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 £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 13 October 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 66 22
Rank change year-on-year +44 -44 +40
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,511 1,285 3,545
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.21% 3.74% 7.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.63% 4.18% 7.38%
Number of salaries quoted 3,413 474 1,964
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £53,313 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +13.04% -4.17%
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 80,139 30,739 48,018
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.51% 89.52% 95.38%
Number of salaries quoted 55,358 17,374 26,306
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,750 £53,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.81% -2.73% -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 13 October 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 13 October 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 +34 1,066 £70,000 +2.19% 343
South East +96 1,010 £70,000 +2.94% 300
South West +45 940 £67,750 +4.23% 195
East of England +114 635 £70,000 +7.69% 234
North West +11 603 £70,000 -6.67% 218
Midlands +59 453 £65,000 - 143
East Midlands +43 271 £55,000 -21.43% 62
Scotland +3 253 £80,000 +24.03% 235
Yorkshire +70 252 £60,000 - 75
North East +28 211 £70,000 +27.27% 50
West Midlands +36 182 £65,000 +4.00% 81
Wales +19 146 £60,000 - 27
Northern Ireland -67 9 £75,000 - 64
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 October 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 4,482 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 656 (14.54%) C++
3 589 (13.06%) C#
4 587 (13.01%) Agile
5 539 (11.95%) Python
6 453 (10.04%) AI
7 445 (9.86%) AWS
8 408 (9.04%) Java
9 391 (8.67%) Security Cleared
10 384 (8.51%) CI/CD
11 371 (8.22%) Full-Stack Development
12 308 (6.83%) Linux
13 304 (6.74%) .NET
14 295 (6.54%) Azure
15 270 (5.99%) Degree
16 268 (5.94%) TypeScript
17 253 (5.61%) Mentoring
17 253 (5.61%) SC Cleared
18 247 (5.48%) JavaScript
19 230 (5.10%) C
19 230 (5.10%) DevOps
20 228 (5.05%) Problem-Solving
21 222 (4.92%) React
22 205 (4.54%) Microservices
23 204 (4.52%) Test Automation
24 199 (4.41%) SDLC
25 196 (4.34%) Docker
26 179 (3.97%) Continuous Improvement
26 179 (3.97%) SQL
27 172 (3.81%) Kubernetes

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 30 (0.67%) Apache
2 15 (0.33%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.20%) Apache Spark
4 7 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.16%) WinCC
5 6 (0.13%) Confluence
6 5 (0.11%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.089%) CMS
7 4 (0.089%) Headless CMS
8 3 (0.067%) SharePoint
8 3 (0.067%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.067%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.044%) ArchestrA
10 1 (0.022%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.022%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.022%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.022%) WordPress
Applications
1 21 (0.47%) Lightworks
2 12 (0.27%) Simulink
3 4 (0.089%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.089%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.067%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.044%) EPLAN
6 1 (0.022%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.022%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
1 6 (0.13%) Visualfiles
2 2 (0.044%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.022%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 445 (9.86%) AWS
2 295 (6.54%) Azure
3 126 (2.79%) SaaS
4 111 (2.46%) GCP
5 73 (1.62%) Serverless
6 53 (1.17%) GitHub
7 40 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
8 37 (0.82%) Firebase
9 30 (0.67%) Anthropic Claude
10 29 (0.64%) AWS Lambda
11 22 (0.49%) GitHub Actions
