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 17 June 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 37 12
Rank change year-on-year +24 -25 +64
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 533 166 986
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 6.83% 5.87% 9.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.26% 6.36% 9.92%
Number of salaries quoted 395 91 763
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,687 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +13.04% -5.74%
75th Percentile £75,000 £82,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £95,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £77,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -9.68% +29.17% -14.29%

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 7,340 2,610 9,942
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.03% 92.32% 96.04%
Number of salaries quoted 5,135 1,694 7,395
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £34,500 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,250 £64,875
90th Percentile £82,500 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,239 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -0.45% +9.52% -12.86%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 +14 203 £65,000 +4.00% 79
Gloucestershire +34 177 £70,000 +7.69% 73
Dorset +3 71 £50,000 +5.26% 41
Somerset -11 31 £60,000 -22.58% 12
Devon -13 23 £55,000 - 39
Wiltshire +2 20 £60,000 -7.69% 4
Cornwall - 3 - -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 17 June 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.

1 533 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 111 (20.83%) Security Cleared
3 84 (15.76%) C++
4 83 (15.57%) Full-Stack Development
4 83 (15.57%) Java
5 68 (12.76%) SC Cleared
6 66 (12.38%) Agile
7 64 (12.01%) C#
8 58 (10.88%) CI/CD
9 56 (10.51%) Python
10 46 (8.63%) DevOps
11 38 (7.13%) Linux
12 36 (6.75%) DV Cleared
13 35 (6.57%) JavaScript
14 34 (6.38%) Kubernetes
15 32 (6.00%) Mentoring
16 31 (5.82%) Microservices
16 31 (5.82%) Vue
17 29 (5.44%) AI
18 28 (5.25%) Docker
18 28 (5.25%) SDLC
18 28 (5.25%) TypeScript
18 28 (5.25%) WPF
19 27 (5.07%) AWS
19 27 (5.07%) Platform Engineering
19 27 (5.07%) Site Reliability Engineering
20 26 (4.88%) Containerisation
21 25 (4.69%) C
22 24 (4.50%) .NET
22 24 (4.50%) Embedded Software Development

