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 August 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 52 14
Rank change year-on-year +27 -38 +63
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,667 1,553 5,166
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.89% 4.52% 8.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.16% 5.04% 9.08%
Number of salaries quoted 2,906 691 2,901
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £38,750
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 £80,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% +33.33% -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 71,020 30,795 56,896
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.71% 89.61% 94.89%
Number of salaries quoted 49,062 17,779 38,279
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £28,119
25th Percentile £38,250 £32,750 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - - -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 2 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 2 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 +72 982 £65,000 - 171
North of England +23 958 £65,000 -7.14% 148
South West +26 658 £65,000 - 153
North West +5 537 £70,000 -6.67% 88
East of England +74 443 £70,000 +12.00% 120
Midlands +50 363 £60,000 -7.69% 74
Yorkshire +74 260 £60,000 -12.41% 31
East Midlands +23 182 £54,500 -22.14% 42
West Midlands +31 181 £67,500 +8.00% 32
North East +14 161 £70,000 +27.27% 29
Scotland -13 146 £67,500 +3.85% 41
Wales -1 104 £51,619 -24.09% 25
Northern Ireland -60 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 2 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 3,626 (98.88%) Software Engineering
2 627 (17.10%) C++
3 569 (15.52%) C#
4 491 (13.39%) Python
5 449 (12.24%) Agile
6 397 (10.83%) AWS
7 362 (9.87%) Full-Stack Development
8 356 (9.71%) Security Cleared
9 342 (9.33%) CI/CD
10 323 (8.81%) .NET
11 317 (8.64%) AI
12 312 (8.51%) Java
13 298 (8.13%) Degree
14 286 (7.80%) Azure
15 264 (7.20%) C
16 262 (7.14%) JavaScript
17 255 (6.95%) Linux
18 247 (6.74%) Mentoring
19 242 (6.60%) DevOps
20 229 (6.24%) TypeScript
21 226 (6.16%) SC Cleared
22 207 (5.64%) Problem-Solving
23 202 (5.51%) React
24 199 (5.43%) Microservices
25 197 (5.37%) Test Automation
26 196 (5.34%) SQL
27 194 (5.29%) SDLC
28 182 (4.96%) Docker
29 180 (4.91%) Computer Science
30 174 (4.75%) 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 20 (0.55%) Apache
2 15 (0.41%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.22%) Confluence
3 8 (0.22%) FactoryTalk
4 6 (0.16%) WinCC
5 4 (0.11%) Apache Solr
5 4 (0.11%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.11%) GeoServer
6 3 (0.082%) CMS
7 2 (0.055%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.055%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.055%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.055%) WordPress
8 1 (0.027%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.027%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.027%) Umbraco
Applications
1 12 (0.33%) Lightworks
2 5 (0.14%) Simulink
3 4 (0.11%) EPLAN
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.082%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.055%) AutoCAD
5 2 (0.055%) EngageOne
6 1 (0.027%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.027%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.027%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.055%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.027%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 397 (10.83%) AWS
2 286 (7.80%) Azure
3 153 (4.17%) SaaS
4 107 (2.92%) GCP
5 69 (1.88%) Serverless
6 47 (1.28%) GitHub
7 40 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (0.93%) Firebase
9 32 (0.87%) Anthropic Claude
10 22 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (0.44%) Amazon S3
11 16 (0.44%) Cloud Run
11 16 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (0.35%) Amazon EKS
12 13 (0.35%) AWS CloudFormation
