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 5 August 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 34 26
Rank change year-on-year +5 -8 +67
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 541 433 523
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.63% 8.38% 6.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.86% 9.27% 6.50%
Number of salaries quoted 468 122 312
10th Percentile £48,750 £51,325 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,938 £61,563 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -
75th Percentile £80,000 £93,778 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +28.00% -10.71%

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 11,124 4,670 8,043
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 95.20% 90.33% 95.52%
Number of salaries quoted 8,336 2,441 5,691
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%

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 5 August 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 5 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 +4 428 £75,000 -4.46% 101
Lancashire -6 42 £60,000 -20.00% 11
Cheshire -27 39 £60,000 -19.46% 8
Merseyside -18 20 £70,000 +7.69% 9
Cumbria -8 12 £50,000 -16.67% 2
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 5 August 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.

1 541 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 89 (16.45%) AWS
3 77 (14.23%) Agile
4 70 (12.94%) Java
5 68 (12.57%) Full-Stack Development
5 68 (12.57%) Python
6 62 (11.46%) DevOps
7 59 (10.91%) AI
8 56 (10.35%) TypeScript
9 55 (10.17%) CI/CD
10 54 (9.98%) Mentoring
11 52 (9.61%) .NET
11 52 (9.61%) C#
12 51 (9.43%) SQL
13 49 (9.06%) Microservices
14 47 (8.69%) SaaS
15 43 (7.95%) Security Cleared
16 42 (7.76%) Azure
16 42 (7.76%) React
17 41 (7.58%) JavaScript
17 41 (7.58%) Problem-Solving
18 33 (6.10%) Node.js
19 32 (5.91%) DV Cleared
20 31 (5.73%) TDD
21 30 (5.55%) SC Cleared
22 29 (5.36%) Docker
22 29 (5.36%) Next.js
23 28 (5.18%) Kubernetes
24 26 (4.81%) Serverless
25 25 (4.62%) Terraform

