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 £68,903 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 26 September 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 67 20
Rank change year-on-year +45 -47 +46
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,403 1,316 4,010
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.12% 3.81% 7.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.50% 4.26% 7.78%
Number of salaries quoted 3,458 493 2,237
10th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £39,920
25th Percentile £55,000 £55,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £68,903 £65,000 £55,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.00% +17.12% -7.50%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% +23.08% -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 80,086 30,882 51,575
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.09% 89.41% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 55,545 17,477 29,269
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 £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.27% - -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 26 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 26 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 +31 1,072 £70,000 +3.70% 427
South East +92 1,020 £67,500 -3.57% 380
South West +38 904 £68,500 +5.38% 336
North West +17 610 £70,000 -6.67% 273
East of England +113 593 £70,000 +7.69% 312
Midlands +66 449 £65,000 - 231
Yorkshire +73 260 £60,000 - 104
East Midlands +39 254 £55,000 -21.43% 127
Scotland +1 212 £76,250 +22.00% 310
North East +24 202 £70,000 +23.89% 50
West Midlands +45 195 £67,500 +8.00% 104
Wales +21 141 £60,000 +4.35% 35
Northern Ireland - 13 £82,500 - 87
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 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 4,371 (99.27%) Software Engineering
2 675 (15.33%) C++
3 609 (13.83%) C#
4 549 (12.47%) Agile
5 536 (12.17%) Python
6 429 (9.74%) AWS
7 422 (9.58%) AI
8 413 (9.38%) Security Cleared
9 378 (8.59%) Java
10 375 (8.52%) CI/CD
11 369 (8.38%) Full-Stack Development
12 307 (6.97%) .NET
13 300 (6.81%) Linux
14 281 (6.38%) Degree
15 277 (6.29%) Azure
16 269 (6.11%) TypeScript
17 265 (6.02%) SC Cleared
18 259 (5.88%) JavaScript
19 249 (5.66%) C
19 249 (5.66%) Mentoring
20 234 (5.31%) DevOps
21 233 (5.29%) React
22 231 (5.25%) Problem-Solving
23 201 (4.57%) SDLC
24 195 (4.43%) Microservices
25 186 (4.22%) Test Automation
26 185 (4.20%) Continuous Improvement
27 183 (4.16%) Docker
28 175 (3.97%) DV Cleared
28 175 (3.97%) SQL

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 (0.66%) Apache
2 15 (0.34%) 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 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.068%) Apache Solr
6 3 (0.068%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.068%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.068%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.045%) ArchestrA
7 2 (0.045%) CMS
7 2 (0.045%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.045%) WordPress
8 1 (0.023%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.023%) OpenStack
Applications
1 19 (0.43%) Lightworks
2 12 (0.27%) Simulink
3 4 (0.091%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.091%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.068%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.045%) EPLAN
6 1 (0.023%) CANalyzer
6 1 (0.023%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.023%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
2 3 (0.068%) Visualfiles
3 1 (0.023%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.023%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 429 (9.74%) AWS
2 277 (6.29%) Azure
3 139 (3.16%) SaaS
4 110 (2.50%) GCP
5 75 (1.70%) Serverless
6 49 (1.11%) GitHub
7 39 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
8 37 (0.84%) Firebase
9 30 (0.68%) Anthropic Claude
9 30 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (0.48%) GitHub Actions
