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 11 July 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 44 18
Rank change year-on-year +13 -26 +55
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,615 2,616 7,928
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 4.69% 5.34% 7.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.98% 5.94% 8.25%
Number of salaries quoted 3,608 1,381 4,909
10th Percentile £46,100 £47,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £60,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £77,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.68% +29.17% -13.60%
75th Percentile £88,148 £110,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £135,000 £110,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +18.18% -8.33%

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 92,640 44,062 96,051
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.19% 89.87% 94.71%
Number of salaries quoted 63,517 25,939 68,728
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,000 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.66%

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 11 July 2026.

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 11 July 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 +16 4,222 £70,000 -11.18% 732
UK excluding London +24 3,447 £65,000 - 612
Work from Home -12 1,123 £70,000 -15.15% 288
London +1 1,010 £100,000 -6.98% 211
South East +75 943 £65,000 - 158
North of England +21 926 £67,500 -3.57% 110
South West +20 597 £65,000 - 120
North West +6 538 £70,000 -6.67% 60
East of England +54 391 £70,000 +5.73% 112
Midlands +42 337 £62,500 -3.85% 62
Yorkshire +64 236 £62,500 -8.76% 34
West Midlands +39 175 £67,500 +8.00% 22
East Midlands +16 162 £55,000 -21.43% 40
Scotland -17 155 £65,000 - 19
North East +7 152 £70,000 +27.27% 16
Wales -1 84 £44,000 -32.31% 19
Northern Ireland -47 15 £90,000 +80.00% 23

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

For the 6 months to 11 July 2026, 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 4,555 (98.70%) Software Engineering
2 776 (16.81%) Python
3 733 (15.88%) C++
4 727 (15.75%) AWS
5 673 (14.58%) C#
6 603 (13.07%) Agile
7 589 (12.76%) Java
8 541 (11.72%) Full-Stack Development
9 508 (11.01%) CI/CD
10 442 (9.58%) AI
11 436 (9.45%) .NET
12 415 (8.99%) Azure
13 412 (8.93%) Security Cleared
14 392 (8.49%) JavaScript
15 388 (8.41%) TypeScript
16 365 (7.91%) DevOps
17 358 (7.76%) Microservices
18 356 (7.71%) React
19 353 (7.65%) Degree
20 338 (7.32%) Mentoring
21 308 (6.67%) Test Automation
22 290 (6.28%) Linux
23 284 (6.15%) SQL
24 280 (6.07%) C
24 280 (6.07%) Computer Science
25 274 (5.94%) Problem-Solving
26 263 (5.70%) Continuous Improvement
27 259 (5.61%) SC Cleared
28 254 (5.50%) GCP
29 248 (5.37%) Kubernetes

