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 13 May 2026.

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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 50 16
Rank change year-on-year +19 -34 +51
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,758 1,447 5,939
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.24% 5.06% 8.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.53% 5.68% 9.14%
Number of salaries quoted 2,178 841 3,130
10th Percentile £45,000 £41,250 £38,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £50,000 £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 60,914 25,484 64,972
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.61% 89.06% 94.71%
Number of salaries quoted 40,092 14,344 47,359
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,750 £26,750
25th Percentile £36,250 £36,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £68,750 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,670 £52,686
% change year-on-year -4.63% +9.46% -12.19%

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 13 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 13 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 +63 735 £65,000 - 235
North of England -10 678 £65,000 - 154
South West +30 515 £65,000 +8.33% 109
North West -8 404 £67,500 - 76
East of England +38 301 £70,000 +5.73% 117
Midlands +9 254 £65,000 +8.33% 70
Scotland +3 194 £65,000 +6.12% 31
Yorkshire +11 193 £62,500 +2.04% 47
West Midlands +12 137 £70,000 +16.67% 41
East Midlands +4 117 £60,000 +6.67% 29
North East -8 81 £60,000 +9.09% 33
Wales -2 65 £40,000 -40.74% 10
Northern Ireland -22 17 £90,000 +28.57% 5
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 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 2,725 (98.80%) Software Engineering
2 406 (14.72%) C++
3 369 (13.38%) C#
4 335 (12.15%) Python
5 318 (11.53%) Agile
6 300 (10.88%) Full-Stack Development
7 270 (9.79%) .NET
8 268 (9.72%) AWS
9 255 (9.25%) Security Cleared
10 244 (8.85%) Java
11 210 (7.61%) Degree
12 209 (7.58%) CI/CD
13 202 (7.32%) C
14 194 (7.03%) JavaScript
15 190 (6.89%) DevOps
16 180 (6.53%) Azure
17 175 (6.35%) TypeScript
18 163 (5.91%) React
19 158 (5.73%) SC Cleared
20 155 (5.62%) Linux
21 144 (5.22%) SQL
22 143 (5.18%) AI
22 143 (5.18%) SaaS
23 142 (5.15%) Continuous Improvement
24 140 (5.08%) Mentoring
25 134 (4.86%) Problem-Solving
26 128 (4.64%) Microservices
27 125 (4.53%) Firmware
28 120 (4.35%) Test Automation
29 118 (4.28%) Computer Science

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 (0.47%) Apache
2 7 (0.25%) Apache Spark
2 7 (0.25%) FactoryTalk
3 6 (0.22%) CMS
4 5 (0.18%) Confluence
5 4 (0.15%) Apache Solr
5 4 (0.15%) GeoServer
6 2 (0.073%) WinCC
6 2 (0.073%) WordPress
7 1 (0.036%) ArchestrA
7 1 (0.036%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.036%) Kinematics
7 1 (0.036%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.036%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (0.15%) EngageOne
2 3 (0.11%) CANalyzer
3 2 (0.073%) AutoCAD
3 2 (0.073%) EPLAN
3 2 (0.073%) Simulink
4 1 (0.036%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.036%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (0.36%) Magento
2 2 (0.073%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 268 (9.72%) AWS
2 180 (6.53%) Azure
3 143 (5.18%) SaaS
4 54 (1.96%) Serverless
5 50 (1.81%) GCP
6 26 (0.94%) GitHub
7 21 (0.76%) Azure DevOps
8 20 (0.73%) AWS Lambda
8 20 (0.73%) Azure AKS
9 15 (0.54%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (0.51%) Amazon S3
11 10 (0.36%) Anthropic Claude
11 10 (0.36%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (0.29%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (0.29%) Stripe
13 5 (0.18%) Amazon ECS
13 5 (0.18%) Azure Functions
