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 June 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 39 13
Rank change year-on-year +26 -26 +60
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 554 165 963
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 6.98% 5.66% 9.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.43% 6.15% 9.87%
Number of salaries quoted 403 92 745
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,875 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,698 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +13.04% -4.96%
75th Percentile £75,000 £82,563 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £95,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £78,810 £60,000
% change year-on-year -11.18% +31.35% -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 7,459 2,684 9,756
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.02% 92.11% 95.95%
Number of salaries quoted 5,193 1,775 7,268
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £32,500 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £80,450 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year - +9.52% -12.50%

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 June 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 June 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 +17 207 £65,000 -3.70% 44
Gloucestershire +35 187 £70,000 - 47
Dorset +4 76 £50,000 +5.26% 10
Somerset -15 34 £56,250 -13.46% 19
Devon -10 23 £55,000 - 7
Wiltshire +5 20 £60,000 -7.69%
Cornwall - 3 - -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 27 June 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.

1 554 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 119 (21.48%) Security Cleared
3 95 (17.15%) C++
4 87 (15.70%) Full-Stack Development
5 86 (15.52%) Java
6 69 (12.45%) C#
6 69 (12.45%) SC Cleared
7 67 (12.09%) Agile
8 65 (11.73%) CI/CD
9 61 (11.01%) Python
10 47 (8.48%) DevOps
11 41 (7.40%) Linux
12 40 (7.22%) DV Cleared
13 39 (7.04%) JavaScript
14 35 (6.32%) Mentoring
14 35 (6.32%) Vue
15 33 (5.96%) Kubernetes
15 33 (5.96%) Microservices
16 32 (5.78%) SDLC
17 31 (5.60%) WPF
18 30 (5.42%) AI
18 30 (5.42%) AWS
19 29 (5.23%) TypeScript
20 27 (4.87%) Docker
21 26 (4.69%) C
21 26 (4.69%) Platform Engineering
21 26 (4.69%) Site Reliability Engineering
21 26 (4.69%) Test Automation
22 25 (4.51%) Containerisation
22 25 (4.51%) Software Architecture

