Software Development Engineer Jobs

Software Development Engineer
UK

The median Software Development Engineer salary in the UK is £87,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 2 July 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 610 840 820
Rank change year-on-year +230 -20 +79
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Development Engineer 111 67 109
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.19% 0.062% 0.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.065% 0.13%
Number of salaries quoted 11 40 73
10th Percentile £51,250 £37,500 £43,255
25th Percentile £55,625 £40,000 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £87,500 £50,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -23.08% -13.33%
75th Percentile £105,000 £56,250 £75,000
90th Percentile - £65,375 £94,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £50,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +25.00% -16.67% -4.00%

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 52,512 102,387 81,388
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.85% 94.81% 91.21%
Number of salaries quoted 28,421 72,229 54,035
10th Percentile £27,000 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £38,750 £44,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £90,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +4.95%

Software Development Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Software Development Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Software Development Engineer.

Salary trend for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Development Engineer over the 6 months to 2 July 2025.

Salary histogram for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Top 8 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 2 July 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 +198 108 £87,500 +70.73% 418
UK excluding London +231 102 £62,500 +25.00% 120
Midlands +142 100 £70,000 +55.56% 21
West Midlands +118 67 £70,000 +40.00% 17
East Midlands +66 33 - - 4
London +94 8 £96,250 +42.59% 320
Work from Home +104 4 £87,500 +59.09% 74
Scotland +96 2 £55,000 - 22

Software Development Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 July 2025, Software Development Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Software Development Engineer in the job title.

1 105 (94.59%) Software Testing
2 103 (92.79%) Agile
3 99 (89.19%) Aerospace
3 99 (89.19%) Automotive
3 99 (89.19%) Validation
3 99 (89.19%) MATLAB
3 99 (89.19%) Simulink
3 99 (89.19%) BPSS Clearance
3 99 (89.19%) Systems Engineering
4 8 (7.21%) Fintech
5 7 (6.31%) Software Engineering
5 7 (6.31%) Test Automation
6 6 (5.41%) SDET
7 5 (4.50%) Full-Stack Development
7 5 (4.50%) AWS
7 5 (4.50%) TypeScript
8 4 (3.60%) Web Application Development
8 4 (3.60%) Finance
8 4 (3.60%) HTML
8 4 (3.60%) Java
8 4 (3.60%) CSS
8 4 (3.60%) Front End Development
8 4 (3.60%) Svelte
8 4 (3.60%) GraphQL
8 4 (3.60%) Mentoring
8 4 (3.60%) React
9 3 (2.70%) CI/CD
9 3 (2.70%) JavaScript
9 3 (2.70%) HTTP
9 3 (2.70%) Jenkins

Software Development Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Applications
1 99 (89.19%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 5 (4.50%) AWS
2 1 (0.90%) Azure
2 1 (0.90%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.70%) HTTP
2 1 (0.90%) 3GPP
2 1 (0.90%) 4G
2 1 (0.90%) 5G
2 1 (0.90%) Diameter Protocol
2 1 (0.90%) SCTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.90%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 3 (2.70%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.80%) Appium
2 2 (1.80%) Cypress.io
2 2 (1.80%) Postman
2 2 (1.80%) Selenium
2 2 (1.80%) SoapUI
2 2 (1.80%) Xcode
2 2 (1.80%) XCUITest
3 1 (0.90%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.90%) Git
3 1 (0.90%) GitLab
3 1 (0.90%) JMeter
3 1 (0.90%) Robot Framework
General
1 99 (89.19%) Aerospace
1 99 (89.19%) Automotive
2 4 (3.60%) Finance
3 2 (1.80%) Tech for Good
4 1 (0.90%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (0.90%) Manufacturing
4 1 (0.90%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.60%) CSS
1 4 (3.60%) GraphQL
1 4 (3.60%) HTML
1 4 (3.60%) React
1 4 (3.60%) Svelte
2 3 (2.70%) REST
3 2 (1.80%) JSON
3 2 (1.80%) Playwright
3 2 (1.80%) Web Services
4 1 (0.90%) gRPC
4 1 (0.90%) OpenAPI
4 1 (0.90%) pytest
4 1 (0.90%) RESTful
4 1 (0.90%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 1 (0.90%) Cloud Native
1 1 (0.90%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.80%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.90%) Debian
2 1 (0.90%) Linux
2 1 (0.90%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (94.59%) Software Testing
2 103 (92.79%) Agile
3 99 (89.19%) Systems Engineering
3 99 (89.19%) Validation
4 8 (7.21%) Fintech
5 7 (6.31%) Software Engineering
5 7 (6.31%) Test Automation
6 6 (5.41%) SDET
7 5 (4.50%) Full-Stack Development
8 4 (3.60%) Front End Development
8 4 (3.60%) Mentoring
8 4 (3.60%) Web Application Development
9 3 (2.70%) CI/CD
9 3 (2.70%) Test Strategy
10 2 (1.80%) API Testing
10 2 (1.80%) Artificial Intelligence
10 2 (1.80%) DevOps
10 2 (1.80%) iOS Development
10 2 (1.80%) Microservices
10 2 (1.80%) Test Planning
Programming Languages
1 99 (89.19%) MATLAB
2 5 (4.50%) TypeScript
3 4 (3.60%) Java
4 3 (2.70%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.80%) Go
5 2 (1.80%) SQL
5 2 (1.80%) Swift
6 1 (0.90%) C++
6 1 (0.90%) PHP
6 1 (0.90%) Python
Qualifications
1 99 (89.19%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.80%) QA
System Software
1 1 (0.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.90%) Kubernetes
1 1 (0.90%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 1 (0.90%) Dynatrace
1 1 (0.90%) Splunk