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 £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 October 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 67 21
Rank change year-on-year +45 -46 +41
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,561 1,284 3,524
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.23% 3.77% 7.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.66% 4.19% 7.43%
Number of salaries quoted 3,433 472 1,949
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +12.07% -3.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% +23.08% -3.70%

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 80,602 30,608 47,448
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 89.75% 95.39%
Number of salaries quoted 55,718 17,467 26,033
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,396 £53,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.15% -2.73% -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 16 October 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 16 October 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 +25 1,081 £70,000 +4.87% 96
South East +91 1,022 £70,000 +2.94% 115
South West +48 947 £67,750 +4.23% 92
East of England +110 640 £70,000 +7.69% 83
North West +4 607 £70,000 -6.67% 60
Midlands +64 459 £65,000 - 45
East Midlands +41 272 £55,000 -21.43% 23
Yorkshire +72 259 £60,000 - 17
Scotland 0 255 £80,000 +24.03% 34
North East +29 215 £70,000 +27.27% 19
West Midlands +38 187 £65,000 +4.00% 22
Wales +17 149 £60,000 - 4
Northern Ireland -73 9 £75,000 - 3
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 October 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 4,529 (99.30%) Software Engineering
2 658 (14.43%) C++
3 597 (13.09%) C#
4 593 (13.00%) Agile
5 548 (12.01%) Python
6 462 (10.13%) AI
7 451 (9.89%) AWS
8 414 (9.08%) Java
9 393 (8.62%) Security Cleared
10 386 (8.46%) CI/CD
11 380 (8.33%) Full-Stack Development
12 315 (6.91%) .NET
13 313 (6.86%) Linux
14 305 (6.69%) Azure
15 278 (6.10%) Degree
16 265 (5.81%) TypeScript
17 259 (5.68%) Mentoring
18 256 (5.61%) SC Cleared
19 244 (5.35%) JavaScript
20 237 (5.20%) DevOps
21 232 (5.09%) C
22 227 (4.98%) Problem-Solving
23 219 (4.80%) React
24 209 (4.58%) Test Automation
25 208 (4.56%) Microservices
26 198 (4.34%) Docker
26 198 (4.34%) SDLC
27 183 (4.01%) SQL
28 176 (3.86%) Continuous Improvement
29 174 (3.81%) Kubernetes

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 29 (0.64%) Apache
2 15 (0.33%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.20%) Apache Spark
4 7 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.15%) SharePoint
4 7 (0.15%) WinCC
5 6 (0.13%) Confluence
6 4 (0.088%) CMS
6 4 (0.088%) Headless CMS
7 3 (0.066%) Tomcat
7 3 (0.066%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.044%) ArchestrA
9 1 (0.022%) Apache Solr
9 1 (0.022%) Cloud Foundry
9 1 (0.022%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.022%) WordPress
Applications
1 21 (0.46%) Lightworks
2 12 (0.26%) Simulink
3 8 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.044%) EPLAN
5 2 (0.044%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.022%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
1 6 (0.13%) Visualfiles
2 3 (0.066%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.022%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 451 (9.89%) AWS
2 305 (6.69%) Azure
3 127 (2.78%) SaaS
4 112 (2.46%) GCP
5 79 (1.73%) Serverless
6 54 (1.18%) GitHub
7 46 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
8 37 (0.81%) Firebase
9 36 (0.79%) Anthropic Claude
10 30 (0.66%) AWS Lambda
11 23 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
12 21 (0.46%) Amazon EKS
13 20 (0.44%) Amazon S3
13 20 (0.44%) AWS CloudFormation
14 17 (0.37%) Cloud Run
15 15 (0.33%) Azure Functions
16 14 (0.31%) Azure Service Bus
16 14 (0.31%) GitHub Copilot
