Software Engineer Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Software Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 July 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 49 14
Rank change year-on-year +24 -35 +67
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,471 1,604 6,274
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.85% 4.75% 8.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.12% 5.31% 9.02%
Number of salaries quoted 2,785 745 3,600
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £38,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +18.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £77,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -9.68% +29.17% -13.60%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 67,746 30,184 69,521
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.70% 89.33% 94.83%
Number of salaries quoted 46,875 17,245 49,315
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,968 £27,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £33,750 £35,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.12%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,000 £64,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year - +4.76% -12.50%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Software Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 15 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 15 July 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
South East +80 948 £65,000 - 222
North of England +22 929 £65,000 -7.14% 201
South West +25 610 £65,000 - 159
North West +4 538 £70,000 -6.67% 110
East of England +59 399 £70,000 +6.70% 143
Midlands +42 334 £63,750 -1.92% 107
Yorkshire +58 237 £62,500 -8.76% 67
West Midlands +34 176 £67,500 +8.00% 37
East Midlands +21 158 £55,000 -21.43% 70
North East +8 154 £70,000 +27.27% 24
Scotland -16 150 £65,000 - 73
Wales -1 88 £44,000 -35.29% 44
Northern Ireland -44 14 £90,000 +80.00% 38
Software Engineer
UK

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 15 July 2026, Software Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 3,426 (98.70%) Software Engineering
2 585 (16.85%) C++
3 538 (15.50%) C#
4 453 (13.05%) Python
5 419 (12.07%) Agile
6 376 (10.83%) AWS
7 356 (10.26%) Full-Stack Development
8 329 (9.48%) Security Cleared
9 313 (9.02%) .NET
10 306 (8.82%) CI/CD
10 306 (8.82%) Java
11 287 (8.27%) Degree
12 274 (7.89%) AI
13 267 (7.69%) Azure
14 262 (7.55%) C
15 260 (7.49%) JavaScript
16 242 (6.97%) DevOps
17 230 (6.63%) Linux
18 226 (6.51%) TypeScript
19 219 (6.31%) Mentoring
20 207 (5.96%) SC Cleared
21 195 (5.62%) React
22 193 (5.56%) Problem-Solving
23 192 (5.53%) Microservices
24 188 (5.42%) SQL
25 177 (5.10%) Test Automation
26 174 (5.01%) SDLC
27 173 (4.98%) Continuous Improvement
28 172 (4.96%) Computer Science
29 160 (4.61%) Docker

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 20 (0.58%) Apache
2 15 (0.43%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.23%) FactoryTalk
4 6 (0.17%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.17%) Confluence
5 5 (0.14%) WinCC
6 4 (0.12%) Apache Solr
6 4 (0.12%) CMS
6 4 (0.12%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.058%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.058%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.058%) WordPress
8 1 (0.029%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.029%) Umbraco
Applications
1 9 (0.26%) Lightworks
2 5 (0.14%) Simulink
3 4 (0.12%) EPLAN
4 3 (0.086%) CANalyzer
4 3 (0.086%) EngageOne
4 3 (0.086%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.086%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.086%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.058%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.029%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.029%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.029%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.029%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 376 (10.83%) AWS
2 267 (7.69%) Azure
3 158 (4.55%) SaaS
4 89 (2.56%) GCP
5 71 (2.05%) Serverless
