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 19 May 2026.

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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 51 16
Rank change year-on-year +20 -35 +50
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,868 1,446 6,003
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.31% 4.94% 8.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.60% 5.52% 9.14%
Number of salaries quoted 2,272 839 3,178
10th Percentile £45,000 £41,250 £38,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £50,625 £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 £77,500 £68,750
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% -14.29%

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 62,398 26,179 65,686
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.72% 89.37% 94.78%
Number of salaries quoted 41,327 14,433 47,853
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £26,750
25th Percentile £36,250 £36,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,000 £76,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%

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 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 19 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 +74 774 £65,000 - 193
North of England -6 719 £65,000 - 165
South West +25 518 £65,000 +8.33% 124
North West -6 418 £67,500 - 85
East of England +42 310 £70,000 +5.73% 111
Midlands +22 270 £65,000 +8.33% 71
Yorkshire +29 213 £65,000 +6.12% 41
Scotland +5 190 £65,000 +4.00% 48
West Midlands +24 147 £70,000 +16.67% 43
East Midlands +7 123 £57,500 -2.13% 28
North East -6 88 £69,305 +26.01% 41
Wales -4 70 £40,000 -40.74% 15
Northern Ireland -22 18 £90,000 +28.57% 9
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 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 2,833 (98.78%) Software Engineering
2 431 (15.03%) C++
3 405 (14.12%) C#
4 347 (12.10%) Python
5 340 (11.85%) Agile
6 321 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
7 299 (10.43%) AWS
8 290 (10.11%) .NET
9 266 (9.27%) Security Cleared
10 261 (9.10%) Java
11 227 (7.91%) CI/CD
12 223 (7.78%) Degree
13 209 (7.29%) C
13 209 (7.29%) JavaScript
14 208 (7.25%) DevOps
15 201 (7.01%) Azure
16 180 (6.28%) TypeScript
17 167 (5.82%) Linux
18 165 (5.75%) SC Cleared
19 164 (5.72%) React
20 158 (5.51%) Mentoring
21 155 (5.40%) SQL
22 154 (5.37%) Continuous Improvement
22 154 (5.37%) SaaS
23 148 (5.16%) Microservices
24 147 (5.13%) AI
25 143 (4.99%) Problem-Solving
26 133 (4.64%) Firmware
27 132 (4.60%) Test Automation
28 129 (4.50%) SDLC

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 13 (0.45%) Apache
2 11 (0.38%) SharePoint Server
3 7 (0.24%) Apache Spark
3 7 (0.24%) FactoryTalk
4 5 (0.17%) CMS
4 5 (0.17%) Confluence
5 4 (0.14%) Apache Solr
5 4 (0.14%) GeoServer
6 2 (0.070%) WinCC
6 2 (0.070%) WordPress
7 1 (0.035%) ArchestrA
7 1 (0.035%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.035%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.035%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (0.14%) EngageOne
2 3 (0.10%) CANalyzer
3 2 (0.070%) AutoCAD
3 2 (0.070%) EPLAN
3 2 (0.070%) Simulink
4 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (0.35%) Magento
2 2 (0.070%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 299 (10.43%) AWS
2 201 (7.01%) Azure
3 154 (5.37%) SaaS
4 59 (2.06%) Serverless
5 52 (1.81%) GCP
6 29 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
7 28 (0.98%) GitHub
8 23 (0.80%) AWS Lambda
9 19 (0.66%) Azure AKS
10 18 (0.63%) Amazon S3
11 15 (0.52%) Amazon EKS
12 11 (0.38%) Anthropic Claude
12 11 (0.38%) AWS CloudFormation
13 9 (0.31%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (0.28%) Stripe
15 6 (0.21%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (0.21%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 5 (0.17%) AWS Step Functions
16 5 (0.17%) Azure Functions
