C++ Job Trends

C++
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring C++ skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 207 98 126
Rank change year-on-year -109 +28 -4
Permanent jobs citing C++ 684 1,490 1,369
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.13% 2.78% 2.47%
As % of the Programming Languages category 5.87% 8.24% 6.39%
Number of salaries quoted 503 703 1,089
10th Percentile £39,281 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £48,000 £47,500 £51,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £90,000
90th Percentile £127,500 £115,000 £130,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £56,500 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -5.83% - +4.35%

All Programming Languages
UK

C++ falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 11,649 18,092 21,429
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 19.32% 33.76% 38.64%
Number of salaries quoted 8,522 10,582 17,498
10th Percentile £32,500 £37,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £82,500 £85,000 £82,548
90th Percentile £102,500 £110,000 £105,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000

C++
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing C++ relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

C++ job vacancy trend in the UK

C++
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing C++.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing C++

C++
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing C++ over the 6 months to 15 January 2026.

Salary histogram for C++ in the UK

C++
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing C++ within the UK over the 6 months to 15 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
England -96 585 £67,500 +3.85% 795
UK excluding London -115 411 £56,500 -5.83% 711
London -22 238 £102,500 +13.89% 157
Work from Home -77 209 £56,500 -5.83% 370
South East -87 122 £60,000 -4.00% 267
East of England -19 86 £55,000 +4.76% 133
North of England -58 59 £46,500 -19.41% 77
South West -75 57 £55,000 +10.00% 130
Scotland -27 42 £60,000 - 40
Yorkshire -19 31 £45,000 -10.00% 27
Midlands -71 23 £55,000 - 52
Wales -15 22 £65,000 +18.18% 28
North West -34 20 £57,500 -2.41% 36
West Midlands -47 13 £55,000 - 16
East Midlands -40 10 £49,000 -10.91% 35
North East +1 8 £56,500 -29.38% 14

