Software Engineer Job Trends in the South West

Software Engineer
England > South West

The median Software Engineer salary in the South West is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 11 November 2025.

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

6 months to
11 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 43 14 49
Rank change year-on-year -29 +35 -26
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 183 567 257
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 4.46% 9.47% 5.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.80% 10.05% 5.94%
Number of salaries quoted 115 310 194
10th Percentile £43,155 £40,000 £41,625
25th Percentile £53,750 £45,000 £46,575
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £70,000 £71,813
90th Percentile £88,250 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £75,000 £65,000 £69,447
% change year-on-year +15.38% -6.40% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the South West. 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 West with a recognized job title 3,814 5,639 4,323
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 94.20% 95.41%
Number of salaries quoted 2,557 3,453 3,345
10th Percentile £27,500 £30,000 £30,431
25th Percentile £31,250 £40,000 £40,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £51,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -2.86% +5.00%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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 West.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the South West

Software Engineer
Salary Trend in the South West

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

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

Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the South West over the 6 months to 11 November 2025.

Salary histogram for Software Engineer in the South West

Software Engineer
Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 11 November 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
Bristol -18 60 £62,500 - 100
Dorset -10 50 £60,000 +20.00% 14
Gloucestershire +9 47 £78,750 +12.50% 78
Somerset -13 11 £65,000 +8.33% 21
Wiltshire -29 6 £40,792 -9.35% 2
Devon -38 3 £45,000 -28.00% 9
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 11 November 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 West region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 183 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 54 (29.51%) Java
3 51 (27.87%) Agile
4 46 (25.14%) CI/CD
5 43 (23.50%) AWS
6 40 (21.86%) Security Cleared
7 36 (19.67%) Python
8 33 (18.03%) AI
9 32 (17.49%) JavaScript
10 31 (16.94%) Machine Learning
11 30 (16.39%) C++
12 29 (15.85%) React
13 27 (14.75%) Kubernetes
13 27 (14.75%) SDLC
14 26 (14.21%) Operational Stability
15 24 (13.11%) Spring
16 23 (12.57%) Community of Practice
16 23 (12.57%) DV Cleared
16 23 (12.57%) TypeScript
17 22 (12.02%) Continuous Improvement
17 22 (12.02%) Oracle
18 21 (11.48%) Full-Stack Development
18 21 (11.48%) SC Cleared
19 20 (10.93%) Git
20 19 (10.38%) Test Automation
21 18 (9.84%) Degree
21 18 (9.84%) HTML
21 18 (9.84%) Linux
22 17 (9.29%) Spring Boot
22 17 (9.29%) Visualisation