12 13 (0.35%) Azure AKS
13 9 (0.25%) Azure Functions
13 9 (0.25%) OpenShift
14 8 (0.22%) AWS Step Functions
14 8 (0.22%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 58 (1.58%) Wireless
2 36 (0.98%) Ethernet
3 26 (0.71%) Bluetooth
4 23 (0.63%) RS-232
5 22 (0.60%) Modbus
6 19 (0.52%) MQTT
7 18 (0.49%) TCP/IP
8 17 (0.46%) ZigBee
9 15 (0.41%) Profibus
9 15 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (0.33%) RS-485
11 10 (0.27%) ATM
12 8 (0.22%) LTE
12 8 (0.22%) Network Security
13 6 (0.16%) Wireshark
14 5 (0.14%) Broadband
15 4 (0.11%) AMQP
15 4 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
16 3 (0.082%) Software-Defined Networking
17 2 (0.055%) LoRaWAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
2 67 (1.83%) SQL Server
3 64 (1.75%) MongoDB
4 56 (1.53%) NoSQL
5 49 (1.34%) MySQL
6 23 (0.63%) Relational Database
7 16 (0.44%) Pinecone
8 15 (0.41%) Redis
9 14 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
10 13 (0.35%) Big Data
11 12 (0.33%) DynamoDB
12 7 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.16%) Hadoop
14 5 (0.14%) FileMaker
14 5 (0.14%) Neo4j
15 4 (0.11%) Cloudera CDH
15 4 (0.11%) Geospatial Data
15 4 (0.11%) GIS
15 4 (0.11%) MariaDB
15 4 (0.11%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 134 (3.65%) Git
2 50 (1.36%) GitLab
3 34 (0.93%) JIRA
4 33 (0.90%) Jenkins
5 21 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
6 20 (0.55%) Claude Code
7 14 (0.38%) Visual Studio
8 11 (0.30%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.25%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.22%) GDB
11 7 (0.19%) JUnit
11 7 (0.19%) LabVIEW
11 7 (0.19%) Moq
12 6 (0.16%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.16%) CMake
12 6 (0.16%) Yeoman
13 5 (0.14%) Postman
14 4 (0.11%) Eclipse
14 4 (0.11%) Rational Rhapsody
14 4 (0.11%) Robot Framework
General
1 223 (6.08%) Manufacturing
2 191 (5.21%) Electronics
3 177 (4.83%) Social Skills
4 115 (3.14%) Finance
5 101 (2.75%) Aerospace
6 86 (2.35%) Public Sector
7 82 (2.24%) Automotive
8 47 (1.28%) Analytical Skills
9 39 (1.06%) Aviation
10 38 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
11 37 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 31 (0.85%) Retail
13 21 (0.57%) Military
14 19 (0.52%) Games
14 19 (0.52%) Telecoms
15 17 (0.46%) Law
16 15 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
17 11 (0.30%) Marketing
17 11 (0.30%) Tech for Good
18 9 (0.25%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 323 (8.81%) .NET
2 202 (5.51%) React
3 116 (3.16%) Node.js
4 103 (2.81%) Vue
5 74 (2.02%) AngularJS
5 74 (2.02%) WPF
6 67 (1.83%) CSS
7 62 (1.69%) REST
7 62 (1.69%) RESTful
8 60 (1.64%) Spring
9 59 (1.61%) HTML
10 55 (1.50%) Spring Boot
11 39 (1.06%) Django
12 38 (1.04%) .NET Core
13 37 (1.01%) Next.js
14 35 (0.95%) .NET Framework
15 27 (0.74%) Yocto
16 24 (0.65%) ASP.NET
17 22 (0.60%) React Native
17 22 (0.60%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 167 (4.55%) Cloud Native
2 123 (3.35%) Embedded Systems
3 93 (2.54%) Algorithms
4 92 (2.51%) Robotics
5 80 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.85%) Product Ownership
7 64 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
8 61 (1.66%) AI Agents
9 56 (1.53%) IoT
10 47 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
11 31 (0.85%) Mobile App
12 29 (0.79%) Device Driver
13 22 (0.60%) Public Cloud
14 21 (0.57%) Client/Server
14 21 (0.57%) Data Structures
15 20 (0.55%) ARM Cortex
15 20 (0.55%) Cyber Threat
16 19 (0.52%) Hedge funds
17 18 (0.49%) Distributed Computing
17 18 (0.49%) Educational Technology
Operating Systems
1 255 (6.95%) Linux
2 55 (1.50%) Windows
3 51 (1.39%) Embedded Linux
4 31 (0.85%) FreeRTOS
5 28 (0.76%) Android
6 9 (0.25%) Debian
7 6 (0.16%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.14%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.14%) Windows Server
9 4 (0.11%) CentOS
9 4 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.082%) Gentoo
10 3 (0.082%) Unix
