AI Job Trends in the North West

AI
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring AI skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 42 57
Rank change year-on-year +28 +15 +21
Permanent jobs citing AI 808 413 289
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 6.83% 8.00% 3.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.51% 8.84% 4.43%
Number of salaries quoted 491 120 97
10th Percentile £36,750 £25,281 £35,055
25th Percentile £50,000 £41,250 £45,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% +4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £90,000 £90,944 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £95,750
England median annual salary £72,500 £70,000 £72,500
% change year-on-year +3.57% -3.45% -3.33%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

AI falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,498 4,674 6,529
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 71.81% 90.49% 77.78%
Number of salaries quoted 6,496 2,277 4,403
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -3.85% -5.45%
75th Percentile £75,000 £66,250 £65,603
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -12.00%

AI
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing AI relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

AI job vacancy trend in the North West

AI
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing AI.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing AI

AI
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing AI in the North West over the 6 months to 12 August 2026.

Salary histogram for AI in the North West

AI
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing AI within the North West region over the 6 months to 12 August 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Manchester +11 586 £70,000 +3.70% 681
Merseyside -12 80 £65,000 +13.04% 42
Lancashire +73 73 £42,500 - 75
Cheshire +39 68 £71,750 +36.67% 179
AI
England

AI
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 16 (1.98%) SharePoint
2 11 (1.36%) CMS
3 8 (0.99%) WordPress
4 6 (0.74%) Apache
4 6 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.74%) Jupyter
5 5 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.50%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.37%) Confluence
7 3 (0.37%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.25%) IIS
8 2 (0.25%) nginx
9 1 (0.12%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.12%) OpenEdge
9 1 (0.12%) Umbraco
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 55 (6.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.73%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
3 5 (0.62%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 5 (0.62%) Adobe Illustrator
3 5 (0.62%) InDesign
3 5 (0.62%) Photoshop
4 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.25%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 12 (1.49%) Cloudability
2 2 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.12%) Odoo
3 1 (0.12%) Primavera
3 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.12%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 247 (30.57%) Azure
2 175 (21.66%) AWS
3 110 (13.61%) Power Platform
4 101 (12.50%) Azure AI
5 72 (8.91%) GCP
6 65 (8.04%) SaaS
7 44 (5.45%) GitHub
8 42 (5.20%) Microsoft Copilot
9 37 (4.58%) Serverless
10 32 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
11 31 (3.84%) Microsoft 365
12 28 (3.47%) Anthropic Claude
13 20 (2.48%) GitHub Copilot
13 20 (2.48%) PowerApps
14 19 (2.35%) Power Automate
15 17 (2.10%) Snowflake
16 16 (1.98%) AWS Lambda
16 16 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
17 13 (1.61%) ChatGPT
17 13 (1.61%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.11%) Firewall
2 7 (0.87%) DNS
2 7 (0.87%) VLAN
3 5 (0.62%) BGP
3 5 (0.62%) SAN
3 5 (0.62%) WPA
4 4 (0.50%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.50%) VoIP
