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 7 March 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 38 27
Rank change year-on-year -16 -11 +30
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,837 1,687 4,171
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.56% 5.63% 7.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.88% 6.19% 7.91%
Number of salaries quoted 1,431 906 2,378
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £51,000 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £61,750 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +7.39% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £93,778 £82,500
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 47,355 27,266 52,720
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.68% 90.97% 94.81%
Number of salaries quoted 29,890 14,438 40,348
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £26,625
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -5.04%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,958 £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 7 March 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 7 March 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 -2 450 £65,000 +4.00% 133
South East -13 439 £65,000 +8.33% 203
South West +3 372 £65,000 +10.64% 159
North West +3 229 £65,000 - 64
East of England -16 190 £70,000 +5.70% 88
Scotland -6 171 £65,000 +13.04% 66
Midlands +7 159 £60,000 +9.09% 76
Yorkshire -2 159 £62,500 +10.62% 51
East Midlands -4 82 £60,000 +9.09% 44
West Midlands +5 79 £62,500 +13.64% 31
North East 0 62 £70,000 +27.27% 18
Wales -18 43 £40,000 -41.82% 19
Northern Ireland -36 13 £85,000 -5.56% 6
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 March 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 1,824 (99.29%) Software Engineering
2 242 (13.17%) C++
3 240 (13.06%) C#
4 230 (12.52%) Java
5 227 (12.36%) Agile
5 227 (12.36%) AWS
6 226 (12.30%) .NET
7 200 (10.89%) Python
8 199 (10.83%) Full-Stack Development
9 179 (9.74%) Security Cleared
10 175 (9.53%) Azure
10 175 (9.53%) CI/CD
11 163 (8.87%) DevOps
12 160 (8.71%) JavaScript
13 156 (8.49%) React
14 149 (8.11%) Degree
15 143 (7.78%) SQL
16 139 (7.57%) TypeScript
17 122 (6.64%) C
18 114 (6.21%) Microservices
19 111 (6.04%) Linux
19 111 (6.04%) Mentoring
20 105 (5.72%) Problem-Solving
21 100 (5.44%) Kubernetes
22 97 (5.28%) Continuous Improvement
23 96 (5.23%) SC Cleared
24 92 (5.01%) Computer Science
25 90 (4.90%) SaaS
26 89 (4.84%) Docker
27 84 (4.57%) 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 (0.65%) Apache
1 12 (0.65%) IIS
2 7 (0.38%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.27%) CMS
4 4 (0.22%) Apache Solr
5 3 (0.16%) Confluence
5 3 (0.16%) GeoServer
6 2 (0.11%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.054%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.054%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.054%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.22%) EngageOne
2 2 (0.11%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.11%) AutoCAD
2 2 (0.11%) EPLAN
2 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.11%) Sketch
3 1 (0.054%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.054%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.54%) Magento
2 2 (0.11%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.054%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 227 (12.36%) AWS
2 175 (9.53%) Azure
3 90 (4.90%) SaaS
4 47 (2.56%) Serverless
5 45 (2.45%) GCP
6 33 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
7 31 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
8 24 (1.31%) Amazon S3
9 23 (1.25%) Amazon EKS
10 20 (1.09%) Azure AKS
11 18 (0.98%) GitHub
12 13 (0.71%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (0.54%) OpenShift
14 8 (0.44%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (0.44%) Stripe
15 7 (0.38%) Amazon EC2
16 5 (0.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 5 (0.27%) AWS Fargate
17 4 (0.22%) Figma
17 4 (0.22%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.47%) Wireless
2 18 (0.98%) RS-232
3 11 (0.60%) Bluetooth
4 9 (0.49%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.38%) Modbus
6 6 (0.33%) HTTP
6 6 (0.33%) Software-Defined Radio
6 6 (0.33%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.27%) AMQP
7 5 (0.27%) Broadband
7 5 (0.27%) Network Security
8 4 (0.22%) DNS
8 4 (0.22%) LTE
8 4 (0.22%) SMTP
8 4 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (0.16%) ATM
10 2 (0.11%) 3G
10 2 (0.11%) GPRS
10 2 (0.11%) RTP
10 2 (0.11%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (3.05%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (2.34%) NoSQL
4 25 (1.36%) MongoDB
5 24 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
6 23 (1.25%) MySQL
7 17 (0.93%) Relational Database
8 13 (0.71%) DynamoDB
9 12 (0.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (0.54%) Big Data
10 10 (0.54%) Neo4j
11 8 (0.44%) Redis
12 7 (0.38%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.27%) Cloudera CDH
13 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
14 4 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
14 4 (0.22%) GIS
15 3 (0.16%) Apache Cassandra
15 3 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 3 (0.16%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 54 (2.94%) Git
2 17 (0.93%) GitLab
3 14 (0.76%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.71%) JIRA
4 13 (0.71%) Visual Studio
5 10 (0.54%) JUnit
