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 £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 September 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 63 16
Rank change year-on-year +40 -47 +51
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,334 1,340 4,374
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.09% 3.90% 7.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.46% 4.36% 8.28%
Number of salaries quoted 3,436 509 2,428
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £55,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +17.12% -7.50%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £69,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £63,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +25.98% -5.97%

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 79,445 30,717 52,808
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.34% 89.30% 95.21%
Number of salaries quoted 55,076 17,484 30,834
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,620
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 £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +6.36% - -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 19 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 19 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 +23 1,061 £70,000 - 361
South East +95 1,026 £65,000 -7.14% 332
South West +43 876 £68,000 +4.62% 296
North West +14 597 £71,250 -5.00% 230
East of England +116 574 £70,000 +7.69% 324
Midlands +64 448 £65,000 +1.96% 174
Yorkshire +76 264 £60,000 -4.00% 84
East Midlands +38 248 £55,000 -18.52% 93
West Midlands +42 200 £68,403 +11.68% 81
North East +19 200 £70,000 +23.89% 47
Scotland -3 197 £80,000 +24.03% 278
Wales +18 139 £60,000 +9.09% 23
Northern Ireland - 14 £90,000 - 55
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 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 4,298 (99.17%) Software Engineering
2 673 (15.53%) C++
3 616 (14.21%) C#
4 541 (12.48%) Python
5 533 (12.30%) Agile
6 417 (9.62%) Security Cleared
7 413 (9.53%) AWS
8 409 (9.44%) AI
9 371 (8.56%) CI/CD
10 370 (8.54%) Full-Stack Development
11 352 (8.12%) Java
12 310 (7.15%) .NET
13 299 (6.90%) Linux
14 285 (6.58%) Degree
15 278 (6.41%) Azure
16 267 (6.16%) SC Cleared
17 266 (6.14%) JavaScript
18 260 (6.00%) C
19 259 (5.98%) TypeScript
20 249 (5.75%) Mentoring
21 237 (5.47%) DevOps
22 229 (5.28%) Problem-Solving
23 222 (5.12%) React
24 206 (4.75%) SDLC
25 193 (4.45%) Microservices
26 190 (4.38%) Test Automation
27 181 (4.18%) Continuous Improvement
27 181 (4.18%) DV Cleared
28 179 (4.13%) Docker
29 178 (4.11%) SQL

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 29 (0.67%) Apache
2 15 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.18%) Apache Spark
3 8 (0.18%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.16%) Confluence
4 7 (0.16%) WinCC
5 5 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.069%) Apache Solr
6 3 (0.069%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.069%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.069%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.046%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.046%) CMS
7 2 (0.046%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.046%) WordPress
8 1 (0.023%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.023%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.023%) OpenStack
Applications
1 18 (0.42%) Lightworks
2 12 (0.28%) Simulink
3 4 (0.092%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.092%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.092%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.046%) CANalyzer
4 2 (0.046%) EPLAN
5 1 (0.023%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.023%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.023%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.046%) Visualfiles
3 1 (0.023%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 413 (9.53%) AWS
2 278 (6.41%) Azure
3 144 (3.32%) SaaS
4 109 (2.51%) GCP
5 72 (1.66%) Serverless
6 49 (1.13%) GitHub
7 38 (0.88%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (0.83%) Firebase
