Software Engineer Job Trends in the South West

Software Engineer
England > South West

The median Software Engineer salary in the South West is £69,250 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 27 September 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 49 12
Rank change year-on-year +40 -37 +49
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 907 141 684
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 8.72% 3.96% 9.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.40% 4.26% 10.01%
Number of salaries quoted 654 78 403
10th Percentile £50,000 £45,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £57,500 £55,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £69,250 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.54% +8.33% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,813 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £82,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -15.15% +26.92% -7.14%

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 9,652 3,308 6,835
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.77% 92.90% 94.52%
Number of salaries quoted 6,685 2,147 4,305
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £31,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £45,000 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year +22.22% -10.89% -8.18%
75th Percentile £75,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £59,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +8.18% - -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 27 September 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 27 September 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 +18 366 £80,000 +3.23% 87
Bristol +38 274 £65,000 +8.33% 68
Dorset +8 111 £100,000 +66.67% 49
Somerset +17 62 £60,000 -7.69% 34
Devon +10 39 £65,000 +44.44% 15
Wiltshire +9 36 £55,000 -15.38% 11
Cornwall - 19 £45,000 -
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 27 September 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.

1 907 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 166 (18.30%) Security Cleared
3 157 (17.31%) Agile
4 131 (14.44%) C++
5 121 (13.34%) Java
6 111 (12.24%) Full-Stack Development
7 98 (10.80%) CI/CD
8 96 (10.58%) Python
9 83 (9.15%) SC Cleared
10 79 (8.71%) DV Cleared
11 71 (7.83%) C#
12 60 (6.62%) SDLC
13 59 (6.50%) Linux
14 53 (5.84%) JavaScript
15 52 (5.73%) Microservices
16 51 (5.62%) AWS
17 49 (5.40%) Test Automation
18 46 (5.07%) AI
18 46 (5.07%) DevOps
19 42 (4.63%) WPF
20 40 (4.41%) Embedded Software Development
20 40 (4.41%) Vue
21 39 (4.30%) Mentoring
21 39 (4.30%) Software Architecture
22 35 (3.86%) Open Source
23 32 (3.53%) Azure
24 31 (3.42%) Rust
24 31 (3.42%) Spring
24 31 (3.42%) Spring Boot
25 29 (3.20%) C

