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 28 April 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 63 17
Rank change year-on-year +22 -46 +49
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,660 1,097 5,844
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.09% 4.04% 8.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.39% 4.58% 9.10%
Number of salaries quoted 2,075 885 3,073
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 £78,250 £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% -13.60%

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 60,588 23,968 64,189
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.17% 88.29% 94.71%
Number of salaries quoted 38,708 14,653 46,923
10th Percentile £29,750 £28,250 £26,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £37,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £76,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +13.21% -11.67%

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 28 April 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 28 April 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 +47 675 £65,000 - 251
North of England +21 641 £65,000 - 136
South West +22 517 £65,000 +8.33% 125
North West +37 379 £67,500 - 82
East of England +21 285 £70,000 +5.73% 100
Midlands +49 254 £65,000 +8.33% 60
Scotland +3 212 £65,000 +4.00% 40
Yorkshire +3 186 £62,500 -7.41% 33
West Midlands +42 140 £65,000 +8.33% 33
East Midlands +16 114 £60,000 +11.63% 27
North East -14 76 £62,500 +13.64% 21
Wales -8 59 £40,000 -39.62% 16
Northern Ireland -28 18 £90,000 - 12
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 April 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 2,631 (98.91%) Software Engineering
2 385 (14.47%) C++
3 343 (12.89%) C#
4 319 (11.99%) Python
5 298 (11.20%) Agile
6 277 (10.41%) Full-Stack Development
7 263 (9.89%) AWS
8 257 (9.66%) .NET
9 256 (9.62%) Java
10 246 (9.25%) Security Cleared
11 197 (7.41%) CI/CD
12 192 (7.22%) Degree
13 191 (7.18%) C
14 186 (6.99%) JavaScript
15 184 (6.92%) DevOps
16 171 (6.43%) Azure
17 166 (6.24%) TypeScript
18 160 (6.02%) React
19 148 (5.56%) SQL
20 144 (5.41%) Linux
21 141 (5.30%) SC Cleared
22 134 (5.04%) Continuous Improvement
23 128 (4.81%) SaaS
24 126 (4.74%) AI
25 122 (4.59%) Problem-Solving
26 121 (4.55%) Microservices
27 119 (4.47%) Firmware
28 118 (4.44%) Mentoring
29 109 (4.10%) Computer Science
30 108 (4.06%) 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 12 (0.45%) Apache
2 7 (0.26%) Apache Spark
3 6 (0.23%) CMS
4 5 (0.19%) Confluence
4 5 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
5 4 (0.15%) Apache Solr
5 4 (0.15%) GeoServer
6 2 (0.075%) WordPress
7 1 (0.038%) ArchestrA
7 1 (0.038%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.038%) IIS
7 1 (0.038%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.038%) NServiceBus
7 1 (0.038%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.038%) WinCC
Applications
1 4 (0.15%) EngageOne
2 3 (0.11%) CANalyzer
3 2 (0.075%) AutoCAD
3 2 (0.075%) EPLAN
3 2 (0.075%) Simulink
4 1 (0.038%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.038%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (0.38%) Magento
2 2 (0.075%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.038%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 263 (9.89%) AWS
2 171 (6.43%) Azure
3 128 (4.81%) SaaS
4 50 (1.88%) Serverless
5 48 (1.80%) GCP
6 25 (0.94%) GitHub
7 21 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
7 21 (0.79%) Azure AKS
8 17 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (0.56%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (0.53%) Amazon S3
11 9 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (0.30%) OpenShift
12 8 (0.30%) Stripe
13 7 (0.26%) Anthropic Claude
14 6 (0.23%) Figma
14 6 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
