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 20 July 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 49 15
Rank change year-on-year +26 -34 +64
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,514 1,589 5,925
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.86% 4.67% 8.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.13% 5.23% 8.99%
Number of salaries quoted 2,822 735 3,407
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £38,691
25th Percentile £53,750 £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 £66,375
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% -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 68,551 30,401 65,937
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.74% 89.42% 94.87%
Number of salaries quoted 47,522 17,433 46,246
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,948 £27,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £33,750 £36,145
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £53,500
% change year-on-year - +2.80% -10.83%

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 20 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 20 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 +76 955 £65,000 - 130
North of England +20 934 £65,000 -7.14% 110
South West +23 619 £65,000 - 99
North West +5 538 £70,000 -6.67% 65
East of England +65 406 £70,000 +6.70% 88
Midlands +44 346 £62,500 -3.85% 45
Yorkshire +72 240 £60,000 -10.11% 28
West Midlands +39 179 £65,000 +1.96% 13
East Midlands +29 167 £54,500 -22.14% 32
North East +11 156 £70,000 +27.27% 17
Scotland -15 147 £65,000 - 13
Wales +1 94 £44,000 -35.29% 16
Northern Ireland -47 14 £90,000 +80.00% 9
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 20 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 3,467 (98.66%) Software Engineering
2 599 (17.05%) C++
3 543 (15.45%) C#
4 455 (12.95%) Python
5 420 (11.95%) Agile
6 370 (10.53%) AWS
7 354 (10.07%) Full-Stack Development
8 330 (9.39%) Security Cleared
9 314 (8.94%) .NET
10 307 (8.74%) CI/CD
11 303 (8.62%) Java
12 290 (8.25%) Degree
13 280 (7.97%) AI
14 268 (7.63%) C
15 267 (7.60%) Azure
16 254 (7.23%) JavaScript
17 236 (6.72%) DevOps
18 233 (6.63%) Linux
19 224 (6.37%) Mentoring
20 222 (6.32%) TypeScript
21 209 (5.95%) SC Cleared
22 192 (5.46%) Problem-Solving
23 190 (5.41%) Microservices
23 190 (5.41%) React
24 184 (5.24%) SQL
25 182 (5.18%) SDLC
26 179 (5.09%) Test Automation
27 175 (4.98%) Computer Science
28 167 (4.75%) Continuous Improvement
29 166 (4.72%) 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 17 (0.48%) Apache
2 15 (0.43%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.23%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.20%) Confluence
5 5 (0.14%) WinCC
6 4 (0.11%) Apache Solr
6 4 (0.11%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.11%) CMS
6 4 (0.11%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.057%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.057%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.057%) WordPress
8 1 (0.028%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.028%) Umbraco
Applications
1 10 (0.28%) Lightworks
2 5 (0.14%) Simulink
3 4 (0.11%) EPLAN
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.085%) CANalyzer
4 3 (0.085%) EngageOne
5 2 (0.057%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.028%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.028%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.028%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.028%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 370 (10.53%) AWS
2 267 (7.60%) Azure
3 155 (4.41%) SaaS
4 87 (2.48%) GCP
5 67 (1.91%) Serverless
6 42 (1.20%) GitHub
7 37 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
8 31 (0.88%) Firebase
9 28 (0.80%) Anthropic Claude
10 21 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
11 17 (0.48%) Amazon S3
12 15 (0.43%) Azure AKS
13 14 (0.40%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
