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 25 March 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 49 20
Rank change year-on-year -4 -29 +42
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,036 1,319 5,035
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.69% 5.05% 8.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.00% 5.64% 8.66%
Number of salaries quoted 1,577 884 2,717
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £39,713
25th Percentile £51,250 £47,603 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £93,778 £82,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.45% +20.83% -11.76%

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 50,899 23,373 58,118
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.20% 89.58% 94.75%
Number of salaries quoted 32,380 14,267 43,614
10th Percentile £28,250 £29,500 £26,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,568 £63,750
90th Percentile £81,250 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -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 25 March 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 25 March 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 0 506 £65,000 - 146
South East -1 487 £65,000 +8.33% 186
South West +19 404 £65,000 +8.33% 136
North West +8 274 £65,000 - 80
East of England -15 208 £70,000 +5.73% 90
Midlands +24 182 £65,000 +13.04% 79
Scotland -4 182 £65,000 +4.00% 59
Yorkshire +9 164 £62,500 -3.85% 45
West Midlands +32 92 £65,000 +10.64% 46
East Midlands +4 91 £60,000 +4.35% 33
North East -1 68 £70,000 +27.27% 21
Wales -10 51 £40,000 -40.74% 22
Northern Ireland -31 16 £90,000 - 5
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 March 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 2,020 (99.21%) Software Engineering
2 276 (13.56%) C++
3 258 (12.67%) Agile
4 255 (12.52%) C#
5 246 (12.08%) Java
6 236 (11.59%) AWS
7 232 (11.39%) .NET
8 227 (11.15%) Python
9 212 (10.41%) Full-Stack Development
10 187 (9.18%) Security Cleared
11 180 (8.84%) Azure
12 178 (8.74%) CI/CD
13 170 (8.35%) JavaScript
14 162 (7.96%) Degree
15 160 (7.86%) DevOps
16 150 (7.37%) React
16 150 (7.37%) SQL
17 141 (6.93%) C
18 139 (6.83%) TypeScript
19 129 (6.34%) Linux
20 114 (5.60%) Mentoring
20 114 (5.60%) Problem-Solving
21 113 (5.55%) Microservices
22 109 (5.35%) Continuous Improvement
23 103 (5.06%) SC Cleared
24 102 (5.01%) SaaS
25 99 (4.86%) Kubernetes
26 94 (4.62%) Computer Science
27 91 (4.47%) AI
28 88 (4.32%) 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 12 (0.59%) Apache
2 10 (0.49%) IIS
3 7 (0.34%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.29%) CMS
5 5 (0.25%) Confluence
6 4 (0.20%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.098%) Apache Solr
7 2 (0.098%) NServiceBus
8 1 (0.049%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.049%) Kinematics
8 1 (0.049%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.049%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (0.20%) EngageOne
2 2 (0.098%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.098%) AutoCAD
2 2 (0.098%) CANalyzer
2 2 (0.098%) EPLAN
2 2 (0.098%) Sketch
3 1 (0.049%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.049%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.049%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.049%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.49%) Magento
2 2 (0.098%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.049%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 236 (11.59%) AWS
2 180 (8.84%) Azure
3 102 (5.01%) SaaS
4 51 (2.50%) GCP
5 46 (2.26%) Serverless
6 28 (1.38%) AWS Lambda
6 28 (1.38%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (1.18%) GitHub
8 22 (1.08%) Amazon EKS
9 21 (1.03%) Amazon S3
9 21 (1.03%) Azure AKS
10 9 (0.44%) OpenShift