5 3 (0.37%) DKIM
5 3 (0.37%) DMARC
5 3 (0.37%) HTTP
5 3 (0.37%) OSPF
5 3 (0.37%) PBX
5 3 (0.37%) SD-WAN
5 3 (0.37%) SNMP
5 3 (0.37%) Unified Communications
5 3 (0.37%) WAN
5 3 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.25%) IPFIX
6 2 (0.25%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (9.90%) Power BI
2 59 (7.30%) Tableau
3 29 (3.59%) MongoDB
3 29 (3.59%) SQL Server
4 28 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (1.98%) Azure SQL Database
5 16 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
6 15 (1.86%) NoSQL
7 14 (1.73%) Relational Database
8 13 (1.61%) MySQL
9 8 (0.99%) Data Lake
9 8 (0.99%) DynamoDB
10 7 (0.87%) BigQuery
10 7 (0.87%) RDBMS
11 6 (0.74%) Big Data
11 6 (0.74%) MariaDB
11 6 (0.74%) Redis
12 5 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
12 5 (0.62%) Pinecone
13 4 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 32 (3.96%) Git
2 20 (2.48%) GitLab
3 18 (2.23%) Claude Code
3 18 (2.23%) Jenkins
4 12 (1.49%) JUnit
4 12 (1.49%) Snyk
5 11 (1.36%) JIRA
5 11 (1.36%) Spock
6 9 (1.11%) Visual Studio Code
7 8 (0.99%) Maven
8 5 (0.62%) Postman
9 4 (0.50%) Selenium
9 4 (0.50%) Storybook
9 4 (0.50%) Vite
10 3 (0.37%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.37%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.25%) Karma Test Runner
11 2 (0.25%) MLflow
11 2 (0.25%) XCUITest
11 2 (0.25%) YouTrack
General
1 216 (26.73%) Social Skills
2 151 (18.69%) Finance
3 84 (10.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 69 (8.54%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (4.58%) Public Sector
6 33 (4.08%) Marketing
7 31 (3.84%) Law
8 27 (3.34%) Banking
8 27 (3.34%) Retail
9 22 (2.72%) Legal
10 18 (2.23%) Manufacturing
11 17 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
12 14 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
13 9 (1.11%) Advertising
13 9 (1.11%) Local Government
14 6 (0.74%) Social Housing
15 5 (0.62%) Telecoms
16 4 (0.50%) Documentation Skills
16 4 (0.50%) Health Technology
16 4 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 205 (25.37%) Senior
2 86 (10.64%) Architect
3 85 (10.52%) Analyst
4 81 (10.02%) Developer
5 63 (7.80%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 61 (7.55%) Software Engineer
7 57 (7.05%) Data Analyst
8 50 (6.19%) Junior
9 48 (5.94%) Junior Analyst
9 48 (5.94%) Junior Data Analyst
10 44 (5.45%) Lead
11 41 (5.07%) Data Engineer
12 34 (4.21%) Solutions Architect
13 33 (4.08%) Senior Developer
14 31 (3.84%) Python Engineer
15 29 (3.59%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
16 27 (3.34%) Senior Software Engineer
17 25 (3.09%) Senior Architect
18 24 (2.97%) Senior Data Engineer
19 23 (2.85%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (6.31%) .NET
2 40 (4.95%) React
3 32 (3.96%) CSS
4 28 (3.47%) HTML
5 26 (3.22%) Vue
6 24 (2.97%) Spring
7 22 (2.72%) Node.js
8 21 (2.60%) AngularJS
9 20 (2.48%) FastAPI
10 19 (2.35%) LangChain
11 18 (2.23%) RESTful
12 17 (2.10%) REST
13 15 (1.86%) ASP.NET
13 15 (1.86%) ASP.NET Core
14 14 (1.73%) .NET Core
15 13 (1.61%) ML.NET
15 13 (1.61%) OAuth
16 12 (1.49%) JWT
17 11 (1.36%) Microsoft Graph
17 11 (1.36%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 73 (9.03%) Cloud Native
2 52 (6.44%) AI Agents
3 46 (5.69%) Distributed Systems
4 40 (4.95%) Product Ownership
5 34 (4.21%) Onboarding
6 27 (3.34%) Self-Motivation
7 20 (2.48%) Data Centre
8 16 (1.98%) Greenfield Project
9 15 (1.86%) Management Information System
10 13 (1.61%) Private Cloud
10 13 (1.61%) Social Media
11 12 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (1.36%) Marketing Technology
13 10 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 8 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
14 8 (0.99%) Virtual Team
15 7 (0.87%) Algorithms
15 7 (0.87%) Life Science
15 7 (0.87%) Low-Code
