Software Engineering Job Trends

Software Engineering
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 17 11
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +6
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 5,427 3,819 10,797
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 6.49% 9.31% 11.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.55% 10.02% 13.57%
Number of salaries quoted 3,870 2,922 6,963
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £72,500 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.45% +16.00% -10.71%
75th Percentile £95,000 £97,528 £83,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £122,500 £110,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year - +13.04% -7.63%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 63,474 38,128 79,557
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 75.94% 92.95% 86.09%
Number of salaries quoted 39,284 22,513 58,929
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,688 £50,000
% change year-on-year -6.87% +7.38% -8.26%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the UK

Software Engineering
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering over the 6 months to 11 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineering in the UK

Software Engineering
Top 18 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineering within the UK over the 6 months to 11 April 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 -3 4,818 £70,000 -3.45% 1,550
UK excluding London -11 3,557 £65,000 - 1,187
Work from Home -4 1,632 £72,500 - 697
London +2 1,603 £95,000 - 539
South East +16 924 £65,000 - 355
North of England -16 924 £65,000 - 264
South West +2 628 £65,000 +8.33% 216
North West -12 513 £67,500 +3.85% 145
East of England +1 379 £70,000 +5.73% 135
Midlands -9 316 £62,500 - 126
Yorkshire -8 307 £65,000 -3.70% 87
Scotland -9 270 £65,000 +4.00% 75
West Midlands -13 163 £62,500 -1.96% 74
East Midlands -7 153 £60,000 -2.04% 52
North East -6 104 £65,000 +18.18% 33
Wales -5 84 £50,000 -25.93% 29
Northern Ireland -15 44 £95,000 +5.56% 10
Channel Islands - 1 £90,000 -

Software Engineering
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 49 (0.90%) Apache Spark
2 30 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
3 27 (0.50%) Apache
4 25 (0.46%) Confluence
5 21 (0.39%) SharePoint
6 15 (0.28%) CMS
7 10 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.15%) IIS
9 6 (0.11%) Ethereum
9 6 (0.11%) nginx
9 6 (0.11%) Smallworld
10 5 (0.092%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.092%) ArcGIS
10 5 (0.092%) WordPress
11 4 (0.074%) Appian
11 4 (0.074%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.074%) Headless CMS
12 3 (0.055%) Kinematics
13 2 (0.037%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.037%) NServiceBus
Applications
1 17 (0.31%) CATIA
2 15 (0.28%) Chatbot
3 12 (0.22%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.13%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.074%) CANalyzer
5 4 (0.074%) EngageOne
5 4 (0.074%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.074%) Simulink
6 3 (0.055%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.055%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.037%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.037%) EPLAN
7 2 (0.037%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 11 (0.20%) Magento
2 4 (0.074%) Distributed Ledger
3 3 (0.055%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.055%) Visualfiles
4 2 (0.037%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.037%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.037%) ResourceLink
4 2 (0.037%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.018%) ION Anvil
5 1 (0.018%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.018%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.018%) Primavera
5 1 (0.018%) Q-Pulse
5 1 (0.018%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 1,048 (19.31%) AWS
2 731 (13.47%) Azure
3 414 (7.63%) GCP
4 391 (7.20%) SaaS
5 163 (3.00%) Serverless
6 154 (2.84%) GitHub
7 109 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
8 96 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
9 94 (1.73%) Amazon EKS
10 80 (1.47%) Amazon S3
11 54 (1.00%) Power Platform
12 50 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
13 46 (0.85%) Figma
