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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 102 11
Rank change year-on-year +89 -91 +13
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 474 111 572
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 6.84% 2.85% 11.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.75% 3.18% 13.86%
Number of salaries quoted 338 90 386
10th Percentile £45,000 £47,375 £40,000
25th Percentile £52,000 £56,563 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £70,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +16.67% -11.11%
75th Percentile £83,750 £90,000 £79,688
90th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £90,000
South East median annual salary £65,000 £70,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -7.14% +27.27% -14.06%

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 4,861 3,495 4,126
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 70.13% 89.71% 81.59%
Number of salaries quoted 3,452 1,503 2,378
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £54,500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -8.26% -0.91%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £83,750 £82,500
South East median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -4.55%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 +21 201 £61,250 -12.50% 72
Berkshire +77 155 £72,500 -9.38% 83
Buckinghamshire +64 118 £77,500 +34.78% 26
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 (0.84%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.21%) ArchestrA
Applications
1 16 (3.38%) Lightworks
2 3 (0.63%) Simulink
3 1 (0.21%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.21%) EPLAN
3 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 100 (21.10%) AWS
2 75 (15.82%) Azure
3 53 (11.18%) SaaS
4 30 (6.33%) GCP
5 25 (5.27%) GitHub
6 13 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (2.53%) Firebase
7 12 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (1.48%) Anthropic Claude
9 7 (1.48%) Cloud Run
10 6 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
10 6 (1.27%) Serverless
11 5 (1.05%) PaaS
12 4 (0.84%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.84%) Figma
12 4 (0.84%) Microsoft 365
13 3 (0.63%) Amazon S3
14 2 (0.42%) AWS CloudFormation
14 2 (0.42%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.95%) Wireless
2 5 (1.05%) MQTT
3 3 (0.63%) DHCP
3 3 (0.63%) DNS
3 3 (0.63%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.63%) Firewall
3 3 (0.63%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.42%) HTTP
5 1 (0.21%) Broadband
5 1 (0.21%) Internet
5 1 (0.21%) Modbus
5 1 (0.21%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (6.75%) SQL Server
2 12 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (1.48%) Chroma
3 7 (1.48%) Pinecone
4 5 (1.05%) MySQL
4 5 (1.05%) Relational Database
5 3 (0.63%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.21%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.21%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.21%) GIS
6 1 (0.21%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.21%) Redis
Development Applications
1 25 (5.27%) Git
2 10 (2.11%) GitLab
3 8 (1.69%) Yeoman
4 7 (1.48%) Postman
5 6 (1.27%) Eclipse
5 6 (1.27%) Eclipse RCP
6 5 (1.05%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.84%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.84%) JIRA
8 3 (0.63%) JUnit
8 3 (0.63%) PetaLinux
8 3 (0.63%) SpecFlow
8 3 (0.63%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.42%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.42%) Subversion
10 1 (0.21%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.21%) MLflow
10 1 (0.21%) Storybook
10 1 (0.21%) Zephyr
General
1 86 (18.14%) Manufacturing
2 63 (13.29%) Social Skills
3 26 (5.49%) Aerospace
4 25 (5.27%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (5.27%) Finance
5 21 (4.43%) Electronics
6 8 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
7 7 (1.48%) Public Sector
8 6 (1.27%) Automotive
9 5 (1.05%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.84%) Digital Health
10 4 (0.84%) Law
10 4 (0.84%) Telecoms
11 3 (0.63%) Banking
12 2 (0.42%) Games
13 1 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.21%) Marketing
13 1 (0.21%) Retail
13 1 (0.21%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 366 (77.22%) Software Engineer
2 104 (21.94%) Senior
3 91 (19.20%) Senior Software Engineer
4 69 (14.56%) C# Software Engineer
5 64 (13.50%) Embedded Engineer
6 62 (13.08%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 52 (10.97%) Python Engineer
