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 12 September 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 61 15
Rank change year-on-year +40 -46 +55
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,245 1,343 4,638
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.11% 3.89% 8.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.46% 4.36% 8.71%
Number of salaries quoted 3,372 509 2,524
10th Percentile £45,000 £46,000 £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 £69,125
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +28.00% -10.00%

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 77,793 30,835 53,221
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.62% 89.27% 95.21%
Number of salaries quoted 54,134 17,585 31,743
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,500
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 £58,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +5.45% - -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 12 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 12 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 1,057 £69,305 -0.99% 187
South East +101 1,011 £65,000 -7.14% 200
South West +39 850 £67,500 +3.85% 198
North West +15 591 £70,000 -6.67% 124
East of England +105 553 £70,000 +7.69% 200
Midlands +66 435 £65,000 - 80
Yorkshire +71 265 £60,000 -7.69% 45
East Midlands +38 233 £55,000 -21.43% 52
West Midlands +48 202 £68,403 +11.68% 28
North East +24 201 £70,000 +21.74% 18
Scotland -1 188 £76,250 +18.22% 177
Wales +20 137 £60,000 +4.35% 14
Northern Ireland - 15 £90,000 - 28
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 12 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 4,208 (99.13%) Software Engineering
2 661 (15.57%) C++
3 602 (14.18%) C#
4 531 (12.51%) Python
5 520 (12.25%) Agile
6 412 (9.71%) Security Cleared
7 404 (9.52%) AWS
8 391 (9.21%) AI
9 362 (8.53%) CI/CD
10 358 (8.43%) Full-Stack Development
11 342 (8.06%) Java
12 303 (7.14%) .NET
13 294 (6.93%) Linux
14 283 (6.67%) Degree
15 272 (6.41%) Azure
16 264 (6.22%) SC Cleared
17 261 (6.15%) JavaScript
18 257 (6.05%) TypeScript
19 254 (5.98%) C
20 251 (5.91%) Mentoring
21 235 (5.54%) DevOps
22 226 (5.32%) Problem-Solving
23 217 (5.11%) React
24 205 (4.83%) SDLC
25 192 (4.52%) Test Automation
26 190 (4.48%) Microservices
27 178 (4.19%) Continuous Improvement
27 178 (4.19%) DV Cleared
27 178 (4.19%) SQL
28 177 (4.17%) 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 26 (0.61%) Apache
2 15 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.19%) Confluence
3 8 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.16%) Apache Spark
4 7 (0.16%) WinCC
5 5 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.071%) Apache Solr
7 2 (0.047%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.047%) CMS
7 2 (0.047%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.047%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.047%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.047%) WordPress
8 1 (0.024%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.024%) GeoServer
8 1 (0.024%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.024%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.024%) Umbraco
Applications
1 16 (0.38%) Lightworks
2 11 (0.26%) Simulink
3 4 (0.094%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.094%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.094%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.071%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.047%) EPLAN
6 1 (0.024%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.024%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.024%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.047%) Visualfiles
3 1 (0.024%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 404 (9.52%) AWS
2 272 (6.41%) Azure
3 143 (3.37%) SaaS
4 106 (2.50%) GCP
5 69 (1.63%) Serverless
6 50 (1.18%) GitHub
7 37 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (0.85%) Firebase
9 29 (0.68%) Anthropic Claude
9 29 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (0.49%) GitHub Actions
