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 17 February 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 35 28
Rank change year-on-year -23 -7 +26
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,622 1,833 3,516
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.38% 5.69% 6.99%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.71% 6.22% 7.36%
Number of salaries quoted 1,279 871 2,161
10th Percentile £42,500 £40,000 £39,750
25th Percentile £52,250 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -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 43,727 29,467 47,797
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.14% 91.50% 95.04%
Number of salaries quoted 27,366 14,326 37,052
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,250 £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 £69,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,000 £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 17 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 17 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 -2 397 £65,000 +6.56% 146
South East -22 377 £65,000 +8.33% 182
South West 0 331 £65,000 +13.16% 138
North West +13 191 £67,500 +3.85% 89
East of England -16 178 £70,000 +5.69% 79
Scotland -13 154 £65,000 +14.09% 108
Yorkshire -9 148 £62,500 +2.04% 34
Midlands -2 140 £60,000 +9.09% 82
East Midlands -8 73 £60,000 +9.09% 42
West Midlands +5 70 £62,500 +13.64% 40
North East -1 58 £70,000 +27.27% 23
Wales -28 32 £60,000 -11.11% 23
Northern Ireland -37 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 17 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 1,613 (99.45%) Software Engineering
2 224 (13.81%) C#
3 216 (13.32%) AWS
4 215 (13.26%) C++
5 212 (13.07%) Java
6 206 (12.70%) .NET
7 201 (12.39%) Agile
8 186 (11.47%) Full-Stack Development
9 181 (11.16%) Python
10 169 (10.42%) Security Cleared
11 167 (10.30%) CI/CD
12 164 (10.11%) Azure
13 162 (9.99%) React
14 158 (9.74%) DevOps
15 143 (8.82%) JavaScript
16 136 (8.38%) Degree
17 134 (8.26%) SQL
18 131 (8.08%) TypeScript
19 114 (7.03%) Microservices
20 110 (6.78%) C
21 108 (6.66%) Mentoring
22 104 (6.41%) Problem-Solving
23 103 (6.35%) Linux
24 95 (5.86%) Kubernetes
25 92 (5.67%) Continuous Improvement
26 86 (5.30%) SC Cleared
27 85 (5.24%) Computer Science
28 81 (4.99%) AI
29 78 (4.81%) Docker
30 76 (4.69%) SaaS

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 (0.74%) Apache
1 12 (0.74%) IIS
2 7 (0.43%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.31%) CMS
4 3 (0.18%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.18%) Confluence
5 2 (0.12%) NServiceBus
6 1 (0.062%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.062%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.062%) Kinematics
6 1 (0.062%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 3 (0.18%) EngageOne
1 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.12%) Sketch
3 1 (0.062%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.062%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.62%) Magento
2 2 (0.12%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.062%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 216 (13.32%) AWS
2 164 (10.11%) Azure
3 76 (4.69%) SaaS
4 45 (2.77%) Serverless
5 39 (2.40%) GCP
6 37 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (2.10%) AWS Lambda
8 26 (1.60%) Amazon S3
9 25 (1.54%) Amazon EKS
10 17 (1.05%) Azure AKS
11 15 (0.92%) Amazon ECS
11 15 (0.92%) GitHub
12 10 (0.62%) OpenShift
13 8 (0.49%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (0.49%) Stripe
14 7 (0.43%) Amazon EC2
15 5 (0.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 5 (0.31%) Amazon SQS
15 5 (0.31%) AWS Fargate
16 4 (0.25%) Amazon EventBridge
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.66%) Wireless
2 17 (1.05%) RS-232
3 12 (0.74%) Bluetooth
4 7 (0.43%) Ethernet
4 7 (0.43%) Modbus
5 6 (0.37%) HTTP
5 6 (0.37%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.31%) AMQP
6 5 (0.31%) Software-Defined Radio
7 4 (0.25%) DNS
7 4 (0.25%) LTE
7 4 (0.25%) SMTP
7 4 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.18%) ATM
8 3 (0.18%) Broadband
9 2 (0.12%) 3G
9 2 (0.12%) GPRS
9 2 (0.12%) GSM
9 2 (0.12%) RTP
9 2 (0.12%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (3.14%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.77%) PostgreSQL
3 39 (2.40%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.42%) Elasticsearch
4 23 (1.42%) MySQL
5 21 (1.29%) MongoDB
6 18 (1.11%) Relational Database
7 15 (0.92%) DynamoDB
8 12 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 9 (0.55%) Big Data
9 9 (0.55%) Neo4j
10 8 (0.49%) Redis
11 7 (0.43%) Hadoop
12 5 (0.31%) Cloudera CDH
13 4 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.18%) Apache Cassandra
14 3 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
14 3 (0.18%) Geospatial Data
14 3 (0.18%) MariaDB
14 3 (0.18%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 52 (3.21%) Git
2 17 (1.05%) GitLab
3 15 (0.92%) Visual Studio
4 12 (0.74%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.74%) JIRA
5 10 (0.62%) JUnit
6 7 (0.43%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.37%) Subversion
8 5 (0.31%) Selenium
9 4 (0.25%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.25%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.25%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.18%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.18%) Gradle
10 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.12%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.12%) Appium