14 42 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
15 40 (0.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 39 (0.72%) Anthropic Claude
17 38 (0.70%) Datadog
18 36 (0.66%) GitHub Copilot
19 33 (0.61%) Amazon EC2
20 31 (0.57%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 121 (2.23%) Broadband
2 42 (0.77%) Wireless
3 34 (0.63%) HTTP
4 22 (0.41%) Ethernet
5 21 (0.39%) Network Security
6 20 (0.37%) Multicast
7 18 (0.33%) RS-232
7 18 (0.33%) TCP/IP
8 14 (0.26%) Bluetooth
9 13 (0.24%) Modbus
10 12 (0.22%) AMQP
11 9 (0.17%) LTE
12 7 (0.13%) Firewall
12 7 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (0.092%) DNS
13 5 (0.092%) RTP
13 5 (0.092%) SNMP
13 5 (0.092%) WAN
14 4 (0.074%) ATM
14 4 (0.074%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
2 159 (2.93%) SQL Server
3 112 (2.06%) NoSQL
4 80 (1.47%) MongoDB
5 67 (1.23%) Elasticsearch
6 63 (1.16%) MySQL
7 54 (1.00%) Relational Database
8 50 (0.92%) Big Data
9 43 (0.79%) DynamoDB
10 41 (0.76%) BigQuery
11 39 (0.72%) Power BI
12 30 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
13 27 (0.50%) Data Warehouse
14 26 (0.48%) Neo4j
14 26 (0.48%) Redis
15 22 (0.41%) GIS
16 17 (0.31%) Hadoop
17 16 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
18 13 (0.24%) DB2
19 11 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 193 (3.56%) Git
2 100 (1.84%) JIRA
3 82 (1.51%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.31%) GitLab
5 69 (1.27%) TeamCity
6 36 (0.66%) Claude Code
7 35 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
8 29 (0.53%) CircleCI
9 23 (0.42%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.42%) Selenium
9 23 (0.42%) Visual Studio
10 22 (0.41%) Cypress.io
11 21 (0.39%) Storybook
12 18 (0.33%) Bitbucket
12 18 (0.33%) JUnit
13 9 (0.17%) MLflow
13 9 (0.17%) Subversion
14 7 (0.13%) Postman
14 7 (0.13%) SonarQube
14 7 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 789 (14.54%) Finance
2 569 (10.48%) Social Skills
3 236 (4.35%) Banking
4 190 (3.50%) Analytical Skills
5 185 (3.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 154 (2.84%) Manufacturing
7 149 (2.75%) Law
8 141 (2.60%) Public Sector
9 133 (2.45%) Retail
10 124 (2.28%) Electronics
11 90 (1.66%) Games
12 83 (1.53%) Aerospace
12 83 (1.53%) Front Office
13 77 (1.42%) Financial Institution
14 61 (1.12%) Marketing
15 58 (1.07%) Back Office
16 57 (1.05%) Legal
17 51 (0.94%) Automotive
18 48 (0.88%) Telecoms
19 45 (0.83%) Aeronautics
Job Titles
1 3,359 (61.89%) Software Engineer
2 1,335 (24.60%) Senior
3 966 (17.80%) Senior Software Engineer
4 702 (12.94%) Developer
5 590 (10.87%) Lead
6 419 (7.72%) Embedded Engineer
7 390 (7.19%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 309 (5.69%) Lead Software Engineer
9 298 (5.49%) Principal Engineer
10 231 (4.26%) C++ Software Engineer
11 230 (4.24%) Principal Software Engineer
12 213 (3.92%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 203 (3.74%) Python Engineer
14 200 (3.69%) Java Engineer
15 194 (3.57%) Software Developer
16 190 (3.50%) Senior Developer
17 175 (3.22%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
18 166 (3.06%) Java Software Engineer
18 166 (3.06%) Software Manager
19 163 (3.00%) Python Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 570 (10.50%) .NET
2 553 (10.19%) React
3 326 (6.01%) Node.js
4 214 (3.94%) REST
5 166 (3.06%) RESTful
6 142 (2.62%) Spring
7 131 (2.41%) AngularJS
8 123 (2.27%) Spring Boot
9 120 (2.21%) Kafka
10 115 (2.12%) .NET Core
10 115 (2.12%) HTML
11 102 (1.88%) Vue
12 100 (1.84%) CSS
13 94 (1.73%) GraphQL
14 81 (1.49%) Django
15 75 (1.38%) gRPC
16 72 (1.33%) .NET Framework
17 71 (1.31%) Redux
18 67 (1.23%) React Native
19 63 (1.16%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 392 (7.22%) Cloud Native
2 239 (4.40%) Distributed Systems
3 180 (3.32%) Robotics
4 162 (2.99%) Algorithms
5 155 (2.86%) Product Ownership
6 85 (1.57%) Embedded Systems
6 85 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
7 76 (1.40%) IoT
8 74 (1.36%) Fixed Income
9 72 (1.33%) Data Structures
10 71 (1.31%) Mobile App
11 64 (1.18%) Onboarding
12 61 (1.12%) Video\Live Streaming
13 53 (0.98%) Over-the-Top Content
14 52 (0.96%) Hedge funds
14 52 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
15 48 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
16 46 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
