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 24 May 2026.

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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 51 16
Rank change year-on-year +21 -35 +51
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 2,937 1,381 6,086
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.38% 4.84% 8.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.67% 5.45% 9.14%
Number of salaries quoted 2,335 726 3,239
10th Percentile £45,000 £42,500 £38,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,698 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +18.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £93,778 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -14.29%

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 62,939 25,339 66,618
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.76% 88.87% 94.83%
Number of salaries quoted 41,883 13,427 48,502
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,450 £26,750
25th Percentile £36,250 £35,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £51,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +3.00% -6.10%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £81,250 £76,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%

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 24 May 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 24 May 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 +81 802 £65,000 - 183
North of England -1 742 £65,000 -3.70% 146
South West +26 514 £65,000 +6.12% 117
North West -4 427 £68,403 -8.49% 82
East of England +45 320 £70,000 +5.73% 88
Midlands +33 280 £65,000 +8.33% 52
Yorkshire +40 219 £65,000 -13.33% 37
Scotland 0 188 £65,000 +4.00% 15
West Midlands +25 155 £70,000 +16.67% 32
East Midlands +8 125 £55,000 -15.38% 20
North East -1 96 £65,000 +18.18% 29
Wales 0 73 £42,000 -38.24% 12
Northern Ireland -20 19 £90,000 +80.00% 20
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 May 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 2,901 (98.77%) Software Engineering
2 444 (15.12%) C++
3 420 (14.30%) C#
4 356 (12.12%) Python
5 354 (12.05%) Agile
6 327 (11.13%) Full-Stack Development
7 310 (10.55%) AWS
8 302 (10.28%) .NET
9 264 (8.99%) Security Cleared
10 262 (8.92%) Java
11 242 (8.24%) CI/CD
12 234 (7.97%) Degree
13 219 (7.46%) JavaScript
14 214 (7.29%) C
15 213 (7.25%) DevOps
16 211 (7.18%) Azure
17 182 (6.20%) TypeScript
18 176 (5.99%) Linux
19 171 (5.82%) Mentoring
20 170 (5.79%) React
21 163 (5.55%) SC Cleared
22 160 (5.45%) AI
22 160 (5.45%) SaaS
23 159 (5.41%) Continuous Improvement
23 159 (5.41%) SQL
24 156 (5.31%) Microservices
25 149 (5.07%) Problem-Solving
26 140 (4.77%) Test Automation
27 139 (4.73%) Firmware
28 133 (4.53%) SDLC

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 15 (0.51%) Apache
2 14 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
3 8 (0.27%) FactoryTalk
4 7 (0.24%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.17%) CMS
5 5 (0.17%) Confluence
6 4 (0.14%) Apache Solr
6 4 (0.14%) GeoServer
7 3 (0.10%) WinCC
8 2 (0.068%) ArchestrA
8 2 (0.068%) WordPress
9 1 (0.034%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.034%) Kinematics
9 1 (0.034%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (0.14%) EngageOne
2 3 (0.10%) CANalyzer
2 3 (0.10%) EPLAN
3 2 (0.068%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.034%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.034%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.34%) Magento
2 2 (0.068%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 310 (10.55%) AWS
2 211 (7.18%) Azure
3 160 (5.45%) SaaS
4 65 (2.21%) Serverless
5 54 (1.84%) GCP
6 30 (1.02%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (1.02%) GitHub
7 25 (0.85%) AWS Lambda
8 20 (0.68%) Amazon S3
8 20 (0.68%) Azure AKS
9 15 (0.51%) Amazon EKS
9 15 (0.51%) Anthropic Claude
