Software Engineer Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Software Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 26 August 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 56 14
Rank change year-on-year +34 -42 +61
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,006 1,479 5,022
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.03% 4.25% 8.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.34% 4.75% 8.81%
Number of salaries quoted 3,157 624 2,846
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +18.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £93,450 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £78,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -10.83% +30.83% -13.98%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 excluding London with a recognized job title 74,984 31,142 57,012
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.22% 89.44% 95.08%
Number of salaries quoted 51,976 17,959 36,720
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 26 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 excluding London region over the 6 months to 26 August 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
North of England +20 1,025 £67,500 -1.46% 92
South East +80 1,009 £65,000 -3.70% 94
South West +30 771 £65,000 - 157
North West +10 562 £70,000 -6.04% 58
East of England +94 510 £70,000 +22.81% 100
Midlands +58 407 £65,000 - 55
Yorkshire +71 267 £60,000 -7.69% 23
East Midlands +39 212 £55,000 -21.43% 39
North East +18 196 £70,000 +24.44% 11
West Midlands +44 195 £65,000 +4.00% 16
Scotland -13 151 £70,000 +8.11% 57
Wales +10 120 £57,500 -11.54% 13
Northern Ireland -68 14 £90,000 +80.00% 1
Software Engineer
UK

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 26 August 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 across the UK excluding London region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 3,967 (99.03%) Software Engineering
2 651 (16.25%) C++
3 602 (15.03%) C#
4 518 (12.93%) Python
5 490 (12.23%) Agile
6 402 (10.03%) Security Cleared
7 401 (10.01%) AWS
8 363 (9.06%) Full-Stack Development
9 360 (8.99%) CI/CD
10 351 (8.76%) AI
11 332 (8.29%) Java
12 318 (7.94%) .NET
13 292 (7.29%) Degree
14 283 (7.06%) Azure
14 283 (7.06%) Linux
15 267 (6.67%) JavaScript
16 264 (6.59%) C
17 256 (6.39%) Mentoring
17 256 (6.39%) SC Cleared
18 246 (6.14%) TypeScript
19 234 (5.84%) DevOps
20 217 (5.42%) Problem-Solving
21 210 (5.24%) React
22 200 (4.99%) SDLC
23 198 (4.94%) Test Automation
24 193 (4.82%) Microservices
25 184 (4.59%) SQL
26 179 (4.47%) Computer Science
27 176 (4.39%) Continuous Improvement
27 176 (4.39%) Docker

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 24 (0.60%) Apache
2 15 (0.37%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.22%) Confluence
4 8 (0.20%) FactoryTalk
5 7 (0.17%) WinCC
6 6 (0.15%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.075%) Apache Solr
8 3 (0.075%) CMS
8 3 (0.075%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.050%) ArchestrA
9 2 (0.050%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.050%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.050%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.050%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.050%) WordPress
10 1 (0.025%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.025%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.025%) Umbraco
Applications
1 14 (0.35%) Lightworks
2 9 (0.22%) Simulink
3 4 (0.100%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.100%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.100%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.075%) CANalyzer
4 3 (0.075%) EPLAN
5 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.025%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.025%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.025%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.025%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 401 (10.01%) AWS
2 283 (7.06%) Azure
3 149 (3.72%) SaaS
4 108 (2.70%) GCP
5 70 (1.75%) Serverless
6 53 (1.32%) GitHub
