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 £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 13 September 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 64 15
Rank change year-on-year +43 -49 +54
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,251 1,338 4,625
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.11% 3.87% 8.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.46% 4.34% 8.73%
Number of salaries quoted 3,376 508 2,510
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,875 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +18.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £69,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +28.00% -10.00%

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 77,889 30,841 52,975
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.61% 89.29% 95.21%
Number of salaries quoted 54,154 17,555 31,579
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,500
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 £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +6.36% - -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 13 September 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 13 September 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 +26 1,054 £70,000 - 204
South East +95 1,014 £65,000 -7.14% 206
South West +44 852 £67,750 +4.23% 204
North West +14 591 £70,000 -6.67% 135
East of England +109 555 £70,000 +7.69% 218
Midlands +60 438 £65,000 - 81
Yorkshire +70 261 £60,000 -7.69% 51
East Midlands +42 235 £55,000 -21.43% 49
West Midlands +51 203 £69,305 +13.15% 32
North East +24 202 £70,000 +21.74% 18
Scotland -2 188 £76,250 +18.22% 182
Wales +16 136 £60,000 +4.35% 17
Northern Ireland - 15 £90,000 - 32
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 September 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 4,214 (99.13%) Software Engineering
2 660 (15.53%) C++
3 601 (14.14%) C#
4 527 (12.40%) Python
5 515 (12.11%) Agile
6 412 (9.69%) Security Cleared
7 402 (9.46%) AWS
8 390 (9.17%) AI
9 359 (8.45%) CI/CD
10 357 (8.40%) Full-Stack Development
11 340 (8.00%) Java
12 301 (7.08%) .NET
13 294 (6.92%) Linux
14 281 (6.61%) Degree
15 268 (6.30%) Azure
16 264 (6.21%) SC Cleared
17 258 (6.07%) JavaScript
18 254 (5.98%) TypeScript
19 253 (5.95%) C
20 247 (5.81%) Mentoring
21 233 (5.48%) DevOps
22 224 (5.27%) Problem-Solving
23 214 (5.03%) React
24 202 (4.75%) SDLC
25 188 (4.42%) Test Automation
26 187 (4.40%) Microservices
27 178 (4.19%) DV Cleared
28 175 (4.12%) Computer Science
28 175 (4.12%) Continuous Improvement
28 175 (4.12%) 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 26 (0.61%) Apache
2 15 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.19%) Confluence
3 8 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.16%) Apache Spark
4 7 (0.16%) WinCC
5 5 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.071%) Apache Solr
7 2 (0.047%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.047%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.047%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.047%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.047%) WordPress
8 1 (0.024%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.024%) CMS
8 1 (0.024%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.024%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.024%) OpenStack
Applications
1 16 (0.38%) Lightworks
2 11 (0.26%) Simulink
3 4 (0.094%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.094%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.094%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.047%) CANalyzer
4 2 (0.047%) EPLAN
5 1 (0.024%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.024%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.024%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.047%) Visualfiles
3 1 (0.024%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 402 (9.46%) AWS
2 268 (6.30%) Azure
3 144 (3.39%) SaaS
4 105 (2.47%) GCP
5 69 (1.62%) Serverless
6 50 (1.18%) GitHub
7 37 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (0.85%) Firebase
9 29 (0.68%) Anthropic Claude
9 29 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (0.49%) GitHub Actions
