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 22 August 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 54 14
Rank change year-on-year +32 -40 +59
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,928 1,482 5,077
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.99% 4.27% 8.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.30% 4.78% 8.96%
Number of salaries quoted 3,086 625 2,854
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £40,000
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 £67,500
90th Percentile £93,250 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £78,810 £60,000
% change year-on-year -11.18% +31.35% -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 74,163 31,014 56,658
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.27% 89.45% 95.08%
Number of salaries quoted 51,317 17,801 36,818
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,550
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,000 £47,683 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.25% -4.63% -5.21%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -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 22 August 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 22 August 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 +20 1,008 £65,000 -5.11% 166
South East +80 999 £65,000 -4.41% 185
South West +31 751 £65,000 - 181
North West +9 554 £70,000 -3.45% 106
East of England +89 493 £70,000 +27.27% 166
Midlands +49 396 £62,500 -3.85% 78
Yorkshire +69 267 £60,000 -10.11% 35
East Midlands +37 207 £55,000 -21.43% 45
West Midlands +44 189 £65,000 +4.00% 33
North East +22 187 £70,000 +24.44% 25
Scotland -12 149 £67,500 +4.25% 98
Wales +7 119 £57,500 -13.53% 18
Northern Ireland -72 14 £90,000 +80.00% 11
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 August 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 3,889 (99.01%) Software Engineering
2 639 (16.27%) C++
3 601 (15.30%) C#
4 514 (13.09%) Python
5 483 (12.30%) Agile
6 400 (10.18%) AWS
7 393 (10.01%) Security Cleared
8 360 (9.16%) Full-Stack Development
9 359 (9.14%) CI/CD
10 349 (8.88%) AI
11 331 (8.43%) Java
12 316 (8.04%) .NET
13 291 (7.41%) Degree
14 283 (7.20%) Azure
15 275 (7.00%) Linux
16 268 (6.82%) JavaScript
17 262 (6.67%) C
18 257 (6.54%) Mentoring
19 250 (6.36%) SC Cleared
20 245 (6.24%) TypeScript
21 237 (6.03%) DevOps
22 214 (5.45%) Problem-Solving
23 210 (5.35%) React
24 198 (5.04%) Test Automation
25 197 (5.02%) SDLC
26 194 (4.94%) Microservices
27 184 (4.68%) SQL
28 179 (4.56%) Docker
29 178 (4.53%) Computer Science
30 176 (4.48%) Continuous Improvement

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 24 (0.61%) Apache
2 15 (0.38%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.23%) Confluence
4 8 (0.20%) FactoryTalk
5 7 (0.18%) WinCC
6 6 (0.15%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.10%) Apache Solr
9 3 (0.076%) CMS
9 3 (0.076%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.051%) ArchestrA
10 2 (0.051%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.051%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.051%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.051%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.051%) WordPress
11 1 (0.025%) Cloud Foundry
11 1 (0.025%) OpenStack
11 1 (0.025%) Umbraco
Applications
1 14 (0.36%) Lightworks
2 8 (0.20%) Simulink
3 4 (0.10%) EPLAN
3 4 (0.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.10%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.076%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.051%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.025%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.025%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.025%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.025%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 400 (10.18%) AWS
2 283 (7.20%) Azure
3 148 (3.77%) SaaS
4 109 (2.77%) GCP
5 72 (1.83%) Serverless
6 53 (1.35%) GitHub
7 38 (0.97%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (0.87%) Firebase
