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 6 September 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 62 14
Rank change year-on-year +41 -48 +63
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,177 1,355 4,691
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.11% 3.93% 8.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.43% 4.40% 8.70%
Number of salaries quoted 3,312 520 2,634
10th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +18.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,250 £68,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +28.00% -10.07%

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 76,864 30,785 53,900
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.04% 89.32% 95.17%
Number of salaries quoted 53,476 17,638 33,165
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,266
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £37,750
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 £86,250 £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 6 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 6 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 +26 1,052 £69,305 -0.99% 191
South East +96 1,015 £65,000 -7.14% 184
South West +38 826 £66,250 +1.92% 224
North West +13 587 £70,000 -6.67% 130
East of England +106 541 £70,000 +7.69% 236
Midlands +66 426 £65,000 - 99
Yorkshire +65 264 £60,000 -12.41% 40
East Midlands +39 226 £55,000 -21.43% 56
North East +16 201 £70,000 +24.44% 21
West Midlands +48 200 £68,403 +9.44% 43
Scotland -5 176 £75,000 +15.83% 213
Wales +18 128 £60,000 -7.69% 18
Northern Ireland - 14 £90,000 - 46
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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 4,140 (99.11%) Software Engineering
2 658 (15.75%) C++
3 600 (14.36%) C#
4 525 (12.57%) Python
5 509 (12.19%) Agile
6 406 (9.72%) Security Cleared
7 403 (9.65%) AWS
8 380 (9.10%) AI
9 361 (8.64%) Full-Stack Development
10 360 (8.62%) CI/CD
11 339 (8.12%) Java
12 307 (7.35%) .NET
13 291 (6.97%) Linux
14 284 (6.80%) Degree
15 278 (6.66%) Azure
16 260 (6.22%) JavaScript
17 259 (6.20%) SC Cleared
18 258 (6.18%) C
19 256 (6.13%) TypeScript
20 253 (6.06%) Mentoring
21 235 (5.63%) DevOps
22 224 (5.36%) Problem-Solving
23 215 (5.15%) React
24 203 (4.86%) SDLC
25 197 (4.72%) Test Automation
26 190 (4.55%) Microservices
27 181 (4.33%) SQL
28 180 (4.31%) Continuous Improvement
29 178 (4.26%) Computer Science
30 177 (4.24%) DV Cleared

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 (0.57%) Apache
2 15 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.22%) Confluence
4 8 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
5 7 (0.17%) WinCC
6 6 (0.14%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.072%) Apache Solr
8 3 (0.072%) CMS
9 2 (0.048%) ArchestrA
9 2 (0.048%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.048%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.048%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.048%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.048%) WordPress
10 1 (0.024%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.024%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.024%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.024%) Umbraco
Applications
1 16 (0.38%) Lightworks
2 11 (0.26%) Simulink
3 4 (0.096%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.096%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.096%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.072%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.048%) EPLAN
6 1 (0.024%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.024%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.024%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.024%) Shopify
2 1 (0.024%) Visualfiles
Cloud Services
1 403 (9.65%) AWS
2 278 (6.66%) Azure
3 146 (3.50%) SaaS
4 108 (2.59%) GCP
5 68 (1.63%) Serverless
6 52 (1.24%) GitHub
7 38 (0.91%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (0.86%) Firebase
9 30 (0.72%) Anthropic Claude
10 28 (0.67%) AWS Lambda
11 21 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