11 19 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
12 18 (0.42%) Amazon EKS
13 17 (0.40%) Amazon S3
14 16 (0.38%) Cloud Run
15 13 (0.31%) OpenShift
16 11 (0.26%) Slack
17 10 (0.24%) GitHub Copilot
18 9 (0.21%) AWS Step Functions
19 8 (0.19%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 64 (1.51%) Wireless
2 37 (0.87%) Ethernet
3 29 (0.68%) Bluetooth
4 25 (0.59%) Modbus
5 23 (0.54%) TCP/IP
6 20 (0.47%) MQTT
7 19 (0.45%) Wi-Fi
8 18 (0.42%) RS-232
9 17 (0.40%) ZigBee
10 15 (0.35%) Profibus
11 12 (0.28%) RS-485
12 11 (0.26%) LTE
13 10 (0.24%) ATM
14 9 (0.21%) 5G
15 6 (0.14%) AMQP
15 6 (0.14%) Wireshark
16 5 (0.12%) Internet
17 3 (0.071%) Firewall
17 3 (0.071%) Software-Defined Radio
18 2 (0.047%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (1.93%) PostgreSQL
2 57 (1.34%) SQL Server
3 52 (1.22%) MongoDB
4 45 (1.06%) NoSQL
5 39 (0.92%) MySQL
6 30 (0.71%) Relational Database
7 20 (0.47%) Redis
8 19 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.38%) Chroma
9 16 (0.38%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.38%) Pinecone
10 12 (0.28%) Big Data
11 8 (0.19%) Hadoop
12 7 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.14%) Cloudera CDH
14 4 (0.094%) Amazon RDS
14 4 (0.094%) Data Lake
14 4 (0.094%) FileMaker
14 4 (0.094%) MariaDB
15 3 (0.071%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 143 (3.36%) Git
2 52 (1.22%) GitLab
3 34 (0.80%) Jenkins
4 33 (0.78%) JIRA
5 20 (0.47%) Visual Studio Code
6 16 (0.38%) Claude Code
7 15 (0.35%) Cucumber
8 14 (0.33%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.26%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.21%) JUnit
11 8 (0.19%) GDB
12 7 (0.16%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.16%) LabVIEW
12 7 (0.16%) Moq
13 6 (0.14%) CMake
13 6 (0.14%) Mockito
14 5 (0.12%) Bitbucket
14 5 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
14 5 (0.12%) Yeoman
15 4 (0.094%) Robot Framework
General
1 222 (5.22%) Manufacturing
2 218 (5.13%) Electronics
3 189 (4.45%) Social Skills
4 154 (3.62%) Finance
5 124 (2.92%) Aerospace
6 106 (2.49%) Public Sector
7 81 (1.91%) Automotive
8 60 (1.41%) Aviation
9 56 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 49 (1.15%) Analytical Skills
11 35 (0.82%) Retail
12 28 (0.66%) Law
12 28 (0.66%) Pharmaceutical
13 26 (0.61%) Games
14 25 (0.59%) Military
15 17 (0.40%) Marketing
15 17 (0.40%) Tech for Good
16 16 (0.38%) Telecoms
17 15 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
18 12 (0.28%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 301 (7.08%) .NET
2 214 (5.03%) React
3 112 (2.63%) Node.js
4 100 (2.35%) Vue
5 94 (2.21%) Terraform
6 84 (1.98%) WPF
7 75 (1.76%) Spring
8 72 (1.69%) AngularJS
9 70 (1.65%) CSS
9 70 (1.65%) Spring Boot
10 57 (1.34%) REST
11 52 (1.22%) HTML
12 51 (1.20%) RESTful
13 36 (0.85%) Next.js
14 32 (0.75%) Django
14 32 (0.75%) React Native
15 29 (0.68%) .NET Core
16 27 (0.64%) .NET Framework
17 23 (0.54%) ASP.NET
17 23 (0.54%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 165 (3.88%) Cloud Native
2 130 (3.06%) Embedded Systems
3 118 (2.78%) Robotics
4 106 (2.49%) Algorithms
5 84 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.60%) Product Ownership
7 66 (1.55%) AI Agents
8 62 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
9 56 (1.32%) IoT
10 45 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
11 38 (0.89%) Public Cloud
12 28 (0.66%) Cyber Threat
12 28 (0.66%) Mobile App
13 26 (0.61%) Data Structures
14 24 (0.56%) Device Driver
15 22 (0.52%) Distributed Computing
16 21 (0.49%) ARM Cortex
17 18 (0.42%) Educational Technology
18 16 (0.38%) NHS
19 15 (0.35%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 294 (6.92%) Linux
2 71 (1.67%) Windows
3 58 (1.36%) Embedded Linux
4 30 (0.71%) Android
4 30 (0.71%) FreeRTOS
5 11 (0.26%) Debian
6 8 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.19%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.16%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.16%) VxWorks
8 6 (0.14%) CentOS
9 5 (0.12%) Unix
9 5 (0.12%) Windows Server
10 3 (0.071%) Gentoo
