Software Engineering Degrees Near Salt Lake City for 2027
The Salt Lake City area has 2 programs titled software engineering at 2 schools, and 3 computer science programs. This guide covers each one, what it costs, and what software developers earn in the metro area. Fewer than 5 programs titled software engineering sit inside Salt Lake City’s city limits, so this guide covers the whole Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area.
Kevin ToFounder & Editor·B.S. in Computer Science, Temple University·Updated
Software engineering programs
2
titled software engineering
ABET-accredited
0
ABET’s list, 2026-09-30
Computer science programs
3
IPEDS 2024
Median pay, software developers
$129,600
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Key takeaways
01The Salt Lake City area has 2 degrees titled software engineering, all bachelor’s, at 2 schools, plus 3 computer science programs. Western Governors ranks first among the area’s bachelor’s programs, with a score of 56.8 out of 100, #37 nationally. Each program below is checked against the school’s own page. Across Utah as a whole, 6 programs carry the title.
02Software developers in the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area earned a median of $129,600 in May 2025, against $128,810 across Utah and $135,980 nationally. The metro area employed 19,040 of them. Nationally, BLS projects the occupation to grow 10.2% from 2025 to 2035, against 3.5% for all occupations.
03Prices near Salt Lake City were 0.9% above the national average in 2024, by the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s measure, and housing stood at 123.3 against a national 100. At national prices, the metro area’s developer median goes as far as about $128,440. BEA’s 2024 figures are its latest, a year behind the pay data.
04This page covers the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area only. The Utah guide covers all 6 programs titled software engineering across the state, 6 bachelor’s and 0 master’s, with the same comparisons of cost and pay, so a program elsewhere in the state can be weighed against one here.
05If nothing near Salt Lake City fits, the degree can be taken online. The highest-scoring online programs in our rankings are Kennesaw State’s bachelor’s, at 72.5 out of 100, and Kennesaw State’s master’s, at 67.6. Check with each school that it enrolls students living where you do before you apply.
This guide
Studying software engineering here
A degree titled software engineering puts design, testing and the management of large software projects at the center, where computer science centers on computation itself. Salt Lake City offers both, and many software engineers hold either one.
What this page covers
Software engineering programs: the 2 bachelor’s and master’s degrees near Salt Lake City titled software engineering, each checked against the school’s own page.
Computer science programs: the area’s 3 bachelor’s and master’s programs in computer science, from federal data.
Online programs: software engineering degrees from our rankings that can be completed online.
Not included: associate degrees, certificates, bootcamps, doctoral programs and degrees in related fields such as information technology.
Methodology
How we ranked these programs
Programs near Salt Lake City are ranked against each other at the same degree level, highest score first. The score is out of 100 and comes from our national rankings, so a program carries the same score on every page of this site. It isn’t curved for Salt Lake City: each factor is measured against fixed national standards, which is why even the strongest program here can sit well below 100.
The bachelor’s score
Ensign College: #53 of 75 nationally
Ensign College has the top bachelor’s score inside Salt Lake City’s city limits, 37.9 out of 100
Across the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area, Western Governors in Millcreek, UT scores higher, 56.8. Across the country the median bachelor’s score is 56.7 and the highest is 87.0. Ensign College’s biggest gap is ABET accreditation, where it earns 0 of 25 points. Every scored program is in Best Bachelor’s in Software Engineering.
Scored factors
100 pts total
Cost25 pts
The school’s average net price after grants (IPEDS), in fixed dollar tiers.
Under $12,00025 pts
$12,000 to $15,99920 pts
$16,000 to $19,99915 pts
$20,000 to $24,99910 pts
$25,000 to $31,9995 pts
$32,000 or more0 pts
Completion35 pts
The school’s eight-year completion rate for all entering students (IPEDS Outcome Measures), as a share of the points.
ABET accreditation25 pts
Full points if the program is on ABET’s own accredited list, none if not.
Program size15 pts
Graduates a year, on a log scale that reaches full points at 100.
Each program is ranked against the others near Salt Lake City at the same degree level, by the score our national rankings use. Tuition is IPEDS 2023–24; grad rate is the school’s. Full details for a ranked program are on its ranking page.
Bachelor’s
Master’s
Top 3 near Salt Lake City
Not ranked
Bachelor’s in software engineering
2 programs
#1 near Salt Lake City
56.8of 100
Western Governors
Salt Lake City, UT · about 7 mi from central Salt Lake City
BSOnline
In-state
$7,710
Out-of-state
$7,710
Completion
48%
Accelerated route from the bachelor's into a master's
WGU's software engineering B.S. is fully online and competency-based: you move on as soon as you show you know the material, and you complete a set number of competency units each term. The program has 39 courses and a Java-focused curriculum covering full-stack development, cloud-native deployment, APIs, databases, software security, quality assurance and agile and DevOps practices. Named courses include Data Structures and Algorithms I, Object Oriented Programming in Python, JavaScript Programming, Java Frameworks builds object-oriented programming expertise, AWS Developer and Agile for Software Engineering, along with dedicated AI coursework.
