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 2 January 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 37
Rank change year-on-year -7 +16 -4
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 249 369 305
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 4.95% 8.59% 6.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.31% 9.16% 7.22%
Number of salaries quoted 193 170 240
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £45,000 £47,025
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 £68,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £90,193
England median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £69,447
% change year-on-year - +0.80% -

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 4,686 4,030 4,226
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.20% 93.76% 95.74%
Number of salaries quoted 3,223 2,228 3,270
10th Percentile £28,000 £30,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,875 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% +5.00%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -1.78%

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 2 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 2 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 +2 120 £65,000 +4.00% 78
Gloucestershire +18 57 £75,000 +25.00% 42
Dorset -16 30 £55,000 +10.00% 12
Devon -15 13 £45,000 -21.74% 2
Somerset -18 10 £65,000 +18.18% 19
Wiltshire -11 8 £40,792 +1.98% 2
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 249 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 53 (21.29%) Security Cleared
3 48 (19.28%) Java
4 38 (15.26%) Python
5 31 (12.45%) C++
5 31 (12.45%) Full-Stack Development
6 30 (12.05%) Agile
6 30 (12.05%) AWS
7 29 (11.65%) React
8 28 (11.24%) CI/CD
8 28 (11.24%) TypeScript
9 27 (10.84%) Linux
9 27 (10.84%) SC Cleared
10 26 (10.44%) JavaScript
11 25 (10.04%) Degree
12 24 (9.64%) DV Cleared
13 19 (7.63%) Kubernetes
14 18 (7.23%) Problem-Solving
15 17 (6.83%) Git
16 16 (6.43%) C#
16 16 (6.43%) Test Automation
17 15 (6.02%) DevOps
17 15 (6.02%) Mentoring
17 15 (6.02%) Oracle
17 15 (6.02%) Spring
18 13 (5.22%) AI
18 13 (5.22%) Digital Signal Processing
18 13 (5.22%) Microservices
18 13 (5.22%) Signal Processing
19 12 (4.82%) .NET

