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 April 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 41 16
Rank change year-on-year +23 -25 +42
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 424 170 758
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 6.24% 6.27% 9.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.64% 6.73% 9.59%
Number of salaries quoted 310 106 620
10th Percentile £42,500 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £53,750 £47,890 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £93,778 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -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 6,383 2,525 7,903
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.87% 93.17% 95.99%
Number of salaries quoted 4,445 1,621 6,128
10th Percentile £29,500 £29,848 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £39,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,600 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.94% +5.20% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,568 £64,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.71%

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 April 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 April 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 +11 172 £65,000 +6.12% 49
Gloucestershire +43 126 £70,000 +16.67% 47
Dorset +7 58 £55,000 +4.76% 10
Devon -8 21 £45,000 -30.77% 7
Somerset -18 15 £65,000 -8.77% 20
Wiltshire - 15 £60,000 - 11
Cornwall -16 2 - - 1
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 2 April 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.

1 424 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 93 (21.93%) Security Cleared
3 78 (18.40%) Java
4 58 (13.68%) Full-Stack Development
5 54 (12.74%) Python
6 52 (12.26%) C++
6 52 (12.26%) SC Cleared
7 46 (10.85%) Agile
8 43 (10.14%) C#
9 40 (9.43%) TypeScript
10 39 (9.20%) Kubernetes
11 38 (8.96%) JavaScript
12 35 (8.25%) AWS
12 35 (8.25%) CI/CD
13 32 (7.55%) Problem-Solving
14 31 (7.31%) Linux
14 31 (7.31%) React
15 30 (7.08%) DevOps
15 30 (7.08%) DV Cleared
16 28 (6.60%) Docker
17 27 (6.37%) .NET
18 26 (6.13%) AI
19 23 (5.42%) Continuous Improvement
20 21 (4.95%) Mentoring
21 20 (4.72%) C
21 20 (4.72%) Degree
21 20 (4.72%) REST
21 20 (4.72%) Test Automation
22 19 (4.48%) Spring
22 19 (4.48%) SQL