7 38 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (0.85%) Firebase
9 31 (0.77%) Anthropic Claude
10 28 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
11 21 (0.52%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (0.42%) Amazon EKS
12 17 (0.42%) AWS CloudFormation
13 16 (0.40%) Amazon S3
13 16 (0.40%) Cloud Run
14 12 (0.30%) OpenShift
15 11 (0.27%) Slack
16 9 (0.22%) AWS Step Functions
16 9 (0.22%) GitHub Copilot
17 8 (0.20%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 61 (1.52%) Wireless
2 35 (0.87%) Ethernet
3 28 (0.70%) Bluetooth
4 24 (0.60%) Modbus
5 20 (0.50%) MQTT
5 20 (0.50%) RS-232
5 20 (0.50%) TCP/IP
6 17 (0.42%) Wi-Fi
6 17 (0.42%) ZigBee
7 15 (0.37%) Profibus
8 12 (0.30%) RS-485
9 10 (0.25%) ATM
9 10 (0.25%) LTE
10 8 (0.20%) 5G
11 6 (0.15%) Wireshark
12 5 (0.12%) AMQP
12 5 (0.12%) Network Security
13 3 (0.075%) Broadband
13 3 (0.075%) Firewall
13 3 (0.075%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
2 60 (1.50%) SQL Server
3 58 (1.45%) MongoDB
4 48 (1.20%) NoSQL
5 40 (1.00%) MySQL
6 30 (0.75%) Relational Database
7 19 (0.47%) Redis
8 18 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.40%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.40%) Pinecone
10 13 (0.32%) Big Data
11 7 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (0.17%) Hadoop
12 5 (0.12%) Cloudera CDH
12 5 (0.12%) FileMaker
13 4 (0.100%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.100%) MariaDB
13 4 (0.100%) Neo4j
14 3 (0.075%) GIS
14 3 (0.075%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 143 (3.57%) Git
2 50 (1.25%) GitLab
3 35 (0.87%) JIRA
4 34 (0.85%) Jenkins
5 20 (0.50%) Visual Studio Code
6 19 (0.47%) Claude Code
7 14 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.32%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.22%) JUnit
9 9 (0.22%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.20%) GDB
11 7 (0.17%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.17%) LabVIEW
11 7 (0.17%) Moq
12 6 (0.15%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.15%) CMake
12 6 (0.15%) Yeoman
13 5 (0.12%) Mockito
13 5 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
13 5 (0.12%) Subversion
General
1 225 (5.62%) Manufacturing
2 208 (5.19%) Electronics
3 187 (4.67%) Social Skills
4 141 (3.52%) Finance
5 122 (3.05%) Aerospace
6 102 (2.55%) Public Sector
7 86 (2.15%) Automotive
8 58 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 55 (1.37%) Aviation
10 50 (1.25%) Analytical Skills
11 37 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
12 35 (0.87%) Retail
13 27 (0.67%) Law
14 24 (0.60%) Games
14 24 (0.60%) Military
15 17 (0.42%) Telecoms
16 16 (0.40%) Marketing
17 15 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
17 15 (0.37%) Tech for Good
18 9 (0.22%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 318 (7.94%) .NET
2 210 (5.24%) React
3 119 (2.97%) Node.js
4 99 (2.47%) Vue
5 93 (2.32%) Terraform
6 81 (2.02%) WPF
7 74 (1.85%) AngularJS
8 71 (1.77%) CSS
9 66 (1.65%) Spring
10 61 (1.52%) Spring Boot
11 60 (1.50%) REST
12 57 (1.42%) HTML
13 54 (1.35%) RESTful
14 37 (0.92%) Next.js
15 35 (0.87%) Django
16 33 (0.82%) .NET Core
17 31 (0.77%) .NET Framework
18 27 (0.67%) React Native
19 24 (0.60%) Yocto
20 23 (0.57%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 174 (4.34%) Cloud Native
2 128 (3.20%) Embedded Systems
3 113 (2.82%) Robotics
4 106 (2.65%) Algorithms
5 84 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
6 71 (1.77%) Product Ownership
7 65 (1.62%) AI Agents
8 62 (1.55%) Distributed Systems
9 57 (1.42%) IoT
10 46 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
11 33 (0.82%) Public Cloud
12 29 (0.72%) Mobile App
13 28 (0.70%) Data Structures
14 26 (0.65%) Device Driver
15 21 (0.52%) ARM Cortex
15 21 (0.52%) Cyber Threat
16 20 (0.50%) Distributed Computing
17 18 (0.45%) Educational Technology
17 18 (0.45%) Hedge funds
18 15 (0.37%) Client/Server
Operating Systems
1 283 (7.06%) Linux
2 65 (1.62%) Windows
3 56 (1.40%) Embedded Linux
4 29 (0.72%) Android
4 29 (0.72%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.25%) Debian
