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 1 January 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 35 35
Rank change year-on-year -41 0 +14
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,142 2,110 1,986
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.72% 5.66% 6.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.01% 6.08% 6.78%
Number of salaries quoted 876 1,031 1,192
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £85,000 £83,750
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year - +7.69% -3.70%

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 37,897 34,703 29,304
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.34% 93.14% 95.30%
Number of salaries quoted 22,949 17,250 22,189
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £34,750 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -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 1 January 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 1 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
South East -37 281 £65,000 +8.33% 259
North of England -24 254 £65,000 +6.56% 221
South West -9 247 £65,000 +18.18% 141
East of England -32 123 £70,000 +3.70% 110
North West -17 111 £66,250 +8.61% 123
Yorkshire -14 110 £57,500 -8.00% 62
Midlands -29 106 £60,000 +6.67% 70
Scotland -30 102 £60,000 +2.13% 70
West Midlands -26 62 £60,000 - 32
East Midlands -36 47 £65,000 +30.00% 37
North East -20 33 £70,000 +14.75% 37
Wales -32 19 £75,000 - 20
Northern Ireland -27 11 £85,000 +13.33% 9
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 January 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 1,140 (99.82%) Software Engineering
2 188 (16.46%) Agile
3 178 (15.59%) C++
4 175 (15.32%) C#
5 154 (13.49%) Java
6 153 (13.40%) .NET
7 150 (13.13%) AWS
8 143 (12.52%) CI/CD
9 138 (12.08%) Security Cleared
10 134 (11.73%) DevOps
10 134 (11.73%) React
11 129 (11.30%) Python
12 127 (11.12%) Azure
13 123 (10.77%) Full-Stack Development
14 117 (10.25%) Degree
15 116 (10.16%) JavaScript
16 111 (9.72%) Mentoring
17 100 (8.76%) SQL
18 98 (8.58%) TypeScript
19 97 (8.49%) C
20 96 (8.41%) Linux
21 92 (8.06%) Microservices
22 84 (7.36%) Problem-Solving
23 75 (6.57%) SC Cleared
24 72 (6.30%) Kubernetes
25 71 (6.22%) Computer Science
26 70 (6.13%) AI
27 61 (5.34%) Docker
28 59 (5.17%) Firmware
29 54 (4.73%) AngularJS

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 (1.05%) IIS
2 11 (0.96%) Apache
3 6 (0.53%) Confluence
4 5 (0.44%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Solr
5 3 (0.26%) CMS
6 2 (0.18%) ArchestrA
6 2 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
6 2 (0.18%) NServiceBus
6 2 (0.18%) WinCC
7 1 (0.088%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.088%) Kinematics
Applications
1 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.18%) Sketch
3 1 (0.088%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.088%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 6 (0.53%) Magento
2 2 (0.18%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.088%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 150 (13.13%) AWS
2 127 (11.12%) Azure
3 38 (3.33%) SaaS
4 37 (3.24%) Serverless
5 36 (3.15%) Azure DevOps
6 29 (2.54%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (1.93%) Amazon S3
7 22 (1.93%) GCP
7 22 (1.93%) GitHub
8 18 (1.58%) Amazon EKS
9 14 (1.23%) Amazon ECS
10 8 (0.70%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (0.70%) OpenShift
11 7 (0.61%) Amazon EC2
11 7 (0.61%) Azure AKS
