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 16 January 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 29
Rank change year-on-year -7 +9 +8
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 270 365 356
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 5.26% 8.84% 7.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.63% 9.44% 7.80%
Number of salaries quoted 210 161 282
10th Percentile £44,750 £40,000 £41,375
25th Percentile £55,000 £45,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £55,000 £58,750
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -6.38% +2.17%
75th Percentile £70,000 £72,500 £74,688
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £89,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £67,500
% change year-on-year - +3.70% -2.80%

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 4,795 3,867 4,566
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.42% 93.63% 95.78%
Number of salaries quoted 3,317 2,068 3,526
10th Percentile £28,000 £30,000 £29,470
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £39,658
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £50,250
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +3.48% +0.50%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £66,778
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -7.26%

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 16 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 16 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 +4 134 £65,000 +4.00% 84
Gloucestershire +20 60 £70,000 +16.67% 71
Dorset -15 30 £55,000 +10.00% 28
Devon -16 13 £45,000 -25.00% 17
Wiltshire -12 11 £60,000 +50.00% 18
Somerset -25 7 £65,000 +8.33% 38
Cornwall -14 1 - - 1
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 16 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.

1 270 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 61 (22.59%) Security Cleared
3 53 (19.63%) Java
4 40 (14.81%) Python
5 38 (14.07%) Agile
6 35 (12.96%) AWS
6 35 (12.96%) CI/CD
6 35 (12.96%) Full-Stack Development
7 34 (12.59%) React
8 33 (12.22%) TypeScript
9 29 (10.74%) JavaScript
9 29 (10.74%) Linux
10 28 (10.37%) C++
10 28 (10.37%) SC Cleared
11 25 (9.26%) C#
11 25 (9.26%) Degree
11 25 (9.26%) Kubernetes
11 25 (9.26%) Problem-Solving
12 21 (7.78%) DevOps
13 19 (7.04%) DV Cleared
13 19 (7.04%) Spring
14 18 (6.67%) .NET
14 18 (6.67%) Mentoring
14 18 (6.67%) Test Automation
15 17 (6.30%) Continuous Improvement
15 17 (6.30%) Git
15 17 (6.30%) Microservices
16 15 (5.56%) AI
16 15 (5.56%) Oracle
16 15 (5.56%) Spring Boot

