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 £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 18 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 63 16
Rank change year-on-year +40 -47 +51
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,309 1,340 4,374
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.10% 3.90% 7.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.46% 4.36% 8.28%
Number of salaries quoted 3,425 509 2,428
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £55,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +17.12% -7.50%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £69,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £63,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +25.98% -5.97%

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 78,906 30,717 52,808
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.39% 89.30% 95.21%
Number of salaries quoted 54,746 17,484 30,834
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,620
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,589 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +6.53% - -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 18 September 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 18 September 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 +23 1,057 £70,000 - 349
South East +95 1,021 £65,000 -7.14% 333
South West +43 869 £69,250 +6.54% 278
North West +15 594 £71,250 -5.00% 224
East of England +116 571 £70,000 +7.69% 304
Midlands +62 445 £65,000 +1.96% 170
Yorkshire +75 263 £60,000 -4.00% 77
East Midlands +38 245 £55,000 -18.52% 89
West Midlands +42 200 £68,403 +11.68% 81
North East +17 200 £70,000 +23.89% 48
Scotland -2 194 £80,000 +24.03% 250
Wales +20 139 £60,000 +9.09% 22
Northern Ireland - 14 £90,000 - 54
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 September 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 4,273 (99.16%) Software Engineering
2 665 (15.43%) C++
3 611 (14.18%) C#
4 538 (12.49%) Python
5 529 (12.28%) Agile
6 414 (9.61%) Security Cleared
7 410 (9.51%) AWS
8 407 (9.45%) AI
9 367 (8.52%) CI/CD
9 367 (8.52%) Full-Stack Development
10 348 (8.08%) Java
11 306 (7.10%) .NET
12 296 (6.87%) Linux
13 284 (6.59%) Degree
14 276 (6.41%) Azure
15 266 (6.17%) SC Cleared
16 263 (6.10%) JavaScript
17 258 (5.99%) C
18 256 (5.94%) TypeScript
19 249 (5.78%) Mentoring
20 235 (5.45%) DevOps
21 227 (5.27%) Problem-Solving
22 220 (5.11%) React
23 202 (4.69%) SDLC
24 190 (4.41%) Microservices
25 188 (4.36%) Test Automation
26 180 (4.18%) Continuous Improvement
26 180 (4.18%) DV Cleared
27 177 (4.11%) SQL
28 176 (4.08%) 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 28 (0.65%) Apache
2 15 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.19%) Apache Spark
3 8 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.16%) Confluence
4 7 (0.16%) WinCC
5 5 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.070%) Apache Solr
6 3 (0.070%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.070%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.070%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.046%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.046%) WordPress
8 1 (0.023%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.023%) CMS
8 1 (0.023%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.023%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.023%) OpenStack
Applications
1 18 (0.42%) Lightworks
2 12 (0.28%) Simulink
3 4 (0.093%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.093%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.093%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.046%) CANalyzer
4 2 (0.046%) EPLAN
5 1 (0.023%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.023%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.023%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.046%) Visualfiles
3 1 (0.023%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 410 (9.51%) AWS
2 276 (6.41%) Azure
3 144 (3.34%) SaaS
4 109 (2.53%) GCP
5 70 (1.62%) Serverless
6 49 (1.14%) GitHub
7 37 (0.86%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (0.84%) Firebase
9 29 (0.67%) Anthropic Claude
9 29 (0.67%) AWS Lambda