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 12 (1.32%) Apache
2 4 (0.44%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.11%) Confluence
3 1 (0.11%) OpenStack
Business Applications
1 3 (0.33%) Visualfiles
Cloud Services
1 51 (5.62%) AWS
2 32 (3.53%) Azure
3 14 (1.54%) GCP
4 10 (1.10%) OpenShift
4 10 (1.10%) Serverless
5 9 (0.99%) Firebase
6 8 (0.88%) SaaS
7 7 (0.77%) GitHub
8 5 (0.55%) AWS Lambda
9 4 (0.44%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (0.44%) Anthropic Claude
9 4 (0.44%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (0.44%) Cloud Run
10 2 (0.22%) Amazon S3
10 2 (0.22%) Azure DevOps
11 1 (0.11%) Azure AI
11 1 (0.11%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 1 (0.11%) Cloud Functions
11 1 (0.11%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.11%) Vercel
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.10%) Ethernet
1 10 (1.10%) Wireless
2 4 (0.44%) AMQP
3 3 (0.33%) RS-485
4 2 (0.22%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.11%) Broadband
5 1 (0.11%) MQTT
5 1 (0.11%) RS-232
5 1 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
1 10 (1.10%) MongoDB
2 9 (0.99%) Big Data
2 9 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (0.66%) Hadoop
4 5 (0.55%) MySQL
4 5 (0.55%) Relational Database
5 4 (0.44%) Cloudera CDH
5 4 (0.44%) MariaDB
5 4 (0.44%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.33%) Chroma
6 3 (0.33%) Pinecone
6 3 (0.33%) Redis
6 3 (0.33%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.22%) Metadata
8 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.11%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.11%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 25 (2.76%) Git
2 22 (2.43%) GitLab
3 12 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 11 (1.21%) JIRA
5 9 (0.99%) SonarQube
6 8 (0.88%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.44%) Rational DOORS
8 3 (0.33%) LabVIEW
8 3 (0.33%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.22%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.22%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.22%) Gradle
9 2 (0.22%) JUnit
9 2 (0.22%) Mockito
9 2 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.11%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.11%) GoogleTest
10 1 (0.11%) Mocha
10 1 (0.11%) Valgrind
General
1 37 (4.08%) Aerospace
2 25 (2.76%) Finance
3 22 (2.43%) Social Skills
4 20 (2.21%) Automotive
5 18 (1.98%) Electronics
6 15 (1.65%) Aviation
7 14 (1.54%) Manufacturing
8 12 (1.32%) Analytical Skills
8 12 (1.32%) Public Sector
9 9 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (0.88%) Law
11 6 (0.66%) Military
12 4 (0.44%) Avionics
12 4 (0.44%) Social Housing
12 4 (0.44%) Tech for Good
13 3 (0.33%) Marketing
13 3 (0.33%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.22%) Banking
14 2 (0.22%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.22%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (4.63%) WPF
2 40 (4.41%) Vue
3 31 (3.42%) Spring
3 31 (3.42%) Spring Boot
4 27 (2.98%) React
5 15 (1.65%) AngularJS
5 15 (1.65%) Terraform
6 13 (1.43%) REST
6 13 (1.43%) RESTful
7 11 (1.21%) Node.js
8 10 (1.10%) .NET
9 9 (0.99%) Elastic Stack
10 8 (0.88%) Apache NiFi
11 6 (0.66%) CSS
11 6 (0.66%) gRPC
11 6 (0.66%) HTML
11 6 (0.66%) OpenAPI
12 5 (0.55%) Kafka
12 5 (0.55%) Swagger
13 4 (0.44%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 32 (3.53%) Cloud Native
2 30 (3.31%) Public Cloud
3 27 (2.98%) Embedded Systems
4 24 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
5 17 (1.87%) Algorithms
6 16 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
7 12 (1.32%) IoT
8 9 (0.99%) AI Agents
9 7 (0.77%) Device Driver
9 7 (0.77%) Robotics
10 6 (0.66%) Data Structures
11 5 (0.55%) Operational Technology
12 4 (0.44%) ARM Cortex
12 4 (0.44%) Greenfield Project
12 4 (0.44%) Smart Home
13 3 (0.33%) Fat Client
13 3 (0.33%) Mobile App
13 3 (0.33%) Onboarding
13 3 (0.33%) Thin Client
14 2 (0.22%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 59 (6.50%) Linux
2 22 (2.43%) Android
3 17 (1.87%) Windows
4 5 (0.55%) Ubuntu
4 5 (0.55%) Unix
4 5 (0.55%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.44%) CentOS
5 4 (0.44%) Debian
5 4 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
7 2 (0.22%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.11%) SafeRTOS
8 1 (0.11%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 907 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 157 (17.31%) Agile
3 111 (12.24%) Full-Stack Development
4 98 (10.80%) CI/CD
5 60 (6.62%) SDLC
6 52 (5.73%) Microservices
7 49 (5.40%) Test Automation
8 46 (5.07%) AI
8 46 (5.07%) DevOps
9 40 (4.41%) Embedded Software Development
10 39 (4.30%) Mentoring
10 39 (4.30%) Software Architecture
11 35 (3.86%) Open Source
12 29 (3.20%) Collaborative Working
12 29 (3.20%) Continuous Improvement
12 29 (3.20%) Problem-Solving
13 28 (3.09%) Data Pipeline
14 24 (2.65%) Containerisation
15 22 (2.43%) Code Quality
15 22 (2.43%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 131 (14.44%) C++
2 121 (13.34%) Java
3 96 (10.58%) Python
4 71 (7.83%) C#
5 53 (5.84%) JavaScript
6 31 (3.42%) Rust
7 29 (3.20%) C
8 26 (2.87%) TypeScript
9 21 (2.32%) Embedded C++
10 17 (1.87%) Go
10 17 (1.87%) Kotlin
11 12 (1.32%) SQL
12 10 (1.10%) Bash
12 10 (1.10%) PHP
13 9 (0.99%) Ada
14 5 (0.55%) Scala
15 4 (0.44%) MATLAB
16 3 (0.33%) Ada 95
16 3 (0.33%) PowerShell
17 2 (0.22%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 166 (18.30%) Security Cleared
2 83 (9.15%) SC Cleared
3 79 (8.71%) DV Cleared
4 23 (2.54%) Degree
5 9 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (0.55%) CEH
6 5 (0.55%) OSCP
7 3 (0.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (0.33%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.33%) PhD
8 2 (0.22%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (0.99%) Accessibility
2 6 (0.66%) QA
3 3 (0.33%) MIL-STD-1553
4 2 (0.22%) GDPR
5 1 (0.11%) DO-178B
5 1 (0.11%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 19 (2.09%) Docker
2 18 (1.98%) Firmware
3 4 (0.44%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 26 (2.87%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.87%) Ansible
3 8 (0.88%) Grafana
3 8 (0.88%) Kibana
3 8 (0.88%) logstash
4 4 (0.44%) Puppet
5 3 (0.33%) Plesk
5 3 (0.33%) SCCM
5 3 (0.33%) SCOM
5 3 (0.33%) SCOrch
6 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.11%) Podman
Vendors
1 6 (0.66%) Google
1 6 (0.66%) Intel
2 5 (0.55%) Microsoft
3 4 (0.44%) OpenAI
3 4 (0.44%) Peregrine
3 4 (0.44%) Red Hat
3 4 (0.44%) SaltStack
4 3 (0.33%) Databricks
4 3 (0.33%) LexisNexis
4 3 (0.33%) Salesforce
5 2 (0.22%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.22%) VMware
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle
6 1 (0.11%) TOWER Software