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 15 December 2025.

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

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 81 32 44
Rank change year-on-year -49 +12 -3
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,073 2,320 1,655
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.59% 5.89% 5.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.88% 6.29% 6.10%
Number of salaries quoted 824 1,167 1,052
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £52,438 £47,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £73,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £82,500 £83,975
UK median annual salary £70,000 £69,375 £67,500
% change year-on-year +0.90% +2.78% -

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 37,301 36,909 27,134
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.94% 93.75% 95.48%
Number of salaries quoted 22,520 18,928 20,543
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £33,750 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,500 £52,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.62% - -
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% 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 15 December 2025.

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 15 December 2025. 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 -48 263 £65,000 +8.33% 567
South West -17 234 £65,000 +18.18% 303
North of England -48 226 £65,000 +8.33% 458
Midlands -25 114 £65,000 +18.18% 347
East of England -40 113 £70,000 +3.70% 376
Yorkshire -33 99 £58,750 -2.08% 185
North West -41 99 £70,000 +16.67% 234
Scotland -35 97 £60,000 - 147
West Midlands -20 65 £60,000 - 162
East Midlands -33 52 £65,000 +30.00% 163
North East -33 28 £67,500 +10.66% 40
Wales -37 19 £60,000 -7.69% 55
Northern Ireland -26 8 £85,000 +13.33% 30
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 December 2025, 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 1,072 (99.91%) Software Engineering
2 185 (17.24%) Agile
3 184 (17.15%) C++
4 177 (16.50%) C#
5 144 (13.42%) Java
6 143 (13.33%) Security Cleared
7 142 (13.23%) CI/CD
8 139 (12.95%) AWS
9 138 (12.86%) .NET
10 129 (12.02%) DevOps
11 128 (11.93%) React
12 120 (11.18%) Azure
13 117 (10.90%) Mentoring
14 115 (10.72%) Python
15 114 (10.62%) Degree
16 109 (10.16%) Full-Stack Development
16 109 (10.16%) JavaScript
17 101 (9.41%) SQL
18 96 (8.95%) C
18 96 (8.95%) Linux
19 95 (8.85%) Microservices
19 95 (8.85%) TypeScript
20 78 (7.27%) SC Cleared
21 76 (7.08%) Problem-Solving
22 74 (6.90%) Kubernetes
23 68 (6.34%) AI
24 67 (6.24%) Computer Science
25 64 (5.96%) Docker
26 56 (5.22%) Firmware
27 54 (5.03%) Git

