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 28 February 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 38 27
Rank change year-on-year -16 -11 +29
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,731 1,684 3,787
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.47% 5.48% 7.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.79% 6.01% 7.80%
Number of salaries quoted 1,353 843 2,174
10th Percentile £40,250 £40,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £52,250 £47,552 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £93,778 £82,548
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year - +12.00% -7.41%

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 45,678 28,036 48,565
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.47% 91.22% 94.89%
Number of salaries quoted 28,736 14,184 37,399
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,721 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%

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 28 February 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 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
North of England +4 424 £65,000 +4.00% 87
South East -16 405 £65,000 +8.33% 145
South West +3 355 £65,000 +8.33% 94
North West +12 213 £65,000 - 46
East of England -19 184 £70,000 +5.69% 65
Scotland -6 162 £65,000 +13.04% 54
Yorkshire -2 152 £62,500 +4.40% 29
Midlands +9 149 £60,000 +14.29% 50
East Midlands -12 77 £57,500 +15.00% 30
West Midlands +7 74 £62,500 +19.05% 20
North East 0 59 £70,000 +27.27% 12
Wales -16 39 £40,000 -40.74% 14
Northern Ireland -36 13 £85,000 -5.56% 5
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 February 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 1,720 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 231 (13.34%) C#
3 229 (13.23%) C++
4 221 (12.77%) Java
5 220 (12.71%) AWS
6 216 (12.48%) .NET
7 213 (12.31%) Agile
8 191 (11.03%) Full-Stack Development
9 185 (10.69%) Python
10 176 (10.17%) Security Cleared
11 170 (9.82%) CI/CD
12 169 (9.76%) Azure
13 162 (9.36%) DevOps
14 158 (9.13%) React
15 150 (8.67%) JavaScript
16 141 (8.15%) Degree
17 138 (7.97%) SQL
18 133 (7.68%) TypeScript
19 114 (6.59%) Microservices
20 113 (6.53%) C
21 106 (6.12%) Linux
21 106 (6.12%) Mentoring
22 104 (6.01%) Problem-Solving
23 99 (5.72%) Kubernetes
24 96 (5.55%) Continuous Improvement
25 92 (5.31%) SC Cleared
26 88 (5.08%) Computer Science
27 84 (4.85%) Docker
27 84 (4.85%) SaaS
28 81 (4.68%) AI

