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 2 May 2026.

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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 59 16
Rank change year-on-year +20 -43 +50
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,680 1,101 5,878
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.10% 4.05% 8.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.40% 4.56% 9.12%
Number of salaries quoted 2,091 895 3,092
10th Percentile £45,000 £41,250 £38,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +18.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £78,375 £77,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £93,778 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.45% +20.83% -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 60,893 24,120 64,462
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.23% 88.67% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 39,038 14,658 47,091
10th Percentile £29,750 £28,250 £26,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £37,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £76,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,648 £53,000
% change year-on-year -7.79% +12.54% -11.67%

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 2 May 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 2 May 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 +50 698 £65,000 - 229
North of England +16 645 £65,000 - 153
South West +21 508 £65,000 +8.33% 119
North West +35 387 £70,000 +3.70% 89
East of England +24 288 £70,000 +5.73% 111
Midlands +49 252 £65,000 +8.33% 64
Scotland +2 210 £65,000 +4.00% 36
Yorkshire +2 184 £62,500 -3.85% 44
West Midlands +38 137 £65,000 +8.33% 34
East Midlands +19 115 £60,000 +6.67% 30
North East -13 74 £60,000 +9.09% 20
Wales -8 62 £40,000 -39.62% 11
Northern Ireland -28 18 £90,000 - 3
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 May 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 2,650 (98.88%) Software Engineering
2 389 (14.51%) C++
3 347 (12.95%) C#
4 318 (11.87%) Python
5 301 (11.23%) Agile
6 276 (10.30%) Full-Stack Development
7 259 (9.66%) .NET
8 255 (9.51%) AWS
9 246 (9.18%) Java
10 242 (9.03%) Security Cleared
11 197 (7.35%) Degree
12 194 (7.24%) C
12 194 (7.24%) CI/CD
13 186 (6.94%) JavaScript
14 180 (6.72%) DevOps
15 165 (6.16%) TypeScript
16 163 (6.08%) Azure
17 153 (5.71%) React
18 146 (5.45%) Linux
18 146 (5.45%) SC Cleared
19 143 (5.34%) SQL
20 135 (5.04%) Continuous Improvement
21 130 (4.85%) SaaS
22 126 (4.70%) AI
23 124 (4.63%) Problem-Solving
24 122 (4.55%) Firmware
25 121 (4.51%) Mentoring
26 118 (4.40%) Microservices
27 110 (4.10%) SDLC
28 109 (4.07%) Computer Science

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 11 (0.41%) Apache
2 7 (0.26%) Apache Spark
3 6 (0.22%) CMS
3 6 (0.22%) FactoryTalk
4 5 (0.19%) Confluence
5 4 (0.15%) Apache Solr
5 4 (0.15%) GeoServer
6 2 (0.075%) WinCC
6 2 (0.075%) WordPress
7 1 (0.037%) ArchestrA
7 1 (0.037%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.037%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.037%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (0.15%) EngageOne
2 3 (0.11%) CANalyzer
3 2 (0.075%) AutoCAD
3 2 (0.075%) EPLAN
3 2 (0.075%) Simulink
4 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (0.37%) Magento
2 2 (0.075%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 255 (9.51%) AWS
2 163 (6.08%) Azure
3 130 (4.85%) SaaS
4 49 (1.83%) Serverless
5 48 (1.79%) GCP
6 23 (0.86%) GitHub
7 21 (0.78%) Azure AKS
8 19 (0.71%) AWS Lambda
9 15 (0.56%) Amazon EKS
9 15 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
10 12 (0.45%) Amazon S3
11 9 (0.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (0.30%) Anthropic Claude
12 8 (0.30%) Stripe
13 7 (0.26%) OpenShift