13 5 (0.18%) Figma
13 5 (0.18%) OpenShift
14 4 (0.15%) Twilio
Communications & Networking
1 43 (1.56%) Wireless
2 30 (1.09%) Ethernet
3 19 (0.69%) RS-232
4 15 (0.54%) Bluetooth
5 14 (0.51%) Modbus
6 8 (0.29%) Network Security
6 8 (0.29%) TCP/IP
7 7 (0.25%) Broadband
7 7 (0.25%) Profibus
7 7 (0.25%) ZigBee
8 6 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.18%) AMQP
9 5 (0.18%) LTE
10 4 (0.15%) RS-485
11 3 (0.11%) DNS
11 3 (0.11%) HTTP
11 3 (0.11%) MQTT
11 3 (0.11%) SMTP
11 3 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
12 2 (0.073%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (1.85%) SQL Server
2 46 (1.67%) NoSQL
3 43 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
4 34 (1.23%) MongoDB
5 28 (1.02%) MySQL
6 23 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (0.47%) Big Data
8 12 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 11 (0.40%) Neo4j
10 10 (0.36%) DynamoDB
11 7 (0.25%) Hadoop
12 6 (0.22%) Redis
13 5 (0.18%) Cloudera CDH
13 5 (0.18%) FileMaker
14 4 (0.15%) DocumentDB
14 4 (0.15%) Geospatial Data
14 4 (0.15%) GIS
14 4 (0.15%) QGIS
15 3 (0.11%) MariaDB
16 2 (0.073%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 86 (3.12%) Git
2 28 (1.02%) GitLab
3 20 (0.73%) Visual Studio Code
4 17 (0.62%) Jenkins
5 15 (0.54%) Claude Code
6 13 (0.47%) JIRA
7 9 (0.33%) JUnit
7 9 (0.33%) Visual Studio
8 7 (0.25%) Moq
8 7 (0.25%) Subversion
9 6 (0.22%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.18%) Cucumber
10 5 (0.18%) Eclipse
10 5 (0.18%) Yeoman
11 4 (0.15%) Gradle
11 4 (0.15%) LabVIEW
11 4 (0.15%) Maven
11 4 (0.15%) Postman
12 3 (0.11%) CANoe
General
1 137 (4.97%) Manufacturing
2 116 (4.21%) Social Skills
3 112 (4.06%) Electronics
4 68 (2.47%) Aerospace
5 66 (2.39%) Automotive
6 64 (2.32%) Finance
7 47 (1.70%) Public Sector
8 40 (1.45%) Analytical Skills
9 39 (1.41%) Pharmaceutical
10 22 (0.80%) Aviation
11 21 (0.76%) Retail
12 18 (0.65%) Games
13 17 (0.62%) Tech for Good
14 15 (0.54%) Military
15 13 (0.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 8 (0.29%) Health Technology
16 8 (0.29%) Telecoms
17 7 (0.25%) Advertising
17 7 (0.25%) Agriculture
18 6 (0.22%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 270 (9.79%) .NET
2 163 (5.91%) React
3 92 (3.34%) Node.js
4 76 (2.76%) Vue
5 73 (2.65%) AngularJS
6 70 (2.54%) REST
7 52 (1.89%) RESTful
8 44 (1.60%) .NET Core
8 44 (1.60%) Spring
9 41 (1.49%) HTML
10 39 (1.41%) CSS
11 38 (1.38%) Spring Boot
12 37 (1.34%) .NET Framework
13 34 (1.23%) WPF
14 23 (0.83%) Django
15 21 (0.76%) Web Services
16 20 (0.73%) Entity Framework
17 19 (0.69%) ASP.NET
18 17 (0.62%) Qt
19 16 (0.58%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 112 (4.06%) Cloud Native
2 84 (3.05%) Embedded Systems
3 67 (2.43%) Algorithms
4 51 (1.85%) IoT
5 50 (1.81%) Product Ownership
6 40 (1.45%) Robotics
7 34 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
8 23 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
9 21 (0.76%) Client/Server
10 20 (0.73%) Device Driver
10 20 (0.73%) Mobile App
11 17 (0.62%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (0.58%) Hedge funds
13 15 (0.54%) CAN bus
13 15 (0.54%) Educational Technology
13 15 (0.54%) Smart Energy
14 14 (0.51%) Industry 4.0
15 13 (0.47%) e-Learning
16 12 (0.44%) Data Structures
16 12 (0.44%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 155 (5.62%) Linux
2 37 (1.34%) Android
3 36 (1.31%) Embedded Linux
4 28 (1.02%) Windows
5 19 (0.69%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (0.18%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.18%) CentOS
6 5 (0.18%) Debian
6 5 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.18%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.15%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.073%) SafeRTOS