14 12 (0.34%) Cloud Run
15 11 (0.31%) Amazon EKS
16 8 (0.23%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 8 (0.23%) OpenShift
17 7 (0.20%) Amazon ECS
17 7 (0.20%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 58 (1.65%) Wireless
2 36 (1.02%) Ethernet
3 28 (0.80%) Bluetooth
4 24 (0.68%) Modbus
4 24 (0.68%) RS-232
5 17 (0.48%) MQTT
5 17 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
5 17 (0.48%) ZigBee
6 15 (0.43%) Profibus
6 15 (0.43%) TCP/IP
7 12 (0.34%) RS-485
8 10 (0.28%) LTE
9 8 (0.23%) ATM
9 8 (0.23%) Network Security
10 5 (0.14%) Broadband
10 5 (0.14%) Software-Defined Radio
10 5 (0.14%) Wireshark
11 4 (0.11%) AMQP
12 3 (0.085%) Software-Defined Networking
13 2 (0.057%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
2 63 (1.79%) MongoDB
3 62 (1.76%) SQL Server
4 57 (1.62%) NoSQL
5 46 (1.31%) MySQL
6 19 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
7 17 (0.48%) Relational Database
8 15 (0.43%) Redis
9 13 (0.37%) Big Data
9 13 (0.37%) Pinecone
10 10 (0.28%) DynamoDB
11 7 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (0.20%) Neo4j
12 6 (0.17%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.14%) FileMaker
14 4 (0.11%) Cloudera CDH
14 4 (0.11%) Geospatial Data
14 4 (0.11%) GIS
14 4 (0.11%) QGIS
15 3 (0.085%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 131 (3.73%) Git
2 49 (1.39%) GitLab
3 31 (0.88%) JIRA
4 29 (0.83%) Jenkins
5 23 (0.65%) Visual Studio Code
6 18 (0.51%) Claude Code
7 12 (0.34%) Visual Studio
8 11 (0.31%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.26%) SonarQube
10 7 (0.20%) Eclipse
10 7 (0.20%) GDB
10 7 (0.20%) JUnit
10 7 (0.20%) Moq
11 6 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.17%) LabVIEW
11 6 (0.17%) Yeoman
12 5 (0.14%) Postman
12 5 (0.14%) Subversion
13 4 (0.11%) Robot Framework
14 3 (0.085%) CMake
General
1 209 (5.95%) Manufacturing
2 184 (5.24%) Electronics
3 156 (4.44%) Social Skills
4 93 (2.65%) Finance
5 85 (2.42%) Aerospace
6 82 (2.33%) Automotive
7 76 (2.16%) Public Sector
8 45 (1.28%) Analytical Skills
9 33 (0.94%) Aviation
10 31 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
11 22 (0.63%) Retail
12 18 (0.51%) Games
12 18 (0.51%) Telecoms
13 17 (0.48%) Military
14 16 (0.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 14 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (0.28%) Tech for Good
17 9 (0.26%) Agriculture
17 9 (0.26%) Health Technology
17 9 (0.26%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 314 (8.94%) .NET
2 190 (5.41%) React
3 119 (3.39%) Node.js
4 102 (2.90%) Vue
5 73 (2.08%) AngularJS
6 70 (1.99%) WPF
7 65 (1.85%) CSS
8 64 (1.82%) RESTful
9 61 (1.74%) REST
9 61 (1.74%) Spring
10 59 (1.68%) HTML
11 53 (1.51%) Spring Boot
12 42 (1.20%) .NET Core
13 38 (1.08%) Next.js
14 36 (1.02%) .NET Framework
15 33 (0.94%) Django
16 25 (0.71%) Yocto
17 22 (0.63%) Entity Framework
18 21 (0.60%) WebSockets
19 20 (0.57%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 144 (4.10%) Cloud Native
2 123 (3.50%) Embedded Systems
3 89 (2.53%) Algorithms
4 80 (2.28%) Robotics
5 75 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
6 65 (1.85%) Product Ownership
7 60 (1.71%) IoT
8 55 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
9 52 (1.48%) AI Agents
10 43 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
11 31 (0.88%) Mobile App
12 30 (0.85%) Device Driver
13 21 (0.60%) Client/Server
14 20 (0.57%) Hedge funds
15 19 (0.54%) ARM Cortex
15 19 (0.54%) Data Structures
16 18 (0.51%) Educational Technology
17 17 (0.48%) Cyber Threat
17 17 (0.48%) Distributed Computing
18 16 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 233 (6.63%) Linux
2 50 (1.42%) Windows
3 49 (1.39%) Embedded Linux
4 32 (0.91%) Android
5 31 (0.88%) FreeRTOS
6 9 (0.26%) Debian
7 7 (0.20%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.14%) Windows Server
9 4 (0.11%) CentOS
9 4 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.085%) Gentoo
