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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 13 34
Rank change year-on-year -10 +21 -20
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 274 362 316
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 6.52% 10.77% 6.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.19% 11.67% 7.31%
Number of salaries quoted 192 163 266
10th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,691
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £67,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% +12.50% -3.36%
75th Percentile £75,000 £92,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £101,000 £91,250
South East median annual salary £67,500 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +3.85% +8.33% -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 3,344 3,101 4,324
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 79.56% 92.29% 87.58%
Number of salaries quoted 1,856 1,321 3,100
10th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £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 £76,009 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £90,000 £83,500
South East median annual salary £50,000 £58,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -13.79% +10.48% -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 28 January 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 January 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 +12 124 £70,000 +9.80% 67
Buckinghamshire -5 90 £55,000 -8.33% 34
Berkshire -46 60 £73,250 -8.44% 174
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 (4.38%) IIS
2 1 (0.36%) ArchestrA
2 1 (0.36%) CMS
2 1 (0.36%) Confluence
2 1 (0.36%) FactoryTalk
2 1 (0.36%) Kinematics
2 1 (0.36%) WinCC
Applications
1 1 (0.36%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 1 (0.36%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 37 (13.50%) Azure
2 31 (11.31%) SaaS
3 20 (7.30%) AWS
4 16 (5.84%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (5.11%) GCP
6 8 (2.92%) GitHub
7 7 (2.55%) Power Platform
8 4 (1.46%) GitHub Actions
8 4 (1.46%) Serverless
9 3 (1.09%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (1.09%) GitHub Copilot
10 2 (0.73%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (0.73%) Amazon S3
10 2 (0.73%) AWS Lambda
11 1 (0.36%) Amazon ECS
11 1 (0.36%) Amazon SQS
11 1 (0.36%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.36%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.73%) Broadband
1 2 (0.73%) Modbus
1 2 (0.73%) SpaceWire
2 1 (0.36%) Ethernet
2 1 (0.36%) Firewall
2 1 (0.36%) Profibus
2 1 (0.36%) RS-232
2 1 (0.36%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (8.03%) SQL Server
2 12 (4.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 5 (1.82%) Power BI
4 3 (1.09%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.73%) MySQL
5 2 (0.73%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.36%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.36%) Redis
Development Applications
1 13 (4.74%) Git
2 4 (1.46%) GitLab
2 4 (1.46%) Visual Studio
3 3 (1.09%) MLflow
4 2 (0.73%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.36%) Postman
5 1 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
5 1 (0.36%) SpecFlow
General
1 23 (8.39%) Social Skills
2 15 (5.47%) Public Sector
3 9 (3.28%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (2.92%) Manufacturing
5 6 (2.19%) Electronics
6 5 (1.82%) Finance
7 4 (1.46%) Aerospace
7 4 (1.46%) Law
7 4 (1.46%) Tech for Good
8 3 (1.09%) Games
8 3 (1.09%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.73%) Aviation
9 2 (0.73%) Back Office
9 2 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.73%) Retail
10 1 (0.36%) Automotive
10 1 (0.36%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.36%) Military
Job Titles
1 175 (63.87%) Software Engineer
2 84 (30.66%) Senior
3 49 (17.88%) Senior Software Engineer
4 44 (16.06%) Developer
5 31 (11.31%) Senior Developer
6 23 (8.39%) Lead
7 22 (8.03%) Principal Engineer
8 20 (7.30%) Embedded Engineer