16 5 (0.17%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 43 (1.50%) Wireless
2 30 (1.05%) Ethernet
3 19 (0.66%) RS-232
4 16 (0.56%) Bluetooth
5 15 (0.52%) Modbus
6 9 (0.31%) ZigBee
7 8 (0.28%) Network Security
7 8 (0.28%) Profibus
8 7 (0.24%) Broadband
8 7 (0.24%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.21%) MQTT
10 5 (0.17%) AMQP
10 5 (0.17%) LTE
10 5 (0.17%) RS-485
11 4 (0.14%) Software-Defined Radio
12 2 (0.070%) HTTP
12 2 (0.070%) RTP
12 2 (0.070%) SMTP
12 2 (0.070%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (1.85%) SQL Server
2 50 (1.74%) NoSQL
2 50 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
3 39 (1.36%) MongoDB
4 34 (1.19%) MySQL
5 23 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
6 14 (0.49%) Big Data
7 12 (0.42%) Relational Database
8 11 (0.38%) DynamoDB
8 11 (0.38%) Neo4j
9 8 (0.28%) Redis
10 7 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
10 7 (0.24%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.17%) Cloudera CDH
11 5 (0.17%) FileMaker
12 4 (0.14%) DocumentDB
12 4 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.14%) GIS
12 4 (0.14%) QGIS
13 3 (0.10%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 94 (3.28%) Git
2 32 (1.12%) GitLab
3 20 (0.70%) Visual Studio Code
4 18 (0.63%) Jenkins
5 16 (0.56%) Claude Code
6 13 (0.45%) JIRA
7 9 (0.31%) JUnit
7 9 (0.31%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.24%) Moq
8 7 (0.24%) Subversion
9 6 (0.21%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.17%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.17%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.17%) Eclipse
10 5 (0.17%) Yeoman
11 4 (0.14%) GDB
11 4 (0.14%) Gradle
11 4 (0.14%) LabVIEW
11 4 (0.14%) Maven
11 4 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 144 (5.02%) Manufacturing
2 122 (4.25%) Social Skills
3 120 (4.18%) Electronics
4 71 (2.48%) Automotive
5 70 (2.44%) Aerospace
6 67 (2.34%) Finance
7 57 (1.99%) Public Sector
8 39 (1.36%) Analytical Skills
9 38 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
10 22 (0.77%) Aviation
11 20 (0.70%) Retail
12 16 (0.56%) Games
13 15 (0.52%) Military
13 15 (0.52%) Tech for Good
14 13 (0.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 10 (0.35%) Telecoms
16 8 (0.28%) Health Technology
17 7 (0.24%) Advertising
17 7 (0.24%) Agriculture
18 6 (0.21%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 290 (10.11%) .NET
2 164 (5.72%) React
3 96 (3.35%) Node.js
4 84 (2.93%) Vue
5 77 (2.68%) AngularJS
6 72 (2.51%) REST
7 58 (2.02%) RESTful
8 46 (1.60%) HTML
8 46 (1.60%) Spring
9 45 (1.57%) .NET Core
9 45 (1.57%) CSS
10 41 (1.43%) Spring Boot
11 39 (1.36%) WPF
12 36 (1.26%) .NET Framework
13 23 (0.80%) Django
14 22 (0.77%) Web Services
15 20 (0.70%) ASP.NET
15 20 (0.70%) Entity Framework
16 17 (0.59%) Yocto
17 16 (0.56%) Qt
Miscellaneous
1 114 (3.97%) Cloud Native
2 84 (2.93%) Embedded Systems
3 70 (2.44%) Algorithms
4 55 (1.92%) IoT
4 55 (1.92%) Product Ownership
5 41 (1.43%) Robotics
6 36 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
6 36 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
7 23 (0.80%) Client/Server
8 22 (0.77%) Mobile App
9 21 (0.73%) Device Driver
10 17 (0.59%) Educational Technology
11 16 (0.56%) Hedge funds
11 16 (0.56%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (0.52%) CAN bus
12 15 (0.52%) Distributed Computing
12 15 (0.52%) Smart Energy
13 14 (0.49%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (0.49%) Industry 4.0
14 13 (0.45%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 167 (5.82%) Linux
2 39 (1.36%) Embedded Linux
3 35 (1.22%) Android
4 31 (1.08%) Windows
5 20 (0.70%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (0.17%) CentOS
6 5 (0.17%) Debian
6 5 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.17%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.14%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.14%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.070%) SafeRTOS
