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 27 February 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 26 23
Rank change year-on-year +5 -3 +20
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 353 259 575
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 5.84% 7.68% 8.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.25% 8.20% 9.02%
Number of salaries quoted 263 113 470
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £47,231 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £70,000 £78,750 £70,938
90th Percentile £80,000 £93,022 £80,125
England median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.45% +16.00% -7.41%

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 5,646 3,158 6,377
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.40% 93.63% 95.88%
Number of salaries quoted 3,952 1,664 5,046
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,913 £28,218
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,250 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £54,380 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.05% +8.76% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,525 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 +5 156 £65,000 +8.33% 35
Gloucestershire +36 93 £75,000 +25.00% 37
Dorset -8 47 £55,000 +10.00% 7
Devon -15 19 £45,000 -30.77% 5
Wiltshire 0 13 £60,000 - 7
Somerset -31 8 £65,000 -3.70% 10
Cornwall -15 2 - -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 27 February 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.

1 353 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 82 (23.23%) Security Cleared
3 75 (21.25%) Java
4 52 (14.73%) Full-Stack Development
5 49 (13.88%) Python
6 44 (12.46%) SC Cleared
7 43 (12.18%) Agile
8 40 (11.33%) Kubernetes
9 39 (11.05%) C++
10 38 (10.76%) AWS
10 38 (10.76%) C#
11 37 (10.48%) CI/CD
11 37 (10.48%) JavaScript
12 36 (10.20%) TypeScript
13 35 (9.92%) React
14 30 (8.50%) Problem-Solving
15 28 (7.93%) DevOps
15 28 (7.93%) Linux
16 27 (7.65%) Docker
17 26 (7.37%) .NET
18 24 (6.80%) Degree
18 24 (6.80%) DV Cleared
19 22 (6.23%) AI
19 22 (6.23%) Continuous Improvement
19 22 (6.23%) Spring
20 20 (5.67%) Test Automation
21 19 (5.38%) Mentoring
21 19 (5.38%) Microservices
21 19 (5.38%) REST
21 19 (5.38%) SQL