Tuition is $4,125 per six-month term, charged by term and not by credit, so finishing faster lowers the total. The program includes five certifications at no additional cost: AWS Certified Developer Associate, ITIL 4, and WGU Front End, Back End and Full Stack Developer. Eligible students can also take an accelerated route that adds graduate-level courses and leads into WGU's software engineering master's. Start dates fall on the first of every month.
#2 near Salt Lake City
37.9of 100
Ensign College
Salt Lake City, UT · about 1 mi from central Salt Lake City
BSCampus
In-state
$3,888
Out-of-state
$3,888
Completion
29%
Three-year bachelor's path with an AI Full Stack certificate
Ensign awards a Bachelor of Applied Science, with software engineering as the focus inside its information technology offerings. You can take it in a three-year or a four-year format, with six semesters as the minimum for the first and eight for the second. Every Ensign degree starts with a certificate, and here the options are Technical Support Engineer, User Experience (UX) Design and User Interface (UI) Design, and an AI Full Stack option that only the three-year path offers. After the certificate come upper-division courses and AI core courses.
The curriculum stresses full-stack development, cloud deployment and applying AI and large language models in working applications, all inside agile project management. Topics named include object-oriented programming, building AI data pipelines, managing AI operations, solving technical problems and using project management frameworks. In the upper division you also practice mentoring and assisting other group members, and you finish with several software projects in your portfolio. Faculty are currently employed in the industries they teach.
Compare
Programs side by side
Salt Lake City software engineering programs compared, by level
Tuition: IPEDS 2023–24, at the program’s level (a master’s figure is the school’s graduate average). Grad rate: the school’s six-year rate for bachelor’s students. Grads/yr: IPEDS, three-year average. ABET: ABET’s list, retrieved 2026-09-30. #: the program’s rank among Salt Lake City’s ranked programs at its level; NR, not ranked. Score: out of 100, the same score as on the ranking pages.
Nearby
Within driving distance
Programs in the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area whose campus is outside Salt Lake City’s city limits.
City limits: Census TIGER incorporated place boundaries; campus locations: IPEDS 2024. Distances are straight-line miles from the city’s Census internal point, rounded.
Computer science
Computer science programs
2 schools, 3 programs in the table below.
Computer science is the neighboring degree, and many software engineers hold it. These rows come from federal data, not from each school’s page.
Tuition: IPEDS 2023–24, in-state, before fees and aid; undergraduate for a bachelor’s, and for a master’s the school-wide average across graduate students, which excludes program fees. School grad rate: the school’s six-year rate for bachelor’s students (IPEDS); N/A on master’s rows, because federal data has no graduation rate for master’s programs. ABET: on ABET’s computing (CAC) or engineering (EAC) list, retrieved 2026-10-05; a blank cell means not accredited. A school is in the table when it has at least two of a tuition figure, a grad rate or ABET accreditation, and a program page we could link; the rest are listed under it. SE track: named on the school’s own page.
Cost
What it costs
Private
$8,180
median of 3 schools
Prices near Salt Lake City were 100.9 against a national 100 in 2024, and housing 123.3, by the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s Regional Price Parities. 2024 is BEA’s latest year, a year behind the May 2025 pay figures on this page.
Tuition: IPEDS 2023–24 undergraduate tuition, one figure per school, for the 4 schools with a bachelor’s program in this guide; a median needs at least 3 schools. Excludes fees, housing and aid. Prices: BEA Regional Price Parities by metro area, 2024, all items and housing services.
Job market
The software job market
The Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area employed 19,040 software developers in May 2025. Nationally, BLS projects software developer jobs to grow 10.2% from 2025 to 2035, against 3.5% for all occupations.
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metropolitan areas, May 2025, Salt Lake City-Murray, UT. Metro estimates are published for fewer occupations than state estimates; the occupations BLS doesn’t publish here are left out. Growth: BLS Employment Projections, 2025-35, national.
Who hires
Who hires software developers
We don’t list company names: no source counts software hiring by employer the same way in every metro. What the Census Bureau does count is the businesses themselves, by industry, in the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area.
Industry
Businesses
Employees
Payroll per employee
Computer systems design and related services
597
10,436
$103,200
Software publishers
149
13,168
$140,900
Data processing, hosting and related services
100
3,911
$102,000
Computer and electronic product manufacturing
74
7,944
$99,300
The first three of those industries employ 3.9% of the metro area’s private-sector workers, against 2.6% nationally, 1.5 times the national share.
Of these industries, software publishers employs the most people in the metro area, 13,168, at $140,900 in payroll per employee.
Businesses, employees (mid-March) and annual payroll: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, metropolitan areas and United States (cbp23msa, cbp23us), private sector, Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area; payroll per employee covers every job in the industry, not only developers.
