SDLC Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Systems or Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring SDLC skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 149 97
Rank change year-on-year +10 -52 +6
Permanent jobs citing SDLC 66 52 112
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 0.88% 1.35% 2.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.23% 1.49% 2.91%
Number of salaries quoted 46 24 55
10th Percentile £43,125 £30,500 £41,263
25th Percentile £45,000 £32,500 £48,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £42,010 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +19.02% -29.98% +8.99%
75th Percentile £62,500 £60,715 £78,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £77,500 £92,000
South East median annual salary £57,500 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year - -4.17% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

SDLC falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the Thames Valley.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,351 3,484 3,854
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 71.12% 90.35% 83.56%
Number of salaries quoted 3,810 1,475 1,865
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £34,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £72,500 £67,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £83,250 £83,750
South East median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -13.64% -

SDLC
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing SDLC relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

SDLC job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

SDLC
Salary Trend in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing SDLC.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing SDLC

SDLC
Salary Histogram in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution for jobs citing SDLC in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Salary histogram for SDLC in the Thames Valley

SDLC
Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing SDLC within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 9 October 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
Berkshire +16 41 £50,000 +3.08% 31
Buckinghamshire -4 16 £62,000 +65.33% 11
Oxfordshire -34 9 £60,000 +29.73% 16
SDLC
South East