9 29 (0.67%) Anthropic Claude
9 29 (0.67%) AWS Lambda
10 20 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
10 20 (0.46%) GitHub Actions
11 19 (0.44%) Amazon EKS
12 17 (0.39%) Amazon S3
13 16 (0.37%) Cloud Run
14 14 (0.32%) OpenShift
15 12 (0.28%) GitHub Copilot
16 11 (0.25%) Slack
17 9 (0.21%) AWS Step Functions
17 9 (0.21%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 70 (1.62%) Wireless
2 38 (0.88%) Ethernet
3 31 (0.72%) Bluetooth
4 27 (0.62%) Modbus
5 25 (0.58%) TCP/IP
6 21 (0.48%) MQTT
6 21 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
7 17 (0.39%) RS-232
7 17 (0.39%) ZigBee
8 15 (0.35%) Profibus
9 12 (0.28%) 5G
9 12 (0.28%) LTE
9 12 (0.28%) RS-485
10 10 (0.23%) ATM
11 7 (0.16%) AMQP
11 7 (0.16%) Internet
11 7 (0.16%) Wireshark
12 4 (0.092%) Software-Defined Radio
13 3 (0.069%) Firewall
14 2 (0.046%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
2 59 (1.36%) SQL Server
3 51 (1.18%) MongoDB
4 46 (1.06%) NoSQL
5 41 (0.95%) MySQL
6 32 (0.74%) Relational Database
7 20 (0.46%) Redis
8 19 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.37%) Chroma
9 16 (0.37%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.37%) Pinecone
10 13 (0.30%) Big Data
11 9 (0.21%) Hadoop
12 7 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.16%) Cloudera CDH
13 4 (0.092%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (0.092%) Data Lake
13 4 (0.092%) FileMaker
13 4 (0.092%) MariaDB
14 3 (0.069%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 148 (3.41%) Git
2 54 (1.25%) GitLab
3 34 (0.78%) Jenkins
4 32 (0.74%) JIRA
5 20 (0.46%) Visual Studio Code
6 17 (0.39%) Claude Code
7 16 (0.37%) Cucumber
7 16 (0.37%) Visual Studio
8 11 (0.25%) SonarQube
9 10 (0.23%) JUnit
10 8 (0.18%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.16%) GDB
11 7 (0.16%) LabVIEW
11 7 (0.16%) Mockito
11 7 (0.16%) Moq
12 6 (0.14%) CMake
12 6 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
13 5 (0.12%) Eclipse
13 5 (0.12%) Subversion
13 5 (0.12%) Yeoman
General
1 226 (5.21%) Manufacturing
2 218 (5.03%) Electronics
3 197 (4.55%) Social Skills
4 161 (3.71%) Finance
5 126 (2.91%) Aerospace
6 107 (2.47%) Public Sector
7 84 (1.94%) Automotive
8 62 (1.43%) Aviation
9 56 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (1.18%) Analytical Skills
11 36 (0.83%) Retail
12 29 (0.67%) Law
13 28 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
14 26 (0.60%) Games
14 26 (0.60%) Military
15 18 (0.42%) Marketing
16 17 (0.39%) Tech for Good
17 16 (0.37%) Telecoms
18 15 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
19 13 (0.30%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 310 (7.15%) .NET
2 222 (5.12%) React
3 119 (2.75%) Node.js
4 101 (2.33%) Vue
5 94 (2.17%) Terraform
6 86 (1.98%) WPF
7 79 (1.82%) Spring
8 75 (1.73%) Spring Boot
9 73 (1.68%) CSS
10 71 (1.64%) AngularJS
11 56 (1.29%) REST
12 55 (1.27%) RESTful
13 54 (1.25%) HTML
14 38 (0.88%) Next.js
15 34 (0.78%) React Native
16 32 (0.74%) Django
17 30 (0.69%) .NET Core
18 28 (0.65%) .NET Framework
19 24 (0.55%) OAuth
19 24 (0.55%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 167 (3.85%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.07%) Embedded Systems
3 123 (2.84%) Robotics
4 106 (2.45%) Algorithms
5 84 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.57%) Product Ownership
7 66 (1.52%) AI Agents
8 64 (1.48%) Distributed Systems
9 57 (1.32%) IoT
10 48 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
11 40 (0.92%) Public Cloud
12 29 (0.67%) Cyber Threat
13 27 (0.62%) Mobile App
14 25 (0.58%) Data Structures
14 25 (0.58%) Device Driver
15 23 (0.53%) Distributed Computing
16 21 (0.48%) ARM Cortex
17 18 (0.42%) Educational Technology
18 17 (0.39%) NHS
19 15 (0.35%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 299 (6.90%) Linux
2 74 (1.71%) Windows
3 60 (1.38%) Embedded Linux
4 33 (0.76%) FreeRTOS
5 31 (0.72%) Android
6 12 (0.28%) Debian
7 9 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.21%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.18%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.16%) CentOS
9 7 (0.16%) VxWorks
10 5 (0.12%) Unix
10 5 (0.12%) Windows Server
11 3 (0.069%) Gentoo