10 12 (0.41%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (0.34%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.24%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (0.24%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 7 (0.24%) Stripe
13 6 (0.20%) Amazon EC2
13 6 (0.20%) AWS Step Functions
13 6 (0.20%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 43 (1.46%) Wireless
2 31 (1.06%) Ethernet
3 21 (0.72%) RS-232
4 17 (0.58%) Bluetooth
4 17 (0.58%) Modbus
5 10 (0.34%) Profibus
5 10 (0.34%) ZigBee
6 9 (0.31%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.27%) Network Security
8 7 (0.24%) Broadband
8 7 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.20%) MQTT
9 6 (0.20%) RS-485
10 5 (0.17%) AMQP
10 5 (0.17%) LTE
11 4 (0.14%) Software-Defined Radio
12 3 (0.10%) Software-Defined Networking
12 3 (0.10%) Wireshark
13 2 (0.068%) DNS
13 2 (0.068%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (1.84%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.77%) NoSQL
2 52 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
3 42 (1.43%) MongoDB
4 35 (1.19%) MySQL
5 21 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
6 14 (0.48%) Big Data
7 13 (0.44%) Relational Database
8 12 (0.41%) DynamoDB
9 9 (0.31%) Neo4j
10 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (0.24%) Hadoop
11 7 (0.24%) Redis
12 5 (0.17%) Cloudera CDH
12 5 (0.17%) FileMaker
13 4 (0.14%) DocumentDB
13 4 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
13 4 (0.14%) GIS
13 4 (0.14%) QGIS
14 3 (0.10%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 98 (3.34%) Git
2 32 (1.09%) GitLab
3 20 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
4 19 (0.65%) Jenkins
5 18 (0.61%) Claude Code
6 12 (0.41%) JIRA
7 10 (0.34%) Visual Studio
8 9 (0.31%) JUnit
9 7 (0.24%) Moq
9 7 (0.24%) Subversion
10 6 (0.20%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.20%) Yeoman
11 5 (0.17%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.17%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.17%) Eclipse
12 4 (0.14%) GDB
12 4 (0.14%) Gradle
12 4 (0.14%) LabVIEW
12 4 (0.14%) Maven
12 4 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 150 (5.11%) Manufacturing
2 130 (4.43%) Social Skills
3 125 (4.26%) Electronics
4 70 (2.38%) Automotive
5 68 (2.32%) Aerospace
6 66 (2.25%) Finance
7 62 (2.11%) Public Sector
8 41 (1.40%) Analytical Skills
9 37 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
10 25 (0.85%) Aviation
11 19 (0.65%) Retail
12 18 (0.61%) Games
13 15 (0.51%) Military
14 14 (0.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 13 (0.44%) Tech for Good
16 9 (0.31%) Telecoms
17 8 (0.27%) Health Technology
17 8 (0.27%) Organisational Skills
18 7 (0.24%) Agriculture
19 6 (0.20%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 302 (10.28%) .NET
2 170 (5.79%) React
3 104 (3.54%) Node.js
4 87 (2.96%) Vue
5 78 (2.66%) AngularJS
6 73 (2.49%) REST
7 61 (2.08%) RESTful
8 49 (1.67%) CSS
8 49 (1.67%) HTML
9 48 (1.63%) .NET Core
10 47 (1.60%) Spring
11 43 (1.46%) WPF
12 42 (1.43%) Spring Boot
13 37 (1.26%) .NET Framework
14 25 (0.85%) Django
15 21 (0.72%) Web Services
16 20 (0.68%) ASP.NET
16 20 (0.68%) Entity Framework
17 18 (0.61%) Yocto
18 17 (0.58%) Qt
Miscellaneous
1 119 (4.05%) Cloud Native
2 90 (3.06%) Embedded Systems
3 73 (2.49%) Algorithms
4 57 (1.94%) IoT
5 56 (1.91%) Product Ownership
6 45 (1.53%) Robotics
7 42 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
8 39 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
9 23 (0.78%) Client/Server
9 23 (0.78%) Mobile App
10 22 (0.75%) Device Driver
11 18 (0.61%) Educational Technology
12 17 (0.58%) Hedge funds
13 16 (0.54%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (0.51%) CAN bus
14 15 (0.51%) Greenfield Project
14 15 (0.51%) Smart Energy
15 14 (0.48%) Data Structures
15 14 (0.48%) e-Learning
15 14 (0.48%) Industry 4.0
Operating Systems
1 176 (5.99%) Linux
2 42 (1.43%) Embedded Linux
3 35 (1.19%) Windows
4 32 (1.09%) Android
5 21 (0.72%) FreeRTOS
6 5 (0.17%) CentOS
6 5 (0.17%) Debian