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 12 (1.12%) IIS
2 10 (0.93%) Apache
3 6 (0.56%) Confluence
4 3 (0.28%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.28%) CMS
5 2 (0.19%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.19%) ArchestrA
5 2 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
5 2 (0.19%) NServiceBus
5 2 (0.19%) WinCC
6 1 (0.093%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.093%) Kinematics
Applications
1 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.19%) Sketch
3 1 (0.093%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.093%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.093%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 1 (0.093%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 139 (12.95%) AWS
2 120 (11.18%) Azure
3 39 (3.63%) SaaS
4 36 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
5 34 (3.17%) Serverless
6 27 (2.52%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (2.14%) GCP
8 22 (2.05%) GitHub
9 21 (1.96%) Amazon S3
10 16 (1.49%) Amazon EKS
11 13 (1.21%) Amazon ECS
12 10 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (0.75%) OpenShift
14 7 (0.65%) Amazon EC2
15 6 (0.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 5 (0.47%) Amazon EventBridge
16 5 (0.47%) AWS CloudFormation
16 5 (0.47%) AWS Fargate
16 5 (0.47%) Azure AKS
17 4 (0.37%) Stripe
Communications & Networking
1 36 (3.36%) Wireless
2 20 (1.86%) Software-Defined Radio
3 18 (1.68%) RS-232
4 16 (1.49%) Bluetooth
5 7 (0.65%) TCP/IP
6 6 (0.56%) HTTP
7 5 (0.47%) DNS
7 5 (0.47%) Modbus
8 4 (0.37%) SMTP
9 3 (0.28%) AMQP
9 3 (0.28%) ATM
9 3 (0.28%) Ethernet
10 2 (0.19%) 3G
10 2 (0.19%) Firewall
10 2 (0.19%) GPRS
10 2 (0.19%) GSM
10 2 (0.19%) Profibus
10 2 (0.19%) RS-485
10 2 (0.19%) SSL
10 2 (0.19%) UWB
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (2.24%) SQL Server
3 22 (2.05%) NoSQL
4 19 (1.77%) MongoDB
5 18 (1.68%) Relational Database
6 17 (1.58%) MySQL
7 16 (1.49%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (1.40%) DynamoDB
9 12 (1.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 8 (0.75%) Redis
11 5 (0.47%) Big Data
11 5 (0.47%) GIS
11 5 (0.47%) Neo4j
12 4 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.37%) Apache Cassandra
12 4 (0.37%) Azure SQL Database
13 3 (0.28%) MariaDB
13 3 (0.28%) Oracle Database
14 2 (0.19%) Hadoop
14 2 (0.19%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 54 (5.03%) Git
2 17 (1.58%) JIRA
3 16 (1.49%) GitLab
4 14 (1.30%) Visual Studio
5 11 (1.03%) JUnit
6 10 (0.93%) Jenkins
7 7 (0.65%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.47%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle APEX
9 4 (0.37%) Selenium
10 3 (0.28%) TestRail
11 2 (0.19%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.19%) Maven
11 2 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
12 1 (0.093%) Android Studio
12 1 (0.093%) Appium
12 1 (0.093%) Gradle
12 1 (0.093%) Rational Rhapsody
12 1 (0.093%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 1 (0.093%) Zephyr
General
1 92 (8.57%) Social Skills
2 80 (7.46%) Finance
3 45 (4.19%) Manufacturing
4 42 (3.91%) Electronics
5 22 (2.05%) Aerospace
6 19 (1.77%) Games
6 19 (1.77%) Public Sector
7 17 (1.58%) Automotive
8 16 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
8 16 (1.49%) Retail
9 13 (1.21%) Tech for Good
10 12 (1.12%) Analytical Skills
11 10 (0.93%) Financial Institution
12 8 (0.75%) Law
13 7 (0.65%) Aeronautics
13 7 (0.65%) Marketing
13 7 (0.65%) Military
14 6 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
15 5 (0.47%) Health Technology
15 5 (0.47%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (12.86%) .NET
2 128 (11.93%) React
3 50 (4.66%) AngularJS
4 44 (4.10%) Node.js
5 42 (3.91%) RESTful
6 37 (3.45%) Spring
6 37 (3.45%) Spring Boot
7 32 (2.98%) .NET Core
8 31 (2.89%) HTML
9 29 (2.70%) CSS
10 27 (2.52%) ASP.NET
11 25 (2.33%) .NET Framework
12 23 (2.14%) Vue
13 20 (1.86%) REST
14 19 (1.77%) Qt
15 18 (1.68%) Entity Framework
15 18 (1.68%) Next.js
16 16 (1.49%) WinForms
17 15 (1.40%) Kafka
18 14 (1.30%) Blazor
Miscellaneous
1 65 (6.06%) Cloud Native
2 61 (5.68%) Embedded Systems