12 2 (0.046%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.046%) SafeRTOS
12 2 (0.046%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.046%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.046%) zOS
13 1 (0.023%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,298 (99.17%) Software Engineering
2 533 (12.30%) Agile
3 409 (9.44%) AI
4 371 (8.56%) CI/CD
5 370 (8.54%) Full-Stack Development
6 249 (5.75%) Mentoring
7 237 (5.47%) DevOps
8 229 (5.28%) Problem-Solving
9 206 (4.75%) SDLC
10 193 (4.45%) Microservices
11 190 (4.38%) Test Automation
12 181 (4.18%) Continuous Improvement
13 175 (4.04%) Computer Science
14 140 (3.23%) Software Architecture
15 131 (3.02%) Code Quality
16 126 (2.91%) Technical Leadership
17 122 (2.81%) Containerisation
18 117 (2.70%) Software Testing
19 109 (2.51%) Machine Learning
20 99 (2.28%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 673 (15.53%) C++
2 616 (14.21%) C#
3 541 (12.48%) Python
4 352 (8.12%) Java
5 266 (6.14%) JavaScript
6 260 (6.00%) C
7 259 (5.98%) TypeScript
8 178 (4.11%) SQL
9 124 (2.86%) Rust
10 71 (1.64%) Go
11 58 (1.34%) PHP
12 44 (1.02%) Embedded C
13 30 (0.69%) Embedded C++
13 30 (0.69%) Ruby
14 26 (0.60%) Ada
15 21 (0.48%) MATLAB
16 20 (0.46%) Bash
17 17 (0.39%) COBOL
17 17 (0.39%) Kotlin
18 13 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 417 (9.62%) Security Cleared
2 285 (6.58%) Degree
3 267 (6.16%) SC Cleared
4 181 (4.18%) DV Cleared
5 125 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 53 (1.22%) Master's Degree
7 34 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
8 29 (0.67%) PhD
9 11 (0.25%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.18%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.14%) AWS Certification
11 6 (0.14%) HND
12 5 (0.12%) CEH
12 5 (0.12%) OSCP
13 4 (0.092%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.069%) HNC
14 3 (0.069%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.046%) Numerate Degree
16 1 (0.023%) ISTQB
16 1 (0.023%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (1.59%) QA
2 51 (1.18%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.23%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.18%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.18%) MISRA
4 8 (0.18%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.14%) JTAG
6 5 (0.12%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.092%) Data Quality
7 4 (0.092%) ECSS
7 4 (0.092%) ISO 26262
7 4 (0.092%) WCAG
8 3 (0.069%) Automotive SPICE
8 3 (0.069%) GAMP
8 3 (0.069%) MIL-STD-1553
9 2 (0.046%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.046%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.023%) DO-254
10 1 (0.023%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.023%) IEC 62304
System Software
1 179 (4.13%) Docker
2 170 (3.92%) Firmware
3 51 (1.18%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (0.16%) QEMU
5 5 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.069%) KVM
6 3 (0.069%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.046%) Active Directory
7 2 (0.046%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.046%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.023%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 143 (3.30%) Kubernetes
2 45 (1.04%) Ansible
3 15 (0.35%) Grafana
4 10 (0.23%) Podman
5 9 (0.21%) Puppet
6 8 (0.18%) Kibana
6 8 (0.18%) logstash
7 6 (0.14%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.092%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.069%) Plesk
9 3 (0.069%) SCCM
9 3 (0.069%) SCOM
9 3 (0.069%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.046%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.023%) Packer
11 1 (0.023%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 37 (0.85%) Siemens
2 36 (0.83%) Microsoft
3 22 (0.51%) Google
4 18 (0.42%) Salesforce
5 15 (0.35%) Rockwell
6 14 (0.32%) Okta
6 14 (0.32%) Ping Identity
7 13 (0.30%) Databricks
8 12 (0.28%) Oracle
8 12 (0.28%) Splunk
9 10 (0.23%) OpenAI
10 9 (0.21%) Red Hat
10 9 (0.21%) RedGate
11 8 (0.18%) Allen-Bradley
11 8 (0.18%) Sage
12 7 (0.16%) SaltStack
13 6 (0.14%) Atlassian
13 6 (0.14%) IBM
13 6 (0.14%) Intel
14 5 (0.12%) VMware