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 12 April 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 37 18
Rank change year-on-year +21 -19 +41
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 474 168 769
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 6.61% 6.37% 9.01%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.03% 6.88% 9.38%
Number of salaries quoted 353 108 621
10th Percentile £42,500 £43,375 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,463 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £93,778 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -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 6,747 2,442 8,200
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.10% 92.54% 96.03%
Number of salaries quoted 4,665 1,641 6,302
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,600 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.94% +5.20% -
75th Percentile £66,250 £68,114 £64,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £54,750
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.59% -9.13%

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 12 April 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 12 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
Bristol +11 183 £65,000 +8.33% 49
Gloucestershire +37 153 £70,000 +16.67% 47
Dorset +7 63 £55,000 +4.76% 10
Devon -3 24 £45,000 -30.77% 7
Wiltshire -2 17 £60,000 -7.69% 11
Somerset -18 17 £65,000 -8.77% 20
Cornwall -15 2 - - 1
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 12 April 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.

1 474 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 103 (21.73%) Security Cleared
3 84 (17.72%) Java
4 67 (14.14%) Full-Stack Development
5 57 (12.03%) Python
5 57 (12.03%) SC Cleared
6 55 (11.60%) C++
7 51 (10.76%) Agile
8 44 (9.28%) C#
9 41 (8.65%) TypeScript
10 40 (8.44%) CI/CD
11 39 (8.23%) JavaScript
11 39 (8.23%) Kubernetes
12 37 (7.81%) AWS
13 36 (7.59%) DV Cleared
14 35 (7.38%) DevOps
15 34 (7.17%) Linux
16 33 (6.96%) React
17 32 (6.75%) Problem-Solving
18 30 (6.33%) AI
19 29 (6.12%) Docker
20 27 (5.70%) .NET
21 24 (5.06%) Continuous Improvement
21 24 (5.06%) Test Automation
22 22 (4.64%) Mentoring
22 22 (4.64%) REST
23 20 (4.22%) C
23 20 (4.22%) Spring
24 19 (4.01%) Containerisation
24 19 (4.01%) Git

