71%) Linux
2 17 (6.75%) Embedded Linux
3 13 (5.16%) Windows
4 9 (3.57%) Android
5 4 (1.59%) Unix
6 2 (0.79%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.40%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.40%) VxWorks
7 1 (0.40%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 70 (27.78%) Agile
3 45 (17.86%) DevOps
4 39 (15.48%) Computer Science
5 29 (11.51%) Mentoring
5 29 (11.51%) Problem-Solving
6 26 (10.32%) AI
6 26 (10.32%) Full-Stack Development
7 24 (9.52%) CI/CD
7 24 (9.52%) Coaching
8 18 (7.14%) Innovative Thinking
8 18 (7.14%) Machine Learning
9 17 (6.75%) Digital Signal Processing
9 17 (6.75%) Signal Processing
10 15 (5.95%) Mathematics
11 14 (5.56%) SDLC
12 13 (5.16%) Microservices
12 13 (5.16%) Technical Leadership
13 12 (4.76%) Physics
14 11 (4.37%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 64 (25.40%) C++
2 51 (20.24%) C#
3 34 (13.49%) SQL
4 33 (13.10%) C
5 27 (10.71%) Python
6 19 (7.54%) JavaScript
7 16 (6.35%) Java
8 13 (5.16%) T-SQL
9 12 (4.76%) TypeScript
10 7 (2.78%) Ada
10 7 (2.78%) Ada 95
10 7 (2.78%) Bash
10 7 (2.78%) Rust
11 6 (2.38%) Delphi
12 4 (1.59%) Fortran
12 4 (1.59%) Ruby
13 3 (1.19%) Julia
13 3 (1.19%) Kotlin
13 3 (1.19%) PHP
14 2 (0.79%) BrightScript
Qualifications
1 54 (21.43%) Degree
2 39 (15.48%) Security Cleared
3 36 (14.29%) SC Cleared
4 26 (10.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (5.16%) Master's Degree
5 13 (5.16%) PhD
6 7 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (2.78%) Chartered Engineer
7 2 (0.79%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.79%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.40%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 12207
2 4 (1.59%) QA
3 3 (1.19%) ECSS
4 2 (0.79%) ISO 9000
4 2 (0.79%) JTAG
5 1 (0.40%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.40%) IEC 61131
5 1 (0.40%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 19 (7.54%) Firmware
2 17 (6.75%) Embedded Firmware
3 12 (4.76%) Docker
4 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (3.97%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.59%) Terraform
Vendors
1 15 (5.95%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.56%) Sage
3 13 (5.16%) Guidewire
4 12 (4.76%) Xamarin
5 5 (1.98%) Google
5 5 (1.98%) Zoho
6 2 (0.79%) Databricks
6 2 (0.79%) HubSpot
6 2 (0.79%) Roku
7 1 (0.40%) NVIDIA
7 1 (0.40%) Rockwell
7 1 (0.40%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.40%) SendGrid
7 1 (0.40%) Siemens
7 1 (0.40%) VMware