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 3 March 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Mar 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 1,767 1,607 3,984
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.51% 5.45% 7.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.83% 5.99% 7.81%
Number of salaries quoted 1,381 822 2,302
10th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £52,250 £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 £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 46,134 26,821 51,010
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.53% 90.98% 94.84%
Number of salaries quoted 29,047 13,847 39,143
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,500 £26,500
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% -5.25%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,500 £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 3 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 3 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 -4 433 £65,000 +4.00% 204
South East -13 417 £65,000 +8.33% 334
South West +1 362 £65,000 +8.33% 206
North West +14 219 £65,000 - 88
East of England -16 185 £70,000 +5.69% 158
Scotland -5 165 £65,000 +13.04% 95
Midlands +6 153 £60,000 +14.29% 119
Yorkshire +1 153 £62,500 +2.26% 83
East Midlands -4 78 £60,000 +20.00% 73
West Midlands +21 77 £62,500 +19.05% 44
North East -2 61 £70,000 +27.27% 33
Wales -21 39 £40,000 -40.74% 48
Northern Ireland -33 13 £85,000 -5.56% 21
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 3 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 1,756 (99.38%) Software Engineering
2 237 (13.41%) C#
3 231 (13.07%) C++
4 221 (12.51%) .NET
4 221 (12.51%) Java
5 219 (12.39%) AWS
6 216 (12.22%) Agile
7 192 (10.87%) Full-Stack Development
8 188 (10.64%) Python
9 177 (10.02%) Security Cleared
10 172 (9.73%) CI/CD
11 170 (9.62%) Azure
12 164 (9.28%) DevOps
13 157 (8.89%) React
14 152 (8.60%) JavaScript
15 144 (8.15%) Degree
16 141 (7.98%) SQL
17 133 (7.53%) TypeScript
18 115 (6.51%) Microservices
19 114 (6.45%) C
20 108 (6.11%) Mentoring
21 107 (6.06%) Linux
22 104 (5.89%) Problem-Solving
23 101 (5.72%) Kubernetes
24 96 (5.43%) Continuous Improvement
25 93 (5.26%) SC Cleared
26 90 (5.09%) Computer Science
27 87 (4.92%) Docker
28 85 (4.81%) SaaS
29 83 (4.70%) 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 (0.68%) Apache
1 12 (0.68%) IIS
2 7 (0.40%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.28%) CMS
4 4 (0.23%) Apache Solr
5 3 (0.17%) Confluence
6 2 (0.11%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.057%) GeoServer
7 1 (0.057%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.057%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.057%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.23%) EngageOne
2 2 (0.11%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.11%) Sketch
3 1 (0.057%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.057%) EPLAN
3 1 (0.057%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.057%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.57%) Magento
2 2 (0.11%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.057%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 219 (12.39%) AWS
2 170 (9.62%) Azure
3 85 (4.81%) SaaS
4 46 (2.60%) Serverless
5 43 (2.43%) GCP
6 35 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
8 24 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
8 24 (1.36%) Amazon S3
9 21 (1.19%) Azure AKS
10 16 (0.91%) GitHub
11 13 (0.74%) Amazon ECS
12 10 (0.57%) OpenShift
13 8 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (0.45%) Stripe
14 7 (0.40%) Amazon EC2
15 5 (0.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 5 (0.28%) AWS Fargate
16 4 (0.23%) Firebase
16 4 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.53%) Wireless
2 17 (0.96%) RS-232
3 11 (0.62%) Bluetooth
4 8 (0.45%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.40%) Modbus
6 6 (0.34%) HTTP
6 6 (0.34%) Software-Defined Radio
6 6 (0.34%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.28%) AMQP
7 5 (0.28%) Broadband
8 4 (0.23%) DNS
8 4 (0.23%) LTE
8 4 (0.23%) Network Security
8 4 (0.23%) SMTP
8 4 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (0.17%) ATM
10 2 (0.11%) 3G
10 2 (0.11%) GPRS
10 2 (0.11%) GSM
10 2 (0.11%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (3.11%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
3 42 (2.38%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
5 23 (1.30%) MongoDB
5 23 (1.30%) MySQL
6 17 (0.96%) Relational Database
7 14 (0.79%) DynamoDB
8 12 (0.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 10 (0.57%) Neo4j
10 9 (0.51%) Big Data
11 8 (0.45%) Redis
12 7 (0.40%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.28%) Cloudera CDH
14 4 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
15 3 (0.17%) Apache Cassandra
15 3 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
15 3 (0.17%) DocumentDB
15 3 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
15 3 (0.17%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 53 (3.00%) Git
2 17 (0.96%) GitLab
3 13 (0.74%) Visual Studio
4 12 (0.68%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.68%) JIRA
5 10 (0.57%) JUnit
6 7 (0.40%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.34%) Subversion
8 5 (0.28%) Claude Code
8 5 (0.28%) 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%) Postman
10 3 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.11%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.11%) Appium