11 2 (0.057%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.057%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.057%) Unix
11 2 (0.057%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.057%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.057%) zOS
12 1 (0.028%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,467 (98.66%) Software Engineering
2 420 (11.95%) Agile
3 354 (10.07%) Full-Stack Development
4 307 (8.74%) CI/CD
5 280 (7.97%) AI
6 236 (6.72%) DevOps
7 224 (6.37%) Mentoring
8 192 (5.46%) Problem-Solving
9 190 (5.41%) Microservices
10 182 (5.18%) SDLC
11 179 (5.09%) Test Automation
12 175 (4.98%) Computer Science
13 167 (4.75%) Continuous Improvement
14 124 (3.53%) Containerisation
15 118 (3.36%) Software Architecture
16 112 (3.19%) TDD
17 107 (3.04%) Scrum
17 107 (3.04%) Software Testing
18 96 (2.73%) Code Quality
19 88 (2.50%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 599 (17.05%) C++
2 543 (15.45%) C#
3 455 (12.95%) Python
4 303 (8.62%) Java
5 268 (7.63%) C
6 254 (7.23%) JavaScript
7 222 (6.32%) TypeScript
8 184 (5.24%) SQL
9 123 (3.50%) Rust
10 58 (1.65%) PHP
11 55 (1.57%) Embedded C
12 53 (1.51%) Go
13 26 (0.74%) Ruby
14 24 (0.68%) Embedded C++
15 19 (0.54%) Bash
16 18 (0.51%) Kotlin
17 17 (0.48%) COBOL
18 14 (0.40%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.37%) Scala
20 9 (0.26%) Ada
Qualifications
1 330 (9.39%) Security Cleared
2 290 (8.25%) Degree
3 209 (5.95%) SC Cleared
4 131 (3.73%) DV Cleared
5 130 (3.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 53 (1.51%) Master's Degree
7 23 (0.65%) PhD
8 10 (0.28%) HND
9 9 (0.26%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (0.26%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.23%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.17%) HNC
12 5 (0.14%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.14%) CEH
12 5 (0.14%) OSCP
13 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.057%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 2 (0.057%) NVQ Level 3
15 1 (0.028%) Chartered Engineer
15 1 (0.028%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (2.05%) QA
2 23 (0.65%) Accessibility
3 8 (0.23%) IEC 61131
3 8 (0.23%) IEC 61508
3 8 (0.23%) MISRA
3 8 (0.23%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.17%) JTAG
5 4 (0.11%) DO-178B
6 3 (0.085%) ECSS
6 3 (0.085%) GAMP
6 3 (0.085%) GDPR
6 3 (0.085%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.057%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.028%) Automotive SPICE
8 1 (0.028%) DO-254
8 1 (0.028%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.028%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.028%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.028%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.028%) WCAG
System Software
1 166 (4.72%) Docker
2 156 (4.44%) Firmware
3 52 (1.48%) Embedded Firmware
4 11 (0.31%) KVM
4 11 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.28%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.14%) QEMU
8 2 (0.057%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 128 (3.64%) Kubernetes
2 79 (2.25%) Terraform
3 32 (0.91%) Ansible
4 7 (0.20%) Grafana
4 7 (0.20%) Kibana
4 7 (0.20%) logstash
4 7 (0.20%) Podman
5 6 (0.17%) Functional Safety
6 5 (0.14%) Puppet
7 3 (0.085%) Plesk
7 3 (0.085%) SCCM
7 3 (0.085%) SCOM
7 3 (0.085%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.057%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.057%) Packer
8 2 (0.057%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 30 (0.85%) Siemens
2 28 (0.80%) Microsoft
3 19 (0.54%) Rockwell
4 18 (0.51%) Google
5 15 (0.43%) Oracle
6 13 (0.37%) VMware
7 11 (0.31%) Salesforce
8 10 (0.28%) Allen-Bradley
9 9 (0.26%) Okta
9 9 (0.26%) OpenAI
9 9 (0.26%) Ping Identity
10 7 (0.20%) Atlassian
11 6 (0.17%) Splunk
11 6 (0.17%) Xamarin
12 5 (0.14%) Intel
13 4 (0.11%) Peregrine
13 4 (0.11%) Red Hat
13 4 (0.11%) SaltStack
14 3 (0.085%) Typelevel
14 3 (0.085%) Yahoo!