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 20 September 2026.

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

6 months to
20 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 4,342 1,333 4,301
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.10% 3.88% 7.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.46% 4.35% 8.17%
Number of salaries quoted 3,439 504 2,402
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 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +18.18% -8.33%
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% -5.93%

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 79,503 30,639 52,619
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.31% 89.30% 95.21%
Number of salaries quoted 55,058 17,449 30,640
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,750
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 20 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 20 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 +26 1,068 £70,000 - 359
South East +94 1,021 £65,000 -7.14% 329
South West +41 880 £69,250 +6.54% 298
North West +13 600 £71,250 -5.00% 229
East of England +108 573 £70,000 +7.69% 320
Midlands +61 447 £65,000 - 180
Yorkshire +73 266 £60,000 -4.00% 83
East Midlands +42 248 £55,000 -18.52% 98
North East +20 202 £70,000 +23.89% 47
West Midlands +38 199 £67,500 +8.00% 82
Scotland -3 199 £80,000 +25.98% 277
Wales +23 141 £60,000 +9.09% 24
Northern Ireland - 14 £90,000 - 70
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 20 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 4,306 (99.17%) Software Engineering
2 670 (15.43%) C++
3 619 (14.26%) C#
4 535 (12.32%) Python
5 528 (12.16%) Agile
6 415 (9.56%) Security Cleared
7 413 (9.51%) AWS
8 412 (9.49%) AI
9 370 (8.52%) CI/CD
10 369 (8.50%) Full-Stack Development
11 353 (8.13%) Java
12 307 (7.07%) .NET
13 294 (6.77%) Linux
14 284 (6.54%) Degree
15 274 (6.31%) Azure
16 266 (6.13%) SC Cleared
17 262 (6.03%) JavaScript
18 259 (5.96%) TypeScript
19 254 (5.85%) C
20 247 (5.69%) Mentoring
21 233 (5.37%) DevOps
22 228 (5.25%) Problem-Solving
23 221 (5.09%) React
24 205 (4.72%) SDLC
25 192 (4.42%) Microservices
26 187 (4.31%) Test Automation
27 180 (4.15%) Continuous Improvement
27 180 (4.15%) SQL
28 178 (4.10%) Docker
28 178 (4.10%) DV Cleared

