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 July 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 49 15
Rank change year-on-year +25 -34 +66
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,354 1,574 6,486
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.82% 4.98% 8.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.09% 5.58% 8.92%
Number of salaries quoted 2,685 729 3,731
10th Percentile £45,000 £42,500 £38,084
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £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 £80,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £77,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -9.68% +29.17% -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 65,845 28,190 72,694
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.60% 89.21% 94.83%
Number of salaries quoted 45,712 15,718 51,965
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,929 £26,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £33,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -5.87%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,254 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £56,673 £52,500
% change year-on-year -2.95% +7.95% -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 1 July 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 July 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 +79 934 £65,000 - 214
North of England +17 899 £69,305 -0.99% 160
South West +21 563 £65,000 - 160
North West +8 519 £70,000 -6.67% 93
East of England +60 378 £70,000 +5.73% 158
Midlands +41 323 £65,000 - 70
Yorkshire +53 236 £65,000 -7.80% 30
West Midlands +28 171 £68,403 +9.44% 32
Scotland -18 164 £65,000 +0.39% 33
East Midlands +18 152 £55,000 -21.43% 37
North East +8 144 £70,000 +27.27% 37
Wales -2 78 £40,000 -38.46% 33
Northern Ireland -15 16 £90,000 +80.00% 21
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 July 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 3,313 (98.78%) Software Engineering
2 550 (16.40%) C++
3 520 (15.50%) C#
4 421 (12.55%) Python
5 398 (11.87%) Agile
6 372 (11.09%) AWS
7 365 (10.88%) Full-Stack Development
8 314 (9.36%) .NET
9 302 (9.00%) Security Cleared
10 292 (8.71%) Java
11 287 (8.56%) CI/CD
12 274 (8.17%) Degree
13 252 (7.51%) Azure
14 250 (7.45%) JavaScript
15 249 (7.42%) C
16 247 (7.36%) AI
17 240 (7.16%) DevOps
18 229 (6.83%) TypeScript
19 216 (6.44%) Linux
20 211 (6.29%) Mentoring
21 199 (5.93%) React
22 190 (5.66%) SQL
23 189 (5.64%) SC Cleared
24 188 (5.61%) Microservices
25 181 (5.40%) Problem-Solving
26 175 (5.22%) SaaS
27 174 (5.19%) Continuous Improvement
28 167 (4.98%) Computer Science
29 166 (4.95%) Test Automation
30 158 (4.71%) 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 18 (0.54%) Apache
2 15 (0.45%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.24%) FactoryTalk
4 6 (0.18%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.15%) CMS
6 4 (0.12%) Apache Solr
6 4 (0.12%) Confluence
6 4 (0.12%) GeoServer
6 4 (0.12%) WinCC
7 2 (0.060%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.060%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.060%) WordPress
8 1 (0.030%) Umbraco
Applications
1 8 (0.24%) Lightworks
2 4 (0.12%) EngageOne
2 4 (0.12%) Simulink
3 3 (0.089%) CANalyzer
3 3 (0.089%) EPLAN
4 2 (0.060%) AutoCAD
4 2 (0.060%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.030%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.030%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.030%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.030%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.12%) Magento
2 1 (0.030%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 372 (11.09%) AWS
2 252 (7.51%) Azure
3 175 (5.22%) SaaS
4 76 (2.27%) GCP
5 72 (2.15%) Serverless
6 41 (1.22%) GitHub
7 38 (1.13%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (0.78%) Anthropic Claude
8 26 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