12 6 (0.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (0.53%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (0.53%) Stripe
13 5 (0.44%) Amazon EventBridge
13 5 (0.44%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 35 (3.06%) Wireless
2 17 (1.49%) RS-232
2 17 (1.49%) Software-Defined Radio
3 15 (1.31%) Bluetooth
4 6 (0.53%) HTTP
4 6 (0.53%) TCP/IP
5 5 (0.44%) DNS
5 5 (0.44%) Modbus
6 4 (0.35%) AMQP
6 4 (0.35%) SMTP
7 3 (0.26%) ATM
7 3 (0.26%) Ethernet
8 2 (0.18%) 3G
8 2 (0.18%) Firewall
8 2 (0.18%) GPRS
8 2 (0.18%) GSM
8 2 (0.18%) Profibus
8 2 (0.18%) RS-485
8 2 (0.18%) SSL
8 2 (0.18%) UWB
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
1 32 (2.80%) SQL Server
2 22 (1.93%) NoSQL
3 20 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
4 18 (1.58%) Relational Database
5 16 (1.40%) MongoDB
5 16 (1.40%) MySQL
6 14 (1.23%) DynamoDB
7 12 (1.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (0.70%) Redis
9 7 (0.61%) Neo4j
10 5 (0.44%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (0.44%) Big Data
10 5 (0.44%) Hadoop
11 4 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.35%) Apache Cassandra
11 4 (0.35%) GIS
12 3 (0.26%) Cloudera CDH
12 3 (0.26%) MariaDB
12 3 (0.26%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 51 (4.47%) Git
2 16 (1.40%) GitLab
3 15 (1.31%) JIRA
3 15 (1.31%) Visual Studio
4 12 (1.05%) JUnit
5 10 (0.88%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.70%) Cypress.io
7 5 (0.44%) Bitbucket
7 5 (0.44%) Selenium
8 4 (0.35%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.18%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.18%) Maven
9 2 (0.18%) PROIV
9 2 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.18%) TestRail
10 1 (0.088%) Gatling
10 1 (0.088%) Katalon Studio
10 1 (0.088%) Postman
10 1 (0.088%) Rational Statemate
10 1 (0.088%) REST Assured
General
1 98 (8.58%) Social Skills
2 77 (6.74%) Finance
3 44 (3.85%) Electronics
3 44 (3.85%) Manufacturing
4 21 (1.84%) Aerospace
5 19 (1.66%) Games
5 19 (1.66%) Public Sector
6 18 (1.58%) Analytical Skills
7 17 (1.49%) Automotive
7 17 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
8 15 (1.31%) Retail
9 12 (1.05%) Tech for Good
10 9 (0.79%) Financial Institution
11 8 (0.70%) Law
12 7 (0.61%) Aeronautics
12 7 (0.61%) Marketing
12 7 (0.61%) Military
13 6 (0.53%) Legal
14 5 (0.44%) Health Technology
15 4 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (13.40%) .NET
2 134 (11.73%) React
3 54 (4.73%) AngularJS
4 47 (4.12%) Node.js
5 39 (3.42%) Spring
6 37 (3.24%) RESTful
6 37 (3.24%) Spring Boot
7 30 (2.63%) .NET Core
7 30 (2.63%) HTML
8 29 (2.54%) CSS
9 28 (2.45%) .NET Framework
10 27 (2.36%) ASP.NET
10 27 (2.36%) Vue
11 26 (2.28%) REST
12 19 (1.66%) Entity Framework
13 18 (1.58%) Qt
14 17 (1.49%) Next.js
15 16 (1.40%) WinForms
16 13 (1.14%) Kafka
17 12 (1.05%) Blazor
Miscellaneous
1 67 (5.87%) Cloud Native
2 59 (5.17%) Embedded Systems
3 24 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
4 22 (1.93%) IoT
5 20 (1.75%) Robotics
6 19 (1.66%) e-Learning
7 15 (1.31%) Algorithms
7 15 (1.31%) RISC-V
8 14 (1.23%) Product Ownership
9 13 (1.14%) MicroBlaze
10 12 (1.05%) Manufacturing Execution System
11 11 (0.96%) Driving Licence
12 10 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
12 10 (0.88%) Smart Energy
13 9 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
14 8 (0.70%) Hedge funds
15 7 (0.61%) Enterprise Software
15 7 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
15 7 (0.61%) Renewable Energy
16 6 (0.53%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 96 (8.41%) Linux