12 20 (0.44%) Amazon EKS
12 20 (0.44%) Amazon S3
12 20 (0.44%) AWS CloudFormation
13 17 (0.38%) Cloud Run
14 14 (0.31%) Azure Service Bus
14 14 (0.31%) GitHub Copilot
14 14 (0.31%) OpenShift
15 11 (0.24%) Azure Functions
16 10 (0.22%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 71 (1.57%) Wireless
2 31 (0.69%) Ethernet
3 29 (0.64%) Bluetooth
4 28 (0.62%) TCP/IP
5 27 (0.60%) MQTT
6 24 (0.53%) Modbus
7 23 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (0.33%) ZigBee
9 14 (0.31%) LTE
10 13 (0.29%) 5G
10 13 (0.29%) RS-232
11 12 (0.27%) Profibus
12 10 (0.22%) ATM
12 10 (0.22%) RS-485
13 9 (0.20%) Internet
14 8 (0.18%) AMQP
15 7 (0.16%) Wireshark
16 5 (0.11%) HTTP
17 4 (0.089%) Software-Defined Radio
18 3 (0.067%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
2 63 (1.40%) SQL Server
3 49 (1.09%) MongoDB
4 44 (0.98%) NoSQL
5 41 (0.91%) MySQL
6 39 (0.86%) Relational Database
7 27 (0.60%) Redis
8 17 (0.38%) Big Data
8 17 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.35%) Chroma
9 16 (0.35%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.35%) Pinecone
10 9 (0.20%) Hadoop
11 7 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (0.16%) Cloudera CDH
12 4 (0.089%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.089%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.067%) Data Warehouse
13 3 (0.067%) MariaDB
13 3 (0.067%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 133 (2.95%) Git
2 54 (1.20%) GitLab
3 37 (0.82%) Jenkins
4 31 (0.69%) JIRA
5 19 (0.42%) Claude Code
6 17 (0.38%) Cucumber
6 17 (0.38%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
8 11 (0.24%) SonarQube
9 9 (0.20%) JUnit
10 8 (0.18%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.16%) GDB
11 7 (0.16%) LabVIEW
11 7 (0.16%) Moq
11 7 (0.16%) PetaLinux
11 7 (0.16%) Rational Rhapsody
12 6 (0.13%) Eclipse
12 6 (0.13%) Mockito
12 6 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
13 5 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 225 (4.99%) Finance
2 209 (4.63%) Manufacturing
3 207 (4.59%) Electronics
4 200 (4.43%) Social Skills
5 133 (2.95%) Aerospace
6 111 (2.46%) Public Sector
7 79 (1.75%) Automotive
8 68 (1.51%) Aviation
9 55 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (1.13%) Analytical Skills
11 32 (0.71%) Tech for Good
12 30 (0.67%) Law
12 30 (0.67%) Retail
13 29 (0.64%) Games
13 29 (0.64%) Military
14 24 (0.53%) Banking
14 24 (0.53%) Financial Institution
15 21 (0.47%) Health Technology
16 19 (0.42%) Pharmaceutical
17 17 (0.38%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 304 (6.74%) .NET
2 222 (4.92%) React
3 123 (2.73%) Node.js
4 93 (2.06%) Terraform
5 88 (1.95%) Vue
6 81 (1.80%) Spring
7 80 (1.77%) Spring Boot
8 78 (1.73%) WPF
9 63 (1.40%) AngularJS
10 62 (1.37%) CSS
11 60 (1.33%) RESTful
12 57 (1.26%) REST
13 41 (0.91%) Next.js
14 40 (0.89%) HTML
14 40 (0.89%) Kafka
15 35 (0.78%) .NET Core
15 35 (0.78%) React Native
16 30 (0.67%) Django
17 29 (0.64%) .NET Framework
18 28 (0.62%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 187 (4.15%) Cloud Native
2 136 (3.01%) Robotics
3 129 (2.86%) Embedded Systems
4 100 (2.22%) Algorithms
5 86 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
6 74 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
7 68 (1.51%) AI Agents
8 57 (1.26%) Product Ownership
9 51 (1.13%) Public Cloud
10 50 (1.11%) IoT
11 47 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
12 42 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
13 24 (0.53%) Device Driver
13 24 (0.53%) Distributed Computing
13 24 (0.53%) Mobile App
14 23 (0.51%) Data Structures
15 19 (0.42%) NHS
16 17 (0.38%) ARM Cortex
17 16 (0.35%) Hedge funds
17 16 (0.35%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 308 (6.83%) Linux
2 72 (1.60%) Windows
3 62 (1.37%) Embedded Linux
4 36 (0.80%) Android
5 27 (0.60%) FreeRTOS
6 15 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 12 (0.27%) Debian