9 32 (0.81%) Anthropic Claude
10 27 (0.69%) AWS Lambda
11 21 (0.53%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (0.43%) Amazon EKS
12 17 (0.43%) AWS CloudFormation
13 16 (0.41%) Amazon S3
13 16 (0.41%) Cloud Run
14 12 (0.31%) OpenShift
15 11 (0.28%) Slack
16 9 (0.23%) AWS Step Functions
16 9 (0.23%) Azure Functions
16 9 (0.23%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 59 (1.50%) Wireless
2 36 (0.92%) Ethernet
3 28 (0.71%) Bluetooth
4 24 (0.61%) Modbus
5 21 (0.53%) RS-232
6 20 (0.51%) MQTT
6 20 (0.51%) TCP/IP
7 17 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
7 17 (0.43%) ZigBee
8 15 (0.38%) Profibus
9 12 (0.31%) RS-485
10 10 (0.25%) ATM
10 10 (0.25%) LTE
11 6 (0.15%) 5G
11 6 (0.15%) Wireshark
12 5 (0.13%) AMQP
12 5 (0.13%) Network Security
13 4 (0.10%) Broadband
14 3 (0.076%) Firewall
14 3 (0.076%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
2 61 (1.55%) SQL Server
3 58 (1.48%) MongoDB
4 48 (1.22%) NoSQL
5 40 (1.02%) MySQL
6 30 (0.76%) Relational Database
7 19 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
7 19 (0.48%) Redis
8 16 (0.41%) Pinecone
9 15 (0.38%) DynamoDB
10 13 (0.33%) Big Data
11 7 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (0.18%) Hadoop
12 5 (0.13%) Cloudera CDH
12 5 (0.13%) FileMaker
12 5 (0.13%) Neo4j
13 4 (0.10%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.10%) MariaDB
14 3 (0.076%) GIS
14 3 (0.076%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 144 (3.67%) Git
2 50 (1.27%) GitLab
3 35 (0.89%) JIRA
4 34 (0.87%) Jenkins
5 20 (0.51%) Claude Code
5 20 (0.51%) Visual Studio Code
6 14 (0.36%) Visual Studio
7 11 (0.28%) Cucumber
8 9 (0.23%) JUnit
8 9 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 8 (0.20%) GDB
10 7 (0.18%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.18%) LabVIEW
10 7 (0.18%) Moq
11 6 (0.15%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.15%) CMake
11 6 (0.15%) Yeoman
12 5 (0.13%) Mockito
12 5 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
12 5 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 225 (5.73%) Manufacturing
2 205 (5.22%) Electronics
3 189 (4.81%) Social Skills
4 140 (3.56%) Finance
5 121 (3.08%) Aerospace
6 99 (2.52%) Public Sector
7 86 (2.19%) Automotive
8 58 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 54 (1.37%) Aviation
10 48 (1.22%) Analytical Skills
11 38 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
12 35 (0.89%) Retail
13 27 (0.69%) Law
14 25 (0.64%) Games
15 24 (0.61%) Military
16 17 (0.43%) Telecoms
17 16 (0.41%) Marketing
18 15 (0.38%) Organisational Skills
19 12 (0.31%) Tech for Good
20 9 (0.23%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 316 (8.04%) .NET
2 210 (5.35%) React
3 119 (3.03%) Node.js
4 100 (2.55%) Vue
5 94 (2.39%) Terraform
6 80 (2.04%) WPF
7 75 (1.91%) AngularJS
8 71 (1.81%) CSS
9 67 (1.71%) Spring
10 61 (1.55%) REST
10 61 (1.55%) Spring Boot
11 57 (1.45%) HTML
12 54 (1.37%) RESTful
13 37 (0.94%) Next.js
14 35 (0.89%) Django
15 33 (0.84%) .NET Core
16 30 (0.76%) .NET Framework
17 26 (0.66%) React Native
18 25 (0.64%) Yocto
19 23 (0.59%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 174 (4.43%) Cloud Native
2 128 (3.26%) Embedded Systems
3 107 (2.72%) Robotics
4 104 (2.65%) Algorithms
5 84 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
6 69 (1.76%) Product Ownership
7 65 (1.65%) AI Agents
8 64 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
9 56 (1.43%) IoT
10 46 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
11 32 (0.81%) Public Cloud
12 29 (0.74%) Mobile App
13 27 (0.69%) Data Structures
13 27 (0.69%) Device Driver
14 21 (0.53%) ARM Cortex
14 21 (0.53%) Cyber Threat
15 20 (0.51%) Distributed Computing
16 18 (0.46%) Educational Technology
16 18 (0.46%) Hedge funds
17 16 (0.41%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 275 (7.00%) Linux
2 62 (1.58%) Windows
3 54 (1.37%) Embedded Linux
4 30 (0.76%) FreeRTOS
5 28 (0.71%) Android
6 10 (0.25%) Debian
7 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.13%) CentOS