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 28 (0.61%) Apache
2 16 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
3 12 (0.26%) Apache Spark
4 8 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
5 7 (0.15%) CMS
5 7 (0.15%) Confluence
6 5 (0.11%) WinCC
7 4 (0.087%) Apache Solr
7 4 (0.087%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.065%) Headless CMS
8 3 (0.065%) WordPress
9 2 (0.043%) Apache Pulsar
9 2 (0.043%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.043%) ArchestrA
9 2 (0.043%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.022%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.022%) Camunda
10 1 (0.022%) Moodle
10 1 (0.022%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.022%) Umbraco
Applications
1 9 (0.20%) Lightworks
2 5 (0.11%) Simulink
3 4 (0.087%) EngageOne
3 4 (0.087%) EPLAN
4 3 (0.065%) Blender
4 3 (0.065%) CANalyzer
4 3 (0.065%) Maya
4 3 (0.065%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.065%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.065%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.043%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.022%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.022%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.022%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.022%) Magento
1 1 (0.022%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 727 (15.75%) AWS
2 415 (8.99%) Azure
3 254 (5.50%) GCP
4 233 (5.05%) SaaS
5 94 (2.04%) Serverless
6 81 (1.76%) GitHub
7 73 (1.58%) Amazon EKS
8 49 (1.06%) Azure DevOps
9 48 (1.04%) Anthropic Claude
10 34 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
11 30 (0.65%) Firebase
12 23 (0.50%) Amazon S3
13 21 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
14 20 (0.43%) GitHub Copilot
15 19 (0.41%) Azure AKS
16 17 (0.37%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 17 (0.37%) GitHub Actions
17 16 (0.35%) Cloud Run
18 10 (0.22%) Amazon EC2
19 9 (0.20%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 58 (1.26%) Wireless
2 37 (0.80%) Ethernet
3 33 (0.72%) Broadband
4 28 (0.61%) Bluetooth
4 28 (0.61%) HTTP
5 25 (0.54%) RS-232
6 24 (0.52%) Modbus
7 18 (0.39%) Multicast
8 17 (0.37%) LTE
8 17 (0.37%) MQTT
8 17 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
8 17 (0.37%) ZigBee
9 15 (0.33%) Profibus
9 15 (0.33%) TCP/IP
10 11 (0.24%) RS-485
11 8 (0.17%) Network Security
11 8 (0.17%) Wireshark
12 7 (0.15%) AMQP
13 6 (0.13%) ATM
13 6 (0.13%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
2 82 (1.78%) NoSQL
3 77 (1.67%) MongoDB
4 75 (1.63%) SQL Server
5 65 (1.41%) MySQL
6 28 (0.61%) Relational Database
7 27 (0.59%) Big Data
7 27 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
8 26 (0.56%) Redis
9 18 (0.39%) DynamoDB
10 15 (0.33%) Pinecone
11 12 (0.26%) Geospatial Data
11 12 (0.26%) GIS
12 10 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.17%) Neo4j
14 7 (0.15%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.15%) Hadoop
15 6 (0.13%) BigQuery
15 6 (0.13%) Cloudera CDH
15 6 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 174 (3.77%) Git
2 62 (1.34%) GitLab
3 61 (1.32%) TeamCity
4 57 (1.24%) JIRA
5 48 (1.04%) Jenkins
6 35 (0.76%) Claude Code
7 22 (0.48%) Visual Studio Code
8 14 (0.30%) Cucumber
9 13 (0.28%) SonarQube
9 13 (0.28%) Visual Studio
10 11 (0.24%) GDB
11 8 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 8 (0.17%) CircleCI
12 7 (0.15%) Eclipse
12 7 (0.15%) JUnit
12 7 (0.15%) Moq
12 7 (0.15%) Subversion
13 6 (0.13%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.13%) Maven
13 6 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 472 (10.23%) Finance
2 226 (4.90%) Social Skills
3 205 (4.44%) Manufacturing
4 177 (3.84%) Electronics
5 148 (3.21%) Banking
6 103 (2.23%) Public Sector
7 93 (2.02%) Aerospace
8 88 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 83 (1.80%) Automotive
10 80 (1.73%) Retail
11 71 (1.54%) Analytical Skills
12 68 (1.47%) Law
13 61 (1.32%) Front Office
14 45 (0.98%) Financial Institution
15 43 (0.93%) Back Office
16 32 (0.69%) Aviation
17 31 (0.67%) Games
18 30 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
19 26 (0.56%) Telecoms
20 23 (0.50%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 436 (9.45%) .NET
2 356 (7.71%) React
3 232 (5.03%) Node.js
4 117 (2.54%) REST
4 117 (2.54%) Vue
5 105 (2.28%) RESTful
6 102 (2.21%) Spring
7 97 (2.10%) AngularJS
8 93 (2.02%) Spring Boot
9 74 (1.60%) CSS
10 72 (1.56%) WPF
11 70 (1.52%) Kafka
12 66 (1.43%) HTML
13 58 (1.26%) Django
14 52 (1.13%) Next.js
15 48 (1.04%) Redux
16 47 (1.02%) .NET Core
17 45 (0.98%) GraphQL
18 44 (0.95%) FastAPI
19 43 (0.93%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 266 (5.76%) Cloud Native
2 141 (3.06%) Algorithms
