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 9 September 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 40 26
Rank change year-on-year +14 -14 +52
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 590 395 476
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.73% 7.67% 6.09%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.00% 8.63% 6.40%
Number of salaries quoted 506 87 252
10th Percentile £50,000 £51,500 £42,500
25th Percentile £60,000 £62,500 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -
75th Percentile £84,063 £94,750 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £82,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -15.15% +26.92% -7.14%

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 11,802 4,577 7,440
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.55% 88.89% 95.26%
Number of salaries quoted 8,791 2,335 4,689
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £78,500
England median annual salary £58,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +5.45% - -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 9 September 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 9 September 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 +7 472 £75,000 -4.46% 113
Cheshire -30 39 £67,500 -9.70% 14
Merseyside +2 35 £70,000 +7.69% 11
Lancashire -17 32 £62,500 -3.85% 8
Cumbria -1 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 9 September 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.

1 590 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 88 (14.92%) AWS
3 78 (13.22%) Agile
4 75 (12.71%) Full-Stack Development
5 74 (12.54%) AI
6 71 (12.03%) Python
7 68 (11.53%) Java
8 64 (10.85%) TypeScript
9 59 (10.00%) DevOps
10 56 (9.49%) Security Cleared
11 55 (9.32%) Mentoring
12 54 (9.15%) CI/CD
13 48 (8.14%) SaaS
13 48 (8.14%) SQL
14 46 (7.80%) React
15 43 (7.29%) Problem-Solving
15 43 (7.29%) SC Cleared
16 42 (7.12%) C#
16 42 (7.12%) Microservices
17 41 (6.95%) .NET
18 34 (5.76%) Azure
18 34 (5.76%) JavaScript
19 33 (5.59%) Platform Engineering
20 32 (5.42%) DV Cleared
21 31 (5.25%) Node.js
22 30 (5.08%) Technical Leadership
23 29 (4.92%) Linux
24 28 (4.75%) Docker
24 28 (4.75%) Next.js
25 26 (4.41%) Code Quality

