Software Engineering Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Software Engineering
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 33 27
Rank change year-on-year +21 -6 -7
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 375 179 432
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 7.60% 6.53% 6.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.31% 6.98% 8.00%
Number of salaries quoted 260 130 351
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £37,500
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,000 £46,590
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £63,250 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.72% +10.00% -8.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £87,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,750 £90,000
South East median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year - +13.04% -8.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

Software Engineering 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 3,638 2,564 5,399
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 73.73% 93.54% 85.43%
Number of salaries quoted 2,330 1,193 3,981
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £37,980 £41,250 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,125 £59,498 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year -12.39% +17.82% -4.72%
75th Percentile £68,750 £75,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £88,300 £82,500
South East median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Software Engineering
Salary Trend in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Software Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Salary Histogram in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 1 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineering in the Thames Valley

Software Engineering
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 Software Engineering within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 1 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
Oxfordshire +18 168 £65,000 +4.00% 47
Buckinghamshire +22 120 £65,000 +8.33% 30
Berkshire +8 87 £70,000 +5.66% 31
Software Engineering
South East

Software Engineering
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 8 (2.13%) IIS
2 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.27%) CMS
2 1 (0.27%) Kinematics
Applications
1 2 (0.53%) AutoCAD
1 2 (0.53%) EPLAN
2 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.27%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 1 (0.27%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 50 (13.33%) Azure
2 42 (11.20%) AWS
2 42 (11.20%) SaaS
3 27 (7.20%) GCP
4 12 (3.20%) Azure DevOps
5 11 (2.93%) GitHub
6 7 (1.87%) Power Platform
7 5 (1.33%) Figma
8 3 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (0.80%) Azure Machine Learning
8 3 (0.80%) Serverless
9 2 (0.53%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (0.53%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.53%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 1 (0.27%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.27%) Amazon SQS
10 1 (0.27%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.80%) Broadband
2 2 (0.53%) Modbus
2 2 (0.53%) SpaceWire
3 1 (0.27%) DHCP
3 1 (0.27%) DNS
3 1 (0.27%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.27%) Firewall
3 1 (0.27%) Internet
3 1 (0.27%) RS-232
3 1 (0.27%) RS-485
3 1 (0.27%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (7.20%) SQL Server
2 8 (2.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 5 (1.33%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (1.33%) Power BI
4 2 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (0.53%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.53%) MySQL
4 2 (0.53%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.27%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.27%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 20 (5.33%) Git
2 4 (1.07%) GitLab
2 4 (1.07%) Visual Studio
3 3 (0.80%) MLflow
3 3 (0.80%) Postman
3 3 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
3 3 (0.80%) SpecFlow
4 2 (0.53%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.53%) JIRA
5 1 (0.27%) Subversion
5 1 (0.27%) Yeoman
5 1 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 32 (8.53%) Social Skills
2 21 (5.60%) Manufacturing
3 14 (3.73%) Public Sector
4 12 (3.20%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.67%) Finance
6 9 (2.40%) Electronics
7 7 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
8 6 (1.60%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.33%) Games
10 4 (1.07%) Tech for Good
11 3 (0.80%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.80%) Aviation
12 2 (0.53%) Automotive
12 2 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.53%) Law
12 2 (0.53%) Military
12 2 (0.53%) Retail
