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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 92 8
Rank change year-on-year +78 -84 +18
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 495 107 610
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 6.62% 2.84% 12.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.33% 3.16% 15.26%
Number of salaries quoted 357 82 349
10th Percentile £45,000 £40,639 £40,000
25th Percentile £52,000 £56,250 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £70,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - +16.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £85,000 £90,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £93,450 £100,000 £95,000
South East median annual salary £67,500 £70,000 £58,000
% change year-on-year -3.57% +20.69% -10.08%

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 5,305 3,389 3,998
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 70.98% 89.94% 83.14%
Number of salaries quoted 3,760 1,460 1,964
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £71,535 £67,500 £70,781
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £82,500
South East median annual salary £55,000 £49,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +12.24% -10.91% -

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 September 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 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
Oxfordshire +20 214 £62,500 -10.71% 162
Berkshire +73 172 £80,000 - 129
Buckinghamshire +60 109 £80,000 +66.67% 40
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 4 (0.81%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.40%) Apache
2 2 (0.40%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.20%) ArchestrA
Applications
1 21 (4.24%) Lightworks
2 4 (0.81%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 98 (19.80%) AWS
2 69 (13.94%) Azure
3 53 (10.71%) SaaS
4 27 (5.45%) GitHub
5 22 (4.44%) GCP
6 14 (2.83%) Azure DevOps
6 14 (2.83%) GitHub Actions
7 12 (2.42%) Firebase
8 8 (1.62%) Anthropic Claude
8 8 (1.62%) Serverless
9 7 (1.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (1.41%) Cloud Run
10 5 (1.01%) Amazon EKS
10 5 (1.01%) PaaS
11 4 (0.81%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.81%) GitHub Copilot
11 4 (0.81%) Microsoft 365
12 2 (0.40%) AWS CloudFormation
12 2 (0.40%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.04%) Wireless
2 6 (1.21%) MQTT
3 5 (1.01%) Ethernet
4 4 (0.81%) HTTP
5 2 (0.40%) DHCP
5 2 (0.40%) DNS
5 2 (0.40%) Firewall
5 2 (0.40%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.20%) NGN
6 1 (0.20%) SNMP
6 1 (0.20%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (0.20%) VLAN
6 1 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (5.86%) SQL Server
2 16 (3.23%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.41%) Chroma
3 7 (1.41%) Pinecone
3 7 (1.41%) Relational Database
4 5 (1.01%) MySQL
5 2 (0.40%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (0.20%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.20%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.20%) GIS
6 1 (0.20%) Redis
Development Applications
1 24 (4.85%) Git
2 11 (2.22%) GitLab
3 7 (1.41%) Yeoman
4 6 (1.21%) Eclipse
4 6 (1.21%) Eclipse RCP
4 6 (1.21%) Postman
5 5 (1.01%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.81%) Cucumber
6 4 (0.81%) JIRA
6 4 (0.81%) PetaLinux
7 3 (0.61%) JUnit
7 3 (0.61%) MLflow
7 3 (0.61%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.40%) SpecFlow
8 2 (0.40%) Subversion
9 1 (0.20%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.20%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.20%) Mocha
9 1 (0.20%) Rational DOORS
General
1 85 (17.17%) Manufacturing
2 66 (13.33%) Social Skills
3 32 (6.46%) Aerospace
3 32 (6.46%) Finance
4 25 (5.05%) Electronics
5 23 (4.65%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (2.22%) Health Technology
7 7 (1.41%) Automotive
8 6 (1.21%) Public Sector
8 6 (1.21%) Retail
8 6 (1.21%) Telecoms
9 4 (0.81%) Banking
9 4 (0.81%) Digital Health
9 4 (0.81%) Law
9 4 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (0.61%) Tech for Good
11 2 (0.40%) Aviation
11 2 (0.40%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.20%) Games
12 1 (0.20%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 388 (78.38%) Software Engineer
2 112 (22.63%) Senior
3 97 (19.60%) Senior Software Engineer
4 80 (16.16%) C# Software Engineer
5 64 (12.93%) Embedded Engineer