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 7 (3.83%) Apache
2 5 (2.73%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 43 (23.50%) AWS
2 11 (6.01%) Amazon S3
2 11 (6.01%) AWS Lambda
2 11 (6.01%) Serverless
3 9 (4.92%) Amazon ECS
3 9 (4.92%) Amazon EKS
4 4 (2.19%) Amazon Bedrock
4 4 (2.19%) Amazon SageMaker
4 4 (2.19%) Azure
5 3 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 2 (1.09%) Amazon EC2
6 2 (1.09%) Amazon MSK
6 2 (1.09%) Amazon OpenSearch
6 2 (1.09%) AWS Fargate
6 2 (1.09%) BlazeMeter
6 2 (1.09%) GitHub
6 2 (1.09%) OpenShift
7 1 (0.55%) Cloud Run
7 1 (0.55%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.55%) NuGet
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.19%) Software-Defined Radio
2 2 (1.09%) Internet
3 1 (0.55%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.55%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.55%) HbbTV
3 1 (0.55%) J1939
3 1 (0.55%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.37%) Elasticsearch
1 8 (4.37%) MongoDB
2 7 (3.83%) Relational Database
3 6 (3.28%) Oracle Database
4 5 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.64%) NoSQL
6 2 (1.09%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (1.09%) Apache Cassandra
6 2 (1.09%) Big Data
6 2 (1.09%) GIS
6 2 (1.09%) InterSystems Cache
6 2 (1.09%) MySQL
7 1 (0.55%) CockroachDB
7 1 (0.55%) DocumentDB
7 1 (0.55%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.55%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.55%) Neo4j
7 1 (0.55%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.55%) Redis
7 1 (0.55%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 20 (10.93%) Git
2 12 (6.56%) JUnit
3 11 (6.01%) Jenkins
4 8 (4.37%) GitLab
5 7 (3.83%) Selenium
6 6 (3.28%) Cypress.io
6 6 (3.28%) JIRA
7 5 (2.73%) Maven
8 4 (2.19%) Bitbucket
8 4 (2.19%) Locust
8 4 (2.19%) Oracle APEX
9 3 (1.64%) Mockito
10 2 (1.09%) Visual Studio
10 2 (1.09%) webpack
11 1 (0.55%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.55%) Gradle
11 1 (0.55%) LabVIEW
11 1 (0.55%) Zephyr
General
1 45 (24.59%) Finance
2 34 (18.58%) Law
3 33 (18.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 21 (11.48%) Marketing
5 20 (10.93%) Social Skills
6 14 (7.65%) Banking
7 9 (4.92%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (3.83%) Aerospace
8 7 (3.83%) Electronics
9 6 (3.28%) Public Sector
10 5 (2.73%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.64%) Automotive
11 3 (1.64%) Military
11 3 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.64%) Telecoms
12 2 (1.09%) Aeronautics
12 2 (1.09%) Games
13 1 (0.55%) Wholesale Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (15.85%) React
2 24 (13.11%) Spring
3 18 (9.84%) HTML
4 17 (9.29%) Spring Boot
5 14 (7.65%) CSS
6 11 (6.01%) AngularJS
6 11 (6.01%) Kafka
7 10 (5.46%) REST
8 9 (4.92%) Hibernate
9 8 (4.37%) Qt
9 8 (4.37%) RESTful
10 6 (3.28%) Apache NiFi
10 6 (3.28%) Node.js
10 6 (3.28%) Playwright
11 5 (2.73%) JSF
11 5 (2.73%) pytest
12 4 (2.19%) Jest
12 4 (2.19%) LAMP
12 4 (2.19%) Web Services
13 3 (1.64%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 18 (9.84%) Algorithms
2 15 (8.20%) Cloud Native
3 11 (6.01%) Embedded Systems
4 7 (3.83%) Public Cloud
5 4 (2.19%) Reference Data
5 4 (2.19%) Robotics
6 3 (1.64%) Data Structures
6 3 (1.64%) IoT
7 2 (1.09%) ARM Cortex
7 2 (1.09%) Legacy Code
7 2 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.09%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.09%) Wiki
8 1 (0.55%) CAN bus
8 1 (0.55%) Device Driver
8 1 (0.55%) Greenfield Project
8 1 (0.55%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.55%) PKI
8 1 (0.55%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.55%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 18 (9.84%) Linux
2 3 (1.64%) FreeRTOS
3 2 (1.09%) Windows
4 1 (0.55%) SafeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 51 (27.87%) Agile
3 46 (25.14%) CI/CD
4 33 (18.03%) AI
5 31 (16.94%) Machine Learning
6 27 (14.75%) SDLC
7 26 (14.21%) Operational Stability
8 23 (12.57%) Community of Practice
9 22 (12.02%) Continuous Improvement
10 21 (11.48%) Full-Stack Development
11 19 (10.38%) Test Automation
12 17 (9.29%) Visualisation
13 16 (8.74%) Microservices
13 16 (8.74%) Problem-Solving
14 13 (7.10%) Decision-Making
14 13 (7.10%) DevOps
14 13 (7.10%) Mentoring
15 11 (6.01%) Digital Signal Processing
15 11 (6.01%) Signal Processing
16 10 (5.46%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 54 (29.51%) Java
2 36 (19.67%) Python
3 32 (17.49%) JavaScript
4 30 (16.39%) C++
5 23 (12.57%) TypeScript
6 12 (6.56%) C
6 12 (6.56%) SQL
7 7 (3.83%) C#
7 7 (3.83%) Embedded C++
8 5 (2.73%) Rust
9 4 (2.19%) Kotlin
9 4 (2.19%) PHP
9 4 (2.19%) PL/SQL
9 4 (2.19%) T-SQL
10 2 (1.09%) VC++
11 1 (0.55%) Delphi
11 1 (0.55%) Embedded C
11 1 (0.55%) Go
11 1 (0.55%) Ruby
11 1 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 40 (21.86%) Security Cleared
2 23 (12.57%) DV Cleared
3 21 (11.48%) SC Cleared
4 18 (9.84%) Degree
5 4 (2.19%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.64%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.09%) AWS Certified Developer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.09%) ISO 9001
1 2 (1.09%) QA
2 1 (0.55%) DO-178B
2 1 (0.55%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.55%) IEC 62304
2 1 (0.55%) ISO 26262
2 1 (0.55%) JTAG
2 1 (0.55%) MISRA
System Software
1 14 (7.65%) Docker
Systems Management
1 27 (14.75%) Kubernetes
2 9 (4.92%) Kibana
3 4 (2.19%) Terraform
4 1 (0.55%) Grafana
Vendors
1 22 (12.02%) Oracle
2 9 (4.92%) Atlassian
3 6 (3.28%) Databricks
4 4 (2.19%) ServiceNow
5 3 (1.64%) Sybase
6 2 (1.09%) Google
6 2 (1.09%) Microsoft
6 2 (1.09%) SAP