12 18 (0.43%) AWS CloudFormation
13 17 (0.41%) Amazon EKS
13 17 (0.41%) Amazon S3
14 16 (0.38%) Cloud Run
15 12 (0.29%) OpenShift
16 11 (0.26%) Slack
17 10 (0.24%) GitHub Copilot
18 9 (0.22%) AWS Step Functions
19 8 (0.19%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 65 (1.56%) Wireless
2 37 (0.89%) Ethernet
3 29 (0.69%) Bluetooth
4 25 (0.60%) Modbus
5 22 (0.53%) TCP/IP
6 20 (0.48%) MQTT
7 19 (0.45%) RS-232
7 19 (0.45%) Wi-Fi
8 17 (0.41%) ZigBee
9 15 (0.36%) Profibus
10 12 (0.29%) RS-485
11 11 (0.26%) LTE
12 10 (0.24%) ATM
13 9 (0.22%) 5G
14 6 (0.14%) Wireshark
15 5 (0.12%) AMQP
16 3 (0.072%) Internet
16 3 (0.072%) Network Security
16 3 (0.072%) Software-Defined Networking
16 3 (0.072%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
2 58 (1.39%) SQL Server
3 55 (1.32%) MongoDB
4 47 (1.13%) NoSQL
5 40 (0.96%) MySQL
6 30 (0.72%) Relational Database
7 20 (0.48%) Redis
8 18 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.38%) Chroma
9 16 (0.38%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.38%) Pinecone
10 12 (0.29%) Big Data
11 7 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (0.17%) Hadoop
12 5 (0.12%) Cloudera CDH
12 5 (0.12%) FileMaker
13 4 (0.096%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (0.096%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.096%) MariaDB
13 4 (0.096%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 144 (3.45%) Git
2 51 (1.22%) GitLab
3 34 (0.81%) JIRA
4 32 (0.77%) Jenkins
5 20 (0.48%) Visual Studio Code
6 18 (0.43%) Claude Code
7 14 (0.34%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.31%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.22%) JUnit
9 9 (0.22%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.19%) GDB
11 7 (0.17%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.17%) LabVIEW
11 7 (0.17%) Moq
12 6 (0.14%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.14%) CMake
13 5 (0.12%) Mockito
13 5 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
13 5 (0.12%) Yeoman
14 4 (0.096%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 221 (5.29%) Manufacturing
2 216 (5.17%) Electronics
3 191 (4.57%) Social Skills
4 150 (3.59%) Finance
5 122 (2.92%) Aerospace
6 105 (2.51%) Public Sector
7 83 (1.99%) Automotive
8 58 (1.39%) Aviation
8 58 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 50 (1.20%) Analytical Skills
10 34 (0.81%) Retail
11 29 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
12 28 (0.67%) Law
13 24 (0.57%) Games
13 24 (0.57%) Military
14 17 (0.41%) Marketing
14 17 (0.41%) Telecoms
15 16 (0.38%) Tech for Good
16 15 (0.36%) Organisational Skills
17 11 (0.26%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 307 (7.35%) .NET
2 215 (5.15%) React
3 114 (2.73%) Node.js
4 102 (2.44%) Vue
5 93 (2.23%) Terraform
6 83 (1.99%) WPF
7 73 (1.75%) AngularJS
8 71 (1.70%) Spring
9 70 (1.68%) CSS
10 66 (1.58%) Spring Boot
11 58 (1.39%) REST
12 53 (1.27%) HTML
13 52 (1.24%) RESTful
14 37 (0.89%) Next.js
15 34 (0.81%) Django
16 31 (0.74%) .NET Core
16 31 (0.74%) React Native
17 28 (0.67%) .NET Framework
18 23 (0.55%) ASP.NET
18 23 (0.55%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 171 (4.09%) Cloud Native
2 130 (3.11%) Embedded Systems
3 115 (2.75%) Robotics
4 108 (2.59%) Algorithms
5 84 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
6 69 (1.65%) Product Ownership
7 67 (1.60%) AI Agents
8 63 (1.51%) Distributed Systems
9 55 (1.32%) IoT
10 45 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
11 36 (0.86%) Public Cloud
12 28 (0.67%) Data Structures
13 27 (0.65%) Mobile App
14 26 (0.62%) Cyber Threat
15 25 (0.60%) Device Driver
16 21 (0.50%) ARM Cortex
16 21 (0.50%) Distributed Computing
17 18 (0.43%) Educational Technology
18 16 (0.38%) NHS
19 15 (0.36%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 291 (6.97%) Linux
2 71 (1.70%) Windows
3 59 (1.41%) Embedded Linux
4 29 (0.69%) Android
4 29 (0.69%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.24%) Debian
6 7 (0.17%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.12%) CentOS
8 5 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.12%) Unix
