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 4 August 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 52 14
Rank change year-on-year +29 -38 +61
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 3,691 1,540 5,201
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 4.91% 4.47% 8.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.19% 4.99% 9.12%
Number of salaries quoted 2,919 675 2,894
10th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £39,050
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £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 £80,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% +33.33% -13.60%

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 71,120 30,840 56,998
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.66% 89.61% 94.92%
Number of salaries quoted 49,141 17,770 38,038
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £28,119
25th Percentile £38,750 £32,500 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -6.54%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £79,600
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - - -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 4 August 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 4 August 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 +74 985 £65,000 - 198
North of England +23 961 £65,000 -7.14% 190
South West +29 666 £65,000 - 180
North West +5 538 £70,000 -6.67% 119
East of England +77 452 £70,000 +16.67% 155
Midlands +47 366 £60,000 -7.69% 96
Yorkshire +77 260 £60,000 -12.41% 39
East Midlands +33 184 £54,000 -22.86% 49
West Midlands +30 182 £66,250 +6.00% 47
North East +15 163 £70,000 +30.23% 32
Scotland -14 145 £67,500 +3.85% 89
Wales +7 103 £51,619 -24.09% 25
Northern Ireland -63 14 £90,000 +80.00% 33
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 August 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 3,650 (98.89%) Software Engineering
2 627 (16.99%) C++
3 574 (15.55%) C#
4 493 (13.36%) Python
5 456 (12.35%) Agile
6 397 (10.76%) AWS
7 360 (9.75%) Full-Stack Development
7 360 (9.75%) Security Cleared
8 344 (9.32%) CI/CD
9 319 (8.64%) AI
10 318 (8.62%) .NET
11 313 (8.48%) Java
12 300 (8.13%) Degree
13 288 (7.80%) Azure
14 264 (7.15%) C
15 259 (7.02%) JavaScript
16 258 (6.99%) Linux
17 250 (6.77%) Mentoring
18 240 (6.50%) DevOps
19 228 (6.18%) SC Cleared
19 228 (6.18%) TypeScript
20 208 (5.64%) Problem-Solving
21 201 (5.45%) React
22 200 (5.42%) Test Automation
23 197 (5.34%) SDLC
24 196 (5.31%) Microservices
24 196 (5.31%) SQL
25 182 (4.93%) Computer Science
25 182 (4.93%) Docker
26 176 (4.77%) Continuous Improvement

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 21 (0.57%) Apache
2 15 (0.41%) SharePoint Server
3 9 (0.24%) Confluence
4 8 (0.22%) FactoryTalk
5 7 (0.19%) WinCC
6 4 (0.11%) Apache Solr
6 4 (0.11%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.081%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.081%) CMS
7 3 (0.081%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.054%) ArchestrA
8 2 (0.054%) Headless CMS
8 2 (0.054%) WordPress
9 1 (0.027%) Cloud Foundry
9 1 (0.027%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.027%) Umbraco
Applications
1 12 (0.33%) Lightworks
2 5 (0.14%) Simulink
3 4 (0.11%) EPLAN
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.081%) CANalyzer
5 2 (0.054%) AutoCAD
5 2 (0.054%) EngageOne
6 1 (0.027%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.027%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.027%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.11%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.027%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 397 (10.76%) AWS
2 288 (7.80%) Azure
3 151 (4.09%) SaaS
4 107 (2.90%) GCP
5 68 (1.84%) Serverless
6 48 (1.30%) GitHub
7 40 (1.08%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (0.92%) Firebase
9 32 (0.87%) Anthropic Claude
10 22 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
11 16 (0.43%) Amazon S3
11 16 (0.43%) Cloud Run
