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 July 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 37 13
Rank change year-on-year +24 -24 +67
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 605 180 919
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 7.26% 5.41% 9.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.72% 5.89% 9.80%
Number of salaries quoted 441 105 713
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £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% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% +33.33% -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 7,836 3,057 9,381
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.09% 91.91% 96.00%
Number of salaries quoted 5,392 2,057 6,990
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £28,125
25th Percentile £35,000 £34,500 £37,199
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 £85,000 £80,950 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% +3.77% -11.67%

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 July 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 July 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 +31 227 £75,000 -4.76% 54
Bristol +17 214 £70,000 +3.70% 29
Dorset +3 75 £50,000 -7.17% 11
Somerset -14 41 £55,000 -15.38% 12
Devon -3 28 £60,000 +33.33% 6
Wiltshire -2 17 £55,000 -15.38% 3
Cornwall - 2 - -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 16 July 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.

1 605 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 126 (20.83%) Security Cleared
3 103 (17.02%) C++
4 97 (16.03%) Java
5 92 (15.21%) Full-Stack Development
6 80 (13.22%) Agile
6 80 (13.22%) Python
7 76 (12.56%) CI/CD
8 74 (12.23%) SC Cleared
9 67 (11.07%) C#
10 51 (8.43%) DV Cleared
11 47 (7.77%) DevOps
12 46 (7.60%) JavaScript
13 45 (7.44%) Linux
14 41 (6.78%) Microservices
15 40 (6.61%) SDLC
16 39 (6.45%) Vue
17 38 (6.28%) Mentoring
17 38 (6.28%) WPF
18 35 (5.79%) AI
18 35 (5.79%) Kubernetes
19 33 (5.45%) AWS
20 32 (5.29%) Test Automation
21 31 (5.12%) Software Architecture
22 29 (4.79%) C
22 29 (4.79%) Docker
23 26 (4.30%) Containerisation
23 26 (4.30%) Embedded Software Development
23 26 (4.30%) TypeScript
24 25 (4.13%) Azure