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 (3.70%) Apache
2 6 (2.22%) Confluence
3 2 (0.74%) CMS
4 1 (0.37%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 35 (12.96%) AWS
2 11 (4.07%) AWS Lambda
2 11 (4.07%) Serverless
3 10 (3.70%) Amazon S3
4 9 (3.33%) Amazon EKS
4 9 (3.33%) Azure
5 7 (2.59%) Amazon ECS
6 4 (1.48%) GCP
6 4 (1.48%) SaaS
7 3 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (1.11%) Amazon EC2
7 3 (1.11%) Amazon SQS
7 3 (1.11%) AWS Fargate
7 3 (1.11%) Azure AKS
7 3 (1.11%) GitHub
7 3 (1.11%) OpenShift
8 2 (0.74%) Amazon MSK
8 2 (0.74%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 2 (0.74%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.37%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.48%) DNS
1 4 (1.48%) HTTP
1 4 (1.48%) SMTP
1 4 (1.48%) Software-Defined Radio
1 4 (1.48%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.37%) AMQP
2 1 (0.37%) Bluetooth
2 1 (0.37%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.70%) Elasticsearch
2 7 (2.59%) MongoDB
3 6 (2.22%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.48%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.48%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.11%) Neo4j
5 3 (1.11%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.74%) GIS
6 2 (0.74%) MySQL
7 1 (0.37%) Big Data
7 1 (0.37%) Cloudera CDH
7 1 (0.37%) DocumentDB
7 1 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.37%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.37%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.37%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 17 (6.30%) Git
2 10 (3.70%) JUnit
3 8 (2.96%) GitLab
4 7 (2.59%) Jenkins
5 6 (2.22%) JIRA
6 5 (1.85%) Bitbucket
7 4 (1.48%) Maven
7 4 (1.48%) Oracle APEX
8 3 (1.11%) Cypress.io
8 3 (1.11%) Gradle
9 2 (0.74%) Android Studio
9 2 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.74%) PROIV
9 2 (0.74%) Xcode
10 1 (0.37%) JMeter
10 1 (0.37%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.37%) Selenium
10 1 (0.37%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.37%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.37%) Zephyr
General
1 21 (7.78%) Finance
2 16 (5.93%) Aerospace
3 15 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (5.56%) Social Skills
4 8 (2.96%) Manufacturing
4 8 (2.96%) Pharmaceutical
5 7 (2.59%) Aeronautics
5 7 (2.59%) Automotive
5 7 (2.59%) Electronics
5 7 (2.59%) Public Sector
6 5 (1.85%) Military
7 3 (1.11%) Law
7 3 (1.11%) Marketing
7 3 (1.11%) Telecoms
8 2 (0.74%) Games
8 2 (0.74%) Social Housing
8 2 (0.74%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (12.59%) React
2 19 (7.04%) Spring
3 18 (6.67%) .NET
4 15 (5.56%) Spring Boot
5 11 (4.07%) HTML
5 11 (4.07%) REST
6 10 (3.70%) Qt
7 9 (3.33%) AngularJS
7 9 (3.33%) Node.js
7 9 (3.33%) RESTful
8 8 (2.96%) CSS
9 7 (2.59%) Apache NiFi
9 7 (2.59%) ASP.NET
9 7 (2.59%) Hibernate
10 5 (1.85%) .NET Core
10 5 (1.85%) Jest
10 5 (1.85%) JSF
10 5 (1.85%) WPF
11 4 (1.48%) Redux
11 4 (1.48%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 16 (5.93%) Cloud Native
2 10 (3.70%) Robotics
3 8 (2.96%) Embedded Systems
3 8 (2.96%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (1.85%) IoT
5 4 (1.48%) Algorithms
5 4 (1.48%) GNSS
5 4 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (1.48%) Satnav
6 2 (0.74%) Management Information System
6 2 (0.74%) Mobile App
6 2 (0.74%) Smart Home
7 1 (0.37%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.37%) Legacy Code
7 1 (0.37%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.37%) Over-the-Top Content
7 1 (0.37%) Private Cloud
7 1 (0.37%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.37%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 29 (10.74%) Linux
2 4 (1.48%) Windows
3 2 (0.74%) Android
4 1 (0.37%) CentOS
4 1 (0.37%) Debian
4 1 (0.37%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.37%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 270 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 38 (14.07%) Agile
3 35 (12.96%) CI/CD
3 35 (12.96%) Full-Stack Development
4 25 (9.26%) Problem-Solving
5 21 (7.78%) DevOps
6 18 (6.67%) Mentoring
6 18 (6.67%) Test Automation
7 17 (6.30%) Continuous Improvement
7 17 (6.30%) Microservices
8 15 (5.56%) AI
9 13 (4.81%) Digital Signal Processing
9 13 (4.81%) Signal Processing
10 11 (4.07%) Machine Learning
10 11 (4.07%) Scrum
11 10 (3.70%) Collaborative Culture
12 9 (3.33%) Coaching
12 9 (3.33%) Embedded Software Development
12 9 (3.33%) MVC
13 8 (2.96%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 53 (19.63%) Java
2 40 (14.81%) Python
3 33 (12.22%) TypeScript
4 29 (10.74%) JavaScript
5 28 (10.37%) C++
6 25 (9.26%) C#
7 11 (4.07%) SQL
8 10 (3.70%) C
9 9 (3.33%) Embedded C++
10 7 (2.59%) Kotlin
11 6 (2.22%) Rust
12 4 (1.48%) Bash
12 4 (1.48%) PHP
12 4 (1.48%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.48%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.74%) Scala
13 2 (0.74%) Swift
14 1 (0.37%) Delphi
14 1 (0.37%) Go
14 1 (0.37%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 61 (22.59%) Security Cleared
2 28 (10.37%) SC Cleared
3 25 (9.26%) Degree
4 19 (7.04%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.48%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.37%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.11%) QA
2 2 (0.74%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 12 (4.44%) Docker
Systems Management
1 25 (9.26%) Kubernetes
2 9 (3.33%) Kibana
3 5 (1.85%) Terraform
4 2 (0.74%) Ansible
4 2 (0.74%) Grafana
5 1 (0.37%) logstash
5 1 (0.37%) Puppet
Vendors
1 15 (5.56%) Oracle
2 8 (2.96%) Atlassian
3 3 (1.11%) SAP
4 2 (0.74%) Google
5 1 (0.37%) Palantir
5 1 (0.37%) Red Hat
5 1 (0.37%) SaltStack