16 6 (0.74%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 14 (1.73%) Windows
2 13 (1.61%) Linux
3 7 (0.87%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.50%) VMS
5 2 (0.25%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.12%) Android
6 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.12%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (18.56%) CI/CD
2 141 (17.45%) Agile
3 129 (15.97%) Machine Learning
4 128 (15.84%) DevOps
5 125 (15.47%) Software Engineering
6 119 (14.73%) Analytics
7 95 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
8 94 (11.63%) Continuous Improvement
9 92 (11.39%) Roadmaps
10 90 (11.14%) Business Intelligence
11 79 (9.78%) Decision-Making
12 76 (9.41%) LLM
13 68 (8.42%) Stakeholder Management
13 68 (8.42%) Workflow
14 66 (8.17%) Cybersecurity
15 65 (8.04%) Full-Stack Development
16 64 (7.92%) Mentoring
17 61 (7.55%) Microservices
18 58 (7.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 57 (7.05%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 250 (30.94%) Python
2 158 (19.55%) SQL
3 67 (8.29%) JavaScript
4 59 (7.30%) Java
5 56 (6.93%) C#
5 56 (6.93%) TypeScript
6 17 (2.10%) PowerShell
7 13 (1.61%) Go
8 11 (1.36%) Bash
9 10 (1.24%) Scala
10 9 (1.11%) R
11 7 (0.87%) Bicep
12 6 (0.74%) Groovy
12 6 (0.74%) PHP
13 4 (0.50%) C++
13 4 (0.50%) Kotlin
13 4 (0.50%) T-SQL
14 3 (0.37%) C
14 3 (0.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 3 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 76 (9.41%) Azure Certification
2 65 (8.04%) Degree
3 36 (4.46%) Security Cleared
4 22 (2.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (2.35%) AWS Certification
5 19 (2.35%) SC Cleared
6 16 (1.98%) Master's Degree
7 13 (1.61%) DV Cleared
8 12 (1.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (0.87%) Postgraduate
10 6 (0.74%) ACCA
10 6 (0.74%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 6 (0.74%) CIMA
11 5 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
12 4 (0.50%) CISM
12 4 (0.50%) CISSP
12 4 (0.50%) MBA
12 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.37%) DBS Check
14 2 (0.25%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (4.70%) Data Quality
2 26 (3.22%) GDPR
3 24 (2.97%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (2.23%) QA
5 17 (2.10%) GRC
6 12 (1.49%) SLA
7 10 (1.24%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.87%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 7 (0.87%) WCAG
9 6 (0.74%) NIST
10 4 (0.50%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.25%) GAAP
12 2 (0.25%) IFRS
13 1 (0.12%) DICOM
13 1 (0.12%) GxP
13 1 (0.12%) Solvency II
System Software
1 58 (7.18%) Docker
2 15 (1.86%) Virtual Machines
3 9 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.62%) Active Directory
5 4 (0.50%) Ceph
5 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 49 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 43 (5.32%) Terraform
3 12 (1.49%) Grafana
3 12 (1.49%) Prometheus
4 6 (0.74%) Ansible
4 6 (0.74%) Istio
5 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.37%) Argo
6 3 (0.37%) Check_MK
6 3 (0.37%) cPanel
6 3 (0.37%) linkerd
6 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Clustering
6 3 (0.37%) Nagios
6 3 (0.37%) Plesk
6 3 (0.37%) Podman
6 3 (0.37%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.37%) Puppet
7 2 (0.25%) SolarWinds Orion
8 1 (0.12%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.12%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 161 (19.93%) Microsoft
2 31 (3.84%) OpenAI
3 25 (3.09%) Adobe
4 24 (2.97%) Google
5 22 (2.72%) ServiceNow
6 19 (2.35%) Splunk
7 18 (2.23%) Databricks
8 16 (1.98%) CrowdStrike
9 13 (1.61%) Apple
10 12 (1.49%) AppDynamics
10 12 (1.49%) Palo Alto
10 12 (1.49%) Tenable
11 11 (1.36%) Oracle
12 10 (1.24%) VMware
13 9 (1.11%) HubSpot
14 8 (0.99%) Cisco
15 3 (0.37%) Acronis
15 3 (0.37%) Dell
15 3 (0.37%) Red Hat
15 3 (0.37%) Salesforce