14 6 (0.22%) Azure Functions
15 5 (0.19%) Figma
16 4 (0.15%) Amazon OpenSearch
16 4 (0.15%) Apigee
16 4 (0.15%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 40 (1.49%) Wireless
2 30 (1.12%) Ethernet
3 20 (0.75%) RS-232
4 14 (0.52%) Bluetooth
4 14 (0.52%) Modbus
5 8 (0.30%) Network Security
6 7 (0.26%) Broadband
6 7 (0.26%) Profibus
7 6 (0.22%) HTTP
8 5 (0.19%) AMQP
8 5 (0.19%) LTE
8 5 (0.19%) TCP/IP
8 5 (0.19%) ZigBee
9 4 (0.15%) DNS
9 4 (0.15%) RS-485
9 4 (0.15%) SMTP
9 4 (0.15%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
11 2 (0.075%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.075%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (2.01%) SQL Server
2 47 (1.75%) NoSQL
3 39 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
4 28 (1.04%) MongoDB
5 24 (0.90%) MySQL
6 23 (0.86%) Elasticsearch
7 12 (0.45%) Big Data
8 11 (0.41%) Neo4j
9 10 (0.37%) Relational Database
10 8 (0.30%) DynamoDB
11 7 (0.26%) Hadoop
11 7 (0.26%) Redis
12 6 (0.22%) Geospatial Data
13 5 (0.19%) Cloudera CDH
13 5 (0.19%) FileMaker
14 4 (0.15%) DocumentDB
14 4 (0.15%) GIS
14 4 (0.15%) QGIS
15 2 (0.075%) InfluxDB
15 2 (0.075%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 84 (3.13%) Git
2 26 (0.97%) GitLab
3 20 (0.75%) Visual Studio Code
4 16 (0.60%) Jenkins
5 13 (0.49%) Claude Code
5 13 (0.49%) JIRA
6 11 (0.41%) JUnit
7 8 (0.30%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.26%) Moq
8 7 (0.26%) Subversion
9 6 (0.22%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.19%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.19%) Eclipse
10 5 (0.19%) Selenium
10 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
11 4 (0.15%) Gradle
11 4 (0.15%) Maven
11 4 (0.15%) Postman
12 3 (0.11%) LabVIEW
12 3 (0.11%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 123 (4.59%) Manufacturing
2 111 (4.14%) Social Skills
3 109 (4.07%) Electronics
4 70 (2.61%) Aerospace
5 68 (2.54%) Automotive
6 62 (2.31%) Finance
7 40 (1.49%) Analytical Skills
7 40 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
7 40 (1.49%) Public Sector
8 20 (0.75%) Games
8 20 (0.75%) Retail
9 19 (0.71%) Aviation
10 16 (0.60%) Tech for Good
11 13 (0.49%) Military
12 12 (0.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 9 (0.34%) Health Technology
14 7 (0.26%) Advertising
14 7 (0.26%) Aeronautics
14 7 (0.26%) Telecoms
15 6 (0.22%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 259 (9.66%) .NET
2 153 (5.71%) React
3 84 (3.13%) Node.js
4 69 (2.57%) AngularJS
5 65 (2.43%) REST
5 65 (2.43%) Vue
6 48 (1.79%) RESTful
7 45 (1.68%) .NET Core
8 43 (1.60%) Spring
9 40 (1.49%) HTML
10 39 (1.46%) .NET Framework
11 37 (1.38%) Spring Boot
12 33 (1.23%) CSS
13 26 (0.97%) Web Services
14 25 (0.93%) WPF
15 23 (0.86%) Django
16 20 (0.75%) Entity Framework
16 20 (0.75%) Qt
17 18 (0.67%) ASP.NET
18 14 (0.52%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 109 (4.07%) Cloud Native
2 80 (2.99%) Embedded Systems
3 59 (2.20%) Algorithms
4 51 (1.90%) IoT
5 45 (1.68%) Product Ownership
6 43 (1.60%) Robotics
7 35 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
8 19 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
8 19 (0.71%) Smart Energy
9 18 (0.67%) Device Driver
10 17 (0.63%) Client/Server
10 17 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (0.60%) Hedge funds
12 15 (0.56%) CAN bus
12 15 (0.56%) Distributed Computing
12 15 (0.56%) Mobile App
13 14 (0.52%) e-Learning
13 14 (0.52%) Industry 4.0
14 12 (0.45%) Driving Licence
14 12 (0.45%) Educational Technology
Operating Systems
1 146 (5.45%) Linux
2 37 (1.38%) Embedded Linux
3 34 (1.27%) Android
4 22 (0.82%) Windows
5 19 (0.71%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (0.19%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.19%) CentOS
6 5 (0.19%) Debian