2 33 (2.89%) Embedded Linux
2 33 (2.89%) Windows
3 13 (1.14%) Android
4 6 (0.53%) Unix
5 3 (0.26%) CentOS
5 3 (0.26%) Debian
5 3 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.26%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.18%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.18%) Mac OS X
6 2 (0.18%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.088%) Fedora
7 1 (0.088%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.088%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,140 (99.82%) Software Engineering
2 188 (16.46%) Agile
3 143 (12.52%) CI/CD
4 134 (11.73%) DevOps
5 123 (10.77%) Full-Stack Development
6 111 (9.72%) Mentoring
7 92 (8.06%) Microservices
8 84 (7.36%) Problem-Solving
9 71 (6.22%) Computer Science
10 70 (6.13%) AI
11 51 (4.47%) Continuous Improvement
12 46 (4.03%) Coaching
13 45 (3.94%) Containerisation
13 45 (3.94%) Scrum
14 40 (3.50%) Machine Learning
14 40 (3.50%) SDLC
15 35 (3.06%) Fintech
16 34 (2.98%) Test Automation
17 33 (2.89%) TDD
17 33 (2.89%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 178 (15.59%) C++
2 175 (15.32%) C#
3 154 (13.49%) Java
4 129 (11.30%) Python
5 116 (10.16%) JavaScript
6 100 (8.76%) SQL
7 98 (8.58%) TypeScript
8 97 (8.49%) C
9 33 (2.89%) PHP
10 24 (2.10%) Ada
11 20 (1.75%) Kotlin
12 19 (1.66%) Embedded C++
12 19 (1.66%) T-SQL
13 18 (1.58%) Ruby
14 14 (1.23%) Ada 95
15 13 (1.14%) Embedded C
15 13 (1.14%) PL/SQL
16 12 (1.05%) Rust
17 11 (0.96%) Scala
18 9 (0.79%) Bash
Qualifications
1 138 (12.08%) Security Cleared
2 117 (10.25%) Degree
3 75 (6.57%) SC Cleared
4 49 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 44 (3.85%) DV Cleared
6 16 (1.40%) Master's Degree
7 15 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
7 15 (1.31%) Chartered Engineer
8 11 (0.96%) PhD
9 4 (0.35%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.18%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.18%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.18%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.18%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (1.75%) QA
2 14 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 9 (0.79%) MISRA
4 8 (0.70%) IEC 61508
5 7 (0.61%) MISRA C
6 4 (0.35%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.26%) ECSS
7 3 (0.26%) GDPR
7 3 (0.26%) IEC 61131
7 3 (0.26%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.18%) ISO 9000
8 2 (0.18%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.18%) JTAG
8 2 (0.18%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.088%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.088%) Data Quality
System Software
1 61 (5.34%) Docker
2 59 (5.17%) Firmware
3 36 (3.15%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.18%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.088%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 72 (6.30%) Kubernetes
2 31 (2.71%) Terraform
3 8 (0.70%) Kibana
4 7 (0.61%) Grafana
5 6 (0.53%) Functional Safety
6 3 (0.26%) Ansible
6 3 (0.26%) Puppet
7 2 (0.18%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.088%) Istio
Vendors
1 21 (1.84%) Microsoft
2 16 (1.40%) Oracle
3 14 (1.23%) Xamarin
4 12 (1.05%) Sage
5 10 (0.88%) Google
6 8 (0.70%) Adobe
6 8 (0.70%) Atlassian
7 7 (0.61%) Guidewire
8 5 (0.44%) HubSpot
8 5 (0.44%) Zoho
9 4 (0.35%) Databricks
9 4 (0.35%) Red Hat
10 3 (0.26%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.26%) Rockwell
10 3 (0.26%) SaltStack
10 3 (0.26%) SAP
10 3 (0.26%) Siemens
11 2 (0.18%) Palantir
11 2 (0.18%) VMware
12 1 (0.088%) Remedy