11 16 (0.43%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (0.35%) Amazon EKS
12 13 (0.35%) AWS CloudFormation
13 12 (0.33%) Azure AKS
14 9 (0.24%) Azure Functions
14 9 (0.24%) OpenShift
15 8 (0.22%) AWS Step Functions
15 8 (0.22%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 58 (1.57%) Wireless
2 36 (0.98%) Ethernet
3 26 (0.70%) Bluetooth
4 23 (0.62%) RS-232
5 22 (0.60%) Modbus
6 19 (0.51%) MQTT
6 19 (0.51%) TCP/IP
7 17 (0.46%) ZigBee
8 15 (0.41%) Profibus
8 15 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (0.33%) RS-485
10 10 (0.27%) ATM
11 8 (0.22%) LTE
11 8 (0.22%) Network Security
12 6 (0.16%) Wireshark
13 5 (0.14%) Broadband
14 4 (0.11%) AMQP
14 4 (0.11%) Software-Defined Radio
15 3 (0.081%) Software-Defined Networking
16 2 (0.054%) LoRaWAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
2 66 (1.79%) SQL Server
3 63 (1.71%) MongoDB
4 54 (1.46%) NoSQL
5 47 (1.27%) MySQL
6 24 (0.65%) Relational Database
7 16 (0.43%) Pinecone
8 15 (0.41%) Redis
9 14 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
10 13 (0.35%) DynamoDB
11 12 (0.33%) Big Data
12 7 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.16%) Hadoop
14 5 (0.14%) FileMaker
14 5 (0.14%) Neo4j
15 4 (0.11%) Cloudera CDH
15 4 (0.11%) MariaDB
16 3 (0.081%) Amazon RDS
16 3 (0.081%) DocumentDB
16 3 (0.081%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 134 (3.63%) Git
2 50 (1.35%) GitLab
3 35 (0.95%) JIRA
4 32 (0.87%) Jenkins
5 21 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
6 20 (0.54%) Claude Code
7 14 (0.38%) Visual Studio
8 11 (0.30%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.22%) GDB
11 7 (0.19%) JUnit
11 7 (0.19%) LabVIEW
11 7 (0.19%) Moq
12 6 (0.16%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.16%) CMake
12 6 (0.16%) Yeoman
13 5 (0.14%) Postman
14 4 (0.11%) Eclipse
14 4 (0.11%) Rational Rhapsody
14 4 (0.11%) Robot Framework
General
1 224 (6.07%) Manufacturing
2 193 (5.23%) Electronics
3 178 (4.82%) Social Skills
4 119 (3.22%) Finance
5 105 (2.84%) Aerospace
6 89 (2.41%) Public Sector
7 82 (2.22%) Automotive
8 48 (1.30%) Analytical Skills
9 40 (1.08%) Aviation
9 40 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 38 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
11 33 (0.89%) Retail
12 22 (0.60%) Military
13 20 (0.54%) Games
14 19 (0.51%) Law
14 19 (0.51%) Telecoms
15 15 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
16 12 (0.33%) Marketing
17 10 (0.27%) Tech for Good
18 9 (0.24%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 318 (8.62%) .NET
2 201 (5.45%) React
3 114 (3.09%) Node.js
4 100 (2.71%) Vue
5 74 (2.00%) WPF
6 72 (1.95%) AngularJS
7 66 (1.79%) CSS
8 62 (1.68%) REST
9 61 (1.65%) RESTful
10 60 (1.63%) Spring
11 58 (1.57%) HTML
12 56 (1.52%) Spring Boot
13 39 (1.06%) Django
14 38 (1.03%) .NET Core
15 37 (1.00%) Next.js
16 34 (0.92%) .NET Framework
17 27 (0.73%) Yocto
18 24 (0.65%) ASP.NET
19 22 (0.60%) React Native
19 22 (0.60%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 167 (4.52%) Cloud Native
2 125 (3.39%) Embedded Systems
3 96 (2.60%) Algorithms
4 95 (2.57%) Robotics
5 80 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
6 69 (1.87%) Product Ownership
7 64 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
8 62 (1.68%) AI Agents
9 55 (1.49%) IoT
10 46 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
11 31 (0.84%) Mobile App
12 29 (0.79%) Device Driver
13 23 (0.62%) Public Cloud
14 22 (0.60%) Data Structures
15 21 (0.57%) ARM Cortex
15 21 (0.57%) Cyber Threat
16 20 (0.54%) Client/Server
17 18 (0.49%) Distributed Computing
17 18 (0.49%) Educational Technology
17 18 (0.49%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 258 (6.99%) Linux
2 55 (1.49%) Windows
3 52 (1.41%) Embedded Linux
4 31 (0.84%) FreeRTOS
5 28 (0.76%) Android
6 9 (0.24%) Debian
7 5 (0.14%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.14%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.14%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.11%) CentOS