8 2 (0.070%) zOS
9 1 (0.035%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.035%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.035%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.035%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.035%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,833 (98.78%) Software Engineering
2 340 (11.85%) Agile
3 321 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
4 227 (7.91%) CI/CD
5 208 (7.25%) DevOps
6 158 (5.51%) Mentoring
7 154 (5.37%) Continuous Improvement
8 148 (5.16%) Microservices
9 147 (5.13%) AI
10 143 (4.99%) Problem-Solving
11 132 (4.60%) Test Automation
12 129 (4.50%) SDLC
13 123 (4.29%) Computer Science
14 101 (3.52%) Scrum
15 97 (3.38%) Containerisation
16 96 (3.35%) TDD
17 76 (2.65%) Software Testing
18 74 (2.58%) Embedded Software Development
19 73 (2.55%) Technical Leadership
20 64 (2.23%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 431 (15.03%) C++
2 405 (14.12%) C#
3 347 (12.10%) Python
4 261 (9.10%) Java
5 209 (7.29%) C
5 209 (7.29%) JavaScript
6 180 (6.28%) TypeScript
7 155 (5.40%) SQL
8 73 (2.55%) Rust
9 51 (1.78%) PHP
10 50 (1.74%) Embedded C
11 30 (1.05%) Go
12 20 (0.70%) Kotlin
13 17 (0.59%) COBOL
13 17 (0.59%) Ruby
14 15 (0.52%) Embedded C++
15 14 (0.49%) Bash
16 12 (0.42%) Scala
17 11 (0.38%) Ada
18 9 (0.31%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 266 (9.27%) Security Cleared
2 223 (7.78%) Degree
3 165 (5.75%) SC Cleared
4 105 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 88 (3.07%) DV Cleared
6 39 (1.36%) Master's Degree
7 17 (0.59%) PhD
8 15 (0.52%) DBS Check
9 10 (0.35%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.24%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.24%) Chartered Engineer
10 7 (0.24%) HND
11 6 (0.21%) HNC
12 3 (0.10%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.10%) CEH
12 3 (0.10%) OSCP
13 2 (0.070%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.070%) NVQ Level 3
13 2 (0.070%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (2.16%) QA
2 17 (0.59%) IEC 61508
3 16 (0.56%) Accessibility
3 16 (0.56%) MISRA
3 16 (0.56%) MISRA C
4 7 (0.24%) IEC 61131
5 6 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 4 (0.14%) GDPR
6 4 (0.14%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.10%) DO-178B
7 3 (0.10%) JTAG
8 1 (0.035%) DO-254
8 1 (0.035%) ECSS
8 1 (0.035%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.035%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.035%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.035%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.035%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 133 (4.64%) Firmware
2 106 (3.70%) Docker
3 43 (1.50%) Embedded Firmware
4 14 (0.49%) Hyper-V
4 14 (0.49%) KVM
4 14 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.10%) QEMU
7 2 (0.070%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 89 (3.10%) Kubernetes
2 61 (2.13%) Terraform
3 17 (0.59%) Ansible
4 13 (0.45%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.21%) Kibana
5 6 (0.21%) Puppet
6 5 (0.17%) Grafana
6 5 (0.17%) logstash
7 3 (0.10%) Plesk
7 3 (0.10%) Podman
7 3 (0.10%) SCCM
7 3 (0.10%) SCOM
7 3 (0.10%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.070%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.070%) Packer
8 2 (0.070%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 23 (0.80%) Siemens
2 22 (0.77%) Microsoft
3 17 (0.59%) Oracle
3 17 (0.59%) Rockwell
4 16 (0.56%) VMware
5 15 (0.52%) Google
6 13 (0.45%) Adobe
7 10 (0.35%) Salesforce
8 8 (0.28%) Allen-Bradley
8 8 (0.28%) HubSpot
9 5 (0.17%) Atlassian
9 5 (0.17%) Red Hat
9 5 (0.17%) SaltStack
9 5 (0.17%) Xamarin
10 4 (0.14%) Atmel
10 4 (0.14%) Peregrine
11 3 (0.10%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.10%) Palantir
11 3 (0.10%) Typelevel
11 3 (0.10%) Wonderware