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 12 December 2025.

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

6 months to
12 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 33 16 43
Rank change year-on-year -17 +27 -18
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 228 459 263
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 4.80% 8.92% 6.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.17% 9.51% 6.39%
Number of salaries quoted 167 237 203
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £45,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £80,000 £82,538
England median annual salary £75,000 £67,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year +11.11% -3.57% +1.34%

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 4,407 4,829 4,114
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.70% 93.88% 95.47%
Number of salaries quoted 3,005 2,853 3,223
10th Percentile £27,750 £30,000 £30,500
25th Percentile £32,500 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £51,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -6.86% -2.86% +5.00%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

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 12 December 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 12 December 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 -11 90 £60,000 -4.00% 94
Gloucestershire +18 59 £75,000 +7.14% 80
Dorset -12 38 £55,000 +10.00% 31
Somerset -17 13 £65,000 +8.33% 37
Devon -21 11 £45,000 -21.74% 30
Wiltshire -15 7 £40,792 -9.35% 18
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 12 December 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.

1 228 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 48 (21.05%) Security Cleared
3 45 (19.74%) Java
4 40 (17.54%) C++
5 37 (16.23%) Python
6 31 (13.60%) AWS
7 30 (13.16%) CI/CD
8 29 (12.72%) Agile
9 27 (11.84%) React
10 26 (11.40%) DV Cleared
10 26 (11.40%) Linux
11 25 (10.96%) Degree
11 25 (10.96%) Full-Stack Development
11 25 (10.96%) JavaScript
11 25 (10.96%) SC Cleared
11 25 (10.96%) TypeScript
12 20 (8.77%) Test Automation
13 18 (7.89%) Git
14 17 (7.46%) Kubernetes
15 15 (6.58%) AI
15 15 (6.58%) C#
15 15 (6.58%) Oracle
15 15 (6.58%) Problem-Solving
15 15 (6.58%) Spring
16 14 (6.14%) Mentoring
16 14 (6.14%) Microservices
17 13 (5.70%) Digital Signal Processing
17 13 (5.70%) HTML
17 13 (5.70%) Machine Learning
17 13 (5.70%) Signal Processing

