Software Engineer Job Trends in the North West

Software Engineer
England > North West

The median Software Engineer salary in the North West is £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 June 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 34 24
Rank change year-on-year +7 -10 +92
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 495 435 678
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.58% 9.23% 6.09%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.86% 10.39% 6.40%
Number of salaries quoted 424 123 471
10th Percentile £50,000 £50,250 £38,084
25th Percentile £55,000 £62,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £75,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +30.43% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £93,778 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £118,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £77,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -9.68% +29.17% -14.29%

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 10,189 4,185 10,597
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.18% 88.76% 95.16%
Number of salaries quoted 7,683 2,064 8,147
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £27,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,750 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £84,355 £78,500
England median annual salary £57,239 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -0.45% +9.52% -13.22%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the North West

Software Engineer
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the North West.

Salary distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the North West

Software Engineer
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the North West over the 6 months to 16 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineer in the North West

Software Engineer
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 Software Engineer within the North West region over the 6 months to 16 June 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 +7 401 £70,000 -6.67% 160
Cheshire -23 43 £56,250 -9.64% 19
Lancashire 0 34 £60,000 -20.00% 45
Merseyside -22 13 £70,000 +7.69% 15
Cumbria - 4 £50,000 - 5
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 16 June 2026, Software Engineer 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 Software Engineer in the job title.

1 493 (99.60%) Software Engineering
2 101 (20.40%) AWS
3 80 (16.16%) Java
4 78 (15.76%) Agile
5 71 (14.34%) Full-Stack Development
6 70 (14.14%) DevOps
7 64 (12.93%) Python
8 60 (12.12%) .NET
8 60 (12.12%) CI/CD
9 59 (11.92%) Azure
10 55 (11.11%) Microservices
11 54 (10.91%) C#
12 51 (10.30%) AI
13 47 (9.49%) SQL
14 46 (9.29%) TypeScript
15 45 (9.09%) Mentoring
16 44 (8.89%) JavaScript
17 42 (8.48%) React
18 40 (8.08%) SaaS
18 40 (8.08%) Security Cleared
19 39 (7.88%) TDD
20 33 (6.67%) Problem-Solving
21 32 (6.46%) Kubernetes
21 32 (6.46%) Node.js
22 31 (6.26%) Serverless
23 30 (6.06%) Docker
23 30 (6.06%) SC Cleared
23 30 (6.06%) Scrum
23 30 (6.06%) Terraform
24 29 (5.86%) DV Cleared