C++
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 16 (2.34%) Kinematics
2 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.29%) Apache Pulsar
3 2 (0.29%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.29%) Confluence
3 2 (0.29%) HCL Notes
3 2 (0.29%) IIS
3 2 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 2 (0.29%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.29%) WinCC
4 1 (0.15%) nginx
Applications
1 7 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.73%) Simulink
3 1 (0.15%) Doxygen
3 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.15%) OrCAD
3 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 2 (0.29%) Oracle BPM
2 1 (0.15%) Towers Watson Igloo
Cloud Services
1 71 (10.38%) Azure
2 59 (8.63%) AWS
3 26 (3.80%) GCP
4 15 (2.19%) GitHub
5 9 (1.32%) Google Workspace
6 8 (1.17%) OpenShift
7 5 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (0.73%) Cloud Computing
7 5 (0.73%) Entra ID
7 5 (0.73%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (0.58%) Amazon S3
8 4 (0.58%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (0.58%) Serverless
8 4 (0.58%) SurveyMonkey
9 3 (0.44%) Amazon Cognito
9 3 (0.44%) Amazon EC2
9 3 (0.44%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (0.29%) Google Play
10 2 (0.29%) TestFlight
Communications & Networking
1 54 (7.89%) TCP/IP
2 31 (4.53%) Multicast
2 31 (4.53%) Wireless
3 19 (2.78%) Bluetooth
3 19 (2.78%) Modbus
3 19 (2.78%) RS-232
4 18 (2.63%) Software-Defined Radio
5 10 (1.46%) HTTP
5 10 (1.46%) Network Security
6 9 (1.32%) Ethernet
7 8 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (1.17%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.88%) DNS
9 5 (0.73%) Firewall
9 5 (0.73%) MQTT
10 4 (0.58%) 3G
10 4 (0.58%) Internet
10 4 (0.58%) Intrusion Detection
10 4 (0.58%) RTP
10 4 (0.58%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (4.82%) SQL Server
2 29 (4.24%) MySQL
3 6 (0.88%) ClickHouse
3 6 (0.88%) Relational Database
4 5 (0.73%) DTS
4 5 (0.73%) KDB
5 4 (0.58%) GIS
6 3 (0.44%) Apache Cassandra
6 3 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (0.44%) Redis
7 2 (0.29%) Big Data
7 2 (0.29%) JasperReports
7 2 (0.29%) Kdb+
7 2 (0.29%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.29%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (0.29%) Tick Data
Development Applications
1 47 (6.87%) Git
2 29 (4.24%) JIRA
3 24 (3.51%) Visual Studio
4 12 (1.75%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.73%) IDA Disassembler
5 5 (0.73%) TeamCity
6 4 (0.58%) Burp Suite
6 4 (0.58%) GitLab
6 4 (0.58%) LabVIEW
6 4 (0.58%) Metasploit
6 4 (0.58%) MLflow
6 4 (0.58%) Rational DOORS
7 3 (0.44%) CMake
8 2 (0.29%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.29%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.29%) Subversion
8 2 (0.29%) Team Foundation Server
8 2 (0.29%) TestRail
8 2 (0.29%) Xcode
8 2 (0.29%) Zephyr
General
1 175 (25.58%) Finance
2 90 (13.16%) Social Skills
3 86 (12.57%) Electronics
4 57 (8.33%) Front Office
5 50 (7.31%) Banking
6 49 (7.16%) Manufacturing
7 46 (6.73%) Analytical Skills
8 35 (5.12%) Aerospace
9 29 (4.24%) Investment Banking
10 28 (4.09%) Telecoms
11 19 (2.78%) Automotive
12 12 (1.75%) Public Sector
13 11 (1.61%) Aviation
13 11 (1.61%) Military
14 10 (1.46%) Aeronautics
14 10 (1.46%) Retail
15 9 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (1.32%) Law
15 9 (1.32%) Marketing
16 8 (1.17%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 252 (36.84%) Software Engineer
2 201 (29.39%) Developer
3 146 (21.35%) Senior
4 128 (18.71%) C++ Developer
5 116 (16.96%) C++ Software Engineer
6 80 (11.70%) Embedded Engineer
7 66 (9.65%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 60 (8.77%) Senior Software Engineer
9 54 (7.89%) Software Developer
10 45 (6.58%) Graduate
11 40 (5.85%) Lead
12 38 (5.56%) Low Latency C++ Developer
12 38 (5.56%) Senior Developer
13 37 (5.41%) Linux Developer
14 34 (4.97%) C++ Software Developer
15 33 (4.82%) Quantitative Developer
16 31 (4.53%) Senior C++ Software Engineer
17 30 (4.39%) Graduate Developer
17 30 (4.39%) Python Developer
17 30 (4.39%) Senior C++ Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (6.14%) .NET
2 41 (5.99%) Boost C++ Libraries
3 37 (5.41%) FIX Protocol
4 27 (3.95%) CSS
4 27 (3.95%) Qt
5 26 (3.80%) jQuery
6 21 (3.07%) RESTful
7 20 (2.92%) ASP.NET
8 18 (2.63%) Middleware
9 15 (2.19%) pytest