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 (1.49%) Apache
2 2 (0.33%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.17%) CMS
3 1 (0.17%) Confluence
3 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 33 (5.45%) AWS
2 25 (4.13%) Azure
3 14 (2.31%) GCP
4 11 (1.82%) SaaS
5 9 (1.49%) Firebase
6 8 (1.32%) Azure AKS
6 8 (1.32%) GitHub
7 4 (0.66%) Anthropic Claude
7 4 (0.66%) Cloud Run
7 4 (0.66%) OpenShift
8 3 (0.50%) Serverless
9 2 (0.33%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (0.33%) Amazon S3
9 2 (0.33%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (0.33%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.17%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 1 (0.17%) Cloud Functions
10 1 (0.17%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.82%) Wireless
2 8 (1.32%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.50%) Broadband
3 3 (0.50%) RS-485
4 2 (0.33%) AMQP
4 2 (0.33%) Network Security
4 2 (0.33%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.17%) Modbus
5 1 (0.17%) MQTT
5 1 (0.17%) Profibus
5 1 (0.17%) RS-232
5 1 (0.17%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.98%) Elasticsearch
1 12 (1.98%) MongoDB
2 10 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (1.32%) Big Data
3 8 (1.32%) MySQL
3 8 (1.32%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.66%) Hadoop
5 3 (0.50%) MariaDB
5 3 (0.50%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.50%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.50%) Redis
6 2 (0.33%) Cloudera CDH
7 1 (0.17%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.17%) Neo4j
7 1 (0.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 24 (3.97%) Git
2 15 (2.48%) GitLab
3 10 (1.65%) JIRA
4 8 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.32%) SonarQube
5 7 (1.16%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.33%) Gradle
6 2 (0.33%) JUnit
6 2 (0.33%) Mockito
6 2 (0.33%) Subversion
6 2 (0.33%) Visual Studio
6 2 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.17%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.17%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.17%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.17%) GoogleTest
7 1 (0.17%) LabVIEW
General
1 24 (3.97%) Aerospace
2 17 (2.81%) Electronics
3 14 (2.31%) Automotive
4 11 (1.82%) Manufacturing
4 11 (1.82%) Social Skills
5 10 (1.65%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (1.49%) Finance
7 5 (0.83%) Aviation
7 5 (0.83%) Social Housing
7 5 (0.83%) Tech for Good
8 4 (0.66%) Public Sector
9 3 (0.50%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.33%) Avionics
10 2 (0.33%) Military
10 2 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.33%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (6.45%) Vue
2 38 (6.28%) WPF
3 24 (3.97%) Spring
4 20 (3.31%) React
5 17 (2.81%) REST
5 17 (2.81%) Spring Boot
6 16 (2.64%) AngularJS
7 15 (2.48%) Node.js
8 13 (2.15%) .NET
9 12 (1.98%) HTML
10 10 (1.65%) .NET Framework
10 10 (1.65%) RESTful
11 8 (1.32%) .NET Core
11 8 (1.32%) Dapper ORM
11 8 (1.32%) Elastic Stack
11 8 (1.32%) Entity Framework
12 7 (1.16%) Apache NiFi
12 7 (1.16%) FastAPI
13 6 (0.99%) Django
13 6 (0.99%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.13%) Embedded Systems
2 18 (2.98%) Legacy Systems
3 16 (2.64%) Cloud Native
4 15 (2.48%) Algorithms
5 13 (2.15%) Public Cloud
6 12 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
7 9 (1.49%) AI Agents
8 7 (1.16%) Device Driver
9 6 (0.99%) ARM Cortex
10 5 (0.83%) IoT
10 5 (0.83%) Operational Technology
10 5 (0.83%) Smart Home
11 3 (0.50%) Fat Client
11 3 (0.50%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.50%) Thin Client
12 2 (0.33%) Analogue Electronics
12 2 (0.33%) Driving Licence
12 2 (0.33%) Greenfield Project
12 2 (0.33%) PKI
12 2 (0.33%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 45 (7.44%) Linux
2 17 (2.81%) Android
3 13 (2.15%) Windows
4 6 (0.99%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (0.83%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.33%) CentOS
6 2 (0.33%) Debian
6 2 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.33%) SafeRTOS
6 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.33%) Unix
6 2 (0.33%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.17%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 605 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 92 (15.21%) Full-Stack Development
3 80 (13.22%) Agile
4 76 (12.56%) CI/CD
5 47 (7.77%) DevOps
6 41 (6.78%) Microservices
7 40 (6.61%) SDLC
8 38 (6.28%) Mentoring
9 35 (5.79%) AI
10 32 (5.29%) Test Automation
11 31 (5.12%) Software Architecture
12 26 (4.30%) Containerisation
12 26 (4.30%) Embedded Software Development
13 25 (4.13%) Site Reliability Engineering
14 24 (3.97%) Continuous Improvement
14 24 (3.97%) Platform Engineering
15 23 (3.80%) Problem-Solving
16 19 (3.14%) Migration
17 18 (2.98%) Clean Code
18 16 (2.64%) Secure Coding
Programming Languages
1 103 (17.02%) C++
2 97 (16.03%) Java
3 80 (13.22%) Python
4 67 (11.07%) C#
5 46 (7.60%) JavaScript
6 29 (4.79%) C
7 26 (4.30%) TypeScript
8 23 (3.80%) Rust
9 22 (3.64%) Embedded C++
10 16 (2.64%) Go
10 16 (2.64%) Kotlin
10 16 (2.64%) SQL
11 11 (1.82%) Bash
12 10 (1.65%) PHP
13 5 (0.83%) Scala
14 4 (0.66%) Embedded C
14 4 (0.66%) MATLAB
14 4 (0.66%) PowerShell
15 1 (0.17%) Assembly Language
15 1 (0.17%) R
Qualifications
1 126 (20.83%) Security Cleared
2 74 (12.23%) SC Cleared
3 51 (8.43%) DV Cleared
4 13 (2.15%) Degree
5 5 (0.83%) CEH
5 5 (0.83%) OSCP
6 3 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.33%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.50%) Accessibility
2 2 (0.33%) QA
3 1 (0.17%) DO-178B
3 1 (0.17%) DO-254
3 1 (0.17%) HAZOP
3 1 (0.17%) IEC 61508
3 1 (0.17%) IEC 62304
3 1 (0.17%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 29 (4.79%) Docker
2 23 (3.80%) Firmware
3 4 (0.66%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 35 (5.79%) Kubernetes
2 14 (2.31%) Terraform
3 13 (2.15%) Ansible
4 7 (1.16%) Grafana
4 7 (1.16%) Kibana
4 7 (1.16%) logstash
5 3 (0.50%) Plesk
5 3 (0.50%) SCCM
5 3 (0.50%) SCOM
5 3 (0.50%) SCOrch
6 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.33%) Podman
6 2 (0.33%) Puppet
Vendors
1 5 (0.83%) Microsoft
2 4 (0.66%) Google
2 4 (0.66%) Intel
2 4 (0.66%) OpenAI
2 4 (0.66%) Peregrine
3 3 (0.50%) Oracle
4 2 (0.33%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.33%) Red Hat
4 2 (0.33%) SaltStack
4 2 (0.33%) Typelevel
4 2 (0.33%) VMware
5 1 (0.17%) TOWER Software