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 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 35 28
Rank change year-on-year -21 -7 +26
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,682 1,785 3,622
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 3.43% 5.62% 7.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.76% 6.15% 7.53%
Number of salaries quoted 1,322 874 2,175
10th Percentile £40,206 £40,000 £39,695
25th Percentile £52,250 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £93,778 £82,548
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year - +12.00% -7.41%

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 44,773 29,014 48,120
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.31% 91.39% 94.94%
Number of salaries quoted 28,095 14,397 37,245
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -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 21 February 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 21 February 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 +2 409 £65,000 +6.56% 162
South East -19 395 £65,000 +8.33% 178
South West -1 343 £65,000 +13.16% 131
North West +8 200 £65,000 - 98
East of England -16 184 £70,000 +5.69% 73
Scotland -7 157 £65,000 +13.04% 97
Yorkshire -4 150 £62,500 +6.62% 35
Midlands -1 144 £60,000 +9.09% 76
East Midlands -18 74 £60,000 +9.09% 40
West Midlands -1 72 £62,500 +13.64% 36
North East -2 59 £70,000 +27.27% 29
Wales -20 37 £55,000 -18.52% 24
Northern Ireland -39 13 £85,000 -5.56% 7
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 February 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 1,672 (99.41%) Software Engineering
2 227 (13.50%) C#
3 226 (13.44%) C++
4 217 (12.90%) AWS
5 215 (12.78%) Java
6 212 (12.60%) .NET
7 206 (12.25%) Agile
8 189 (11.24%) Full-Stack Development
9 183 (10.88%) Python
10 173 (10.29%) Security Cleared
11 168 (9.99%) Azure
12 166 (9.87%) CI/CD
13 160 (9.51%) React
14 158 (9.39%) DevOps
15 147 (8.74%) JavaScript
16 139 (8.26%) Degree
17 135 (8.03%) SQL
18 131 (7.79%) TypeScript
19 113 (6.72%) C
19 113 (6.72%) Microservices
20 106 (6.30%) Mentoring
21 105 (6.24%) Linux
22 103 (6.12%) Problem-Solving
23 97 (5.77%) Kubernetes
24 95 (5.65%) Continuous Improvement
25 90 (5.35%) SC Cleared
26 88 (5.23%) Computer Science
27 81 (4.82%) AI
28 80 (4.76%) Docker
28 80 (4.76%) SaaS

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 (0.71%) Apache
1 12 (0.71%) IIS
2 7 (0.42%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.30%) CMS
4 3 (0.18%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.18%) Confluence
5 2 (0.12%) NServiceBus
6 1 (0.059%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.059%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.059%) Kinematics
6 1 (0.059%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.24%) EngageOne
2 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.12%) Sketch
3 1 (0.059%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.059%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.59%) Magento
2 2 (0.12%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.059%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 217 (12.90%) AWS
2 168 (9.99%) Azure
3 80 (4.76%) SaaS
4 45 (2.68%) Serverless
5 42 (2.50%) GCP
6 35 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (2.02%) AWS Lambda
8 26 (1.55%) Amazon S3
9 25 (1.49%) Amazon EKS
10 19 (1.13%) Azure AKS
11 16 (0.95%) GitHub
12 15 (0.89%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (0.59%) OpenShift
14 8 (0.48%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (0.48%) Stripe
15 7 (0.42%) Amazon EC2
16 5 (0.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 5 (0.30%) Amazon SQS
16 5 (0.30%) AWS Fargate
17 4 (0.24%) Amazon EventBridge
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.61%) Wireless
2 17 (1.01%) RS-232
3 12 (0.71%) Bluetooth
4 7 (0.42%) Ethernet
4 7 (0.42%) Modbus
5 6 (0.36%) HTTP
5 6 (0.36%) Software-Defined Radio
5 6 (0.36%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.30%) AMQP
7 4 (0.24%) DNS
7 4 (0.24%) LTE
7 4 (0.24%) SMTP
7 4 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.18%) ATM
8 3 (0.18%) Broadband
9 2 (0.12%) 3G
9 2 (0.12%) GPRS
9 2 (0.12%) GSM
9 2 (0.12%) RTP
9 2 (0.12%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (3.09%) SQL Server
2 45 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
3 39 (2.32%) NoSQL
4 23 (1.37%) Elasticsearch
4 23 (1.37%) MySQL
5 21 (1.25%) MongoDB
6 17 (1.01%) Relational Database
7 15 (0.89%) DynamoDB
8 12 (0.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 9 (0.54%) Big Data
9 9 (0.54%) Neo4j
10 8 (0.48%) Redis
11 7 (0.42%) Hadoop
12 5 (0.30%) Cloudera CDH
13 4 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.18%) Apache Cassandra
14 3 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
14 3 (0.18%) Geospatial Data
14 3 (0.18%) Oracle Database
15 2 (0.12%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 51 (3.03%) Git
2 17 (1.01%) GitLab
3 15 (0.89%) Visual Studio
4 12 (0.71%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.71%) JIRA
5 10 (0.59%) JUnit
6 7 (0.42%) Cypress.io
7 6 (0.36%) Subversion
8 5 (0.30%) Selenium
9 4 (0.24%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.24%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle APEX
10 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.18%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.18%) Gradle
10 3 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.12%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.12%) Appium