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 (1.11%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.92%) Apache
2 5 (0.92%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.74%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.55%) GeoServer
5 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.37%) WinCC
6 1 (0.18%) CMS
6 1 (0.18%) Headless CMS
Cloud Services
1 89 (16.45%) AWS
2 47 (8.69%) SaaS
3 42 (7.76%) Azure
4 26 (4.81%) Serverless
5 15 (2.77%) GCP
6 14 (2.59%) Anthropic Claude
7 10 (1.85%) Firebase
8 7 (1.29%) GitHub
9 5 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (0.92%) Azure AKS
10 4 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (0.74%) Snowflake
11 3 (0.55%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (0.55%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (0.55%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 3 (0.55%) dbt
11 3 (0.55%) GitHub Copilot
11 3 (0.55%) Vercel
12 2 (0.37%) Cloud Run
12 2 (0.37%) LangSmith
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.74%) TCP/IP
2 2 (0.37%) AMQP
2 2 (0.37%) Bluetooth
2 2 (0.37%) Firewall
2 2 (0.37%) RTP
2 2 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
2 2 (0.37%) Wireless
2 2 (0.37%) ZigBee
3 1 (0.18%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (3.88%) NoSQL
2 19 (3.51%) MongoDB
3 16 (2.96%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.85%) SQL Server
5 5 (0.92%) FileMaker
6 4 (0.74%) MySQL
6 4 (0.74%) Pinecone
7 3 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.55%) DocumentDB
7 3 (0.55%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (0.55%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.55%) GIS
7 3 (0.55%) Neo4j
7 3 (0.55%) QGIS
7 3 (0.55%) Redis
8 2 (0.37%) Big Data
8 2 (0.37%) Cloudera CDH
8 2 (0.37%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 13 (2.40%) Claude Code
2 7 (1.29%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.11%) Git
4 3 (0.55%) GitLab
5 2 (0.37%) Maven
5 2 (0.37%) Vite
6 1 (0.18%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.18%) GDB
6 1 (0.18%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.18%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.18%) JIRA
6 1 (0.18%) JUnit
6 1 (0.18%) Mocha
6 1 (0.18%) Postman
6 1 (0.18%) Vagrant
6 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.18%) WinDbg
General
1 23 (4.25%) Finance
1 23 (4.25%) Public Sector
1 23 (4.25%) Social Skills
2 22 (4.07%) Electronics
3 21 (3.88%) Retail
4 13 (2.40%) Manufacturing
5 6 (1.11%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (1.11%) Billing
6 5 (0.92%) Aerospace
7 3 (0.55%) Health Technology
7 3 (0.55%) Law
7 3 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.37%) Marketing
9 1 (0.18%) Automotive
9 1 (0.18%) Banking
9 1 (0.18%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (9.61%) .NET
2 42 (7.76%) React
3 33 (6.10%) Node.js
4 29 (5.36%) Next.js
5 22 (4.07%) Spring
6 20 (3.70%) RESTful
6 20 (3.70%) Spring Boot
7 16 (2.96%) React Native
8 12 (2.22%) AngularJS
8 12 (2.22%) Vue
9 11 (2.03%) FastAPI
9 11 (2.03%) REST
9 11 (2.03%) Ruby on Rails
10 7 (1.29%) .NET Core
11 5 (0.92%) .NET Framework
11 5 (0.92%) CSS
12 4 (0.74%) CSS3
12 4 (0.74%) LangChain
12 4 (0.74%) pgvector
12 4 (0.74%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 64 (11.83%) Cloud Native
2 20 (3.70%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.59%) AI Agents
3 14 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
4 11 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (2.03%) Greenfield Project
5 10 (1.85%) Mobile App
6 8 (1.48%) Industry 4.0
7 6 (1.11%) Embedded Systems
8 5 (0.92%) IoT
8 5 (0.92%) Robotics
9 3 (0.55%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (0.55%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (0.55%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.18%) Algorithms
10 1 (0.18%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 13 (2.40%) Linux
2 4 (0.74%) Android
2 4 (0.74%) Windows
3 3 (0.55%) Embedded Linux
4 2 (0.37%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.37%) CentOS
4 2 (0.37%) Debian
4 2 (0.37%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.37%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 77 (14.23%) Agile
3 68 (12.57%) Full-Stack Development
4 62 (11.46%) DevOps
5 59 (10.91%) AI
6 55 (10.17%) CI/CD
7 54 (9.98%) Mentoring
8 49 (9.06%) Microservices
9 41 (7.58%) Problem-Solving
10 31 (5.73%) TDD
11 24 (4.44%) Scrum
11 24 (4.44%) Technical Leadership
12 21 (3.88%) Open Source
12 21 (3.88%) Platform Engineering
12 21 (3.88%) Test Automation
13 20 (3.70%) B2B
13 20 (3.70%) Code Quality
13 20 (3.70%) Containerisation
13 20 (3.70%) Event-Driven
14 18 (3.33%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 70 (12.94%) Java
2 68 (12.57%) Python
3 56 (10.35%) TypeScript
4 52 (9.61%) C#
5 51 (9.43%) SQL
6 41 (7.58%) JavaScript
7 23 (4.25%) Go
8 19 (3.51%) C++
9 14 (2.59%) C
10 11 (2.03%) PHP
10 11 (2.03%) Ruby
11 5 (0.92%) COBOL
12 1 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 43 (7.95%) Security Cleared
2 32 (5.91%) DV Cleared
3 30 (5.55%) SC Cleared
4 18 (3.33%) Degree
5 9 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.55%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.37%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.66%) QA
2 3 (0.55%) Accessibility
2 3 (0.55%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
3 2 (0.37%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 29 (5.36%) Docker
2 7 (1.29%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 28 (5.18%) Kubernetes
2 25 (4.62%) Terraform
3 8 (1.48%) Ansible
4 2 (0.37%) Puppet
5 1 (0.18%) Packer
5 1 (0.18%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 11 (2.03%) Rockwell
2 8 (1.48%) Siemens
2 8 (1.48%) Splunk
3 4 (0.74%) Google
3 4 (0.74%) Xamarin
4 3 (0.55%) Databricks
4 3 (0.55%) OpenAI
5 2 (0.37%) New Relic
5 2 (0.37%) Red Hat
5 2 (0.37%) SaltStack
6 1 (0.18%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.18%) Microsoft