Software developer vs. software engineer – starting salary and earning potential
Employers often use the job titles software developer and software engineer interchangeably, but there is in fact a difference both in function and salary. While both are highly skilled and technical jobs, on average software engineers command a higher salary because of the depth of their technical knowledge. It’s also worth bearing in mind that these jobs don’t function in isolation and usually work together as part of a larger team. We’ll look at the difference between these roles, the necessary educational background and skillset of each and average salaries.
Software developer
A software developer is a tech expert who designs, develops and builds desktop and mobile programs and web applications in close collaboration with the client. Their primary concern is delivering a product to meet the client’s expectations. They will take time to understand the client’s vision and translate that into what’s technically feasible using their tech knowledge. It’s a blend of IT systems design, programming and project management.
As such, software developers need excellent communication and organisation skills in addition to technical skills, particularly coding. They will likely hold a Bachelor’s degree relating to IT, specifically data, systems and/or programming.
Junior software developer salary: £21-28,000
Average software developer salary: £31,000
Senior software developer salary: £60-70,000
Software engineer
A software engineer applies engineering principles to the development process and is responsible for the function of the program or application as a whole. They design the development framework required for the project at hand, foresee potential problems, identify and correct errors and oversee everyone working on the software, such as programmers and technologists, to ensure everything comes together.
Software engineers also usually have a Bachelor’s degree in computing, and specific software engineering degree courses are common and focus on operating systems, software architecture, and data structure and algorithm design and analysis, for example. Software engineers are highly skilled and, while they don’t have as much contact with clients as a developer, communication skills are important in terms of teamwork.
Junior software engineer salary: £32,000
Average software engineer salary: £50,000
Senior software engineer salary: £78,000
Salary sources: technojobs.co.uk, glassdoor.co.uk