11 2 (0.12%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (0.12%) Vagrant
General
1 106 (6.30%) Social Skills
2 90 (5.35%) Finance
3 60 (3.57%) Manufacturing
4 56 (3.33%) Electronics
5 32 (1.90%) Aerospace
6 31 (1.84%) Public Sector
7 26 (1.55%) Automotive
8 24 (1.43%) Analytical Skills
8 24 (1.43%) Pharmaceutical
9 22 (1.31%) Games
10 16 (0.95%) Tech for Good
11 15 (0.89%) Retail
12 9 (0.54%) Financial Institution
12 9 (0.54%) Military
13 8 (0.48%) Health Technology
13 8 (0.48%) Marketing
14 7 (0.42%) Aeronautics
14 7 (0.42%) Law
15 6 (0.36%) Telecoms
16 4 (0.24%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 212 (12.60%) .NET
2 160 (9.51%) React
3 69 (4.10%) Node.js
4 66 (3.92%) AngularJS
5 53 (3.15%) RESTful
5 53 (3.15%) Spring
6 49 (2.91%) Spring Boot
7 48 (2.85%) REST
8 45 (2.68%) .NET Core
9 40 (2.38%) .NET Framework
10 35 (2.08%) Vue
11 32 (1.90%) HTML
12 30 (1.78%) CSS
13 29 (1.72%) ASP.NET
14 27 (1.61%) Qt
15 26 (1.55%) Entity Framework
16 21 (1.25%) Next.js
17 17 (1.01%) Django
18 16 (0.95%) Web Services
19 15 (0.89%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 84 (4.99%) Cloud Native
2 50 (2.97%) Embedded Systems
3 31 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
3 31 (1.84%) IoT
4 28 (1.66%) Robotics
5 21 (1.25%) Algorithms
6 16 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
7 15 (0.89%) Smart Energy
8 14 (0.83%) Product Ownership
9 13 (0.77%) Hedge funds
9 13 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (0.71%) Client/Server
11 11 (0.65%) CAN bus
11 11 (0.65%) Industry 4.0
12 10 (0.59%) Mobile App
13 9 (0.54%) Driving Licence
14 8 (0.48%) e-Learning
14 8 (0.48%) Renewable Energy
15 7 (0.42%) Device Driver
15 7 (0.42%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 105 (6.24%) Linux
2 31 (1.84%) Windows
3 29 (1.72%) Embedded Linux
4 25 (1.49%) Android
5 5 (0.30%) CentOS
5 5 (0.30%) Debian
5 5 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.30%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.30%) Unix
6 4 (0.24%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
8 2 (0.12%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.059%) Fedora
9 1 (0.059%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,672 (99.41%) Software Engineering
2 206 (12.25%) Agile
3 189 (11.24%) Full-Stack Development
4 166 (9.87%) CI/CD
5 158 (9.39%) DevOps
6 113 (6.72%) Microservices
7 106 (6.30%) Mentoring
8 103 (6.12%) Problem-Solving
9 95 (5.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 88 (5.23%) Computer Science
11 81 (4.82%) AI
12 69 (4.10%) Scrum
12 69 (4.10%) SDLC
13 65 (3.86%) Containerisation
14 59 (3.51%) Test Automation
15 58 (3.45%) TDD
16 44 (2.62%) Collaborative Culture
17 41 (2.44%) Coaching
18 40 (2.38%) Machine Learning
18 40 (2.38%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 227 (13.50%) C#
2 226 (13.44%) C++
3 215 (12.78%) Java
4 183 (10.88%) Python
5 147 (8.74%) JavaScript
6 135 (8.03%) SQL
7 131 (7.79%) TypeScript
8 113 (6.72%) C
9 42 (2.50%) PHP
10 26 (1.55%) Kotlin
10 26 (1.55%) Rust
11 25 (1.49%) Embedded C
12 19 (1.13%) Embedded C++
12 19 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 17 (1.01%) Ruby
14 16 (0.95%) Ada
15 13 (0.77%) PL/SQL
15 13 (0.77%) Scala
16 12 (0.71%) Bash
16 12 (0.71%) Go
Qualifications
1 173 (10.29%) Security Cleared
2 139 (8.26%) Degree
3 90 (5.35%) SC Cleared
4 67 (3.98%) Computer Science Degree
5 46 (2.73%) DV Cleared
6 18 (1.07%) Master's Degree
7 8 (0.48%) PhD
8 7 (0.42%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.42%) Chartered Engineer
8 7 (0.42%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.12%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.12%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.12%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.059%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (1.96%) QA
2 13 (0.77%) MISRA
3 11 (0.65%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.65%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 4 (0.24%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.24%) ECSS
5 4 (0.24%) ISO 9001
6 3 (0.18%) GDPR
6 3 (0.18%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.12%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.059%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.059%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.059%) IEC 61131
System Software
1 80 (4.76%) Docker
2 66 (3.92%) Firmware
3 26 (1.55%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.54%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.54%) KVM
4 9 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 97 (5.77%) Kubernetes
2 45 (2.68%) Terraform
3 11 (0.65%) Functional Safety
4 6 (0.36%) Ansible
4 6 (0.36%) Grafana
4 6 (0.36%) Kibana
5 5 (0.30%) Puppet
6 2 (0.12%) Packer
6 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.12%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.059%) Istio
7 1 (0.059%) logstash
7 1 (0.059%) Podman
Vendors
1 21 (1.25%) Microsoft
2 19 (1.13%) Oracle
3 15 (0.89%) Xamarin
4 12 (0.71%) Adobe
4 12 (0.71%) Google
4 12 (0.71%) Sage
5 9 (0.54%) VMware
6 8 (0.48%) HubSpot
7 6 (0.36%) Red Hat
8 5 (0.30%) SaltStack
8 5 (0.30%) Zoho
9 4 (0.24%) Atmel
9 4 (0.24%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.24%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.18%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.18%) SAP
10 3 (0.18%) Siemens
11 2 (0.12%) Databricks
11 2 (0.12%) Palantir
11 2 (0.12%) Rockwell