Career Paths · 5 min read · Oct 2026
Salary by Country
Software Engineers Salary by Country
The US median for software engineers is $135,980. Below, the PPP-adjusted equivalent across 13 markets, modelled from US BLS data with OECD wage ratios and live exchange rates.
Pay and AI exposure
What the software engineers salary does not tell you
Salary measures what the market pays software engineers today. It says nothing about how durable that pay is as AI reshapes the work. Software Engineers currently sit at 57/100 on the AI exposure scale, in the moderate exposure band. A well-paid role can still be highly exposed: the question is which layer of the work you occupy.
The country differences below are wage-level effects, not exposure differences. AI compresses the same routine layer of software engineers work in every market. To see where your own position sits and what shifts it, run the free structural reading or model the dimensions in the simulator.
13 markets
Software Engineers salary across countries
Median annual pay and the typical 10th-to-90th-percentile range, shown in each market's local currency.
| Country | Median | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| United States (source) | $135,980 | $82,460 to $214,670 |
| United Kingdom | £70,400 | £42,700 to £111,100 |
| Canada | $141,600 | $85,900 to $223,600 |
| Australia | $145,000 | $87,900 to $228,900 |
| Ireland | €92,700 | €56,200 to €146,300 |
| New Zealand | $137,200 | $83,200 to $216,600 |
| Germany | 88.000 € | 53.400 € to 139.000 € |
| France | 78 800 € | 47 800 € to 124 400 € |
| Netherlands | € 104.300 | € 63.200 to € 164.600 |
| Singapore | $141,900 | $86,000 to $224,000 |
| Japan | ￥12,857,500 | ￥7,796,900 to ￥20,297,900 |
| South Africa | R 764,100 | R 463,400 to R 1,206,300 |
| India | ₹23,40,900 | ₹14,19,600 to ₹36,95,600 |
US figures are BLS OEWS survey data. All other countries are PPP-adjusted estimates, derived from the US median via OECD average-wage ratios and live exchange rates. They indicate purchasing-power-style equivalents, not surveyed local salaries.
Salary by US metro
Software Engineers salary by US city
How software engineers pay varies across the largest US metros. The national median is $135,980; the highest-paying metros run well above it, driven by local demand and cost of living.
1San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
$193,092
$117,093 to $304,831
2San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA
$184,933
$112,146 to $291,951
3Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
$165,896
$100,601 to $261,897
4New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ
$163,176
$98,952 to $257,604
5Boston-Cambridge-Nashua, MA
$160,456
$97,303 to $253,311
6Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC
$157,737
$95,654 to $249,017
7Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA
$149,578
$90,706 to $236,137
8Austin-Round Rock, TX
$144,139
$87,408 to $227,550
9Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO
$141,419
$85,758 to $223,257
10Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL
$138,700
$84,109 to $218,963
11Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
$135,980
$82,460 to $214,670
12Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA
$131,901
$79,986 to $208,230
Pay differs by metro, but AI exposure does not: Software Engineers read 57/100 on the AI exposure scale in every market, because AI compresses the same routine layer of the work everywhere. A higher-paying city does not mean a more durable role.
Prototype preview: these metro figures are modelled from the national BLS median for this example. The production version will use surveyed BLS OEWS metropolitan-area wages (one value per metro per occupation).
FAQ
Software Engineers salary questions
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