8 20 (7.30%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 20 (7.30%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 20 (7.30%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
9 19 (6.93%) Principal Software Engineer
10 16 (5.84%) Software Developer
11 13 (4.74%) IT Engineer
11 13 (4.74%) IT Support
11 13 (4.74%) IT Support Engineer
11 13 (4.74%) Software Support Engineer
11 13 (4.74%) Support Engineer
12 12 (4.38%) Senior Software Developer
13 11 (4.01%) Software Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (22.63%) .NET
2 18 (6.57%) ASP.NET
3 15 (5.47%) .NET Framework
4 14 (5.11%) Entity Framework
5 12 (4.38%) WinForms
6 8 (2.92%) React
7 6 (2.19%) .NET Core
8 5 (1.82%) ASP.NET Core
8 5 (1.82%) Blazor
9 4 (1.46%) Ruby on Rails
9 4 (1.46%) scikit-learn
9 4 (1.46%) TensorFlow
10 3 (1.09%) ASP.NET MVC
10 3 (1.09%) Keras
10 3 (1.09%) RESTful
11 2 (0.73%) AngularJS
11 2 (0.73%) Django
11 2 (0.73%) LangChain
11 2 (0.73%) PyTorch
11 2 (0.73%) Qt
Miscellaneous
1 14 (5.11%) IoT
1 14 (5.11%) Smart Energy
2 11 (4.01%) Embedded Systems
3 9 (3.28%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (2.92%) Algorithms
5 7 (2.55%) Cloud Native
6 5 (1.82%) Life Science
7 4 (1.46%) Client/Server
7 4 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.46%) Robotics
8 3 (1.09%) AI Agents
8 3 (1.09%) CUDA
8 3 (1.09%) N-Tier
8 3 (1.09%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.73%) Low-Code
9 2 (0.73%) Operational Technology
9 2 (0.73%) PMI
9 2 (0.73%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.36%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 16 (5.84%) Windows
2 13 (4.74%) Linux
3 8 (2.92%) Android
4 4 (1.46%) Unix
5 2 (0.73%) VxWorks
6 1 (0.36%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.36%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (14.23%) Full-Stack Development
2 33 (12.04%) Computer Science
3 32 (11.68%) Problem-Solving
4 26 (9.49%) Agile
4 26 (9.49%) DevOps
5 22 (8.03%) CI/CD
6 18 (6.57%) AI
7 15 (5.47%) Continuous Improvement
8 14 (5.11%) Energy Management
8 14 (5.11%) Propensity Modelling
8 14 (5.11%) SDLC
8 14 (5.11%) Storage Management
9 13 (4.74%) Machine Learning
10 11 (4.01%) Software Testing
11 9 (3.28%) Data Science
11 9 (3.28%) LLM
12 8 (2.92%) Android Development
12 8 (2.92%) Data Management
12 8 (2.92%) Microservices
12 8 (2.92%) OO
Programming Languages
1 51 (18.61%) C#
2 41 (14.96%) SQL
3 35 (12.77%) Python
4 32 (11.68%) C++
5 17 (6.20%) Java
6 12 (4.38%) C
6 12 (4.38%) JavaScript
6 12 (4.38%) T-SQL
7 10 (3.65%) TypeScript
8 5 (1.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 5 (1.82%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (1.46%) Bash
9 4 (1.46%) Fortran
9 4 (1.46%) Ruby
9 4 (1.46%) Rust
10 2 (0.73%) Embedded C++
10 2 (0.73%) Go
10 2 (0.73%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.36%) F#
11 1 (0.36%) PHP
Qualifications
1 35 (12.77%) Degree
2 19 (6.93%) Computer Science Degree
3 10 (3.65%) Security Cleared
4 8 (2.92%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.46%) PhD
5 4 (1.46%) SC Cleared
6 3 (1.09%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.73%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.73%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.73%) PMI Certification
7 2 (0.73%) TOGAF Certification
8 1 (0.36%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.36%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (6.20%) QA
2 4 (1.46%) ECSS
3 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.36%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.36%) IEC 61131
3 1 (0.36%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 9 (3.28%) Docker
2 5 (1.82%) Hyper-V
2 5 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.46%) KVM
4 3 (1.09%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 4 (1.46%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.73%) Terraform
3 1 (0.36%) Grafana
3 1 (0.36%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (4.38%) Sage
1 12 (4.38%) Xamarin
2 10 (3.65%) Microsoft
3 7 (2.55%) Google
4 5 (1.82%) VMware
4 5 (1.82%) Zoho
5 2 (0.73%) Oracle
6 1 (0.36%) EMC
6 1 (0.36%) NVIDIA
6 1 (0.36%) Rockwell
6 1 (0.36%) Siemens