11 19 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
12 18 (0.42%) Amazon EKS
13 17 (0.40%) Amazon S3
14 16 (0.38%) Cloud Run
15 13 (0.31%) OpenShift
16 11 (0.26%) Slack
17 10 (0.24%) GitHub Copilot
18 9 (0.21%) AWS Step Functions
19 8 (0.19%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 64 (1.51%) Wireless
2 36 (0.85%) Ethernet
3 29 (0.68%) Bluetooth
4 25 (0.59%) Modbus
5 22 (0.52%) TCP/IP
6 20 (0.47%) MQTT
7 19 (0.45%) Wi-Fi
8 18 (0.42%) RS-232
9 17 (0.40%) ZigBee
10 15 (0.35%) Profibus
11 12 (0.28%) RS-485
12 11 (0.26%) LTE
13 10 (0.24%) ATM
14 9 (0.21%) 5G
15 6 (0.14%) AMQP
15 6 (0.14%) Wireshark
16 5 (0.12%) Internet
17 3 (0.071%) Firewall
17 3 (0.071%) Software-Defined Radio
18 2 (0.047%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
2 58 (1.37%) SQL Server
3 53 (1.25%) MongoDB
4 46 (1.08%) NoSQL
5 40 (0.94%) MySQL
6 30 (0.71%) Relational Database
7 20 (0.47%) Redis
8 19 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.38%) Chroma
9 16 (0.38%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.38%) Pinecone
10 12 (0.28%) Big Data
11 8 (0.19%) Hadoop
12 7 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.14%) Cloudera CDH
14 4 (0.094%) Amazon RDS
14 4 (0.094%) Data Lake
14 4 (0.094%) FileMaker
14 4 (0.094%) MariaDB
14 4 (0.094%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 144 (3.39%) Git
2 52 (1.22%) GitLab
3 34 (0.80%) Jenkins
4 33 (0.78%) JIRA
5 20 (0.47%) Visual Studio Code
6 16 (0.38%) Claude Code
7 15 (0.35%) Cucumber
8 14 (0.33%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.26%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.21%) JUnit
11 8 (0.19%) GDB
12 7 (0.16%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.16%) LabVIEW
12 7 (0.16%) Moq
13 6 (0.14%) CMake
13 6 (0.14%) Mockito
14 5 (0.12%) Bitbucket
14 5 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
14 5 (0.12%) Yeoman
15 4 (0.094%) Robot Framework
General
1 221 (5.21%) Manufacturing
2 218 (5.14%) Electronics
3 191 (4.50%) Social Skills
4 157 (3.70%) Finance
5 123 (2.90%) Aerospace
6 107 (2.52%) Public Sector
7 82 (1.93%) Automotive
8 60 (1.41%) Aviation
9 56 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 50 (1.18%) Analytical Skills
11 36 (0.85%) Retail
12 29 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
13 28 (0.66%) Law
14 26 (0.61%) Games
15 25 (0.59%) Military
16 17 (0.40%) Marketing
16 17 (0.40%) Tech for Good
17 16 (0.38%) Telecoms
18 15 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
19 12 (0.28%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 303 (7.14%) .NET
2 217 (5.11%) React
3 113 (2.66%) Node.js
4 102 (2.40%) Vue
5 94 (2.21%) Terraform
6 84 (1.98%) WPF
7 75 (1.77%) Spring
8 74 (1.74%) AngularJS
9 70 (1.65%) CSS
9 70 (1.65%) Spring Boot
10 58 (1.37%) REST
11 53 (1.25%) HTML
12 52 (1.22%) RESTful
13 36 (0.85%) Next.js
14 32 (0.75%) Django
15 31 (0.73%) React Native
16 30 (0.71%) .NET Core
17 27 (0.64%) .NET Framework
18 23 (0.54%) ASP.NET
18 23 (0.54%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 170 (4.00%) Cloud Native
2 130 (3.06%) Embedded Systems
3 118 (2.78%) Robotics
4 108 (2.54%) Algorithms
5 84 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.60%) Product Ownership
7 67 (1.58%) AI Agents
8 62 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
9 56 (1.32%) IoT
10 45 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
11 38 (0.90%) Public Cloud
12 28 (0.66%) Cyber Threat
12 28 (0.66%) Mobile App
13 27 (0.64%) Data Structures
14 24 (0.57%) Device Driver
15 22 (0.52%) Distributed Computing
16 21 (0.49%) ARM Cortex
17 18 (0.42%) Educational Technology
18 16 (0.38%) NHS
19 15 (0.35%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 294 (6.93%) Linux
2 71 (1.67%) Windows
3 58 (1.37%) Embedded Linux
4 30 (0.71%) Android
4 30 (0.71%) FreeRTOS
5 11 (0.26%) Debian
6 8 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.19%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.16%) Apple iOS
7 7 (0.16%) VxWorks
8 6 (0.14%) CentOS
9 5 (0.12%) Unix
9 5 (0.12%) Windows Server
10 3 (0.071%) Gentoo
