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 14 August 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 53 13
Rank change year-on-year +30 -40 +63
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,832 1,512 5,214
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.96% 4.35% 8.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.25% 4.86% 9.19%
Number of salaries quoted 3,004 648 2,871
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 £90,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £78,810 £60,000
% change year-on-year -11.18% +31.35% -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 72,986 31,093 56,756
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.44% 89.49% 95.00%
Number of salaries quoted 50,398 17,818 37,366
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £39,000 £32,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £48,122 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.10% -3.76% -6.54%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £56,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +1.82% - -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 14 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 14 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
South East +78 994 £65,000 - 262
North of England +19 981 £65,000 -7.14% 271
South West +32 718 £65,000 - 220
North West +10 546 £70,000 -6.67% 182
East of England +87 476 £70,000 +27.27% 242
Midlands +54 390 £62,500 -3.85% 117
Yorkshire +77 265 £60,000 -12.41% 46
East Midlands +34 202 £55,000 -21.43% 60
West Midlands +38 188 £65,000 +4.00% 57
North East +16 170 £70,000 +24.44% 43
Scotland -13 150 £67,500 +3.85% 192
Wales +2 110 £55,000 -17.29% 30
Northern Ireland -54 14 £90,000 +80.00% 31
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 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 3,791 (98.93%) Software Engineering
2 637 (16.62%) C++
3 586 (15.29%) C#
4 511 (13.34%) Python
5 476 (12.42%) Agile
6 397 (10.36%) AWS
7 387 (10.10%) Security Cleared
8 362 (9.45%) Full-Stack Development
9 352 (9.19%) CI/CD
10 341 (8.90%) AI
11 321 (8.38%) .NET
12 319 (8.32%) Java
13 299 (7.80%) Degree
14 287 (7.49%) Azure
15 274 (7.15%) Linux
16 269 (7.02%) JavaScript
17 263 (6.86%) C
18 255 (6.65%) Mentoring
19 248 (6.47%) SC Cleared
20 240 (6.26%) TypeScript
21 239 (6.24%) DevOps
22 213 (5.56%) React
23 212 (5.53%) Problem-Solving
24 200 (5.22%) SDLC
25 199 (5.19%) Test Automation
26 196 (5.11%) Microservices
27 188 (4.91%) SQL
28 182 (4.75%) Computer Science
28 182 (4.75%) Docker
29 176 (4.59%) 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 (0.63%) Apache
2 15 (0.39%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.23%) Confluence
4 8 (0.21%) FactoryTalk
5 7 (0.18%) WinCC
6 6 (0.16%) Apache Spark
7 5 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.10%) Apache Solr
9 3 (0.078%) CMS
9 3 (0.078%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.052%) ArchestrA
10 2 (0.052%) Headless CMS
10 2 (0.052%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.052%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.052%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.052%) WordPress
11 1 (0.026%) Cloud Foundry
11 1 (0.026%) OpenStack
11 1 (0.026%) Umbraco
Applications
1 13 (0.34%) Lightworks
2 7 (0.18%) 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 (0.078%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.052%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.026%) EngageOne
6 1 (0.026%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.026%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.026%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.16%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.026%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 397 (10.36%) AWS
2 287 (7.49%) Azure
3 150 (3.91%) SaaS
4 110 (2.87%) GCP
5 72 (1.88%) Serverless
6 50 (1.30%) GitHub