11 19 (0.43%) Amazon EKS
11 19 (0.43%) AWS CloudFormation
12 18 (0.41%) Amazon S3
13 16 (0.36%) Cloud Run
14 14 (0.32%) OpenShift
15 13 (0.30%) GitHub Copilot
16 11 (0.25%) Slack
17 10 (0.23%) Azure Service Bus
18 9 (0.20%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 73 (1.66%) Wireless
2 38 (0.86%) Ethernet
3 31 (0.70%) Bluetooth
4 27 (0.61%) Modbus
4 27 (0.61%) TCP/IP
5 23 (0.52%) MQTT
6 22 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
7 16 (0.36%) RS-232
7 16 (0.36%) ZigBee
8 14 (0.32%) Profibus
9 13 (0.30%) 5G
9 13 (0.30%) LTE
10 11 (0.25%) RS-485
11 10 (0.23%) ATM
12 9 (0.20%) Internet
13 7 (0.16%) AMQP
13 7 (0.16%) Wireshark
14 4 (0.091%) Software-Defined Radio
15 3 (0.068%) Firewall
15 3 (0.068%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 88 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
2 61 (1.39%) SQL Server
3 50 (1.14%) MongoDB
4 46 (1.04%) NoSQL
5 41 (0.93%) MySQL
6 36 (0.82%) Relational Database
7 20 (0.45%) Redis
8 19 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (0.39%) DynamoDB
10 16 (0.36%) Chroma
10 16 (0.36%) Pinecone
11 13 (0.30%) Big Data
12 9 (0.20%) Hadoop
13 7 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.16%) Cloudera CDH
14 4 (0.091%) Amazon RDS
14 4 (0.091%) Data Lake
14 4 (0.091%) FileMaker
14 4 (0.091%) MariaDB
15 3 (0.068%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 146 (3.32%) Git
2 56 (1.27%) GitLab
3 35 (0.79%) Jenkins
4 32 (0.73%) JIRA
5 20 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
6 18 (0.41%) Claude Code
7 17 (0.39%) Cucumber
8 16 (0.36%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.25%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.23%) JUnit
11 8 (0.18%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.16%) GDB
12 7 (0.16%) LabVIEW
12 7 (0.16%) Mockito
12 7 (0.16%) Moq
13 6 (0.14%) CMake
13 6 (0.14%) PetaLinux
13 6 (0.14%) Rational DOORS
14 5 (0.11%) Subversion
14 5 (0.11%) Yeoman
General
1 224 (5.09%) Manufacturing
2 218 (4.95%) Electronics
3 200 (4.54%) Social Skills
4 181 (4.11%) Finance
5 128 (2.91%) Aerospace
6 104 (2.36%) Public Sector
7 82 (1.86%) Automotive
8 64 (1.45%) Aviation
9 55 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (1.16%) Analytical Skills
11 34 (0.77%) Retail
12 29 (0.66%) Law
13 27 (0.61%) Games
14 26 (0.59%) Military
14 26 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
15 22 (0.50%) Tech for Good
16 18 (0.41%) Marketing
17 17 (0.39%) Financial Institution
18 15 (0.34%) Telecoms
19 14 (0.32%) Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 307 (6.97%) .NET
2 233 (5.29%) React
3 117 (2.66%) Node.js
4 96 (2.18%) Vue
5 92 (2.09%) Terraform
6 85 (1.93%) Spring
7 84 (1.91%) WPF
8 83 (1.89%) Spring Boot
9 72 (1.64%) AngularJS
10 70 (1.59%) CSS
11 57 (1.29%) RESTful
12 55 (1.25%) REST
13 50 (1.14%) HTML
14 39 (0.89%) Next.js
15 35 (0.79%) React Native
16 33 (0.75%) .NET Core
17 32 (0.73%) Kafka
18 30 (0.68%) Django
19 29 (0.66%) .NET Framework
20 26 (0.59%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 172 (3.91%) Cloud Native
2 131 (2.98%) Embedded Systems
3 126 (2.86%) Robotics
4 107 (2.43%) Algorithms
5 83 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.54%) Product Ownership
7 66 (1.50%) AI Agents
7 66 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
8 53 (1.20%) IoT
9 49 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
10 42 (0.95%) Public Cloud
11 33 (0.75%) Cyber Threat
12 26 (0.59%) Device Driver
12 26 (0.59%) Mobile App
13 25 (0.57%) Data Structures
14 23 (0.52%) Distributed Computing
15 19 (0.43%) ARM Cortex
16 18 (0.41%) Educational Technology
16 18 (0.41%) NHS
17 16 (0.36%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 300 (6.81%) Linux
2 73 (1.66%) Windows
3 61 (1.39%) Embedded Linux
4 34 (0.77%) Android
5 30 (0.68%) FreeRTOS
6 12 (0.27%) Debian
7 10 (0.23%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (0.20%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.16%) CentOS
9 7 (0.16%) VxWorks
10 5 (0.11%) Unix
10 5 (0.11%) Windows Server
11 3 (0.068%) Gentoo