6 42 (1.21%) GitHub
7 38 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
8 31 (0.89%) Firebase
9 28 (0.81%) Anthropic Claude
10 24 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
11 18 (0.52%) Amazon S3
12 15 (0.43%) Azure AKS
13 14 (0.40%) Amazon EKS
13 14 (0.40%) AWS CloudFormation
13 14 (0.40%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (0.35%) Cloud Run
15 8 (0.23%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 8 (0.23%) OpenShift
16 7 (0.20%) Amazon ECS
16 7 (0.20%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 56 (1.61%) Wireless
2 36 (1.04%) Ethernet
3 27 (0.78%) Bluetooth
4 24 (0.69%) RS-232
5 23 (0.66%) Modbus
6 17 (0.49%) MQTT
6 17 (0.49%) ZigBee
7 16 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (0.43%) Profibus
8 15 (0.43%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.32%) RS-485
10 9 (0.26%) LTE
11 8 (0.23%) Network Security
12 7 (0.20%) ATM
13 6 (0.17%) AMQP
13 6 (0.17%) Broadband
14 5 (0.14%) Software-Defined Radio
14 5 (0.14%) Wireshark
15 3 (0.086%) Software-Defined Networking
16 2 (0.058%) LoRaWAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 72 (2.07%) PostgreSQL
2 62 (1.79%) MongoDB
3 61 (1.76%) SQL Server
4 59 (1.70%) NoSQL
5 46 (1.33%) MySQL
6 20 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
7 19 (0.55%) Relational Database
8 15 (0.43%) Big Data
8 15 (0.43%) Redis
9 13 (0.37%) Pinecone
10 11 (0.32%) DynamoDB
11 8 (0.23%) Hadoop
12 7 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.20%) Neo4j
13 6 (0.17%) Cloudera CDH
14 5 (0.14%) FileMaker
15 4 (0.12%) Geospatial Data
15 4 (0.12%) GIS
15 4 (0.12%) QGIS
16 3 (0.086%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 130 (3.75%) Git
2 47 (1.35%) GitLab
3 28 (0.81%) Jenkins
3 28 (0.81%) JIRA
4 23 (0.66%) Visual Studio Code
5 18 (0.52%) Claude Code
6 12 (0.35%) Cucumber
6 12 (0.35%) Visual Studio
7 10 (0.29%) SonarQube
8 7 (0.20%) Eclipse
8 7 (0.20%) GDB
8 7 (0.20%) JUnit
8 7 (0.20%) Moq
9 6 (0.17%) Bitbucket
9 6 (0.17%) Subversion
9 6 (0.17%) Yeoman
10 5 (0.14%) LabVIEW
10 5 (0.14%) Maven
10 5 (0.14%) Postman
11 4 (0.12%) Robot Framework
General
1 202 (5.82%) Manufacturing
2 175 (5.04%) Electronics
3 155 (4.47%) Social Skills
4 98 (2.82%) Finance
5 85 (2.45%) Aerospace
6 79 (2.28%) Automotive
7 75 (2.16%) Public Sector
8 46 (1.33%) Analytical Skills
9 30 (0.86%) Aviation
10 29 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
11 21 (0.61%) Retail
12 18 (0.52%) Games
12 18 (0.52%) Telecoms
13 17 (0.49%) Military
14 15 (0.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 14 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (0.29%) Health Technology
16 10 (0.29%) Tech for Good
17 9 (0.26%) Agriculture
17 9 (0.26%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 313 (9.02%) .NET
2 195 (5.62%) React
3 123 (3.54%) Node.js
4 103 (2.97%) Vue
5 74 (2.13%) AngularJS
6 69 (1.99%) WPF
7 67 (1.93%) RESTful
8 64 (1.84%) CSS
8 64 (1.84%) REST
9 63 (1.82%) Spring
10 58 (1.67%) HTML
11 55 (1.58%) Spring Boot
12 44 (1.27%) .NET Core
13 37 (1.07%) .NET Framework
13 37 (1.07%) Next.js
14 34 (0.98%) Django
15 24 (0.69%) Yocto
16 23 (0.66%) Entity Framework
17 21 (0.61%) FastAPI
17 21 (0.61%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 141 (4.06%) Cloud Native
2 122 (3.51%) Embedded Systems
3 85 (2.45%) Algorithms
4 77 (2.22%) Robotics
5 74 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
6 66 (1.90%) Product Ownership
7 59 (1.70%) IoT
8 52 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
9 51 (1.47%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.24%) Greenfield Project
11 31 (0.89%) Mobile App
12 29 (0.84%) Device Driver
13 23 (0.66%) Client/Server
13 23 (0.66%) Hedge funds
14 18 (0.52%) ARM Cortex
14 18 (0.52%) Data Structures
14 18 (0.52%) Educational Technology
15 17 (0.49%) Distributed Computing
15 17 (0.49%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (0.46%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 230 (6.63%) Linux
2 48 (1.38%) Embedded Linux
2 48 (1.38%) Windows
3 32 (0.92%) Android
4 31 (0.89%) FreeRTOS
5 11 (0.32%) Debian