7 38 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (0.89%) Firebase
9 32 (0.84%) Anthropic Claude
10 27 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
11 17 (0.44%) AWS CloudFormation
11 17 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
12 16 (0.42%) Amazon S3
12 16 (0.42%) Cloud Run
13 15 (0.39%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (0.31%) OpenShift
15 11 (0.29%) Slack
16 9 (0.23%) AWS Step Functions
16 9 (0.23%) Azure AKS
16 9 (0.23%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 58 (1.51%) Wireless
2 37 (0.97%) Ethernet
3 28 (0.73%) Bluetooth
4 24 (0.63%) Modbus
5 22 (0.57%) RS-232
6 20 (0.52%) MQTT
6 20 (0.52%) TCP/IP
7 17 (0.44%) Wi-Fi
7 17 (0.44%) ZigBee
8 15 (0.39%) Profibus
9 12 (0.31%) RS-485
10 10 (0.26%) ATM
10 10 (0.26%) LTE
11 7 (0.18%) Network Security
12 6 (0.16%) Wireshark
13 5 (0.13%) AMQP
14 4 (0.10%) Broadband
14 4 (0.10%) Software-Defined Radio
15 3 (0.078%) Firewall
15 3 (0.078%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
2 64 (1.67%) SQL Server
3 57 (1.49%) MongoDB
4 47 (1.23%) NoSQL
5 39 (1.02%) MySQL
6 28 (0.73%) Relational Database
7 18 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
7 18 (0.47%) Redis
8 16 (0.42%) Pinecone
9 15 (0.39%) DynamoDB
10 14 (0.37%) 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 (0.078%) GIS
14 3 (0.078%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 140 (3.65%) Git
2 50 (1.30%) GitLab
3 36 (0.94%) JIRA
4 33 (0.86%) Jenkins
5 20 (0.52%) Claude Code
5 20 (0.52%) Visual Studio Code
6 14 (0.37%) Visual Studio
7 11 (0.29%) Cucumber
8 9 (0.23%) JUnit
8 9 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 8 (0.21%) GDB
10 7 (0.18%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.18%) LabVIEW
10 7 (0.18%) Moq
11 6 (0.16%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.16%) CMake
11 6 (0.16%) Yeoman
12 5 (0.13%) Mockito
12 5 (0.13%) Postman
12 5 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
General
1 227 (5.92%) Manufacturing
2 198 (5.17%) Electronics
3 185 (4.83%) Social Skills
4 138 (3.60%) Finance
5 119 (3.11%) Aerospace
6 91 (2.37%) Public Sector
7 86 (2.24%) Automotive
8 56 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 49 (1.28%) Analytical Skills
10 47 (1.23%) Aviation
11 38 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
12 36 (0.94%) Retail
13 25 (0.65%) Law
14 24 (0.63%) Games
14 24 (0.63%) Military
15 18 (0.47%) Telecoms
16 16 (0.42%) Marketing
17 15 (0.39%) Organisational Skills
18 12 (0.31%) Tech for Good
19 9 (0.23%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 321 (8.38%) .NET
2 213 (5.56%) React
3 118 (3.08%) Node.js
4 102 (2.66%) Vue
5 75 (1.96%) AngularJS
5 75 (1.96%) WPF
6 69 (1.80%) CSS
7 65 (1.70%) Spring
8 64 (1.67%) REST
9 59 (1.54%) Spring Boot
10 57 (1.49%) HTML
11 55 (1.44%) RESTful
12 38 (0.99%) .NET Core
12 38 (0.99%) Django
13 37 (0.97%) Next.js
14 32 (0.84%) .NET Framework
15 26 (0.68%) Yocto
16 24 (0.63%) ASP.NET
16 24 (0.63%) React Native
17 22 (0.57%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 168 (4.38%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.37%) Embedded Systems
3 102 (2.66%) Robotics
4 101 (2.64%) Algorithms
5 84 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
6 71 (1.85%) Product Ownership
7 65 (1.70%) AI Agents
8 63 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
9 57 (1.49%) IoT
10 46 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
11 31 (0.81%) Mobile App
12 29 (0.76%) Public Cloud
13 28 (0.73%) Device Driver
14 26 (0.68%) Data Structures
15 21 (0.55%) ARM Cortex
15 21 (0.55%) Cyber Threat
16 19 (0.50%) Distributed Computing
17 18 (0.47%) Educational Technology
17 18 (0.47%) Hedge funds
18 17 (0.44%) Client/Server
Operating Systems
1 274 (7.15%) Linux
2 60 (1.57%) Windows
3 53 (1.38%) Embedded Linux
4 31 (0.81%) FreeRTOS
5 29 (0.76%) Android
6 10 (0.26%) Debian
7 6 (0.16%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.16%) 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 (0.078%) Gentoo
