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 7 January 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 34 33
Rank change year-on-year -38 -1 +17
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,189 2,072 2,123
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 2.81% 5.67% 6.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.10% 6.10% 6.78%
Number of salaries quoted 912 1,001 1,288
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £87,500 £84,300
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year - +7.69% -3.70%

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 38,294 33,993 31,323
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.44% 92.95% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 23,265 16,733 23,650
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £58,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +3.45% -3.33%

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 7 January 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 7 January 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 -37 286 £65,000 +8.33% 411
North of England -21 271 £65,000 +5.26% 268
South West -6 256 £65,000 +18.18% 199
East of England -23 130 £70,000 +3.70% 208
North West -10 120 £67,500 +8.00% 125
Yorkshire -15 116 £57,500 -4.17% 89
Midlands -24 109 £60,000 +4.35% 137
Scotland -32 108 £60,000 +4.35% 80
West Midlands -16 62 £60,000 - 44
East Midlands -22 50 £65,000 +30.00% 91
North East -22 35 £70,000 +14.75% 55
Wales -32 19 £75,000 - 68
Northern Ireland -25 11 £85,000 +3.03% 26
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 January 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 1,187 (99.83%) Software Engineering
2 188 (15.81%) Agile
3 186 (15.64%) C#
4 179 (15.05%) C++
5 160 (13.46%) .NET
6 157 (13.20%) Java
7 154 (12.95%) AWS
8 143 (12.03%) CI/CD
9 142 (11.94%) Security Cleared
10 135 (11.35%) React
11 133 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
12 132 (11.10%) DevOps
13 129 (10.85%) Python
14 128 (10.77%) Azure
15 117 (9.84%) Degree
16 116 (9.76%) JavaScript
17 111 (9.34%) Mentoring
18 102 (8.58%) SQL
19 99 (8.33%) TypeScript
20 97 (8.16%) C
20 97 (8.16%) Linux
21 93 (7.82%) Microservices
22 86 (7.23%) Problem-Solving
23 77 (6.48%) SC Cleared
24 74 (6.22%) Kubernetes
25 72 (6.06%) AI
25 72 (6.06%) Computer Science
26 62 (5.21%) Docker
27 61 (5.13%) Firmware
28 55 (4.63%) AngularJS

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 (1.01%) IIS
2 11 (0.93%) Apache
3 6 (0.50%) Confluence
4 5 (0.42%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Solr
5 3 (0.25%) CMS
6 2 (0.17%) ArchestrA
6 2 (0.17%) FactoryTalk
6 2 (0.17%) NServiceBus
6 2 (0.17%) WinCC
7 1 (0.084%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.084%) Kinematics
Applications
1 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.17%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.17%) Sketch
3 1 (0.084%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.084%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 9 (0.76%) Magento
2 2 (0.17%) ResourceLink
3 1 (0.084%) Q-Pulse
Cloud Services
1 154 (12.95%) AWS
2 128 (10.77%) Azure
3 43 (3.62%) SaaS
4 36 (3.03%) Serverless
5 34 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
6 28 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (1.93%) GCP
8 22 (1.85%) Amazon S3
8 22 (1.85%) GitHub
9 18 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
10 14 (1.18%) Amazon ECS
11 9 (0.76%) Azure AKS
12 8 (0.67%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (0.67%) OpenShift
