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 18 May 2026.

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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 51 16
Rank change year-on-year +20 -35 +49
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,851 1,453 5,998
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.30% 4.95% 8.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.59% 5.53% 9.15%
Number of salaries quoted 2,252 843 3,173
10th Percentile £45,000 £41,250 £38,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £50,000 £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 £77,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £93,778 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.45% +20.83% -14.29%

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 62,155 26,263 65,587
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.69% 89.46% 94.77%
Number of salaries quoted 41,146 14,496 47,795
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £26,750
25th Percentile £36,250 £36,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,000 £76,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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
South East +68 766 £65,000 - 203
North of England -7 714 £65,000 - 171
South West +27 518 £65,000 +8.33% 124
North West -4 417 £67,500 - 89
East of England +40 307 £70,000 +5.73% 115
Midlands +23 268 £65,000 +8.33% 75
Yorkshire +29 209 £65,000 +6.12% 48
Scotland +5 192 £65,000 +4.00% 41
West Midlands +19 145 £70,000 +16.67% 44
East Midlands +5 123 £57,500 -2.13% 31
North East -6 88 £69,305 +26.01% 36
Wales -1 70 £40,000 -40.74% 12
Northern Ireland -22 17 £90,000 +28.57% 10
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 May 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 2,816 (98.77%) Software Engineering
2 429 (15.05%) C++
3 396 (13.89%) C#
4 345 (12.10%) Python
5 335 (11.75%) Agile
6 316 (11.08%) Full-Stack Development
7 289 (10.14%) .NET
8 288 (10.10%) AWS
9 263 (9.22%) Security Cleared
10 261 (9.15%) Java
11 225 (7.89%) CI/CD
12 223 (7.82%) Degree
13 209 (7.33%) JavaScript
14 208 (7.30%) DevOps
15 207 (7.26%) C
16 200 (7.02%) Azure
17 183 (6.42%) TypeScript
18 166 (5.82%) Linux
19 165 (5.79%) React
20 163 (5.72%) SC Cleared
21 155 (5.44%) SQL
22 153 (5.37%) Mentoring
23 149 (5.23%) SaaS
24 148 (5.19%) Continuous Improvement
25 147 (5.16%) AI
26 140 (4.91%) Microservices
26 140 (4.91%) Problem-Solving
27 131 (4.59%) Firmware
28 128 (4.49%) Test Automation
29 125 (4.38%) SDLC

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 13 (0.46%) Apache
2 11 (0.39%) SharePoint Server
3 7 (0.25%) Apache Spark
3 7 (0.25%) FactoryTalk
4 5 (0.18%) CMS
4 5 (0.18%) Confluence
5 4 (0.14%) Apache Solr
5 4 (0.14%) GeoServer
6 2 (0.070%) WinCC
6 2 (0.070%) WordPress
7 1 (0.035%) ArchestrA
7 1 (0.035%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.035%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.035%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (0.14%) EngageOne
2 3 (0.11%) CANalyzer
3 2 (0.070%) AutoCAD
3 2 (0.070%) EPLAN
3 2 (0.070%) Simulink
4 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (0.35%) Magento
2 2 (0.070%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 288 (10.10%) AWS
2 200 (7.02%) Azure
3 149 (5.23%) SaaS
4 56 (1.96%) Serverless
5 51 (1.79%) GCP
6 28 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (0.95%) GitHub
8 21 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
9 20 (0.70%) Azure AKS
10 15 (0.53%) Amazon EKS
10 15 (0.53%) Amazon S3
11 11 (0.39%) Anthropic Claude
11 11 (0.39%) AWS CloudFormation
12 9 (0.32%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (0.28%) Stripe
14 6 (0.21%) Amazon ECS
14 6 (0.21%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 5 (0.18%) Amazon EC2
15 5 (0.18%) Azure Functions