10 2 (0.052%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.052%) SafeRTOS
10 2 (0.052%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.052%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.052%) zOS
11 1 (0.026%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,791 (98.93%) Software Engineering
2 476 (12.42%) Agile
3 362 (9.45%) Full-Stack Development
4 352 (9.19%) CI/CD
5 341 (8.90%) AI
6 255 (6.65%) Mentoring
7 239 (6.24%) DevOps
8 212 (5.53%) Problem-Solving
9 200 (5.22%) SDLC
10 199 (5.19%) Test Automation
11 196 (5.11%) Microservices
12 182 (4.75%) Computer Science
13 176 (4.59%) Continuous Improvement
14 135 (3.52%) Containerisation
15 129 (3.37%) Software Architecture
16 119 (3.11%) Code Quality
17 115 (3.00%) Software Testing
18 112 (2.92%) Technical Leadership
19 106 (2.77%) TDD
20 99 (2.58%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 637 (16.62%) C++
2 586 (15.29%) C#
3 511 (13.34%) Python
4 319 (8.32%) Java
5 269 (7.02%) JavaScript
6 263 (6.86%) C
7 240 (6.26%) TypeScript
8 188 (4.91%) SQL
9 132 (3.44%) Rust
10 64 (1.67%) Go
11 59 (1.54%) PHP
12 49 (1.28%) Embedded C
13 31 (0.81%) Ruby
14 27 (0.70%) Embedded C++
15 21 (0.55%) Ada
16 18 (0.47%) Kotlin
17 17 (0.44%) Bash
17 17 (0.44%) COBOL
18 15 (0.39%) MATLAB
19 14 (0.37%) Scala
Qualifications
1 387 (10.10%) Security Cleared
2 299 (7.80%) Degree
3 248 (6.47%) SC Cleared
4 172 (4.49%) DV Cleared
5 132 (3.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 56 (1.46%) Master's Degree
7 32 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (0.68%) PhD
9 9 (0.23%) DBS Check
9 9 (0.23%) HND
10 8 (0.21%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.16%) 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 (0.078%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.052%) Numerate Degree
15 2 (0.052%) NVQ Level 3
16 1 (0.026%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (1.91%) QA
2 48 (1.25%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.26%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.21%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.21%) MISRA
4 8 (0.21%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.16%) JTAG
6 5 (0.13%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.10%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.078%) ECSS
8 3 (0.078%) GAMP
8 3 (0.078%) GDPR
8 3 (0.078%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.078%) MIL-STD-1553
8 3 (0.078%) WCAG
9 2 (0.052%) Automotive SPICE
9 2 (0.052%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.052%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.026%) DO-254
10 1 (0.026%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 182 (4.75%) Docker
2 165 (4.31%) Firmware
3 51 (1.33%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.21%) KVM
5 8 (0.21%) VMware Infrastructure
6 7 (0.18%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.18%) QEMU
7 2 (0.052%) Active Directory
7 2 (0.052%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 139 (3.63%) Kubernetes
2 92 (2.40%) Terraform
3 38 (0.99%) Ansible
4 11 (0.29%) Grafana
5 7 (0.18%) Kibana
5 7 (0.18%) logstash
5 7 (0.18%) Podman
5 7 (0.18%) Puppet
6 5 (0.13%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.078%) Plesk
7 3 (0.078%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.078%) SCCM
7 3 (0.078%) SCOM
7 3 (0.078%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.052%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 35 (0.91%) Siemens
2 33 (0.86%) Microsoft
3 21 (0.55%) Google
4 19 (0.50%) Rockwell
5 18 (0.47%) Oracle
6 14 (0.37%) Okta
6 14 (0.37%) Ping Identity
6 14 (0.37%) Salesforce
7 11 (0.29%) OpenAI
8 10 (0.26%) Allen-Bradley
8 10 (0.26%) Splunk
8 10 (0.26%) VMware
9 7 (0.18%) Atlassian
9 7 (0.18%) Databricks
10 6 (0.16%) Intel
11 5 (0.13%) IBM
11 5 (0.13%) Red Hat
11 5 (0.13%) SaltStack
11 5 (0.13%) Xamarin
12 4 (0.10%) ForgeRock