13 1 (0.27%) Aeronautics
13 1 (0.27%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 253 (67.47%) Software Engineer
2 109 (29.07%) Senior
3 72 (19.20%) Senior Software Engineer
4 48 (12.80%) Developer
5 38 (10.13%) Principal Engineer
6 37 (9.87%) Embedded Engineer
7 35 (9.33%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 35 (9.33%) Full-Stack Engineer
7 35 (9.33%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
7 35 (9.33%) Senior Developer
8 33 (8.80%) Lead
9 28 (7.47%) Principal Software Engineer
10 23 (6.13%) Python Engineer
11 21 (5.60%) Python Software Engineer
12 20 (5.33%) Software Developer
13 19 (5.07%) C++ Software Engineer
14 16 (4.27%) Senior Embedded Engineer
14 16 (4.27%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
14 16 (4.27%) Senior Software Developer
15 14 (3.73%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (19.73%) .NET
2 16 (4.27%) .NET Framework
2 16 (4.27%) ASP.NET
3 14 (3.73%) Entity Framework
4 13 (3.47%) React
5 10 (2.67%) REST
6 8 (2.13%) Django
6 8 (2.13%) WinForms
7 7 (1.87%) .NET Core
8 6 (1.60%) Blazor
9 5 (1.33%) TensorFlow
9 5 (1.33%) Twisted
9 5 (1.33%) Web Services
9 5 (1.33%) WebSockets
10 4 (1.07%) ASP.NET Core
10 4 (1.07%) ASP.NET MVC
10 4 (1.07%) Ruby on Rails
10 4 (1.07%) scikit-learn
11 3 (0.80%) Keras
11 3 (0.80%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 21 (5.60%) Distributed Systems
2 20 (5.33%) IoT
2 20 (5.33%) Smart Energy
3 13 (3.47%) Client/Server
4 12 (3.20%) Embedded Systems
5 8 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (1.87%) Cloud Native
7 6 (1.60%) Algorithms
7 6 (1.60%) Life Science
7 6 (1.60%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.60%) Robotics
8 5 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.33%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (1.07%) AI Agents
9 4 (1.07%) N-Tier
10 3 (0.80%) CUDA
10 3 (0.80%) Driving Licence
10 3 (0.80%) Low-Code
10 3 (0.80%) Renewable Energy
10 3 (0.80%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.67%) Linux
2 11 (2.93%) Windows
3 8 (2.13%) Android
4 2 (0.53%) VxWorks
5 1 (0.27%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (14.93%) Full-Stack Development
2 40 (10.67%) Problem-Solving
3 35 (9.33%) Computer Science
4 30 (8.00%) Agile
5 29 (7.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 27 (7.20%) Test Automation
7 26 (6.93%) CI/CD
8 24 (6.40%) AI
9 21 (5.60%) Code Quality
9 21 (5.60%) DevOps
10 20 (5.33%) Energy Management
10 20 (5.33%) Storage Management
11 17 (4.53%) Containerisation
11 17 (4.53%) Machine Learning
12 16 (4.27%) Roadmaps
13 15 (4.00%) TDD
14 13 (3.47%) System Testing
15 12 (3.20%) Propensity Modelling
15 12 (3.20%) Software Testing
15 12 (3.20%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 61 (16.27%) C#
1 61 (16.27%) Python
2 47 (12.53%) C++
3 37 (9.87%) SQL
4 21 (5.60%) C
5 19 (5.07%) JavaScript
6 16 (4.27%) Java
7 14 (3.73%) TypeScript
8 13 (3.47%) Rust
9 8 (2.13%) T-SQL
10 5 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.33%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (1.07%) Ruby
12 3 (0.80%) Go
12 3 (0.80%) PHP
13 2 (0.53%) Embedded C
13 2 (0.53%) Embedded C++
13 2 (0.53%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.27%) F#
14 1 (0.27%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 49 (13.07%) Degree
2 33 (8.80%) Computer Science Degree
3 11 (2.93%) Security Cleared
4 7 (1.87%) Master's Degree
5 5 (1.33%) SC Cleared
6 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (0.80%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (0.80%) Chartered Engineer
7 3 (0.80%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.80%) HNC
7 3 (0.80%) HND
7 3 (0.80%) PhD
8 2 (0.53%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (0.53%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.53%) NVQ Level 3
8 2 (0.53%) PMI Certification
8 2 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.27%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (8.00%) QA
2 4 (1.07%) ECSS
3 3 (0.80%) GDPR
4 1 (0.27%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.27%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.27%) MISRA
4 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.27%) SOC 2
System Software
1 17 (4.53%) Docker
2 14 (3.73%) Hyper-V
2 14 (3.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (3.47%) Firmware
3 13 (3.47%) KVM
4 5 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.27%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (1.07%) Kubernetes
1 4 (1.07%) Terraform
2 1 (0.27%) Ansible
2 1 (0.27%) Grafana
2 1 (0.27%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 14 (3.73%) VMware
2 9 (2.40%) Microsoft
3 8 (2.13%) Sage
3 8 (2.13%) Xamarin
4 5 (1.33%) Google
5 3 (0.80%) Allen-Bradley
5 3 (0.80%) Siemens
5 3 (0.80%) Wonderware
5 3 (0.80%) Zoho
6 2 (0.53%) Oracle
7 1 (0.27%) Databricks
7 1 (0.27%) EMC
7 1 (0.27%) NVIDIA