Software Engineering Job Trends in the South East

Software Engineering
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 33 21
Rank change year-on-year +20 -12 -4
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 986 451 1,274
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 6.94% 6.57% 7.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.50% 7.31% 9.33%
Number of salaries quoted 669 313 1,015
10th Percentile £45,000 £41,250 £37,500
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +13.04% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £91,650 £94,500 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.45% +16.00% -13.79%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

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 the South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 10,382 6,169 13,648
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 73.09% 89.87% 84.63%
Number of salaries quoted 6,635 3,335 9,820
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £37,662 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £78,268
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the South East

Software Engineering
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Software Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the South East over the 6 months to 21 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineering in the South East

Software Engineering
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 Engineering within the South East region over the 6 months to 21 April 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 +29 426 £65,000 +1.56% 109
Hampshire +22 361 £65,000 - 125
Oxfordshire +13 193 £65,000 - 44
Buckinghamshire +29 131 £73,750 +22.92% 30
Berkshire +25 102 £67,500 +3.85% 35
Surrey -12 100 £65,000 -7.14% 34
Kent -44 31 £60,000 -4.00% 6
East Sussex +4 30 £65,000 +30.00% 17
West Sussex -18 23 £70,000 +86.67% 8
Isle of Wight -1 12 £45,000 -30.77%
Sussex -10 1 - - 5
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
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 3 (0.30%) Confluence
1 3 (0.30%) IIS
2 2 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.20%) CMS
3 1 (0.10%) Kinematics
Applications
1 15 (1.52%) CATIA
2 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.30%) AutoCAD
3 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.30%) Simulink
4 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
5 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.10%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.10%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 79 (8.01%) SaaS
2 78 (7.91%) AWS
3 77 (7.81%) Azure
4 26 (2.64%) GCP
5 14 (1.42%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (1.22%) GitHub
7 8 (0.81%) Figma
7 8 (0.81%) Serverless
7 8 (0.81%) Stripe
8 7 (0.71%) Power Platform
9 5 (0.51%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (0.30%) Azure Functions
10 3 (0.30%) Azure Machine Learning
10 3 (0.30%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.20%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (0.20%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.20%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (0.20%) GitHub Copilot
11 2 (0.20%) Prefect
12 1 (0.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 22 (2.23%) Wireless
2 12 (1.22%) Broadband
3 4 (0.41%) Software-Defined Radio
4 3 (0.30%) ATM
5 2 (0.20%) Firewall
5 2 (0.20%) Modbus
5 2 (0.20%) SpaceWire
5 2 (0.20%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.10%) DHCP
6 1 (0.10%) DNS
6 1 (0.10%) HTTP
6 1 (0.10%) Internet
6 1 (0.10%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (4.87%) SQL Server
2 12 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (0.51%) MongoDB
3 5 (0.51%) Power BI
4 3 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.20%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.20%) GIS
5 2 (0.20%) MySQL
5 2 (0.20%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 1 (0.10%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.10%) Big Data
6 1 (0.10%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.10%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.10%) Metadata
6 1 (0.10%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.10%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.10%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 43 (4.36%) Git
2 31 (3.14%) Rational DOORS
3 24 (2.43%) JIRA
4 15 (1.52%) GitLab
5 13 (1.32%) Visual Studio
5 13 (1.32%) Visual Studio Code
6 5 (0.51%) Apache Continuum
6 5 (0.51%) Postman
6 5 (0.51%) SpecFlow
7 3 (0.30%) MLflow
7 3 (0.30%) Yeoman
8 2 (0.20%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.20%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.10%) Appium
9 1 (0.10%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.10%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.10%) Katalon Studio
9 1 (0.10%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.10%) utPLSQL
9 1 (0.10%) Zephyr
General
1 86 (8.72%) Social Skills
2 57 (5.78%) Analytical Skills
3 40 (4.06%) Manufacturing
4 34 (3.45%) Aeronautics
5 30 (3.04%) Electronics
6 27 (2.74%) Finance
7 25 (2.54%) Aerospace
8 16 (1.62%) Public Sector
9 15 (1.52%) Games
10 14 (1.42%) Aviation
11 13 (1.32%) Military
12 10 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
13 8 (0.81%) Telecoms
14 5 (0.51%) Tech for Good