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 (1.89%) Apache
2 3 (0.71%) CMS
3 2 (0.47%) Confluence
4 1 (0.24%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 2 (0.47%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 35 (8.25%) AWS
2 12 (2.83%) SaaS
3 11 (2.59%) Azure
3 11 (2.59%) Azure AKS
4 7 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
4 7 (1.65%) Serverless
5 6 (1.42%) Amazon EKS
5 6 (1.42%) Amazon S3
5 6 (1.42%) GCP
6 4 (0.94%) Amazon ECS
6 4 (0.94%) GitHub
7 3 (0.71%) Amazon SQS
7 3 (0.71%) OpenShift
8 2 (0.47%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (0.47%) AWS Fargate
8 2 (0.47%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (0.24%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.94%) DNS
1 4 (0.94%) HTTP
1 4 (0.94%) SMTP
1 4 (0.94%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.71%) Broadband
3 2 (0.47%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.47%) Network Security
3 2 (0.47%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.47%) Wireless
4 1 (0.24%) AMQP
4 1 (0.24%) Modbus
4 1 (0.24%) Profibus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.83%) SQL Server
2 11 (2.59%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (1.42%) MongoDB
3 6 (1.42%) NoSQL
4 5 (1.18%) MySQL
4 5 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.94%) Neo4j
6 3 (0.71%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.47%) Big Data
7 2 (0.47%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.24%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.24%) Cloudera CDH
8 1 (0.24%) DocumentDB
8 1 (0.24%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.24%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.24%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.24%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 14 (3.30%) Git
2 7 (1.65%) JUnit
3 6 (1.42%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.18%) GitLab
5 3 (0.71%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.71%) Gradle
6 2 (0.47%) Android Studio
6 2 (0.47%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.47%) JIRA
6 2 (0.47%) Maven
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle APEX
6 2 (0.47%) PROIV
6 2 (0.47%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.47%) Subversion
6 2 (0.47%) Xcode
7 1 (0.24%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.24%) JMeter
7 1 (0.24%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.24%) Selenium
7 1 (0.24%) TeamCity
General
1 24 (5.66%) Aerospace
2 22 (5.19%) Finance
3 17 (4.01%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (3.54%) Social Skills
5 14 (3.30%) Automotive
6 9 (2.12%) Electronics
6 9 (2.12%) Manufacturing
7 8 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
8 7 (1.65%) Aeronautics
9 5 (1.18%) Military
9 5 (1.18%) Public Sector
10 3 (0.71%) Law
10 3 (0.71%) Marketing
10 3 (0.71%) Social Housing
10 3 (0.71%) Tech for Good
10 3 (0.71%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.47%) Aviation
11 2 (0.47%) Avionics
11 2 (0.47%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.31%) React
2 27 (6.37%) .NET
3 20 (4.72%) REST
4 19 (4.48%) Spring
5 18 (4.25%) Node.js
6 17 (4.01%) HTML
7 15 (3.54%) AngularJS
7 15 (3.54%) Spring Boot
8 13 (3.07%) .NET Core
9 11 (2.59%) .NET Framework
9 11 (2.59%) Dapper ORM
9 11 (2.59%) Entity Framework
10 10 (2.36%) Vue
11 9 (2.12%) RESTful
12 8 (1.89%) ASP.NET
13 7 (1.65%) CSS
13 7 (1.65%) Qt
13 7 (1.65%) WPF
14 5 (1.18%) Apache NiFi
15 4 (0.94%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 16 (3.77%) Cloud Native
2 10 (2.36%) Robotics
2 10 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
3 9 (2.12%) Embedded Systems
4 6 (1.42%) IoT
5 5 (1.18%) Algorithms
5 5 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (0.94%) GNSS
6 4 (0.94%) Satnav
7 3 (0.71%) ARM Cortex
7 3 (0.71%) Over-the-Top Content
7 3 (0.71%) Smart Home
7 3 (0.71%) Video\Live Streaming
8 2 (0.47%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.47%) Mobile App
8 2 (0.47%) Raspberry Pi
9 1 (0.24%) Device Driver
9 1 (0.24%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.24%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 31 (7.31%) Linux
2 6 (1.42%) Windows
3 5 (1.18%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (0.47%) Android
4 2 (0.47%) SafeRTOS
5 1 (0.24%) CentOS
5 1 (0.24%) Debian
5 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.24%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 424 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 58 (13.68%) Full-Stack Development
3 46 (10.85%) Agile
4 35 (8.25%) CI/CD
5 32 (7.55%) Problem-Solving
6 30 (7.08%) DevOps
7 26 (6.13%) AI
8 23 (5.42%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (4.95%) Mentoring
10 20 (4.72%) Test Automation
11 18 (4.25%) Containerisation
11 18 (4.25%) Embedded Software Development
12 16 (3.77%) Microservices
13 15 (3.54%) Performance Optimisation
13 15 (3.54%) SDLC
14 13 (3.07%) Platform Engineering
14 13 (3.07%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 12 (2.83%) Secure Coding
16 11 (2.59%) Cybersecurity
16 11 (2.59%) Signal Processing
Programming Languages
1 78 (18.40%) Java
2 54 (12.74%) Python
3 52 (12.26%) C++
4 43 (10.14%) C#
5 40 (9.43%) TypeScript
6 38 (8.96%) JavaScript
7 20 (4.72%) C
8 19 (4.48%) SQL
9 10 (2.36%) Embedded C++
10 8 (1.89%) PHP
11 7 (1.65%) Bash
11 7 (1.65%) Kotlin
11 7 (1.65%) Rust
12 5 (1.18%) Go
13 4 (0.94%) Scala
14 3 (0.71%) Embedded C
15 2 (0.47%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.47%) Swift
15 2 (0.47%) T-SQL
16 1 (0.24%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 93 (21.93%) Security Cleared
2 52 (12.26%) SC Cleared
3 30 (7.08%) DV Cleared
4 20 (4.72%) Degree
5 2 (0.47%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.24%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (0.71%) QA
2 1 (0.24%) DO-254
2 1 (0.24%) HAZOP
2 1 (0.24%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.24%) IEC 62304
2 1 (0.24%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 28 (6.60%) Docker
2 6 (1.42%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 39 (9.20%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.12%) Terraform
3 4 (0.94%) Kibana
4 3 (0.71%) Ansible
4 3 (0.71%) Grafana
5 2 (0.47%) logstash
6 1 (0.24%) Podman
6 1 (0.24%) Puppet
Vendors
1 12 (2.83%) Oracle
2 3 (0.71%) SAP
3 2 (0.47%) Atlassian
3 2 (0.47%) Typelevel
4 1 (0.24%) Google
4 1 (0.24%) OpenAI
4 1 (0.24%) Palantir
4 1 (0.24%) Red Hat
4 1 (0.24%) SaltStack