Programmer Job Trends in the North West

Programmer
England > North West

The median Programmer salary in the North West is £40,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 17 March 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 184 236
Rank change year-on-year +57 +52 +59
Permanent jobs requiring a Programmer 78 8 24
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 0.95% 0.21% 0.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 0.23% 0.31%
Number of salaries quoted 70 4 12
10th Percentile £33,750 - £27,400
25th Percentile £35,000 - £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £35,000 £41,250
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -15.15% -8.33%
75th Percentile £45,000 £37,500 £46,250
90th Percentile £55,000 £42,000 £50,000
England median annual salary £40,000 £40,000 £40,843
% change year-on-year - -2.06% -28.97%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
North West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the North West. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the North West with a recognized job title 7,313 3,520 7,693
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 88.61% 90.21% 95.03%
Number of salaries quoted 4,489 2,233 6,256
10th Percentile £28,750 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £36,750 £40,620 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £69,750 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.84%

Programmer
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Programmer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Programmer job vacancy trend in the North West

Programmer
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for Programmer job vacancies in the North West.

Salary distribution trend for Programmer job vacancies in the North West

Programmer
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Programmer in the North West over the 6 months to 17 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Programmer in the North West

Programmer
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 Programmer within the North West region over the 6 months to 17 March 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 - 34 £37,500 - 2
Merseyside +9 25 £55,000 - 3
Lancashire +6 17 £40,000 - 6
Cheshire -31 2 £40,000 +14.29% 2
Programmer
England

Programmer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West

For the 6 months to 17 March 2026, Programmer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the North West region featuring Programmer in the job title.

1 26 (33.33%) CAD
2 15 (19.23%) Process Improvement
3 12 (15.38%) AI
3 12 (15.38%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
3 12 (15.38%) AWS
3 12 (15.38%) AWS Certification
3 12 (15.38%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
3 12 (15.38%) Chatbot
3 12 (15.38%) Cloud Computing
3 12 (15.38%) Conversational UI
3 12 (15.38%) Customer Service
3 12 (15.38%) Data Privacy
3 12 (15.38%) Hugging Face
3 12 (15.38%) Jupyter
3 12 (15.38%) LLM
3 12 (15.38%) Machine Learning
3 12 (15.38%) Matplotlib
3 12 (15.38%) Microsoft
3 12 (15.38%) Neural Network
3 12 (15.38%) NumPy
3 12 (15.38%) OO
3 12 (15.38%) OOP
3 12 (15.38%) Pandas
3 12 (15.38%) Prompt Engineering
3 12 (15.38%) Python
3 12 (15.38%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
3 12 (15.38%) scikit-learn
3 12 (15.38%) Sentiment Analysis
3 12 (15.38%) Streamlit
3 12 (15.38%) Visual Studio Code

Programmer Skill Set
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 12 (15.38%) Jupyter
Applications
1 12 (15.38%) Chatbot
2 6 (7.69%) Fusion 360
Cloud Services
1 12 (15.38%) AWS
1 12 (15.38%) Cloud Computing
2 1 (1.28%) WhatsApp
Development Applications
1 12 (15.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 18 (23.08%) Manufacturing
2 13 (16.67%) Finance
3 12 (15.38%) Retail
4 5 (6.41%) Aerospace
4 5 (6.41%) Pharmaceutical
5 3 (3.85%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.28%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (15.38%) Hugging Face
1 12 (15.38%) Matplotlib
1 12 (15.38%) NumPy
1 12 (15.38%) Pandas
1 12 (15.38%) scikit-learn
1 12 (15.38%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 12 (15.38%) Algorithms
2 5 (6.41%) FMCG
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (33.33%) CAD
2 15 (19.23%) Process Improvement
3 12 (15.38%) AI
3 12 (15.38%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
3 12 (15.38%) Conversational UI
3 12 (15.38%) Customer Service
3 12 (15.38%) Data Privacy
3 12 (15.38%) LLM
3 12 (15.38%) Machine Learning
3 12 (15.38%) Neural Network
3 12 (15.38%) OO
3 12 (15.38%) OOP
3 12 (15.38%) Prompt Engineering
3 12 (15.38%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
3 12 (15.38%) Sentiment Analysis
3 12 (15.38%) Visualisation
3 12 (15.38%) Workflow
4 5 (6.41%) Software Engineering
5 1 (1.28%) Biometrics
5 1 (1.28%) Statistical Analysis
Programming Languages
1 12 (15.38%) Python
Qualifications
1 12 (15.38%) AWS Certification
1 12 (15.38%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Vendors
1 12 (15.38%) Microsoft
2 5 (6.41%) Allen-Bradley
2 5 (6.41%) Siemens