16 14 (0.31%) OpenShift
17 12 (0.26%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 74 (1.62%) Wireless
2 31 (0.68%) Ethernet
3 29 (0.64%) TCP/IP
4 28 (0.61%) Bluetooth
5 27 (0.59%) MQTT
6 24 (0.53%) Modbus
7 23 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (0.33%) 5G
9 14 (0.31%) LTE
9 14 (0.31%) ZigBee
10 12 (0.26%) RS-232
11 11 (0.24%) Profibus
12 10 (0.22%) ATM
13 9 (0.20%) Internet
13 9 (0.20%) RS-485
14 8 (0.18%) AMQP
14 8 (0.18%) Wireshark
15 5 (0.11%) HTTP
16 4 (0.088%) Software-Defined Radio
17 3 (0.066%) RS-422
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
2 65 (1.43%) SQL Server
3 48 (1.05%) MongoDB
4 44 (0.96%) Relational Database
5 43 (0.94%) NoSQL
6 41 (0.90%) MySQL
7 27 (0.59%) Redis
8 17 (0.37%) Big Data
8 17 (0.37%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.35%) Chroma
9 16 (0.35%) Pinecone
10 15 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
11 9 (0.20%) Hadoop
12 8 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.15%) Cloudera CDH
14 5 (0.11%) Data Lake
15 4 (0.088%) Amazon RDS
15 4 (0.088%) Data Warehouse
16 3 (0.066%) MariaDB
16 3 (0.066%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 134 (2.94%) Git
2 54 (1.18%) GitLab
3 35 (0.77%) Jenkins
4 32 (0.70%) JIRA
5 21 (0.46%) Claude Code
6 18 (0.39%) Visual Studio
7 15 (0.33%) Cucumber
8 14 (0.31%) Visual Studio Code
9 9 (0.20%) JUnit
10 8 (0.18%) SonarQube
11 7 (0.15%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.15%) GDB
11 7 (0.15%) Moq
11 7 (0.15%) PetaLinux
11 7 (0.15%) Rational DOORS
11 7 (0.15%) Rational Rhapsody
12 6 (0.13%) LabVIEW
12 6 (0.13%) Mockito
13 5 (0.11%) Eclipse
13 5 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 228 (5.00%) Finance
2 211 (4.63%) Manufacturing
3 208 (4.56%) Electronics
4 204 (4.47%) Social Skills
5 139 (3.05%) Aerospace
6 112 (2.46%) Public Sector
7 79 (1.73%) Automotive
8 67 (1.47%) Aviation
9 55 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (1.14%) Analytical Skills
11 33 (0.72%) Retail
12 32 (0.70%) Tech for Good
13 30 (0.66%) Law
14 29 (0.64%) Games
14 29 (0.64%) Military
15 26 (0.57%) Banking
16 25 (0.55%) Financial Institution
17 21 (0.46%) Health Technology
18 18 (0.39%) Pharmaceutical
19 17 (0.37%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 315 (6.91%) .NET
2 219 (4.80%) React
3 123 (2.70%) Node.js
4 93 (2.04%) Terraform
5 86 (1.89%) Vue
6 81 (1.78%) Spring
7 80 (1.75%) Spring Boot
8 77 (1.69%) WPF
9 62 (1.36%) AngularJS
9 62 (1.36%) CSS
9 62 (1.36%) RESTful
10 57 (1.25%) REST
11 42 (0.92%) Next.js
12 40 (0.88%) HTML
12 40 (0.88%) Kafka
13 36 (0.79%) .NET Core
14 35 (0.77%) React Native
15 31 (0.68%) Django
16 30 (0.66%) OpenAPI
17 29 (0.64%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 188 (4.12%) Cloud Native
2 143 (3.14%) Robotics
3 128 (2.81%) Embedded Systems
4 99 (2.17%) Algorithms
5 87 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
6 76 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
7 68 (1.49%) AI Agents
8 55 (1.21%) Product Ownership
9 51 (1.12%) Public Cloud
10 50 (1.10%) IoT
11 47 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
12 42 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
13 25 (0.55%) Distributed Computing
14 24 (0.53%) Device Driver
14 24 (0.53%) Mobile App
15 23 (0.50%) Data Structures
16 19 (0.42%) NHS
17 17 (0.37%) ARM Cortex
17 17 (0.37%) Enterprise Software
18 16 (0.35%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 313 (6.86%) Linux
2 72 (1.58%) Windows
3 63 (1.38%) Embedded Linux
4 36 (0.79%) Android
5 26 (0.57%) FreeRTOS
6 15 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 14 (0.31%) Debian
8 11 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.20%) VxWorks
11 8 (0.18%) macOS
12 7 (0.15%) CentOS
13 5 (0.11%) Unix
14 3 (0.066%) Gentoo
14 3 (0.066%) Windows Server
15 2 (0.044%) Robot Operating System
15 2 (0.044%) Windows 10