8 4 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.081%) Gentoo
9 3 (0.081%) Unix
9 3 (0.081%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.054%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.054%) SafeRTOS
10 2 (0.054%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.054%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.054%) zOS
11 1 (0.027%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 3,650 (98.89%) Software Engineering
2 456 (12.35%) Agile
3 360 (9.75%) Full-Stack Development
4 344 (9.32%) CI/CD
5 319 (8.64%) AI
6 250 (6.77%) Mentoring
7 240 (6.50%) DevOps
8 208 (5.64%) Problem-Solving
9 200 (5.42%) Test Automation
10 197 (5.34%) SDLC
11 196 (5.31%) Microservices
12 182 (4.93%) Computer Science
13 176 (4.77%) Continuous Improvement
14 131 (3.55%) Containerisation
15 128 (3.47%) Software Architecture
16 117 (3.17%) Software Testing
17 113 (3.06%) Code Quality
18 111 (3.01%) TDD
19 102 (2.76%) Technical Leadership
20 97 (2.63%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 627 (16.99%) C++
2 574 (15.55%) C#
3 493 (13.36%) Python
4 313 (8.48%) Java
5 264 (7.15%) C
6 259 (7.02%) JavaScript
7 228 (6.18%) TypeScript
8 196 (5.31%) SQL
9 131 (3.55%) Rust
10 64 (1.73%) Go
11 62 (1.68%) PHP
12 50 (1.35%) Embedded C
13 28 (0.76%) Ruby
14 27 (0.73%) Embedded C++
15 18 (0.49%) Bash
15 18 (0.49%) Kotlin
16 17 (0.46%) Ada
16 17 (0.46%) COBOL
17 15 (0.41%) Scala
18 13 (0.35%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 360 (9.75%) Security Cleared
2 300 (8.13%) Degree
3 228 (6.18%) SC Cleared
4 155 (4.20%) DV Cleared
5 135 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
6 55 (1.49%) Master's Degree
7 25 (0.68%) BPSS Clearance
7 25 (0.68%) PhD
8 10 (0.27%) HND
9 9 (0.24%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.22%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.16%) HNC
12 5 (0.14%) AWS Certification
12 5 (0.14%) CEH
12 5 (0.14%) OSCP
13 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.081%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.054%) Numerate Degree
15 2 (0.054%) NVQ Level 3
16 1 (0.027%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (2.03%) QA
2 37 (1.00%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.27%) IEC 61131
4 8 (0.22%) IEC 61508
5 7 (0.19%) MISRA
5 7 (0.19%) MISRA C
6 6 (0.16%) JTAG
7 5 (0.14%) DO-178B
8 3 (0.081%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.081%) ECSS
8 3 (0.081%) GAMP
8 3 (0.081%) GDPR
9 2 (0.054%) ISO 26262
9 2 (0.054%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.054%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.027%) DO-254
10 1 (0.027%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.027%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.027%) MIL-STD-1553
10 1 (0.027%) WCAG
System Software
1 182 (4.93%) Docker
2 160 (4.33%) Firmware
3 52 (1.41%) Embedded Firmware
4 11 (0.30%) KVM
4 11 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.27%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.19%) QEMU
8 2 (0.054%) Active Directory
8 2 (0.054%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 137 (3.71%) Kubernetes
2 84 (2.28%) Terraform
3 33 (0.89%) Ansible
4 9 (0.24%) Grafana
5 7 (0.19%) Kibana
5 7 (0.19%) logstash
5 7 (0.19%) Podman
6 6 (0.16%) Puppet
7 4 (0.11%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.081%) Plesk
8 3 (0.081%) SCCM
8 3 (0.081%) SCOM
8 3 (0.081%) SCOrch
9 2 (0.054%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.054%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.027%) Packer
10 1 (0.027%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 32 (0.87%) Microsoft
1 32 (0.87%) Siemens
2 19 (0.51%) Google
2 19 (0.51%) Rockwell
3 15 (0.41%) Oracle
4 13 (0.35%) Okta
4 13 (0.35%) Ping Identity
4 13 (0.35%) Salesforce
4 13 (0.35%) VMware
5 10 (0.27%) Allen-Bradley
6 9 (0.24%) OpenAI
7 8 (0.22%) Splunk
8 7 (0.19%) Atlassian
9 6 (0.16%) Intel
10 5 (0.14%) Xamarin
11 4 (0.11%) Databricks
11 4 (0.11%) ForgeRock
11 4 (0.11%) Peregrine
11 4 (0.11%) Red Hat
11 4 (0.11%) SaltStack