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 29 July 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 35 25
Rank change year-on-year +6 -10 +69
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 533 437 538
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.65% 8.48% 6.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.88% 9.37% 6.40%
Number of salaries quoted 462 125 325
10th Percentile £48,875 £50,500 £39,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £62,500 £49,500
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 £116,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £61,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% +31.15% -12.86%

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 10,929 4,662 8,405
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 95.25% 90.42% 95.50%
Number of salaries quoted 8,189 2,440 6,063
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £39,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £74,987 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,325 £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 29 July 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 29 July 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 +5 419 £75,000 -4.65% 68
Lancashire -2 42 £60,000 -20.00% 5
Cheshire -28 41 £60,000 -19.46% 7
Merseyside -17 20 £70,000 +7.69% 5
Cumbria -2 11 £50,000 -16.67% 1
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 29 July 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.

1 533 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 89 (16.70%) AWS
3 79 (14.82%) Agile
4 74 (13.88%) Java
5 67 (12.57%) Full-Stack Development
6 66 (12.38%) Python
7 64 (12.01%) DevOps
8 59 (11.07%) AI
9 58 (10.88%) CI/CD
10 57 (10.69%) TypeScript
11 54 (10.13%) .NET
12 52 (9.76%) C#
12 52 (9.76%) Mentoring
13 51 (9.57%) Microservices
13 51 (9.57%) SQL
14 46 (8.63%) SaaS
15 43 (8.07%) Security Cleared
16 42 (7.88%) Azure
16 42 (7.88%) JavaScript
16 42 (7.88%) React
17 39 (7.32%) Problem-Solving
18 34 (6.38%) Node.js
19 33 (6.19%) TDD
20 32 (6.00%) DV Cleared
21 30 (5.63%) Docker
21 30 (5.63%) Kubernetes
21 30 (5.63%) SC Cleared
22 29 (5.44%) Next.js
23 28 (5.25%) Serverless
24 27 (5.07%) Scrum

