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 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 40 27
Rank change year-on-year -14 -13 +29
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,869 1,547 4,317
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.58% 5.49% 7.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.90% 6.06% 7.86%
Number of salaries quoted 1,452 891 2,490
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £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 £76,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £93,778 £82,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year - +16.67% -11.11%

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 47,886 25,527 54,907
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.83% 90.52% 94.77%
Number of salaries quoted 30,213 14,208 41,915
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £26,700
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £54,793 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.75% +9.59% -4.81%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £64,750
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 10 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 10 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 -3 454 £65,000 +4.00% 156
South East -9 448 £65,000 +8.33% 201
South West +6 381 £65,000 +8.33% 163
North West -2 233 £65,000 - 69
East of England -13 194 £70,000 +5.70% 103
Scotland -7 172 £65,000 +13.04% 70
Midlands +16 162 £62,500 +13.64% 100
Yorkshire 0 158 £62,500 +6.62% 66
East Midlands 0 84 £60,000 +9.09% 56
West Midlands +7 80 £62,500 +13.64% 43
North East +1 63 £70,000 +27.27% 21
Wales -16 44 £40,000 -40.74% 25
Northern Ireland -29 14 £90,000 - 9
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 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 1,856 (99.30%) Software Engineering
2 242 (12.95%) C++
3 239 (12.79%) C#
4 230 (12.31%) Java
5 227 (12.15%) Agile
6 224 (11.99%) .NET
7 223 (11.93%) AWS
8 201 (10.75%) Python
9 198 (10.59%) Full-Stack Development
10 179 (9.58%) Security Cleared
11 173 (9.26%) Azure
12 170 (9.10%) CI/CD
13 158 (8.45%) DevOps
13 158 (8.45%) JavaScript
14 153 (8.19%) React
15 148 (7.92%) Degree
16 143 (7.65%) SQL
17 139 (7.44%) TypeScript
18 121 (6.47%) C
19 111 (5.94%) Linux
20 110 (5.89%) Microservices
21 107 (5.72%) Mentoring
22 105 (5.62%) Problem-Solving
23 99 (5.30%) Kubernetes
24 96 (5.14%) Continuous Improvement
25 95 (5.08%) SC Cleared
26 91 (4.87%) SaaS
27 90 (4.82%) Computer Science
28 86 (4.60%) Docker
29 79 (4.23%) 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 (0.64%) Apache
1 12 (0.64%) IIS
2 7 (0.37%) Apache Spark
3 4 (0.21%) CMS
4 3 (0.16%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.16%) Confluence
4 3 (0.16%) GeoServer
5 2 (0.11%) NServiceBus
6 1 (0.054%) Kinematics
6 1 (0.054%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.21%) 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
1 223 (11.93%) AWS
2 173 (9.26%) Azure
3 91 (4.87%) SaaS
4 46 (2.46%) Serverless
5 45 (2.41%) GCP
6 32 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
8 23 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
8 23 (1.23%) Amazon S3
9 20 (1.07%) Azure AKS
10 18 (0.96%) GitHub
11 12 (0.64%) Amazon ECS
12 10 (0.54%) OpenShift
13 8 (0.43%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (0.43%) Stripe
14 7 (0.37%) Amazon EC2
15 5 (0.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 5 (0.27%) AWS Fargate
16 4 (0.21%) Firebase
16 4 (0.21%) Twilio
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.39%) Wireless
2 16 (0.86%) RS-232
3 9 (0.48%) Bluetooth
3 9 (0.48%) Ethernet
4 7 (0.37%) Modbus
5 6 (0.32%) HTTP
5 6 (0.32%) Software-Defined Radio
5 6 (0.32%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.27%) AMQP
6 5 (0.27%) Broadband
6 5 (0.27%) Network Security
7 4 (0.21%) DNS
7 4 (0.21%) LTE
7 4 (0.21%) SMTP
7 4 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.16%) ATM
9 2 (0.11%) 3G
9 2 (0.11%) GPRS
9 2 (0.11%) RTP
9 2 (0.11%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (3.00%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
3 42 (2.25%) NoSQL
4 25 (1.34%) MongoDB
5 24 (1.28%) Elasticsearch
6 23 (1.23%) MySQL
7 17 (0.91%) Relational Database
8 13 (0.70%) DynamoDB
9 12 (0.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (0.54%) Big Data
10 10 (0.54%) Neo4j
11 8 (0.43%) Redis
12 7 (0.37%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.27%) Cloudera CDH
13 5 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
14 4 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
14 4 (0.21%) GIS
15 3 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 3 (0.16%) DocumentDB
15 3 (0.16%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 54 (2.89%) Git
2 17 (0.91%) GitLab
3 14 (0.75%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.70%) JIRA
5 12 (0.64%) Visual Studio
6 10 (0.54%) JUnit
7 7 (0.37%) Cypress.io
7 7 (0.37%) Subversion
8 6 (0.32%) Claude Code
9 5 (0.27%) Selenium
10 4 (0.21%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
