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 6 August 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 53 14
Rank change year-on-year +30 -39 +61
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,731 1,541 5,193
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.92% 4.48% 8.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.20% 5.00% 9.13%
Number of salaries quoted 2,945 674 2,886
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £39,250
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 £79,625
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 71,771 30,825 56,901
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.59% 89.62% 94.92%
Number of salaries quoted 49,683 17,756 37,944
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £28,121
25th Percentile £38,750 £32,500 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -6.54%
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 6 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 6 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 +70 994 £65,000 - 194
North of England +21 967 £65,000 -7.14% 185
South West +27 680 £65,000 - 173
North West +8 542 £70,000 -6.67% 113
East of England +77 454 £70,000 +16.67% 154
Midlands +53 370 £60,000 -7.69% 95
Yorkshire +81 262 £60,000 -12.41% 36
East Midlands +35 187 £54,000 -22.86% 50
West Midlands +33 183 £65,000 +4.00% 45
North East +16 163 £70,000 +30.23% 36
Scotland -12 146 £67,500 +3.85% 84
Wales +3 107 £51,619 -24.09% 25
Northern Ireland -60 14 £90,000 +80.00% 19
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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 3,691 (98.93%) Software Engineering
2 629 (16.86%) C++
3 580 (15.55%) C#
4 499 (13.37%) Python
5 460 (12.33%) Agile
6 397 (10.64%) AWS
7 367 (9.84%) Security Cleared
8 357 (9.57%) Full-Stack Development
9 348 (9.33%) CI/CD
10 324 (8.68%) AI
11 320 (8.58%) Java
12 317 (8.50%) .NET
13 300 (8.04%) Degree
14 288 (7.72%) Azure
15 266 (7.13%) C
16 263 (7.05%) Linux
17 259 (6.94%) JavaScript
18 255 (6.83%) Mentoring
19 241 (6.46%) DevOps
20 233 (6.24%) SC Cleared
21 231 (6.19%) TypeScript
22 208 (5.57%) Problem-Solving
23 203 (5.44%) React
24 202 (5.41%) Test Automation
25 199 (5.33%) Microservices
26 198 (5.31%) SDLC
27 196 (5.25%) SQL
28 184 (4.93%) Docker
29 183 (4.90%) Computer Science
30 176 (4.72%) 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 21 (0.56%) Apache
2 15 (0.40%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.24%) Confluence
4 8 (0.21%) FactoryTalk
5 7 (0.19%) WinCC
6 4 (0.11%) Apache Solr
6 4 (0.11%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.080%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.080%) CMS
7 3 (0.080%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.054%) ArchestrA
8 2 (0.054%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.054%) WordPress
9 1 (0.027%) Cloud Foundry
9 1 (0.027%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.027%) Umbraco
Applications
1 12 (0.32%) Lightworks
2 5 (0.13%) 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 (0.080%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.054%) AutoCAD
5 2 (0.054%) EngageOne
6 1 (0.027%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.027%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.027%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.027%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 397 (10.64%) AWS
2 288 (7.72%) Azure
3 150 (4.02%) SaaS
4 108 (2.89%) GCP
5 70 (1.88%) Serverless
6 48 (1.29%) GitHub
7 40 (1.07%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (0.91%) Firebase
9 32 (0.86%) Anthropic Claude
10 24 (0.64%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (0.43%) Amazon S3
11 16 (0.43%) Cloud Run
11 16 (0.43%) GitHub Actions
12 14 (0.38%) AWS CloudFormation
13 13 (0.35%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (0.32%) Azure AKS
15 9 (0.24%) AWS Step Functions
15 9 (0.24%) Azure Functions