Software Engineer 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 6 (1.21%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (1.01%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.01%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.81%) GeoServer
4 3 (0.61%) Apache
4 3 (0.61%) Apache Solr
5 1 (0.20%) CMS
5 1 (0.20%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 2 (0.40%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 10 (2.02%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 101 (20.40%) AWS
2 59 (11.92%) Azure
3 40 (8.08%) SaaS
4 31 (6.26%) Serverless
5 16 (3.23%) GCP
6 11 (2.22%) Anthropic Claude
7 9 (1.82%) Azure AKS
8 7 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (1.21%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (1.21%) Firebase
10 4 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (0.81%) Twilio
11 3 (0.61%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.61%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (0.61%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 3 (0.61%) GitHub
11 3 (0.61%) OpenShift
12 2 (0.40%) Azure Functions
12 2 (0.40%) LangSmith
12 2 (0.40%) Vercel
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.61%) AMQP
2 2 (0.40%) RTP
3 1 (0.20%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (4.85%) NoSQL
2 17 (3.43%) MongoDB
3 9 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.01%) Big Data
4 5 (1.01%) FileMaker
4 5 (1.01%) Hadoop
5 4 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.81%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (0.81%) GIS
5 4 (0.81%) Neo4j
5 4 (0.81%) QGIS
6 3 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.61%) Cloudera CDH
6 3 (0.61%) DocumentDB
6 3 (0.61%) MySQL
6 3 (0.61%) Pinecone
6 3 (0.61%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.40%) Redis
7 2 (0.40%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 11 (2.22%) Claude Code
2 8 (1.62%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.21%) Git
4 3 (0.61%) GitLab
5 2 (0.40%) Maven
5 2 (0.40%) Vagrant
5 2 (0.40%) Vite
6 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.20%) GDB
6 1 (0.20%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.20%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.20%) JIRA
6 1 (0.20%) JUnit
6 1 (0.20%) Postman
6 1 (0.20%) Selenium
6 1 (0.20%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.20%) WinDbg
General
1 23 (4.65%) Finance
2 19 (3.84%) Public Sector
3 16 (3.23%) Retail
3 16 (3.23%) Social Skills
4 14 (2.83%) Electronics
4 14 (2.83%) Manufacturing
5 8 (1.62%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (0.81%) Aerospace
6 4 (0.81%) Billing
7 3 (0.61%) Health Technology
7 3 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (0.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.20%) Automotive
9 1 (0.20%) Banking
9 1 (0.20%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.20%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (12.12%) .NET
2 42 (8.48%) React
3 32 (6.46%) Node.js
4 25 (5.05%) Spring
5 24 (4.85%) Next.js
6 23 (4.65%) Spring Boot
7 22 (4.44%) RESTful
8 16 (3.23%) REST
9 14 (2.83%) AngularJS
10 11 (2.22%) Vue
11 10 (2.02%) .NET Core
11 10 (2.02%) FastAPI
11 10 (2.02%) React Native
11 10 (2.02%) Ruby on Rails
12 9 (1.82%) .NET Framework
13 6 (1.21%) CSS
14 5 (1.01%) CSS3
15 4 (0.81%) Leaflet
15 4 (0.81%) PostGIS
15 4 (0.81%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 64 (12.93%) Cloud Native
2 17 (3.43%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (2.42%) AI Agents
4 12 (2.42%) Greenfield Project
5 10 (2.02%) Mobile App
6 9 (1.82%) Industry 4.0
7 8 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (1.62%) IoT
8 5 (1.01%) Robotics
9 4 (0.81%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.61%) Legacy Applications
11 2 (0.40%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.40%) Embedded Systems
12 1 (0.20%) Algorithms
12 1 (0.20%) Data Protection Act
12 1 (0.20%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.82%) Linux
2 5 (1.01%) Android
3 4 (0.81%) Windows
4 3 (0.61%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.61%) CentOS
4 3 (0.61%) Debian
4 3 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.61%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 493 (99.60%) Software Engineering
2 78 (15.76%) Agile
3 71 (14.34%) Full-Stack Development
4 70 (14.14%) DevOps
5 60 (12.12%) CI/CD
6 55 (11.11%) Microservices
7 51 (10.30%) AI
8 45 (9.09%) Mentoring
9 39 (7.88%) TDD
10 33 (6.67%) Problem-Solving
11 30 (6.06%) Scrum
12 25 (5.05%) Containerisation
12 25 (5.05%) Open Source
13 24 (4.85%) Technical Leadership
14 20 (4.04%) Platform Engineering
15 19 (3.84%) Test Automation
16 18 (3.64%) Event-Driven
16 18 (3.64%) Infrastructure as Code
17 17 (3.43%) Clean Code
17 17 (3.43%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 80 (16.16%) Java
2 64 (12.93%) Python
3 54 (10.91%) C#
4 47 (9.49%) SQL
5 46 (9.29%) TypeScript
6 44 (8.89%) JavaScript
7 15 (3.03%) C++
7 15 (3.03%) Go
7 15 (3.03%) PHP
8 10 (2.02%) Ruby
9 9 (1.82%) C
10 5 (1.01%) COBOL
11 2 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 40 (8.08%) Security Cleared
2 30 (6.06%) SC Cleared
3 29 (5.86%) DV Cleared
4 10 (2.02%) Degree
5 8 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (1.62%) QA
2 3 (0.61%) Accessibility
System Software
1 30 (6.06%) Docker
2 6 (1.21%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 32 (6.46%) Kubernetes
2 30 (6.06%) Terraform
3 8 (1.62%) Ansible
4 3 (0.61%) Puppet
5 2 (0.40%) Packer
5 2 (0.40%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 11 (2.22%) Rockwell
2 10 (2.02%) Adobe
3 6 (1.21%) Siemens
4 5 (1.01%) Google
4 5 (1.01%) Splunk
4 5 (1.01%) Xamarin
5 3 (0.61%) Red Hat
5 3 (0.61%) SaltStack
6 2 (0.40%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.20%) Microsoft
7 1 (0.20%) Salesforce