11 3 (0.16%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.16%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.16%) Gradle
11 3 (0.16%) Postman
11 3 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.11%) Android Studio
12 2 (0.11%) Appium
12 2 (0.11%) Vagrant
General
1 108 (5.78%) Social Skills
2 90 (4.82%) Finance
3 72 (3.85%) Manufacturing
4 57 (3.05%) Electronics
5 38 (2.03%) Aerospace
6 33 (1.77%) Automotive
6 33 (1.77%) Public Sector
7 32 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
8 25 (1.34%) Analytical Skills
9 24 (1.28%) Games
10 16 (0.86%) Tech for Good
11 15 (0.80%) Retail
12 9 (0.48%) Financial Institution
12 9 (0.48%) Health Technology
12 9 (0.48%) Military
13 7 (0.37%) Aeronautics
13 7 (0.37%) Law
13 7 (0.37%) Marketing
13 7 (0.37%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.21%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 224 (11.99%) .NET
2 153 (8.19%) React
3 77 (4.12%) Node.js
4 63 (3.37%) AngularJS
5 53 (2.84%) RESTful
6 50 (2.68%) Spring
7 49 (2.62%) REST
8 47 (2.51%) .NET Core
9 46 (2.46%) Spring Boot
10 44 (2.35%) .NET Framework
11 36 (1.93%) HTML
11 36 (1.93%) Vue
12 32 (1.71%) CSS
13 29 (1.55%) ASP.NET
14 27 (1.44%) Entity Framework
14 27 (1.44%) Qt
15 19 (1.02%) Django
15 19 (1.02%) Next.js
16 17 (0.91%) Web Services
17 13 (0.70%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 86 (4.60%) Cloud Native
2 54 (2.89%) Embedded Systems
3 37 (1.98%) IoT
4 32 (1.71%) Robotics
5 31 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
6 20 (1.07%) Algorithms
7 18 (0.96%) Smart Energy
8 16 (0.86%) Hedge funds
8 16 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
8 16 (0.86%) Product Ownership
9 15 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (0.75%) Industry 4.0
11 13 (0.70%) Client/Server
12 12 (0.64%) Mobile App
13 11 (0.59%) CAN bus
14 10 (0.54%) Driving Licence
15 9 (0.48%) Device Driver
16 8 (0.43%) e-Learning
17 7 (0.37%) Enterprise Software
17 7 (0.37%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 111 (5.94%) Linux
2 31 (1.66%) Embedded Linux
3 28 (1.50%) Windows
4 26 (1.39%) Android
5 5 (0.27%) Apple iOS
5 5 (0.27%) CentOS
5 5 (0.27%) Debian
5 5 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
5 5 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.27%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.21%) 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 1,856 (99.30%) Software Engineering
2 227 (12.15%) Agile
3 198 (10.59%) Full-Stack Development
4 170 (9.10%) CI/CD
5 158 (8.45%) DevOps
6 110 (5.89%) Microservices
7 107 (5.72%) Mentoring
8 105 (5.62%) Problem-Solving
9 96 (5.14%) Continuous Improvement
10 90 (4.82%) Computer Science
11 79 (4.23%) AI
12 78 (4.17%) Scrum
13 72 (3.85%) Containerisation
14 69 (3.69%) SDLC
15 67 (3.58%) TDD
15 67 (3.58%) Test Automation
16 45 (2.41%) Embedded Software Development
16 45 (2.41%) Technical Leadership
17 44 (2.35%) Collaborative Culture
18 42 (2.25%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 242 (12.95%) C++
2 239 (12.79%) C#
3 230 (12.31%) Java
4 201 (10.75%) Python
5 158 (8.45%) JavaScript
6 143 (7.65%) SQL
7 139 (7.44%) TypeScript
8 121 (6.47%) C
9 46 (2.46%) PHP
10 34 (1.82%) Rust
11 30 (1.61%) Embedded C
12 26 (1.39%) Kotlin
13 19 (1.02%) Embedded C++
13 19 (1.02%) Ruby
13 19 (1.02%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.91%) PL/SQL
15 16 (0.86%) Ada
16 15 (0.80%) Scala
17 13 (0.70%) Go
18 11 (0.59%) Bash
Qualifications
1 179 (9.58%) Security Cleared
2 148 (7.92%) Degree
3 95 (5.08%) SC Cleared
4 71 (3.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 49 (2.62%) DV Cleared
6 22 (1.18%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.48%) PhD
8 7 (0.37%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.37%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.32%) 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 37 (1.98%) QA
2 13 (0.70%) MISRA
3 11 (0.59%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.59%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 5 (0.27%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.21%) ECSS
6 4 (0.21%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.16%) GDPR
8 1 (0.054%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.054%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 86 (4.60%) Docker
2 70 (3.75%) Firmware
3 23 (1.23%) 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 99 (5.30%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.46%) Terraform
3 11 (0.59%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.32%) Ansible
4 6 (0.32%) Grafana
4 6 (0.32%) 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 23 (1.23%) Oracle
2 20 (1.07%) Microsoft
3 15 (0.80%) Xamarin
4 13 (0.70%) Google
5 12 (0.64%) Adobe
5 12 (0.64%) Sage
6 10 (0.54%) VMware
7 8 (0.43%) HubSpot
8 7 (0.37%) Siemens
9 6 (0.32%) Red Hat
10 5 (0.27%) Salesforce
10 5 (0.27%) SaltStack
10 5 (0.27%) Zoho
11 4 (0.21%) Atmel
11 4 (0.21%) Rockwell
12 3 (0.16%) Atlassian
12 3 (0.16%) SAP
13 2 (0.11%) Allen-Bradley
13 2 (0.11%) Palantir
13 2 (0.11%) Wonderware