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 12 February 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 37 51
Rank change year-on-year -25 +14 +4
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 361 495 526
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 3.22% 5.92% 4.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.48% 6.67% 4.56%
Number of salaries quoted 270 210 417
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £35,900
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,688 £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 £95,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year - +12.00% -8.09%

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 10,377 7,417 11,542
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 88.65% 94.62%
Number of salaries quoted 6,658 3,865 8,763
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,799 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £56,509 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.52% +13.02% -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% -11.29%

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 12 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 12 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 +2 188 £65,000 +8.33% 49
Hampshire +13 106 £65,000 - 60
Oxfordshire +21 98 £70,000 +1.82% 28
Buckinghamshire +18 59 £45,000 -25.00% 10
Surrey -37 32 £81,250 +25.00% 21
Berkshire -50 31 £60,000 - 11
East Sussex +12 14 £82,500 +65.00% 1
Kent -64 13 £50,000 -24.53% 9
West Sussex -14 5 £65,000 +116.67% 4
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 12 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.

1 354 (98.06%) Software Engineering
2 82 (22.71%) C++
3 75 (20.78%) .NET
4 69 (19.11%) C#
5 67 (18.56%) Degree
6 52 (14.40%) Computer Science
7 43 (11.91%) Python
8 41 (11.36%) Computer Science Degree
9 40 (11.08%) Azure
9 40 (11.08%) Full-Stack Development
9 40 (11.08%) SQL
10 38 (10.53%) Agile
11 35 (9.70%) DevOps
12 32 (8.86%) Problem-Solving
13 29 (8.03%) SaaS
13 29 (8.03%) SQL Server
14 28 (7.76%) CI/CD
14 28 (7.76%) Security Cleared
15 27 (7.48%) JavaScript
16 25 (6.93%) C
17 24 (6.65%) AI
18 23 (6.37%) SC Cleared
19 21 (5.82%) Azure DevOps
20 19 (5.26%) Continuous Improvement
20 19 (5.26%) Linux
21 18 (4.99%) Java
22 17 (4.71%) AWS
22 17 (4.71%) Machine Learning
22 17 (4.71%) Mathematics
23 16 (4.43%) React