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 (1.02%) Apache
1 6 (1.02%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.85%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.51%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.34%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.34%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.34%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.34%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.34%) WinCC
6 1 (0.17%) CMS
6 1 (0.17%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
Cloud Services
1 88 (14.92%) AWS
2 48 (8.14%) SaaS
3 34 (5.76%) Azure
4 21 (3.56%) Serverless
5 16 (2.71%) GCP
6 12 (2.03%) Anthropic Claude
6 12 (2.03%) Firebase
7 10 (1.69%) GitHub
8 6 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (1.02%) GitHub Copilot
9 5 (0.85%) Snowflake
10 4 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (0.68%) dbt
11 3 (0.51%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (0.51%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 3 (0.51%) OpenShift
11 3 (0.51%) Vercel
12 2 (0.34%) Apigee
12 2 (0.34%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.85%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.51%) Firewall
3 2 (0.34%) AMQP
3 2 (0.34%) Bluetooth
3 2 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.34%) Wireless
3 2 (0.34%) ZigBee
4 1 (0.17%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.71%) NoSQL
2 15 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (2.37%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.53%) SQL Server
5 5 (0.85%) FileMaker
6 4 (0.68%) Chroma
6 4 (0.68%) DynamoDB
6 4 (0.68%) Pinecone
7 3 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (0.51%) Redis
7 3 (0.51%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.34%) Big Data
8 2 (0.34%) Cloudera CDH
8 2 (0.34%) DocumentDB
8 2 (0.34%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.34%) MySQL
8 2 (0.34%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
9 1 (0.17%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 11 (1.86%) Claude Code
2 8 (1.36%) Git
3 5 (0.85%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.68%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.68%) GitLab
5 3 (0.51%) JUnit
6 2 (0.34%) Maven
6 2 (0.34%) Mocha
6 2 (0.34%) Mockito
6 2 (0.34%) Selenium
6 2 (0.34%) Vite
7 1 (0.17%) GDB
7 1 (0.17%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.17%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.17%) JIRA
7 1 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.17%) WinDbg
General
1 26 (4.41%) Social Skills
2 25 (4.24%) Finance
2 25 (4.24%) Public Sector
3 22 (3.73%) Electronics
4 20 (3.39%) Retail
5 7 (1.19%) Aerospace
6 6 (1.02%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (1.02%) Billing
7 4 (0.68%) Law
7 4 (0.68%) Publishing
8 2 (0.34%) Banking
8 2 (0.34%) Games
8 2 (0.34%) Health Technology
8 2 (0.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.34%) Legal
8 2 (0.34%) Marketing
8 2 (0.34%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.17%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.17%) Local Government
9 1 (0.17%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (7.80%) React
2 41 (6.95%) .NET
3 31 (5.25%) Node.js
4 28 (4.75%) Next.js
5 26 (4.41%) Spring
6 22 (3.73%) Spring Boot
6 22 (3.73%) Terraform
7 18 (3.05%) React Native
8 16 (2.71%) RESTful
9 14 (2.37%) Vue
10 11 (1.86%) AngularJS
10 11 (1.86%) Ruby on Rails
11 10 (1.69%) FastAPI
11 10 (1.69%) REST
12 6 (1.02%) CSS
13 5 (0.85%) .NET Core
14 4 (0.68%) Jest
14 4 (0.68%) LangChain
14 4 (0.68%) OpenAPI
14 4 (0.68%) pgvector
Miscellaneous
1 58 (9.83%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.22%) Product Ownership
3 16 (2.71%) AI Agents
4 14 (2.37%) Distributed Systems
5 13 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
6 10 (1.69%) Mobile App
7 9 (1.53%) Greenfield Project
8 7 (1.19%) Embedded Systems
9 4 (0.68%) IoT
9 4 (0.68%) Media Streaming
9 4 (0.68%) Podcast
9 4 (0.68%) Robotics
10 3 (0.51%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (0.51%) Legacy Applications
11 1 (0.17%) Algorithms
11 1 (0.17%) Blog
11 1 (0.17%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.17%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 29 (4.92%) Linux
2 13 (2.20%) Windows
3 8 (1.36%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (0.68%) Android
5 3 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.34%) CentOS
6 2 (0.34%) Debian
6 2 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
6 2 (0.34%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 590 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 78 (13.22%) Agile
3 75 (12.71%) Full-Stack Development
4 74 (12.54%) AI
5 59 (10.00%) DevOps
6 55 (9.32%) Mentoring
7 54 (9.15%) CI/CD
8 43 (7.29%) Problem-Solving
9 42 (7.12%) Microservices
10 33 (5.59%) Platform Engineering
11 30 (5.08%) Technical Leadership
12 26 (4.41%) Code Quality
13 23 (3.90%) Observability
13 23 (3.90%) TDD
14 21 (3.56%) Containerisation
14 21 (3.56%) Continuous Improvement
14 21 (3.56%) Event-Driven
15 20 (3.39%) B2B
16 19 (3.22%) Infrastructure as Code
16 19 (3.22%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 71 (12.03%) Python
2 68 (11.53%) Java
3 64 (10.85%) TypeScript
4 48 (8.14%) SQL
5 42 (7.12%) C#
6 34 (5.76%) JavaScript
7 25 (4.24%) Go
8 19 (3.22%) C++
9 14 (2.37%) C
10 12 (2.03%) Ruby
11 9 (1.53%) PHP
12 5 (0.85%) COBOL
13 1 (0.17%) Bash
13 1 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 56 (9.49%) Security Cleared
2 43 (7.29%) SC Cleared
3 32 (5.42%) DV Cleared
4 18 (3.05%) Degree
5 8 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.68%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.53%) QA
2 5 (0.85%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.68%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.34%) IEC 61131
4 2 (0.34%) IEC 61508
4 2 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 28 (4.75%) Docker
2 7 (1.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 26 (4.41%) Kubernetes
2 10 (1.69%) Ansible
3 2 (0.34%) Puppet
4 1 (0.17%) Podman
Vendors
1 11 (1.86%) Rockwell
2 9 (1.53%) Splunk
3 8 (1.36%) Siemens
4 5 (0.85%) New Relic
5 4 (0.68%) Databricks
5 4 (0.68%) Google
5 4 (0.68%) Xamarin
6 3 (0.51%) OpenAI
6 3 (0.51%) Red Hat
7 2 (0.34%) IBM
7 2 (0.34%) Mistral
7 2 (0.34%) SaltStack
8 1 (0.17%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.17%) Microsoft
8 1 (0.17%) Thales