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 1 May 2026.

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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 62 17
Rank change year-on-year +22 -45 +50
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,661 1,098 5,874
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.08% 4.03% 8.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.38% 4.56% 9.12%
Number of salaries quoted 2,076 891 3,090
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 £78,500 £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 60,811 24,072 64,422
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.20% 88.36% 94.70%
Number of salaries quoted 38,942 14,620 47,077
10th Percentile £29,750 £28,250 £26,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £37,000 £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 £76,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,800 £53,000
% change year-on-year -8.03% +12.83% -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 1 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 1 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 +55 688 £65,000 - 217
North of England +20 645 £65,000 - 136
South West +21 507 £65,000 +8.33% 110
North West +37 387 £70,000 +3.70% 80
East of England +18 285 £70,000 +5.73% 102
Midlands +49 251 £65,000 +8.33% 60
Scotland +4 207 £65,000 +4.00% 28
Yorkshire +4 185 £62,500 -3.85% 40
West Midlands +33 136 £65,000 +8.33% 30
East Midlands +19 115 £60,000 +6.67% 30
North East -13 73 £60,000 +9.09% 16
Wales -10 61 £40,000 -39.62% 12
Northern Ireland -28 18 £90,000 - 2
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 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 2,632 (98.91%) Software Engineering
2 386 (14.51%) C++
3 343 (12.89%) C#
4 316 (11.88%) Python
5 297 (11.16%) Agile
6 275 (10.33%) Full-Stack Development
7 257 (9.66%) .NET
8 256 (9.62%) AWS
9 246 (9.24%) Java
10 240 (9.02%) Security Cleared
11 194 (7.29%) C
11 194 (7.29%) Degree
12 193 (7.25%) CI/CD
13 183 (6.88%) JavaScript
14 181 (6.80%) DevOps
15 164 (6.16%) TypeScript
16 163 (6.13%) Azure
17 152 (5.71%) React
18 144 (5.41%) SC Cleared
19 143 (5.37%) Linux
19 143 (5.37%) SQL
20 134 (5.04%) Continuous Improvement
21 131 (4.92%) SaaS
22 125 (4.70%) AI
23 123 (4.62%) Problem-Solving
24 122 (4.58%) Firmware
25 119 (4.47%) Mentoring
26 118 (4.43%) Microservices
27 108 (4.06%) SDLC
28 107 (4.02%) Computer Science

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%) 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%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (0.38%) Magento
2 2 (0.075%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 256 (9.62%) AWS
2 163 (6.13%) Azure
3 131 (4.92%) SaaS
4 48 (1.80%) GCP
4 48 (1.80%) Serverless
5 22 (0.83%) GitHub
6 21 (0.79%) Azure AKS
7 19 (0.71%) AWS Lambda
8 16 (0.60%) Azure DevOps
9 15 (0.56%) Amazon EKS
10 12 (0.45%) Amazon S3
11 9 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (0.30%) Anthropic Claude
12 8 (0.30%) OpenShift
12 8 (0.30%) Stripe
13 5 (0.19%) Azure Functions
13 5 (0.19%) Figma
14 4 (0.15%) Amazon OpenSearch
14 4 (0.15%) Apigee
14 4 (0.15%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 40 (1.50%) Wireless
2 30 (1.13%) 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%) Software-Defined Radio
12 2 (0.075%) Software-Defined Networking
12 2 (0.075%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (1.99%) SQL Server
2 47 (1.77%) NoSQL
3 37 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
4 28 (1.05%) MongoDB
5 23 (0.86%) Elasticsearch
5 23 (0.86%) MySQL
6 12 (0.45%) Big Data
7 11 (0.41%) Neo4j
8 10 (0.38%) Relational Database
9 8 (0.30%) DynamoDB
10 7 (0.26%) Hadoop
10 7 (0.26%) Redis
11 6 (0.23%) Geospatial Data
12 5 (0.19%) Cloudera CDH
12 5 (0.19%) FileMaker
13 4 (0.15%) DocumentDB
13 4 (0.15%) GIS
13 4 (0.15%) QGIS
14 2 (0.075%) Easytrieve
14 2 (0.075%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 82 (3.08%) Git
2 26 (0.98%) GitLab
3 19 (0.71%) Visual Studio Code
4 16 (0.60%) Jenkins
5 13 (0.49%) Claude Code
6 12 (0.45%) JIRA
7 11 (0.41%) JUnit
8 8 (0.30%) Visual Studio
9 7 (0.26%) Subversion
10 6 (0.23%) Cucumber
10 6 (0.23%) Moq
11 5 (0.19%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.19%) Eclipse
11 5 (0.19%) Selenium
11 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
12 4 (0.15%) Gradle
12 4 (0.15%) Maven
12 4 (0.15%) Postman
13 3 (0.11%) Rational Rhapsody
13 3 (0.11%) Yeoman
General
1 122 (4.58%) Manufacturing