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 (2.27%) Apache
2 3 (0.85%) CMS
2 3 (0.85%) Confluence
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (0.57%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 38 (10.76%) AWS
2 12 (3.40%) Azure
3 11 (3.12%) SaaS
4 10 (2.83%) AWS Lambda
4 10 (2.83%) Azure AKS
4 10 (2.83%) Serverless
5 9 (2.55%) Amazon EKS
5 9 (2.55%) Amazon S3
6 7 (1.98%) GCP
7 6 (1.70%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (0.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (0.85%) Amazon EC2
8 3 (0.85%) Amazon SQS
8 3 (0.85%) AWS Fargate
8 3 (0.85%) GitHub
8 3 (0.85%) OpenShift
9 2 (0.57%) Amazon MSK
9 2 (0.57%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.28%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.13%) DNS
1 4 (1.13%) HTTP
1 4 (1.13%) SMTP
1 4 (1.13%) Software-Defined Radio
1 4 (1.13%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.85%) Broadband
3 1 (0.28%) AMQP
3 1 (0.28%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (3.12%) Elasticsearch
1 11 (3.12%) SQL Server
2 7 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.70%) NoSQL
4 5 (1.42%) MongoDB
4 5 (1.42%) MySQL
5 4 (1.13%) Neo4j
6 3 (0.85%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.57%) Big Data
7 2 (0.57%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.28%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.28%) Cloudera CDH
8 1 (0.28%) DocumentDB
8 1 (0.28%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.28%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.28%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.28%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 13 (3.68%) Git
2 8 (2.27%) JUnit
3 7 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.42%) GitLab
5 4 (1.13%) Oracle APEX
6 3 (0.85%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.85%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.85%) Gradle
6 3 (0.85%) JIRA
7 2 (0.57%) Android Studio
7 2 (0.57%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.57%) Maven
7 2 (0.57%) PROIV
7 2 (0.57%) Xcode
8 1 (0.28%) JMeter
8 1 (0.28%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.28%) Selenium
8 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.28%) Subversion
8 1 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 23 (6.52%) Finance
2 18 (5.10%) Aerospace
2 18 (5.10%) Social Skills
3 16 (4.53%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (3.40%) Automotive
5 8 (2.27%) Manufacturing
6 7 (1.98%) Aeronautics
6 7 (1.98%) Electronics
6 7 (1.98%) Public Sector
7 5 (1.42%) Pharmaceutical
8 3 (0.85%) Law
8 3 (0.85%) Marketing
8 3 (0.85%) Military
8 3 (0.85%) Social Housing
8 3 (0.85%) Tech for Good
8 3 (0.85%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.28%) Games
9 1 (0.28%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (9.92%) React
2 26 (7.37%) .NET
3 22 (6.23%) Spring
4 19 (5.38%) REST
5 18 (5.10%) Spring Boot
6 15 (4.25%) Node.js
7 13 (3.68%) AngularJS
7 13 (3.68%) HTML
8 12 (3.40%) .NET Core
9 11 (3.12%) RESTful
10 10 (2.83%) .NET Framework
10 10 (2.83%) Dapper ORM
10 10 (2.83%) Entity Framework
11 9 (2.55%) CSS
11 9 (2.55%) Qt
12 8 (2.27%) ASP.NET
13 7 (1.98%) Vue
14 5 (1.42%) Hibernate
14 5 (1.42%) Jest
14 5 (1.42%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 19 (5.38%) Cloud Native
2 10 (2.83%) Robotics
3 9 (2.55%) Self-Motivation
4 7 (1.98%) Embedded Systems
5 6 (1.70%) IoT
6 4 (1.13%) Algorithms
6 4 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.13%) GNSS
6 4 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (1.13%) Satnav
7 3 (0.85%) Over-the-Top Content
7 3 (0.85%) Smart Home
7 3 (0.85%) Video\Live Streaming
8 2 (0.57%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.28%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.28%) Legacy Applications
9 1 (0.28%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.28%) Private Cloud
9 1 (0.28%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 28 (7.93%) Linux
2 4 (1.13%) Windows
3 2 (0.57%) Android
3 2 (0.57%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (0.28%) CentOS
4 1 (0.28%) Debian
4 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 353 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 52 (14.73%) Full-Stack Development
3 43 (12.18%) Agile
4 37 (10.48%) CI/CD
5 30 (8.50%) Problem-Solving
6 28 (7.93%) DevOps
7 22 (6.23%) AI
7 22 (6.23%) Continuous Improvement
8 20 (5.67%) Test Automation
9 19 (5.38%) Mentoring
9 19 (5.38%) Microservices
10 18 (5.10%) Containerisation
11 14 (3.97%) Embedded Software Development
11 14 (3.97%) Performance Optimisation
12 13 (3.68%) Digital Signal Processing
12 13 (3.68%) Signal Processing
13 12 (3.40%) Machine Learning
14 11 (3.12%) Scrum
15 10 (2.83%) Coaching
15 10 (2.83%) MVC
Programming Languages
1 75 (21.25%) Java
2 49 (13.88%) Python
3 39 (11.05%) C++
4 38 (10.76%) C#
5 37 (10.48%) JavaScript
6 36 (10.20%) TypeScript
7 19 (5.38%) SQL
8 12 (3.40%) C
9 9 (2.55%) Embedded C++
10 7 (1.98%) Kotlin
10 7 (1.98%) Rust
11 6 (1.70%) Bash
12 5 (1.42%) PHP
13 4 (1.13%) Go
13 4 (1.13%) PL/SQL
13 4 (1.13%) Scala
13 4 (1.13%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.57%) Swift
15 1 (0.28%) Delphi
15 1 (0.28%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 82 (23.23%) Security Cleared
2 44 (12.46%) SC Cleared
3 24 (6.80%) Degree
3 24 (6.80%) DV Cleared
4 4 (1.13%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.28%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.85%) QA
System Software
1 27 (7.65%) Docker
Systems Management
1 40 (11.33%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.27%) Terraform
3 6 (1.70%) Kibana
4 2 (0.57%) Ansible
4 2 (0.57%) Grafana
5 1 (0.28%) logstash
5 1 (0.28%) Podman
5 1 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 15 (4.25%) Oracle
2 3 (0.85%) Atlassian
2 3 (0.85%) SAP
3 2 (0.57%) Google
3 2 (0.57%) Typelevel
4 1 (0.28%) OpenAI
4 1 (0.28%) Palantir
4 1 (0.28%) Red Hat
4 1 (0.28%) SaltStack