Software Engineer Job Trends

Software Engineer
UK

The median Software Engineer salary in the UK is £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 December 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 76 29 53
Rank change year-on-year -47 +24 -6
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,700 3,438 2,460
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.90% 6.00% 5.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.22% 6.39% 5.27%
Number of salaries quoted 1,301 1,903 1,760
10th Percentile £45,000 £42,500 £43,750
25th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £50,686
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £70,000 £68,250
Median % change year-on-year - +2.56% +1.11%
75th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £95,000
90th Percentile £115,000 £116,250 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +8.33% - -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 52,799 53,782 46,643
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.16% 93.79% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 32,457 29,075 36,182
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £43,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,000 £52,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -6.67% - -

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Software Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Software Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Software Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer over the 6 months to 16 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Top 17 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 16 December 2025. 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 -47 1,520 £72,500 +3.57% 976
UK excluding London -52 1,081 £65,000 +8.33% 759
Work from Home -44 571 £80,000 +5.26% 661
London -31 540 £100,000 +5.26% 363
South East -46 264 £65,000 +8.33% 191
South West -12 236 £65,000 +18.18% 139
North of England -39 230 £65,000 +8.33% 152
Midlands -31 114 £65,000 +18.18% 65
East of England -39 113 £70,000 +3.70% 121
Yorkshire -27 101 £58,750 -2.08% 45
North West -42 101 £70,000 +16.67% 90
Scotland -38 98 £60,000 - 86
West Midlands -18 65 £60,000 - 25
East Midlands -31 52 £65,000 +30.00% 39
North East -33 28 £67,500 +10.66% 18
Wales -39 19 £60,000 -11.11% 12
Northern Ireland -28 8 £85,000 +13.33% 15

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 December 2025, 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 featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 1,676 (98.59%) Software Engineering
2 411 (24.18%) AWS
3 403 (23.71%) Agile
4 374 (22.00%) Java
5 346 (20.35%) Python
6 292 (17.18%) TypeScript
7 289 (17.00%) React
8 274 (16.12%) JavaScript
9 258 (15.18%) C#
10 247 (14.53%) CI/CD
11 243 (14.29%) C++
12 223 (13.12%) Azure
13 212 (12.47%) Full-Stack Development
14 207 (12.18%) DevOps
15 198 (11.65%) Kubernetes
16 194 (11.41%) Microservices
17 193 (11.35%) .NET
17 193 (11.35%) Degree
18 192 (11.29%) Mentoring
19 191 (11.24%) Security Cleared
20 159 (9.35%) AI
21 158 (9.29%) SQL
22 143 (8.41%) GCP
23 141 (8.29%) Computer Science
23 141 (8.29%) Linux
24 135 (7.94%) Fintech
24 135 (7.94%) Problem-Solving
25 129 (7.59%) Node.js
26 127 (7.47%) AngularJS
27 125 (7.35%) C

