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 16 September 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 40 26
Rank change year-on-year +14 -14 +54
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 592 387 472
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.69% 7.53% 6.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.98% 8.52% 6.41%
Number of salaries quoted 508 80 246
10th Percentile £50,000 £53,375 £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 £85,000 £92,000 £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 11,894 4,542 7,362
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.24% 88.35% 95.28%
Number of salaries quoted 8,831 2,290 4,546
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 £66,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -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 16 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 16 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 +8 476 £75,000 -3.23% 222
Merseyside +10 38 £73,750 +13.46% 19
Cheshire -33 37 £68,750 -8.03% 21
Lancashire -19 29 £65,000 - 12
Cumbria +3 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 16 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.

1 592 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 88 (14.86%) AWS
3 81 (13.68%) Agile
4 76 (12.84%) AI
5 74 (12.50%) Full-Stack Development
6 73 (12.33%) Python
7 70 (11.82%) Java
8 66 (11.15%) TypeScript
9 61 (10.30%) DevOps
10 58 (9.80%) Security Cleared
11 57 (9.63%) Mentoring
12 53 (8.95%) CI/CD
13 49 (8.28%) React
14 46 (7.77%) SaaS
14 46 (7.77%) SQL
15 45 (7.60%) SC Cleared
16 43 (7.26%) Microservices
17 42 (7.09%) Problem-Solving
18 39 (6.59%) C#
19 37 (6.25%) .NET
20 35 (5.91%) JavaScript
21 33 (5.57%) Azure
21 33 (5.57%) DV Cleared
21 33 (5.57%) Linux
22 32 (5.41%) Platform Engineering
23 31 (5.24%) Node.js
24 30 (5.07%) Spring
24 30 (5.07%) Technical Leadership
25 29 (4.90%) Code Quality
25 29 (4.90%) 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 7 (1.18%) Apache
2 6 (1.01%) SharePoint Server
3 5 (0.84%) FactoryTalk
4 4 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.51%) Apache Solr
5 3 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.34%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.34%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.34%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.34%) WinCC
7 1 (0.17%) GeoServer
Cloud Services
1 88 (14.86%) AWS
2 46 (7.77%) SaaS
3 33 (5.57%) Azure
4 22 (3.72%) Serverless
5 16 (2.70%) GCP
6 12 (2.03%) Firebase
7 11 (1.86%) Anthropic Claude
8 10 (1.69%) GitHub
9 7 (1.18%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.01%) GitHub Copilot
11 5 (0.84%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (0.84%) Snowflake
12 4 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (0.68%) dbt
12 4 (0.68%) OpenShift
13 3 (0.51%) Amazon EKS
13 3 (0.51%) Amazon OpenSearch
13 3 (0.51%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 3 (0.51%) Vercel
14 2 (0.34%) LangSmith
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.84%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.51%) AMQP
2 3 (0.51%) Firewall
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 15 (2.53%) NoSQL
1 15 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (2.36%) MongoDB
3 9 (1.52%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.68%) Chroma
4 4 (0.68%) DynamoDB
4 4 (0.68%) FileMaker
4 4 (0.68%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.51%) Big Data
5 3 (0.51%) Cloudera CDH
5 3 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
5 3 (0.51%) Hadoop
5 3 (0.51%) Redis
6 2 (0.34%) DocumentDB
6 2 (0.34%) MySQL
6 2 (0.34%) Neo4j
6 2 (0.34%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
7 1 (0.17%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 9 (1.52%) Claude Code
2 8 (1.35%) Git
3 5 (0.84%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.68%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.68%) GitLab
