Software Engineer Job Trends in the South West

Software Engineer
England > South West

The median Software Engineer salary in the South West is £68,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 50 14
Rank change year-on-year +42 -36 +37
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 949 137 630
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 8.93% 3.82% 9.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.66% 4.11% 10.09%
Number of salaries quoted 645 76 363
10th Percentile £50,000 £45,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £60,000 £52,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £68,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.62% +8.33% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £80,938 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £82,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -15.15% +26.92% -7.14%

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 9,828 3,335 6,241
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.51% 93.00% 94.42%
Number of salaries quoted 6,772 2,164 3,864
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £31,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £45,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +22.22% -10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £62,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £59,250 £55,000 £57,000
% change year-on-year +7.73% -3.51% -5.00%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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
Gloucestershire +15 377 £80,000 +3.23% 30
Bristol +43 288 £65,000 +8.33% 40
Dorset +10 114 £100,000 +66.67% 14
Somerset +24 74 £60,000 -7.69% 7
Devon +15 44 £65,000 +44.44% 4
Wiltshire +8 34 £55,000 +34.83% 2
Cornwall - 18 £45,000 -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 15 October 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.

1 949 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 175 (18.44%) Agile
3 164 (17.28%) Security Cleared
4 133 (14.01%) Java
5 127 (13.38%) Full-Stack Development
6 125 (13.17%) C++
7 104 (10.96%) Python
8 96 (10.12%) CI/CD
9 83 (8.75%) SC Cleared
10 77 (8.11%) DV Cleared
11 73 (7.69%) C#
12 62 (6.53%) Linux
13 61 (6.43%) SDLC
14 57 (6.01%) AWS
15 54 (5.69%) JavaScript
15 54 (5.69%) Microservices
16 53 (5.58%) Test Automation
17 48 (5.06%) AI
18 44 (4.64%) DevOps
19 41 (4.32%) Software Architecture
19 41 (4.32%) WPF
20 39 (4.11%) Embedded Software Development
20 39 (4.11%) Open Source
21 38 (4.00%) Vue
22 37 (3.90%) Azure
23 35 (3.69%) Mentoring
24 34 (3.58%) Problem-Solving
25 33 (3.48%) Collaborative Working
25 33 (3.48%) Kubernetes
26 32 (3.37%) C