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 10 (1.81%) Apache
2 3 (0.54%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.36%) CMS
4 1 (0.18%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (0.18%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 30 (5.42%) AWS
2 21 (3.79%) Azure
3 12 (2.17%) GCP
3 12 (2.17%) SaaS
4 10 (1.81%) Azure AKS
5 8 (1.44%) GitHub
6 5 (0.90%) Serverless
7 4 (0.72%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (0.72%) AWS Lambda
7 4 (0.72%) Firebase
8 3 (0.54%) Anthropic Claude
8 3 (0.54%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (0.54%) Cloud Run
8 3 (0.54%) OpenShift
9 2 (0.36%) Amazon S3
9 2 (0.36%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.18%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.18%) Amazon SQS
10 1 (0.18%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 1 (0.18%) Cloud Functions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.99%) Wireless
2 8 (1.44%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.72%) Broadband
4 3 (0.54%) AMQP
5 2 (0.36%) Network Security
5 2 (0.36%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.18%) Modbus
6 1 (0.18%) MQTT
6 1 (0.18%) Profibus
6 1 (0.18%) RS-232
6 1 (0.18%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.99%) Elasticsearch
2 10 (1.81%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.62%) MongoDB
4 8 (1.44%) MySQL
4 8 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.26%) Big Data
6 6 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.54%) Cloudera CDH
7 3 (0.54%) Hadoop
7 3 (0.54%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.36%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.18%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.18%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.18%) Redis
9 1 (0.18%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 18 (3.25%) Git
2 10 (1.81%) GitLab
2 10 (1.81%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.44%) SonarQube
4 7 (1.26%) Cucumber
5 6 (1.08%) JIRA
6 4 (0.72%) Gradle
7 2 (0.36%) JUnit
7 2 (0.36%) Maven
7 2 (0.36%) Mockito
7 2 (0.36%) Subversion
7 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.18%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.18%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.18%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.18%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.18%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.18%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.18%) Xcode
General
1 24 (4.33%) Aerospace
2 16 (2.89%) Electronics
3 14 (2.53%) Automotive
3 14 (2.53%) Social Skills
4 13 (2.35%) Manufacturing
5 11 (1.99%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (1.81%) Finance
7 6 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
8 5 (0.90%) Aviation
8 5 (0.90%) Social Housing
8 5 (0.90%) Tech for Good
9 3 (0.54%) Public Sector
10 2 (0.36%) Avionics
10 2 (0.36%) Law
10 2 (0.36%) Military
10 2 (0.36%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.36%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (6.32%) Vue
2 31 (5.60%) WPF
3 24 (4.33%) React
4 23 (4.15%) REST
5 22 (3.97%) Spring
6 20 (3.61%) .NET
7 19 (3.43%) Node.js
8 18 (3.25%) AngularJS
9 14 (2.53%) Spring Boot
10 12 (2.17%) .NET Framework
10 12 (2.17%) HTML
11 11 (1.99%) .NET Core
11 11 (1.99%) RESTful
12 10 (1.81%) Dapper ORM
12 10 (1.81%) Entity Framework
13 7 (1.26%) Apache NiFi
13 7 (1.26%) Elastic Stack
13 7 (1.26%) gRPC
14 5 (0.90%) ASP.NET
14 5 (0.90%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 22 (3.97%) Embedded Systems
2 15 (2.71%) Algorithms
2 15 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
3 12 (2.17%) Cloud Native
4 7 (1.26%) Device Driver
4 7 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (1.08%) Public Cloud
6 5 (0.90%) IoT
6 5 (0.90%) Smart Home
7 4 (0.72%) AI Agents
7 4 (0.72%) ARM Cortex
7 4 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (0.54%) Fat Client
8 3 (0.54%) Mobile App
8 3 (0.54%) Operational Technology
8 3 (0.54%) Over-the-Top Content
8 3 (0.54%) Thin Client
8 3 (0.54%) Video\Live Streaming
9 2 (0.36%) PKI
9 2 (0.36%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 41 (7.40%) Linux
2 12 (2.17%) Android
3 11 (1.99%) Windows
4 6 (1.08%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (0.90%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.54%) CentOS
6 3 (0.54%) Debian
6 3 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.54%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.36%) SafeRTOS
7 2 (0.36%) Unix
7 2 (0.36%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.18%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 554 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 87 (15.70%) Full-Stack Development
3 67 (12.09%) Agile
4 65 (11.73%) CI/CD
5 47 (8.48%) DevOps
6 35 (6.32%) Mentoring
7 33 (5.96%) Microservices
8 32 (5.78%) SDLC
9 30 (5.42%) AI
10 26 (4.69%) Platform Engineering
10 26 (4.69%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 26 (4.69%) Test Automation
11 25 (4.51%) Containerisation
11 25 (4.51%) Software Architecture
12 23 (4.15%) Embedded Software Development
12 23 (4.15%) Problem-Solving
13 22 (3.97%) Continuous Improvement
14 17 (3.07%) Clean Code
14 17 (3.07%) Migration
15 15 (2.71%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 95 (17.15%) C++
2 86 (15.52%) Java
3 69 (12.45%) C#
4 61 (11.01%) Python
5 39 (7.04%) JavaScript
6 29 (5.23%) TypeScript
7 26 (4.69%) C
8 21 (3.79%) Embedded C++
9 17 (3.07%) Rust
9 17 (3.07%) SQL
10 13 (2.35%) Go
11 12 (2.17%) Kotlin
12 11 (1.99%) Bash
13 9 (1.62%) PHP
14 4 (0.72%) Embedded C
14 4 (0.72%) MATLAB
14 4 (0.72%) PowerShell
14 4 (0.72%) Scala
15 1 (0.18%) R
15 1 (0.18%) Swift
Qualifications
1 119 (21.48%) Security Cleared
2 69 (12.45%) SC Cleared
3 40 (7.22%) DV Cleared
4 12 (2.17%) Degree
5 3 (0.54%) CEH
5 3 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (0.54%) OSCP
6 2 (0.36%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (0.36%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.54%) Accessibility
1 3 (0.54%) QA
2 1 (0.18%) DO-178B
2 1 (0.18%) DO-254
2 1 (0.18%) HAZOP
2 1 (0.18%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.18%) IEC 62304
2 1 (0.18%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 27 (4.87%) Docker
2 21 (3.79%) Firmware
3 2 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 33 (5.96%) Kubernetes
2 16 (2.89%) Terraform
3 14 (2.53%) Ansible
4 7 (1.26%) Grafana
4 7 (1.26%) Kibana
4 7 (1.26%) logstash
5 3 (0.54%) Plesk
5 3 (0.54%) Puppet
5 3 (0.54%) SCCM
5 3 (0.54%) SCOM
5 3 (0.54%) SCOrch
6 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.36%) Podman
Vendors
1 5 (0.90%) Google
1 5 (0.90%) Microsoft
2 4 (0.72%) Peregrine
3 3 (0.54%) OpenAI
3 3 (0.54%) Oracle
3 3 (0.54%) Red Hat
3 3 (0.54%) SaltStack
4 2 (0.36%) Intel
4 2 (0.36%) Typelevel
4 2 (0.36%) VMware
5 1 (0.18%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.18%) TOWER Software