15 2 (0.044%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,529 (99.30%) Software Engineering
2 593 (13.00%) Agile
3 462 (10.13%) AI
4 386 (8.46%) CI/CD
5 380 (8.33%) Full-Stack Development
6 259 (5.68%) Mentoring
7 237 (5.20%) DevOps
8 227 (4.98%) Problem-Solving
9 209 (4.58%) Test Automation
10 208 (4.56%) Microservices
11 198 (4.34%) SDLC
12 176 (3.86%) Continuous Improvement
13 168 (3.68%) Computer Science
14 149 (3.27%) Software Architecture
15 145 (3.18%) Technical Leadership
16 140 (3.07%) Containerisation
17 138 (3.03%) Code Quality
18 129 (2.83%) Machine Learning
19 112 (2.46%) Software Testing
20 110 (2.41%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 658 (14.43%) C++
2 597 (13.09%) C#
3 548 (12.01%) Python
4 414 (9.08%) Java
5 265 (5.81%) TypeScript
6 244 (5.35%) JavaScript
7 232 (5.09%) C
8 183 (4.01%) SQL
9 132 (2.89%) Rust
10 78 (1.71%) Go
11 59 (1.29%) PHP
12 38 (0.83%) Embedded C
13 31 (0.68%) Ruby
14 30 (0.66%) Embedded C++
15 29 (0.64%) Ada
16 26 (0.57%) Kotlin
17 22 (0.48%) Bash
17 22 (0.48%) MATLAB
18 14 (0.31%) Scala
19 9 (0.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 393 (8.62%) Security Cleared
2 278 (6.10%) Degree
3 256 (5.61%) SC Cleared
4 162 (3.55%) DV Cleared
5 118 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
6 45 (0.99%) Master's Degree
7 43 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (0.57%) PhD
9 19 (0.42%) Azure Certification
10 6 (0.13%) AWS Certification
10 6 (0.13%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.088%) CEH
11 4 (0.088%) Chartered Engineer
11 4 (0.088%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (0.088%) OSCP
12 3 (0.066%) HND
13 2 (0.044%) ISTQB
13 2 (0.044%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (0.044%) Numerate Degree
14 1 (0.022%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (1.40%) QA
2 50 (1.10%) Accessibility
3 8 (0.18%) DO-178B
3 8 (0.18%) IEC 61131
4 7 (0.15%) JTAG
5 6 (0.13%) Data Quality
6 5 (0.11%) WCAG
7 4 (0.088%) ECSS
8 3 (0.066%) Automotive SPICE
8 3 (0.066%) GAMP
8 3 (0.066%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.066%) MIL-STD-1553
8 3 (0.066%) MISRA
8 3 (0.066%) MISRA C
9 2 (0.044%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.044%) GDPR
9 2 (0.044%) IEC 61508
9 2 (0.044%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.022%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.022%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 198 (4.34%) Docker
2 144 (3.16%) Firmware
3 39 (0.86%) Embedded Firmware
4 5 (0.11%) QEMU
5 4 (0.088%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.044%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.044%) KVM
6 2 (0.044%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.022%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.022%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.022%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 174 (3.81%) Kubernetes
2 46 (1.01%) Ansible
3 13 (0.29%) Grafana
4 11 (0.24%) Podman
5 9 (0.20%) Puppet
6 6 (0.13%) Kibana
6 6 (0.13%) logstash
7 4 (0.088%) Functional Safety
7 4 (0.088%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.044%) Packer
8 2 (0.044%) Plesk
8 2 (0.044%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.022%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.022%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.022%) SCCM
9 1 (0.022%) SCOM
9 1 (0.022%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 41 (0.90%) Microsoft
2 31 (0.68%) Siemens
3 30 (0.66%) Google
4 19 (0.42%) Salesforce
5 17 (0.37%) Databricks
6 14 (0.31%) Okta
6 14 (0.31%) Ping Identity
6 14 (0.31%) RedGate
7 12 (0.26%) Splunk
8 11 (0.24%) OpenAI
8 11 (0.24%) Oracle
8 11 (0.24%) Red Hat
8 11 (0.24%) Rockwell
9 9 (0.20%) Sage
10 8 (0.18%) New Relic
11 7 (0.15%) SaltStack
11 7 (0.15%) Thales
12 6 (0.13%) Atlassian
12 6 (0.13%) Intel
12 6 (0.13%) LexisNexis