10 3 (0.082%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.055%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.055%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.055%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.055%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.055%) zOS
12 1 (0.027%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,626 (98.88%) Software Engineering
2 449 (12.24%) Agile
3 362 (9.87%) Full-Stack Development
4 342 (9.33%) CI/CD
5 317 (8.64%) AI
6 247 (6.74%) Mentoring
7 242 (6.60%) DevOps
8 207 (5.64%) Problem-Solving
9 199 (5.43%) Microservices
10 197 (5.37%) Test Automation
11 194 (5.29%) SDLC
12 180 (4.91%) Computer Science
13 174 (4.75%) Continuous Improvement
14 132 (3.60%) Containerisation
15 129 (3.52%) Software Architecture
16 115 (3.14%) Software Testing
17 112 (3.05%) TDD
18 111 (3.03%) Code Quality
19 100 (2.73%) Scrum
20 99 (2.70%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 627 (17.10%) C++
2 569 (15.52%) C#
3 491 (13.39%) Python
4 312 (8.51%) Java
5 264 (7.20%) C
6 262 (7.14%) JavaScript
7 229 (6.24%) TypeScript
8 196 (5.34%) SQL
9 129 (3.52%) Rust
10 62 (1.69%) Go
11 60 (1.64%) PHP
12 50 (1.36%) Embedded C
13 28 (0.76%) Ruby
14 27 (0.74%) Embedded C++
15 19 (0.52%) Bash
16 18 (0.49%) Kotlin
17 17 (0.46%) COBOL
18 16 (0.44%) Ada
19 15 (0.41%) Scala
20 13 (0.35%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 356 (9.71%) Security Cleared
2 298 (8.13%) Degree
3 226 (6.16%) SC Cleared
4 152 (4.15%) DV Cleared
5 134 (3.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 54 (1.47%) Master's Degree
7 25 (0.68%) PhD
8 22 (0.60%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (0.27%) HND
10 9 (0.25%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.22%) Azure Certification
12 6 (0.16%) HNC
13 5 (0.14%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.14%) CEH
13 5 (0.14%) OSCP
14 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
15 3 (0.082%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 2 (0.055%) Numerate Degree
16 2 (0.055%) NVQ Level 3
17 1 (0.027%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (2.05%) QA
2 35 (0.95%) Accessibility
3 9 (0.25%) IEC 61131
4 7 (0.19%) IEC 61508
4 7 (0.19%) MISRA
4 7 (0.19%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.16%) JTAG
6 5 (0.14%) DO-178B
7 3 (0.082%) ECSS
7 3 (0.082%) GAMP
7 3 (0.082%) GDPR
8 2 (0.055%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.055%) ISO 26262
8 2 (0.055%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.055%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.027%) DO-254
9 1 (0.027%) HAZOP
9 1 (0.027%) IEC 62304
9 1 (0.027%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.027%) WCAG
System Software
1 182 (4.96%) Docker
2 158 (4.31%) Firmware
3 52 (1.42%) Embedded Firmware
4 11 (0.30%) KVM
4 11 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.27%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.16%) QEMU
8 2 (0.055%) Active Directory
8 2 (0.055%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 138 (3.76%) Kubernetes
2 85 (2.32%) Terraform
3 33 (0.90%) Ansible
4 9 (0.25%) Grafana
5 8 (0.22%) Podman
6 7 (0.19%) Kibana
6 7 (0.19%) logstash
7 6 (0.16%) Puppet
8 4 (0.11%) Functional Safety
9 3 (0.082%) Plesk
9 3 (0.082%) SCCM
9 3 (0.082%) SCOM
9 3 (0.082%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.055%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.055%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.027%) Packer
11 1 (0.027%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 32 (0.87%) Microsoft
2 31 (0.85%) Siemens
3 19 (0.52%) Google
3 19 (0.52%) Rockwell
4 13 (0.35%) Okta
4 13 (0.35%) Oracle
4 13 (0.35%) Ping Identity
4 13 (0.35%) VMware
5 12 (0.33%) Salesforce
6 10 (0.27%) Allen-Bradley
7 9 (0.25%) OpenAI
8 7 (0.19%) Atlassian
8 7 (0.19%) Splunk
9 6 (0.16%) Intel
10 5 (0.14%) Xamarin
11 4 (0.11%) ForgeRock
11 4 (0.11%) Peregrine
11 4 (0.11%) Red Hat
11 4 (0.11%) SaltStack
12 3 (0.082%) IBM