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 (3.51%) Apache
2 6 (2.63%) Confluence
3 1 (0.44%) CMS
Cloud Services
1 31 (13.60%) AWS
2 9 (3.95%) Amazon S3
2 9 (3.95%) AWS Lambda
2 9 (3.95%) Serverless
3 7 (3.07%) Amazon EKS
4 6 (2.63%) Amazon ECS
5 5 (2.19%) Azure
6 3 (1.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 3 (1.32%) Amazon EC2
6 3 (1.32%) AWS Fargate
7 2 (0.88%) Amazon MSK
7 2 (0.88%) Amazon OpenSearch
7 2 (0.88%) OpenShift
8 1 (0.44%) Amazon Bedrock
8 1 (0.44%) Amazon SQS
8 1 (0.44%) Cloud Run
8 1 (0.44%) GCP
8 1 (0.44%) GitHub
8 1 (0.44%) NuGet
8 1 (0.44%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.19%) TCP/IP
2 4 (1.75%) DNS
2 4 (1.75%) HTTP
2 4 (1.75%) SMTP
2 4 (1.75%) Software-Defined Radio
3 1 (0.44%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.44%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.44%) J1939
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.51%) Elasticsearch
2 7 (3.07%) MongoDB
3 4 (1.75%) Relational Database
4 3 (1.32%) NoSQL
4 3 (1.32%) Oracle Database
4 3 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.88%) GIS
5 2 (0.88%) Neo4j
6 1 (0.44%) CockroachDB
6 1 (0.44%) DocumentDB
6 1 (0.44%) Geospatial Data
6 1 (0.44%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.44%) MySQL
6 1 (0.44%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.44%) Redis
6 1 (0.44%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (7.89%) Git
2 10 (4.39%) JUnit
3 7 (3.07%) GitLab
3 7 (3.07%) JIRA
4 5 (2.19%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.75%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.75%) Oracle APEX
6 3 (1.32%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.88%) Maven
7 2 (0.88%) Selenium
7 2 (0.88%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.44%) Android Studio
8 1 (0.44%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.44%) Gradle
8 1 (0.44%) JMeter
8 1 (0.44%) LabVIEW
8 1 (0.44%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.44%) Mockito
8 1 (0.44%) Xcode
8 1 (0.44%) Zephyr
General
1 21 (9.21%) Finance
2 13 (5.70%) Aerospace
3 12 (5.26%) Social Skills
4 9 (3.95%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (3.07%) Electronics
5 7 (3.07%) Law
5 7 (3.07%) Marketing
5 7 (3.07%) Public Sector
6 6 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 6 (2.63%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.19%) Aeronautics
7 5 (2.19%) Automotive
7 5 (2.19%) Military
8 4 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
8 4 (1.75%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.88%) Banking
9 2 (0.88%) Games
10 1 (0.44%) Wholesale Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (11.84%) React
2 15 (6.58%) Spring
3 13 (5.70%) HTML
4 12 (5.26%) Spring Boot
5 10 (4.39%) Qt
6 9 (3.95%) CSS
7 8 (3.51%) RESTful
8 6 (2.63%) .NET
8 6 (2.63%) Apache NiFi
9 5 (2.19%) AngularJS
9 5 (2.19%) Hibernate
9 5 (2.19%) JSF
9 5 (2.19%) REST
9 5 (2.19%) WPF
10 4 (1.75%) Jest
10 4 (1.75%) Kafka
10 4 (1.75%) LAMP
10 4 (1.75%) Node.js
10 4 (1.75%) PrimeFaces
10 4 (1.75%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 12 (5.26%) Cloud Native
1 12 (5.26%) Embedded Systems
2 10 (4.39%) Robotics
3 8 (3.51%) Algorithms
4 5 (2.19%) IoT
4 5 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (1.75%) GNSS
5 4 (1.75%) Satnav
6 2 (0.88%) Legacy Code
6 2 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (0.88%) Management Information System
6 2 (0.88%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.44%) CAN bus
7 1 (0.44%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.44%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.44%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.44%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.44%) PKI
7 1 (0.44%) Private Cloud
7 1 (0.44%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 26 (11.40%) Linux
2 6 (2.63%) Windows
3 2 (0.88%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (0.44%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 228 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 30 (13.16%) CI/CD
3 29 (12.72%) Agile
4 25 (10.96%) Full-Stack Development
5 20 (8.77%) Test Automation
6 15 (6.58%) AI
6 15 (6.58%) Problem-Solving
7 14 (6.14%) Mentoring
7 14 (6.14%) Microservices
8 13 (5.70%) Digital Signal Processing
8 13 (5.70%) Machine Learning
8 13 (5.70%) Signal Processing
9 12 (5.26%) Continuous Improvement
10 11 (4.82%) DevOps
11 9 (3.95%) Coaching
11 9 (3.95%) SDLC
12 8 (3.51%) Mathematics
12 8 (3.51%) Unit Testing
13 7 (3.07%) Community of Practice
13 7 (3.07%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 45 (19.74%) Java
2 40 (17.54%) C++
3 37 (16.23%) Python
4 25 (10.96%) JavaScript
4 25 (10.96%) TypeScript
5 15 (6.58%) C#
6 12 (5.26%) C
7 9 (3.95%) Embedded C++
7 9 (3.95%) SQL
8 6 (2.63%) Kotlin
8 6 (2.63%) Rust
9 5 (2.19%) PHP
10 4 (1.75%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.75%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.88%) VC++
12 1 (0.44%) Bash
12 1 (0.44%) Delphi
12 1 (0.44%) Ruby
12 1 (0.44%) Scala
12 1 (0.44%) Swift
Qualifications
1 48 (21.05%) Security Cleared
2 26 (11.40%) DV Cleared
3 25 (10.96%) Degree
3 25 (10.96%) SC Cleared
4 4 (1.75%) Master's Degree
5 1 (0.44%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.32%) QA
2 2 (0.88%) ISO 9001
3 1 (0.44%) JTAG
System Software
1 6 (2.63%) Docker
Systems Management
1 17 (7.46%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.51%) Kibana
3 2 (0.88%) Terraform
4 1 (0.44%) Grafana
Vendors
1 15 (6.58%) Oracle
2 8 (3.51%) Atlassian
3 3 (1.32%) SAP
4 2 (0.88%) Google
4 2 (0.88%) Microsoft
5 1 (0.44%) Databricks
5 1 (0.44%) Palantir
5 1 (0.44%) ServiceNow