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 15 July 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 38 13
Rank change year-on-year +25 -25 +67
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 610 181 920
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 7.32% 5.45% 9.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.78% 5.92% 9.80%
Number of salaries quoted 441 106 714
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £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 £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 7,839 3,055 9,388
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.04% 91.99% 95.98%
Number of salaries quoted 5,377 2,054 6,997
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £28,000
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 £80,000 £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 15 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 15 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 +33 232 £75,000 -4.76% 63
Bristol +16 214 £70,000 +3.70% 33
Dorset +3 75 £50,000 -7.17% 20
Somerset -13 41 £55,000 -15.38% 12
Devon -6 28 £60,000 +20.00% 12
Wiltshire -1 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 15 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.

1 610 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 130 (21.31%) Security Cleared
3 105 (17.21%) C++
4 101 (16.56%) Java
5 94 (15.41%) Full-Stack Development
6 84 (13.77%) Agile
7 83 (13.61%) Python
8 79 (12.95%) CI/CD
9 75 (12.30%) SC Cleared
10 67 (10.98%) C#
11 51 (8.36%) DV Cleared
12 50 (8.20%) DevOps
13 48 (7.87%) JavaScript
14 47 (7.70%) Linux
15 44 (7.21%) Microservices
16 40 (6.56%) SDLC
16 40 (6.56%) Vue
17 38 (6.23%) Mentoring
17 38 (6.23%) WPF
18 37 (6.07%) AI
19 36 (5.90%) Kubernetes
20 35 (5.74%) AWS
21 34 (5.57%) Test Automation
22 31 (5.08%) Software Architecture
23 29 (4.75%) Docker
24 28 (4.59%) C
25 27 (4.43%) Containerisation
25 27 (4.43%) Continuous Improvement
25 27 (4.43%) Site Reliability Engineering
25 27 (4.43%) Spring

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 11 (1.80%) Apache
2 3 (0.49%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.16%) CMS
3 1 (0.16%) Confluence
3 1 (0.16%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 35 (5.74%) AWS
2 26 (4.26%) Azure
3 15 (2.46%) GCP
4 11 (1.80%) SaaS
5 9 (1.48%) Firebase
6 8 (1.31%) Azure AKS
6 8 (1.31%) GitHub
7 5 (0.82%) OpenShift
8 4 (0.66%) Anthropic Claude
8 4 (0.66%) Cloud Run
8 4 (0.66%) Serverless
9 3 (0.49%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (0.49%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (0.49%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (0.33%) Amazon S3
11 1 (0.16%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 1 (0.16%) Cloud Functions
11 1 (0.16%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.80%) Wireless
2 8 (1.31%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.49%) AMQP
3 3 (0.49%) Broadband
4 2 (0.33%) Network Security
4 2 (0.33%) RS-485
4 2 (0.33%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.16%) Modbus
5 1 (0.16%) MQTT
5 1 (0.16%) Profibus
5 1 (0.16%) RS-232
5 1 (0.16%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.13%) Elasticsearch
2 12 (1.97%) MongoDB
3 10 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (1.48%) Big Data
5 8 (1.31%) MySQL
5 8 (1.31%) SQL Server
6 5 (0.82%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.82%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.49%) Cloudera CDH
7 3 (0.49%) MariaDB
7 3 (0.49%) Pinecone
7 3 (0.49%) Redis
8 1 (0.16%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.16%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.16%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 23 (3.77%) Git
2 16 (2.62%) GitLab
3 9 (1.48%) Jenkins
3 9 (1.48%) JIRA
3 9 (1.48%) SonarQube
4 8 (1.31%) Cucumber
5 4 (0.66%) Gradle
6 2 (0.33%) JUnit
6 2 (0.33%) Maven
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 (0.16%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.16%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.16%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.16%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.16%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.16%) GoogleTest
7 1 (0.16%) LabVIEW
General
