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 7 July 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 37 13
Rank change year-on-year +23 -24 +64
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 579 179 947
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 7.10% 5.62% 9.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.56% 6.10% 9.89%
Number of salaries quoted 424 104 733
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,300 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +13.04% -4.17%
75th Percentile £76,250 £82,563 £68,750
90th Percentile £89,250 £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 7,663 2,936 9,573
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.00% 92.24% 95.98%
Number of salaries quoted 5,331 1,975 7,124
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £34,500 £37,000
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 £82,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £57,500 £56,121 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.46% +6.90% -12.50%

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 7 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 7 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
Bristol +17 213 £70,000 - 47
Gloucestershire +35 201 £72,500 -12.12% 64
Dorset 0 74 £50,000 -7.17% 14
Somerset -14 37 £55,000 -15.38% 17
Devon 0 26 £57,500 +4.55% 10
Wiltshire +1 21 £60,000 -7.69% 1
Cornwall - 3 - -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 7 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.

1 579 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 120 (20.73%) Security Cleared
3 99 (17.10%) C++
4 90 (15.54%) Java
5 89 (15.37%) Full-Stack Development
6 75 (12.95%) Agile
7 73 (12.61%) CI/CD
8 72 (12.44%) Python
9 71 (12.26%) SC Cleared
10 69 (11.92%) C#
11 50 (8.64%) DevOps
12 44 (7.60%) JavaScript
12 44 (7.60%) Linux
13 43 (7.43%) DV Cleared
14 39 (6.74%) Microservices
15 38 (6.56%) Mentoring
15 38 (6.56%) Vue
16 35 (6.04%) Kubernetes
16 35 (6.04%) SDLC
17 34 (5.87%) AI
17 34 (5.87%) AWS
17 34 (5.87%) WPF
18 30 (5.18%) Docker
18 30 (5.18%) Test Automation
18 30 (5.18%) TypeScript
19 28 (4.84%) C
19 28 (4.84%) Software Architecture
20 27 (4.66%) Site Reliability Engineering
21 26 (4.49%) Azure
21 26 (4.49%) Containerisation