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 (1.69%) Apache
2 3 (0.63%) CMS
3 2 (0.42%) Confluence
4 1 (0.21%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (0.42%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 37 (7.81%) AWS
2 12 (2.53%) Azure
2 12 (2.53%) SaaS
3 11 (2.32%) Azure AKS
4 7 (1.48%) AWS Lambda
4 7 (1.48%) Serverless
5 6 (1.27%) Amazon EKS
5 6 (1.27%) Amazon S3
5 6 (1.27%) GCP
6 5 (1.05%) GitHub
7 4 (0.84%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (0.63%) Amazon SQS
8 3 (0.63%) OpenShift
9 2 (0.42%) Amazon EC2
9 2 (0.42%) AWS Fargate
9 2 (0.42%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 1 (0.21%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.05%) Wireless
2 4 (0.84%) DNS
2 4 (0.84%) HTTP
2 4 (0.84%) SMTP
2 4 (0.84%) TCP/IP
3 3 (0.63%) Broadband
3 3 (0.63%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.42%) Network Security
5 1 (0.21%) AMQP
5 1 (0.21%) Modbus
5 1 (0.21%) Profibus
5 1 (0.21%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.53%) SQL Server
2 11 (2.32%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (1.48%) MySQL
4 6 (1.27%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.27%) NoSQL
4 6 (1.27%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.84%) Neo4j
6 3 (0.63%) Oracle Database
6 3 (0.63%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.42%) Big Data
7 2 (0.42%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.21%) Cloudera CDH
8 1 (0.21%) DocumentDB
8 1 (0.21%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.21%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.21%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 19 (4.01%) Git
2 8 (1.69%) JUnit
3 6 (1.27%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.05%) GitLab
5 4 (0.84%) Gradle
5 4 (0.84%) JIRA
6 3 (0.63%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.42%) Android Studio
7 2 (0.42%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.42%) Maven
7 2 (0.42%) PROIV
7 2 (0.42%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.42%) Subversion
7 2 (0.42%) Xcode
8 1 (0.21%) Gatling
8 1 (0.21%) JMeter
8 1 (0.21%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
8 1 (0.21%) Selenium
8 1 (0.21%) TeamCity
General
1 27 (5.70%) Aerospace
2 21 (4.43%) Finance
3 17 (3.59%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (3.38%) Social Skills
5 15 (3.16%) Automotive
6 11 (2.32%) Electronics
7 10 (2.11%) Manufacturing
8 8 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
9 7 (1.48%) Aeronautics
10 5 (1.05%) Military
10 5 (1.05%) Public Sector
11 3 (0.63%) Law
11 3 (0.63%) Marketing
11 3 (0.63%) Social Housing
11 3 (0.63%) Tech for Good
11 3 (0.63%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.42%) Aviation
12 2 (0.42%) Avionics
12 2 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (6.96%) React
2 27 (5.70%) .NET
3 22 (4.64%) REST
4 20 (4.22%) Spring
5 18 (3.80%) HTML
5 18 (3.80%) Node.js
6 17 (3.59%) AngularJS
7 16 (3.38%) Spring Boot
8 13 (2.74%) .NET Core
9 12 (2.53%) Vue
10 11 (2.32%) .NET Framework
10 11 (2.32%) Dapper ORM
10 11 (2.32%) Entity Framework
10 11 (2.32%) RESTful
11 9 (1.90%) WPF
12 8 (1.69%) ASP.NET
13 7 (1.48%) CSS
14 6 (1.27%) Qt
15 5 (1.05%) Apache NiFi
16 4 (0.84%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 16 (3.38%) Cloud Native
2 10 (2.11%) Algorithms
2 10 (2.11%) Embedded Systems
2 10 (2.11%) Robotics
2 10 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
3 6 (1.27%) IoT
4 5 (1.05%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (0.84%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (0.84%) GNSS
5 4 (0.84%) Satnav
6 3 (0.63%) ARM Cortex
6 3 (0.63%) Mobile App
6 3 (0.63%) Over-the-Top Content
6 3 (0.63%) Smart Home
6 3 (0.63%) Video\Live Streaming
7 2 (0.42%) Device Driver
7 2 (0.42%) Driving Licence
7 2 (0.42%) Fat Client
7 2 (0.42%) Raspberry Pi
7 2 (0.42%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 34 (7.17%) Linux
2 8 (1.69%) Windows
3 5 (1.05%) Android
3 5 (1.05%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (0.42%) SafeRTOS
4 2 (0.42%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.21%) CentOS
5 1 (0.21%) Debian
5 1 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.21%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 474 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 67 (14.14%) Full-Stack Development
3 51 (10.76%) Agile
4 40 (8.44%) CI/CD
5 35 (7.38%) DevOps
6 32 (6.75%) Problem-Solving
7 30 (6.33%) AI
8 24 (5.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 24 (5.06%) Test Automation
9 22 (4.64%) Mentoring
10 19 (4.01%) Containerisation
11 18 (3.80%) Platform Engineering
11 18 (3.80%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 17 (3.59%) Embedded Software Development
12 17 (3.59%) SDLC
13 16 (3.38%) Microservices
13 16 (3.38%) Performance Optimisation
14 14 (2.95%) Data Science
15 13 (2.74%) Secure Coding
16 12 (2.53%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 84 (17.72%) Java
2 57 (12.03%) Python
3 55 (11.60%) C++
4 44 (9.28%) C#
5 41 (8.65%) TypeScript
6 39 (8.23%) JavaScript
7 20 (4.22%) C
8 19 (4.01%) SQL
9 10 (2.11%) Embedded C++
10 9 (1.90%) Kotlin
10 9 (1.90%) PHP
11 8 (1.69%) Rust
12 7 (1.48%) Bash
12 7 (1.48%) Go
13 3 (0.63%) Embedded C
13 3 (0.63%) PowerShell
13 3 (0.63%) Scala
14 2 (0.42%) Swift
15 1 (0.21%) Delphi
15 1 (0.21%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 103 (21.73%) Security Cleared
2 57 (12.03%) SC Cleared
3 36 (7.59%) DV Cleared
4 18 (3.80%) Degree
5 2 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.21%) CEH
6 1 (0.21%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.21%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.63%) QA
2 1 (0.21%) Accessibility
2 1 (0.21%) DO-254
2 1 (0.21%) HAZOP
2 1 (0.21%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.21%) IEC 62304
2 1 (0.21%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 29 (6.12%) Docker
2 9 (1.90%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 39 (8.23%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.11%) Terraform
3 5 (1.05%) Ansible
4 4 (0.84%) Kibana
5 3 (0.63%) Grafana
6 2 (0.42%) logstash
6 2 (0.42%) SCCM
6 2 (0.42%) SCOM
6 2 (0.42%) SCOrch
7 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.21%) Plesk
7 1 (0.21%) Podman
7 1 (0.21%) Puppet
Vendors
1 11 (2.32%) Oracle
2 3 (0.63%) Microsoft
2 3 (0.63%) SAP
3 2 (0.42%) Atlassian
3 2 (0.42%) Typelevel
4 1 (0.21%) Google
4 1 (0.21%) OpenAI
4 1 (0.21%) Palantir
4 1 (0.21%) Red Hat
4 1 (0.21%) SaltStack
4 1 (0.21%) VMware