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 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 42 14
Rank change year-on-year +28 -28 +46
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 519 151 814
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 6.69% 5.59% 9.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.12% 6.04% 9.36%
Number of salaries quoted 383 104 653
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £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 £79,375 £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 7,285 2,502 8,695
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.92% 92.63% 96.13%
Number of salaries quoted 4,999 1,621 6,620
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,160 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £35,500 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £68,750 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £53,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +7.48% -12.01%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 +13 207 £65,000 +8.33% 48
Gloucestershire +32 164 £70,000 +12.00% 42
Dorset +16 75 £50,000 +5.26% 10
Somerset -12 23 £60,000 -22.58% 19
Devon -11 21 £55,000 -8.33% 2
Wiltshire +3 17 £60,000 -7.69% 8
Cornwall -6 3 - -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 20 May 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.

1 519 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 114 (21.97%) Security Cleared
3 80 (15.41%) Java
4 78 (15.03%) Full-Stack Development
5 72 (13.87%) C++
6 66 (12.72%) SC Cleared
7 58 (11.18%) Agile
8 55 (10.60%) C#
9 51 (9.83%) Python
10 50 (9.63%) CI/CD
11 41 (7.90%) DevOps
12 37 (7.13%) DV Cleared
13 36 (6.94%) Linux
14 35 (6.74%) JavaScript
14 35 (6.74%) TypeScript
15 32 (6.17%) Kubernetes
16 30 (5.78%) Problem-Solving
16 30 (5.78%) React
17 29 (5.59%) .NET
18 28 (5.39%) AI
18 28 (5.39%) Docker
19 27 (5.20%) AWS
19 27 (5.20%) Vue
20 25 (4.82%) Mentoring
20 25 (4.82%) Test Automation
21 24 (4.62%) Platform Engineering
21 24 (4.62%) REST
21 24 (4.62%) Site Reliability Engineering
22 23 (4.43%) C
22 23 (4.43%) Microservices

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 (1.73%) Apache
2 3 (0.58%) CMS
3 2 (0.39%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.39%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 2 (0.39%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 27 (5.20%) AWS
2 14 (2.70%) Azure
3 12 (2.31%) SaaS
4 11 (2.12%) Azure AKS
5 8 (1.54%) GCP
5 8 (1.54%) GitHub
6 5 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
6 5 (0.96%) AWS Lambda
6 5 (0.96%) Serverless
7 4 (0.77%) Amazon S3
8 3 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.39%) Amazon ECS
9 2 (0.39%) Amazon SQS
9 2 (0.39%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (0.39%) OpenShift
10 1 (0.19%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.19%) AWS Fargate
10 1 (0.19%) Cloud Functions
10 1 (0.19%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.73%) Wireless
2 5 (0.96%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.77%) Broadband
4 2 (0.39%) AMQP
4 2 (0.39%) DNS
4 2 (0.39%) HTTP
4 2 (0.39%) Network Security
4 2 (0.39%) SMTP
4 2 (0.39%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.19%) Modbus
5 1 (0.19%) Profibus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.12%) Elasticsearch
1 11 (2.12%) SQL Server
2 10 (1.93%) MySQL
3 8 (1.54%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.16%) Big Data
4 6 (1.16%) NoSQL
5 5 (0.96%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.58%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.39%) Cloudera CDH
7 2 (0.39%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.39%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.19%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.19%) Redis
8 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 16 (3.08%) Git
2 9 (1.73%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.35%) GitLab
3 7 (1.35%) JUnit
4 6 (1.16%) SonarQube
5 5 (0.96%) Cucumber
5 5 (0.96%) JIRA
6 4 (0.77%) Gradle
7 2 (0.39%) Android Studio
7 2 (0.39%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.39%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.39%) Maven
7 2 (0.39%) Mockito
7 2 (0.39%) PROIV
7 2 (0.39%) Subversion
7 2 (0.39%) Xcode
8 1 (0.19%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.19%) JMeter
8 1 (0.19%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.19%) Visual Studio