12 2 (0.045%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.045%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.045%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.045%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.023%) SafeRTOS
13 1 (0.023%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,371 (99.27%) Software Engineering
2 549 (12.47%) Agile
3 422 (9.58%) AI
4 375 (8.52%) CI/CD
5 369 (8.38%) Full-Stack Development
6 249 (5.66%) Mentoring
7 234 (5.31%) DevOps
8 231 (5.25%) Problem-Solving
9 201 (4.57%) SDLC
10 195 (4.43%) Microservices
11 186 (4.22%) Test Automation
12 185 (4.20%) Continuous Improvement
13 172 (3.91%) Computer Science
14 147 (3.34%) Software Architecture
15 136 (3.09%) Code Quality
16 128 (2.91%) Containerisation
16 128 (2.91%) Technical Leadership
17 110 (2.50%) Software Testing
18 109 (2.48%) Machine Learning
19 97 (2.20%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 675 (15.33%) C++
2 609 (13.83%) C#
3 536 (12.17%) Python
4 378 (8.59%) Java
5 269 (6.11%) TypeScript
6 259 (5.88%) JavaScript
7 249 (5.66%) C
8 175 (3.97%) SQL
9 125 (2.84%) Rust
10 70 (1.59%) Go
11 59 (1.34%) PHP
12 43 (0.98%) Embedded C
13 31 (0.70%) Ruby
14 30 (0.68%) Embedded C++
15 26 (0.59%) Ada
16 22 (0.50%) MATLAB
17 21 (0.48%) Bash
18 18 (0.41%) Kotlin
19 13 (0.30%) Scala
20 9 (0.20%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 413 (9.38%) Security Cleared
2 281 (6.38%) Degree
3 265 (6.02%) SC Cleared
4 175 (3.97%) DV Cleared
5 122 (2.77%) Computer Science Degree
6 48 (1.09%) Master's Degree
7 37 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (0.55%) PhD
9 11 (0.25%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.18%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.14%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.11%) CEH
12 5 (0.11%) OSCP
13 4 (0.091%) HND
13 4 (0.091%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.068%) Chartered Engineer
14 3 (0.068%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.045%) Numerate Degree
16 1 (0.023%) HNC
16 1 (0.023%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (1.50%) QA
2 48 (1.09%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.23%) IEC 61131
4 6 (0.14%) JTAG
4 6 (0.14%) MISRA
4 6 (0.14%) MISRA C
5 5 (0.11%) DO-178B
5 5 (0.11%) IEC 61508
5 5 (0.11%) WCAG
6 4 (0.091%) Data Quality
6 4 (0.091%) ECSS
7 3 (0.068%) Automotive SPICE
7 3 (0.068%) GAMP
7 3 (0.068%) ISO 26262
7 3 (0.068%) MIL-STD-1553
8 2 (0.045%) AUTOSAR
8 2 (0.045%) GDPR
8 2 (0.045%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.023%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.023%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 183 (4.16%) Docker
2 162 (3.68%) Firmware
3 49 (1.11%) Embedded Firmware
4 6 (0.14%) QEMU
5 4 (0.091%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.045%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.045%) KVM
6 2 (0.045%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.023%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.023%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 151 (3.43%) Kubernetes
2 46 (1.04%) Ansible
3 15 (0.34%) Grafana
4 10 (0.23%) Podman
5 9 (0.20%) Puppet
6 8 (0.18%) Kibana
6 8 (0.18%) logstash
7 6 (0.14%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.091%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.068%) Plesk
9 3 (0.068%) SCCM
9 3 (0.068%) SCOM
9 3 (0.068%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.045%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.045%) Packer
10 2 (0.045%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 37 (0.84%) Microsoft
2 35 (0.79%) Siemens
3 20 (0.45%) Google
4 18 (0.41%) Salesforce
5 14 (0.32%) Okta
5 14 (0.32%) Ping Identity
5 14 (0.32%) Rockwell
6 13 (0.30%) Databricks
7 12 (0.27%) Oracle
7 12 (0.27%) Splunk
8 11 (0.25%) RedGate
9 10 (0.23%) OpenAI
10 9 (0.20%) Red Hat
11 8 (0.18%) Sage
12 7 (0.16%) Allen-Bradley
12 7 (0.16%) SaltStack
13 6 (0.14%) Intel
14 5 (0.11%) Atlassian
14 5 (0.11%) New Relic
14 5 (0.11%) Xamarin