13 7 (0.59%) Amazon EC2
13 7 (0.59%) Stripe
14 6 (0.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 6 (0.50%) AWS CloudFormation
15 5 (0.42%) Amazon EventBridge
15 5 (0.42%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 35 (2.94%) Wireless
2 17 (1.43%) RS-232
3 16 (1.35%) Software-Defined Radio
4 15 (1.26%) Bluetooth
5 6 (0.50%) HTTP
5 6 (0.50%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.42%) DNS
6 5 (0.42%) Modbus
7 4 (0.34%) AMQP
7 4 (0.34%) SMTP
8 3 (0.25%) ATM
8 3 (0.25%) Ethernet
9 2 (0.17%) 3G
9 2 (0.17%) Firewall
9 2 (0.17%) GPRS
9 2 (0.17%) GSM
9 2 (0.17%) Profibus
9 2 (0.17%) RS-485
9 2 (0.17%) SSL
9 2 (0.17%) UWB
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.86%) SQL Server
2 33 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (1.93%) NoSQL
4 21 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
5 18 (1.51%) Relational Database
6 16 (1.35%) MongoDB
6 16 (1.35%) MySQL
7 13 (1.09%) DynamoDB
8 12 (1.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 9 (0.76%) Redis
10 7 (0.59%) Neo4j
11 5 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (0.42%) Big Data
11 5 (0.42%) Hadoop
12 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.34%) Apache Cassandra
12 4 (0.34%) GIS
13 3 (0.25%) Cloudera CDH
13 3 (0.25%) MariaDB
13 3 (0.25%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 50 (4.21%) Git
2 16 (1.35%) GitLab
2 16 (1.35%) Visual Studio
3 15 (1.26%) JIRA
4 12 (1.01%) JUnit
5 10 (0.84%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.67%) Cypress.io
7 5 (0.42%) Bitbucket
7 5 (0.42%) Selenium
8 4 (0.34%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.17%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.17%) Maven
9 2 (0.17%) PROIV
9 2 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.17%) TestRail
10 1 (0.084%) Gatling
10 1 (0.084%) Katalon Studio
10 1 (0.084%) Postman
10 1 (0.084%) Rational Statemate
10 1 (0.084%) REST Assured
General
1 98 (8.24%) Social Skills
2 76 (6.39%) Finance
3 44 (3.70%) Electronics
4 41 (3.45%) Manufacturing
5 21 (1.77%) Aerospace
6 20 (1.68%) Games
7 19 (1.60%) Analytical Skills
8 18 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
8 18 (1.51%) Public Sector
9 17 (1.43%) Automotive
10 15 (1.26%) Retail
11 12 (1.01%) Tech for Good
12 9 (0.76%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.67%) Law
14 7 (0.59%) Aeronautics
14 7 (0.59%) Marketing
14 7 (0.59%) Military
15 6 (0.50%) Legal
16 5 (0.42%) Health Technology
17 4 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (13.46%) .NET
2 135 (11.35%) React
3 55 (4.63%) AngularJS
4 48 (4.04%) Node.js
5 39 (3.28%) Spring
6 37 (3.11%) RESTful
6 37 (3.11%) Spring Boot
7 31 (2.61%) .NET Core
8 29 (2.44%) .NET Framework
8 29 (2.44%) ASP.NET
8 29 (2.44%) HTML
8 29 (2.44%) REST
9 28 (2.35%) CSS
9 28 (2.35%) Vue
10 20 (1.68%) Qt
11 19 (1.60%) Entity Framework
12 17 (1.43%) Next.js
13 16 (1.35%) WinForms
14 13 (1.09%) Kafka
15 12 (1.01%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 68 (5.72%) Cloud Native
2 60 (5.05%) Embedded Systems
3 25 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
4 24 (2.02%) IoT
5 20 (1.68%) Robotics
6 18 (1.51%) e-Learning
7 15 (1.26%) Algorithms
8 14 (1.18%) Product Ownership
8 14 (1.18%) RISC-V
9 12 (1.01%) Manufacturing Execution System
9 12 (1.01%) MicroBlaze
9 12 (1.01%) Smart Energy
10 11 (0.93%) Driving Licence
10 11 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (0.67%) CAN bus
12 8 (0.67%) Hedge funds
12 8 (0.67%) Renewable Energy
13 7 (0.59%) AI Agents