6 63 (12.73%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 57 (11.52%) Python Engineer
7 57 (11.52%) Python Software Engineer
8 46 (9.29%) C++ Software Engineer
9 43 (8.69%) Lead
10 27 (5.45%) AWS Engineer
10 27 (5.45%) Lead Software Engineer
11 26 (5.25%) .NET Software Engineer
11 26 (5.25%) AWS Software Engineer
12 21 (4.24%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 21 (4.24%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
13 18 (3.64%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 18 (3.64%) Principal Engineer
14 17 (3.43%) Principal Software Engineer
14 17 (3.43%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (16.57%) .NET
2 35 (7.07%) React
3 27 (5.45%) WPF
4 17 (3.43%) Node.js
5 14 (2.83%) Django
5 14 (2.83%) React Native
6 12 (2.42%) REST
6 12 (2.42%) Terraform
7 11 (2.22%) Vue
8 10 (2.02%) RESTful
9 7 (1.41%) .NET Core
9 7 (1.41%) ASP.NET
9 7 (1.41%) JSON
9 7 (1.41%) pgvector
10 6 (1.21%) .NET Framework
10 6 (1.21%) AngularJS
10 6 (1.21%) Spring Boot
11 5 (1.01%) OAuth
11 5 (1.01%) Spring
11 5 (1.01%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (4.65%) Cloud Native
2 21 (4.24%) Embedded Systems
3 20 (4.04%) Distributed Computing
4 18 (3.64%) Product Ownership
5 14 (2.83%) AI Agents
5 14 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
6 12 (2.42%) Self-Motivation
7 11 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
8 10 (2.02%) Life Science
9 8 (1.62%) Renewable Energy
10 7 (1.41%) NHS
10 7 (1.41%) Robotics
11 5 (1.01%) Client/Server
11 5 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (1.01%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.81%) Algorithms
12 4 (0.81%) IoT
12 4 (0.81%) Verilog
12 4 (0.81%) VHDL
12 4 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 36 (7.27%) Linux
2 7 (1.41%) Debian
2 7 (1.41%) Windows
3 5 (1.01%) Android
3 5 (1.01%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.81%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.61%) Gentoo
5 3 (0.61%) Robot Operating System
5 3 (0.61%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (16.77%) AI
2 71 (14.34%) Agile
3 68 (13.74%) Problem-Solving
4 66 (13.33%) CI/CD
5 55 (11.11%) Mentoring
5 55 (11.11%) Test Automation
6 52 (10.51%) Full-Stack Development
7 49 (9.90%) DevOps
8 42 (8.48%) Computer Science
9 36 (7.27%) Containerisation
10 30 (6.06%) Design Patterns
11 29 (5.86%) Open Source
12 28 (5.66%) Machine Learning
13 26 (5.25%) Microservices
13 26 (5.25%) SDLC
14 25 (5.05%) Code Quality
14 25 (5.05%) Continuous Improvement
15 24 (4.85%) Computational Fluid Dynamics
15 24 (4.85%) Finite Element Analysis
16 22 (4.44%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 140 (28.28%) C#
2 109 (22.02%) Python
3 90 (18.18%) C++
4 40 (8.08%) Java
5 38 (7.68%) TypeScript
6 34 (6.87%) JavaScript
7 32 (6.46%) C
8 27 (5.45%) SQL
9 14 (2.83%) Rust
10 11 (2.22%) T-SQL
11 10 (2.02%) Bash
12 8 (1.62%) PHP
13 4 (0.81%) MATLAB
13 4 (0.81%) VB.NET
14 3 (0.61%) PowerShell
14 3 (0.61%) Ruby
15 2 (0.40%) Delphi
15 2 (0.40%) Pascal
16 1 (0.20%) Embedded C
16 1 (0.20%) Haskell
Qualifications
1 92 (18.59%) Degree
2 64 (12.93%) Computer Science Degree
3 26 (5.25%) Security Cleared
4 17 (3.43%) SC Cleared
5 14 (2.83%) Master's Degree
6 13 (2.63%) PhD
7 5 (1.01%) DV Cleared
8 3 (0.61%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.40%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.20%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.20%) Chartered Engineer
10 1 (0.20%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (5.86%) QA
2 8 (1.62%) MISRA
3 4 (0.81%) Data Quality
3 4 (0.81%) ECSS
4 2 (0.40%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.20%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.20%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 37 (7.47%) Docker
2 17 (3.43%) Firmware
3 7 (1.41%) Embedded Firmware
4 4 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.61%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.40%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.40%) KVM
7 1 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 27 (5.45%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.01%) Ansible
3 4 (0.81%) Podman
4 2 (0.40%) Grafana
4 2 (0.40%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (4.85%) Microsoft
2 13 (2.63%) Salesforce
3 8 (1.62%) Sage
4 5 (1.01%) New Relic
5 4 (0.81%) Thales
5 4 (0.81%) VMware
5 4 (0.81%) Xilinx
6 3 (0.61%) Google
6 3 (0.61%) NVIDIA
7 2 (0.40%) Databricks
8 1 (0.20%) BiZZdesign
8 1 (0.20%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.20%) Sparx