6 7 (0.17%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.12%) CentOS
8 5 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.12%) Unix
8 5 (0.12%) VxWorks
8 5 (0.12%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.075%) Gentoo
10 2 (0.050%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.050%) SafeRTOS
10 2 (0.050%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.050%) zOS
11 1 (0.025%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,967 (99.03%) Software Engineering
2 490 (12.23%) Agile
3 363 (9.06%) Full-Stack Development
4 360 (8.99%) CI/CD
5 351 (8.76%) AI
6 256 (6.39%) Mentoring
7 234 (5.84%) DevOps
8 217 (5.42%) Problem-Solving
9 200 (4.99%) SDLC
10 198 (4.94%) Test Automation
11 193 (4.82%) Microservices
12 179 (4.47%) Computer Science
13 176 (4.39%) Continuous Improvement
14 134 (3.34%) Software Architecture
15 128 (3.20%) Containerisation
16 125 (3.12%) Technical Leadership
17 120 (3.00%) Code Quality
18 115 (2.87%) Software Testing
19 101 (2.52%) TDD
20 99 (2.47%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 651 (16.25%) C++
2 602 (15.03%) C#
3 518 (12.93%) Python
4 332 (8.29%) Java
5 267 (6.67%) JavaScript
6 264 (6.59%) C
7 246 (6.14%) TypeScript
8 184 (4.59%) SQL
9 128 (3.20%) Rust
10 68 (1.70%) Go
11 58 (1.45%) PHP
12 47 (1.17%) Embedded C
13 32 (0.80%) Ruby
14 29 (0.72%) Embedded C++
15 21 (0.52%) Ada
16 17 (0.42%) Bash
16 17 (0.42%) COBOL
16 17 (0.42%) Kotlin
17 16 (0.40%) MATLAB
18 15 (0.37%) Scala
Qualifications
1 402 (10.03%) Security Cleared
2 292 (7.29%) Degree
3 256 (6.39%) SC Cleared
4 176 (4.39%) DV Cleared
5 127 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 56 (1.40%) Master's Degree
7 32 (0.80%) BPSS Clearance
8 27 (0.67%) PhD
9 9 (0.22%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.20%) Azure Certification
10 8 (0.20%) HND
11 5 (0.12%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.12%) CEH
11 5 (0.12%) HNC
11 5 (0.12%) OSCP
12 4 (0.100%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.075%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 2 (0.050%) Numerate Degree
15 1 (0.025%) ISTQB
15 1 (0.025%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (1.82%) QA
2 52 (1.30%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.25%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.20%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.20%) MISRA
4 8 (0.20%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.15%) JTAG
6 5 (0.12%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.100%) Data Quality
7 4 (0.100%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.075%) Automotive SPICE
8 3 (0.075%) ECSS
8 3 (0.075%) GAMP
8 3 (0.075%) MIL-STD-1553
8 3 (0.075%) WCAG
9 2 (0.050%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.050%) GDPR
9 2 (0.050%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.025%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.025%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 176 (4.39%) Docker
2 168 (4.19%) Firmware
3 51 (1.27%) Embedded Firmware
4 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.17%) QEMU
6 6 (0.15%) KVM
6 6 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
7 5 (0.12%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.050%) Active Directory
8 2 (0.050%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 136 (3.39%) Kubernetes
2 39 (0.97%) Ansible
3 13 (0.32%) Grafana
4 7 (0.17%) Kibana
4 7 (0.17%) logstash
4 7 (0.17%) Podman
4 7 (0.17%) Puppet
5 6 (0.15%) Functional Safety
6 3 (0.075%) Plesk
6 3 (0.075%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.075%) SCCM
6 3 (0.075%) SCOM
6 3 (0.075%) SCOrch
7 2 (0.050%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 37 (0.92%) Siemens
2 31 (0.77%) Microsoft
3 21 (0.52%) Google
4 17 (0.42%) Oracle
4 17 (0.42%) Rockwell
5 16 (0.40%) Salesforce
6 14 (0.35%) Okta
6 14 (0.35%) Ping Identity
7 12 (0.30%) Splunk
8 10 (0.25%) OpenAI
9 9 (0.22%) Allen-Bradley
10 8 (0.20%) VMware
11 7 (0.17%) Atlassian
11 7 (0.17%) Databricks
12 6 (0.15%) Intel
13 5 (0.12%) IBM
13 5 (0.12%) Red Hat
13 5 (0.12%) SaltStack
13 5 (0.12%) Xamarin
14 4 (0.100%) ForgeRock