6 5 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.17%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.14%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.14%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.068%) SafeRTOS
8 2 (0.068%) zOS
9 1 (0.034%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.034%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.034%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.034%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,901 (98.77%) Software Engineering
2 354 (12.05%) Agile
3 327 (11.13%) Full-Stack Development
4 242 (8.24%) CI/CD
5 213 (7.25%) DevOps
6 171 (5.82%) Mentoring
7 160 (5.45%) AI
8 159 (5.41%) Continuous Improvement
9 156 (5.31%) Microservices
10 149 (5.07%) Problem-Solving
11 140 (4.77%) Test Automation
12 133 (4.53%) SDLC
13 127 (4.32%) Computer Science
14 105 (3.58%) Scrum
15 102 (3.47%) Containerisation
16 101 (3.44%) TDD
17 79 (2.69%) Embedded Software Development
18 78 (2.66%) Software Testing
19 76 (2.59%) Technical Leadership
20 71 (2.42%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 444 (15.12%) C++
2 420 (14.30%) C#
3 356 (12.12%) Python
4 262 (8.92%) Java
5 219 (7.46%) JavaScript
6 214 (7.29%) C
7 182 (6.20%) TypeScript
8 159 (5.41%) SQL
9 76 (2.59%) Rust
10 50 (1.70%) Embedded C
10 50 (1.70%) PHP
11 33 (1.12%) Go
12 18 (0.61%) Kotlin
13 17 (0.58%) COBOL
13 17 (0.58%) Ruby
14 14 (0.48%) Bash
14 14 (0.48%) Embedded C++
15 12 (0.41%) Scala
16 10 (0.34%) Ada
17 8 (0.27%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 264 (8.99%) Security Cleared
2 234 (7.97%) Degree
3 163 (5.55%) SC Cleared
4 109 (3.71%) Computer Science Degree
5 86 (2.93%) DV Cleared
6 41 (1.40%) Master's Degree
7 19 (0.65%) PhD
8 15 (0.51%) DBS Check
9 10 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
10 8 (0.27%) HND
11 7 (0.24%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.24%) Chartered Engineer
12 6 (0.20%) HNC
13 4 (0.14%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.10%) CEH
14 3 (0.10%) OSCP
15 2 (0.068%) Microsoft Certification
15 2 (0.068%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.068%) NVQ Level 3
15 2 (0.068%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (2.28%) QA
2 17 (0.58%) Accessibility
2 17 (0.58%) IEC 61508
3 16 (0.54%) MISRA
3 16 (0.54%) MISRA C
4 8 (0.27%) IEC 61131
5 6 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 4 (0.14%) GDPR
6 4 (0.14%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.10%) DO-178B
7 3 (0.10%) JTAG
8 1 (0.034%) DO-254
8 1 (0.034%) ECSS
8 1 (0.034%) HAZOP
8 1 (0.034%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.034%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.034%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.034%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 139 (4.73%) Firmware
2 109 (3.71%) Docker
3 45 (1.53%) Embedded Firmware
4 14 (0.48%) Hyper-V
4 14 (0.48%) KVM
4 14 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.10%) QEMU
7 2 (0.068%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 90 (3.06%) Kubernetes
2 64 (2.18%) Terraform
3 17 (0.58%) Ansible
4 13 (0.44%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.20%) Kibana
5 6 (0.20%) Puppet
6 5 (0.17%) Grafana
6 5 (0.17%) logstash
7 3 (0.10%) Plesk
7 3 (0.10%) Podman
7 3 (0.10%) SCCM
7 3 (0.10%) SCOM
7 3 (0.10%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.068%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.068%) Packer
8 2 (0.068%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 26 (0.89%) Siemens
2 23 (0.78%) Microsoft
3 18 (0.61%) Rockwell
4 17 (0.58%) Oracle
5 16 (0.54%) VMware
6 15 (0.51%) Google
7 13 (0.44%) Adobe
8 10 (0.34%) Salesforce
9 9 (0.31%) Allen-Bradley
10 7 (0.24%) HubSpot
11 5 (0.17%) Atlassian
11 5 (0.17%) Red Hat
11 5 (0.17%) SaltStack
11 5 (0.17%) Xamarin
12 4 (0.14%) Atmel
12 4 (0.14%) Peregrine
13 3 (0.10%) OpenAI
13 3 (0.10%) Palantir
13 3 (0.10%) Typelevel
13 3 (0.10%) Wonderware