11 8 (0.39%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (0.39%) Stripe
12 7 (0.34%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (0.34%) Figma
13 6 (0.29%) Amazon EC2
14 5 (0.25%) AWS Fargate
14 5 (0.25%) GitHub Actions
15 4 (0.20%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.42%) Wireless
2 19 (0.93%) RS-232
3 13 (0.64%) Ethernet
4 10 (0.49%) Bluetooth
5 8 (0.39%) Modbus
5 8 (0.39%) Network Security
6 6 (0.29%) HTTP
6 6 (0.29%) Software-Defined Radio
6 6 (0.29%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.25%) AMQP
7 5 (0.25%) Broadband
7 5 (0.25%) LTE
8 4 (0.20%) DNS
8 4 (0.20%) SMTP
8 4 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (0.15%) ATM
9 3 (0.15%) RS-485
10 2 (0.098%) GPRS
10 2 (0.098%) GSM
10 2 (0.098%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (2.70%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.21%) NoSQL
3 44 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
4 29 (1.42%) MongoDB
5 24 (1.18%) MySQL
6 23 (1.13%) Elasticsearch
7 17 (0.83%) Relational Database
8 13 (0.64%) DynamoDB
9 11 (0.54%) Big Data
9 11 (0.54%) Neo4j
10 10 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 7 (0.34%) Hadoop
11 7 (0.34%) Redis
12 6 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
13 5 (0.25%) Cloudera CDH
13 5 (0.25%) GIS
14 4 (0.20%) QGIS
15 3 (0.15%) Amazon RDS
15 3 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
15 3 (0.15%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 59 (2.90%) Git
2 16 (0.79%) GitLab
3 15 (0.74%) JIRA
4 14 (0.69%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.59%) Visual Studio
6 11 (0.54%) JUnit
7 9 (0.44%) Claude Code
8 7 (0.34%) Subversion
9 5 (0.25%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.25%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.25%) Selenium
10 4 (0.20%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.20%) Postman
11 3 (0.15%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.15%) Gradle
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle APEX
11 3 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
12 2 (0.098%) Android Studio
12 2 (0.098%) SpecFlow
12 2 (0.098%) Vagrant
General
1 113 (5.55%) Social Skills
2 86 (4.22%) Finance
3 74 (3.63%) Manufacturing
4 66 (3.24%) Electronics
5 42 (2.06%) Aerospace
6 40 (1.96%) Public Sector
7 38 (1.87%) Automotive
8 34 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
9 28 (1.38%) Analytical Skills
10 25 (1.23%) Games
11 17 (0.83%) Retail
12 15 (0.74%) Tech for Good
13 11 (0.54%) Health Technology
14 10 (0.49%) Military
15 8 (0.39%) Telecoms
16 7 (0.34%) Aeronautics
16 7 (0.34%) Financial Institution
16 7 (0.34%) Marketing
17 5 (0.25%) Law
18 4 (0.20%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 232 (11.39%) .NET
2 150 (7.37%) React
3 81 (3.98%) Node.js
4 61 (3.00%) AngularJS
5 57 (2.80%) REST
6 53 (2.60%) RESTful
7 47 (2.31%) .NET Core
8 44 (2.16%) .NET Framework
8 44 (2.16%) Vue
9 41 (2.01%) Spring
10 37 (1.82%) HTML
11 35 (1.72%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.47%) CSS
13 27 (1.33%) ASP.NET
14 26 (1.28%) Qt
15 25 (1.23%) Django
15 25 (1.23%) Entity Framework
16 20 (0.98%) Web Services
17 18 (0.88%) Next.js
18 15 (0.74%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 92 (4.52%) Cloud Native
2 58 (2.85%) Embedded Systems
3 40 (1.96%) IoT
4 35 (1.72%) Robotics
5 33 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
6 24 (1.18%) Algorithms
7 20 (0.98%) Smart Energy
8 19 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
8 19 (0.93%) Product Ownership
9 17 (0.83%) Client/Server
9 17 (0.83%) Hedge funds
9 17 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (0.69%) Industry 4.0
10 14 (0.69%) Mobile App
11 11 (0.54%) CAN bus
11 11 (0.54%) Device Driver
11 11 (0.54%) Driving Licence
12 8 (0.39%) AI Agents
12 8 (0.39%) e-Learning