11 2 (0.11%) Vagrant
General
1 106 (6.00%) Social Skills
2 90 (5.09%) Finance
3 67 (3.79%) Manufacturing
4 56 (3.17%) Electronics
5 32 (1.81%) Aerospace
6 30 (1.70%) Public Sector
7 29 (1.64%) Automotive
7 29 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
8 24 (1.36%) Analytical Skills
8 24 (1.36%) Games
9 16 (0.91%) Retail
9 16 (0.91%) Tech for Good
10 9 (0.51%) Financial Institution
10 9 (0.51%) Military
11 8 (0.45%) Health Technology
11 8 (0.45%) Marketing
12 7 (0.40%) Aeronautics
12 7 (0.40%) Law
13 6 (0.34%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.23%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 221 (12.51%) .NET
2 157 (8.89%) React
3 70 (3.96%) Node.js
4 66 (3.74%) AngularJS
5 55 (3.11%) RESTful
6 51 (2.89%) REST
6 51 (2.89%) Spring
7 47 (2.66%) .NET Core
7 47 (2.66%) Spring Boot
8 44 (2.49%) .NET Framework
9 37 (2.09%) Vue
10 34 (1.92%) HTML
11 32 (1.81%) CSS
12 29 (1.64%) ASP.NET
13 27 (1.53%) Entity Framework
13 27 (1.53%) Qt
14 21 (1.19%) Next.js
15 18 (1.02%) Django
16 16 (0.91%) Web Services
17 15 (0.85%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 88 (4.98%) Cloud Native
2 51 (2.89%) Embedded Systems
3 34 (1.92%) IoT
4 33 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
5 28 (1.58%) Robotics
6 20 (1.13%) Algorithms
7 17 (0.96%) Smart Energy
8 16 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
9 15 (0.85%) Hedge funds
9 15 (0.85%) Product Ownership
10 13 (0.74%) Industry 4.0
10 13 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (0.68%) Client/Server
12 11 (0.62%) CAN bus
12 11 (0.62%) Mobile App
13 10 (0.57%) Driving Licence
14 8 (0.45%) Device Driver
14 8 (0.45%) e-Learning
14 8 (0.45%) Renewable Energy
15 7 (0.40%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 107 (6.06%) Linux
2 30 (1.70%) Embedded Linux
3 29 (1.64%) Windows
4 26 (1.47%) Android
5 5 (0.28%) Apple iOS
5 5 (0.28%) CentOS
5 5 (0.28%) Debian
5 5 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.28%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.23%) Unix
7 2 (0.11%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.11%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.057%) Fedora
8 1 (0.057%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,756 (99.38%) Software Engineering
2 216 (12.22%) Agile
3 192 (10.87%) Full-Stack Development
4 172 (9.73%) CI/CD
5 164 (9.28%) DevOps
6 115 (6.51%) Microservices
7 108 (6.11%) Mentoring
8 104 (5.89%) Problem-Solving
9 96 (5.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 90 (5.09%) Computer Science
11 83 (4.70%) AI
12 73 (4.13%) Scrum
13 72 (4.07%) Containerisation
14 71 (4.02%) SDLC
15 62 (3.51%) Test Automation
16 61 (3.45%) TDD
17 44 (2.49%) Collaborative Culture
17 44 (2.49%) Technical Leadership
18 42 (2.38%) Embedded Software Development
19 40 (2.26%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 237 (13.41%) C#
2 231 (13.07%) C++
3 221 (12.51%) Java
4 188 (10.64%) Python
5 152 (8.60%) JavaScript
6 141 (7.98%) SQL
7 133 (7.53%) TypeScript
8 114 (6.45%) C
9 42 (2.38%) PHP
10 28 (1.58%) Rust
11 26 (1.47%) Embedded C
11 26 (1.47%) Kotlin
12 19 (1.08%) Embedded C++
12 19 (1.08%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.96%) Ruby
14 16 (0.91%) Ada
15 15 (0.85%) PL/SQL
16 14 (0.79%) Scala
17 13 (0.74%) Go
18 11 (0.62%) Bash
Qualifications
1 177 (10.02%) Security Cleared
2 144 (8.15%) Degree
3 93 (5.26%) SC Cleared
4 70 (3.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 48 (2.72%) DV Cleared
6 20 (1.13%) Master's Degree
7 8 (0.45%) PhD
8 7 (0.40%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.40%) Chartered Engineer
8 7 (0.40%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.11%) HND
9 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.11%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.057%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.057%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.057%) HNC
10 1 (0.057%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (1.87%) QA
2 13 (0.74%) MISRA
3 11 (0.62%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.62%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 5 (0.28%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.23%) ECSS
6 4 (0.23%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.17%) GDPR
8 2 (0.11%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.057%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.057%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.057%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.057%) SOC 2
System Software
1 87 (4.92%) Docker
2 69 (3.90%) Firmware
3 24 (1.36%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.51%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.51%) KVM
4 9 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 101 (5.72%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.60%) Terraform
3 11 (0.62%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.34%) Ansible
4 6 (0.34%) Grafana
4 6 (0.34%) Kibana
5 5 (0.28%) Puppet
6 2 (0.11%) Packer
6 2 (0.11%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.11%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.057%) Istio
7 1 (0.057%) logstash
7 1 (0.057%) Podman
Vendors
1 21 (1.19%) Microsoft
1 21 (1.19%) Oracle
2 15 (0.85%) Xamarin
3 12 (0.68%) Adobe
3 12 (0.68%) Google
3 12 (0.68%) Sage
4 9 (0.51%) VMware
5 8 (0.45%) HubSpot
6 6 (0.34%) Red Hat
7 5 (0.28%) SaltStack
7 5 (0.28%) Siemens
7 5 (0.28%) 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 (0.11%) Databricks
10 2 (0.11%) Typelevel