1 25 (4.10%) Aerospace
2 17 (2.79%) Electronics
3 14 (2.30%) Automotive
4 12 (1.97%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (1.80%) Manufacturing
5 11 (1.80%) Social Skills
6 10 (1.64%) Finance
7 5 (0.82%) Aviation
7 5 (0.82%) Social Housing
7 5 (0.82%) Tech for Good
8 4 (0.66%) Public Sector
9 3 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.33%) Avionics
10 2 (0.33%) Law
10 2 (0.33%) Military
10 2 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.33%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (6.56%) Vue
2 38 (6.23%) WPF
3 27 (4.43%) Spring
4 21 (3.44%) React
5 20 (3.28%) Spring Boot
6 19 (3.11%) REST
7 17 (2.79%) AngularJS
8 16 (2.62%) Node.js
9 13 (2.13%) .NET
10 12 (1.97%) HTML
10 12 (1.97%) RESTful
11 10 (1.64%) .NET Framework
12 9 (1.48%) Elastic Stack
13 8 (1.31%) .NET Core
13 8 (1.31%) Apache NiFi
13 8 (1.31%) Dapper ORM
13 8 (1.31%) Entity Framework
14 7 (1.15%) FastAPI
14 7 (1.15%) gRPC
15 6 (0.98%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.10%) Embedded Systems
2 18 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
3 17 (2.79%) Cloud Native
4 15 (2.46%) Algorithms
5 12 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (1.97%) Public Cloud
6 9 (1.48%) AI Agents
7 7 (1.15%) Device Driver
8 5 (0.82%) ARM Cortex
8 5 (0.82%) IoT
8 5 (0.82%) Operational Technology
8 5 (0.82%) Smart Home
9 4 (0.66%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.49%) Fat Client
10 3 (0.49%) Thin Client
11 2 (0.33%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.33%) Over-the-Top Content
11 2 (0.33%) PKI
11 2 (0.33%) Smartphone
11 2 (0.33%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 47 (7.70%) Linux
2 17 (2.79%) Android
3 13 (2.13%) Windows
4 6 (0.98%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (0.82%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.49%) CentOS
6 3 (0.49%) Debian
6 3 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.49%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.33%) SafeRTOS
7 2 (0.33%) Unix
7 2 (0.33%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.16%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 610 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 94 (15.41%) Full-Stack Development
3 84 (13.77%) Agile
4 79 (12.95%) CI/CD
5 50 (8.20%) DevOps
6 44 (7.21%) Microservices
7 40 (6.56%) SDLC
8 38 (6.23%) Mentoring
9 37 (6.07%) AI
10 34 (5.57%) Test Automation
11 31 (5.08%) Software Architecture
12 27 (4.43%) Containerisation
12 27 (4.43%) Continuous Improvement
12 27 (4.43%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 26 (4.26%) Embedded Software Development
13 26 (4.26%) Platform Engineering
13 26 (4.26%) Problem-Solving
14 19 (3.11%) Clean Code
14 19 (3.11%) Migration
15 17 (2.79%) Collaborative Culture
Programming Languages
1 105 (17.21%) C++
2 101 (16.56%) Java
3 83 (13.61%) Python
4 67 (10.98%) C#
5 48 (7.87%) JavaScript
6 28 (4.59%) C
7 27 (4.43%) TypeScript
8 24 (3.93%) Rust
9 22 (3.61%) Embedded C++
10 17 (2.79%) Go
11 16 (2.62%) Kotlin
11 16 (2.62%) SQL
12 13 (2.13%) Bash
13 10 (1.64%) PHP
14 5 (0.82%) Scala
15 4 (0.66%) Embedded C
15 4 (0.66%) MATLAB
15 4 (0.66%) PowerShell
16 1 (0.16%) Assembly Language
16 1 (0.16%) R
Qualifications
1 130 (21.31%) Security Cleared
2 75 (12.30%) SC Cleared
3 51 (8.36%) DV Cleared
4 13 (2.13%) Degree
5 5 (0.82%) CEH
5 5 (0.82%) OSCP
6 3 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.33%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.49%) Accessibility
2 2 (0.33%) QA
3 1 (0.16%) DO-178B
3 1 (0.16%) DO-254
3 1 (0.16%) HAZOP
3 1 (0.16%) IEC 61508
3 1 (0.16%) IEC 62304
3 1 (0.16%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 29 (4.75%) Docker
2 22 (3.61%) Firmware
3 3 (0.49%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 36 (5.90%) Kubernetes
2 16 (2.62%) Terraform
3 15 (2.46%) Ansible
4 8 (1.31%) Grafana
4 8 (1.31%) Kibana
4 8 (1.31%) logstash
5 3 (0.49%) Plesk
5 3 (0.49%) Puppet
5 3 (0.49%) SCCM
5 3 (0.49%) SCOM
5 3 (0.49%) SCOrch
6 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.33%) Podman
Vendors
1 5 (0.82%) Google
1 5 (0.82%) Microsoft
2 4 (0.66%) Intel
2 4 (0.66%) OpenAI
2 4 (0.66%) Peregrine
3 3 (0.49%) Oracle
3 3 (0.49%) Red Hat
3 3 (0.49%) SaltStack
4 2 (0.33%) Atlassian
4 2 (0.33%) Typelevel
4 2 (0.33%) VMware
5 1 (0.16%) TOWER Software