8 50 (10.55%) Lead
8 50 (10.55%) Python Software Engineer
9 38 (8.02%) C++ Software Engineer
10 31 (6.54%) Lead Software Engineer
11 30 (6.33%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 30 (6.33%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
12 24 (5.06%) .NET Software Engineer
13 23 (4.85%) Principal Engineer
14 21 (4.43%) Principal Software Engineer
15 20 (4.22%) AWS Engineer
16 19 (4.01%) AWS Software Engineer
16 19 (4.01%) Senior Embedded Engineer
16 19 (4.01%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (17.72%) .NET
2 36 (7.59%) React
3 23 (4.85%) WPF
4 19 (4.01%) Django
5 18 (3.80%) REST
6 14 (2.95%) Node.js
6 14 (2.95%) Terraform
7 11 (2.32%) Vue
8 10 (2.11%) RESTful
9 9 (1.90%) .NET Framework
9 9 (1.90%) React Native
10 8 (1.69%) ASP.NET
11 7 (1.48%) .NET Core
11 7 (1.48%) JSON
11 7 (1.48%) pgvector
11 7 (1.48%) WebSockets
12 6 (1.27%) AngularJS
12 6 (1.27%) Blazor
12 6 (1.27%) Spring Boot
13 5 (1.05%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 24 (5.06%) Cloud Native
2 20 (4.22%) Distributed Systems
3 19 (4.01%) Product Ownership
4 17 (3.59%) Self-Motivation
5 15 (3.16%) Distributed Computing
6 14 (2.95%) Embedded Systems
7 13 (2.74%) AI Agents
8 11 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (2.32%) Life Science
9 9 (1.90%) Client/Server
9 9 (1.90%) Renewable Energy
10 6 (1.27%) IoT
10 6 (1.27%) Public Cloud
10 6 (1.27%) Robotics
11 5 (1.05%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.84%) Algorithms
12 4 (0.84%) Low-Code
12 4 (0.84%) Private Cloud
12 4 (0.84%) SCADA
12 4 (0.84%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 40 (8.44%) Linux
2 6 (1.27%) Debian
3 5 (1.05%) Windows
4 3 (0.63%) FreeRTOS
4 3 (0.63%) Gentoo
5 2 (0.42%) Robot Operating System
5 2 (0.42%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.21%) Android
6 1 (0.21%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 76 (16.03%) Agile
2 71 (14.98%) AI
3 70 (14.77%) Problem-Solving
4 62 (13.08%) Test Automation
5 60 (12.66%) CI/CD
6 54 (11.39%) Full-Stack Development
7 53 (11.18%) Mentoring
8 48 (10.13%) DevOps
9 40 (8.44%) Computer Science
9 40 (8.44%) Containerisation
10 33 (6.96%) Design Patterns
11 30 (6.33%) Machine Learning
12 28 (5.91%) Code Quality
12 28 (5.91%) Continuous Improvement
13 26 (5.49%) TDD
14 24 (5.06%) Event-Driven
15 22 (4.64%) Microservices
15 22 (4.64%) Open Source
15 22 (4.64%) SDLC
16 21 (4.43%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 131 (27.64%) C#
2 102 (21.52%) Python
3 80 (16.88%) C++
4 39 (8.23%) TypeScript
5 34 (7.17%) C
6 32 (6.75%) JavaScript
7 28 (5.91%) Java
8 21 (4.43%) SQL
9 14 (2.95%) Rust
10 11 (2.32%) T-SQL
11 9 (1.90%) Bash
12 4 (0.84%) PowerShell
12 4 (0.84%) VB.NET
13 3 (0.63%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.63%) Ruby
14 2 (0.42%) Delphi
14 2 (0.42%) Embedded C
14 2 (0.42%) Pascal
14 2 (0.42%) PHP
15 1 (0.21%) Go
Qualifications
1 90 (18.99%) Degree
2 65 (13.71%) Computer Science Degree
3 20 (4.22%) Security Cleared
4 13 (2.74%) SC Cleared
5 12 (2.53%) Master's Degree
6 10 (2.11%) PhD
7 5 (1.05%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.42%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.42%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.42%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.42%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (0.42%) HNC
8 2 (0.42%) HND
9 1 (0.21%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.21%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (7.81%) QA
2 5 (1.05%) MISRA
3 3 (0.63%) ECSS
3 3 (0.63%) SOC 2
4 2 (0.42%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.21%) GDPR
5 1 (0.21%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 41 (8.65%) Docker
2 18 (3.80%) Firmware
3 9 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.69%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.27%) Embedded Firmware
5 6 (1.27%) KVM
6 5 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.63%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 27 (5.70%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.27%) Ansible
3 4 (0.84%) Podman
4 3 (0.63%) Grafana
4 3 (0.63%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (5.06%) Microsoft
2 11 (2.32%) Salesforce
3 9 (1.90%) VMware
4 6 (1.27%) Sage
5 5 (1.05%) New Relic
6 3 (0.63%) Databricks
6 3 (0.63%) Google
6 3 (0.63%) Xilinx
7 2 (0.42%) Allen-Bradley
7 2 (0.42%) NVIDIA
7 2 (0.42%) Siemens
7 2 (0.42%) Wonderware
8 1 (0.21%) BiZZdesign
8 1 (0.21%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.21%) Sparx