9 25 (0.75%) Firebase
10 19 (0.57%) Amazon S3
11 18 (0.54%) Azure AKS
12 17 (0.51%) Amazon EKS
13 15 (0.45%) GitHub Actions
14 14 (0.42%) AWS CloudFormation
15 10 (0.30%) Cloud Run
16 8 (0.24%) Amazon ECS
16 8 (0.24%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 7 (0.21%) AWS Step Functions
18 6 (0.18%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 54 (1.61%) Wireless
2 37 (1.10%) Ethernet
3 25 (0.75%) Bluetooth
3 25 (0.75%) RS-232
4 22 (0.66%) Modbus
5 14 (0.42%) MQTT
5 14 (0.42%) Profibus
5 14 (0.42%) ZigBee
6 13 (0.39%) TCP/IP
7 12 (0.36%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (0.33%) RS-485
9 8 (0.24%) LTE
9 8 (0.24%) Network Security
10 7 (0.21%) Broadband
11 6 (0.18%) AMQP
12 4 (0.12%) Software-Defined Radio
12 4 (0.12%) Wireshark
13 3 (0.089%) Software-Defined Networking
14 2 (0.060%) ATM
14 2 (0.060%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
2 61 (1.82%) NoSQL
3 60 (1.79%) SQL Server
4 58 (1.73%) MongoDB
5 45 (1.34%) MySQL
6 20 (0.60%) Relational Database
7 19 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
8 14 (0.42%) Redis
9 13 (0.39%) Big Data
10 12 (0.36%) DynamoDB
11 11 (0.33%) Pinecone
12 7 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.21%) Neo4j
13 6 (0.18%) Cloudera CDH
13 6 (0.18%) Hadoop
14 5 (0.15%) FileMaker
15 4 (0.12%) Geospatial Data
15 4 (0.12%) GIS
15 4 (0.12%) QGIS
16 3 (0.089%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 120 (3.58%) Git
2 39 (1.16%) GitLab
3 27 (0.81%) Jenkins
4 23 (0.69%) JIRA
5 22 (0.66%) Visual Studio Code
6 19 (0.57%) Claude Code
7 12 (0.36%) Visual Studio
8 9 (0.27%) Cucumber
8 9 (0.27%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.21%) Eclipse
9 7 (0.21%) JUnit
9 7 (0.21%) Moq
9 7 (0.21%) Subversion
10 6 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.18%) Yeoman
11 5 (0.15%) GDB
11 5 (0.15%) Maven
12 4 (0.12%) Gradle
12 4 (0.12%) LabVIEW
12 4 (0.12%) Robot Framework
General
1 191 (5.69%) Manufacturing
2 163 (4.86%) Electronics
3 148 (4.41%) Social Skills
4 95 (2.83%) Finance
5 82 (2.44%) Aerospace
6 78 (2.33%) Automotive
7 68 (2.03%) Public Sector
8 40 (1.19%) Analytical Skills
9 34 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
10 29 (0.86%) Aviation
11 20 (0.60%) Retail
12 19 (0.57%) Games
13 17 (0.51%) Military
13 17 (0.51%) Telecoms
14 15 (0.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 12 (0.36%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (0.30%) Tech for Good
17 9 (0.27%) Wearables
18 8 (0.24%) Health Technology
19 7 (0.21%) Agriculture
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 314 (9.36%) .NET
2 199 (5.93%) React
3 125 (3.73%) Node.js
4 101 (3.01%) Vue
5 75 (2.24%) AngularJS
5 75 (2.24%) REST
6 65 (1.94%) RESTful
7 61 (1.82%) CSS
7 61 (1.82%) WPF
8 59 (1.76%) Spring
9 56 (1.67%) HTML
10 50 (1.49%) Spring Boot
11 47 (1.40%) .NET Core
12 40 (1.19%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.01%) Next.js
14 30 (0.89%) Django
15 25 (0.75%) Entity Framework
16 23 (0.69%) Yocto
17 22 (0.66%) ASP.NET
18 20 (0.60%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 136 (4.05%) Cloud Native
2 116 (3.46%) Embedded Systems
3 84 (2.50%) Algorithms
4 71 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
5 64 (1.91%) Robotics
6 63 (1.88%) Product Ownership
7 60 (1.79%) IoT
8 47 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (1.34%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
11 28 (0.83%) Mobile App
12 27 (0.81%) Device Driver
13 24 (0.72%) Client/Server
14 22 (0.66%) Hedge funds
15 18 (0.54%) Educational Technology
16 17 (0.51%) Data Structures
16 17 (0.51%) Distributed Computing
16 17 (0.51%) Self-Motivation
17 16 (0.48%) ARM Cortex
17 16 (0.48%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 216 (6.44%) Linux
2 49 (1.46%) Embedded Linux
3 46 (1.37%) Windows
4 33 (0.98%) Android
5 28 (0.83%) FreeRTOS
6 10 (0.30%) Debian
7 7 (0.21%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.18%) CentOS
