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 28 November 2025.

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

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 35 13 44
Rank change year-on-year -22 +31 -19
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 223 538 265
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 4.88% 9.52% 6.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.27% 10.12% 6.39%
Number of salaries quoted 150 288 205
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £41,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £45,000 £46,350
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £72,000
90th Percentile £83,875 £80,000 £82,529
England median annual salary £75,000 £65,465 £70,000
% change year-on-year +14.57% -6.48% +0.80%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 4,231 5,314 4,149
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 94.04% 95.53%
Number of salaries quoted 2,872 3,163 3,242
10th Percentile £27,707 £30,000 £30,500
25th Percentile £32,186 £40,000 £40,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £52,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.65% -0.95% +5.00%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,261 £68,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,560 £60,000
% change year-on-year -4.45% -4.07% -

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 28 November 2025.

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 28 November 2025. 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 -16 77 £60,000 -4.00% 68
Gloucestershire +10 59 £78,750 +12.50% 43
Dorset -10 49 £55,000 +10.00% 10
Somerset -17 13 £65,000 +8.33% 23
Devon -32 9 £43,875 -29.80% 5
Wiltshire -21 6 £40,792 -9.35% 4
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 28 November 2025, 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.

1 223 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 53 (23.77%) Java
3 47 (21.08%) Security Cleared
4 46 (20.63%) Agile
5 44 (19.73%) CI/CD
6 43 (19.28%) Python
7 42 (18.83%) AWS
8 38 (17.04%) C++
9 33 (14.80%) JavaScript
9 33 (14.80%) React
10 30 (13.45%) TypeScript
11 29 (13.00%) AI
12 27 (12.11%) DV Cleared
12 27 (12.11%) Full-Stack Development
12 27 (12.11%) Machine Learning
13 25 (11.21%) Linux
14 24 (10.76%) Kubernetes
14 24 (10.76%) SC Cleared
15 23 (10.31%) Degree
15 23 (10.31%) Git
15 23 (10.31%) Test Automation
16 21 (9.42%) Oracle
16 21 (9.42%) Spring
17 20 (8.97%) Continuous Improvement
17 20 (8.97%) SDLC
18 19 (8.52%) Problem-Solving
19 18 (8.07%) HTML
19 18 (8.07%) Operational Stability
20 17 (7.62%) Community of Practice
20 17 (7.62%) Microservices

