Software Engineer salary
What a software engineer actually earns, from 2,930 live job postings blended with the official US OEWS (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) wage anchor. Pick a market for its median and range, then read the seniority split, the trend, and the country comparison below. Updated 2026-07-23.
Switch the market above to see software engineer pay in the 5 countries our sources cover, each with its own cost of living. The trend, seniority, and state detail below are United States data, where the official record runs deepest.
What the number means
Software engineering is the highest-paid large occupation on the board, and the numbers are not close. Live US postings put the median near 181,000 dollars, with the middle half between roughly 151,000 and 215,000, and the official OEWS median at 133,080 across a 1.6-million-person occupation. The gap between posted and official is the widest here of any role we track, because the postings we read lean toward funded, senior, remote-friendly employers while OEWS counts every developer in the country, including the ones far from the coasts. Both numbers are true; they answer different questions. If you want to know what the market is advertising right now, read the posted band. If you want to know what the median developer actually earns, read the OEWS line. The trend over the last decade, shown above, is the more interesting story: steadily up, with the post-2022 AI wave bending demand toward a narrower, better-paid tier.
Open software engineer roles
Live openings tagged to this occupation, from company career pages and remote boards. Apply at the source.
- Staff Software Engineer, Backend - FinHub (Ledger)Coinbase · Remote - USA$218kFeaturedRemoteJul 23
- Sr. Software Engineer, Materials and PurchasingHigharc · Remote (United States)RemoteJul 23
- Staff Software Engineer (Web & Mobile)Tripadvisor · LondonJul 23
- Software Engineer - PostgresSQLAdyen · AmsterdamJul 23
- Kotlin Full-Stack Engineer (Freelance/Service Agreement)Flix · WroclawJul 23
- Full-Stack-Developer (PHP/Laravel)meinMPP GmbH · FriedrichshafenRemoteJul 22
By seniority
Posted-median pay by seniority signal in the title, from our corpus. Noisy at the edges where sample sizes are small.
By country
- United States$149,738 – $216,591 · median $181,991
- Canada$87,820 – $160,000 · median $129,599
- United Kingdom$60,713 – $94,104 · median $76,982
- Ireland$70,945 – $102,506 · median $92,566
- Australia$67,130 – $114,034 · median $79,097
Top-paying US states
OEWS median by state, highest first.
- New Yorkmedian $208,290
- Californiamedian $191,449
- Washingtonmedian $177,877
- Massachusettsmedian $150,520
- Marylandmedian $137,890
- Delawaremedian $135,160
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Move into or out of software engineer
- software engineer → solutions architectmeasured route
Related salaries
- Data Scientist salary$148,609 median
- UX Designer salary$129,764 median
- Product Manager salary$156,877 median
Quick answers
How much do software engineers make?
The live-posting US median is about 181,000 dollars, with a typical range of 151,000 to 215,000. The official BLS OEWS median is 133,080 across the full occupation, which includes many non-coastal and non-tech-sector roles.
Why is the software engineer salary so high?
Demand has outpaced supply for a decade, and the postings that advertise pay skew toward well-funded employers. The AI wave since 2022 has concentrated hiring in a higher-paid tier.
Do software engineers earn more than data scientists?
On our data, slightly: the software-engineering posted median edges above data science, though the two bands overlap heavily and senior data-science and ML roles close the gap.
Method: bands are the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of live US postings with stated pay, shrunk toward the official OEWS anchor by sample size (the “blended” figure). Trend is the OEWS annual median for SOC (Standard Occupational Classification) code 15-1252. Unemployment is the 2025 BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) CPS (Current Population Survey) annual-average rate for “Software developers.” Live corpus 2,930 observations, 2026-07-23. Definitions in the glossary.