Top Companies Hiring for Software Jobs in London (Oct 2026)

You're applying to software roles in London and getting silence, and the fix usually starts with knowing which employers actually have open seats this month. On 14 October 2026, JobRise's live feed shows 208 open Software jobs in London, out of 1,009 London listings across every category. That's a snapshot of live listings, not a market survey, so treat it as a map of where to look today.

Who's actually hiring#

Ten employers hold a big chunk of the London software listings on this snapshot. Ranked by open roles: Palantir (23), Anthropic (19), Neo4j (17), Zopa (12), Spotify (10), Stripe (9), Man Group (7), Scaleai (5), Intercom (5), Ocean Infinity (4).

Read the names carefully. Some of these are recruiters or staffing firms, which means one application can touch several end clients, and that's usually faster than applying to each client cold. Also note the concentration: the top three alone account for 59 listings, so ignoring them means ignoring roughly a third of the market.

The role titles tell you what each one wants. Palantir's listings lean toward "Forward Deployed" engineering with a UK Government angle, Anthropic and Cohere show training and performance work, Neo4j is database infrastructure, Zopa and Man Group are finance, Spotify and Stripe are platform and product. Titles like "Quantitative Developer" at Janus Henderson and "Mid-Level Software Engineer (Python) - RegTech - UK" at Suade point to finance and compliance work, while "Multi-skilled Engineer" roles at Reeve are hardware-adjacent.

London against the rest of the UK#

London holds 208 of the 475 Software jobs listings across the whole United Kingdom on this snapshot. That's the clearest number here: roughly 44 percent of UK software listings sit in one city, so London is where the volume is even when remote roles exist elsewhere. For the fuller national picture, the JobRise Hiring Report: the UK tracks how the country's listings move over time.

Freshness matters more than the headline count. Of the 208, 114 were posted in the last 30 days and 56 in the last 7 days, so about a quarter of the market is less than a week old. Apply to those first. Older listings often have a shortlist already.

Job types are lopsided: 206 full-time, 2 contract. If you're hunting contract day rates, London software listings on this feed are not where you'll find volume this month.

Targeting each employer type#

Big product and AI firms (Palantir, Anthropic, Spotify, Stripe) hire in batches and screen for depth in one stack. Go narrow: pick the two or three roles that match your strongest language and rewrite your CV bullet for that exact stack before you apply.

Finance and quant shops (Man Group, Zopa, Janus Henderson, Capital One UK) care about correctness and production ownership. Show a bug you caught before release and the numbers behind it. They also move fast on referrals, so warm intros beat cold forms here.

Databases, infrastructure and deep tech (Neo4j, Ocean Infinity, Scaleai) want people who've run things at scale. Name the systems, the traffic, and the failure you fixed. Recruiters and staffing firms (Solirius Reply and similar) respond to a clear availability date and rate, so put both in your first message.

Referral and outreach scripts#

Keep it short. People forward messages they can read in ten seconds.

Referral script:

"Hi Sam, I saw Palantir has a 'Software Engineer, New Grad - Infrastructure' open and I think my Go and Kubernetes work fits. Would you be willing to forward my CV? Here's a one-liner: backend engineer, 2 years building payment services handling 4k req/s. Happy to return the favour."

Cold message to a hiring manager:

"Hi Priya, your team's 'Security Engineer - Enterprise Security Platform' role caught my eye because I've spent the last year building an internal detection platform at a similar scale. I've attached a two-line summary and a link to a write-up I did on alert tuning. If the role's still open, I'd love 15 minutes."

Follow-up after applying:

"Hi, I applied for the Node Developer role at Solirius Reply last Tuesday and wanted to bump this up. I'm available from 1 November and my rate is £X/day. If it's filled, no worries, just let me know."

The 7-step plan#

1. Pull the live list and sort by date. Start with the 56 listings posted in the last 7 days, because those have the shortest shortlists.
2. Group the 10 employers above into three buckets: product/AI, finance, infrastructure. Write one CV variant per bucket, not per job.
3. Rewrite your top three bullets using the exact nouns from the job title. If the title says Python and RegTech, your bullet says Python and RegTech.
4. Find one warm contact per target employer. Alumni, ex-colleagues, and conference chats all count. Send the referral script above before you apply.
5. Check each employer's hiring signal with the free company insights tool, so you know if they're ramping or stalling before you spend an evening on the application.
6. Apply in two waves: day one for the 8 entry-level titles if that's you (Scaleai, Stripe, and Palantir list several New Grad roles), day two for the mid and senior ones.
7. Track everything in a spreadsheet with the date, the contact, and the last touch. Follow up once after five working days, then move on.

Worked example. A weak bullet reads: "Worked on backend services for a payments team." A stronger one: "Built Go services handling 4k req/s for a payments platform, cut p99 latency 38% by rewriting the retry layer." Same job, different proof.

What the pay data actually says#

Only 3 of the 208 listings show a salary, so most of this market is opaque. As posted: "Lead Software Development Engineer - Services" at Capital One UK shows £66K-66K; "Software Engineer, International" at Ramp shows £106K, £150K with equity; "Member of Technical Staff, Training Performance Engineer" at Cohere shows CA$250K, CA$535K with equity and multiple ranges.

Those ranges vary a lot by level and by currency, so don't anchor on them. Verify current pay on the official source before you negotiate.

FAQ#

Which companies have the most software jobs open in London right now?

On the 14 October 2026 snapshot, Palantir (23), Anthropic (19), Neo4j (17), Zopa (12), and Spotify (10) lead the list. Some names on the feed are recruiters or staffing firms, so one application there can reach several clients.

Are there graduate or entry-level software roles in London?

Yes, 8 of the 208 listings look entry-level by title, including "Software Engineer - New Grad" at Scaleai and four New Grad roles at Palantir. Titles are the only signal here, so read each posting for the actual years-of-experience ask.

How many software jobs are open in London versus the whole UK?

London has 208 software listings and the UK has 475 on this snapshot, so London holds roughly 44 percent of the national total. London overall has 1,009 listings across every category.

Should I apply to older listings or only the newest ones?

Start with the 56 posted in the last 7 days, then work through the 114 posted in the last 30 days. Anything older than a month on this feed may already have a shortlist, so treat it as a lower-priority application.

Do London software listings show salary?

Rarely. Only 3 of the 208 listings on this snapshot show pay, and they range from £66K at Capital One UK to a CA$250K, CA$535K band at Cohere. Always verify current figures on the official source before you negotiate.