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 23 January 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 22 23
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +13
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 286 353 449
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 5.40% 8.72% 8.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.79% 9.31% 8.35%
Number of salaries quoted 218 150 362
10th Percentile £44,250 £40,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £45,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £70,000 £75,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,125 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year - +7.69% -6.40%

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 4,937 3,791 5,379
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.13% 93.65% 96.14%
Number of salaries quoted 3,417 1,999 4,178
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £56,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +7.14% -10.40%

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 23 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 23 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 +4 140 £65,000 +8.33% 92
Gloucestershire +14 65 £70,000 +16.67% 75
Dorset -15 34 £55,000 +10.00% 45
Devon -18 14 £45,000 -25.00% 29
Wiltshire -10 11 £60,000 +29.73% 29
Somerset -27 7 £65,000 +13.04% 44
Cornwall -17 1 - - 2
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 286 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 65 (22.73%) Security Cleared
3 57 (19.93%) Java
4 39 (13.64%) Python
5 38 (13.29%) Full-Stack Development
6 37 (12.94%) Agile
7 36 (12.59%) AWS
8 35 (12.24%) React
9 33 (11.54%) CI/CD
9 33 (11.54%) TypeScript
10 30 (10.49%) SC Cleared
11 29 (10.14%) C++
11 29 (10.14%) JavaScript
12 28 (9.79%) C#
13 27 (9.44%) Kubernetes
13 27 (9.44%) Linux
14 26 (9.09%) Problem-Solving
15 25 (8.74%) Degree
16 22 (7.69%) DevOps
17 21 (7.34%) Spring
18 20 (6.99%) .NET
18 20 (6.99%) DV Cleared
19 19 (6.64%) Continuous Improvement
20 18 (6.29%) Test Automation
21 17 (5.94%) Mentoring
21 17 (5.94%) Microservices
21 17 (5.94%) Spring Boot
22 16 (5.59%) AI
23 15 (5.24%) Git
24 14 (4.90%) Docker