13 7 (0.59%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 97 (8.16%) Linux
2 34 (2.86%) Embedded Linux
2 34 (2.86%) Windows
3 14 (1.18%) Android
4 6 (0.50%) Unix
5 3 (0.25%) CentOS
5 3 (0.25%) Debian
5 3 (0.25%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.17%) Mac OS X
6 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.084%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.084%) Fedora
7 1 (0.084%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.084%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,187 (99.83%) Software Engineering
2 188 (15.81%) Agile
3 143 (12.03%) CI/CD
4 133 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
5 132 (11.10%) DevOps
6 111 (9.34%) Mentoring
7 93 (7.82%) Microservices
8 86 (7.23%) Problem-Solving
9 72 (6.06%) AI
9 72 (6.06%) Computer Science
10 53 (4.46%) Continuous Improvement
11 47 (3.95%) Containerisation
12 46 (3.87%) Scrum
13 45 (3.78%) Coaching
14 42 (3.53%) SDLC
15 41 (3.45%) Machine Learning
16 35 (2.94%) Fintech
16 35 (2.94%) Test Automation
17 34 (2.86%) TDD
18 33 (2.78%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 186 (15.64%) C#
2 179 (15.05%) C++
3 157 (13.20%) Java
4 129 (10.85%) Python
5 116 (9.76%) JavaScript
6 102 (8.58%) SQL
7 99 (8.33%) TypeScript
8 97 (8.16%) C
9 37 (3.11%) PHP
10 24 (2.02%) Ada
11 22 (1.85%) Kotlin
12 19 (1.60%) Embedded C++
12 19 (1.60%) T-SQL
13 18 (1.51%) Ruby
14 14 (1.18%) Ada 95
15 13 (1.09%) PL/SQL
16 12 (1.01%) Embedded C
16 12 (1.01%) Rust
17 11 (0.93%) Scala
18 9 (0.76%) Bash
Qualifications
1 142 (11.94%) Security Cleared
2 117 (9.84%) Degree
3 77 (6.48%) SC Cleared
4 49 (4.12%) Computer Science Degree
5 41 (3.45%) DV Cleared
6 16 (1.35%) Master's Degree
7 15 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 15 (1.26%) Chartered Engineer
8 11 (0.93%) PhD
9 4 (0.34%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.17%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.17%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.17%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.17%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (1.60%) QA
2 14 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 12207
3 10 (0.84%) IEC 61508
3 10 (0.84%) MISRA
4 8 (0.67%) MISRA C
5 4 (0.34%) Accessibility
6 3 (0.25%) ECSS
6 3 (0.25%) GDPR
6 3 (0.25%) IEC 61131
6 3 (0.25%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.17%) ISO 9000
7 2 (0.17%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.17%) JTAG
7 2 (0.17%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.084%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.084%) Data Quality
System Software
1 62 (5.21%) Docker
2 61 (5.13%) Firmware
3 36 (3.03%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.17%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.084%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 74 (6.22%) Kubernetes
2 31 (2.61%) Terraform
3 8 (0.67%) Functional Safety
3 8 (0.67%) Kibana
4 7 (0.59%) Grafana
5 3 (0.25%) Ansible
5 3 (0.25%) Puppet
6 2 (0.17%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.084%) Istio
Vendors
1 19 (1.60%) Microsoft
2 16 (1.35%) Oracle
3 14 (1.18%) Xamarin
4 12 (1.01%) Sage
5 11 (0.93%) Adobe
6 10 (0.84%) Google
7 8 (0.67%) Atlassian
8 6 (0.50%) Guidewire
8 6 (0.50%) HubSpot
9 5 (0.42%) Zoho
10 4 (0.34%) Databricks
10 4 (0.34%) Red Hat
11 3 (0.25%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.25%) Rockwell
11 3 (0.25%) SaltStack
11 3 (0.25%) SAP
11 3 (0.25%) Siemens
12 2 (0.17%) Palantir
12 2 (0.17%) VMware
13 1 (0.084%) Salesforce