General
1 24 (4.62%) Aerospace
2 15 (2.89%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (2.70%) Automotive
3 14 (2.70%) Social Skills
4 13 (2.50%) Finance
5 11 (2.12%) Electronics
5 11 (2.12%) Manufacturing
6 8 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
7 6 (1.16%) Social Housing
7 6 (1.16%) Tech for Good
8 5 (0.96%) Aviation
9 4 (0.77%) Aeronautics
9 4 (0.77%) Military
10 2 (0.39%) Avionics
10 2 (0.39%) Law
10 2 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.39%) Public Sector
10 2 (0.39%) Wearables
11 1 (0.19%) Marketing
11 1 (0.19%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (5.78%) React
2 29 (5.59%) .NET
3 27 (5.20%) Vue
4 24 (4.62%) REST
5 19 (3.66%) AngularJS
5 19 (3.66%) Node.js
6 18 (3.47%) WPF
7 16 (3.08%) Spring
8 14 (2.70%) Spring Boot
9 13 (2.50%) .NET Core
9 13 (2.50%) HTML
10 12 (2.31%) .NET Framework
10 12 (2.31%) RESTful
11 11 (2.12%) Dapper ORM
11 11 (2.12%) Entity Framework
12 8 (1.54%) ASP.NET
13 6 (1.16%) Apache NiFi
13 6 (1.16%) CSS
13 6 (1.16%) gRPC
14 5 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 15 (2.89%) Algorithms
1 15 (2.89%) Embedded Systems
2 13 (2.50%) Cloud Native
3 8 (1.54%) IoT
3 8 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
3 8 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (1.16%) Smart Home
5 5 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (0.77%) Device Driver
6 4 (0.77%) Mobile App
7 3 (0.58%) ARM Cortex
7 3 (0.58%) Fat Client
7 3 (0.58%) Operational Technology
7 3 (0.58%) Over-the-Top Content
7 3 (0.58%) Thin Client
7 3 (0.58%) Video\Live Streaming
8 2 (0.39%) Data Structures
8 2 (0.39%) Product Ownership
8 2 (0.39%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.39%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 36 (6.94%) Linux
2 10 (1.93%) Android
3 9 (1.73%) Windows
4 6 (1.16%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (0.77%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.39%) CentOS
6 2 (0.39%) Debian
6 2 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.39%) SafeRTOS
6 2 (0.39%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.19%) ThreadX
7 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 519 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 78 (15.03%) Full-Stack Development
3 58 (11.18%) Agile
4 50 (9.63%) CI/CD
5 41 (7.90%) DevOps
6 30 (5.78%) Problem-Solving
7 28 (5.39%) AI
8 25 (4.82%) Mentoring
8 25 (4.82%) Test Automation
9 24 (4.62%) Platform Engineering
9 24 (4.62%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 23 (4.43%) Microservices
10 23 (4.43%) SDLC
11 21 (4.05%) Containerisation
11 21 (4.05%) Continuous Improvement
12 19 (3.66%) Embedded Software Development
13 17 (3.28%) Clean Code
13 17 (3.28%) Performance Optimisation
14 16 (3.08%) Data Science
14 16 (3.08%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 80 (15.41%) Java
2 72 (13.87%) C++
3 55 (10.60%) C#
4 51 (9.83%) Python
5 35 (6.74%) JavaScript
5 35 (6.74%) TypeScript
6 23 (4.43%) C
7 17 (3.28%) SQL
8 13 (2.50%) Rust
9 12 (2.31%) Embedded C++
10 11 (2.12%) Go
10 11 (2.12%) Kotlin
11 10 (1.93%) Bash
12 8 (1.54%) PHP
13 4 (0.77%) Embedded C
13 4 (0.77%) PowerShell
13 4 (0.77%) Scala
14 2 (0.39%) Swift
15 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 114 (21.97%) Security Cleared
2 66 (12.72%) SC Cleared
3 37 (7.13%) DV Cleared
4 13 (2.50%) Degree
5 4 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.58%) CEH
6 3 (0.58%) OSCP
7 1 (0.19%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.58%) Accessibility
1 3 (0.58%) QA
2 1 (0.19%) DO-254
2 1 (0.19%) HAZOP
2 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.19%) IEC 62304
2 1 (0.19%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 28 (5.39%) Docker
2 18 (3.47%) Firmware
3 2 (0.39%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 32 (6.17%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.70%) Terraform
3 10 (1.93%) Ansible
4 6 (1.16%) Kibana
5 5 (0.96%) Grafana
5 5 (0.96%) logstash
6 3 (0.58%) Plesk
6 3 (0.58%) SCCM
6 3 (0.58%) SCOM
6 3 (0.58%) SCOrch
7 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.39%) Podman
7 2 (0.39%) Puppet
Vendors
1 5 (0.96%) Microsoft
1 5 (0.96%) Oracle
2 4 (0.77%) Google
2 4 (0.77%) Peregrine
3 2 (0.39%) Atlassian
3 2 (0.39%) OpenAI
3 2 (0.39%) Red Hat
3 2 (0.39%) SaltStack
3 2 (0.39%) Typelevel
3 2 (0.39%) VMware
4 1 (0.19%) Palantir
4 1 (0.19%) SAP
4 1 (0.19%) TOWER Software