15 9 (0.24%) OpenShift
15 9 (0.24%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 58 (1.55%) Wireless
2 36 (0.96%) Ethernet
3 26 (0.70%) Bluetooth
4 22 (0.59%) Modbus
4 22 (0.59%) RS-232
5 20 (0.54%) MQTT
6 19 (0.51%) TCP/IP
7 17 (0.46%) ZigBee
8 15 (0.40%) Profibus
8 15 (0.40%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (0.32%) RS-485
10 10 (0.27%) ATM
11 8 (0.21%) LTE
11 8 (0.21%) Network Security
12 6 (0.16%) Wireshark
13 5 (0.13%) Broadband
14 4 (0.11%) AMQP
14 4 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
15 3 (0.080%) Software-Defined Networking
16 2 (0.054%) LoRaWAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
2 66 (1.77%) SQL Server
3 64 (1.72%) MongoDB
4 54 (1.45%) NoSQL
5 47 (1.26%) MySQL
6 25 (0.67%) Relational Database
7 16 (0.43%) Pinecone
7 16 (0.43%) Redis
8 15 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
9 14 (0.38%) DynamoDB
10 12 (0.32%) Big Data
11 7 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
12 6 (0.16%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.13%) FileMaker
13 5 (0.13%) Neo4j
14 4 (0.11%) Cloudera CDH
14 4 (0.11%) MariaDB
15 3 (0.080%) Amazon RDS
15 3 (0.080%) DocumentDB
15 3 (0.080%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 135 (3.62%) Git
2 50 (1.34%) GitLab
3 35 (0.94%) JIRA
4 33 (0.88%) Jenkins
5 21 (0.56%) Visual Studio Code
6 20 (0.54%) Claude Code
7 14 (0.38%) Visual Studio
8 11 (0.29%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.21%) 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 (0.13%) Postman
14 4 (0.11%) Rational DOORS
14 4 (0.11%) Rational Rhapsody
14 4 (0.11%) Robot Framework
General
1 227 (6.08%) Manufacturing
2 196 (5.25%) Electronics
3 179 (4.80%) Social Skills
4 125 (3.35%) Finance
5 108 (2.89%) Aerospace
6 91 (2.44%) Public Sector
7 84 (2.25%) Automotive
8 48 (1.29%) Analytical Skills
9 44 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 42 (1.13%) Aviation
11 38 (1.02%) Pharmaceutical
12 34 (0.91%) Retail
13 23 (0.62%) Military
14 20 (0.54%) Games
15 19 (0.51%) Law
15 19 (0.51%) Telecoms
16 15 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
17 12 (0.32%) Marketing
18 11 (0.29%) Tech for Good
19 9 (0.24%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 317 (8.50%) .NET
2 203 (5.44%) React
3 114 (3.06%) Node.js
4 100 (2.68%) Vue
5 75 (2.01%) WPF
6 73 (1.96%) AngularJS
7 66 (1.77%) CSS
8 63 (1.69%) Spring
9 62 (1.66%) REST
9 62 (1.66%) RESTful
10 59 (1.58%) Spring Boot
11 57 (1.53%) HTML
12 39 (1.05%) .NET Core
12 39 (1.05%) Django
13 37 (0.99%) Next.js
14 33 (0.88%) .NET Framework
15 26 (0.70%) Yocto
16 24 (0.64%) ASP.NET
17 22 (0.59%) React Native
17 22 (0.59%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 171 (4.58%) Cloud Native
2 127 (3.40%) Embedded Systems
3 98 (2.63%) Robotics
4 96 (2.57%) Algorithms
5 82 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
6 69 (1.85%) Product Ownership
7 64 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
8 62 (1.66%) AI Agents
9 56 (1.50%) IoT
10 46 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
11 31 (0.83%) Mobile App
12 28 (0.75%) Device Driver
13 24 (0.64%) Public Cloud
14 22 (0.59%) Data Structures
15 21 (0.56%) ARM Cortex
15 21 (0.56%) Cyber Threat
16 20 (0.54%) Client/Server
17 18 (0.48%) Distributed Computing
17 18 (0.48%) Educational Technology
17 18 (0.48%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 263 (7.05%) Linux
2 56 (1.50%) Windows
3 52 (1.39%) Embedded Linux
4 31 (0.83%) FreeRTOS
5 29 (0.78%) Android
6 9 (0.24%) Debian
7 6 (0.16%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.13%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.13%) Windows Server
9 4 (0.11%) CentOS
9 4 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.11%) Unix
10 3 (0.080%) Gentoo
10 3 (0.080%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.054%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.054%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.054%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.054%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.054%) zOS
