Performance Optimisation Job Trends in the North West

Performance Optimisation
England > North West

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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 142 157 169
Rank change year-on-year +15 +12 +114
Permanent jobs citing Performance Optimisation 34 53 26
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 0.54% 1.05% 0.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.66% 1.15% 0.66%
Number of salaries quoted 24 26 21
10th Percentile £41,250 £47,500 £43,750
25th Percentile £51,813 £49,063 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +18.18% +8.35%
75th Percentile £72,500 £73,841 £62,500
90th Percentile £79,625 £87,500 -
England median annual salary £80,000 £72,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +10.34% +20.83% -14.29%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Performance Optimisation 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 5,124 4,598 3,941
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 81.28% 91.14% 87.58%
Number of salaries quoted 2,497 2,248 3,064
10th Percentile £28,000 £32,113 £30,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £66,285 £68,750
90th Percentile £81,250 £80,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Performance Optimisation
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Performance Optimisation job vacancy trend in the North West

Performance Optimisation
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Performance Optimisation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Performance Optimisation

Performance Optimisation
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Performance Optimisation in the North West over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Performance Optimisation in the North West

Performance Optimisation
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 Performance Optimisation within the North West region over the 6 months to 12 January 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 +7 28 £60,000 -4.00% 18
Cheshire -12 6 £72,500 - 5
Performance Optimisation
England

Performance Optimisation
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 5 (14.71%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (11.76%) SharePoint
3 2 (5.88%) nginx
4 1 (2.94%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (2.94%) Adobe Creative Suite
1 1 (2.94%) Adobe Illustrator
1 1 (2.94%) Adobe XD
1 1 (2.94%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 1 (2.94%) Advent Geneva
Cloud Services
1 13 (38.24%) Azure
2 9 (26.47%) AWS
3 8 (23.53%) GCP
4 6 (17.65%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (11.76%) Entra ID
6 2 (5.88%) Azure AI
6 2 (5.88%) Azure Cognitive Services
6 2 (5.88%) Microsoft Copilot
6 2 (5.88%) Power Automate
6 2 (5.88%) Power Platform
6 2 (5.88%) PowerApps
7 1 (2.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 1 (2.94%) Azure Data Factory
7 1 (2.94%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (2.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 1 (2.94%) Cloudflare
7 1 (2.94%) GitHub
7 1 (2.94%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 4 (11.76%) DHCP
1 4 (11.76%) DNS
1 4 (11.76%) Firewall
1 4 (11.76%) VLAN
1 4 (11.76%) VPN
2 1 (2.94%) HTTP
2 1 (2.94%) SAN
2 1 (2.94%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (26.47%) SQL Server
2 7 (20.59%) MySQL
3 6 (17.65%) MongoDB
4 3 (8.82%) NoSQL
5 2 (5.88%) Power BI
6 1 (2.94%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (2.94%) Data Lake
6 1 (2.94%) DB2
6 1 (2.94%) Redis
6 1 (2.94%) Relational Database
6 1 (2.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 6 (17.65%) Git
2 1 (2.94%) Octopus Deploy
2 1 (2.94%) Visual Studio
General
1 5 (14.71%) Analytical Skills
1 5 (14.71%) Social Skills
2 3 (8.82%) Documentation Skills
3 2 (5.88%) Organisational Skills
3 2 (5.88%) Retail
4 1 (2.94%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 17 (50.00%) Developer
2 7 (20.59%) Senior
2 7 (20.59%) Senior Developer
3 6 (17.65%) .NET Developer
3 6 (17.65%) Lead
4 5 (14.71%) Java Developer
5 4 (11.76%) IT Engineer
5 4 (11.76%) Senior .NET Developer
5 4 (11.76%) Systems Engineer
6 3 (8.82%) Lead Software Engineer
6 3 (8.82%) PHP Developer
6 3 (8.82%) Senior Java Developer
6 3 (8.82%) Software Engineer
7 2 (5.88%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 2 (5.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 2 (5.88%) IT Manager
7 2 (5.88%) Software Developer
8 1 (2.94%) Analyst
8 1 (2.94%) Architect
8 1 (2.94%) Web Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (35.29%) .NET
2 7 (20.59%) CSS
2 7 (20.59%) HTML
3 6 (17.65%) .NET Core
3 6 (17.65%) ASP.NET Web API
3 6 (17.65%) Hibernate
3 6 (17.65%) Spring
3 6 (17.65%) Spring Boot
4 5 (14.71%) Akka
4 5 (14.71%) Akka.NET
5 3 (8.82%) .NET Framework
5 3 (8.82%) React
5 3 (8.82%) Web Services
6 2 (5.88%) jQuery
6 2 (5.88%) Laravel
6 2 (5.88%) REST
7 1 (2.94%) Blazor
7 1 (2.94%) Node.js
7 1 (2.94%) Qt
7 1 (2.94%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 9 (26.47%) Distributed Systems
2 3 (8.82%) Cloud Native
2 3 (8.82%) Distributed Computing
3 1 (2.94%) Client/Server
3 1 (2.94%) Enterprise Storage
3 1 (2.94%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (2.94%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 5 (14.71%) Windows
2 4 (11.76%) Windows 10
2 4 (11.76%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (52.94%) Containerisation
2 17 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 17 (50.00%) Microservices
3 14 (41.18%) Agile
4 12 (35.29%) Clean Code
5 10 (29.41%) Problem-Solving
6 9 (26.47%) DevOps
7 8 (23.53%) Roadmaps
8 6 (17.65%) Continuous Improvement
8 6 (17.65%) Decision-Making
8 6 (17.65%) Low Latency
8 6 (17.65%) Open Source
8 6 (17.65%) Product Roadmap
8 6 (17.65%) Scrum
8 6 (17.65%) Software Engineering
8 6 (17.65%) User Experience
9 5 (14.71%) API Testing
9 5 (14.71%) Functional Testing
9 5 (14.71%) Mentoring
9 5 (14.71%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 11 (32.35%) C#
2 7 (20.59%) JavaScript
3 6 (17.65%) Java
3 6 (17.65%) SQL
4 4 (11.76%) TypeScript
5 3 (8.82%) Erlang
5 3 (8.82%) PHP
5 3 (8.82%) PowerShell
6 1 (2.94%) Bicep
6 1 (2.94%) C++
Qualifications
1 1 (2.94%) Azure Certification
1 1 (2.94%) Degree
1 1 (2.94%) ITIL Certification
1 1 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (8.82%) QA
2 2 (5.88%) GDPR
System Software
1 13 (38.24%) Docker
2 6 (17.65%) Active Directory
3 5 (14.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (11.76%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 11 (32.35%) Kubernetes
2 4 (11.76%) FortiGate
3 3 (8.82%) Terraform
4 2 (5.88%) Ansible
4 2 (5.88%) Progress Chef
4 2 (5.88%) Puppet
Vendors
1 8 (23.53%) VMware
2 6 (17.65%) Microsoft
3 1 (2.94%) Adobe
3 1 (2.94%) Advent
3 1 (2.94%) Databricks
3 1 (2.94%) Google
3 1 (2.94%) HubSpot
3 1 (2.94%) Oracle