5 2 (0.34%) JUnit
5 2 (0.34%) Maven
5 2 (0.34%) Mocha
5 2 (0.34%) Mockito
5 2 (0.34%) Selenium
5 2 (0.34%) Vite
6 1 (0.17%) GDB
6 1 (0.17%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.17%) JIRA
6 1 (0.17%) Postman
6 1 (0.17%) Vagrant
6 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.17%) WinDbg
General
1 27 (4.56%) Social Skills
2 26 (4.39%) Finance
3 24 (4.05%) Public Sector
4 22 (3.72%) Electronics
5 21 (3.55%) Retail
6 9 (1.52%) Aerospace
7 6 (1.01%) Billing
7 6 (1.01%) Publishing
8 5 (0.84%) Analytical Skills
9 4 (0.68%) Law
10 3 (0.51%) Banking
11 2 (0.34%) Games
11 2 (0.34%) Legal
11 2 (0.34%) Marketing
12 1 (0.17%) Automotive
12 1 (0.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.17%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.17%) Local Government
12 1 (0.17%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.17%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (8.28%) React
2 37 (6.25%) .NET
3 31 (5.24%) Node.js
4 30 (5.07%) Spring
5 27 (4.56%) Next.js
6 26 (4.39%) Spring Boot
7 23 (3.89%) Terraform
8 18 (3.04%) React Native
9 15 (2.53%) RESTful
10 14 (2.36%) Vue
11 12 (2.03%) AngularJS
12 11 (1.86%) REST
12 11 (1.86%) Ruby on Rails
13 10 (1.69%) FastAPI
14 6 (1.01%) CSS
14 6 (1.01%) Kafka
15 5 (0.84%) OpenAPI
16 4 (0.68%) LangChain
16 4 (0.68%) pgvector
16 4 (0.68%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 58 (9.80%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.21%) Product Ownership
3 16 (2.70%) AI Agents
4 14 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
5 13 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
6 10 (1.69%) Mobile App
7 9 (1.52%) Greenfield Project
8 8 (1.35%) Embedded Systems
9 6 (1.01%) Media Streaming
9 6 (1.01%) Podcast
10 3 (0.51%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (0.51%) IoT
10 3 (0.51%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (0.51%) Robotics
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 33 (5.57%) Linux
2 14 (2.36%) Windows
3 9 (1.52%) Embedded Linux
4 5 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.68%) Android
6 3 (0.51%) CentOS
6 3 (0.51%) Debian
6 3 (0.51%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 81 (13.68%) Agile
3 76 (12.84%) AI
4 74 (12.50%) Full-Stack Development
5 61 (10.30%) DevOps
6 57 (9.63%) Mentoring
7 53 (8.95%) CI/CD
8 43 (7.26%) Microservices
9 42 (7.09%) Problem-Solving
10 32 (5.41%) Platform Engineering
11 30 (5.07%) Technical Leadership
12 29 (4.90%) Code Quality
13 23 (3.89%) Containerisation
13 23 (3.89%) Continuous Improvement
13 23 (3.89%) Event-Driven
14 22 (3.72%) Observability
14 22 (3.72%) TDD
15 20 (3.38%) B2B
16 19 (3.21%) Infrastructure as Code
17 18 (3.04%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 73 (12.33%) Python
2 70 (11.82%) Java
3 66 (11.15%) TypeScript
4 46 (7.77%) SQL
5 39 (6.59%) C#
6 35 (5.91%) JavaScript
7 25 (4.22%) Go
8 19 (3.21%) C++
9 14 (2.36%) C
10 12 (2.03%) Ruby
11 8 (1.35%) PHP
12 5 (0.84%) COBOL
13 2 (0.34%) Bash
14 1 (0.17%) Scala
Qualifications
1 58 (9.80%) Security Cleared
2 45 (7.60%) SC Cleared
3 33 (5.57%) DV Cleared
4 17 (2.87%) Degree
5 8 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.68%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.52%) QA
2 5 (0.84%) 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 29 (4.90%) Docker
2 7 (1.18%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 28 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.03%) Ansible
3 3 (0.51%) Puppet
4 2 (0.34%) Podman
5 1 (0.17%) Packer
5 1 (0.17%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 11 (1.86%) Rockwell
2 9 (1.52%) Splunk
3 8 (1.35%) Siemens
4 5 (0.84%) Google
4 5 (0.84%) New Relic
4 5 (0.84%) Red Hat
5 4 (0.68%) Databricks
5 4 (0.68%) Xamarin
6 3 (0.51%) OpenAI
6 3 (0.51%) SaltStack
7 2 (0.34%) IBM
7 2 (0.34%) Mistral
7 2 (0.34%) Thales
8 1 (0.17%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.17%) Microsoft