6 5 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.19%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.11%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.075%) SafeRTOS
8 2 (0.075%) VxWorks
8 2 (0.075%) zOS
9 1 (0.037%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.037%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.037%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,650 (98.88%) Software Engineering
2 301 (11.23%) Agile
3 276 (10.30%) Full-Stack Development
4 194 (7.24%) CI/CD
5 180 (6.72%) DevOps
6 135 (5.04%) Continuous Improvement
7 126 (4.70%) AI
8 124 (4.63%) Problem-Solving
9 121 (4.51%) Mentoring
10 118 (4.40%) Microservices
11 110 (4.10%) SDLC
12 109 (4.07%) Computer Science
13 107 (3.99%) Test Automation
14 99 (3.69%) Scrum
15 86 (3.21%) Containerisation
16 85 (3.17%) TDD
17 73 (2.72%) Embedded Software Development
17 73 (2.72%) Software Testing
18 63 (2.35%) Technical Leadership
19 56 (2.09%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 389 (14.51%) C++
2 347 (12.95%) C#
3 318 (11.87%) Python
4 246 (9.18%) Java
5 194 (7.24%) C
6 186 (6.94%) JavaScript
7 165 (6.16%) TypeScript
8 143 (5.34%) SQL
9 60 (2.24%) Rust
10 49 (1.83%) Embedded C
11 46 (1.72%) PHP
12 24 (0.90%) Go
13 21 (0.78%) Kotlin
14 17 (0.63%) COBOL
15 16 (0.60%) Embedded C++
16 13 (0.49%) Ada
17 11 (0.41%) Bash
17 11 (0.41%) PL/SQL
17 11 (0.41%) Ruby
18 8 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 242 (9.03%) Security Cleared
2 197 (7.35%) Degree
3 146 (5.45%) SC Cleared
4 86 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 74 (2.76%) DV Cleared
6 31 (1.16%) Master's Degree
7 15 (0.56%) DBS Check
8 14 (0.52%) PhD
9 9 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.26%) Chartered Engineer
10 7 (0.26%) HND
11 6 (0.22%) HNC
12 5 (0.19%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.075%) NVQ Level 3
14 2 (0.075%) PMI Certification
15 1 (0.037%) AWS Certification
15 1 (0.037%) CEH
15 1 (0.037%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 1 (0.037%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (2.16%) QA
2 17 (0.63%) IEC 61508
3 16 (0.60%) MISRA
3 16 (0.60%) MISRA C
4 14 (0.52%) Accessibility
5 7 (0.26%) IEC 61131
6 6 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 12207
7 4 (0.15%) GDPR
7 4 (0.15%) ISO 9001
8 3 (0.11%) DO-178B
9 2 (0.075%) ECSS
10 1 (0.037%) DO-254
10 1 (0.037%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.037%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.037%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.037%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 122 (4.55%) Firmware
2 94 (3.51%) Docker
3 37 (1.38%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.49%) Hyper-V
4 13 (0.49%) KVM
4 13 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.11%) QEMU
7 2 (0.075%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 90 (3.36%) Kubernetes
2 54 (2.01%) Terraform
3 13 (0.49%) Functional Safety
4 12 (0.45%) Ansible
5 6 (0.22%) Grafana
6 5 (0.19%) Kibana
6 5 (0.19%) Puppet
7 4 (0.15%) logstash
8 3 (0.11%) SCCM
8 3 (0.11%) SCOM
8 3 (0.11%) SCOrch
9 2 (0.075%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.075%) Packer
9 2 (0.075%) Plesk
9 2 (0.075%) Podman
9 2 (0.075%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 21 (0.78%) Oracle
1 21 (0.78%) Siemens
2 20 (0.75%) Microsoft
3 16 (0.60%) Rockwell
4 15 (0.56%) Google
4 15 (0.56%) VMware
5 13 (0.49%) Adobe
6 8 (0.30%) Allen-Bradley
6 8 (0.30%) HubSpot
7 6 (0.22%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.19%) Red Hat
8 5 (0.19%) SaltStack
9 4 (0.15%) Atlassian
9 4 (0.15%) Atmel
9 4 (0.15%) Xamarin
10 3 (0.11%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.11%) Peregrine
10 3 (0.11%) Typelevel
10 3 (0.11%) Wonderware
11 2 (0.075%) Databricks