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 14 (1.48%) Apache
2 6 (0.63%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.11%) OpenStack
Business Applications
1 6 (0.63%) Visualfiles
Cloud Services
1 57 (6.01%) AWS
2 37 (3.90%) Azure
3 15 (1.58%) GCP
4 11 (1.16%) OpenShift
4 11 (1.16%) Serverless
5 9 (0.95%) Firebase
5 9 (0.95%) GitHub
6 8 (0.84%) SaaS
7 6 (0.63%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (0.53%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (0.53%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (0.42%) Amazon S3
9 4 (0.42%) Anthropic Claude
9 4 (0.42%) Cloud Run
10 3 (0.32%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (0.21%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (0.21%) Vercel
12 1 (0.11%) Amazon OpenSearch
12 1 (0.11%) Azure AI
12 1 (0.11%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.84%) Ethernet
1 8 (0.84%) Wireless
2 5 (0.53%) AMQP
3 3 (0.32%) RS-485
4 2 (0.21%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.11%) HTTP
5 1 (0.11%) MQTT
5 1 (0.11%) RS-232
5 1 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.26%) Big Data
2 11 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.05%) Elasticsearch
3 10 (1.05%) MongoDB
4 7 (0.74%) Hadoop
4 7 (0.74%) Relational Database
5 6 (0.63%) Redis
6 5 (0.53%) Cloudera CDH
7 3 (0.32%) Chroma
7 3 (0.32%) MariaDB
7 3 (0.32%) MySQL
7 3 (0.32%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.32%) Pinecone
7 3 (0.32%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.21%) Metadata
9 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.11%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.11%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 25 (2.63%) GitLab
2 23 (2.42%) Git
3 12 (1.26%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.95%) JIRA
5 8 (0.84%) Cucumber
5 8 (0.84%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.42%) Rational DOORS
6 4 (0.42%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.32%) Claude Code
7 3 (0.32%) LabVIEW
8 1 (0.11%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.11%) Gradle
8 1 (0.11%) JUnit
8 1 (0.11%) Mocha
8 1 (0.11%) Mockito
8 1 (0.11%) Valgrind
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 38 (4.00%) Aerospace
2 37 (3.90%) Finance
3 25 (2.63%) Social Skills
4 19 (2.00%) Automotive
5 16 (1.69%) Aviation
5 16 (1.69%) Public Sector
6 15 (1.58%) Electronics
6 15 (1.58%) Manufacturing
7 14 (1.48%) Analytical Skills
8 9 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (0.84%) Law
10 6 (0.63%) Military
11 5 (0.53%) Avionics
12 4 (0.42%) Banking
12 4 (0.42%) Social Housing
12 4 (0.42%) Tech for Good
13 3 (0.32%) Marketing
13 3 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.21%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.21%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (4.32%) WPF
2 38 (4.00%) Vue
3 31 (3.27%) Spring
3 31 (3.27%) Spring Boot
4 26 (2.74%) React
5 16 (1.69%) Terraform
6 15 (1.58%) .NET
7 14 (1.48%) AngularJS
7 14 (1.48%) REST
8 12 (1.26%) Node.js
9 11 (1.16%) RESTful
10 9 (0.95%) Elastic Stack
11 8 (0.84%) Apache NiFi
12 7 (0.74%) Kafka
12 7 (0.74%) OpenAPI
13 6 (0.63%) FastAPI
13 6 (0.63%) gRPC
13 6 (0.63%) RabbitMQ
13 6 (0.63%) Swagger
14 5 (0.53%) Material-UI
Miscellaneous
1 42 (4.43%) Cloud Native
2 32 (3.37%) Public Cloud
3 24 (2.53%) Embedded Systems
3 24 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
4 17 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (1.26%) IoT
6 11 (1.16%) Algorithms
7 9 (0.95%) AI Agents
8 7 (0.74%) Robotics
9 5 (0.53%) Data Structures
9 5 (0.53%) Device Driver
10 4 (0.42%) Operational Technology
10 4 (0.42%) Smart Home
11 3 (0.32%) ARM Cortex
11 3 (0.32%) Greenfield Project
11 3 (0.32%) Onboarding
12 2 (0.21%) Distributed Applications
12 2 (0.21%) Legacy Code
12 2 (0.21%) Private Cloud
12 2 (0.21%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 62 (6.53%) Linux
2 22 (2.32%) Android
3 18 (1.90%) Windows
4 6 (0.63%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.63%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.53%) CentOS
5 5 (0.53%) Debian
5 5 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.53%) Unix
6 4 (0.42%) macOS
7 3 (0.32%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.21%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 949 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 175 (18.44%) Agile
3 127 (13.38%) Full-Stack Development
4 96 (10.12%) CI/CD
5 61 (6.43%) SDLC
6 54 (5.69%) Microservices
7 53 (5.58%) Test Automation
8 48 (5.06%) AI
9 44 (4.64%) DevOps
10 41 (4.32%) Software Architecture
11 39 (4.11%) Embedded Software Development
11 39 (4.11%) Open Source
12 35 (3.69%) Mentoring
13 34 (3.58%) Problem-Solving
14 33 (3.48%) Collaborative Working
15 31 (3.27%) Cybersecurity
16 30 (3.16%) Data Pipeline
17 29 (3.06%) Continuous Improvement
18 27 (2.85%) Containerisation
19 26 (2.74%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 133 (14.01%) Java
2 125 (13.17%) C++
3 104 (10.96%) Python
4 73 (7.69%) C#
5 54 (5.69%) JavaScript
6 32 (3.37%) C
7 31 (3.27%) Rust
8 29 (3.06%) TypeScript
9 18 (1.90%) Embedded C++
9 18 (1.90%) Go
9 18 (1.90%) Kotlin
10 13 (1.37%) SQL
11 10 (1.05%) Ada
11 10 (1.05%) Bash
12 9 (0.95%) PHP
13 7 (0.74%) Scala
14 5 (0.53%) MATLAB
15 3 (0.32%) Ada 95
16 1 (0.11%) Assembly Language
16 1 (0.11%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 164 (17.28%) Security Cleared
2 83 (8.75%) SC Cleared
3 77 (8.11%) DV Cleared
4 24 (2.53%) Degree
5 8 (0.84%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.42%) CEH
6 4 (0.42%) OSCP
7 3 (0.32%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (0.32%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.32%) PhD
8 2 (0.21%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.21%) HND
9 1 (0.11%) MOS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (0.84%) Accessibility
1 8 (0.84%) QA
2 3 (0.32%) MIL-STD-1553
3 2 (0.21%) GDPR
4 1 (0.11%) DO-178B
4 1 (0.11%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 21 (2.21%) Docker
2 13 (1.37%) Firmware
3 4 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 33 (3.48%) Kubernetes
2 16 (1.69%) Ansible
3 8 (0.84%) Grafana
3 8 (0.84%) Kibana
3 8 (0.84%) logstash
4 5 (0.53%) Puppet
5 2 (0.21%) Plesk
6 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.11%) SCCM
6 1 (0.11%) SCOM
6 1 (0.11%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 8 (0.84%) Google
2 6 (0.63%) Intel
2 6 (0.63%) LexisNexis
3 5 (0.53%) Red Hat
3 5 (0.53%) SaltStack
4 4 (0.42%) Atlassian
4 4 (0.42%) Databricks
4 4 (0.42%) OpenAI
5 3 (0.32%) Microsoft
5 3 (0.32%) Peregrine
5 3 (0.32%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle
6 1 (0.11%) TOWER Software
6 1 (0.11%) VMware