10 20 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
10 20 (0.46%) GitHub Actions
11 19 (0.44%) Amazon EKS
12 17 (0.39%) Amazon S3
13 16 (0.37%) Cloud Run
14 14 (0.32%) OpenShift
15 12 (0.28%) GitHub Copilot
16 11 (0.26%) Slack
17 9 (0.21%) AWS Step Functions
18 8 (0.19%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 68 (1.58%) Wireless
2 37 (0.86%) Ethernet
3 31 (0.72%) Bluetooth
4 27 (0.63%) Modbus
5 23 (0.53%) TCP/IP
6 21 (0.49%) MQTT
6 21 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
7 17 (0.39%) RS-232
7 17 (0.39%) ZigBee
8 15 (0.35%) Profibus
9 12 (0.28%) LTE
9 12 (0.28%) RS-485
10 11 (0.26%) 5G
11 10 (0.23%) ATM
12 7 (0.16%) AMQP
13 6 (0.14%) Internet
13 6 (0.14%) Wireshark
14 3 (0.070%) Firewall
14 3 (0.070%) Software-Defined Radio
15 2 (0.046%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
2 59 (1.37%) SQL Server
3 51 (1.18%) MongoDB
4 46 (1.07%) NoSQL
5 41 (0.95%) MySQL
6 32 (0.74%) Relational Database
7 20 (0.46%) Redis
8 19 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.37%) Chroma
9 16 (0.37%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.37%) Pinecone
10 13 (0.30%) Big Data
11 9 (0.21%) Hadoop
12 7 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.16%) Cloudera CDH
13 4 (0.093%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (0.093%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.093%) FileMaker
13 4 (0.093%) MariaDB
14 3 (0.070%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 148 (3.43%) Git
2 54 (1.25%) GitLab
3 34 (0.79%) Jenkins
4 32 (0.74%) JIRA
5 20 (0.46%) Visual Studio Code
6 17 (0.39%) Claude Code
7 16 (0.37%) Cucumber
8 13 (0.30%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.26%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.23%) JUnit
11 8 (0.19%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.16%) GDB
12 7 (0.16%) LabVIEW
12 7 (0.16%) Mockito
12 7 (0.16%) Moq
13 6 (0.14%) CMake
14 5 (0.12%) PetaLinux
14 5 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
14 5 (0.12%) Subversion
14 5 (0.12%) Yeoman
General
1 225 (5.22%) Manufacturing
2 218 (5.06%) Electronics
3 195 (4.53%) Social Skills
4 159 (3.69%) Finance
5 126 (2.92%) Aerospace
6 106 (2.46%) Public Sector
7 84 (1.95%) Automotive
8 61 (1.42%) Aviation
9 56 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (1.18%) Analytical Skills
11 36 (0.84%) Retail
12 28 (0.65%) Law
12 28 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
13 26 (0.60%) Games
14 25 (0.58%) Military
15 18 (0.42%) Marketing
16 17 (0.39%) Tech for Good
17 16 (0.37%) Telecoms
18 15 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
19 13 (0.30%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 306 (7.10%) .NET
2 220 (5.11%) React
3 116 (2.69%) Node.js
4 101 (2.34%) Vue
5 94 (2.18%) Terraform
6 85 (1.97%) WPF
7 78 (1.81%) Spring
8 73 (1.69%) Spring Boot
9 72 (1.67%) CSS
10 70 (1.62%) AngularJS
11 55 (1.28%) REST
11 55 (1.28%) RESTful
12 53 (1.23%) HTML
13 38 (0.88%) Next.js
14 34 (0.79%) React Native
15 31 (0.72%) Django
16 29 (0.67%) .NET Core
17 27 (0.63%) .NET Framework
18 24 (0.56%) Kafka
18 24 (0.56%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 166 (3.85%) Cloud Native
2 132 (3.06%) Embedded Systems
3 122 (2.83%) Robotics
4 106 (2.46%) Algorithms
5 84 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.58%) Product Ownership
7 66 (1.53%) AI Agents
8 64 (1.49%) Distributed Systems
9 57 (1.32%) IoT
10 48 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
11 39 (0.91%) Public Cloud
12 29 (0.67%) Cyber Threat
13 27 (0.63%) Mobile App
14 25 (0.58%) Data Structures
15 24 (0.56%) Device Driver
16 23 (0.53%) Distributed Computing
17 21 (0.49%) ARM Cortex
18 18 (0.42%) Educational Technology
19 17 (0.39%) NHS
20 15 (0.35%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 296 (6.87%) Linux
2 71 (1.65%) Windows
3 59 (1.37%) Embedded Linux
4 33 (0.77%) FreeRTOS
5 31 (0.72%) Android
6 12 (0.28%) Debian
7 9 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.21%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.19%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.16%) CentOS
9 7 (0.16%) VxWorks
10 5 (0.12%) Unix
10 5 (0.12%) Windows Server
11 3 (0.070%) Gentoo
12 2 (0.046%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.046%) SafeRTOS