11 2 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (0.12%) Vagrant
General
1 107 (6.60%) Social Skills
2 90 (5.55%) Finance
3 57 (3.51%) Electronics
4 50 (3.08%) Manufacturing
5 31 (1.91%) Aerospace
6 29 (1.79%) Public Sector
7 24 (1.48%) Analytical Skills
7 24 (1.48%) Automotive
7 24 (1.48%) Pharmaceutical
8 22 (1.36%) Games
9 16 (0.99%) Tech for Good
10 14 (0.86%) Retail
11 9 (0.55%) Financial Institution
11 9 (0.55%) Military
12 8 (0.49%) Health Technology
12 8 (0.49%) Marketing
13 7 (0.43%) Aeronautics
13 7 (0.43%) Law
14 5 (0.31%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.25%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 206 (12.70%) .NET
2 162 (9.99%) React
3 68 (4.19%) AngularJS
3 68 (4.19%) Node.js
4 53 (3.27%) RESTful
4 53 (3.27%) Spring
5 49 (3.02%) Spring Boot
6 45 (2.77%) REST
7 42 (2.59%) .NET Core
8 38 (2.34%) .NET Framework
9 36 (2.22%) Vue
10 32 (1.97%) HTML
11 30 (1.85%) CSS
12 29 (1.79%) ASP.NET
13 27 (1.66%) Qt
14 24 (1.48%) Entity Framework
15 21 (1.29%) Next.js
16 16 (0.99%) Django
17 15 (0.92%) Web Services
17 15 (0.92%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 83 (5.12%) Cloud Native
2 50 (3.08%) Embedded Systems
3 30 (1.85%) IoT
4 29 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
5 27 (1.66%) Robotics
6 20 (1.23%) Algorithms
7 16 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
8 14 (0.86%) Smart Energy
9 13 (0.80%) Hedge funds
10 12 (0.74%) Product Ownership
10 12 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
11 11 (0.68%) CAN bus
12 10 (0.62%) Client/Server
13 9 (0.55%) Driving Licence
13 9 (0.55%) Mobile App
14 8 (0.49%) e-Learning
14 8 (0.49%) Renewable Energy
15 7 (0.43%) Device Driver
15 7 (0.43%) Enterprise Software
16 6 (0.37%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 103 (6.35%) Linux
2 31 (1.91%) Windows
3 29 (1.79%) Embedded Linux
4 24 (1.48%) Android
5 5 (0.31%) CentOS
5 5 (0.31%) Debian
5 5 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.31%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.31%) Unix
6 4 (0.25%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
8 2 (0.12%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.062%) Fedora
9 1 (0.062%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,613 (99.45%) Software Engineering
2 201 (12.39%) Agile
3 186 (11.47%) Full-Stack Development
4 167 (10.30%) CI/CD
5 158 (9.74%) DevOps
6 114 (7.03%) Microservices
7 108 (6.66%) Mentoring
8 104 (6.41%) Problem-Solving
9 92 (5.67%) Continuous Improvement
10 85 (5.24%) Computer Science
11 81 (4.99%) AI
12 69 (4.25%) Scrum
13 66 (4.07%) SDLC
14 63 (3.88%) Containerisation
15 59 (3.64%) TDD
16 57 (3.51%) Test Automation
17 43 (2.65%) Collaborative Culture
18 42 (2.59%) Coaching
19 41 (2.53%) Machine Learning
20 39 (2.40%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 224 (13.81%) C#
2 215 (13.26%) C++
3 212 (13.07%) Java
4 181 (11.16%) Python
5 143 (8.82%) JavaScript
6 134 (8.26%) SQL
7 131 (8.08%) TypeScript
8 110 (6.78%) C
9 45 (2.77%) PHP
10 26 (1.60%) Kotlin
11 24 (1.48%) Embedded C
12 22 (1.36%) Rust
13 20 (1.23%) T-SQL
14 19 (1.17%) Embedded C++
15 17 (1.05%) Ruby
16 16 (0.99%) Ada
17 13 (0.80%) PL/SQL
17 13 (0.80%) Scala
18 12 (0.74%) Bash
18 12 (0.74%) Go
Qualifications
1 169 (10.42%) Security Cleared
2 136 (8.38%) Degree
3 86 (5.30%) SC Cleared
4 66 (4.07%) Computer Science Degree
5 45 (2.77%) DV Cleared
6 18 (1.11%) Master's Degree
7 9 (0.55%) PhD
8 7 (0.43%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.43%) Chartered Engineer
8 7 (0.43%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.12%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.12%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.12%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.062%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (1.97%) QA
2 13 (0.80%) MISRA
3 11 (0.68%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.68%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 4 (0.25%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.25%) ECSS
5 4 (0.25%) ISO 9001
6 3 (0.18%) GDPR
6 3 (0.18%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.12%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.062%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.062%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.062%) IEC 61131
8 1 (0.062%) ISO 9000
8 1 (0.062%) JTAG
System Software
1 78 (4.81%) Docker
2 65 (4.01%) Firmware
3 26 (1.60%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (0.43%) Hyper-V
4 7 (0.43%) KVM
4 7 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.062%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 95 (5.86%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.77%) Terraform
3 11 (0.68%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.37%) Ansible
4 6 (0.37%) Grafana
4 6 (0.37%) Kibana
5 5 (0.31%) Puppet
6 2 (0.12%) Packer
6 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.12%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.062%) Istio
7 1 (0.062%) logstash
7 1 (0.062%) Podman
Vendors
1 19 (1.17%) Microsoft
1 19 (1.17%) Oracle
2 15 (0.92%) Xamarin
3 12 (0.74%) Adobe
3 12 (0.74%) Google
3 12 (0.74%) Sage
4 8 (0.49%) HubSpot
5 7 (0.43%) VMware
6 6 (0.37%) Red Hat
7 5 (0.31%) SaltStack
7 5 (0.31%) Zoho
8 4 (0.25%) Atmel
8 4 (0.25%) OpenAI
8 4 (0.25%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.18%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.18%) SAP
10 2 (0.12%) Databricks
10 2 (0.12%) Palantir
10 2 (0.12%) Siemens
11 1 (0.062%) NVIDIA