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 27 February 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 38 27
Rank change year-on-year -18 -11 +29
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,715 1,699 3,765
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.45% 5.51% 7.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.77% 6.04% 7.79%
Number of salaries quoted 1,342 848 2,171
10th Percentile £40,125 £40,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £52,250 £47,577 £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 45,466 28,114 48,310
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.43% 91.23% 94.89%
Number of salaries quoted 28,530 14,181 37,219
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,000 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,748 £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 £68,750 £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 27 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 27 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 0 417 £65,000 +5.26% 101
South East -16 402 £65,000 +8.33% 133
South West +5 353 £65,000 +8.33% 101
North West +9 208 £65,000 - 57
East of England -21 183 £70,000 +5.69% 69
Scotland -8 160 £65,000 +13.04% 77
Yorkshire -2 150 £62,500 +4.40% 27
Midlands +1 148 £60,000 +14.29% 55
East Midlands -13 76 £60,000 +20.00% 29
West Midlands +8 74 £62,500 +16.28% 26
North East -1 59 £70,000 +27.27% 17
Wales -20 39 £40,000 -40.74% 17
Northern Ireland -34 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 27 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 1,704 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 229 (13.35%) C#
3 227 (13.24%) C++
4 220 (12.83%) Java
5 218 (12.71%) AWS
6 213 (12.42%) .NET
7 212 (12.36%) Agile
8 189 (11.02%) Full-Stack Development
9 185 (10.79%) Python
10 175 (10.20%) Security Cleared
11 169 (9.85%) CI/CD
12 168 (9.80%) Azure
13 160 (9.33%) DevOps
14 158 (9.21%) React
15 150 (8.75%) JavaScript
16 140 (8.16%) Degree
17 136 (7.93%) SQL
18 133 (7.76%) TypeScript
19 112 (6.53%) C
20 111 (6.47%) Microservices
21 106 (6.18%) Linux
21 106 (6.18%) Mentoring
22 104 (6.06%) Problem-Solving
23 98 (5.71%) Kubernetes
24 94 (5.48%) Continuous Improvement
25 91 (5.31%) SC Cleared
26 87 (5.07%) Computer Science
27 84 (4.90%) Docker
28 82 (4.78%) SaaS
29 81 (4.72%) 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 (0.70%) Apache
1 12 (0.70%) IIS
2 7 (0.41%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.29%) CMS
4 4 (0.23%) Apache Solr
5 3 (0.17%) Confluence
6 2 (0.12%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.058%) GeoServer
7 1 (0.058%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.058%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.058%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.23%) EngageOne
2 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.12%) Sketch
3 1 (0.058%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.058%) EPLAN
3 1 (0.058%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.058%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.58%) Magento
2 2 (0.12%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.058%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 218 (12.71%) AWS
2 168 (9.80%) Azure
3 82 (4.78%) SaaS
4 46 (2.68%) Serverless
5 43 (2.51%) GCP
6 35 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
8 25 (1.46%) Amazon S3
9 24 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
10 18 (1.05%) Azure AKS
11 16 (0.93%) GitHub
12 14 (0.82%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (0.58%) OpenShift
14 8 (0.47%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (0.47%) Stripe
15 7 (0.41%) Amazon EC2
16 5 (0.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 5 (0.29%) AWS Fargate
17 4 (0.23%) Firebase
17 4 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.57%) Wireless
2 17 (0.99%) RS-232
3 11 (0.64%) Bluetooth
4 8 (0.47%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.41%) Modbus
6 6 (0.35%) HTTP
6 6 (0.35%) Software-Defined Radio
6 6 (0.35%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.29%) AMQP
7 5 (0.29%) Broadband
8 4 (0.23%) DNS
8 4 (0.23%) LTE
8 4 (0.23%) SMTP
8 4 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (0.17%) ATM
9 3 (0.17%) Network Security
10 2 (0.12%) 3G
10 2 (0.12%) GPRS
10 2 (0.12%) GSM
10 2 (0.12%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (3.09%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
3 40 (2.33%) NoSQL
4 24 (1.40%) Elasticsearch
5 23 (1.34%) MySQL
6 22 (1.28%) MongoDB
7 17 (0.99%) Relational Database
8 14 (0.82%) DynamoDB
9 12 (0.70%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (0.58%) Neo4j
11 9 (0.52%) Big Data
12 8 (0.47%) Redis
13 7 (0.41%) Hadoop
14 5 (0.29%) Cloudera CDH
15 4 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
16 3 (0.17%) Apache Cassandra
16 3 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
16 3 (0.17%) DocumentDB
16 3 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
16 3 (0.17%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 53 (3.09%) Git
2 17 (0.99%) GitLab
3 13 (0.76%) Visual Studio
4 12 (0.70%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.70%) JIRA
5 10 (0.58%) JUnit
6 7 (0.41%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.35%) Subversion
8 5 (0.29%) Claude Code
8 5 (0.29%) 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%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.12%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.12%) Appium
11 2 (0.12%) Postman