8 5 (0.12%) VxWorks
8 5 (0.12%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.072%) Gentoo
10 2 (0.048%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.048%) SafeRTOS
10 2 (0.048%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.048%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.048%) zOS
11 1 (0.024%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,140 (99.11%) Software Engineering
2 509 (12.19%) Agile
3 380 (9.10%) AI
4 361 (8.64%) Full-Stack Development
5 360 (8.62%) CI/CD
6 253 (6.06%) Mentoring
7 235 (5.63%) DevOps
8 224 (5.36%) Problem-Solving
9 203 (4.86%) SDLC
10 197 (4.72%) Test Automation
11 190 (4.55%) Microservices
12 180 (4.31%) Continuous Improvement
13 178 (4.26%) Computer Science
14 136 (3.26%) Software Architecture
15 126 (3.02%) Containerisation
16 125 (2.99%) Technical Leadership
17 124 (2.97%) Code Quality
18 118 (2.82%) Software Testing
19 103 (2.47%) Machine Learning
20 98 (2.35%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 658 (15.75%) C++
2 600 (14.36%) C#
3 525 (12.57%) Python
4 339 (8.12%) Java
5 260 (6.22%) JavaScript
6 258 (6.18%) C
7 256 (6.13%) TypeScript
8 181 (4.33%) SQL
9 126 (3.02%) Rust
10 68 (1.63%) Go
11 57 (1.36%) PHP
12 44 (1.05%) Embedded C
13 31 (0.74%) Ruby
14 29 (0.69%) Embedded C++
15 23 (0.55%) Ada
16 18 (0.43%) MATLAB
17 17 (0.41%) Bash
17 17 (0.41%) COBOL
17 17 (0.41%) Kotlin
18 14 (0.34%) Scala
Qualifications
1 406 (9.72%) Security Cleared
2 284 (6.80%) Degree
3 259 (6.20%) SC Cleared
4 177 (4.24%) DV Cleared
5 124 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 52 (1.24%) Master's Degree
7 32 (0.77%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (0.62%) PhD
9 9 (0.22%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.19%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.17%) HND
12 6 (0.14%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.12%) CEH
13 5 (0.12%) OSCP
14 4 (0.096%) HNC
14 4 (0.096%) Microsoft Certification
15 3 (0.072%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 2 (0.048%) Numerate Degree
17 1 (0.024%) Chartered Engineer
17 1 (0.024%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (1.72%) QA
2 51 (1.22%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.24%) 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 (0.096%) Data Quality
7 4 (0.096%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.072%) Automotive SPICE
8 3 (0.072%) ECSS
8 3 (0.072%) GAMP
8 3 (0.072%) MIL-STD-1553
8 3 (0.072%) WCAG
9 2 (0.048%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.048%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.024%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.024%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.024%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 175 (4.19%) Docker
2 170 (4.07%) Firmware
3 51 (1.22%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (0.17%) QEMU
4 7 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.12%) KVM
5 5 (0.12%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (0.096%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.048%) Active Directory
7 2 (0.048%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.024%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 138 (3.30%) Kubernetes
2 40 (0.96%) Ansible
3 13 (0.31%) Grafana
4 8 (0.19%) Podman
5 7 (0.17%) Kibana
5 7 (0.17%) logstash
5 7 (0.17%) Puppet
6 6 (0.14%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.072%) Plesk
7 3 (0.072%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.072%) SCCM
7 3 (0.072%) SCOM
7 3 (0.072%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.048%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 37 (0.89%) Siemens
2 33 (0.79%) Microsoft
3 22 (0.53%) Google
4 18 (0.43%) Salesforce
5 16 (0.38%) Rockwell
6 15 (0.36%) Oracle
7 14 (0.34%) Okta
7 14 (0.34%) Ping Identity
8 12 (0.29%) Splunk
9 11 (0.26%) Databricks
10 10 (0.24%) OpenAI
11 8 (0.19%) Allen-Bradley
12 7 (0.17%) Atlassian
12 7 (0.17%) VMware
13 6 (0.14%) Intel
13 6 (0.14%) RedGate
13 6 (0.14%) Sage
14 5 (0.12%) New Relic
14 5 (0.12%) Red Hat
14 5 (0.12%) SaltStack