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 (3.32%) IIS
2 1 (0.28%) CMS
2 1 (0.28%) Kinematics
Applications
1 1 (0.28%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (0.28%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 40 (11.08%) Azure
2 29 (8.03%) SaaS
3 21 (5.82%) Azure DevOps
4 17 (4.71%) AWS
5 11 (3.05%) GCP
6 9 (2.49%) Stripe
7 5 (1.39%) GitHub
8 3 (0.83%) Serverless
9 2 (0.55%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (0.55%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.55%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.28%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.28%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.28%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.28%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.28%) Cloudflare
10 1 (0.28%) Heroku
Communications & Networking
1 14 (3.88%) Wireless
2 3 (0.83%) ATM
3 2 (0.55%) SpaceWire
4 1 (0.28%) DNS
4 1 (0.28%) HTTP
4 1 (0.28%) Modbus
4 1 (0.28%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.03%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 3 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.55%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.28%) Apache Cassandra
5 1 (0.28%) GIS
5 1 (0.28%) Pinecone
5 1 (0.28%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 13 (3.60%) Git
2 7 (1.94%) Visual Studio
3 4 (1.11%) GitLab
4 2 (0.55%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.55%) JIRA
4 2 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
5 1 (0.28%) Appium
5 1 (0.28%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.28%) JUnit
5 1 (0.28%) Katalon Studio
5 1 (0.28%) NUnit
5 1 (0.28%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.28%) Selenium
5 1 (0.28%) TestRail
General
1 25 (6.93%) Social Skills
2 18 (4.99%) Electronics
3 10 (2.77%) Finance
4 7 (1.94%) Manufacturing
5 6 (1.66%) Aerospace
6 5 (1.39%) Military
6 5 (1.39%) Tech for Good
7 4 (1.11%) Public Sector
8 3 (0.83%) Aviation
8 3 (0.83%) Games
9 2 (0.55%) Analytical Skills
9 2 (0.55%) Automotive
9 2 (0.55%) Law
9 2 (0.55%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.28%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (20.78%) .NET
2 16 (4.43%) React
3 15 (4.16%) .NET Framework
3 15 (4.16%) WinForms
4 12 (3.32%) ASP.NET
4 12 (3.32%) Entity Framework
5 8 (2.22%) Laravel
6 7 (1.94%) AngularJS
6 7 (1.94%) Middleware
7 6 (1.66%) .NET Core
7 6 (1.66%) DirectX
7 6 (1.66%) OpenGL
7 6 (1.66%) OpenGL ES
7 6 (1.66%) Unreal Engine
7 6 (1.66%) Vulkan
8 5 (1.39%) Qt
8 5 (1.39%) Ruby on Rails
9 4 (1.11%) Blazor
9 4 (1.11%) REST
10 3 (0.83%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 14 (3.88%) Algorithms
1 14 (3.88%) IoT
1 14 (3.88%) Smart Energy
2 13 (3.60%) Embedded Systems
3 10 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
4 9 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
5 8 (2.22%) Client/Server
6 3 (0.83%) AI Agents
6 3 (0.83%) Cloud Native
6 3 (0.83%) CUDA
6 3 (0.83%) Robotics
6 3 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (0.55%) 3D Graphics
7 2 (0.55%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (0.55%) N-Tier
7 2 (0.55%) PMI
8 1 (0.28%) e-Learning
8 1 (0.28%) EPoS
8 1 (0.28%) FPGA
8 1 (0.28%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 19 (5.26%) Linux
2 14 (3.88%) Windows
3 13 (3.60%) Android
4 4 (1.11%) Unix
5 2 (0.55%) VxWorks
6 1 (0.28%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (98.06%) Software Engineering
2 52 (14.40%) Computer Science
3 40 (11.08%) Full-Stack Development
4 38 (10.53%) Agile
5 35 (9.70%) DevOps
6 32 (8.86%) Problem-Solving
7 28 (7.76%) CI/CD
8 24 (6.65%) AI
9 19 (5.26%) Continuous Improvement
10 17 (4.71%) Machine Learning
10 17 (4.71%) Mathematics
11 15 (4.16%) SDLC
12 14 (3.88%) Energy Management
12 14 (3.88%) Software Testing
12 14 (3.88%) Storage Management
13 11 (3.05%) Containerisation
13 11 (3.05%) Data Science
13 11 (3.05%) User Experience
14 10 (2.77%) Microservices
14 10 (2.77%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 82 (22.71%) C++
2 69 (19.11%) C#
3 43 (11.91%) Python
4 40 (11.08%) SQL
5 27 (7.48%) JavaScript
6 25 (6.93%) C
7 18 (4.99%) Java
8 13 (3.60%) Rust
9 12 (3.32%) T-SQL
10 10 (2.77%) PHP
10 10 (2.77%) TypeScript
11 6 (1.66%) Delphi
11 6 (1.66%) Ruby
12 5 (1.39%) Bash
13 4 (1.11%) Fortran
14 3 (0.83%) Go
14 3 (0.83%) Julia
14 3 (0.83%) Uniface
15 2 (0.55%) Embedded C++
15 2 (0.55%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 67 (18.56%) Degree
2 41 (11.36%) Computer Science Degree
3 28 (7.76%) Security Cleared
4 23 (6.37%) SC Cleared
5 13 (3.60%) Master's Degree
6 10 (2.77%) PhD
7 3 (0.83%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.55%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.55%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.28%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.32%) QA
2 4 (1.11%) ECSS
2 4 (1.11%) ISO 9001
3 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 12207
4 1 (0.28%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.28%) ISO 9000
4 1 (0.28%) JTAG
System Software
1 15 (4.16%) Docker
2 9 (2.49%) Firmware
3 6 (1.66%) Hyper-V
3 6 (1.66%) KVM
3 6 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 12 (3.32%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.11%) Terraform
Vendors
1 13 (3.60%) Microsoft
2 12 (3.32%) Sage
2 12 (3.32%) Xamarin
3 8 (2.22%) HubSpot
4 6 (1.66%) VMware
5 5 (1.39%) Google
5 5 (1.39%) Zoho
6 2 (0.55%) Oracle
7 1 (0.28%) NVIDIA
7 1 (0.28%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.28%) SendGrid