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 (3.15%) Apache
2 5 (1.75%) Confluence
3 2 (0.70%) CMS
4 1 (0.35%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (0.70%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 36 (12.59%) AWS
2 11 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
2 11 (3.85%) Serverless
3 10 (3.50%) Amazon S3
3 10 (3.50%) Azure
4 9 (3.15%) Amazon EKS
5 7 (2.45%) Amazon ECS
6 5 (1.75%) SaaS
7 4 (1.40%) Azure AKS
7 4 (1.40%) GCP
8 3 (1.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (1.05%) Amazon EC2
8 3 (1.05%) Amazon SQS
8 3 (1.05%) AWS Fargate
8 3 (1.05%) GitHub
8 3 (1.05%) OpenShift
9 2 (0.70%) Amazon MSK
9 2 (0.70%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (0.70%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.35%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.40%) DNS
1 4 (1.40%) HTTP
1 4 (1.40%) SMTP
1 4 (1.40%) Software-Defined Radio
1 4 (1.40%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.35%) AMQP
2 1 (0.35%) Bluetooth
2 1 (0.35%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.15%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (1.75%) MongoDB
2 5 (1.75%) NoSQL
2 5 (1.75%) SQL Server
3 4 (1.40%) Neo4j
3 4 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.05%) MySQL
4 3 (1.05%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.70%) GIS
5 2 (0.70%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.35%) Big Data
6 1 (0.35%) Cloudera CDH
6 1 (0.35%) DocumentDB
6 1 (0.35%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.35%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.35%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.35%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 15 (5.24%) Git
2 9 (3.15%) JUnit
3 7 (2.45%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.10%) GitLab
5 5 (1.75%) JIRA
6 4 (1.40%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.40%) Maven
6 4 (1.40%) Oracle APEX
7 3 (1.05%) Cypress.io
7 3 (1.05%) Gradle
8 2 (0.70%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.70%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.70%) PROIV
8 2 (0.70%) Xcode
9 1 (0.35%) JMeter
9 1 (0.35%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.35%) Selenium
9 1 (0.35%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.35%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.35%) Zephyr
General
1 21 (7.34%) Finance
2 15 (5.24%) Aerospace
2 15 (5.24%) Analytical Skills
2 15 (5.24%) Social Skills
3 8 (2.80%) Automotive
3 8 (2.80%) Manufacturing
3 8 (2.80%) Pharmaceutical
4 7 (2.45%) Aeronautics
4 7 (2.45%) Electronics
4 7 (2.45%) Public Sector
5 5 (1.75%) Military
6 3 (1.05%) Law
6 3 (1.05%) Marketing
6 3 (1.05%) Telecoms
7 2 (0.70%) Games
7 2 (0.70%) Social Housing
7 2 (0.70%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (12.24%) React
2 21 (7.34%) Spring
3 20 (6.99%) .NET
4 17 (5.94%) Spring Boot
5 13 (4.55%) REST
6 12 (4.20%) AngularJS
7 11 (3.85%) HTML
8 10 (3.50%) Node.js
8 10 (3.50%) Qt
8 10 (3.50%) RESTful
9 9 (3.15%) CSS
10 8 (2.80%) ASP.NET
11 6 (2.10%) .NET Core
11 6 (2.10%) Apache NiFi
11 6 (2.10%) Hibernate
11 6 (2.10%) Vue
12 5 (1.75%) Jest
12 5 (1.75%) WPF
13 4 (1.40%) .NET Framework
13 4 (1.40%) JSF
Miscellaneous
1 16 (5.59%) Cloud Native
2 10 (3.50%) Robotics
3 8 (2.80%) Embedded Systems
3 8 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (1.75%) IoT
5 4 (1.40%) Algorithms
5 4 (1.40%) GNSS
5 4 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (1.40%) Satnav
6 2 (0.70%) Management Information System
6 2 (0.70%) Mobile App
6 2 (0.70%) Smart Home
7 1 (0.35%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.35%) Legacy Code
7 1 (0.35%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.35%) Over-the-Top Content
7 1 (0.35%) Private Cloud
7 1 (0.35%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.35%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 27 (9.44%) Linux
2 4 (1.40%) Windows
3 2 (0.70%) Android
4 1 (0.35%) CentOS
4 1 (0.35%) Debian
4 1 (0.35%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.35%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 286 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 38 (13.29%) Full-Stack Development
3 37 (12.94%) Agile
4 33 (11.54%) CI/CD
5 26 (9.09%) Problem-Solving
6 22 (7.69%) DevOps
7 19 (6.64%) Continuous Improvement
8 18 (6.29%) Test Automation
9 17 (5.94%) Mentoring
9 17 (5.94%) Microservices
10 16 (5.59%) AI
11 13 (4.55%) Digital Signal Processing
11 13 (4.55%) Signal Processing
12 11 (3.85%) Machine Learning
13 10 (3.50%) Collaborative Culture
13 10 (3.50%) MVC
14 9 (3.15%) Coaching
14 9 (3.15%) Design Patterns
14 9 (3.15%) Embedded Software Development
14 9 (3.15%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 57 (19.93%) Java
2 39 (13.64%) Python
3 33 (11.54%) TypeScript
4 29 (10.14%) C++
4 29 (10.14%) JavaScript
5 28 (9.79%) C#
6 12 (4.20%) SQL
7 11 (3.85%) C
8 9 (3.15%) Embedded C++
9 7 (2.45%) Kotlin
10 6 (2.10%) Rust
11 5 (1.75%) PHP
12 4 (1.40%) Bash
12 4 (1.40%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.40%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.70%) Scala
13 2 (0.70%) Swift
14 1 (0.35%) Delphi
14 1 (0.35%) Go
14 1 (0.35%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 65 (22.73%) Security Cleared
2 30 (10.49%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.74%) Degree
4 20 (6.99%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.40%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.35%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.05%) QA
2 2 (0.70%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 14 (4.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 27 (9.44%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.45%) Kibana
3 5 (1.75%) Terraform
4 2 (0.70%) Ansible
4 2 (0.70%) Grafana
5 1 (0.35%) logstash
5 1 (0.35%) Puppet
Vendors
1 14 (4.90%) Oracle
2 6 (2.10%) Atlassian
3 3 (1.05%) SAP
4 2 (0.70%) Google
5 1 (0.35%) Palantir
5 1 (0.35%) Red Hat
5 1 (0.35%) SaltStack