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 (1.13%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.94%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.75%) Apache
3 4 (0.75%) Apache Solr
3 4 (0.75%) GeoServer
4 2 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.38%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.19%) CMS
5 1 (0.19%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.19%) WinCC
Cloud Services
1 89 (16.70%) AWS
2 46 (8.63%) SaaS
3 42 (7.88%) Azure
4 28 (5.25%) Serverless
5 14 (2.63%) Anthropic Claude
5 14 (2.63%) GCP
6 10 (1.88%) Firebase
7 6 (1.13%) Azure AKS
7 6 (1.13%) GitHub
8 5 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (0.75%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (0.56%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 3 (0.56%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (0.56%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 3 (0.56%) Twilio
10 3 (0.56%) Vercel
11 2 (0.38%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (0.38%) Apigee
11 2 (0.38%) Azure Functions
11 2 (0.38%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.56%) TCP/IP
2 2 (0.38%) AMQP
2 2 (0.38%) Bluetooth
2 2 (0.38%) RTP
2 2 (0.38%) Wi-Fi
2 2 (0.38%) Wireless
2 2 (0.38%) ZigBee
3 1 (0.19%) Firewall
3 1 (0.19%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (4.13%) NoSQL
2 19 (3.56%) MongoDB
3 15 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (1.50%) SQL Server
5 5 (0.94%) FileMaker
6 4 (0.75%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (0.75%) GIS
6 4 (0.75%) MySQL
6 4 (0.75%) Pinecone
6 4 (0.75%) QGIS
7 3 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.56%) DocumentDB
7 3 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (0.56%) Neo4j
7 3 (0.56%) Redis
8 2 (0.38%) Big Data
8 2 (0.38%) Cloudera CDH
8 2 (0.38%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.38%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.38%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 13 (2.44%) Claude Code
2 8 (1.50%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.13%) Git
4 3 (0.56%) GitLab
5 2 (0.38%) Maven
5 2 (0.38%) Vagrant
5 2 (0.38%) Vite
6 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.19%) GDB
6 1 (0.19%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.19%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.19%) JIRA
6 1 (0.19%) JUnit
6 1 (0.19%) Mocha
6 1 (0.19%) Postman
6 1 (0.19%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.19%) WinDbg
General
1 23 (4.32%) Electronics
2 22 (4.13%) Finance
2 22 (4.13%) Public Sector
3 21 (3.94%) Social Skills
4 19 (3.56%) Retail
5 13 (2.44%) Manufacturing
6 6 (1.13%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (1.13%) Billing
7 4 (0.75%) Aerospace
8 3 (0.56%) Health Technology
8 3 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (0.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.38%) Law
9 2 (0.38%) Marketing
10 1 (0.19%) Automotive
10 1 (0.19%) Banking
10 1 (0.19%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (10.13%) .NET
2 42 (7.88%) React
3 34 (6.38%) Node.js
4 29 (5.44%) Next.js
5 23 (4.32%) Spring
6 22 (4.13%) RESTful
7 21 (3.94%) Spring Boot
8 16 (3.00%) React Native
9 13 (2.44%) AngularJS
10 12 (2.25%) Vue
11 11 (2.06%) FastAPI
11 11 (2.06%) REST
11 11 (2.06%) Ruby on Rails
12 8 (1.50%) .NET Core
13 6 (1.13%) .NET Framework
13 6 (1.13%) CSS
14 5 (0.94%) CSS3
15 4 (0.75%) pgvector
15 4 (0.75%) PostGIS
15 4 (0.75%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 65 (12.20%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.56%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.63%) AI Agents
3 14 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (2.25%) Greenfield Project
5 11 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (1.88%) Mobile App
7 8 (1.50%) Industry 4.0
8 6 (1.13%) Embedded Systems
8 6 (1.13%) IoT
9 5 (0.94%) Robotics
10 4 (0.75%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.56%) Distributed Architecture
11 3 (0.56%) Legacy Applications
12 1 (0.19%) Algorithms
12 1 (0.19%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.06%) Linux
2 4 (0.75%) Android
2 4 (0.75%) Windows
3 3 (0.56%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.38%) CentOS
4 2 (0.38%) Debian
4 2 (0.38%) Embedded Linux
4 2 (0.38%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.38%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 533 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 79 (14.82%) Agile
3 67 (12.57%) Full-Stack Development
4 64 (12.01%) DevOps
5 59 (11.07%) AI
6 58 (10.88%) CI/CD
7 52 (9.76%) Mentoring
8 51 (9.57%) Microservices
9 39 (7.32%) Problem-Solving
10 33 (6.19%) TDD
11 27 (5.07%) Scrum
12 22 (4.13%) Open Source
13 21 (3.94%) Containerisation
13 21 (3.94%) Technical Leadership
13 21 (3.94%) Test Automation
14 20 (3.75%) B2B
14 20 (3.75%) Code Quality
14 20 (3.75%) Decision-Making
14 20 (3.75%) Event-Driven
14 20 (3.75%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 74 (13.88%) Java
2 66 (12.38%) Python
3 57 (10.69%) TypeScript
4 52 (9.76%) C#
5 51 (9.57%) SQL
6 42 (7.88%) JavaScript
7 22 (4.13%) Go
8 19 (3.56%) C++
9 14 (2.63%) C
10 11 (2.06%) Ruby
11 9 (1.69%) PHP
12 5 (0.94%) COBOL
13 1 (0.19%) Scala
Qualifications
1 43 (8.07%) Security Cleared
2 32 (6.00%) DV Cleared
3 30 (5.63%) SC Cleared
4 16 (3.00%) Degree
5 9 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.38%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.19%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (1.88%) QA
2 3 (0.56%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.38%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.19%) IEC 61131
4 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 30 (5.63%) Docker
2 7 (1.31%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 30 (5.63%) Kubernetes
2 27 (5.07%) Terraform
3 8 (1.50%) Ansible
4 2 (0.38%) Packer
4 2 (0.38%) Progress Chef
4 2 (0.38%) Puppet
Vendors
1 11 (2.06%) Rockwell
2 7 (1.31%) Siemens
2 7 (1.31%) Splunk
3 4 (0.75%) Google
3 4 (0.75%) Xamarin
4 3 (0.56%) OpenAI
5 2 (0.38%) Databricks
5 2 (0.38%) Red Hat
5 2 (0.38%) SaltStack
6 1 (0.19%) Microsoft
6 1 (0.19%) New Relic