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 28 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 15 31
Rank change year-on-year -2 +16 -13
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 310 298 349
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 6.94% 9.73% 6.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.02% 10.38% 7.35%
Number of salaries quoted 212 142 294
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,125 £36,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,813 £46,930
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £66,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% +10.83% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £95,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £112,000 £91,250
South East median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +12.50% -4.00%

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 3,435 2,872 4,751
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 76.86% 93.76% 86.87%
Number of salaries quoted 2,030 1,220 3,494
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,500 £29,175
25th Percentile £36,250 £43,688 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +14.29% -4.55%
75th Percentile £68,750 £76,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £82,500 £91,100 £82,500
South East median annual salary £50,000 £57,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -13.04% +15.00% -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 28 February 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 28 February 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 +16 140 £70,000 +16.67% 34
Buckinghamshire -4 99 £55,000 -8.33% 24
Berkshire -30 71 £70,000 -12.50% 20
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 12 (3.87%) IIS
2 1 (0.32%) CMS
2 1 (0.32%) Kinematics
Applications
1 1 (0.32%) AutoCAD
1 1 (0.32%) EPLAN
1 1 (0.32%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 1 (0.32%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 45 (14.52%) Azure
2 35 (11.29%) SaaS
3 28 (9.03%) AWS
4 20 (6.45%) GCP
5 17 (5.48%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (3.23%) GitHub
7 7 (2.26%) Power Platform
8 4 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
8 4 (1.29%) Serverless
9 3 (0.97%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (0.97%) GitHub Copilot
10 2 (0.65%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (0.65%) Amazon S3
10 2 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
11 1 (0.32%) Amazon ECS
11 1 (0.32%) Amazon SQS
11 1 (0.32%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.32%) Azure Monitor
11 1 (0.32%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.65%) Broadband
1 2 (0.65%) SpaceWire
2 1 (0.32%) Ethernet
2 1 (0.32%) Modbus
2 1 (0.32%) RS-232
2 1 (0.32%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (8.06%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 5 (1.61%) Power BI
4 3 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.97%) MySQL
4 3 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.65%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.32%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.32%) Redis
Development Applications
1 15 (4.84%) Git
2 4 (1.29%) GitLab
2 4 (1.29%) Visual Studio
3 3 (0.97%) MLflow
4 2 (0.65%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.65%) Rational DOORS
5 1 (0.32%) JIRA
5 1 (0.32%) Postman
5 1 (0.32%) SpecFlow
5 1 (0.32%) Subversion
General
1 26 (8.39%) Social Skills
2 15 (4.84%) Public Sector
3 13 (4.19%) Manufacturing
4 10 (3.23%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.90%) Finance
6 7 (2.26%) Electronics
7 5 (1.61%) Telecoms
8 4 (1.29%) Games
8 4 (1.29%) Law
8 4 (1.29%) Tech for Good
9 3 (0.97%) Aviation
10 2 (0.65%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.65%) Military
10 2 (0.65%) Retail
11 1 (0.32%) Aeronautics
11 1 (0.32%) Automotive
11 1 (0.32%) Health Technology
11 1 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 205 (66.13%) Software Engineer
2 95 (30.65%) Senior
3 58 (18.71%) Senior Software Engineer
4 45 (14.52%) Developer
5 34 (10.97%) Senior Developer
6 30 (9.68%) Principal Engineer
7 25 (8.06%) Embedded Engineer