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 8 (3.21%) Apache
2 6 (2.41%) Confluence
3 1 (0.40%) CMS
Business Applications
1 2 (0.80%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 30 (12.05%) AWS
2 9 (3.61%) Amazon S3
2 9 (3.61%) AWS Lambda
2 9 (3.61%) Serverless
3 7 (2.81%) Amazon EKS
3 7 (2.81%) Azure
4 6 (2.41%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 3 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (1.20%) AWS Fargate
6 2 (0.80%) Amazon MSK
6 2 (0.80%) Amazon OpenSearch
6 2 (0.80%) Amazon SQS
6 2 (0.80%) GCP
6 2 (0.80%) GitHub
6 2 (0.80%) OpenShift
6 2 (0.80%) SaaS
7 1 (0.40%) Azure AKS
7 1 (0.40%) Cloud Run
7 1 (0.40%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.61%) DNS
1 4 (1.61%) HTTP
1 4 (1.61%) SMTP
1 4 (1.61%) Software-Defined Radio
1 4 (1.61%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.40%) Bluetooth
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.61%) Elasticsearch
2 7 (2.81%) MongoDB
3 4 (1.61%) Relational Database
4 3 (1.20%) Neo4j
4 3 (1.20%) NoSQL
4 3 (1.20%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.80%) GIS
5 2 (0.80%) MySQL
5 2 (0.80%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.40%) DocumentDB
6 1 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.40%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 17 (6.83%) Git
2 10 (4.02%) JUnit
3 7 (2.81%) GitLab
4 6 (2.41%) JIRA
5 5 (2.01%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.61%) Jenkins
6 4 (1.61%) Oracle APEX
7 3 (1.20%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.80%) Maven
8 2 (0.80%) PROIV
9 1 (0.40%) Android Studio
9 1 (0.40%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.40%) Gatling
9 1 (0.40%) Gradle
9 1 (0.40%) JMeter
9 1 (0.40%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.40%) Selenium
9 1 (0.40%) Xcode
9 1 (0.40%) Zephyr
General
1 17 (6.83%) Finance
2 15 (6.02%) Aerospace
3 12 (4.82%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (4.82%) Social Skills
4 7 (2.81%) Aeronautics
4 7 (2.81%) Automotive
4 7 (2.81%) Electronics
4 7 (2.81%) Public Sector
5 6 (2.41%) Manufacturing
6 5 (2.01%) Military
6 5 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
7 3 (1.20%) Marketing
7 3 (1.20%) Telecoms
8 2 (0.80%) Games
8 2 (0.80%) Social Housing
8 2 (0.80%) Tech for Good
9 1 (0.40%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (11.65%) React
2 15 (6.02%) Spring
3 12 (4.82%) .NET
3 12 (4.82%) Spring Boot
4 11 (4.42%) HTML
5 10 (4.02%) Qt
6 8 (3.21%) CSS
7 7 (2.81%) AngularJS
8 6 (2.41%) Apache NiFi
8 6 (2.41%) RESTful
9 5 (2.01%) Hibernate
9 5 (2.01%) JSF
9 5 (2.01%) Node.js
9 5 (2.01%) REST
9 5 (2.01%) WPF
10 4 (1.61%) ASP.NET
10 4 (1.61%) Jest
10 4 (1.61%) PrimeFaces
11 3 (1.20%) LAMP
11 3 (1.20%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 13 (5.22%) Cloud Native
2 11 (4.42%) Embedded Systems
3 10 (4.02%) Robotics
4 7 (2.81%) IoT
4 7 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (1.61%) Algorithms
5 4 (1.61%) GNSS
5 4 (1.61%) Satnav
6 3 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (0.80%) Management Information System
7 2 (0.80%) Smart Home
8 1 (0.40%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.40%) Legacy Code
8 1 (0.40%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.40%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.40%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.40%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 27 (10.84%) Linux
2 4 (1.61%) Windows
3 1 (0.40%) Android
3 1 (0.40%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 31 (12.45%) Full-Stack Development
3 30 (12.05%) Agile
4 28 (11.24%) CI/CD
5 18 (7.23%) Problem-Solving
6 16 (6.43%) Test Automation
7 15 (6.02%) DevOps
7 15 (6.02%) Mentoring
8 13 (5.22%) AI
8 13 (5.22%) Digital Signal Processing
8 13 (5.22%) Microservices
8 13 (5.22%) Signal Processing
9 12 (4.82%) Continuous Improvement
10 9 (3.61%) Coaching
10 9 (3.61%) Machine Learning
10 9 (3.61%) Unit Testing
11 8 (3.21%) Mathematics
11 8 (3.21%) Scrum
12 7 (2.81%) Collaborative Culture
12 7 (2.81%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 48 (19.28%) Java
2 38 (15.26%) Python
3 31 (12.45%) C++
4 28 (11.24%) TypeScript
5 26 (10.44%) JavaScript
6 16 (6.43%) C#
7 12 (4.82%) C
8 9 (3.61%) Embedded C++
9 8 (3.21%) SQL
10 6 (2.41%) Kotlin
11 5 (2.01%) Rust
12 4 (1.61%) PHP
12 4 (1.61%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.61%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.80%) Bash
14 1 (0.40%) Delphi
14 1 (0.40%) Ruby
14 1 (0.40%) Scala
14 1 (0.40%) Swift
Qualifications
1 53 (21.29%) Security Cleared
2 27 (10.84%) SC Cleared
3 25 (10.04%) Degree
4 24 (9.64%) DV Cleared
5 4 (1.61%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.40%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.20%) QA
2 2 (0.80%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 8 (3.21%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (7.63%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.21%) Kibana
3 2 (0.80%) Terraform
4 1 (0.40%) Grafana
Vendors
1 15 (6.02%) Oracle
2 8 (3.21%) Atlassian
3 3 (1.20%) SAP
4 1 (0.40%) Google
4 1 (0.40%) Palantir