15 4 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
16 3 (0.30%) Health Technology
16 3 (0.30%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.30%) Retail
17 2 (0.20%) Automotive
17 2 (0.20%) Law
Job Titles
1 613 (62.17%) Software Engineer
2 224 (22.72%) Senior
3 164 (16.63%) Senior Software Engineer
4 111 (11.26%) Developer
5 100 (10.14%) C++ Software Engineer
6 99 (10.04%) Principal Engineer
7 95 (9.63%) Embedded Engineer
8 79 (8.01%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 72 (7.30%) Lead
10 64 (6.49%) Principal Software Engineer
11 52 (5.27%) Python Engineer
12 50 (5.07%) Python Software Engineer
12 50 (5.07%) Systems Engineer
13 42 (4.26%) C# Software Engineer
14 41 (4.16%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 41 (4.16%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
15 40 (4.06%) Senior Developer
15 40 (4.06%) Software Developer
16 38 (3.85%) .NET Software Engineer
17 35 (3.55%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (13.08%) .NET
2 50 (5.07%) React
3 23 (2.33%) REST
4 16 (1.62%) Node.js
5 15 (1.52%) .NET Core
5 15 (1.52%) AngularJS
5 15 (1.52%) ASP.NET
6 14 (1.42%) .NET Framework
7 13 (1.32%) CSS
7 13 (1.32%) Unreal Engine
8 11 (1.12%) Vue
9 10 (1.01%) HTML
9 10 (1.01%) OLE
10 9 (0.91%) Laravel
11 8 (0.81%) Django
11 8 (0.81%) Entity Framework
12 7 (0.71%) Blazor
12 7 (0.71%) Qt
13 6 (0.61%) TensorFlow
13 6 (0.61%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 75 (7.61%) Robotics
2 33 (3.35%) Algorithms
3 29 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
4 22 (2.23%) IoT
5 20 (2.03%) Embedded Systems
5 20 (2.03%) Smart Energy
6 18 (1.83%) Cloud Native
7 16 (1.62%) Product Ownership
8 15 (1.52%) Client/Server
9 10 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
10 9 (0.91%) Acoustics
10 9 (0.91%) Driving Licence
10 9 (0.91%) FPGA
10 9 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (0.81%) Management Information System
12 7 (0.71%) Augmented Reality
12 7 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (0.61%) Life Science
14 5 (0.51%) Video Conferencing
14 5 (0.51%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 50 (5.07%) Linux
2 19 (1.93%) Windows
3 15 (1.52%) Android
4 3 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
5 2 (0.20%) VxWorks
6 1 (0.10%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.10%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (12.88%) AI
2 115 (11.66%) Agile
3 109 (11.05%) Full-Stack Development
4 79 (8.01%) Problem-Solving
5 73 (7.40%) Computer Science
6 69 (7.00%) Continuous Improvement
7 62 (6.29%) CI/CD
8 57 (5.78%) DevOps
8 57 (5.78%) Technical Leadership
9 43 (4.36%) Test Automation
10 42 (4.26%) Systems Engineering
11 40 (4.06%) Machine Learning
12 36 (3.65%) Containerisation
12 36 (3.65%) IT Strategy
13 34 (3.45%) SDLC
13 34 (3.45%) Software Testing
14 29 (2.94%) Mentoring
14 29 (2.94%) Risk Management
15 28 (2.84%) Process Improvement
15 28 (2.84%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 173 (17.55%) C++
2 158 (16.02%) Python
3 143 (14.50%) C#
4 64 (6.49%) SQL
5 53 (5.38%) C
5 53 (5.38%) JavaScript
6 49 (4.97%) TypeScript
7 45 (4.56%) Java
8 25 (2.54%) Rust
9 14 (1.42%) PHP
10 9 (0.91%) Go
11 8 (0.81%) Ruby
12 7 (0.71%) MATLAB
12 7 (0.71%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 5 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
14 4 (0.41%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.41%) Delphi
15 3 (0.30%) Uniface
16 2 (0.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 132 (13.39%) Degree
2 92 (9.33%) Security Cleared
3 75 (7.61%) SC Cleared
4 57 (5.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 38 (3.85%) BPSS Clearance
6 30 (3.04%) Master's Degree
7 20 (2.03%) Chartered Engineer
8 14 (1.42%) PhD
9 9 (0.91%) DV Cleared
10 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.51%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.41%) HNC
13 3 (0.30%) HND
14 2 (0.20%) AWS Certification
14 2 (0.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.20%) NVQ Level 3
14 2 (0.20%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.20%) TOGAF Certification
15 1 (0.10%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (4.36%) QA
2 15 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 12207
2 15 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 15288
3 4 (0.41%) ECSS
3 4 (0.41%) GDPR
3 4 (0.41%) ISO 9001
4 3 (0.30%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.20%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.10%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.10%) MISRA
6 1 (0.10%) SOC 2
System Software
1 41 (4.16%) Docker
2 24 (2.43%) Firmware
3 14 (1.42%) Hyper-V
3 14 (1.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.32%) KVM
5 5 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.30%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.10%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 17 (1.72%) Kubernetes
2 6 (0.61%) Terraform
3 2 (0.20%) Ansible
4 1 (0.10%) Grafana
4 1 (0.10%) Nagios
4 1 (0.10%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 29 (2.94%) Microsoft
2 15 (1.52%) IBM
3 14 (1.42%) VMware
4 13 (1.32%) Oracle
5 8 (0.81%) HubSpot
6 4 (0.41%) Adobe
6 4 (0.41%) Google
6 4 (0.41%) Salesforce
7 3 (0.30%) Allen-Bradley
7 3 (0.30%) Siemens
7 3 (0.30%) Wonderware
8 2 (0.20%) Databricks
8 2 (0.20%) ESRI
8 2 (0.20%) Sage
8 2 (0.20%) Typelevel
8 2 (0.20%) Xamarin
9 1 (0.10%) NVIDIA