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 (4.04%) Apache
2 6 (2.69%) Confluence
3 1 (0.45%) CMS
Cloud Services
1 42 (18.83%) AWS
2 11 (4.93%) Amazon S3
2 11 (4.93%) AWS Lambda
2 11 (4.93%) Serverless
3 9 (4.04%) Amazon EKS
4 8 (3.59%) Amazon ECS
5 5 (2.24%) Azure
6 3 (1.35%) Amazon Bedrock
6 3 (1.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 3 (1.35%) Amazon EC2
6 3 (1.35%) Amazon SageMaker
6 3 (1.35%) AWS Fargate
7 2 (0.90%) Amazon MSK
7 2 (0.90%) Amazon OpenSearch
7 2 (0.90%) OpenShift
8 1 (0.45%) Amazon SQS
8 1 (0.45%) Cloud Run
8 1 (0.45%) GCP
8 1 (0.45%) GitHub
8 1 (0.45%) NuGet
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.79%) Software-Defined Radio
1 4 (1.79%) TCP/IP
2 3 (1.35%) DNS
2 3 (1.35%) HTTP
2 3 (1.35%) SMTP
3 1 (0.45%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.45%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.45%) Internet
3 1 (0.45%) J1939
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (4.48%) Elasticsearch
2 9 (4.04%) MongoDB
3 6 (2.69%) Relational Database
4 5 (2.24%) Oracle Database
5 4 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (1.35%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.90%) GIS
7 2 (0.90%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.45%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.45%) Big Data
8 1 (0.45%) CockroachDB
8 1 (0.45%) DocumentDB
8 1 (0.45%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.45%) InterSystems Cache
8 1 (0.45%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.45%) MySQL
8 1 (0.45%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.45%) Redis
8 1 (0.45%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 23 (10.31%) Git
2 12 (5.38%) JUnit
3 9 (4.04%) GitLab
4 8 (3.59%) Jenkins
5 7 (3.14%) JIRA
6 6 (2.69%) Cypress.io
7 5 (2.24%) Bitbucket
7 5 (2.24%) Selenium
8 4 (1.79%) Maven
8 4 (1.79%) Oracle APEX
9 3 (1.35%) Locust
10 2 (0.90%) Mockito
10 2 (0.90%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.90%) webpack
11 1 (0.45%) Android Studio
11 1 (0.45%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.45%) Gradle
11 1 (0.45%) JMeter
11 1 (0.45%) LoadRunner
11 1 (0.45%) Zephyr
General
1 40 (17.94%) Finance
2 24 (10.76%) Law
3 23 (10.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 18 (8.07%) Social Skills
5 17 (7.62%) Marketing
6 14 (6.28%) Aerospace
7 11 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
8 9 (4.04%) Banking
9 8 (3.59%) Electronics
10 7 (3.14%) Public Sector
11 6 (2.69%) Manufacturing
12 5 (2.24%) Automotive
13 4 (1.79%) Aeronautics
13 4 (1.79%) Telecoms
14 3 (1.35%) Military
14 3 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.90%) Games
16 1 (0.45%) Wholesale Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (14.80%) React
2 21 (9.42%) Spring
3 18 (8.07%) HTML
4 15 (6.73%) Spring Boot
5 14 (6.28%) CSS
6 10 (4.48%) AngularJS
6 10 (4.48%) Qt
7 9 (4.04%) Hibernate
7 9 (4.04%) REST
7 9 (4.04%) RESTful
8 8 (3.59%) Kafka
9 7 (3.14%) Apache NiFi
10 6 (2.69%) Jest
10 6 (2.69%) JSF
10 6 (2.69%) Node.js
11 5 (2.24%) Playwright
12 4 (1.79%) .NET
12 4 (1.79%) LAMP
12 4 (1.79%) Web Services
12 4 (1.79%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 15 (6.73%) Cloud Native
2 14 (6.28%) Algorithms
3 11 (4.93%) Embedded Systems
4 10 (4.48%) Robotics
5 5 (2.24%) Public Cloud
6 4 (1.79%) IoT
7 3 (1.35%) GNSS
7 3 (1.35%) Reference Data
7 3 (1.35%) Satnav
7 3 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.90%) Data Structures
8 2 (0.90%) Legacy Code
8 2 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (0.90%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.90%) Wiki
9 1 (0.45%) Device Driver
9 1 (0.45%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.45%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.45%) PKI
9 1 (0.45%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 25 (11.21%) Linux
2 5 (2.24%) Windows
3 2 (0.90%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (0.45%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 223 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 46 (20.63%) Agile
3 44 (19.73%) CI/CD
4 29 (13.00%) AI
5 27 (12.11%) Full-Stack Development
5 27 (12.11%) Machine Learning
6 23 (10.31%) Test Automation
7 20 (8.97%) Continuous Improvement
7 20 (8.97%) SDLC
8 19 (8.52%) Problem-Solving
9 18 (8.07%) Operational Stability
10 17 (7.62%) Community of Practice
10 17 (7.62%) Microservices
11 15 (6.73%) Mentoring
12 14 (6.28%) DevOps
13 13 (5.83%) Digital Signal Processing
13 13 (5.83%) Signal Processing
14 12 (5.38%) Visualisation
15 10 (4.48%) Decision-Making
16 9 (4.04%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 53 (23.77%) Java
2 43 (19.28%) Python
3 38 (17.04%) C++
4 33 (14.80%) JavaScript
5 30 (13.45%) TypeScript
6 13 (5.83%) C
7 12 (5.38%) C#
8 11 (4.93%) SQL
9 9 (4.04%) Embedded C++
10 6 (2.69%) Kotlin
10 6 (2.69%) Rust
11 4 (1.79%) PHP
11 4 (1.79%) PL/SQL
11 4 (1.79%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.90%) VC++
13 1 (0.45%) Delphi
13 1 (0.45%) Embedded C
13 1 (0.45%) Go
13 1 (0.45%) Ruby
13 1 (0.45%) Swift
Qualifications
1 47 (21.08%) Security Cleared
2 27 (12.11%) DV Cleared
3 24 (10.76%) SC Cleared
4 23 (10.31%) Degree
5 4 (1.79%) Master's Degree
6 2 (0.90%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.45%) AWS Certified Developer
7 1 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.35%) QA
2 2 (0.90%) ISO 9001
3 1 (0.45%) JTAG
3 1 (0.45%) MISRA
System Software
1 12 (5.38%) Docker
Systems Management
1 24 (10.76%) Kubernetes
2 10 (4.48%) Kibana
3 3 (1.35%) Terraform
4 1 (0.45%) Grafana
Vendors
1 21 (9.42%) Oracle
2 10 (4.48%) Atlassian
3 4 (1.79%) Databricks
4 3 (1.35%) SAP
4 3 (1.35%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.90%) Google
5 2 (0.90%) Microsoft
5 2 (0.90%) Sybase
6 1 (0.45%) Palantir