12 2 (0.046%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.046%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.046%) zOS
13 1 (0.023%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,273 (99.16%) Software Engineering
2 529 (12.28%) Agile
3 407 (9.45%) AI
4 367 (8.52%) CI/CD
4 367 (8.52%) Full-Stack Development
5 249 (5.78%) Mentoring
6 235 (5.45%) DevOps
7 227 (5.27%) Problem-Solving
8 202 (4.69%) SDLC
9 190 (4.41%) Microservices
10 188 (4.36%) Test Automation
11 180 (4.18%) Continuous Improvement
12 175 (4.06%) Computer Science
13 139 (3.23%) Software Architecture
14 129 (2.99%) Code Quality
15 126 (2.92%) Technical Leadership
16 122 (2.83%) Containerisation
17 116 (2.69%) Software Testing
18 109 (2.53%) Machine Learning
19 99 (2.30%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 665 (15.43%) C++
2 611 (14.18%) C#
3 538 (12.49%) Python
4 348 (8.08%) Java
5 263 (6.10%) JavaScript
6 258 (5.99%) C
7 256 (5.94%) TypeScript
8 177 (4.11%) SQL
9 124 (2.88%) Rust
10 71 (1.65%) Go
11 58 (1.35%) PHP
12 44 (1.02%) Embedded C
13 30 (0.70%) Embedded C++
13 30 (0.70%) Ruby
14 26 (0.60%) Ada
15 21 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 20 (0.46%) Bash
17 17 (0.39%) COBOL
17 17 (0.39%) Kotlin
18 13 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 414 (9.61%) Security Cleared
2 284 (6.59%) Degree
3 266 (6.17%) SC Cleared
4 180 (4.18%) DV Cleared
5 125 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 53 (1.23%) Master's Degree
7 34 (0.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 29 (0.67%) PhD
9 11 (0.26%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.19%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.14%) AWS Certification
11 6 (0.14%) HND
12 5 (0.12%) CEH
12 5 (0.12%) OSCP
13 4 (0.093%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.070%) HNC
14 3 (0.070%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.046%) Numerate Degree
16 1 (0.023%) ISTQB
16 1 (0.023%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (1.60%) QA
2 51 (1.18%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.23%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.19%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.19%) MISRA
4 8 (0.19%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.14%) JTAG
6 5 (0.12%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.093%) Data Quality
7 4 (0.093%) ECSS
7 4 (0.093%) ISO 26262
7 4 (0.093%) WCAG
8 3 (0.070%) Automotive SPICE
8 3 (0.070%) GAMP
8 3 (0.070%) MIL-STD-1553
9 2 (0.046%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.046%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.023%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.023%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.023%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 176 (4.08%) Docker
2 169 (3.92%) Firmware
3 50 (1.16%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (0.16%) QEMU
5 5 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.070%) KVM
6 3 (0.070%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.046%) Active Directory
7 2 (0.046%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.046%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.023%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 142 (3.30%) Kubernetes
2 45 (1.04%) Ansible
3 15 (0.35%) Grafana
4 10 (0.23%) Podman
5 9 (0.21%) Puppet
6 8 (0.19%) Kibana
6 8 (0.19%) logstash
7 6 (0.14%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.093%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.070%) Plesk
9 3 (0.070%) SCCM
9 3 (0.070%) SCOM
9 3 (0.070%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.046%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.023%) Packer
11 1 (0.023%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 37 (0.86%) Siemens
2 34 (0.79%) Microsoft
3 22 (0.51%) Google
4 18 (0.42%) Salesforce
5 15 (0.35%) Rockwell
6 14 (0.32%) Okta
6 14 (0.32%) Ping Identity
7 13 (0.30%) Databricks
8 12 (0.28%) Oracle
8 12 (0.28%) Splunk
9 10 (0.23%) OpenAI
10 9 (0.21%) Red Hat
10 9 (0.21%) RedGate
11 8 (0.19%) Allen-Bradley
11 8 (0.19%) Sage
12 7 (0.16%) SaltStack
13 6 (0.14%) Atlassian
13 6 (0.14%) IBM
13 6 (0.14%) Intel
14 5 (0.12%) Xamarin