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 12 October 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 69 22
Rank change year-on-year +47 -47 +40
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 4,502 1,286 3,570
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 5.21% 3.74% 7.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.63% 4.17% 7.37%
Number of salaries quoted 3,406 474 1,987
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 79,938 30,816 48,457
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 89.54% 95.38%
Number of salaries quoted 55,216 17,381 26,639
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £45,750 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.22% -8.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,500 £53,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.35% -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 12 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 12 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% 314
South East +86 1,010 £70,000 +2.94% 267
South West +44 940 £68,000 +4.62% 192
East of England +115 627 £70,000 +7.69% 219
North West +11 601 £70,000 -6.67% 193
Midlands +64 454 £65,000 - 133
East Midlands +46 271 £55,000 -21.43% 62
Yorkshire +71 254 £60,000 - 76
Scotland +3 253 £80,000 +24.03% 218
North East +27 211 £70,000 +27.27% 45
West Midlands +37 183 £65,000 +4.00% 71
Wales +20 144 £60,000 - 28
Northern Ireland -65 9 £75,000 - 61
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 12 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 4,474 (99.38%) Software Engineering
2 661 (14.68%) C++
3 587 (13.04%) Agile
3 587 (13.04%) C#
4 537 (11.93%) Python
5 450 (10.00%) AI
6 442 (9.82%) AWS
7 407 (9.04%) Java
8 395 (8.77%) Security Cleared
9 382 (8.49%) CI/CD
10 368 (8.17%) Full-Stack Development
11 308 (6.84%) Linux
12 303 (6.73%) .NET
13 294 (6.53%) Azure
14 271 (6.02%) Degree
15 268 (5.95%) TypeScript
16 255 (5.66%) SC Cleared
17 252 (5.60%) Mentoring
18 246 (5.46%) JavaScript
19 230 (5.11%) C
19 230 (5.11%) DevOps
20 227 (5.04%) Problem-Solving
21 221 (4.91%) React
22 204 (4.53%) Microservices
23 202 (4.49%) Test Automation
24 201 (4.46%) SDLC
25 194 (4.31%) Docker
26 179 (3.98%) Continuous Improvement
27 177 (3.93%) SQL
28 170 (3.78%) 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
1 442 (9.82%) AWS
2 294 (6.53%) Azure
3 125 (2.78%) SaaS
4 110 (2.44%) GCP
5 73 (1.62%) Serverless
6 53 (1.18%) 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%) GitHub Copilot
14 14 (0.31%) OpenShift
15 13 (0.29%) Azure Service Bus
16 11 (0.24%) Azure Functions
17 10 (0.22%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 71 (1.58%) Wireless
2 31 (0.69%) Ethernet
3 29 (0.64%) Bluetooth
4 28 (0.62%) TCP/IP
5 26 (0.58%) 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 98 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
2 63 (1.40%) SQL Server
3 49 (1.09%) MongoDB
4 44 (0.98%) NoSQL
5 41 (0.91%) MySQL
6 38 (0.84%) Relational Database
7 26 (0.58%) Redis
8 17 (0.38%) Big Data
8 17 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
9 16 (0.36%) Chroma
9 16 (0.36%) DynamoDB
9 16 (0.36%) 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 55 (1.22%) GitLab
3 37 (0.82%) Jenkins
4 30 (0.67%) JIRA
5 19 (0.42%) Claude Code
6 17 (0.38%) Cucumber
6 17 (0.38%) Visual Studio
6 17 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
7 11 (0.24%) SonarQube
8 9 (0.20%) JUnit
9 8 (0.18%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.16%) GDB
10 7 (0.16%) LabVIEW
10 7 (0.16%) Moq
10 7 (0.16%) PetaLinux
10 7 (0.16%) Rational Rhapsody
11 6 (0.13%) Eclipse
11 6 (0.13%) Mockito
11 6 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
12 5 (0.11%) CMake
General
1 223 (4.95%) Finance
2 209 (4.64%) Manufacturing
3 208 (4.62%) Electronics
4 200 (4.44%) Social Skills
5 133 (2.95%) Aerospace
6 111 (2.47%) Public Sector
7 79 (1.75%) Automotive
8 67 (1.49%) 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 20 (0.44%) Health Technology
15 20 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
16 17 (0.38%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 303 (6.73%) .NET
2 221 (4.91%) React
3 123 (2.73%) Node.js
4 93 (2.07%) Terraform
5 88 (1.95%) Vue
6 81 (1.80%) Spring
7 80 (1.78%) Spring Boot
8 78 (1.73%) WPF
9 63 (1.40%) AngularJS
10 62 (1.38%) CSS
11 59 (1.31%) RESTful
12 56 (1.24%) REST
13 41 (0.91%) Next.js
14 40 (0.89%) HTML
15 39 (0.87%) Kafka
16 35 (0.78%) React Native
17 34 (0.76%) .NET Core
18 30 (0.67%) Django
19 29 (0.64%) .NET Framework
20 27 (0.60%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 185 (4.11%) Cloud Native
2 135 (3.00%) Robotics
3 129 (2.87%) Embedded Systems
4 100 (2.22%) Algorithms
5 86 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
6 73 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
7 68 (1.51%) AI Agents
8 57 (1.27%) Product Ownership
9 50 (1.11%) IoT
9 50 (1.11%) Public Cloud
10 47 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
11 42 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
12 24 (0.53%) Device Driver
12 24 (0.53%) Distributed Computing
12 24 (0.53%) Mobile App
13 23 (0.51%) Data Structures
14 19 (0.42%) NHS
15 17 (0.38%) ARM Cortex
16 16 (0.36%) Hedge funds
16 16 (0.36%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 308 (6.84%) Linux
2 72 (1.60%) Windows
3 63 (1.40%) 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 4,474 (99.38%) Software Engineering
2 587 (13.04%) Agile
3 450 (10.00%) AI
4 382 (8.49%) CI/CD
5 368 (8.17%) Full-Stack Development
6 252 (5.60%) Mentoring
7 230 (5.11%) DevOps
8 227 (5.04%) Problem-Solving
9 204 (4.53%) Microservices
10 202 (4.49%) Test Automation
11 201 (4.46%) SDLC
12 179 (3.98%) Continuous Improvement
13 164 (3.64%) Computer Science
14 147 (3.27%) Software Architecture
15 143 (3.18%) Technical Leadership
16 138 (3.07%) Code Quality
17 137 (3.04%) Containerisation
18 121 (2.69%) Machine Learning
19 107 (2.38%) Software Testing
20 106 (2.35%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 661 (14.68%) C++
2 587 (13.04%) C#
3 537 (11.93%) Python
4 407 (9.04%) Java
5 268 (5.95%) TypeScript
6 246 (5.46%) JavaScript
7 230 (5.11%) C
8 177 (3.93%) SQL
9 133 (2.95%) Rust
10 77 (1.71%) Go
11 59 (1.31%) PHP
12 38 (0.84%) 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
1 395 (8.77%) Security Cleared
2 271 (6.02%) Degree
3 255 (5.66%) SC Cleared
4 163 (3.62%) DV Cleared
5 115 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
6 46 (1.02%) Master's Degree
7 42 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (0.58%) 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%) MOS
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
1 194 (4.31%) Docker
2 148 (3.29%) 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
1 170 (3.78%) 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 (0.87%) Microsoft
2 31 (0.69%) Siemens
3 29 (0.64%) Google
4 18 (0.40%) Salesforce
5 16 (0.36%) 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 8 (0.18%) 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