11 2 (0.12%) Vagrant
General
1 106 (6.18%) Social Skills
2 88 (5.13%) Finance
3 63 (3.67%) Manufacturing
4 55 (3.21%) Electronics
5 32 (1.87%) Aerospace
6 31 (1.81%) Public Sector
7 28 (1.63%) Automotive
8 24 (1.40%) Analytical Skills
8 24 (1.40%) Games
8 24 (1.40%) Pharmaceutical
9 16 (0.93%) Tech for Good
10 15 (0.87%) Retail
11 9 (0.52%) Financial Institution
11 9 (0.52%) Military
12 8 (0.47%) Health Technology
12 8 (0.47%) Marketing
13 7 (0.41%) Aeronautics
13 7 (0.41%) Law
14 6 (0.35%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.23%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (12.42%) .NET
2 158 (9.21%) React
3 69 (4.02%) Node.js
4 65 (3.79%) AngularJS
5 53 (3.09%) RESTful
6 52 (3.03%) Spring
7 49 (2.86%) REST
8 48 (2.80%) Spring Boot
9 45 (2.62%) .NET Core
10 40 (2.33%) .NET Framework
11 35 (2.04%) Vue
12 32 (1.87%) HTML
13 30 (1.75%) CSS
14 29 (1.69%) ASP.NET
15 27 (1.57%) Qt
16 26 (1.52%) Entity Framework
17 21 (1.22%) Next.js
18 17 (0.99%) Django
19 16 (0.93%) Web Services
20 15 (0.87%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 85 (4.96%) Cloud Native
2 51 (2.97%) Embedded Systems
3 33 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
4 32 (1.87%) IoT
5 28 (1.63%) Robotics
6 20 (1.17%) Algorithms
7 16 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (0.93%) Smart Energy
8 14 (0.82%) Product Ownership
9 13 (0.76%) Hedge funds
9 13 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (0.70%) Client/Server
10 12 (0.70%) Industry 4.0
11 11 (0.64%) CAN bus
11 11 (0.64%) Mobile App
12 10 (0.58%) Driving Licence
13 8 (0.47%) Device Driver
13 8 (0.47%) e-Learning
13 8 (0.47%) Renewable Energy
14 7 (0.41%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 106 (6.18%) Linux
2 30 (1.75%) Embedded Linux
3 29 (1.69%) Windows
4 26 (1.52%) Android
5 5 (0.29%) Apple iOS
5 5 (0.29%) CentOS
5 5 (0.29%) Debian
5 5 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.29%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.23%) Unix
7 2 (0.12%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
8 1 (0.058%) Fedora
8 1 (0.058%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,704 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 212 (12.36%) Agile
3 189 (11.02%) Full-Stack Development
4 169 (9.85%) CI/CD
5 160 (9.33%) DevOps
6 111 (6.47%) Microservices
7 106 (6.18%) Mentoring
8 104 (6.06%) Problem-Solving
9 94 (5.48%) Continuous Improvement
10 87 (5.07%) Computer Science
11 81 (4.72%) AI
12 71 (4.14%) Scrum
13 68 (3.97%) Containerisation
13 68 (3.97%) SDLC
14 61 (3.56%) Test Automation
15 60 (3.50%) TDD
16 44 (2.57%) Collaborative Culture
17 42 (2.45%) Embedded Software Development
17 42 (2.45%) Technical Leadership
18 41 (2.39%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 229 (13.35%) C#
2 227 (13.24%) C++
3 220 (12.83%) Java
4 185 (10.79%) Python
5 150 (8.75%) JavaScript
6 136 (7.93%) SQL
7 133 (7.76%) TypeScript
8 112 (6.53%) C
9 42 (2.45%) PHP
10 27 (1.57%) Rust
11 26 (1.52%) Embedded C
11 26 (1.52%) Kotlin
12 19 (1.11%) Embedded C++
12 19 (1.11%) T-SQL
13 17 (0.99%) Ruby
14 16 (0.93%) Ada
15 14 (0.82%) PL/SQL
15 14 (0.82%) Scala
16 13 (0.76%) Go
17 11 (0.64%) Bash
Qualifications
1 175 (10.20%) Security Cleared
2 140 (8.16%) Degree
3 91 (5.31%) SC Cleared
4 68 (3.97%) Computer Science Degree
5 47 (2.74%) DV Cleared
6 17 (0.99%) Master's Degree
7 7 (0.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.41%) Chartered Engineer
7 7 (0.41%) DBS Check
7 7 (0.41%) PhD
8 2 (0.12%) HND
8 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.12%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.058%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.058%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.058%) HNC
9 1 (0.058%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (1.92%) QA
2 13 (0.76%) MISRA
3 11 (0.64%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.64%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 5 (0.29%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.23%) ECSS
6 4 (0.23%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.17%) GDPR
8 2 (0.12%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.058%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.058%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.058%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.058%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (4.90%) Docker
2 65 (3.79%) Firmware
3 23 (1.34%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.52%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.52%) KVM
4 9 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 98 (5.71%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.68%) Terraform
3 11 (0.64%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.35%) Ansible
4 6 (0.35%) Grafana
4 6 (0.35%) Kibana
5 5 (0.29%) Puppet
6 2 (0.12%) Packer
6 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.12%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.058%) Istio
7 1 (0.058%) logstash
7 1 (0.058%) Podman
Vendors
1 21 (1.22%) Microsoft
2 20 (1.17%) Oracle
3 15 (0.87%) Xamarin
4 12 (0.70%) Adobe
4 12 (0.70%) Google
4 12 (0.70%) Sage
5 9 (0.52%) VMware
6 8 (0.47%) HubSpot
7 6 (0.35%) Red Hat
8 5 (0.29%) SaltStack
8 5 (0.29%) Siemens
8 5 (0.29%) Zoho
9 4 (0.23%) Atmel
9 4 (0.23%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.17%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.17%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.17%) Rockwell
10 3 (0.17%) SAP
11 2 (0.12%) Databricks
11 2 (0.12%) Typelevel