Software Engineer Job Trends in the North West

Software Engineer
England > North West

The median Software Engineer salary in the North West is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 28 April 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 73 31
Rank change year-on-year +37 -42 +55
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 379 157 498
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 3.69% 3.77% 5.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.07% 4.37% 5.68%
Number of salaries quoted 315 137 407
10th Percentile £50,000 £45,150 £38,084
25th Percentile £55,000 £56,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £67,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +17.39% -
75th Percentile £80,625 £85,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,528 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -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 9,309 3,591 8,762
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.61% 86.30% 94.91%
Number of salaries quoted 5,980 2,197 7,006
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £27,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £54,793 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.18% +9.59% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £86,253 £83,750 £78,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +11.11% -11.06%

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 28 April 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 28 April 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 +14 306 £70,000 +3.70% 73
Cheshire -5 33 £50,000 -11.50% 9
Lancashire +14 24 £60,000 -4.04% 17
Merseyside -13 15 £70,000 +7.69%
Cumbria -13 1 £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 28 April 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.

1 377 (99.47%) Software Engineering
2 83 (21.90%) AWS
3 72 (19.00%) Agile
4 70 (18.47%) Java
5 59 (15.57%) .NET
5 59 (15.57%) Azure
5 59 (15.57%) DevOps
6 56 (14.78%) CI/CD
7 49 (12.93%) Python
8 47 (12.40%) C#
9 45 (11.87%) Microservices
10 43 (11.35%) JavaScript
11 42 (11.08%) React
11 42 (11.08%) TypeScript
12 40 (10.55%) Full-Stack Development
12 40 (10.55%) TDD
13 38 (10.03%) Kubernetes
14 36 (9.50%) SQL
15 33 (8.71%) Scrum
16 32 (8.44%) Containerisation
16 32 (8.44%) Node.js
17 30 (7.92%) AI
17 30 (7.92%) Serverless
18 29 (7.65%) Docker
19 28 (7.39%) Mentoring
19 28 (7.39%) NoSQL
19 28 (7.39%) SaaS
19 28 (7.39%) Security Cleared
20 25 (6.60%) Technical Leadership
21 23 (6.07%) Open Source