8 5 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.13%) Unix
8 5 (0.13%) VxWorks
8 5 (0.13%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.076%) Gentoo
10 2 (0.051%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.051%) SafeRTOS
10 2 (0.051%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.051%) zOS
11 1 (0.025%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,889 (99.01%) Software Engineering
2 483 (12.30%) Agile
3 360 (9.16%) Full-Stack Development
4 359 (9.14%) CI/CD
5 349 (8.88%) AI
6 257 (6.54%) Mentoring
7 237 (6.03%) DevOps
8 214 (5.45%) Problem-Solving
9 198 (5.04%) Test Automation
10 197 (5.02%) SDLC
11 194 (4.94%) Microservices
12 178 (4.53%) Computer Science
13 176 (4.48%) Continuous Improvement
14 133 (3.39%) Software Architecture
15 131 (3.34%) Containerisation
16 123 (3.13%) Technical Leadership
17 118 (3.00%) Code Quality
18 111 (2.83%) Software Testing
19 103 (2.62%) TDD
20 100 (2.55%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 639 (16.27%) C++
2 601 (15.30%) C#
3 514 (13.09%) Python
4 331 (8.43%) Java
5 268 (6.82%) JavaScript
6 262 (6.67%) C
7 245 (6.24%) TypeScript
8 184 (4.68%) SQL
9 128 (3.26%) Rust
10 67 (1.71%) Go
11 59 (1.50%) PHP
12 47 (1.20%) Embedded C
13 30 (0.76%) Ruby
14 28 (0.71%) Embedded C++
15 21 (0.53%) Ada
16 17 (0.43%) Bash
16 17 (0.43%) COBOL
16 17 (0.43%) Kotlin
17 16 (0.41%) Scala
18 15 (0.38%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 393 (10.01%) Security Cleared
2 291 (7.41%) Degree
3 250 (6.36%) SC Cleared
4 175 (4.46%) DV Cleared
5 128 (3.26%) Computer Science Degree
6 55 (1.40%) Master's Degree
7 32 (0.81%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (0.66%) PhD
9 9 (0.23%) DBS Check
9 9 (0.23%) HND
10 8 (0.20%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.15%) HNC
12 5 (0.13%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.13%) CEH
12 5 (0.13%) OSCP
13 4 (0.10%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.076%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.051%) Numerate Degree
15 2 (0.051%) NVQ Level 3
16 1 (0.025%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (1.81%) QA
2 50 (1.27%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.25%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.20%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.20%) MISRA
4 8 (0.20%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.15%) JTAG
6 5 (0.13%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.10%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.076%) ECSS
8 3 (0.076%) GAMP
8 3 (0.076%) GDPR
8 3 (0.076%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.076%) MIL-STD-1553
8 3 (0.076%) WCAG
9 2 (0.051%) Automotive SPICE
9 2 (0.051%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.051%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.025%) DO-254
10 1 (0.025%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 179 (4.56%) Docker
2 165 (4.20%) Firmware
3 51 (1.30%) Embedded Firmware
4 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.18%) QEMU
6 6 (0.15%) KVM
6 6 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
7 5 (0.13%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.051%) Active Directory
8 2 (0.051%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 138 (3.51%) Kubernetes
2 39 (0.99%) Ansible
3 13 (0.33%) Grafana
4 7 (0.18%) Kibana
4 7 (0.18%) logstash
4 7 (0.18%) Podman
4 7 (0.18%) Puppet
5 5 (0.13%) Functional Safety
6 3 (0.076%) Plesk
6 3 (0.076%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.076%) SCCM
6 3 (0.076%) SCOM
6 3 (0.076%) SCOrch
7 2 (0.051%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 36 (0.92%) Siemens
2 30 (0.76%) Microsoft
3 21 (0.53%) Google
4 18 (0.46%) Oracle
4 18 (0.46%) Rockwell
5 15 (0.38%) Salesforce
6 14 (0.36%) Okta
6 14 (0.36%) Ping Identity
7 12 (0.31%) Splunk
8 10 (0.25%) Allen-Bradley
8 10 (0.25%) OpenAI
9 8 (0.20%) VMware
10 7 (0.18%) Atlassian
10 7 (0.18%) Databricks
11 6 (0.15%) Intel
12 5 (0.13%) IBM
12 5 (0.13%) Red Hat
12 5 (0.13%) SaltStack
12 5 (0.13%) Xamarin
13 4 (0.10%) New Relic