7 25 (8.06%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 25 (8.06%) Full-Stack Engineer
7 25 (8.06%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
8 21 (6.77%) Principal Software Engineer
9 20 (6.45%) Lead
10 19 (6.13%) Software Developer
11 15 (4.84%) Senior Software Developer
12 14 (4.52%) C++ Software Engineer
13 13 (4.19%) IT Engineer
13 13 (4.19%) IT Support
13 13 (4.19%) IT Support Engineer
13 13 (4.19%) Software Support Engineer
13 13 (4.19%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (23.23%) .NET
2 19 (6.13%) ASP.NET
3 17 (5.48%) .NET Framework
4 16 (5.16%) Entity Framework
5 12 (3.87%) WinForms
6 10 (3.23%) React
7 6 (1.94%) .NET Core
7 6 (1.94%) Blazor
8 5 (1.61%) ASP.NET Core
9 4 (1.29%) Ruby on Rails
9 4 (1.29%) scikit-learn
9 4 (1.29%) TensorFlow
10 3 (0.97%) ASP.NET MVC
10 3 (0.97%) Django
10 3 (0.97%) Keras
10 3 (0.97%) Qt
10 3 (0.97%) RESTful
11 2 (0.65%) Next.js
11 2 (0.65%) PyTorch
11 2 (0.65%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 16 (5.16%) IoT
1 16 (5.16%) Smart Energy
2 14 (4.52%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (3.87%) Embedded Systems
4 9 (2.90%) Client/Server
5 6 (1.94%) Algorithms
5 6 (1.94%) Cloud Native
6 5 (1.61%) Life Science
7 4 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.29%) Robotics
7 4 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (0.97%) AI Agents
8 3 (0.97%) CUDA
8 3 (0.97%) N-Tier
9 2 (0.65%) Low-Code
9 2 (0.65%) PMI
9 2 (0.65%) Renewable Energy
9 2 (0.65%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.32%) Driving Licence
10 1 (0.32%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 17 (5.48%) Linux
2 15 (4.84%) Windows
3 8 (2.58%) Android
4 2 (0.65%) Unix
4 2 (0.65%) VxWorks
5 1 (0.32%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (14.52%) Full-Stack Development
2 36 (11.61%) Computer Science
2 36 (11.61%) Problem-Solving
3 26 (8.39%) Agile
3 26 (8.39%) DevOps
4 24 (7.74%) CI/CD
5 22 (7.10%) Continuous Improvement
6 18 (5.81%) AI
7 16 (5.16%) Energy Management
7 16 (5.16%) Storage Management
8 14 (4.52%) Machine Learning
9 12 (3.87%) Code Quality
9 12 (3.87%) Propensity Modelling
9 12 (3.87%) SDLC
9 12 (3.87%) Software Testing
9 12 (3.87%) Test Automation
10 9 (2.90%) Data Science
10 9 (2.90%) LLM
10 9 (2.90%) Roadmaps
10 9 (2.90%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 56 (18.06%) C#
2 44 (14.19%) Python
3 41 (13.23%) SQL
4 40 (12.90%) C++
5 17 (5.48%) Java
6 16 (5.16%) C
7 15 (4.84%) JavaScript
8 12 (3.87%) T-SQL
8 12 (3.87%) TypeScript
9 9 (2.90%) Rust
10 5 (1.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.61%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (1.29%) Ruby
12 2 (0.65%) Bash
12 2 (0.65%) Embedded C++
12 2 (0.65%) Fortran
12 2 (0.65%) Go
12 2 (0.65%) PHP
12 2 (0.65%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.32%) F#
Qualifications
1 43 (13.87%) Degree
2 28 (9.03%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (3.23%) Security Cleared
4 7 (2.26%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.29%) SC Cleared
6 3 (0.97%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (0.97%) PhD
7 2 (0.65%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.65%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.65%) Chartered Engineer
7 2 (0.65%) PMI Certification
7 2 (0.65%) TOGAF Certification
8 1 (0.32%) HNC
8 1 (0.32%) HND
8 1 (0.32%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.45%) QA
2 4 (1.29%) ECSS
3 2 (0.65%) GDPR
4 1 (0.32%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.32%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.32%) MISRA
4 1 (0.32%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 10 (3.23%) Docker
2 9 (2.90%) Hyper-V
2 9 (2.90%) KVM
2 9 (2.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (2.26%) Firmware
4 1 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 4 (1.29%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.97%) Terraform
3 1 (0.32%) Grafana
3 1 (0.32%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (3.87%) Sage
1 12 (3.87%) Xamarin
2 11 (3.55%) Microsoft
3 9 (2.90%) VMware
4 7 (2.26%) Google
5 5 (1.61%) Zoho
6 2 (0.65%) Oracle
7 1 (0.32%) Allen-Bradley
7 1 (0.32%) EMC
7 1 (0.32%) NVIDIA
7 1 (0.32%) Siemens
7 1 (0.32%) Wonderware