15 5 (0.19%) Azure Functions
16 4 (0.15%) Amazon ECS
16 4 (0.15%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 39 (1.47%) Wireless
2 29 (1.09%) Ethernet
3 20 (0.75%) RS-232
4 14 (0.53%) Bluetooth
5 13 (0.49%) Modbus
6 8 (0.30%) Network Security
7 7 (0.26%) Broadband
8 6 (0.23%) HTTP
8 6 (0.23%) Profibus
9 5 (0.19%) AMQP
9 5 (0.19%) LTE
9 5 (0.19%) TCP/IP
9 5 (0.19%) ZigBee
10 4 (0.15%) DNS
10 4 (0.15%) RS-485
10 4 (0.15%) SMTP
10 4 (0.15%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (0.11%) ATM
11 3 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
12 2 (0.075%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (1.99%) SQL Server
2 49 (1.84%) NoSQL
3 38 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
4 29 (1.09%) MongoDB
5 26 (0.98%) Elasticsearch
6 22 (0.83%) MySQL
7 13 (0.49%) Neo4j
8 12 (0.45%) Big Data
9 11 (0.41%) Relational Database
10 9 (0.34%) DynamoDB
11 7 (0.26%) Hadoop
11 7 (0.26%) Redis
12 6 (0.23%) Geospatial Data
13 5 (0.19%) Cloudera CDH
13 5 (0.19%) FileMaker
14 4 (0.15%) DocumentDB
14 4 (0.15%) GIS
14 4 (0.15%) QGIS
15 3 (0.11%) Amazon RDS
15 3 (0.11%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 84 (3.16%) Git
2 29 (1.09%) GitLab
3 19 (0.71%) Visual Studio Code
4 16 (0.60%) Jenkins
5 12 (0.45%) Claude Code
5 12 (0.45%) JIRA
6 11 (0.41%) JUnit
7 9 (0.34%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.26%) Subversion
9 6 (0.23%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.19%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.19%) Eclipse
10 5 (0.19%) Moq
10 5 (0.19%) Selenium
10 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
11 4 (0.15%) Cypress.io
11 4 (0.15%) Gradle
11 4 (0.15%) Maven
11 4 (0.15%) Postman
12 3 (0.11%) Yeoman
General
1 117 (4.40%) Manufacturing
2 114 (4.29%) Social Skills
3 100 (3.76%) Electronics
4 65 (2.44%) Aerospace
4 65 (2.44%) Automotive
5 64 (2.41%) Finance
6 42 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
6 42 (1.58%) Public Sector
7 37 (1.39%) Analytical Skills
8 22 (0.83%) Games
9 20 (0.75%) Retail
10 18 (0.68%) Aviation
11 14 (0.53%) Tech for Good
12 11 (0.41%) Military
13 10 (0.38%) Health Technology
13 10 (0.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (0.30%) Telecoms
15 7 (0.26%) Aeronautics
15 7 (0.26%) Marketing
16 6 (0.23%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (9.66%) .NET
2 160 (6.02%) React
3 85 (3.20%) Node.js
4 74 (2.78%) AngularJS
5 66 (2.48%) Vue
6 65 (2.44%) REST
7 49 (1.84%) RESTful
8 46 (1.73%) .NET Core
9 45 (1.69%) Spring
10 42 (1.58%) HTML
11 39 (1.47%) Spring Boot
12 38 (1.43%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.28%) CSS
14 27 (1.02%) Web Services
15 24 (0.90%) Django
15 24 (0.90%) WPF
16 21 (0.79%) Qt
17 19 (0.71%) ASP.NET
17 19 (0.71%) Entity Framework
18 14 (0.53%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 110 (4.14%) Cloud Native
2 78 (2.93%) Embedded Systems
3 56 (2.11%) Algorithms
4 48 (1.80%) IoT
5 43 (1.62%) Product Ownership
5 43 (1.62%) Robotics
6 35 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
7 20 (0.75%) Smart Energy
8 19 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
9 18 (0.68%) Device Driver
10 17 (0.64%) Client/Server
10 17 (0.64%) Hedge funds
10 17 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (0.56%) CAN bus
11 15 (0.56%) Distributed Computing
11 15 (0.56%) e-Learning
12 14 (0.53%) Industry 4.0
12 14 (0.53%) Mobile App
13 13 (0.49%) Driving Licence
14 11 (0.41%) Educational Technology
Operating Systems
1 144 (5.41%) Linux
2 37 (1.39%) Embedded Linux
3 33 (1.24%) Android
4 23 (0.86%) Windows
5 19 (0.71%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (0.19%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.19%) CentOS
6 5 (0.19%) Debian