13 7 (0.34%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 129 (6.34%) Linux
2 33 (1.62%) Embedded Linux
3 30 (1.47%) Windows
4 26 (1.28%) Android
5 9 (0.44%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (0.25%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.25%) CentOS
6 5 (0.25%) Debian
6 5 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.25%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.098%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.098%) Unix
7 2 (0.098%) VxWorks
7 2 (0.098%) zOS
8 1 (0.049%) Fedora
8 1 (0.049%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.049%) SafeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,020 (99.21%) Software Engineering
2 258 (12.67%) Agile
3 212 (10.41%) Full-Stack Development
4 178 (8.74%) CI/CD
5 160 (7.86%) DevOps
6 114 (5.60%) Mentoring
6 114 (5.60%) Problem-Solving
7 113 (5.55%) Microservices
8 109 (5.35%) Continuous Improvement
9 94 (4.62%) Computer Science
10 91 (4.47%) AI
11 84 (4.13%) Test Automation
12 82 (4.03%) Scrum
13 81 (3.98%) Containerisation
14 80 (3.93%) SDLC
15 73 (3.59%) TDD
16 53 (2.60%) Embedded Software Development
17 52 (2.55%) Technical Leadership
18 51 (2.50%) Software Testing
19 46 (2.26%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 276 (13.56%) C++
2 255 (12.52%) C#
3 246 (12.08%) Java
4 227 (11.15%) Python
5 170 (8.35%) JavaScript
6 150 (7.37%) SQL
7 141 (6.93%) C
8 139 (6.83%) TypeScript
9 50 (2.46%) PHP
10 44 (2.16%) Rust
11 35 (1.72%) Embedded C
12 26 (1.28%) Kotlin
13 21 (1.03%) Ruby
14 19 (0.93%) Embedded C++
15 17 (0.83%) PL/SQL
16 16 (0.79%) Ada
16 16 (0.79%) Scala
16 16 (0.79%) T-SQL
17 15 (0.74%) Go
18 9 (0.44%) Bash
Qualifications
1 187 (9.18%) Security Cleared
2 162 (7.96%) Degree
3 103 (5.06%) SC Cleared
4 78 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 53 (2.60%) DV Cleared
6 24 (1.18%) Master's Degree
7 12 (0.59%) PhD
8 7 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.34%) Chartered Engineer
8 7 (0.34%) DBS Check
9 6 (0.29%) HND
10 5 (0.25%) HNC
11 2 (0.098%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.098%) NVQ Level 3
11 2 (0.098%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (2.26%) QA
2 15 (0.74%) MISRA
3 14 (0.69%) IEC 61508
4 13 (0.64%) MISRA C
5 12 (0.59%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 12207
7 4 (0.20%) ECSS
7 4 (0.20%) GDPR
7 4 (0.20%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.049%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.049%) DO-254
8 1 (0.049%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.049%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.049%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.049%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 88 (4.32%) Docker
2 77 (3.78%) Firmware
3 22 (1.08%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.64%) Hyper-V
4 13 (0.64%) KVM
4 13 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.098%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.049%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 99 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 52 (2.55%) Terraform
3 11 (0.54%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.29%) Ansible
5 5 (0.25%) Kibana
5 5 (0.25%) Puppet
6 4 (0.20%) Grafana
7 2 (0.098%) Packer
7 2 (0.098%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.049%) logstash
8 1 (0.049%) Podman
8 1 (0.049%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 24 (1.18%) Oracle
2 17 (0.83%) Microsoft
3 14 (0.69%) Google
4 13 (0.64%) VMware
4 13 (0.64%) Xamarin
5 12 (0.59%) Adobe
6 10 (0.49%) Sage
7 9 (0.44%) Siemens
8 8 (0.39%) HubSpot
9 6 (0.29%) Red Hat
9 6 (0.29%) Salesforce
10 5 (0.25%) Atlassian
10 5 (0.25%) Rockwell
10 5 (0.25%) SaltStack
11 4 (0.20%) Atmel
11 4 (0.20%) Zoho
12 3 (0.15%) Allen-Bradley
12 3 (0.15%) SAP
12 3 (0.15%) Wonderware
13 2 (0.098%) IBM