Software Development Engineer Job Trends

Software Development Engineer
UK

The median Software Development Engineer salary in the UK is £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 30 December 2025.

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

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 601 675 690
Rank change year-on-year +74 +15 +233
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Development Engineer 46 39 23
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.078% 0.071% 0.045%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.086% 0.076% 0.047%
Number of salaries quoted 9 15 13
10th Percentile £55,000 £45,750 £40,500
25th Percentile £65,000 £47,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £58,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +11.11% -6.40%
75th Percentile £75,000 £72,500 £87,500
90th Percentile £75,250 - £96,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +18.18% -12.00%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
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 53,639 51,608 49,016
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.46% 93.39% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,031 27,303 37,879
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,173 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,671 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,715
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Software Development Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Software Development Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Salary Trend

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

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

Software Development Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Development Engineer over the 6 months to 30 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Top 10 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Development Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 30 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 +88 43 £70,000 +7.69% 31
London +79 31 £73,750 +40.48% 18
Work from Home +76 12 - - 21
UK excluding London +38 12 £65,000 - 20
Midlands +22 5 £70,000 +7.69% 1
West Midlands +20 5 £70,000 +7.69% 1
North of England +24 4 £65,000 - 8
North West - 4 £65,000 - 6
South West - 3 - - 2
East Midlands - 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 30 December 2025, Software Development 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 Development Engineer in the job title.

1 28 (60.87%) Java
2 16 (34.78%) Architectural Design
2 16 (34.78%) Mentoring
2 16 (34.78%) Software Engineering
3 15 (32.61%) AWS
3 15 (32.61%) Degree
4 14 (30.43%) OO
4 14 (30.43%) SOA
5 13 (28.26%) Kotlin
6 12 (26.09%) Machine Learning
6 12 (26.09%) Master's Degree
7 10 (21.74%) CI/CD
7 10 (21.74%) User Experience
8 9 (19.57%) AI
8 9 (19.57%) GitHub
8 9 (19.57%) GitHub Copilot
8 9 (19.57%) HTTP
8 9 (19.57%) Product Management
8 9 (19.57%) Product Roadmap
8 9 (19.57%) REST
8 9 (19.57%) Roadmaps
8 9 (19.57%) SDET
8 9 (19.57%) Software Testing
8 9 (19.57%) SOLID
8 9 (19.57%) Technical Leadership
9 8 (17.39%) Computer Science
9 8 (17.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (17.39%) Microservices
10 7 (15.22%) Architectural Patterns
10 7 (15.22%) Design Patterns

Software Development 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:

Applications
1 3 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 15 (32.61%) AWS
2 9 (19.57%) GitHub
2 9 (19.57%) GitHub Copilot
3 5 (10.87%) Amazon Kinesis
4 3 (6.52%) Datadog
5 1 (2.17%) Azure
5 1 (2.17%) BrowserStack
5 1 (2.17%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 9 (19.57%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (10.87%) Couchbase
1 5 (10.87%) DynamoDB
1 5 (10.87%) NoSQL
1 5 (10.87%) Redis
1 5 (10.87%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (13.04%) Cucumber
2 4 (8.70%) Cypress.io
2 4 (8.70%) GitLab
2 4 (8.70%) Postman
3 3 (6.52%) JBehave
3 3 (6.52%) JIRA
4 1 (2.17%) Bitbucket
4 1 (2.17%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (2.17%) Jasmine
4 1 (2.17%) JUnit
General
1 13 (28.26%) Finance
2 9 (19.57%) Banking
2 9 (19.57%) Influencing Skills
2 9 (19.57%) Social Skills
3 6 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (8.70%) Aeronautics
4 4 (8.70%) Aerospace
4 4 (8.70%) Automotive
5 3 (6.52%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.17%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (19.57%) REST
2 5 (10.87%) Kafka
2 5 (10.87%) Memcached
2 5 (10.87%) Spring
3 3 (6.52%) Gherkin
4 1 (2.17%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 9 (19.57%) Public Cloud
2 7 (15.22%) Blog
3 5 (10.87%) Data Structures
3 5 (10.87%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (10.87%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.17%) Unix
1 1 (2.17%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (34.78%) Architectural Design
1 16 (34.78%) Mentoring
1 16 (34.78%) Software Engineering
2 14 (30.43%) OO
2 14 (30.43%) SOA
3 12 (26.09%) Machine Learning
4 10 (21.74%) CI/CD
4 10 (21.74%) User Experience
5 9 (19.57%) AI
5 9 (19.57%) Product Management
5 9 (19.57%) Product Roadmap
5 9 (19.57%) Roadmaps
5 9 (19.57%) SDET
5 9 (19.57%) Software Testing
5 9 (19.57%) SOLID
5 9 (19.57%) Technical Leadership
6 8 (17.39%) Computer Science
6 8 (17.39%) Microservices
7 7 (15.22%) Open Source
7 7 (15.22%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 28 (60.87%) Java
2 13 (28.26%) Kotlin
3 5 (10.87%) JavaScript
3 5 (10.87%) Scala
4 3 (6.52%) PHP
4 3 (6.52%) Python
4 3 (6.52%) VBA
5 2 (4.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 15 (32.61%) Degree
2 12 (26.09%) Master's Degree
3 8 (17.39%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (2.17%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.52%) QA
2 1 (2.17%) Accessibility
System Software
1 1 (2.17%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (6.52%) Grafana
2 1 (2.17%) Kubernetes