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 30 January 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 22 24
Rank change year-on-year -2 +2 +15
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 300 339 512
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 5.56% 8.70% 8.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.96% 9.28% 8.72%
Number of salaries quoted 231 142 416
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £57,443 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +13.16% -0.10% -4.17%
75th Percentile £70,000 £76,250 £71,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £64,500
% change year-on-year - +8.53% -7.12%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
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 5,030 3,654 5,869
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.17% 93.76% 96.18%
Number of salaries quoted 3,487 1,893 4,608
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,750 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £36,919
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £77,560
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%

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 30 January 2026.

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 30 January 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
Bristol +4 145 £65,000 +8.33% 70
Gloucestershire +21 71 £70,000 +16.67% 60
Dorset -15 35 £55,000 +10.00% 21
Devon -12 16 £45,000 -28.00% 10
Wiltshire -8 11 £60,000 +50.00% 11
Somerset -25 7 £65,000 - 20
Cornwall -12 1 - - 2
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 30 January 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 West region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 300 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 67 (22.33%) Security Cleared
3 63 (21.00%) Java
4 44 (14.67%) Python
5 40 (13.33%) Full-Stack Development
6 38 (12.67%) Agile
7 36 (12.00%) AWS
8 35 (11.67%) React
9 34 (11.33%) CI/CD
9 34 (11.33%) TypeScript
10 32 (10.67%) Kubernetes
11 31 (10.33%) C#
11 31 (10.33%) C++
11 31 (10.33%) JavaScript
11 31 (10.33%) SC Cleared
12 28 (9.33%) Linux
13 27 (9.00%) Problem-Solving
14 25 (8.33%) Degree
15 24 (8.00%) DevOps
16 22 (7.33%) .NET
16 22 (7.33%) Spring
17 20 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement
18 19 (6.33%) DV Cleared
19 18 (6.00%) AI
19 18 (6.00%) Spring Boot
19 18 (6.00%) Test Automation
20 17 (5.67%) Mentoring
20 17 (5.67%) Microservices
21 16 (5.33%) Docker
22 15 (5.00%) Oracle