SDLC
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 7 (10.61%) Confluence
2 4 (6.06%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.52%) OpenStack
Applications
1 1 (1.52%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.52%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 12 (18.18%) AWS
2 11 (16.67%) Azure
3 10 (15.15%) Azure DevOps
4 9 (13.64%) Amazon ECS
4 9 (13.64%) Serverless
5 6 (9.09%) Amazon EKS
6 5 (7.58%) Amazon EC2
7 4 (6.06%) Amazon S3
7 4 (6.06%) Azure AI
7 4 (6.06%) Figma
7 4 (6.06%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (6.06%) SaaS
8 3 (4.55%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (4.55%) Power Platform
9 2 (3.03%) Amazon SQS
9 2 (3.03%) Apigee
9 2 (3.03%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (3.03%) Entra ID
9 2 (3.03%) Google Ads
9 2 (3.03%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.03%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (10.61%) Relational Database
2 6 (9.09%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (9.09%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (7.58%) RDBMS
4 4 (6.06%) MongoDB
5 3 (4.55%) DynamoDB
5 3 (4.55%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 13 (19.70%) GitLab
2 12 (18.18%) JIRA
3 10 (15.15%) Jenkins
4 6 (9.09%) JMeter
5 5 (7.58%) JUnit
5 5 (7.58%) Mockito
6 3 (4.55%) Selenium
6 3 (4.55%) Visual Studio
6 3 (4.55%) Zephyr
7 2 (3.03%) Cypress.io
7 2 (3.03%) Maven
7 2 (3.03%) SonarQube
8 1 (1.52%) Burp Suite
8 1 (1.52%) Claude Code
8 1 (1.52%) Git
General
1 28 (42.42%) Social Skills
2 18 (27.27%) Finance
3 7 (10.61%) Public Sector
4 6 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (9.09%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (7.58%) Banking
5 5 (7.58%) Influencing Skills
5 5 (7.58%) Manufacturing
6 4 (6.06%) Electronics
6 4 (6.06%) Marketing
7 2 (3.03%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (1.52%) Aerospace
8 1 (1.52%) Aviation
8 1 (1.52%) Avionics
8 1 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 17 (25.76%) Software Engineer
2 13 (19.70%) Analyst
2 13 (19.70%) Developer
3 10 (15.15%) Business Analyst
3 10 (15.15%) Senior
4 7 (10.61%) Business IT Analyst
4 7 (10.61%) IT Analyst
4 7 (10.61%) IT Business Analyst
5 6 (9.09%) Java Developer
5 6 (9.09%) Lead
6 5 (7.58%) Architect
6 5 (7.58%) C# Software Engineer
7 4 (6.06%) .NET Developer
7 4 (6.06%) Java Engineer
7 4 (6.06%) Lead Architect
7 4 (6.06%) Lead Security Architect
7 4 (6.06%) Security Architect
7 4 (6.06%) Senior C# Software Engineer
7 4 (6.06%) Senior Software Engineer
7 4 (6.06%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (19.70%) .NET
2 9 (13.64%) Spring Boot
3 8 (12.12%) .NET Core
3 8 (12.12%) RESTful
4 7 (10.61%) ASP.NET
4 7 (10.61%) Spring
5 6 (9.09%) Hibernate
5 6 (9.09%) React
5 6 (9.09%) REST
5 6 (9.09%) Web Services
6 5 (7.58%) ActiveMQ
6 5 (7.58%) Apache Camel
6 5 (7.58%) HTML
6 5 (7.58%) jQuery
6 5 (7.58%) JSON
6 5 (7.58%) WireMock
6 5 (7.58%) XML
7 4 (6.06%) Blazor
7 4 (6.06%) ML.NET
7 4 (6.06%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 9 (13.64%) Product Ownership
2 8 (12.12%) Distributed Systems
3 6 (9.09%) Legacy Systems
4 4 (6.06%) Client/Server
4 4 (6.06%) Cyber Threat
4 4 (6.06%) Social Network
5 3 (4.55%) Embedded Systems
5 3 (4.55%) Low-Code
6 2 (3.03%) ARM Cortex
6 2 (3.03%) Cloud Native
7 1 (1.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (1.52%) NHS
7 1 (1.52%) PKI
7 1 (1.52%) Self-Driving Car
Operating Systems
1 3 (4.55%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (50.00%) Agile
2 24 (36.36%) AI
2 24 (36.36%) Software Engineering
3 18 (27.27%) CI/CD
3 18 (27.27%) DevOps
4 17 (25.76%) Problem-Solving
4 17 (25.76%) Requirements Gathering
5 15 (22.73%) Stakeholder Management
6 14 (21.21%) User Experience
7 13 (19.70%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (18.18%) Business Analysis
8 12 (18.18%) Business Intelligence
9 11 (16.67%) Workshop Facilitation
10 10 (15.15%) Data Engineering
10 10 (15.15%) Open Source
10 10 (15.15%) Process Improvement
10 10 (15.15%) User Stories
11 9 (13.64%) Full-Stack Development
11 9 (13.64%) Microservices
11 9 (13.64%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 23 (34.85%) JavaScript
2 21 (31.82%) Java
3 19 (28.79%) Python
4 12 (18.18%) C#
4 12 (18.18%) C++
4 12 (18.18%) TypeScript
5 7 (10.61%) SQL
6 5 (7.58%) Shell Script
7 4 (6.06%) C
8 2 (3.03%) Bash
8 2 (3.03%) Bicep
8 2 (3.03%) Go
8 2 (3.03%) Groovy
8 2 (3.03%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 10 (15.15%) Degree
2 9 (13.64%) Security Cleared
3 5 (7.58%) SC Cleared
4 4 (6.06%) AWS Certification
4 4 (6.06%) CISSP
4 4 (6.06%) CRISC
4 4 (6.06%) DV Cleared
4 4 (6.06%) ISACA
4 4 (6.06%) ISTQB
5 2 (3.03%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
5 2 (3.03%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.52%) ISEB
6 1 (1.52%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (1.52%) PMI Certification
6 1 (1.52%) PMP
6 1 (1.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (16.67%) QA
2 1 (1.52%) IEC 61508
2 1 (1.52%) ISO 26262
2 1 (1.52%) ISO 9001
2 1 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 1 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.52%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 10 (15.15%) Docker
2 2 (3.03%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 8 (12.12%) Kubernetes
2 5 (7.58%) Kibana
3 2 (3.03%) Argo
3 2 (3.03%) HP Fortify
3 2 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.52%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 6 (9.09%) Microsoft
2 5 (7.58%) Dynatrace
2 5 (7.58%) Splunk
3 3 (4.55%) ServiceNow