16 46 (0.85%) Public Cloud
17 44 (0.81%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 249 (4.59%) Linux
2 73 (1.35%) Windows
3 55 (1.01%) Android
4 42 (0.77%) Embedded Linux
5 24 (0.44%) Apple iOS
6 15 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
7 10 (0.18%) CentOS
8 7 (0.13%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
9 6 (0.11%) Debian
9 6 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.092%) Windows Server
11 2 (0.037%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.037%) Unix
11 2 (0.037%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.037%) zOS
12 1 (0.018%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.018%) Nucleus RTOS
12 1 (0.018%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 877 (16.16%) Agile
2 804 (14.81%) CI/CD
3 693 (12.77%) Full-Stack Development
4 657 (12.11%) AI
5 625 (11.52%) DevOps
6 529 (9.75%) Microservices
7 519 (9.56%) Mentoring
8 506 (9.32%) Problem-Solving
9 452 (8.33%) Continuous Improvement
10 390 (7.19%) Test Automation
11 372 (6.85%) Computer Science
12 301 (5.55%) Technical Leadership
13 296 (5.45%) Containerisation
14 288 (5.31%) SDLC
15 283 (5.21%) Roadmaps
16 275 (5.07%) Fintech
17 256 (4.72%) Coaching
18 239 (4.40%) Infrastructure as Code
19 228 (4.20%) Clean Code
19 228 (4.20%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 1,028 (18.94%) Python
2 771 (14.21%) Java
3 662 (12.20%) C#
4 517 (9.53%) TypeScript
5 504 (9.29%) C++
6 494 (9.10%) JavaScript
7 438 (8.07%) SQL
8 228 (4.20%) C
9 221 (4.07%) Go
10 135 (2.49%) Rust
11 86 (1.58%) PHP
12 65 (1.20%) Scala
13 58 (1.07%) Embedded C
14 51 (0.94%) Kotlin
15 46 (0.85%) Bash
16 35 (0.64%) PowerShell
16 35 (0.64%) Ruby
17 20 (0.37%) Ada
17 20 (0.37%) T-SQL
18 18 (0.33%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 485 (8.94%) Degree
2 467 (8.61%) Security Cleared
3 268 (4.94%) SC Cleared
4 212 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 159 (2.93%) DV Cleared
6 70 (1.29%) Master's Degree
7 64 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
8 46 (0.85%) PhD
9 28 (0.52%) AWS Certification
10 24 (0.44%) Chartered Engineer
11 18 (0.33%) DBS Check
11 18 (0.33%) Microsoft Certification
12 16 (0.29%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.24%) HND
14 12 (0.22%) ISTQB
15 10 (0.18%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 8 (0.15%) TOGAF Certification
17 7 (0.13%) CREST Certified
17 7 (0.13%) HNC
17 7 (0.13%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (3.32%) QA
2 64 (1.18%) Accessibility
3 38 (0.70%) GDPR
4 32 (0.59%) Data Quality
5 23 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (0.41%) SOC 2
7 21 (0.39%) IEC 61508
7 21 (0.39%) PCI DSS
8 20 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 19 (0.35%) GRC
10 17 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 17 (0.31%) MISRA
11 16 (0.29%) MISRA C
11 16 (0.29%) SLA
12 15 (0.28%) NIST
13 9 (0.17%) WCAG
14 7 (0.13%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.092%) DO-254
15 5 (0.092%) ISO 26262
15 5 (0.092%) NCSC
System Software
1 351 (6.47%) Docker
2 112 (2.06%) Firmware
3 35 (0.64%) Embedded Firmware
4 14 (0.26%) Hyper-V
4 14 (0.26%) KVM
4 14 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.055%) QEMU
7 2 (0.037%) Active Directory
7 2 (0.037%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.018%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 392 (7.22%) Kubernetes
2 290 (5.34%) Terraform
3 115 (2.12%) Grafana
4 59 (1.09%) Prometheus
5 43 (0.79%) Ansible
6 13 (0.24%) Functional Safety
7 9 (0.17%) Kibana
7 9 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.13%) Argo
8 7 (0.13%) Cilium
8 7 (0.13%) Puppet
9 6 (0.11%) Nagios
10 5 (0.092%) logstash
11 4 (0.074%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.074%) Microsoft Intune
12 3 (0.055%) Packer
12 3 (0.055%) Podman
12 3 (0.055%) Progress Chef
13 2 (0.037%) SCCM
13 2 (0.037%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 207 (3.81%) Microsoft
2 86 (1.58%) Google
3 76 (1.40%) Salesforce
4 53 (0.98%) Cisco
5 49 (0.90%) Oracle
6 45 (0.83%) Typelevel
7 35 (0.64%) Adobe
8 26 (0.48%) OpenAI
9 25 (0.46%) Databricks
9 25 (0.46%) SAP
10 22 (0.41%) Palantir
11 21 (0.39%) IBM
12 17 (0.31%) Atlassian
12 17 (0.31%) Foundry
13 16 (0.29%) Siemens
14 15 (0.28%) VMware
15 11 (0.20%) Rockwell
16 10 (0.18%) Red Hat
16 10 (0.18%) Software AG
16 10 (0.18%) Xamarin