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 9 (3.00%) Apache
2 5 (1.67%) Confluence
3 2 (0.67%) CMS
4 1 (0.33%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (0.67%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 36 (12.00%) AWS
2 13 (4.33%) Azure
3 11 (3.67%) AWS Lambda
3 11 (3.67%) Serverless
4 10 (3.33%) Amazon S3
5 9 (3.00%) Amazon EKS
6 7 (2.33%) Amazon ECS
6 7 (2.33%) SaaS
7 6 (2.00%) Azure AKS
8 4 (1.33%) GCP
9 3 (1.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 3 (1.00%) Amazon EC2
9 3 (1.00%) Amazon SQS
9 3 (1.00%) AWS Fargate
9 3 (1.00%) GitHub
9 3 (1.00%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.67%) Amazon MSK
10 2 (0.67%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 2 (0.67%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.33%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.33%) DNS
1 4 (1.33%) HTTP
1 4 (1.33%) SMTP
1 4 (1.33%) Software-Defined Radio
1 4 (1.33%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.33%) AMQP
2 1 (0.33%) Bluetooth
2 1 (0.33%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (4.00%) Elasticsearch
2 7 (2.33%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.67%) MongoDB
3 5 (1.67%) NoSQL
3 5 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (1.33%) Neo4j
5 3 (1.00%) MySQL
5 3 (1.00%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.67%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.33%) Big Data
7 1 (0.33%) Cloudera CDH
7 1 (0.33%) DocumentDB
7 1 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.33%) GIS
7 1 (0.33%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.33%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.33%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 14 (4.67%) Git
2 9 (3.00%) JUnit
3 7 (2.33%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.00%) GitLab
5 5 (1.67%) JIRA
6 4 (1.33%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.33%) Oracle APEX
7 3 (1.00%) Cypress.io
7 3 (1.00%) Gradle
7 3 (1.00%) Maven
8 2 (0.67%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.67%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.67%) PROIV
8 2 (0.67%) Xcode
9 1 (0.33%) Gatling
9 1 (0.33%) JMeter
9 1 (0.33%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.33%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.33%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.33%) Zephyr
General
1 22 (7.33%) Finance
2 17 (5.67%) Aerospace
3 16 (5.33%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (5.00%) Social Skills
5 9 (3.00%) Automotive
6 8 (2.67%) Manufacturing
6 8 (2.67%) Pharmaceutical
7 7 (2.33%) Aeronautics
7 7 (2.33%) Electronics
7 7 (2.33%) Public Sector
8 4 (1.33%) Military
9 3 (1.00%) Law
9 3 (1.00%) Marketing
9 3 (1.00%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.67%) Games
10 2 (0.67%) Social Housing
10 2 (0.67%) Tech for Good
11 1 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (11.67%) React
2 22 (7.33%) .NET
2 22 (7.33%) Spring
3 18 (6.00%) Spring Boot
4 15 (5.00%) REST
5 13 (4.33%) Node.js
6 12 (4.00%) AngularJS
6 12 (4.00%) HTML
7 10 (3.33%) Qt
7 10 (3.33%) RESTful
8 9 (3.00%) CSS
9 8 (2.67%) .NET Core
9 8 (2.67%) ASP.NET
10 6 (2.00%) .NET Framework
10 6 (2.00%) Apache NiFi
10 6 (2.00%) Dapper ORM
10 6 (2.00%) Entity Framework
10 6 (2.00%) Hibernate
10 6 (2.00%) Vue
11 5 (1.67%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 16 (5.33%) Cloud Native
2 10 (3.33%) Robotics
3 9 (3.00%) Self-Motivation
4 8 (2.67%) Embedded Systems
5 5 (1.67%) IoT
6 4 (1.33%) Algorithms
6 4 (1.33%) GNSS
6 4 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (1.33%) Satnav
7 2 (0.67%) Mobile App
7 2 (0.67%) Smart Home
8 1 (0.33%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.33%) Legacy Code
8 1 (0.33%) Management Information System
8 1 (0.33%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.33%) Over-the-Top Content
8 1 (0.33%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.33%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.33%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 28 (9.33%) Linux
2 4 (1.33%) Windows
3 2 (0.67%) Android
4 1 (0.33%) CentOS
4 1 (0.33%) Debian
4 1 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.33%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 300 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 40 (13.33%) Full-Stack Development
3 38 (12.67%) Agile
4 34 (11.33%) CI/CD
5 27 (9.00%) Problem-Solving
6 24 (8.00%) DevOps
7 20 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement
8 18 (6.00%) AI
8 18 (6.00%) Test Automation
9 17 (5.67%) Mentoring
9 17 (5.67%) Microservices
10 13 (4.33%) Digital Signal Processing
10 13 (4.33%) Signal Processing
11 11 (3.67%) Collaborative Culture
11 11 (3.67%) Machine Learning
12 10 (3.33%) MVC
12 10 (3.33%) Performance Optimisation
12 10 (3.33%) Scrum
13 9 (3.00%) Coaching
13 9 (3.00%) Secure Coding
Programming Languages
1 63 (21.00%) Java
2 44 (14.67%) Python
3 34 (11.33%) TypeScript
4 31 (10.33%) C#
4 31 (10.33%) C++
4 31 (10.33%) JavaScript
5 14 (4.67%) SQL
6 12 (4.00%) C
7 9 (3.00%) Embedded C++
8 7 (2.33%) Kotlin
8 7 (2.33%) Rust
9 5 (1.67%) Bash
9 5 (1.67%) PHP
10 4 (1.33%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.33%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.67%) Scala
11 2 (0.67%) Swift
12 1 (0.33%) Delphi
12 1 (0.33%) Go
12 1 (0.33%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 67 (22.33%) Security Cleared
2 31 (10.33%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.33%) Degree
4 19 (6.33%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.33%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.33%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.00%) QA
2 1 (0.33%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 16 (5.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 32 (10.67%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.67%) Terraform
3 7 (2.33%) Kibana
4 2 (0.67%) Ansible
4 2 (0.67%) Grafana
5 1 (0.33%) logstash
5 1 (0.33%) Puppet
Vendors
1 15 (5.00%) Oracle
2 5 (1.67%) Atlassian
3 3 (1.00%) SAP
4 2 (0.67%) Google
5 1 (0.33%) Palantir
5 1 (0.33%) Red Hat
5 1 (0.33%) SaltStack