2 108 (4.06%) Electronics
2 108 (4.06%) Social Skills
3 69 (2.59%) Aerospace
4 67 (2.52%) Automotive
5 63 (2.37%) Finance
6 40 (1.50%) Pharmaceutical
6 40 (1.50%) Public Sector
7 38 (1.43%) Analytical Skills
8 20 (0.75%) Games
8 20 (0.75%) Retail
9 17 (0.64%) Aviation
10 15 (0.56%) Tech for Good
11 13 (0.49%) Military
12 11 (0.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 9 (0.34%) Health Technology
14 7 (0.26%) Advertising
14 7 (0.26%) Aeronautics
15 6 (0.23%) Marketing
15 6 (0.23%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (9.66%) .NET
2 152 (5.71%) React
3 84 (3.16%) Node.js
4 68 (2.56%) AngularJS
5 65 (2.44%) REST
6 64 (2.41%) Vue
7 47 (1.77%) RESTful
8 45 (1.69%) .NET Core
9 43 (1.62%) Spring
10 39 (1.47%) .NET Framework
10 39 (1.47%) HTML
11 37 (1.39%) Spring Boot
12 32 (1.20%) CSS
13 26 (0.98%) Web Services
14 24 (0.90%) WPF
15 23 (0.86%) Django
16 20 (0.75%) Entity Framework
16 20 (0.75%) Qt
17 19 (0.71%) ASP.NET
18 14 (0.53%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 109 (4.10%) Cloud Native
2 79 (2.97%) Embedded Systems
3 57 (2.14%) Algorithms
4 49 (1.84%) IoT
5 44 (1.65%) Product Ownership
6 43 (1.62%) Robotics
7 35 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
8 19 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
8 19 (0.71%) Smart Energy
9 18 (0.68%) Device Driver
10 17 (0.64%) Client/Server
10 17 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (0.60%) Hedge funds
12 15 (0.56%) CAN bus
12 15 (0.56%) Distributed Computing
12 15 (0.56%) Mobile App
13 14 (0.53%) e-Learning
13 14 (0.53%) Industry 4.0
14 12 (0.45%) Driving Licence
15 11 (0.41%) Educational Technology
Operating Systems
1 143 (5.37%) Linux
2 37 (1.39%) Embedded Linux
3 34 (1.28%) 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 2,632 (98.91%) Software Engineering
2 297 (11.16%) Agile
3 275 (10.33%) Full-Stack Development
4 193 (7.25%) CI/CD
5 181 (6.80%) DevOps
6 134 (5.04%) Continuous Improvement
7 125 (4.70%) AI
8 123 (4.62%) Problem-Solving
9 119 (4.47%) Mentoring
10 118 (4.43%) Microservices
11 108 (4.06%) SDLC
12 107 (4.02%) Computer Science
13 106 (3.98%) Test Automation
14 99 (3.72%) Scrum
15 86 (3.23%) Containerisation
16 84 (3.16%) TDD
17 73 (2.74%) Embedded Software Development
18 72 (2.71%) Software Testing
19 62 (2.33%) Technical Leadership
20 56 (2.10%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 386 (14.51%) C++
2 343 (12.89%) C#
3 316 (11.88%) Python
4 246 (9.24%) Java
5 194 (7.29%) C
6 183 (6.88%) JavaScript
7 164 (6.16%) TypeScript
8 143 (5.37%) SQL
9 60 (2.25%) Rust
10 49 (1.84%) Embedded C
11 46 (1.73%) PHP
12 24 (0.90%) Go
13 21 (0.79%) Kotlin
14 17 (0.64%) COBOL
14 17 (0.64%) Embedded C++
15 13 (0.49%) Ada
16 11 (0.41%) Bash
16 11 (0.41%) PL/SQL
16 11 (0.41%) Ruby
17 8 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 240 (9.02%) Security Cleared
2 194 (7.29%) Degree
3 144 (5.41%) SC Cleared
4 85 (3.19%) Computer Science Degree
5 74 (2.78%) DV Cleared
6 31 (1.16%) Master's Degree
7 15 (0.56%) DBS Check
8 14 (0.53%) PhD
9 9 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.26%) Chartered Engineer
10 7 (0.26%) HND
11 6 (0.23%) HNC
12 3 (0.11%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.075%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.075%) NVQ Level 3
13 2 (0.075%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.038%) AWS Certification
14 1 (0.038%) CEH
14 1 (0.038%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 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 13 (0.49%) Accessibility
5 6 (0.23%) IEC 61131
5 6 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 4 (0.15%) GDPR
6 4 (0.15%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.11%) DO-178B
8 2 (0.075%) ECSS
9 1 (0.038%) DO-254
9 1 (0.038%) HAZOP
9 1 (0.038%) IEC 62304
9 1 (0.038%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.038%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 122 (4.58%) Firmware
2 93 (3.49%) 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 90 (3.38%) 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 20 (0.75%) Oracle
1 20 (0.75%) Siemens
2 19 (0.71%) Microsoft
3 15 (0.56%) Google
3 15 (0.56%) Rockwell
3 15 (0.56%) VMware
4 13 (0.49%) Adobe
5 8 (0.30%) Allen-Bradley
5 8 (0.30%) HubSpot
6 6 (0.23%) Salesforce
7 5 (0.19%) Red Hat
7 5 (0.19%) SaltStack
7 5 (0.19%) Xamarin
8 4 (0.15%) Atlassian
8 4 (0.15%) Atmel
9 3 (0.11%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.11%) Peregrine
9 3 (0.11%) Typelevel
9 3 (0.11%) Wonderware
10 2 (0.075%) Databricks