8 6 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.15%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.15%) Windows Server
10 3 (0.089%) Gentoo
11 2 (0.060%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.060%) Unix
11 2 (0.060%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.060%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.060%) zOS
12 1 (0.030%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.030%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.030%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,313 (98.78%) Software Engineering
2 398 (11.87%) Agile
3 365 (10.88%) Full-Stack Development
4 287 (8.56%) CI/CD
5 247 (7.36%) AI
6 240 (7.16%) DevOps
7 211 (6.29%) Mentoring
8 188 (5.61%) Microservices
9 181 (5.40%) Problem-Solving
10 174 (5.19%) Continuous Improvement
11 167 (4.98%) Computer Science
12 166 (4.95%) Test Automation
13 158 (4.71%) SDLC
14 119 (3.55%) Containerisation
15 112 (3.34%) TDD
16 108 (3.22%) Scrum
17 101 (3.01%) Software Architecture
18 90 (2.68%) Software Testing
19 86 (2.56%) Code Quality
20 85 (2.53%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 550 (16.40%) C++
2 520 (15.50%) C#
3 421 (12.55%) Python
4 292 (8.71%) Java
5 250 (7.45%) JavaScript
6 249 (7.42%) C
7 229 (6.83%) TypeScript
8 190 (5.66%) SQL
9 111 (3.31%) Rust
10 58 (1.73%) PHP
11 54 (1.61%) Embedded C
12 47 (1.40%) Go
13 24 (0.72%) Ruby
14 22 (0.66%) Embedded C++
15 19 (0.57%) Bash
16 18 (0.54%) Kotlin
17 17 (0.51%) COBOL
18 13 (0.39%) MATLAB
19 12 (0.36%) Scala
20 7 (0.21%) VB
Qualifications
1 302 (9.00%) Security Cleared
2 274 (8.17%) Degree
3 189 (5.64%) SC Cleared
4 127 (3.79%) Computer Science Degree
5 110 (3.28%) DV Cleared
6 51 (1.52%) Master's Degree
7 23 (0.69%) PhD
8 13 (0.39%) DBS Check
9 10 (0.30%) HND
10 8 (0.24%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.21%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (0.18%) HNC
13 5 (0.15%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.089%) CEH
14 3 (0.089%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.089%) OSCP
15 2 (0.060%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.060%) NVQ Level 3
16 1 (0.030%) Chartered Engineer
16 1 (0.030%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (2.21%) QA
2 19 (0.57%) Accessibility
3 11 (0.33%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.33%) MISRA
3 11 (0.33%) MISRA C
4 8 (0.24%) IEC 61131
5 4 (0.12%) DO-178B
5 4 (0.12%) ECSS
5 4 (0.12%) ISO 9001
5 4 (0.12%) JTAG
6 3 (0.089%) GAMP
6 3 (0.089%) GDPR
7 2 (0.060%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.030%) Automotive SPICE
8 1 (0.030%) DO-254
8 1 (0.030%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.030%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.030%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.030%) WCAG
System Software
1 153 (4.56%) Firmware
2 145 (4.32%) Docker
3 53 (1.58%) Embedded Firmware
4 14 (0.42%) Hyper-V
4 14 (0.42%) KVM
4 14 (0.42%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.089%) QEMU
7 2 (0.060%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 113 (3.37%) Kubernetes
2 79 (2.36%) Terraform
3 33 (0.98%) Ansible
4 8 (0.24%) Functional Safety
5 7 (0.21%) Grafana
5 7 (0.21%) Kibana
5 7 (0.21%) logstash
5 7 (0.21%) Puppet
6 6 (0.18%) Podman
7 3 (0.089%) Plesk
7 3 (0.089%) SCCM
7 3 (0.089%) SCOM
7 3 (0.089%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.060%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.060%) Packer
8 2 (0.060%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 29 (0.86%) Siemens
2 26 (0.78%) Microsoft
3 18 (0.54%) Rockwell
4 17 (0.51%) Google
5 16 (0.48%) Oracle
5 16 (0.48%) VMware
6 12 (0.36%) Salesforce
7 9 (0.27%) Allen-Bradley
8 8 (0.24%) OpenAI
9 6 (0.18%) Red Hat
9 6 (0.18%) SaltStack
9 6 (0.18%) Splunk
9 6 (0.18%) Xamarin
10 5 (0.15%) Adobe
11 4 (0.12%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.12%) Atmel
11 4 (0.12%) Peregrine
12 3 (0.089%) Intel
12 3 (0.089%) Palantir
12 3 (0.089%) Wonderware