Pay
What software developers earn
$79,61010th
$102,56025th
$129,600median
$160,74075th
$177,09090th
Software developers, Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area, BLS OEWS May 2025. National median: $135,980.
The metro area’s median is $129,600, $6,380 below the national $135,980. Half of the metro area’s software developers earn between $102,560 and $160,740.
BEA puts prices in the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area at 100.9 against a national 100 (2024), so the median goes as far as $128,440 would nationally, $7,540 less than the national median.
BEA price parities, 2024; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metropolitan areas, May 2025.
Steps
How to become a software engineer
The path to software engineering near Salt Lake City is the same one people take everywhere: a degree, real experience before you graduate, and a first job search. What changes is the schools you can choose from and who’s hiring nearby. Here are the five steps, with Salt Lake City’s options in each.
1
Start with a bachelor’s degree
Most software developer jobs ask for a bachelor's degree, and you don’t need work experience to get your first one. Around Salt Lake City you’ve got two bachelor’s programs titled software engineering, at Western Governors and Ensign College, plus three computer science bachelor’s programs across the metro if you want a wider net. Before you fall for one, compare what they cost; the tuition figures above make that quick.
2
Pick between software engineering and computer science
Employers hire from both majors. Software engineering leans toward building and maintaining large systems as a team; computer science gives you a broader base in theory. Around Salt Lake City, that’s two software engineering programs and four computer science programs across the metro, so you really can choose. An easy way to decide: put Western Governors’s course list next to Utah’s and see which you’d rather spend four years in. Compare them.
3
Build experience before you graduate
Internships are often what turn a degree into a job offer. When you talk to Ensign College and Western Governors, ask how they connect students with internships. Look for a capstone where you build real software with a team; it gives you something concrete to talk about in interviews. With 597 computer systems design firms in the metro, a summer role close to home is realistic.
4
Know where licensing stands
You don’t need a license to work as a software engineer, and there’s no longer a licensing exam for it: the last one was given in April 2019. Accreditation still matters if you might want a license or certification later, since those often ask for an ABET-accredited degree. The closest accredited software engineering program to Salt Lake City is Utah Valley University’s bachelor’s in Orem, about 36 miles away. Check any program’s accreditation before you apply.
5
Look for your first job nearby
The Salt Lake City area had 19,040 software developers in May 2025, earning a median of $129,600. The biggest software industries here are software publishing (13,168 jobs) and computer systems design (10,436 jobs), so start your search with those firms. Ask your program which local employers hire its graduates, and go to its career fairs from your first year. Across the country there are about 95,300 openings a year, so you can widen the search if you’re willing to move.
Online options
Online software engineering degrees
If no program near Salt Lake City fits, these are the highest-scoring online programs in our rankings. Confirm with each school that it enrolls students living near Salt Lake City.
Tuition: IPEDS 2023–24 out-of-state, the rate an online student from another state usually pays (a master’s figure is the school’s graduate average); a published rate is the school’s own price. National rank and score: our national ranking at the program’s level.
How many software engineering programs are near Salt Lake City?
2 degrees titled software engineering, all bachelor’s, at 2 schools. 0 of them are on ABET’s accredited list.
What is the best software engineering school near Salt Lake City?
Western Governors ranks first of the 2 ranked bachelor’s programs near Salt Lake City, with a score of 56.8 out of 100 (#37 nationally). The score combines completion, net price, ABET accreditation and program size.
How much do software engineers make near Salt Lake City?
Software developers, the BLS occupation that includes software engineers, earned a median of $129,600 near Salt Lake City in May 2025. The 10th percentile was $79,610 and the 90th $177,090.
Is Salt Lake City pay worth it after cost of living?
BEA puts Salt Lake City’s prices at 100.9 against a national 100 in 2024. Divided by that, the developer median of $129,600 is worth about $128,440 at national prices.
Who hires software engineers near Salt Lake City?
No source counts software hiring by company the same way in every metro, so we don’t name employers. The Census Bureau counted 597 computer systems design businesses in the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro area in 2023, employing 10,436 people. Nationally, the industries that employ the most software developers are computer systems design and related services, software publishers and management of companies and enterprises.
Can Salt Lake City residents take a software engineering degree online?
Yes. Kennesaw State, Minnesota-Crookston and University of Arizona are among the online software engineering programs in our rankings. Check with each school that it enrolls students living near Salt Lake City.
2NCES IPEDS institutional charges, 2023–24Tuition at the program’s level, and undergraduate tuition per school for the cost medians. Excludes fees, housing and aid.
3NCES IPEDS graduation ratesThe school’s six-year graduation rate, for the whole school rather than the program; IPEDS DRVGR2023 where the main pull has no figure.
4Each school’s own program pageProgram name, delivery, credits, and every bullet on the program cards, quoted from the saved page. Read .
12NCES IPEDS HD2024: campus coordinatesCampus latitude and longitude, for the distance from Salt Lake City to the nearest ABET-accredited software engineering program (straight line).