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%) OpenStack
Applications
1 18 (0.41%) Lightworks
2 12 (0.28%) Simulink
3 4 (0.092%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.092%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.069%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.046%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.046%) EPLAN
6 1 (0.023%) MS Visio
6 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 (9.51%) AWS
2 274 (6.31%) Azure
3 145 (3.34%) SaaS
4 106 (2.44%) GCP
5 72 (1.66%) Serverless
6 47 (1.08%) GitHub
7 38 (0.88%) Azure DevOps
8 37 (0.85%) 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 (1.61%) Wireless
2 37 (0.85%) Ethernet
3 31 (0.71%) 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 8 (0.18%) Internet
12 7 (0.16%) AMQP
12 7 (0.16%) Wireshark
13 4 (0.092%) Software-Defined Radio
14 3 (0.069%) Firewall
14 3 (0.069%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
2 59 (1.36%) SQL Server
3 51 (1.17%) MongoDB
4 46 (1.06%) NoSQL
5 41 (0.94%) 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%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 147 (3.39%) Git
2 54 (1.24%) GitLab
3 33 (0.76%) 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 (5.20%) Manufacturing
2 217 (5.00%) Electronics
3 196 (4.51%) Social Skills
4 165 (3.80%) Finance
5 126 (2.90%) Aerospace
6 103 (2.37%) Public Sector
7 84 (1.93%) Automotive
8 62 (1.43%) Aviation
9 55 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 50 (1.15%) Analytical Skills
11 36 (0.83%) Retail
12 29 (0.67%) Law
13 27 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
14 26 (0.60%) Games
14 26 (0.60%) Military
15 18 (0.41%) Marketing
15 18 (0.41%) Tech for Good
16 15 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
16 15 (0.35%) Telecoms
17 14 (0.32%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 307 (7.07%) .NET
2 221 (5.09%) React
3 117 (2.69%) Node.js
4 102 (2.35%) Vue
5 92 (2.12%) 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 55 (1.27%) RESTful
12 54 (1.24%) HTML
12 54 (1.24%) REST
13 38 (0.88%) Next.js
14 35 (0.81%) React Native
15 30 (0.69%) .NET Core
15 30 (0.69%) Django
16 28 (0.64%) .NET Framework
17 24 (0.55%) Kafka
17 24 (0.55%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 167 (3.85%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.06%) Embedded Systems
3 122 (2.81%) Robotics
4 106 (2.44%) Algorithms
5 85 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
6 67 (1.54%) AI Agents
6 67 (1.54%) Product Ownership
7 63 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
8 56 (1.29%) IoT
9 48 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
10 40 (0.92%) Public Cloud
11 30 (0.69%) Cyber Threat
12 27 (0.62%) Mobile App
13 25 (0.58%) Data Structures
13 25 (0.58%) Device Driver
13 25 (0.58%) Distributed Computing
14 21 (0.48%) ARM Cortex
15 18 (0.41%) Educational Technology
16 17 (0.39%) NHS
17 16 (0.37%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 294 (6.77%) Linux
2 71 (1.64%) Windows
3 60 (1.38%) Embedded Linux
4 33 (0.76%) FreeRTOS
5 31 (0.71%) 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 4,306 (99.17%) Software Engineering
2 528 (12.16%) Agile
3 412 (9.49%) AI
4 370 (8.52%) CI/CD
5 369 (8.50%) Full-Stack Development
6 247 (5.69%) Mentoring
7 233 (5.37%) DevOps
8 228 (5.25%) Problem-Solving
9 205 (4.72%) SDLC
10 192 (4.42%) Microservices
11 187 (4.31%) Test Automation
12 180 (4.15%) Continuous Improvement
13 173 (3.98%) Computer Science
14 141 (3.25%) Software Architecture
15 126 (2.90%) Code Quality
16 124 (2.86%) Technical Leadership
17 121 (2.79%) Containerisation
18 113 (2.60%) Software Testing
19 110 (2.53%) Machine Learning
20 98 (2.26%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 670 (15.43%) C++
2 619 (14.26%) C#
3 535 (12.32%) Python
4 353 (8.13%) Java
5 262 (6.03%) JavaScript
6 259 (5.96%) TypeScript
7 254 (5.85%) C
8 180 (4.15%) SQL
9 122 (2.81%) Rust
10 71 (1.64%) Go
11 58 (1.34%) PHP
12 43 (0.99%) 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
1 415 (9.56%) Security Cleared
2 284 (6.54%) Degree
3 266 (6.13%) SC Cleared
4 178 (4.10%) 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
12 5 (0.12%) CEH
12 5 (0.12%) HND
12 5 (0.12%) OSCP
13 4 (0.092%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.069%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.046%) HNC
15 2 (0.046%) Numerate Degree
16 1 (0.023%) ISTQB
16 1 (0.023%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (1.57%) QA
2 50 (1.15%) 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%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.023%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.023%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 178 (4.10%) Docker
2 169 (3.89%) Firmware
3 51 (1.17%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (0.16%) QEMU
5 4 (0.092%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.046%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.046%) KVM
6 2 (0.046%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (0.046%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.023%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.023%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 143 (3.29%) 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 36 (0.83%) Microsoft
1 36 (0.83%) Siemens
2 21 (0.48%) Google
3 18 (0.41%) Salesforce
4 15 (0.35%) Rockwell
5 14 (0.32%) Okta
5 14 (0.32%) Ping Identity
6 13 (0.30%) Databricks
7 12 (0.28%) Oracle
7 12 (0.28%) Splunk
8 10 (0.23%) OpenAI
8 10 (0.23%) RedGate
9 9 (0.21%) Red Hat
10 8 (0.18%) Sage
11 7 (0.16%) Allen-Bradley
11 7 (0.16%) SaltStack
12 6 (0.14%) Atlassian
12 6 (0.14%) IBM
12 6 (0.14%) Intel
13 5 (0.12%) Xamarin