8 2 (0.073%) zOS
9 1 (0.036%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.036%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.036%) Unix
9 1 (0.036%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.036%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.036%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,725 (98.80%) Software Engineering
2 318 (11.53%) Agile
3 300 (10.88%) Full-Stack Development
4 209 (7.58%) CI/CD
5 190 (6.89%) DevOps
6 143 (5.18%) AI
7 142 (5.15%) Continuous Improvement
8 140 (5.08%) Mentoring
9 134 (4.86%) Problem-Solving
10 128 (4.64%) Microservices
11 120 (4.35%) Test Automation
12 118 (4.28%) Computer Science
13 115 (4.17%) SDLC
14 97 (3.52%) Scrum
15 90 (3.26%) Containerisation
16 86 (3.12%) TDD
17 73 (2.65%) Software Testing
18 71 (2.57%) Embedded Software Development
19 66 (2.39%) Technical Leadership
20 61 (2.21%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 406 (14.72%) C++
2 369 (13.38%) C#
3 335 (12.15%) Python
4 244 (8.85%) Java
5 202 (7.32%) C
6 194 (7.03%) JavaScript
7 175 (6.35%) TypeScript
8 144 (5.22%) SQL
9 70 (2.54%) Rust
10 51 (1.85%) Embedded C
11 48 (1.74%) PHP
12 31 (1.12%) Go
13 21 (0.76%) Kotlin
14 17 (0.62%) COBOL
15 15 (0.54%) Embedded C++
15 15 (0.54%) Ruby
16 13 (0.47%) Bash
17 11 (0.40%) Ada
18 10 (0.36%) PL/SQL
18 10 (0.36%) Scala
Qualifications
1 255 (9.25%) Security Cleared
2 210 (7.61%) Degree
3 158 (5.73%) SC Cleared
4 96 (3.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 86 (3.12%) DV Cleared
6 34 (1.23%) Master's Degree
7 15 (0.54%) DBS Check
7 15 (0.54%) PhD
8 10 (0.36%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
9 7 (0.25%) HND
10 6 (0.22%) HNC
11 5 (0.18%) Azure Certification
12 3 (0.11%) CEH
12 3 (0.11%) OSCP
13 2 (0.073%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.073%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.073%) NVQ Level 3
13 2 (0.073%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.036%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (2.14%) QA
2 17 (0.62%) IEC 61508
3 16 (0.58%) Accessibility
3 16 (0.58%) MISRA
3 16 (0.58%) MISRA C
4 7 (0.25%) IEC 61131
5 6 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 4 (0.15%) GDPR
6 4 (0.15%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.11%) DO-178B
8 2 (0.073%) JTAG
9 1 (0.036%) DO-254
9 1 (0.036%) ECSS
9 1 (0.036%) HAZOP
9 1 (0.036%) IEC 62304
9 1 (0.036%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.036%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.036%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 125 (4.53%) Firmware
2 99 (3.59%) Docker
3 38 (1.38%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.47%) Hyper-V
4 13 (0.47%) KVM
4 13 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.11%) QEMU
7 2 (0.073%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 86 (3.12%) Kubernetes
2 58 (2.10%) Terraform
3 14 (0.51%) Ansible
4 13 (0.47%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.22%) Kibana
6 5 (0.18%) Grafana
6 5 (0.18%) logstash
6 5 (0.18%) Puppet
7 3 (0.11%) Plesk
7 3 (0.11%) SCCM
7 3 (0.11%) SCOM
7 3 (0.11%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.073%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.073%) Packer
8 2 (0.073%) Podman
8 2 (0.073%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 23 (0.83%) Siemens
2 22 (0.80%) Microsoft
3 17 (0.62%) Oracle
3 17 (0.62%) Rockwell
4 15 (0.54%) Google
4 15 (0.54%) VMware
5 13 (0.47%) Adobe
6 8 (0.29%) Allen-Bradley
6 8 (0.29%) HubSpot
6 8 (0.29%) Salesforce
7 5 (0.18%) Red Hat
7 5 (0.18%) SaltStack
7 5 (0.18%) Xamarin
8 4 (0.15%) Atlassian
8 4 (0.15%) Atmel
8 4 (0.15%) Peregrine
9 3 (0.11%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.11%) Palantir
9 3 (0.11%) Typelevel
9 3 (0.11%) Wonderware