Software Engineer Skill Set
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 85 (5.00%) Apache Airflow
2 58 (3.41%) Apache
3 12 (0.71%) IIS
4 10 (0.59%) Confluence
5 7 (0.41%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.18%) Apache Solr
6 3 (0.18%) CMS
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.12%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
7 2 (0.12%) NServiceBus
7 2 (0.12%) WinCC
8 1 (0.059%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.059%) Kinematics
8 1 (0.059%) nginx
8 1 (0.059%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 4 (0.24%) Chatbot
2 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
3 2 (0.12%) Sketch
4 1 (0.059%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.059%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.059%) Endur
1 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.059%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 411 (24.18%) AWS
2 223 (13.12%) Azure
3 143 (8.41%) GCP
4 85 (5.00%) dbt
5 76 (4.47%) SaaS
6 53 (3.12%) GitHub
7 52 (3.06%) Azure DevOps
8 50 (2.94%) Snowflake
9 44 (2.59%) Serverless
10 35 (2.06%) Amazon EKS
11 33 (1.94%) AWS Lambda
12 24 (1.41%) Amazon S3
13 17 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
14 16 (0.94%) Amazon ECS
15 13 (0.76%) GitHub Copilot
16 9 (0.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 9 (0.53%) Firebase
17 8 (0.47%) Amazon EC2
17 8 (0.47%) Cloud Run
17 8 (0.47%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 35 (2.06%) Wireless
2 19 (1.12%) Software-Defined Radio
3 18 (1.06%) RS-232
4 16 (0.94%) Bluetooth
4 16 (0.94%) Multicast
5 14 (0.82%) HTTP
6 7 (0.41%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.29%) DNS
7 5 (0.29%) Modbus
8 4 (0.24%) AMQP
8 4 (0.24%) SMTP
9 3 (0.18%) ATM
9 3 (0.18%) Ethernet
10 2 (0.12%) 3G
10 2 (0.12%) Firewall
10 2 (0.12%) GPRS
10 2 (0.12%) GSM
10 2 (0.12%) HTTPS
10 2 (0.12%) SSL
10 2 (0.12%) UWB
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (5.18%) PostgreSQL
2 81 (4.76%) Amazon Athena
3 80 (4.71%) Apache Arrow
3 80 (4.71%) Apache Iceberg
3 80 (4.71%) Dremio
4 47 (2.76%) MongoDB
5 46 (2.71%) Data Lake
6 45 (2.65%) Apache Ignite
6 45 (2.65%) SQL Server
7 43 (2.53%) NoSQL
8 35 (2.06%) Relational Database
9 31 (1.82%) Elasticsearch
10 27 (1.59%) DynamoDB
11 23 (1.35%) MySQL
12 18 (1.06%) Redis
13 15 (0.88%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 11 (0.65%) Neo4j
16 10 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
17 7 (0.41%) GIS
Development Applications
1 91 (5.35%) Git
2 43 (2.53%) JIRA
3 23 (1.35%) GitLab
4 15 (0.88%) Jenkins
4 15 (0.88%) TeamCity
5 14 (0.82%) Cypress.io
5 14 (0.82%) Visual Studio
6 13 (0.76%) JUnit
7 8 (0.47%) Cucumber
8 6 (0.35%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.29%) CircleCI
9 5 (0.29%) Maven
10 4 (0.24%) MLflow
10 4 (0.24%) Oracle APEX
10 4 (0.24%) Postman
10 4 (0.24%) Selenium
11 3 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 3 (0.18%) JBehave
11 3 (0.18%) Subversion
11 3 (0.18%) TestRail
General
1 339 (19.94%) Finance
2 143 (8.41%) Social Skills
3 110 (6.47%) Front Office
4 105 (6.18%) Banking
5 71 (4.18%) Manufacturing
6 59 (3.47%) Electronics
7 47 (2.76%) Investment Banking
8 45 (2.65%) Public Sector
9 43 (2.53%) Financial Institution
10 40 (2.35%) Law
11 38 (2.24%) Retail
12 27 (1.59%) Analytical Skills
13 26 (1.53%) Games
13 26 (1.53%) Marketing
14 24 (1.41%) Aerospace
14 24 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 24 (1.41%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.24%) Tech for Good
16 20 (1.18%) Pharmaceutical
17 17 (1.00%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 289 (17.00%) React
2 193 (11.35%) .NET
3 129 (7.59%) Node.js
4 127 (7.47%) AngularJS
5 80 (4.71%) NumPy
5 80 (4.71%) Pandas
5 80 (4.71%) SciPy
6 79 (4.65%) Spring
7 78 (4.59%) Vue
8 76 (4.47%) Kafka
9 68 (4.00%) Spring Boot
10 62 (3.65%) RESTful
11 61 (3.59%) GraphQL
12 51 (3.00%) REST
13 49 (2.88%) gRPC
14 45 (2.65%) Protocol Buffers
15 44 (2.59%) .NET Core
16 42 (2.47%) HTML
17 41 (2.41%) Redux
18 39 (2.29%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 146 (8.59%) Cloud Native
2 117 (6.88%) Fixed Income
3 93 (5.47%) Equities
4 87 (5.12%) Distributed Systems
5 84 (4.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 60 (3.53%) Derivative