15 5 (0.18%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 43 (1.51%) Wireless
2 30 (1.05%) Ethernet
3 19 (0.67%) RS-232
4 16 (0.56%) Bluetooth
5 15 (0.53%) Modbus
6 9 (0.32%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.28%) Network Security
7 8 (0.28%) Profibus
7 8 (0.28%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.25%) Broadband
8 7 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.18%) AMQP
9 5 (0.18%) LTE
9 5 (0.18%) MQTT
9 5 (0.18%) RS-485
10 4 (0.14%) Software-Defined Radio
11 3 (0.11%) DNS
11 3 (0.11%) HTTP
11 3 (0.11%) SMTP
12 2 (0.070%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (1.82%) SQL Server
2 51 (1.79%) NoSQL
3 49 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (1.37%) MongoDB
5 34 (1.19%) MySQL
6 23 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (0.46%) Big Data
8 11 (0.39%) DynamoDB
8 11 (0.39%) Neo4j
8 11 (0.39%) Relational Database
9 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
9 7 (0.25%) Hadoop
9 7 (0.25%) Redis
10 5 (0.18%) Cloudera CDH
10 5 (0.18%) FileMaker
11 4 (0.14%) DocumentDB
11 4 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
11 4 (0.14%) GIS
11 4 (0.14%) QGIS
12 3 (0.11%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 94 (3.30%) Git
2 31 (1.09%) GitLab
3 20 (0.70%) Visual Studio Code
4 18 (0.63%) Jenkins
5 16 (0.56%) Claude Code
6 13 (0.46%) JIRA
7 9 (0.32%) JUnit
7 9 (0.32%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.25%) Moq
8 7 (0.25%) Subversion
9 6 (0.21%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.18%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.18%) Eclipse
10 5 (0.18%) Yeoman
11 4 (0.14%) GDB
11 4 (0.14%) Gradle
11 4 (0.14%) LabVIEW
11 4 (0.14%) Maven
11 4 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 144 (5.05%) Manufacturing
2 121 (4.24%) Social Skills
3 118 (4.14%) Electronics
4 70 (2.46%) Aerospace
4 70 (2.46%) Automotive
5 66 (2.31%) Finance
6 57 (2.00%) Public Sector
7 40 (1.40%) Analytical Skills
8 39 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
9 22 (0.77%) Aviation
10 21 (0.74%) Retail
11 18 (0.63%) Games
12 15 (0.53%) Military
12 15 (0.53%) Tech for Good
13 13 (0.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 9 (0.32%) Telecoms
15 8 (0.28%) Health Technology
16 7 (0.25%) Advertising
16 7 (0.25%) Agriculture
17 6 (0.21%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 289 (10.14%) .NET
2 165 (5.79%) React
3 97 (3.40%) Node.js
4 80 (2.81%) Vue
5 76 (2.67%) AngularJS
6 72 (2.53%) REST
7 59 (2.07%) RESTful
8 46 (1.61%) Spring
9 45 (1.58%) .NET Core
10 44 (1.54%) HTML
11 43 (1.51%) CSS
12 41 (1.44%) Spring Boot
13 37 (1.30%) .NET Framework
13 37 (1.30%) WPF
14 24 (0.84%) Django
15 21 (0.74%) Web Services
16 20 (0.70%) ASP.NET
16 20 (0.70%) Entity Framework
17 17 (0.60%) Qt
17 17 (0.60%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 112 (3.93%) Cloud Native
2 83 (2.91%) Embedded Systems
3 70 (2.46%) Algorithms
4 54 (1.89%) IoT
5 52 (1.82%) Product Ownership
6 40 (1.40%) Robotics
7 36 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
8 33 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
9 22 (0.77%) Client/Server
10 21 (0.74%) Device Driver
11 20 (0.70%) Mobile App
12 17 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
13 16 (0.56%) Educational Technology
13 16 (0.56%) Hedge funds
14 15 (0.53%) CAN bus
14 15 (0.53%) Smart Energy
15 14 (0.49%) Distributed Computing
15 14 (0.49%) Greenfield Project
15 14 (0.49%) Industry 4.0
16 13 (0.46%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 166 (5.82%) Linux
2 38 (1.33%) Embedded Linux
3 36 (1.26%) Android
4 31 (1.09%) Windows
5 20 (0.70%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (0.18%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.18%) CentOS
6 5 (0.18%) Debian
6 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.14%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.070%) SafeRTOS
