Software Engineer Job Trends in the North West

Software Engineer
England > North West

The median Software Engineer salary in the North West is £75,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 20 October 2025.

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

6 months to
20 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 28 23 66
Rank change year-on-year -5 +43 -20
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 364 421 179
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 7.70% 5.96% 4.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.69% 6.26% 4.43%
Number of salaries quoted 61 192 130
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £61,250 £50,000 £47,813
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% - +9.09%
75th Percentile £97,500 £70,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £110,000 £75,000 £84,000
England median annual salary £82,500 £65,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +26.92% -7.14% +0.80%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 4,191 6,726 4,044
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 88.70% 95.24% 96.35%
Number of salaries quoted 2,298 3,790 3,101
10th Percentile £26,500 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £33,750 £40,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £49,250 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,550 £82,500
England median annual salary £53,688 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -6.63% -4.17% -

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 20 October 2025.

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 20 October 2025. 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 -5 174 £78,500 +30.83% 123
Lancashire +1 89 £55,000 - 46
Cheshire +1 85 £74,750 +35.91% 29
Merseyside -16 15 £66,250 +1.92% 3
Cumbria +9 1 £60,000 +9.09% 3
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 20 October 2025, 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.

1 364 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 317 (87.09%) AWS
3 314 (86.26%) Java
4 307 (84.34%) Microservices
5 306 (84.07%) Agile
6 295 (81.04%) Azure
7 290 (79.67%) JavaScript
8 257 (70.60%) Mentoring
9 242 (66.48%) User Experience
10 213 (58.52%) GCP
11 188 (51.65%) .NET
12 183 (50.27%) Python
13 181 (49.73%) Security Cleared
14 180 (49.45%) DV Cleared
15 178 (48.90%) Node.js
16 176 (48.35%) Scrum
17 175 (48.08%) C++
17 175 (48.08%) Cloud Security
17 175 (48.08%) Go
18 174 (47.80%) Linux
18 174 (47.80%) Site Reliability Engineering
19 173 (47.53%) Machine Learning
20 172 (47.25%) AWS Certification
20 172 (47.25%) AWS Certified Developer
20 172 (47.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
20 172 (47.25%) Data Engineering
20 172 (47.25%) Rust
21 137 (37.64%) React
22 136 (37.36%) CI/CD
23 128 (35.16%) Docker

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 43 (11.81%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 317 (87.09%) AWS
2 295 (81.04%) Azure
3 213 (58.52%) GCP
4 7 (1.92%) GitHub
5 3 (0.82%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (0.82%) Serverless
6 2 (0.55%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (0.55%) SaaS
7 1 (0.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.27%) Azure AKS
7 1 (0.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 1 (0.27%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.27%) GitHub Copilot
7 1 (0.27%) Twilio
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.55%) Internet
2 1 (0.27%) HTTPS
2 1 (0.27%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (29.95%) SQL Server
2 11 (3.02%) MongoDB
3 9 (2.47%) MySQL
4 8 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.92%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.27%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.27%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 113 (31.04%) Cucumber
1 113 (31.04%) GitLab
1 113 (31.04%) JIRA
1 113 (31.04%) Selenium
2 109 (29.95%) Bitbucket
2 109 (29.95%) Maven
2 109 (29.95%) SonarQube
2 109 (29.95%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (1.10%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.55%) Git
4 2 (0.55%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.55%) webpack
General
1 282 (77.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 133 (36.54%) Finance
3 112 (30.77%) Banking
4 76 (20.88%) Retail
5 70 (19.23%) Corporate Banking
5 70 (19.23%) Investment Banking
6 8 (2.20%) Social Skills
7 3 (0.82%) Legal
8 2 (0.55%) Analytical Skills
8 2 (0.55%) Billing
8 2 (0.55%) Electronics
8 2 (0.55%) Games
8 2 (0.55%) Manufacturing
8 2 (0.55%) Marketing
8 2 (0.55%) Public Sector
8 2 (0.55%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.27%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.27%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 188 (51.65%) .NET
2 178 (48.90%) Node.js
3 137 (37.64%) React
4 122 (33.52%) Spring
4 122 (33.52%) Spring Boot
5 119 (32.69%) Kafka
6 113 (31.04%) CSS
6 113 (31.04%) HTML
7 111 (30.49%) Redux
8 109 (29.95%) JPA
9 77 (21.15%) RESTful
10 76 (20.88%) REST
11 74 (20.33%) CSS3
11 74 (20.33%) Jest
12 72 (19.78%) HTML5
13 70 (19.23%) Sass
14 39 (10.71%) Hibernate
15 9 (2.47%) AngularJS
16 5 (1.37%) .NET Core
17 4 (1.10%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 172 (47.25%) Cyberattack
1 172 (47.25%) Linux Command Line
1 172 (47.25%) Self-Motivation
2 115 (31.59%) Product Ownership
3 109 (29.95%) Enterprise Software
4 12 (3.30%) Cloud Native
5 10 (2.75%) Greenfield Project
6 8 (2.20%) AI Agents
7 6 (1.65%) Wiki
8 5 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.55%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (0.55%) Marketing Technology
9 2 (0.55%) Online Banking
10 1 (0.27%) Distributed Architecture
10 1 (0.27%) PKI
10 1 (0.27%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.27%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 174 (47.80%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 364 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 307 (84.34%) Microservices
3 306 (84.07%) Agile
4 257 (70.60%) Mentoring
5 242 (66.48%) User Experience
6 176 (48.35%) Scrum
7 175 (48.08%) Cloud Security
8 174 (47.80%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 173 (47.53%) Machine Learning
10 172 (47.25%) Data Engineering
11 136 (37.36%) CI/CD
12 127 (34.89%) DevOps
13 125 (34.34%) Containerisation
14 121 (33.24%) Full-Stack Development
15 120 (32.97%) Test Automation
16 115 (31.59%) SDLC
17 110 (30.22%) Front End Development
18 109 (29.95%) Performance Optimisation
19 72 (19.78%) Strategic Thinking
20 70 (19.23%) Responsive Web Design
Programming Languages
1 314 (86.26%) Java
2 290 (79.67%) JavaScript
3 183 (50.27%) Python
4 175 (48.08%) C++
4 175 (48.08%) Go
5 172 (47.25%) Rust
6 123 (33.79%) SQL
7 94 (25.82%) TypeScript
8 19 (5.22%) C#
9 4 (1.10%) Ruby
10 2 (0.55%) Embedded C++
10 2 (0.55%) Kotlin
10 2 (0.55%) Scala
11 1 (0.27%) C
11 1 (0.27%) Embedded C
11 1 (0.27%) PHP
Qualifications
1 181 (49.73%) Security Cleared
2 180 (49.45%) DV Cleared
3 172 (47.25%) AWS Certification
3 172 (47.25%) AWS Certified Developer
3 172 (47.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 2 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (0.55%) Degree
5 1 (0.27%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (30.49%) QA
2 70 (19.23%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.27%) MISRA
3 1 (0.27%) MISRA C
System Software
1 128 (35.16%) Docker
Systems Management
1 123 (33.79%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.47%) Terraform
3 3 (0.82%) Grafana
4 1 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 109 (29.95%) Solace
2 3 (0.82%) Ping Identity
3 2 (0.55%) Oracle
3 2 (0.55%) SAP
4 1 (0.27%) ForgeRock