3 31 (2.89%) Distributed Systems
4 22 (2.05%) IoT
5 20 (1.86%) e-Learning
6 19 (1.77%) Algorithms
6 19 (1.77%) Robotics
7 18 (1.68%) RISC-V
8 16 (1.49%) MicroBlaze
9 13 (1.21%) Product Ownership
10 12 (1.12%) Manufacturing Execution System
11 11 (1.03%) Driving Licence
12 10 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
12 10 (0.93%) Mobile App
13 8 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
13 8 (0.75%) Smart Energy
14 7 (0.65%) Enterprise Software
14 7 (0.65%) Hedge funds
14 7 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
15 6 (0.56%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 96 (8.95%) Linux
2 35 (3.26%) Windows
3 32 (2.98%) Embedded Linux
4 13 (1.21%) Android
5 7 (0.65%) Unix
6 3 (0.28%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
7 2 (0.19%) CentOS
7 2 (0.19%) Debian
7 2 (0.19%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.19%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.093%) Fedora
8 1 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.093%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,072 (99.91%) Software Engineering
2 185 (17.24%) Agile
3 142 (13.23%) CI/CD
4 129 (12.02%) DevOps
5 117 (10.90%) Mentoring
6 109 (10.16%) Full-Stack Development
7 95 (8.85%) Microservices
8 76 (7.08%) Problem-Solving
9 68 (6.34%) AI
10 67 (6.24%) Computer Science
11 50 (4.66%) Coaching
12 47 (4.38%) Continuous Improvement
13 45 (4.19%) Containerisation
14 42 (3.91%) Machine Learning
15 37 (3.45%) SDLC
15 37 (3.45%) Technical Leadership
16 36 (3.36%) Scrum
16 36 (3.36%) Test Automation
17 35 (3.26%) Fintech
18 33 (3.08%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 184 (17.15%) C++
2 177 (16.50%) C#
3 144 (13.42%) Java
4 115 (10.72%) Python
5 109 (10.16%) JavaScript
6 101 (9.41%) SQL
7 96 (8.95%) C
8 95 (8.85%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.42%) PHP
10 24 (2.24%) Ada
11 20 (1.86%) Kotlin
12 19 (1.77%) Embedded C++
13 18 (1.68%) Ruby
13 18 (1.68%) T-SQL
14 14 (1.30%) Ada 95
15 13 (1.21%) PL/SQL
16 12 (1.12%) Embedded C
16 12 (1.12%) Rust
17 10 (0.93%) Bash
18 9 (0.84%) Scala
Qualifications
1 143 (13.33%) Security Cleared
2 114 (10.62%) Degree
3 78 (7.27%) SC Cleared
4 47 (4.38%) DV Cleared
5 46 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.68%) Master's Degree
7 15 (1.40%) BPSS Clearance
7 15 (1.40%) Chartered Engineer
8 13 (1.21%) PhD
9 2 (0.19%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.19%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.19%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.19%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (1.58%) QA
2 14 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 6 (0.56%) MISRA
4 5 (0.47%) IEC 61508
5 4 (0.37%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.37%) MISRA C
6 3 (0.28%) ECSS
6 3 (0.28%) GDPR
6 3 (0.28%) IEC 61131
6 3 (0.28%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.19%) ISO 9000
7 2 (0.19%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.19%) JTAG
7 2 (0.19%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.093%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.093%) Data Quality
System Software
1 64 (5.96%) Docker
2 56 (5.22%) Firmware
3 38 (3.54%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.19%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.19%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.093%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 74 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 30 (2.80%) Terraform
3 8 (0.75%) Kibana
4 7 (0.65%) Grafana
5 3 (0.28%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.19%) Ansible
6 2 (0.19%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.19%) Puppet
7 1 (0.093%) Istio
Vendors
1 22 (2.05%) Microsoft
2 16 (1.49%) Oracle
3 14 (1.30%) Sage
3 14 (1.30%) Xamarin
4 12 (1.12%) Guidewire
5 9 (0.84%) Google
6 8 (0.75%) Atlassian
7 5 (0.47%) Zoho
8 3 (0.28%) Databricks
8 3 (0.28%) HubSpot
8 3 (0.28%) OpenAI
8 3 (0.28%) Red Hat
8 3 (0.28%) Rockwell
8 3 (0.28%) SAP
8 3 (0.28%) Siemens
9 2 (0.19%) Adobe
9 2 (0.19%) Palantir
9 2 (0.19%) Roku
9 2 (0.19%) SaltStack
9 2 (0.19%) VMware