3 137 (2.97%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
5 132 (2.86%) Embedded Systems
6 108 (2.34%) Robotics
7 85 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
8 73 (1.58%) IoT
9 68 (1.47%) Fixed Income
10 64 (1.39%) AI Agents
11 54 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
12 44 (0.95%) Distributed Architecture
13 42 (0.91%) Public Cloud
14 38 (0.82%) Data Structures
15 34 (0.74%) Hedge funds
16 33 (0.72%) Mobile App
17 32 (0.69%) Equities
18 31 (0.67%) Client/Server
18 31 (0.67%) Derivative
19 30 (0.65%) Device Driver
Operating Systems
1 290 (6.28%) Linux
2 57 (1.24%) Windows
3 51 (1.11%) Embedded Linux
4 36 (0.78%) Android
5 31 (0.67%) FreeRTOS
6 10 (0.22%) Debian
7 7 (0.15%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.15%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.13%) CentOS
8 6 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
8 6 (0.13%) Windows Server
9 4 (0.087%) Unix
10 3 (0.065%) Gentoo
11 2 (0.043%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.043%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.043%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.043%) zOS
12 1 (0.022%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.022%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,555 (98.70%) Software Engineering
2 603 (13.07%) Agile
3 541 (11.72%) Full-Stack Development
4 508 (11.01%) CI/CD
5 442 (9.58%) AI
6 365 (7.91%) DevOps
7 358 (7.76%) Microservices
8 338 (7.32%) Mentoring
9 308 (6.67%) Test Automation
10 280 (6.07%) Computer Science
11 274 (5.94%) Problem-Solving
12 263 (5.70%) Continuous Improvement
13 226 (4.90%) SDLC
14 203 (4.40%) Fintech
15 202 (4.38%) Technical Leadership
16 190 (4.12%) Containerisation
17 173 (3.75%) Clean Code
18 161 (3.49%) TDD
19 137 (2.97%) Machine Learning
20 133 (2.88%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 776 (16.81%) Python
2 733 (15.88%) C++
3 673 (14.58%) C#
4 589 (12.76%) Java
5 392 (8.49%) JavaScript
6 388 (8.41%) TypeScript
7 284 (6.15%) SQL
8 280 (6.07%) C
9 180 (3.90%) Rust
10 150 (3.25%) Go
11 70 (1.52%) PHP
12 57 (1.24%) Embedded C
13 47 (1.02%) Scala
14 34 (0.74%) Ruby
15 30 (0.65%) Kotlin
16 24 (0.52%) Bash
16 24 (0.52%) Embedded C++
16 24 (0.52%) MATLAB
17 17 (0.37%) COBOL
18 14 (0.30%) Julia
Qualifications
1 412 (8.93%) Security Cleared
2 353 (7.65%) Degree
3 259 (5.61%) SC Cleared
4 166 (3.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 159 (3.45%) DV Cleared
6 65 (1.41%) Master's Degree
7 32 (0.69%) PhD
8 12 (0.26%) DBS Check
9 10 (0.22%) HND
10 8 (0.17%) Azure Certification
10 8 (0.17%) BPSS Clearance
10 8 (0.17%) CEH
10 8 (0.17%) OSCP
11 6 (0.13%) HNC
11 6 (0.13%) ISTQB
12 5 (0.11%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.11%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 4 (0.087%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.043%) NVQ Level 3
15 1 (0.022%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (2.45%) QA
2 33 (0.72%) Accessibility
3 11 (0.24%) GDPR
4 9 (0.20%) IEC 61508
4 9 (0.20%) MISRA
4 9 (0.20%) MISRA C
5 8 (0.17%) IEC 61131
6 6 (0.13%) JTAG
7 4 (0.087%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.087%) ECSS
7 4 (0.087%) ISO 9001
8 3 (0.065%) GAMP
9 2 (0.043%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.022%) Automotive SPICE
10 1 (0.022%) DO-254
10 1 (0.022%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.022%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.022%) Software Quality Assurance
10 1 (0.022%) WCAG
System Software
1 232 (5.03%) Docker
2 162 (3.51%) Firmware
3 53 (1.15%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.28%) Hyper-V
4 13 (0.28%) KVM
4 13 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.065%) QEMU
7 2 (0.043%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.022%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 248 (5.37%) Kubernetes
2 177 (3.84%) Terraform
3 70 (1.52%) Grafana
4 39 (0.85%) Ansible
5 11 (0.24%) Prometheus
6 9 (0.20%) Kibana
6 9 (0.20%) logstash
6 9 (0.20%) Podman
6 9 (0.20%) Puppet
7 7 (0.15%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.065%) Plesk
8 3 (0.065%) SCCM
8 3 (0.065%) SCOM
8 3 (0.065%) SCOrch
9 2 (0.043%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.043%) Packer
9 2 (0.043%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.022%) Argo
Vendors
1 56 (1.21%) Microsoft
2 32 (0.69%) Google
3 31 (0.67%) Siemens
4 19 (0.41%) Rockwell
5 18 (0.39%) OpenAI
6 17 (0.37%) Oracle
7 15 (0.33%) Salesforce
7 15 (0.33%) Typelevel
7 15 (0.33%) VMware
8 10 (0.22%) Allen-Bradley
9 9 (0.20%) Palantir
10 7 (0.15%) Atlassian
10 7 (0.15%) Okta
11 6 (0.13%) Databricks
11 6 (0.13%) Ping Identity
11 6 (0.13%) Red Hat
11 6 (0.13%) SaltStack
11 6 (0.13%) Splunk
11 6 (0.13%) Xamarin
12 4 (0.087%) ForgeRock