6 5 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.19%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.11%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.075%) SafeRTOS
8 2 (0.075%) VxWorks
8 2 (0.075%) zOS
9 1 (0.038%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.038%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.038%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,631 (98.91%) Software Engineering
2 298 (11.20%) Agile
3 277 (10.41%) Full-Stack Development
4 197 (7.41%) CI/CD
5 184 (6.92%) DevOps
6 134 (5.04%) Continuous Improvement
7 126 (4.74%) AI
8 122 (4.59%) Problem-Solving
9 121 (4.55%) Microservices
10 118 (4.44%) Mentoring
11 109 (4.10%) Computer Science
12 108 (4.06%) SDLC
13 104 (3.91%) Test Automation
14 102 (3.83%) Scrum
15 89 (3.35%) Containerisation
16 84 (3.16%) TDD
17 72 (2.71%) Software Testing
18 70 (2.63%) Embedded Software Development
19 60 (2.26%) Technical Leadership
20 56 (2.11%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 385 (14.47%) C++
2 343 (12.89%) C#
3 319 (11.99%) Python
4 256 (9.62%) Java
5 191 (7.18%) C
6 186 (6.99%) JavaScript
7 166 (6.24%) TypeScript
8 148 (5.56%) SQL
9 60 (2.26%) Rust
10 50 (1.88%) Embedded C
11 48 (1.80%) PHP
12 24 (0.90%) Go
13 22 (0.83%) Kotlin
14 19 (0.71%) Embedded C++
15 17 (0.64%) COBOL
16 15 (0.56%) Ada
17 13 (0.49%) PL/SQL
18 11 (0.41%) Bash
18 11 (0.41%) Ruby
19 8 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 246 (9.25%) Security Cleared
2 192 (7.22%) Degree
3 141 (5.30%) SC Cleared
4 88 (3.31%) Computer Science Degree
5 78 (2.93%) DV Cleared
6 31 (1.17%) Master's Degree
7 15 (0.56%) DBS Check
8 14 (0.53%) PhD
9 7 (0.26%) Chartered Engineer
9 7 (0.26%) HND
10 6 (0.23%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (0.23%) HNC
11 3 (0.11%) Azure Certification
12 2 (0.075%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.075%) NVQ Level 3
12 2 (0.075%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.038%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.038%) CEH
13 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 1 (0.038%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (2.14%) QA
2 17 (0.64%) IEC 61508
3 16 (0.60%) MISRA
3 16 (0.60%) MISRA C
4 14 (0.53%) Accessibility
5 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 5 (0.19%) IEC 61131
7 4 (0.15%) ECSS
7 4 (0.15%) GDPR
7 4 (0.15%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.038%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.038%) DO-254
8 1 (0.038%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.038%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.038%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.038%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 119 (4.47%) Firmware
2 98 (3.68%) Docker
3 37 (1.39%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.49%) Hyper-V
4 13 (0.49%) KVM
4 13 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.11%) QEMU
7 2 (0.075%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 98 (3.68%) Kubernetes
2 55 (2.07%) Terraform
3 13 (0.49%) Functional Safety
4 12 (0.45%) Ansible
5 6 (0.23%) Grafana
6 5 (0.19%) Kibana
6 5 (0.19%) Puppet
7 4 (0.15%) logstash
8 3 (0.11%) SCCM
8 3 (0.11%) SCOM
8 3 (0.11%) SCOrch
9 2 (0.075%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.075%) Packer
9 2 (0.075%) Podman
9 2 (0.075%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.038%) Plesk
Vendors
1 21 (0.79%) Oracle
2 19 (0.71%) Microsoft
2 19 (0.71%) Siemens
3 15 (0.56%) Google
3 15 (0.56%) Rockwell
3 15 (0.56%) VMware
4 13 (0.49%) Adobe
5 8 (0.30%) HubSpot
6 7 (0.26%) Allen-Bradley
7 6 (0.23%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.19%) Red Hat
8 5 (0.19%) SaltStack
8 5 (0.19%) Xamarin
9 4 (0.15%) Atlassian
9 4 (0.15%) Atmel
10 3 (0.11%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.11%) Peregrine
10 3 (0.11%) Typelevel
10 3 (0.11%) Wonderware
11 2 (0.075%) Databricks