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 8 (1.50%) Apache
2 3 (0.56%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.38%) CMS
4 1 (0.19%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 2 (0.38%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 27 (5.07%) AWS
2 18 (3.38%) Azure
3 13 (2.44%) SaaS
4 11 (2.06%) Azure AKS
4 11 (2.06%) GCP
5 8 (1.50%) GitHub
6 5 (0.94%) Amazon EKS
6 5 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
6 5 (0.94%) Serverless
7 3 (0.56%) Amazon S3
7 3 (0.56%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (0.56%) OpenShift
8 2 (0.38%) Amazon ECS
8 2 (0.38%) Amazon SQS
8 2 (0.38%) Anthropic Claude
8 2 (0.38%) Cloud Run
8 2 (0.38%) Firebase
8 2 (0.38%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.19%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 1 (0.19%) Cloud Functions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.06%) Wireless
2 7 (1.31%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.75%) Broadband
4 3 (0.56%) AMQP
5 2 (0.38%) Network Security
5 2 (0.38%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.19%) Modbus
6 1 (0.19%) MQTT
6 1 (0.19%) Profibus
6 1 (0.19%) RS-232
6 1 (0.19%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.06%) SQL Server
2 9 (1.69%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (1.50%) MongoDB
3 8 (1.50%) MySQL
3 8 (1.50%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (1.31%) Big Data
5 6 (1.13%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.56%) Cloudera CDH
6 3 (0.56%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.56%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.19%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.19%) Neo4j
7 1 (0.19%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.19%) Redis
7 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 17 (3.19%) Git
2 8 (1.50%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.31%) GitLab
4 6 (1.13%) SonarQube
5 5 (0.94%) Cucumber
5 5 (0.94%) JIRA
6 4 (0.75%) Gradle
7 3 (0.56%) JUnit
8 2 (0.38%) Maven
8 2 (0.38%) Mockito
8 2 (0.38%) PROIV
8 2 (0.38%) Subversion
8 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.19%) Android Studio
9 1 (0.19%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.19%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.19%) GoogleTest
General
1 23 (4.32%) Aerospace
2 15 (2.81%) Electronics
2 15 (2.81%) Social Skills
3 13 (2.44%) Automotive
4 12 (2.25%) Manufacturing
5 10 (1.88%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (1.88%) Finance
6 7 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
7 5 (0.94%) Aviation
7 5 (0.94%) Social Housing
7 5 (0.94%) Tech for Good
8 2 (0.38%) Avionics
8 2 (0.38%) Law
8 2 (0.38%) Military
8 2 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.38%) Public Sector
8 2 (0.38%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (5.82%) Vue
2 28 (5.25%) WPF
3 24 (4.50%) .NET
3 24 (4.50%) React
3 24 (4.50%) REST
4 22 (4.13%) Spring
5 20 (3.75%) Node.js
6 18 (3.38%) AngularJS
7 13 (2.44%) .NET Framework
7 13 (2.44%) Spring Boot
8 12 (2.25%) .NET Core
8 12 (2.25%) HTML
9 11 (2.06%) Dapper ORM
9 11 (2.06%) Entity Framework
9 11 (2.06%) RESTful
10 7 (1.31%) gRPC
11 6 (1.13%) ASP.NET
12 5 (0.94%) Apache NiFi
12 5 (0.94%) CSS
12 5 (0.94%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 20 (3.75%) Embedded Systems
2 15 (2.81%) Algorithms
3 13 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (2.25%) Cloud Native
5 7 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (1.13%) Device Driver
7 5 (0.94%) IoT
7 5 (0.94%) Smart Home
8 4 (0.75%) ARM Cortex
8 4 (0.75%) Public Cloud
8 4 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (0.56%) Fat Client
9 3 (0.56%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.56%) Operational Technology
9 3 (0.56%) Over-the-Top Content
9 3 (0.56%) Thin Client
9 3 (0.56%) Video\Live Streaming
10 2 (0.38%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.38%) PKI
10 2 (0.38%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 38 (7.13%) Linux
2 11 (2.06%) Android
3 10 (1.88%) Windows
4 6 (1.13%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (0.94%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.56%) CentOS
6 3 (0.56%) Debian
6 3 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.56%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.38%) SafeRTOS
7 2 (0.38%) Unix
7 2 (0.38%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.19%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 533 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 83 (15.57%) Full-Stack Development
3 66 (12.38%) Agile
4 58 (10.88%) CI/CD
5 46 (8.63%) DevOps
6 32 (6.00%) Mentoring
7 31 (5.82%) Microservices
8 29 (5.44%) AI
9 28 (5.25%) SDLC
10 27 (5.07%) Platform Engineering
10 27 (5.07%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 26 (4.88%) Containerisation
12 24 (4.50%) Embedded Software Development
12 24 (4.50%) Test Automation
13 22 (4.13%) Problem-Solving
14 21 (3.94%) Continuous Improvement
15 20 (3.75%) Software Architecture
16 17 (3.19%) Clean Code
17 16 (3.00%) Migration
17 16 (3.00%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 84 (15.76%) C++
2 83 (15.57%) Java
3 64 (12.01%) C#
4 56 (10.51%) Python
5 35 (6.57%) JavaScript
6 28 (5.25%) TypeScript
7 25 (4.69%) C
8 18 (3.38%) Embedded C++
9 16 (3.00%) SQL
10 14 (2.63%) Rust
11 11 (2.06%) Go
11 11 (2.06%) Kotlin
12 9 (1.69%) Bash
13 7 (1.31%) PHP
14 4 (0.75%) Embedded C
14 4 (0.75%) MATLAB
14 4 (0.75%) PowerShell
14 4 (0.75%) Scala
15 1 (0.19%) Assembly Language
15 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 111 (20.83%) Security Cleared
2 68 (12.76%) SC Cleared
3 36 (6.75%) DV Cleared
4 12 (2.25%) Degree
5 3 (0.56%) CEH
5 3 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (0.56%) OSCP
6 2 (0.38%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.38%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.75%) QA
2 3 (0.56%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.19%) DO-178B
3 1 (0.19%) DO-254
3 1 (0.19%) HAZOP
3 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
3 1 (0.19%) IEC 62304
3 1 (0.19%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 28 (5.25%) Docker
2 21 (3.94%) Firmware
3 2 (0.38%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 34 (6.38%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.81%) Terraform
3 12 (2.25%) Ansible
4 5 (0.94%) Grafana
4 5 (0.94%) Kibana
4 5 (0.94%) logstash
5 3 (0.56%) Plesk
5 3 (0.56%) Puppet
5 3 (0.56%) SCCM
5 3 (0.56%) SCOM
5 3 (0.56%) SCOrch
6 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.38%) Podman
Vendors
1 5 (0.94%) Google
1 5 (0.94%) Microsoft
2 4 (0.75%) Peregrine
3 3 (0.56%) OpenAI
3 3 (0.56%) Oracle
3 3 (0.56%) Red Hat
3 3 (0.56%) SaltStack
4 2 (0.38%) Typelevel
4 2 (0.38%) VMware
5 1 (0.19%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.19%) Intel
5 1 (0.19%) TOWER Software