8 2 (0.070%) zOS
9 1 (0.035%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.035%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.035%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.035%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.035%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,816 (98.77%) Software Engineering
2 335 (11.75%) Agile
3 316 (11.08%) Full-Stack Development
4 225 (7.89%) CI/CD
5 208 (7.30%) DevOps
6 153 (5.37%) Mentoring
7 148 (5.19%) Continuous Improvement
8 147 (5.16%) AI
9 140 (4.91%) Microservices
9 140 (4.91%) Problem-Solving
10 128 (4.49%) Test Automation
11 125 (4.38%) SDLC
12 124 (4.35%) Computer Science
13 101 (3.54%) Scrum
14 96 (3.37%) Containerisation
15 94 (3.30%) TDD
16 75 (2.63%) Software Testing
17 74 (2.60%) Embedded Software Development
18 71 (2.49%) Technical Leadership
19 64 (2.24%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 429 (15.05%) C++
2 396 (13.89%) C#
3 345 (12.10%) Python
4 261 (9.15%) Java
5 209 (7.33%) JavaScript
6 207 (7.26%) C
7 183 (6.42%) TypeScript
8 155 (5.44%) SQL
9 72 (2.53%) Rust
10 50 (1.75%) Embedded C
11 49 (1.72%) PHP
12 31 (1.09%) Go
13 20 (0.70%) Kotlin
14 17 (0.60%) COBOL
15 16 (0.56%) Embedded C++
16 15 (0.53%) Ruby
17 14 (0.49%) Bash
18 11 (0.39%) Ada
18 11 (0.39%) Scala
19 10 (0.35%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 263 (9.22%) Security Cleared
2 223 (7.82%) Degree
3 163 (5.72%) SC Cleared
4 105 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 87 (3.05%) DV Cleared
6 39 (1.37%) Master's Degree
7 17 (0.60%) PhD
8 15 (0.53%) DBS Check
9 10 (0.35%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.25%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
10 7 (0.25%) HND
11 6 (0.21%) HNC
12 3 (0.11%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.11%) CEH
12 3 (0.11%) OSCP
13 2 (0.070%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.070%) NVQ Level 3
13 2 (0.070%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (2.14%) QA
2 17 (0.60%) IEC 61508
3 16 (0.56%) Accessibility
3 16 (0.56%) MISRA
3 16 (0.56%) MISRA C
4 7 (0.25%) IEC 61131
5 6 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 4 (0.14%) GDPR
6 4 (0.14%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.11%) DO-178B
7 3 (0.11%) JTAG
8 1 (0.035%) DO-254
8 1 (0.035%) ECSS
8 1 (0.035%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.035%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.035%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.035%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.035%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 131 (4.59%) Firmware
2 103 (3.61%) Docker
3 42 (1.47%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.46%) Hyper-V
4 13 (0.46%) KVM
4 13 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.11%) QEMU
7 2 (0.070%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 90 (3.16%) Kubernetes
2 61 (2.14%) Terraform
3 16 (0.56%) Ansible
4 13 (0.46%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.21%) Kibana
5 6 (0.21%) Puppet
6 5 (0.18%) Grafana
6 5 (0.18%) logstash
7 3 (0.11%) Plesk
7 3 (0.11%) Podman
7 3 (0.11%) SCCM
7 3 (0.11%) SCOM
7 3 (0.11%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.070%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.070%) Packer
8 2 (0.070%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 23 (0.81%) Siemens
2 22 (0.77%) Microsoft
3 17 (0.60%) Oracle
3 17 (0.60%) Rockwell
4 15 (0.53%) Google
4 15 (0.53%) VMware
5 13 (0.46%) Adobe
6 9 (0.32%) Salesforce
7 8 (0.28%) Allen-Bradley
7 8 (0.28%) HubSpot
8 5 (0.18%) Red Hat
8 5 (0.18%) SaltStack
8 5 (0.18%) Xamarin
9 4 (0.14%) Atlassian
9 4 (0.14%) Atmel
9 4 (0.14%) Peregrine
10 3 (0.11%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.11%) Palantir
10 3 (0.11%) Typelevel
10 3 (0.11%) Wonderware