6 7 (0.20%) Apple iOS
6 7 (0.20%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.17%) CentOS
7 6 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.14%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.086%) Gentoo
10 2 (0.058%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.058%) SafeRTOS
10 2 (0.058%) Unix
10 2 (0.058%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.058%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.058%) zOS
11 1 (0.029%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.029%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,426 (98.70%) Software Engineering
2 419 (12.07%) Agile
3 356 (10.26%) Full-Stack Development
4 306 (8.82%) CI/CD
5 274 (7.89%) AI
6 242 (6.97%) DevOps
7 219 (6.31%) Mentoring
8 193 (5.56%) Problem-Solving
9 192 (5.53%) Microservices
10 177 (5.10%) Test Automation
11 174 (5.01%) SDLC
12 173 (4.98%) Continuous Improvement
13 172 (4.96%) Computer Science
14 124 (3.57%) Containerisation
15 114 (3.28%) TDD
16 113 (3.26%) Software Architecture
17 110 (3.17%) Scrum
18 102 (2.94%) Software Testing
19 94 (2.71%) Code Quality
20 87 (2.51%) Collaborative Culture
Programming Languages
1 585 (16.85%) C++
2 538 (15.50%) C#
3 453 (13.05%) Python
4 306 (8.82%) Java
5 262 (7.55%) C
6 260 (7.49%) JavaScript
7 226 (6.51%) TypeScript
8 188 (5.42%) SQL
9 122 (3.51%) Rust
10 56 (1.61%) PHP
11 54 (1.56%) Embedded C
12 52 (1.50%) Go
13 26 (0.75%) Ruby
14 23 (0.66%) Embedded C++
15 21 (0.61%) Bash
16 18 (0.52%) Kotlin
17 17 (0.49%) COBOL
18 14 (0.40%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.37%) Scala
20 8 (0.23%) Ada
Qualifications
1 329 (9.48%) Security Cleared
2 287 (8.27%) Degree
3 207 (5.96%) SC Cleared
4 129 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 127 (3.66%) DV Cleared
6 53 (1.53%) Master's Degree
7 23 (0.66%) PhD
8 10 (0.29%) DBS Check
8 10 (0.29%) HND
9 8 (0.23%) Azure Certification
9 8 (0.23%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (0.17%) HNC
11 5 (0.14%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.14%) CEH
11 5 (0.14%) OSCP
12 4 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.058%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (0.058%) NVQ Level 3
14 1 (0.029%) ISTQB
14 1 (0.029%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (2.10%) QA
2 22 (0.63%) Accessibility
3 8 (0.23%) IEC 61131
3 8 (0.23%) IEC 61508
3 8 (0.23%) MISRA
3 8 (0.23%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.17%) JTAG
5 4 (0.12%) DO-178B
5 4 (0.12%) ECSS
6 3 (0.086%) GAMP
6 3 (0.086%) GDPR
6 3 (0.086%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.058%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.029%) Automotive SPICE
8 1 (0.029%) DO-254
8 1 (0.029%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.029%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.029%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.029%) WCAG
System Software
1 160 (4.61%) Docker
2 153 (4.41%) Firmware
3 51 (1.47%) Embedded Firmware
4 12 (0.35%) KVM
4 12 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 11 (0.32%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.12%) QEMU
8 2 (0.058%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 124 (3.57%) Kubernetes
2 82 (2.36%) Terraform
3 35 (1.01%) Ansible
4 8 (0.23%) Grafana
4 8 (0.23%) Kibana
4 8 (0.23%) logstash
5 7 (0.20%) Podman
5 7 (0.20%) Puppet
6 6 (0.17%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.086%) Plesk
7 3 (0.086%) SCCM
7 3 (0.086%) SCOM
7 3 (0.086%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.058%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.058%) Packer
8 2 (0.058%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 31 (0.89%) Siemens
2 29 (0.84%) Microsoft
3 20 (0.58%) Google
4 19 (0.55%) Rockwell
5 16 (0.46%) Oracle
6 14 (0.40%) VMware
7 11 (0.32%) Salesforce
8 10 (0.29%) Allen-Bradley
9 9 (0.26%) OpenAI
10 8 (0.23%) Okta
10 8 (0.23%) Ping Identity
11 7 (0.20%) Atlassian
12 6 (0.17%) Red Hat
12 6 (0.17%) SaltStack
12 6 (0.17%) Splunk
12 6 (0.17%) Xamarin
13 4 (0.12%) Intel
13 4 (0.12%) Peregrine
14 3 (0.086%) IBM
14 3 (0.086%) Yahoo!