12 1 (0.027%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,691 (98.93%) Software Engineering
2 460 (12.33%) Agile
3 357 (9.57%) Full-Stack Development
4 348 (9.33%) CI/CD
5 324 (8.68%) AI
6 255 (6.83%) Mentoring
7 241 (6.46%) DevOps
8 208 (5.57%) Problem-Solving
9 202 (5.41%) Test Automation
10 199 (5.33%) Microservices
11 198 (5.31%) SDLC
12 183 (4.90%) Computer Science
13 176 (4.72%) Continuous Improvement
14 133 (3.56%) Containerisation
15 129 (3.46%) Software Architecture
16 118 (3.16%) Software Testing
17 114 (3.06%) Code Quality
18 110 (2.95%) TDD
19 104 (2.79%) Technical Leadership
20 96 (2.57%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 629 (16.86%) C++
2 580 (15.55%) C#
3 499 (13.37%) Python
4 320 (8.58%) Java
5 266 (7.13%) C
6 259 (6.94%) JavaScript
7 231 (6.19%) TypeScript
8 196 (5.25%) SQL
9 133 (3.56%) Rust
10 64 (1.72%) Go
11 62 (1.66%) PHP
12 49 (1.31%) Embedded C
13 30 (0.80%) Ruby
14 27 (0.72%) Embedded C++
15 18 (0.48%) Ada
15 18 (0.48%) Bash
15 18 (0.48%) Kotlin
16 17 (0.46%) COBOL
17 15 (0.40%) Scala
18 13 (0.35%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 367 (9.84%) Security Cleared
2 300 (8.04%) Degree
3 233 (6.24%) SC Cleared
4 159 (4.26%) DV Cleared
5 135 (3.62%) Computer Science Degree
6 54 (1.45%) Master's Degree
7 27 (0.72%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (0.64%) PhD
9 10 (0.27%) HND
10 9 (0.24%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.21%) Azure Certification
12 6 (0.16%) HNC
13 5 (0.13%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.13%) CEH
13 5 (0.13%) OSCP
14 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
15 3 (0.080%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 2 (0.054%) Numerate Degree
16 2 (0.054%) NVQ Level 3
17 1 (0.027%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (1.98%) QA
2 39 (1.05%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.27%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.21%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.21%) MISRA
4 8 (0.21%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.16%) JTAG
6 5 (0.13%) DO-178B
7 3 (0.080%) Data Quality
7 3 (0.080%) ECSS
7 3 (0.080%) GAMP
7 3 (0.080%) GDPR
8 2 (0.054%) AUTOSAR
8 2 (0.054%) ISO 26262
8 2 (0.054%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.054%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.054%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.027%) Automotive SPICE
9 1 (0.027%) DO-254
9 1 (0.027%) WCAG
System Software
1 184 (4.93%) Docker
2 160 (4.29%) Firmware
3 52 (1.39%) Embedded Firmware
4 11 (0.29%) KVM
4 11 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.27%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.19%) QEMU
8 2 (0.054%) Active Directory
8 2 (0.054%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 139 (3.73%) Kubernetes
2 85 (2.28%) Terraform
3 34 (0.91%) Ansible
4 9 (0.24%) Grafana
5 7 (0.19%) Kibana
5 7 (0.19%) logstash
5 7 (0.19%) Podman
6 6 (0.16%) Puppet
7 4 (0.11%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.080%) Plesk
8 3 (0.080%) SCCM
8 3 (0.080%) SCOM
8 3 (0.080%) SCOrch
9 2 (0.054%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.054%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.027%) Packer
10 1 (0.027%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 32 (0.86%) Microsoft
1 32 (0.86%) Siemens
2 20 (0.54%) Google
3 19 (0.51%) Rockwell
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle
5 13 (0.35%) Okta
5 13 (0.35%) Ping Identity
5 13 (0.35%) Salesforce
5 13 (0.35%) VMware
6 10 (0.27%) Allen-Bradley
7 9 (0.24%) OpenAI
8 8 (0.21%) Splunk
9 7 (0.19%) Atlassian
10 6 (0.16%) Intel
11 5 (0.13%) Xamarin
12 4 (0.11%) Databricks
12 4 (0.11%) ForgeRock
12 4 (0.11%) Peregrine
12 4 (0.11%) Red Hat
12 4 (0.11%) SaltStack