8 10 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 9 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.18%) macOS
10 8 (0.18%) VxWorks
11 7 (0.16%) CentOS
12 5 (0.11%) Unix
13 3 (0.067%) Gentoo
13 3 (0.067%) Windows Server
14 2 (0.044%) Robot Operating System
14 2 (0.044%) Windows 10
14 2 (0.044%) Windows Server 2019
15 1 (0.022%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,482 (99.36%) Software Engineering
2 587 (13.01%) Agile
3 453 (10.04%) AI
4 384 (8.51%) CI/CD
5 371 (8.22%) Full-Stack Development
6 253 (5.61%) Mentoring
7 230 (5.10%) DevOps
8 228 (5.05%) Problem-Solving
9 205 (4.54%) Microservices
10 204 (4.52%) Test Automation
11 199 (4.41%) SDLC
12 179 (3.97%) Continuous Improvement
13 163 (3.61%) Computer Science
14 147 (3.26%) Software Architecture
15 143 (3.17%) Technical Leadership
16 139 (3.08%) Code Quality
17 138 (3.06%) Containerisation
18 121 (2.68%) Machine Learning
19 109 (2.42%) Cybersecurity
20 107 (2.37%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 656 (14.54%) C++
2 589 (13.06%) C#
3 539 (11.95%) Python
4 408 (9.04%) Java
5 268 (5.94%) TypeScript
6 247 (5.48%) JavaScript
7 230 (5.10%) C
8 179 (3.97%) SQL
9 133 (2.95%) Rust
10 77 (1.71%) Go
11 59 (1.31%) PHP
12 39 (0.86%) Embedded C
13 31 (0.69%) Ruby
14 30 (0.67%) Embedded C++
15 28 (0.62%) Ada
16 26 (0.58%) Kotlin
17 22 (0.49%) Bash
17 22 (0.49%) MATLAB
18 14 (0.31%) Scala
19 7 (0.16%) XAML
Qualifications
1 391 (8.67%) Security Cleared
2 270 (5.99%) Degree
3 253 (5.61%) SC Cleared
4 161 (3.57%) DV Cleared
5 114 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
6 44 (0.98%) Master's Degree
7 42 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 25 (0.55%) PhD
9 18 (0.40%) Azure Certification
10 6 (0.13%) AWS Certification
10 6 (0.13%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.089%) CEH
11 4 (0.089%) Chartered Engineer
11 4 (0.089%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (0.089%) OSCP
12 3 (0.067%) HND
13 2 (0.044%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (0.044%) Numerate Degree
14 1 (0.022%) ISTQB
14 1 (0.022%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (1.40%) QA
2 50 (1.11%) Accessibility
3 8 (0.18%) DO-178B
3 8 (0.18%) IEC 61131
4 7 (0.16%) JTAG
5 5 (0.11%) WCAG
6 4 (0.089%) Data Quality
6 4 (0.089%) ECSS
7 3 (0.067%) Automotive SPICE
7 3 (0.067%) GAMP
7 3 (0.067%) ISO 26262
7 3 (0.067%) MIL-STD-1553
7 3 (0.067%) MISRA
7 3 (0.067%) MISRA C
8 2 (0.044%) AUTOSAR
8 2 (0.044%) GDPR
8 2 (0.044%) IEC 61508
8 2 (0.044%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.022%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.022%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 196 (4.34%) Docker
2 148 (3.28%) Firmware
3 42 (0.93%) Embedded Firmware
4 5 (0.11%) QEMU
5 4 (0.089%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.044%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.044%) KVM
6 2 (0.044%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.022%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.022%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 172 (3.81%) Kubernetes
2 47 (1.04%) Ansible
3 15 (0.33%) Grafana
4 11 (0.24%) Podman
5 9 (0.20%) Puppet
6 8 (0.18%) Kibana
6 8 (0.18%) logstash
7 4 (0.089%) Functional Safety
7 4 (0.089%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.044%) Packer
8 2 (0.044%) Plesk
8 2 (0.044%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.022%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.022%) SCCM
9 1 (0.022%) SCOM
9 1 (0.022%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 39 (0.86%) Microsoft
2 31 (0.69%) Siemens
3 30 (0.67%) Google
4 19 (0.42%) Salesforce
5 16 (0.35%) Databricks
6 14 (0.31%) Okta
6 14 (0.31%) Ping Identity
6 14 (0.31%) RedGate
7 12 (0.27%) Oracle
7 12 (0.27%) Splunk
8 11 (0.24%) OpenAI
8 11 (0.24%) Rockwell
9 10 (0.22%) Red Hat
10 9 (0.20%) Sage
11 7 (0.16%) SaltStack
12 6 (0.13%) Atlassian
12 6 (0.13%) Intel
12 6 (0.13%) LexisNexis
12 6 (0.13%) New Relic
13 5 (0.11%) Foundry