11 2 (0.047%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.047%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.047%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.047%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.047%) zOS
12 1 (0.024%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,214 (99.13%) Software Engineering
2 515 (12.11%) Agile
3 390 (9.17%) AI
4 359 (8.45%) CI/CD
5 357 (8.40%) Full-Stack Development
6 247 (5.81%) Mentoring
7 233 (5.48%) DevOps
8 224 (5.27%) Problem-Solving
9 202 (4.75%) SDLC
10 188 (4.42%) Test Automation
11 187 (4.40%) Microservices
12 175 (4.12%) Computer Science
12 175 (4.12%) Continuous Improvement
13 136 (3.20%) Software Architecture
14 127 (2.99%) Technical Leadership
15 125 (2.94%) Code Quality
16 122 (2.87%) Containerisation
17 115 (2.71%) Software Testing
18 104 (2.45%) Machine Learning
19 98 (2.31%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 660 (15.53%) C++
2 601 (14.14%) C#
3 527 (12.40%) Python
4 340 (8.00%) Java
5 258 (6.07%) JavaScript
6 254 (5.98%) TypeScript
7 253 (5.95%) C
8 175 (4.12%) SQL
9 123 (2.89%) Rust
10 71 (1.67%) Go
11 55 (1.29%) PHP
12 42 (0.99%) Embedded C
13 29 (0.68%) Embedded C++
13 29 (0.68%) Ruby
14 25 (0.59%) Ada
15 20 (0.47%) Bash
16 18 (0.42%) MATLAB
17 17 (0.40%) COBOL
17 17 (0.40%) Kotlin
18 13 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 412 (9.69%) Security Cleared
2 281 (6.61%) Degree
3 264 (6.21%) SC Cleared
4 178 (4.19%) DV Cleared
5 123 (2.89%) Computer Science Degree
6 52 (1.22%) Master's Degree
7 33 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
8 27 (0.64%) PhD
9 11 (0.26%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.19%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.14%) AWS Certification
11 6 (0.14%) HND
12 5 (0.12%) CEH
12 5 (0.12%) OSCP
13 4 (0.094%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.071%) HNC
14 3 (0.071%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.047%) Numerate Degree
16 1 (0.024%) ISTQB
16 1 (0.024%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (1.62%) QA
2 51 (1.20%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.24%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.19%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.19%) MISRA
4 8 (0.19%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.14%) JTAG
6 5 (0.12%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.094%) Data Quality
7 4 (0.094%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.071%) Automotive SPICE
8 3 (0.071%) ECSS
8 3 (0.071%) GAMP
8 3 (0.071%) MIL-STD-1553
8 3 (0.071%) WCAG
9 2 (0.047%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.047%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.024%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.024%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.024%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 175 (4.12%) Docker
2 167 (3.93%) Firmware
3 50 (1.18%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (0.16%) QEMU
5 6 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.094%) KVM
6 4 (0.094%) VMware Infrastructure
7 3 (0.071%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.047%) Active Directory
8 2 (0.047%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.024%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 137 (3.22%) Kubernetes
2 44 (1.04%) Ansible
3 14 (0.33%) Grafana
4 10 (0.24%) Podman
5 8 (0.19%) Kibana
5 8 (0.19%) logstash
5 8 (0.19%) Puppet
6 6 (0.14%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.071%) Plesk
7 3 (0.071%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.071%) SCCM
7 3 (0.071%) SCOM
7 3 (0.071%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.047%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.024%) Packer
9 1 (0.024%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 37 (0.87%) Siemens
2 32 (0.75%) Microsoft
3 21 (0.49%) Google
4 19 (0.45%) Salesforce
5 15 (0.35%) Rockwell
6 14 (0.33%) Okta
6 14 (0.33%) Ping Identity
7 13 (0.31%) Oracle
8 12 (0.28%) Splunk
9 11 (0.26%) Databricks
10 9 (0.21%) OpenAI
11 8 (0.19%) Allen-Bradley
11 8 (0.19%) Red Hat
11 8 (0.19%) RedGate
11 8 (0.19%) Sage
12 6 (0.14%) Atlassian
12 6 (0.14%) Intel
12 6 (0.14%) SaltStack
12 6 (0.14%) VMware
13 5 (0.12%) New Relic