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 10 (1.73%) Apache
2 3 (0.52%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.35%) CMS
4 1 (0.17%) Confluence
4 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
Cloud Services
1 34 (5.87%) AWS
2 26 (4.49%) Azure
3 15 (2.59%) GCP
4 12 (2.07%) SaaS
5 9 (1.55%) Azure AKS
6 8 (1.38%) GitHub
7 7 (1.21%) Firebase
8 5 (0.86%) Serverless
9 4 (0.69%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (0.69%) Anthropic Claude
9 4 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
9 4 (0.69%) Cloud Run
10 3 (0.52%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.52%) OpenShift
11 2 (0.35%) Amazon S3
11 2 (0.35%) GitHub Actions
12 1 (0.17%) Amazon ECS
12 1 (0.17%) Amazon SQS
12 1 (0.17%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 1 (0.17%) Cloud Functions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.90%) Wireless
2 8 (1.38%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.69%) Broadband
4 3 (0.52%) AMQP
5 2 (0.35%) Network Security
5 2 (0.35%) RS-485
5 2 (0.35%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.17%) Modbus
6 1 (0.17%) MQTT
6 1 (0.17%) Profibus
6 1 (0.17%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.07%) Elasticsearch
2 11 (1.90%) MongoDB
3 9 (1.55%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.38%) MySQL
4 8 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.21%) Big Data
6 6 (1.04%) NoSQL
7 4 (0.69%) Hadoop
8 3 (0.52%) Cloudera CDH
8 3 (0.52%) MariaDB
8 3 (0.52%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.17%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.17%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.17%) Redis
9 1 (0.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 20 (3.45%) Git
2 11 (1.90%) GitLab
3 10 (1.73%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.38%) JIRA
4 8 (1.38%) SonarQube
5 7 (1.21%) Cucumber
6 4 (0.69%) Gradle
7 2 (0.35%) JUnit
7 2 (0.35%) Maven
7 2 (0.35%) Mockito
7 2 (0.35%) Subversion
7 2 (0.35%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.17%) Android Studio
8 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.17%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.17%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.17%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.17%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.17%) Xcode
General
1 24 (4.15%) Aerospace
2 17 (2.94%) Electronics
3 14 (2.42%) Automotive
3 14 (2.42%) Social Skills
4 13 (2.25%) Manufacturing
5 11 (1.90%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (1.73%) Finance
7 6 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
8 5 (0.86%) Aviation
8 5 (0.86%) Social Housing
8 5 (0.86%) Tech for Good
9 3 (0.52%) Public Sector
10 2 (0.35%) Avionics
10 2 (0.35%) Law
10 2 (0.35%) Military
10 2 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.35%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (6.56%) Vue
2 34 (5.87%) WPF
3 26 (4.49%) Spring
4 25 (4.32%) React
5 22 (3.80%) REST
6 19 (3.28%) Node.js
7 18 (3.11%) AngularJS
8 17 (2.94%) .NET
8 17 (2.94%) Spring Boot
9 12 (2.07%) HTML
10 11 (1.90%) .NET Framework
10 11 (1.90%) RESTful
11 10 (1.73%) .NET Core
12 9 (1.55%) Dapper ORM
12 9 (1.55%) Entity Framework
13 8 (1.38%) Elastic Stack
14 7 (1.21%) Apache NiFi
14 7 (1.21%) gRPC
15 6 (1.04%) CSS
15 6 (1.04%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 24 (4.15%) Embedded Systems
2 17 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
3 15 (2.59%) Algorithms
4 14 (2.42%) Cloud Native
5 9 (1.55%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (1.21%) AI Agents
6 7 (1.21%) Device Driver
7 6 (1.04%) Public Cloud
8 5 (0.86%) ARM Cortex
8 5 (0.86%) IoT
8 5 (0.86%) Smart Home
9 4 (0.69%) Operational Technology
9 4 (0.69%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.52%) Fat Client
10 3 (0.52%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.52%) Over-the-Top Content
10 3 (0.52%) Thin Client
10 3 (0.52%) Video\Live Streaming
11 2 (0.35%) PKI
11 2 (0.35%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 44 (7.60%) Linux
2 15 (2.59%) Android
3 12 (2.07%) Windows
4 6 (1.04%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (0.86%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.52%) CentOS
6 3 (0.52%) Debian
6 3 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.52%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.35%) SafeRTOS
7 2 (0.35%) Unix
7 2 (0.35%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.17%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 579 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 89 (15.37%) Full-Stack Development
3 75 (12.95%) Agile
4 73 (12.61%) CI/CD
5 50 (8.64%) DevOps
6 39 (6.74%) Microservices
7 38 (6.56%) Mentoring
8 35 (6.04%) SDLC
9 34 (5.87%) AI
10 30 (5.18%) Test Automation
11 28 (4.84%) Software Architecture
12 27 (4.66%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 26 (4.49%) Containerisation
13 26 (4.49%) Embedded Software Development
13 26 (4.49%) Platform Engineering
14 25 (4.32%) Problem-Solving
15 24 (4.15%) Continuous Improvement
16 18 (3.11%) Clean Code
16 18 (3.11%) Migration
17 16 (2.76%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 99 (17.10%) C++
2 90 (15.54%) Java
3 72 (12.44%) Python
4 69 (11.92%) C#
5 44 (7.60%) JavaScript
6 30 (5.18%) TypeScript
7 28 (4.84%) C
8 22 (3.80%) Embedded C++
9 20 (3.45%) Rust
10 17 (2.94%) SQL
11 14 (2.42%) Go
11 14 (2.42%) Kotlin
12 11 (1.90%) Bash
13 10 (1.73%) PHP
14 4 (0.69%) Embedded C
14 4 (0.69%) MATLAB
14 4 (0.69%) PowerShell
14 4 (0.69%) Scala
15 1 (0.17%) R
15 1 (0.17%) Swift
Qualifications
1 120 (20.73%) Security Cleared
2 71 (12.26%) SC Cleared
3 43 (7.43%) DV Cleared
4 12 (2.07%) Degree
5 4 (0.69%) CEH
5 4 (0.69%) OSCP
6 3 (0.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.35%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.35%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.52%) Accessibility
2 2 (0.35%) 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 30 (5.18%) Docker
2 22 (3.80%) Firmware
3 3 (0.52%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 35 (6.04%) Kubernetes
2 16 (2.76%) Terraform
3 14 (2.42%) Ansible
4 7 (1.21%) Grafana
4 7 (1.21%) Kibana
4 7 (1.21%) logstash
5 3 (0.52%) Plesk
5 3 (0.52%) Puppet
5 3 (0.52%) SCCM
5 3 (0.52%) SCOM
5 3 (0.52%) SCOrch
6 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.35%) Podman
Vendors
1 5 (0.86%) Google
1 5 (0.86%) Microsoft
2 4 (0.69%) OpenAI
2 4 (0.69%) Peregrine
3 3 (0.52%) Intel
3 3 (0.52%) Oracle
3 3 (0.52%) Red Hat
3 3 (0.52%) SaltStack
4 2 (0.35%) Typelevel
4 2 (0.35%) VMware
5 1 (0.17%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.17%) TOWER Software