FPGA Job Trends

Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term FPGA in permanent job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered in vacancies that cited FPGA over the 6 months leading up to 31 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 523 520 608
Rank change year-on-year -3 +88 +161
Permanent jobs citing FPGA 135 185 168
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.36% 0.24%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.64% 0.96% 0.66%
Number of salaries quoted 57 70 123
10th Percentile £51,250 £47,250 £35,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £50,000 £44,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £56,750 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% +8.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £90,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% +10.00% -4.76%

All Generic Skills
UK

FPGA falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 21,125 19,355 25,316
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 33.12% 37.25% 36.21%
Number of salaries quoted 10,615 8,978 18,636
10th Percentile £28,000 £33,852 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £46,250 £40,076
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -9.84% +6.09% -11.54%
75th Percentile £77,500 £83,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £112,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -13.64% +10.00% -9.09%

FPGA
Job Vacancy Trend

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

FPGA job vacancy trend in the UK

FPGA
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing FPGA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing FPGA

FPGA
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing FPGA over the 6 months to 31 January 2026.

Salary histogram for FPGA in the UK

FPGA
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing FPGA within the UK over the 6 months to 31 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
UK excluding London -15 102 £65,000 +18.18% 118
England -25 101 £65,000 +13.04% 134
Work from Home +46 77 £67,500 +5.88% 46
London +43 23 £135,000 +18.68% 25
East of England 0 23 £80,000 +52.38% 29
North of England -1 18 £75,000 +100.00% 4
South West +8 17 £65,000 -27.78% 22
South East -24 13 £60,000 -4.00% 53
Wales +12 12 £57,500 +4.55%
North West +13 10 £75,000 +100.00% 1
Scotland +1 10 £67,500 +3.85% 9
Yorkshire -3 8 - - 3
Midlands +15 6 £77,500 +55.00% 12
West Midlands - 5 £77,500 - 3
Northern Ireland - 3 - -
East Midlands -10 1 - - 9

FPGA
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 2 (1.48%) Apache
1 2 (1.48%) nginx
Applications
1 5 (3.70%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 3 (2.22%) Towers Watson Igloo
Cloud Services
1 1 (0.74%) AWS
1 1 (0.74%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 51 (37.78%) Ethernet
2 20 (14.81%) TCP/IP
3 5 (3.70%) RS-232
4 3 (2.22%) Software-Defined Radio
5 2 (1.48%) DHCP
5 2 (1.48%) DNS
5 2 (1.48%) LAN
5 2 (1.48%) NAS
5 2 (1.48%) SAN
5 2 (1.48%) SNMP
5 2 (1.48%) WAN
6 1 (0.74%) 4G
6 1 (0.74%) 5G
6 1 (0.74%) Internet
6 1 (0.74%) LTE
6 1 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.74%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 11 (8.15%) Git
2 8 (5.93%) Rational DOORS
3 4 (2.96%) JIRA
4 2 (1.48%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.74%) CircleCI
General
1 46 (34.07%) Electronics
2 22 (16.30%) Finance
3 18 (13.33%) Banking
3 18 (13.33%) Investment Banking
4 11 (8.15%) Aerospace
5 9 (6.67%) Aviation
6 8 (5.93%) Social Skills
7 5 (3.70%) Automotive
8 3 (2.22%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 24 (17.78%) Lead
2 22 (16.30%) Senior
3 19 (14.07%) Developer
4 18 (13.33%) C++ Developer
4 18 (13.33%) FPGA Engineer
4 18 (13.33%) Investment Banking C++ Developer
4 18 (13.33%) Linux Developer
4 18 (13.33%) Linux Scripter
4 18 (13.33%) Low Latency C++ Developer
5 9 (6.67%) Electronics Engineer
5 9 (6.67%) Firmware Engineer
6 8 (5.93%) Senior Electronics Engineer
7 7 (5.19%) Senior FPGA Engineer
8 6 (4.44%) Design Engineer
9 5 (3.70%) Designer
9 5 (3.70%) FPGA Designer
9 5 (3.70%) Senior Designer
10 4 (2.96%) Embedded Engineer
10 4 (2.96%) FPGA Design Engineer
11 3 (2.22%) Embedded Firmware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.48%) LDAP
2 1 (0.74%) DPDK
2 1 (0.74%) gRPC
2 1 (0.74%) Middleware
2 1 (0.74%) Node.js
2 1 (0.74%) NumPy
2 1 (0.74%) PyTorch
2 1 (0.74%) SciPy
2 1 (0.74%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 51 (37.78%) Embedded Systems
2 17 (12.59%) VHDL
3 11 (8.15%) Algorithms
4 7 (5.19%) PCIe
5 6 (4.44%) Verilog
6 4 (2.96%) ASIC
6 4 (2.96%) Onboarding
7 3 (2.22%) NVMe
8 2 (1.48%) GNSS
8 2 (1.48%) IoT
9 1 (0.74%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.74%) Device Driver
9 1 (0.74%) Hedge funds
9 1 (0.74%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.74%) Robotics
9 1 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.74%) Smart City
Operating Systems
1 67 (49.63%) Linux
2 2 (1.48%) CentOS
2 2 (1.48%) Oracle Linux
2 2 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (20.74%) Agile
2 24 (17.78%) FPGA Design
3 21 (15.56%) Low Latency
4 12 (8.89%) System Testing
5 11 (8.15%) Signal Processing
6 10 (7.41%) CI/CD
6 10 (7.41%) Technical Leadership
7 9 (6.67%) Problem-Solving
7 9 (6.67%) Schematic Capture
7 9 (6.67%) Test Automation
8 8 (5.93%) Validation
9 7 (5.19%) Software Engineering
9 7 (5.19%) Verification and Validation
10 5 (3.70%) Configuration Management
10 5 (3.70%) Software Testing
10 5 (3.70%) UVM
11 4 (2.96%) Digital Signal Processing
11 4 (2.96%) Embedded Software Development
11 4 (2.96%) Kalman Filter
11 4 (2.96%) OO
Programming Languages
1 40 (29.63%) C
2 35 (25.93%) C++
3 23 (17.04%) Java
4 10 (7.41%) Python
5 4 (2.96%) MATLAB
5 4 (2.96%) SystemVerilog
6 3 (2.22%) Assembly Language
6 3 (2.22%) C#
6 3 (2.22%) Perl
7 2 (1.48%) Rust
8 1 (0.74%) Embedded C
8 1 (0.74%) SQL
8 1 (0.74%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 14 (10.37%) Degree
2 6 (4.44%) PhD
3 5 (3.70%) Master's Degree
3 5 (3.70%) Security Cleared
4 2 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (1.48%) DV Cleared
4 2 (1.48%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.74%) HNC
5 1 (0.74%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.70%) QA
2 4 (2.96%) IEC 61508
2 4 (2.96%) ISO 26262
3 2 (1.48%) MISRA
System Software
1 22 (16.30%) Firmware
2 12 (8.89%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (0.74%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (1.48%) Ansible
1 2 (1.48%) Red Hat Satellite
1 2 (1.48%) Red Hat Spacewalk
Vendors
1 7 (5.19%) EMC
1 7 (5.19%) Xilinx
2 6 (4.44%) Altera
3 3 (2.22%) Microsoft
4 2 (1.48%) Dell
4 2 (1.48%) HP
4 2 (1.48%) Intel
4 2 (1.48%) Microsemi
4 2 (1.48%) Oracle
4 2 (1.48%) Red Hat
5 1 (0.74%) Solarflare