6 7 (0.38%) Cypress.io
6 7 (0.38%) Subversion
7 6 (0.33%) Claude Code
8 5 (0.27%) Selenium
9 4 (0.22%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.22%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.16%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.16%) Gradle
10 3 (0.16%) Postman
10 3 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.11%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (0.11%) Vagrant
General
1 108 (5.88%) Social Skills
2 90 (4.90%) Finance
3 72 (3.92%) Manufacturing
4 56 (3.05%) Electronics
5 35 (1.91%) Aerospace
6 34 (1.85%) Public Sector
7 32 (1.74%) Automotive
7 32 (1.74%) Pharmaceutical
8 25 (1.36%) Games
9 24 (1.31%) Analytical Skills
10 16 (0.87%) Retail
10 16 (0.87%) Tech for Good
11 9 (0.49%) Financial Institution
11 9 (0.49%) Health Technology
11 9 (0.49%) Military
12 8 (0.44%) Marketing
13 7 (0.38%) Aeronautics
13 7 (0.38%) Law
14 6 (0.33%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.22%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 226 (12.30%) .NET
2 156 (8.49%) React
3 76 (4.14%) Node.js
4 64 (3.48%) AngularJS
5 54 (2.94%) RESTful
6 52 (2.83%) REST
7 51 (2.78%) Spring
8 47 (2.56%) .NET Core
8 47 (2.56%) Spring Boot
9 44 (2.40%) .NET Framework
10 36 (1.96%) HTML
10 36 (1.96%) Vue
11 32 (1.74%) CSS
12 29 (1.58%) ASP.NET
13 27 (1.47%) Entity Framework
13 27 (1.47%) Qt
14 20 (1.09%) Next.js
15 19 (1.03%) Django
16 17 (0.93%) Web Services
17 15 (0.82%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 89 (4.84%) Cloud Native
2 53 (2.89%) Embedded Systems
3 35 (1.91%) IoT
4 33 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
5 31 (1.69%) Robotics
6 20 (1.09%) Algorithms
7 17 (0.93%) Smart Energy
8 16 (0.87%) Hedge funds
8 16 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
8 16 (0.87%) Product Ownership
9 15 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (0.76%) Industry 4.0
11 13 (0.71%) Client/Server
12 12 (0.65%) Mobile App
13 11 (0.60%) CAN bus
14 10 (0.54%) Driving Licence
15 9 (0.49%) Device Driver
16 8 (0.44%) e-Learning
17 7 (0.38%) Enterprise Software
17 7 (0.38%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 111 (6.04%) Linux
2 31 (1.69%) Embedded Linux
3 29 (1.58%) Windows
4 26 (1.42%) Android
5 5 (0.27%) Apple iOS
5 5 (0.27%) CentOS
5 5 (0.27%) Debian
5 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.27%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.22%) Unix
7 2 (0.11%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.054%) Fedora
8 1 (0.054%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,824 (99.29%) Software Engineering
2 227 (12.36%) Agile
3 199 (10.83%) Full-Stack Development
4 175 (9.53%) CI/CD
5 163 (8.87%) DevOps
6 114 (6.21%) Microservices
7 111 (6.04%) Mentoring
8 105 (5.72%) Problem-Solving
9 97 (5.28%) Continuous Improvement
10 92 (5.01%) Computer Science
11 84 (4.57%) AI
12 77 (4.19%) Scrum
13 73 (3.97%) Containerisation
14 70 (3.81%) SDLC
15 67 (3.65%) TDD
16 66 (3.59%) Test Automation
17 46 (2.50%) Collaborative Culture
17 46 (2.50%) Technical Leadership
18 44 (2.40%) Embedded Software Development
19 42 (2.29%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 242 (13.17%) C++
2 240 (13.06%) C#
3 230 (12.52%) Java
4 200 (10.89%) Python
5 160 (8.71%) JavaScript
6 143 (7.78%) SQL
7 139 (7.57%) TypeScript
8 122 (6.64%) C
9 46 (2.50%) PHP
10 33 (1.80%) Rust
11 30 (1.63%) Embedded C
12 26 (1.42%) Kotlin
13 19 (1.03%) Embedded C++
13 19 (1.03%) T-SQL
14 18 (0.98%) Ruby
15 16 (0.87%) Ada
15 16 (0.87%) PL/SQL
16 15 (0.82%) Scala
17 13 (0.71%) Go
18 11 (0.60%) Bash
Qualifications
1 179 (9.74%) Security Cleared
2 149 (8.11%) Degree
3 96 (5.23%) SC Cleared
4 73 (3.97%) Computer Science Degree
5 48 (2.61%) DV Cleared
6 22 (1.20%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.49%) PhD
8 7 (0.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.38%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.33%) Chartered Engineer
10 3 (0.16%) HND
11 2 (0.11%) HNC
11 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.11%) NVQ Level 3
11 2 (0.11%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (1.91%) QA
2 13 (0.71%) MISRA
3 11 (0.60%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.60%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 5 (0.27%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.22%) ECSS
6 4 (0.22%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.16%) GDPR
8 1 (0.054%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.054%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 89 (4.84%) Docker
2 70 (3.81%) Firmware
3 24 (1.31%) Embedded Firmware
4 10 (0.54%) Hyper-V
4 10 (0.54%) KVM
4 10 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 100 (5.44%) Kubernetes
2 48 (2.61%) Terraform
3 11 (0.60%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.33%) Ansible
4 6 (0.33%) Grafana
4 6 (0.33%) Kibana
5 5 (0.27%) Puppet
6 2 (0.11%) Packer
6 2 (0.11%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.11%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.054%) Istio
7 1 (0.054%) logstash
7 1 (0.054%) Podman
Vendors
1 22 (1.20%) Oracle
2 20 (1.09%) Microsoft
3 15 (0.82%) Xamarin
4 12 (0.65%) Adobe
4 12 (0.65%) Google
4 12 (0.65%) Sage
5 10 (0.54%) VMware
6 8 (0.44%) HubSpot
7 6 (0.33%) Red Hat
7 6 (0.33%) Siemens
8 5 (0.27%) SaltStack
8 5 (0.27%) Zoho
9 4 (0.22%) Atmel
9 4 (0.22%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.16%) Rockwell
10 3 (0.16%) SAP
11 2 (0.11%) Databricks
11 2 (0.11%) OpenAI
11 2 (0.11%) Typelevel