10 13 (1.90%) React
11 10 (1.46%) AngularJS
12 9 (1.32%) Kafka
12 9 (1.32%) WebSockets
13 8 (1.17%) PyTorch
13 8 (1.17%) STL
14 7 (1.02%) gRPC
14 7 (1.02%) REST
14 7 (1.02%) ZeroMQ
15 6 (0.88%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 99 (14.47%) Algorithms
2 58 (8.48%) Embedded Systems
3 40 (5.85%) Derivative
4 39 (5.70%) Equities
5 37 (5.41%) Distributed Systems
6 34 (4.97%) Cloud Native
7 31 (4.53%) FPGA
8 29 (4.24%) Data Structures
9 27 (3.95%) Robotics
10 26 (3.80%) Fixed Income
10 26 (3.80%) Hedge funds
11 20 (2.92%) IoT
12 19 (2.78%) Management Information System
12 19 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
13 16 (2.34%) Legacy Code
14 14 (2.05%) e-Learning
15 13 (1.90%) CAN bus
15 13 (1.90%) Driving Licence
16 12 (1.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 11 (1.61%) Device Driver
Operating Systems
1 232 (33.92%) Linux
2 53 (7.75%) Windows
3 26 (3.80%) Embedded Linux
4 22 (3.22%) Android
5 14 (2.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.46%) Unix
7 7 (1.02%) FreeRTOS
8 6 (0.88%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.58%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.58%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.44%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.44%) OpenWrt
11 2 (0.29%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (47.08%) Software Engineering
2 151 (22.08%) Agile
3 130 (19.01%) Computer Science
4 112 (16.37%) Problem-Solving
5 104 (15.20%) Low Latency
6 73 (10.67%) AI
7 63 (9.21%) OOP
8 61 (8.92%) Mathematics
8 61 (8.92%) OO
9 58 (8.48%) SDLC
10 57 (8.33%) Test Automation
11 54 (7.89%) Machine Learning
12 46 (6.73%) DevOps
13 45 (6.58%) Continuous Improvement
14 40 (5.85%) CI/CD
14 40 (5.85%) Mentoring
15 38 (5.56%) Embedded Software Development
16 34 (4.97%) Multithreading
16 34 (4.97%) Physics
17 33 (4.82%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 242 (35.38%) C
2 219 (32.02%) Python
3 141 (20.61%) Java
4 136 (19.88%) C#
5 82 (11.99%) SQL
6 46 (6.73%) Rust
7 33 (4.82%) Embedded C++
7 33 (4.82%) Go
8 27 (3.95%) Embedded C
9 26 (3.80%) PHP
10 24 (3.51%) JavaScript
10 24 (3.51%) TypeScript
11 16 (2.34%) Bash
12 12 (1.75%) Kotlin
13 10 (1.46%) MATLAB
14 9 (1.32%) PL/SQL
15 8 (1.17%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.88%) Perl
16 6 (0.88%) R
16 6 (0.88%) VBA
Qualifications
1 170 (24.85%) Degree
2 98 (14.33%) Security Cleared
3 74 (10.82%) Computer Science Degree
4 62 (9.06%) SC Cleared
5 44 (6.43%) DV Cleared
6 38 (5.56%) Master's Degree
7 23 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (3.36%) PhD
8 5 (0.73%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.58%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.29%) HND
10 2 (0.29%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.15%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.15%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.15%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (5.56%) QA
2 13 (1.90%) MISRA
3 9 (1.32%) IEC 61508
3 9 (1.32%) MISRA C
4 5 (0.73%) ISO 9001
5 4 (0.58%) ECSS
6 3 (0.44%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.44%) EMIR
6 3 (0.44%) NIST
7 1 (0.15%) Def Stans
7 1 (0.15%) IEC 62304
7 1 (0.15%) MiFID
System Software
1 87 (12.72%) Firmware
2 59 (8.63%) Embedded Firmware
3 30 (4.39%) Docker
4 14 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (2.05%) Virtual Servers
5 8 (1.17%) KVM
5 8 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (0.58%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.15%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 51 (7.46%) Kubernetes
2 9 (1.32%) Functional Safety
2 9 (1.32%) Grafana
2 9 (1.32%) Terraform
3 5 (0.73%) Ansible
3 5 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
3 5 (0.73%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.58%) Nessus
4 4 (0.58%) Nmap
5 3 (0.44%) Kubeflow
6 1 (0.15%) Nagios
6 1 (0.15%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.15%) Puppet
6 1 (0.15%) WMI
Vendors
1 18 (2.63%) Microsoft
2 17 (2.49%) Red Hat
3 16 (2.34%) Google
4 13 (1.90%) Palantir
5 11 (1.61%) Oracle
6 10 (1.46%) EMC
7 9 (1.32%) SAP
8 8 (1.17%) Siemens
8 8 (1.17%) VMware
9 5 (0.73%) Apple
10 4 (0.58%) Cisco
10 4 (0.58%) Qualtrics
10 4 (0.58%) Splunk
11 2 (0.29%) Altera
11 2 (0.29%) Ericsson
11 2 (0.29%) Foundry
11 2 (0.29%) Mapbox
11 2 (0.29%) Mavenir
11 2 (0.29%) Nokia
11 2 (0.29%) Xamarin