6 60 (3.53%) Embedded Systems
7 53 (3.12%) Hedge funds
8 52 (3.06%) Algorithms
9 45 (2.65%) Pricing Data
10 37 (2.18%) Greenfield Project
11 31 (1.82%) Product Ownership
12 26 (1.53%) Data Structures
13 24 (1.41%) IoT
14 23 (1.35%) Legacy Code
15 21 (1.24%) e-Learning
15 21 (1.24%) Robotics
16 18 (1.06%) Manufacturing Execution System
17 17 (1.00%) RISC-V
18 15 (0.88%) MicroBlaze
Operating Systems
1 141 (8.29%) Linux
2 40 (2.35%) Windows
3 31 (1.82%) Embedded Linux
4 18 (1.06%) Android
5 8 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.47%) Unix
6 3 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
7 2 (0.12%) CentOS
7 2 (0.12%) Debian
7 2 (0.12%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.12%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.059%) Fedora
8 1 (0.059%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.059%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.059%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,676 (98.59%) Software Engineering
2 403 (23.71%) Agile
3 247 (14.53%) CI/CD
4 212 (12.47%) Full-Stack Development
5 207 (12.18%) DevOps
6 194 (11.41%) Microservices
7 192 (11.29%) Mentoring
8 159 (9.35%) AI
9 141 (8.29%) Computer Science
10 135 (7.94%) Fintech
10 135 (7.94%) Problem-Solving
11 106 (6.24%) Investment Management
12 84 (4.94%) Continuous Improvement
13 83 (4.88%) Test Automation
14 82 (4.82%) Asset Management
14 82 (4.82%) Technical Leadership
15 78 (4.59%) Containerisation
15 78 (4.59%) Machine Learning
16 75 (4.41%) TDD
17 73 (4.29%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 374 (22.00%) Java
2 346 (20.35%) Python
3 292 (17.18%) TypeScript
4 274 (16.12%) JavaScript
5 258 (15.18%) C#
6 243 (14.29%) C++
7 158 (9.29%) SQL
8 125 (7.35%) C
9 77 (4.53%) Go
10 56 (3.29%) Rust
11 41 (2.41%) Kotlin
12 32 (1.88%) Ruby
13 28 (1.65%) PHP
14 24 (1.41%) Ada
15 19 (1.12%) Embedded C++
16 18 (1.06%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.94%) PL/SQL
17 16 (0.94%) Scala
18 15 (0.88%) Embedded C
19 14 (0.82%) Ada 95
Qualifications
1 193 (11.35%) Degree
2 191 (11.24%) Security Cleared
3 109 (6.41%) SC Cleared
4 91 (5.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 80 (4.71%) DV Cleared
6 42 (2.47%) Master's Degree
7 21 (1.24%) PhD
8 17 (1.00%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (0.88%) Chartered Engineer
10 4 (0.24%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.18%) MCP
12 2 (0.12%) AWS Certification
12 2 (0.12%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.12%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (2.47%) QA
2 14 (0.82%) Accessibility
2 14 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 6 (0.35%) MISRA
4 5 (0.29%) IEC 61508
5 4 (0.24%) GDPR
5 4 (0.24%) MISRA C
5 4 (0.24%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.18%) ECSS
6 3 (0.18%) IEC 61131
7 2 (0.12%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.12%) ISO 9000
7 2 (0.12%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.12%) JTAG
7 2 (0.12%) PSD2
7 2 (0.12%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.059%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.059%) SLA
System Software
1 120 (7.06%) Docker
2 57 (3.35%) Firmware
3 37 (2.18%) Embedded Firmware
4 18 (1.06%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.82%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.12%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.12%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 198 (11.65%) Kubernetes
2 71 (4.18%) Terraform
3 28 (1.65%) Grafana
4 14 (0.82%) Kibana
5 9 (0.53%) Ansible
6 5 (0.29%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.24%) Argo
8 3 (0.18%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.18%) logstash
8 3 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.12%) Puppet
10 1 (0.059%) Istio
10 1 (0.059%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 36 (2.12%) Microsoft
2 31 (1.82%) Google
3 25 (1.47%) Oracle
4 20 (1.18%) SAP
5 14 (0.82%) Sage
5 14 (0.82%) Xamarin
6 13 (0.76%) Guidewire
7 12 (0.71%) Palantir
8 10 (0.59%) Atlassian
9 8 (0.47%) OpenAI
10 7 (0.41%) Databricks
11 5 (0.29%) Zoho
12 3 (0.18%) ForgeRock
12 3 (0.18%) Foundry
12 3 (0.18%) HubSpot
12 3 (0.18%) MuleSoft
12 3 (0.18%) Red Hat
12 3 (0.18%) Rockwell
12 3 (0.18%) Siemens
13 2 (0.12%) PayPal