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 12 (0.69%) Apache
1 12 (0.69%) IIS
2 7 (0.40%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.29%) CMS
4 4 (0.23%) Apache Solr
5 3 (0.17%) Confluence
6 2 (0.12%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.058%) GeoServer
7 1 (0.058%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.058%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.058%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.23%) EngageOne
2 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.12%) Sketch
3 1 (0.058%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.058%) EPLAN
3 1 (0.058%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.058%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.58%) Magento
2 2 (0.12%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.058%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 220 (12.71%) AWS
2 169 (9.76%) Azure
3 84 (4.85%) SaaS
4 46 (2.66%) Serverless
5 43 (2.48%) GCP
6 35 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
8 25 (1.44%) Amazon S3
9 24 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
10 19 (1.10%) Azure AKS
11 16 (0.92%) GitHub
12 14 (0.81%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (0.58%) OpenShift
14 8 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (0.46%) Stripe
15 7 (0.40%) Amazon EC2
16 5 (0.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 5 (0.29%) AWS Fargate
17 4 (0.23%) Firebase
17 4 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.56%) Wireless
2 17 (0.98%) RS-232
3 11 (0.64%) Bluetooth
4 8 (0.46%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.40%) Modbus
6 6 (0.35%) HTTP
6 6 (0.35%) Software-Defined Radio
6 6 (0.35%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.29%) AMQP
7 5 (0.29%) Broadband
8 4 (0.23%) DNS
8 4 (0.23%) LTE
8 4 (0.23%) SMTP
8 4 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (0.17%) ATM
9 3 (0.17%) Network Security
10 2 (0.12%) 3G
10 2 (0.12%) GPRS
10 2 (0.12%) GSM
10 2 (0.12%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (3.06%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
3 41 (2.37%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.39%) Elasticsearch
5 23 (1.33%) MySQL
6 22 (1.27%) MongoDB
7 17 (0.98%) Relational Database
8 14 (0.81%) DynamoDB
9 12 (0.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (0.58%) Neo4j
11 9 (0.52%) Big Data
12 8 (0.46%) Redis
13 7 (0.40%) Hadoop
14 5 (0.29%) Cloudera CDH
15 4 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
16 3 (0.17%) Apache Cassandra
16 3 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
16 3 (0.17%) DocumentDB
16 3 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
16 3 (0.17%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 53 (3.06%) Git
2 17 (0.98%) GitLab
3 13 (0.75%) Visual Studio
4 12 (0.69%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.69%) JIRA
5 10 (0.58%) JUnit
6 7 (0.40%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.35%) Subversion
8 5 (0.29%) Claude Code
8 5 (0.29%) Selenium
9 4 (0.23%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.23%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.17%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.17%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.17%) Gradle
10 3 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.12%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.12%) Appium
11 2 (0.12%) Postman
11 2 (0.12%) Vagrant
General
1 106 (6.12%) Social Skills
2 88 (5.08%) Finance
3 66 (3.81%) Manufacturing
4 55 (3.18%) Electronics
5 32 (1.85%) Aerospace
6 31 (1.79%) Public Sector
7 28 (1.62%) Automotive
8 24 (1.39%) Analytical Skills
8 24 (1.39%) Games
8 24 (1.39%) Pharmaceutical
9 16 (0.92%) Retail
9 16 (0.92%) Tech for Good
10 9 (0.52%) Financial Institution
10 9 (0.52%) Military
11 8 (0.46%) Health Technology
11 8 (0.46%) Marketing
12 7 (0.40%) Aeronautics
12 7 (0.40%) Law
13 6 (0.35%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.23%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 216 (12.48%) .NET
2 158 (9.13%) React
3 69 (3.99%) Node.js
4 65 (3.76%) AngularJS
5 54 (3.12%) RESTful
6 52 (3.00%) Spring
7 49 (2.83%) REST
8 48 (2.77%) Spring Boot
9 45 (2.60%) .NET Core
10 41 (2.37%) .NET Framework
11 37 (2.14%) Vue
12 34 (1.96%) HTML
13 32 (1.85%) CSS
14 29 (1.68%) ASP.NET
15 27 (1.56%) Qt
16 26 (1.50%) Entity Framework
17 21 (1.21%) Next.js
18 17 (0.98%) Django
19 16 (0.92%) Web Services
20 15 (0.87%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 87 (5.03%) Cloud Native
2 51 (2.95%) Embedded Systems
3 33 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
4 32 (1.85%) IoT
5 28 (1.62%) Robotics
6 20 (1.16%) Algorithms
7 16 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (0.92%) Smart Energy
8 15 (0.87%) Product Ownership
9 13 (0.75%) Hedge funds
9 13 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (0.69%) Client/Server
10 12 (0.69%) Industry 4.0
11 11 (0.64%) CAN bus
11 11 (0.64%) Mobile App
12 10 (0.58%) Driving Licence
13 8 (0.46%) Device Driver
13 8 (0.46%) e-Learning
13 8 (0.46%) Renewable Energy
14 7 (0.40%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 106 (6.12%) Linux
2 30 (1.73%) Embedded Linux
3 29 (1.68%) Windows
4 26 (1.50%) Android
5 5 (0.29%) Apple iOS
5 5 (0.29%) CentOS
5 5 (0.29%) Debian
5 5 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.29%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.23%) Unix
7 2 (0.12%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.058%) Fedora
8 1 (0.058%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,720 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 213 (12.31%) Agile
3 191 (11.03%) Full-Stack Development
4 170 (9.82%) CI/CD
5 162 (9.36%) DevOps
6 114 (6.59%) Microservices
7 106 (6.12%) Mentoring
8 104 (6.01%) Problem-Solving
9 96 (5.55%) Continuous Improvement
10 88 (5.08%) Computer Science
11 81 (4.68%) AI
12 72 (4.16%) Scrum
13 71 (4.10%) SDLC
14 69 (3.99%) Containerisation
15 61 (3.52%) Test Automation
16 60 (3.47%) TDD
17 44 (2.54%) Collaborative Culture
18 43 (2.48%) Technical Leadership
19 42 (2.43%) Embedded Software Development
20 41 (2.37%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 231 (13.34%) C#
2 229 (13.23%) C++
3 221 (12.77%) Java
4 185 (10.69%) Python
5 150 (8.67%) JavaScript
6 138 (7.97%) SQL
7 133 (7.68%) TypeScript
8 113 (6.53%) C
9 42 (2.43%) PHP
10 27 (1.56%) Rust
11 26 (1.50%) Embedded C
11 26 (1.50%) Kotlin
12 19 (1.10%) Embedded C++
12 19 (1.10%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.98%) Ruby
14 16 (0.92%) Ada
15 15 (0.87%) PL/SQL
16 14 (0.81%) Scala
17 13 (0.75%) Go
18 11 (0.64%) Bash
Qualifications
1 176 (10.17%) Security Cleared
2 141 (8.15%) Degree
3 92 (5.31%) SC Cleared
4 68 (3.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 47 (2.72%) DV Cleared
6 18 (1.04%) Master's Degree
7 7 (0.40%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.40%) Chartered Engineer
7 7 (0.40%) DBS Check
7 7 (0.40%) PhD
8 2 (0.12%) HND
8 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.12%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.058%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.058%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.058%) HNC
9 1 (0.058%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (1.91%) QA
2 13 (0.75%) MISRA
3 11 (0.64%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.64%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 5 (0.29%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.23%) ECSS
6 4 (0.23%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.17%) GDPR
8 2 (0.12%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.058%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.058%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.058%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.058%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (4.85%) Docker
2 65 (3.76%) Firmware
3 23 (1.33%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.52%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.52%) KVM
4 9 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 99 (5.72%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.66%) Terraform
3 11 (0.64%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.35%) Ansible
4 6 (0.35%) Grafana
4 6 (0.35%) Kibana
5 5 (0.29%) Puppet
6 2 (0.12%) Packer
6 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.12%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.058%) Istio
7 1 (0.058%) logstash
7 1 (0.058%) Podman
Vendors
1 21 (1.21%) Microsoft
1 21 (1.21%) Oracle
2 15 (0.87%) Xamarin
3 12 (0.69%) Adobe
3 12 (0.69%) Google
3 12 (0.69%) Sage
4 9 (0.52%) VMware
5 8 (0.46%) HubSpot
6 6 (0.35%) Red Hat
7 5 (0.29%) SaltStack
7 5 (0.29%) Siemens
7 5 (0.29%) Zoho
8 4 (0.23%) Atmel
8 4 (0.23%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.17%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.17%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.17%) Rockwell
9 3 (0.17%) SAP
10 2 (0.12%) Databricks
10 2 (0.12%) Typelevel