11 2 (0.047%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.047%) SafeRTOS
11 2 (0.047%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.047%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.047%) zOS
12 1 (0.024%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,208 (99.13%) Software Engineering
2 520 (12.25%) Agile
3 391 (9.21%) AI
4 362 (8.53%) CI/CD
5 358 (8.43%) Full-Stack Development
6 251 (5.91%) Mentoring
7 235 (5.54%) DevOps
8 226 (5.32%) Problem-Solving
9 205 (4.83%) SDLC
10 192 (4.52%) Test Automation
11 190 (4.48%) Microservices
12 178 (4.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 177 (4.17%) Computer Science
14 136 (3.20%) Software Architecture
15 129 (3.04%) Technical Leadership
16 125 (2.94%) Code Quality
17 123 (2.90%) Containerisation
18 117 (2.76%) Software Testing
19 106 (2.50%) Machine Learning
20 99 (2.33%) Embedded Software Development
Programming Languages
1 661 (15.57%) C++
2 602 (14.18%) C#
3 531 (12.51%) Python
4 342 (8.06%) Java
5 261 (6.15%) JavaScript
6 257 (6.05%) TypeScript
7 254 (5.98%) C
8 178 (4.19%) SQL
9 124 (2.92%) Rust
10 71 (1.67%) Go
11 56 (1.32%) PHP
12 43 (1.01%) Embedded C
13 30 (0.71%) Ruby
14 29 (0.68%) Embedded C++
15 24 (0.57%) Ada
16 20 (0.47%) Bash
17 18 (0.42%) MATLAB
18 17 (0.40%) COBOL
18 17 (0.40%) Kotlin
19 14 (0.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 412 (9.71%) Security Cleared
2 283 (6.67%) Degree
3 264 (6.22%) SC Cleared
4 178 (4.19%) DV Cleared
5 123 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 52 (1.22%) Master's Degree
7 32 (0.75%) BPSS Clearance
8 27 (0.64%) PhD
9 11 (0.26%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.19%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.16%) HND
12 6 (0.14%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.12%) CEH
13 5 (0.12%) OSCP
14 4 (0.094%) HNC
14 4 (0.094%) Microsoft Certification
15 3 (0.071%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 2 (0.047%) Numerate Degree
17 1 (0.024%) ISTQB
17 1 (0.024%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (1.63%) QA
2 51 (1.20%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.24%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.19%) IEC 61508
4 8 (0.19%) MISRA
4 8 (0.19%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.14%) JTAG
6 5 (0.12%) DO-178B
7 4 (0.094%) Data Quality
7 4 (0.094%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.071%) Automotive SPICE
8 3 (0.071%) ECSS
8 3 (0.071%) GAMP
8 3 (0.071%) MIL-STD-1553
8 3 (0.071%) WCAG
9 2 (0.047%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.047%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.024%) DO-254
10 1 (0.024%) GDPR
10 1 (0.024%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 175 (4.12%) Docker
2 167 (3.93%) Firmware
3 50 (1.18%) Embedded Firmware
4 7 (0.16%) QEMU
5 6 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.094%) KVM
6 4 (0.094%) VMware Infrastructure
7 3 (0.071%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.047%) Active Directory
8 2 (0.047%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.024%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 138 (3.25%) Kubernetes
2 44 (1.04%) Ansible
3 14 (0.33%) Grafana
4 10 (0.24%) Podman
5 8 (0.19%) Kibana
5 8 (0.19%) logstash
5 8 (0.19%) Puppet
6 6 (0.14%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.071%) Plesk
7 3 (0.071%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.071%) SCCM
7 3 (0.071%) SCOM
7 3 (0.071%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.047%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.024%) Packer
9 1 (0.024%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 37 (0.87%) Siemens
2 33 (0.78%) Microsoft
3 21 (0.49%) Google
4 19 (0.45%) Salesforce
5 15 (0.35%) Rockwell
6 14 (0.33%) Okta
6 14 (0.33%) Ping Identity
7 13 (0.31%) Oracle
8 12 (0.28%) Splunk
9 11 (0.26%) Databricks
10 10 (0.24%) OpenAI
11 8 (0.19%) Allen-Bradley
11 8 (0.19%) Red Hat
11 8 (0.19%) RedGate
11 8 (0.19%) Sage
12 7 (0.16%) Atlassian
13 6 (0.14%) Intel
13 6 (0.14%) SaltStack
13 6 (0.14%) VMware
14 5 (0.12%) New Relic