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 (1.58%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.06%) Apache
2 4 (1.06%) Apache Solr
2 4 (1.06%) FactoryTalk
2 4 (1.06%) GeoServer
3 1 (0.26%) CMS
3 1 (0.26%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 2 (0.53%) EngageOne
2 1 (0.26%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.26%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (2.64%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 83 (21.90%) AWS
2 59 (15.57%) Azure
3 30 (7.92%) Serverless
4 28 (7.39%) SaaS
5 16 (4.22%) GCP
6 10 (2.64%) Azure AKS
7 6 (1.58%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (1.32%) Anthropic Claude
8 5 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
9 4 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.06%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 4 (1.06%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.06%) OpenShift
9 4 (1.06%) Twilio
10 2 (0.53%) Apigee
10 2 (0.53%) Salesforce Einstein
11 1 (0.26%) Azure Functions
11 1 (0.26%) Figma
11 1 (0.26%) Firebase
11 1 (0.26%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.06%) AMQP
2 2 (0.53%) RTP
3 1 (0.26%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.39%) NoSQL
2 13 (3.43%) MongoDB
3 8 (2.11%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (2.11%) Neo4j
4 7 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.58%) Big Data
5 6 (1.58%) Hadoop
5 6 (1.58%) MySQL
6 5 (1.32%) FileMaker
7 4 (1.06%) Cloudera CDH
7 4 (1.06%) DocumentDB
7 4 (1.06%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.06%) GIS
7 4 (1.06%) QGIS
7 4 (1.06%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.26%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.26%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.26%) InfluxDB
8 1 (0.26%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (1.58%) Claude Code
2 5 (1.32%) Git
2 5 (1.32%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.79%) GitLab
4 2 (0.53%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.53%) Maven
4 2 (0.53%) Vagrant
5 1 (0.26%) GDB
5 1 (0.26%) IntelliJ
5 1 (0.26%) JUnit
5 1 (0.26%) Postman
5 1 (0.26%) Selenium
5 1 (0.26%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.26%) WinDbg
General
1 16 (4.22%) Public Sector
2 14 (3.69%) Manufacturing
3 11 (2.90%) Social Skills
4 9 (2.37%) Finance
4 9 (2.37%) Retail
5 7 (1.85%) Electronics
6 5 (1.32%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (1.06%) Aerospace
8 3 (0.79%) Health Technology
8 3 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.26%) Automotive
9 1 (0.26%) Banking
9 1 (0.26%) Games
9 1 (0.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.26%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.26%) Marketing
9 1 (0.26%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (15.57%) .NET
2 42 (11.08%) React
3 32 (8.44%) Node.js
4 23 (6.07%) RESTful
5 21 (5.54%) AngularJS
6 20 (5.28%) REST
7 19 (5.01%) Spring
8 17 (4.49%) Spring Boot
9 13 (3.43%) .NET Framework
10 11 (2.90%) .NET Core
10 11 (2.90%) Vue
11 8 (2.11%) CSS
12 6 (1.58%) Django
12 6 (1.58%) Next.js
13 5 (1.32%) HTML
13 5 (1.32%) Web Services
14 4 (1.06%) Celery
14 4 (1.06%) Flask
14 4 (1.06%) OpenLayers
14 4 (1.06%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 54 (14.25%) Cloud Native
2 9 (2.37%) Industry 4.0
2 9 (2.37%) IoT
2 9 (2.37%) Product Ownership
3 7 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (1.32%) Distributed Computing
4 5 (1.32%) Greenfield Project
4 5 (1.32%) Robotics
5 4 (1.06%) Management Information System
6 3 (0.79%) Mobile App
7 2 (0.53%) AI Agents
7 2 (0.53%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (0.53%) Embedded Systems
7 2 (0.53%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.26%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.26%) Animation
8 1 (0.26%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.26%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.26%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.11%) Linux
2 4 (1.06%) CentOS
2 4 (1.06%) Debian
2 4 (1.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 4 (1.06%) Ubuntu
3 3 (0.79%) Android
3 3 (0.79%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.53%) Windows
5 1 (0.26%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 377 (99.47%) Software Engineering
2 72 (19.00%) Agile
3 59 (15.57%) DevOps
4 56 (14.78%) CI/CD
5 45 (11.87%) Microservices
6 40 (10.55%) Full-Stack Development
6 40 (10.55%) TDD
7 33 (8.71%) Scrum
8 32 (8.44%) Containerisation
9 30 (7.92%) AI
10 28 (7.39%) Mentoring
11 25 (6.60%) Technical Leadership
12 23 (6.07%) Open Source
13 19 (5.01%) Event-Driven
14 18 (4.75%) Clean Code
15 17 (4.49%) Problem-Solving
16 16 (4.22%) Digital Transformation Programme
16 16 (4.22%) Kanban
16 16 (4.22%) Platform Engineering
16 16 (4.22%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 70 (18.47%) Java
2 49 (12.93%) Python
3 47 (12.40%) C#
4 43 (11.35%) JavaScript
5 42 (11.08%) TypeScript
6 36 (9.50%) SQL
7 14 (3.69%) PHP
8 10 (2.64%) C
8 10 (2.64%) C++
9 9 (2.37%) Go
10 5 (1.32%) COBOL
11 2 (0.53%) Scala
Qualifications
1 28 (7.39%) Security Cleared
2 20 (5.28%) DV Cleared
3 15 (3.96%) SC Cleared
4 11 (2.90%) Degree
5 9 (2.37%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.58%) QA
2 3 (0.79%) Accessibility
System Software
1 29 (7.65%) Docker
2 2 (0.53%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 38 (10.03%) Kubernetes
2 23 (6.07%) Terraform
3 4 (1.06%) Ansible
3 4 (1.06%) Puppet
4 2 (0.53%) Packer
4 2 (0.53%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 10 (2.64%) Adobe
1 10 (2.64%) Rockwell
2 6 (1.58%) Google
2 6 (1.58%) Siemens
3 4 (1.06%) Red Hat
3 4 (1.06%) SaltStack
4 3 (0.79%) Xamarin
5 2 (0.53%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.26%) Databricks