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 7 October 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 44 24
Rank change year-on-year +18 -20 +49
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 614 369 444
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.76% 7.04% 5.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.10% 7.99% 6.27%
Number of salaries quoted 505 66 210
10th Percentile £50,000 £50,000 £41,125
25th Percentile £60,000 £61,250 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £74,750 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.35% +24.58% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £90,875 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £75,375
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 12,040 4,616 7,079
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.40% 88.02% 95.28%
Number of salaries quoted 8,863 2,276 4,101
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £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 £77,500
England median annual salary £59,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +8.18% - -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 7 October 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 7 October 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 +9 488 £75,000 - 209
Merseyside +9 42 £75,000 +20.00% 10
Cheshire -28 41 £70,000 -6.04% 16
Lancashire -12 30 £69,305 +26.01% 14
Cumbria +9 13 £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 7 October 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.

1 614 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 93 (15.15%) AWS
3 86 (14.01%) Java
4 85 (13.84%) Agile
5 83 (13.52%) AI
6 76 (12.38%) TypeScript
7 70 (11.40%) Python
8 69 (11.24%) Full-Stack Development
9 58 (9.45%) Security Cleared
10 57 (9.28%) CI/CD
11 55 (8.96%) DevOps
11 55 (8.96%) Mentoring
11 55 (8.96%) React
12 47 (7.65%) Microservices
13 46 (7.49%) SC Cleared
14 45 (7.33%) SQL
15 43 (7.00%) C#
16 40 (6.51%) SaaS
17 38 (6.19%) Problem-Solving
18 36 (5.86%) Code Quality
19 33 (5.37%) .NET
19 33 (5.37%) Azure
19 33 (5.37%) Kubernetes
19 33 (5.37%) Spring
20 32 (5.21%) Continuous Improvement
20 32 (5.21%) DV Cleared
21 30 (4.89%) Docker
21 30 (4.89%) Linux
21 30 (4.89%) Spring Boot
22 28 (4.56%) Containerisation

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 (1.14%) Apache
2 6 (0.98%) SharePoint Server
3 5 (0.81%) FactoryTalk
4 4 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.49%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.49%) CMS
5 3 (0.49%) Headless CMS
5 3 (0.49%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.49%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.49%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.33%) Apache Solr
6 2 (0.33%) WinCC
Cloud Services
1 93 (15.15%) AWS
2 40 (6.51%) SaaS
3 33 (5.37%) Azure
4 20 (3.26%) Serverless
5 14 (2.28%) GCP
6 12 (1.95%) Firebase
7 10 (1.63%) Anthropic Claude
8 9 (1.47%) GitHub
9 6 (0.98%) GitHub Copilot
10 5 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (0.81%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (0.81%) Snowflake
11 4 (0.65%) Azure Functions
11 4 (0.65%) dbt
11 4 (0.65%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.49%) Amazon EKS
12 3 (0.49%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 3 (0.49%) Azure DevOps
12 3 (0.49%) Vercel
13 2 (0.33%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.81%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.49%) AMQP
2 3 (0.49%) Firewall
3 2 (0.33%) Bluetooth
3 2 (0.33%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.33%) Wireless
3 2 (0.33%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.61%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (1.95%) NoSQL
3 11 (1.79%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.47%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.65%) Chroma
5 4 (0.65%) DynamoDB
5 4 (0.65%) Pinecone
6 3 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.49%) Big Data
6 3 (0.49%) Cloudera CDH
6 3 (0.49%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.49%) Redis
7 2 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.33%) FileMaker
7 2 (0.33%) MySQL
7 2 (0.33%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.16%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.16%) DocumentDB
8 1 (0.16%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.16%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 9 (1.47%) Git
2 8 (1.30%) Claude Code
3 5 (0.81%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.65%) GitLab
5 3 (0.49%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.49%) JUnit
5 3 (0.49%) Mockito
5 3 (0.49%) Selenium
6 2 (0.33%) Maven
6 2 (0.33%) Mocha
6 2 (0.33%) Vagrant
6 2 (0.33%) Vite
7 1 (0.16%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.16%) JIRA
7 1 (0.16%) Postman
General
1 35 (5.70%) Finance
2 30 (4.89%) Social Skills
3 24 (3.91%) Public Sector
4 20 (3.26%) Electronics
5 19 (3.09%) Retail
6 12 (1.95%) Aerospace
6 12 (1.95%) Publishing
7 6 (0.98%) Banking
7 6 (0.98%) Billing
8 4 (0.65%) Law
9 3 (0.49%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (0.33%) Games
10 2 (0.33%) Legal
10 2 (0.33%) Marketing
11 1 (0.16%) Automotive
11 1 (0.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.16%) Local Government
11 1 (0.16%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.16%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (8.96%) React
2 33 (5.37%) .NET
2 33 (5.37%) Spring
3 30 (4.89%) Spring Boot
4 28 (4.56%) Node.js
5 27 (4.40%) Next.js
6 19 (3.09%) React Native
7 18 (2.93%) Terraform
8 15 (2.44%) Vue
9 14 (2.28%) RESTful
10 12 (1.95%) Kafka
11 11 (1.79%) Ruby on Rails
12 10 (1.63%) FastAPI
12 10 (1.63%) REST
13 9 (1.47%) AngularJS
14 7 (1.14%) .NET Core
15 6 (0.98%) CSS
16 5 (0.81%) Jest
16 5 (0.81%) OpenAPI
17 4 (0.65%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 54 (8.79%) Cloud Native
2 16 (2.61%) AI Agents
2 16 (2.61%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (2.61%) Product Ownership
3 13 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (1.95%) Media Streaming
4 12 (1.95%) Podcast
5 10 (1.63%) Embedded Systems
5 10 (1.63%) Mobile App
6 7 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (0.49%) Distributed Architecture
7 3 (0.49%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.16%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.16%) Blog
8 1 (0.16%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.16%) IoT
8 1 (0.16%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 30 (4.89%) Linux
2 12 (1.95%) Windows
3 9 (1.47%) Embedded Linux
4 6 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.65%) Android
6 3 (0.49%) CentOS
6 3 (0.49%) Debian
6 3 (0.49%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 614 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 85 (13.84%) Agile
3 83 (13.52%) AI
4 69 (11.24%) Full-Stack Development
5 57 (9.28%) CI/CD
6 55 (8.96%) DevOps
6 55 (8.96%) Mentoring
7 47 (7.65%) Microservices
8 38 (6.19%) Problem-Solving
9 36 (5.86%) Code Quality
10 32 (5.21%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (4.56%) Containerisation
12 27 (4.40%) Technical Leadership
13 26 (4.23%) Event-Driven
13 26 (4.23%) Platform Engineering
14 25 (4.07%) Observability
15 20 (3.26%) Infrastructure as Code
15 20 (3.26%) TDD
16 19 (3.09%) B2B
16 19 (3.09%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 86 (14.01%) Java
2 76 (12.38%) TypeScript
3 70 (11.40%) Python
4 45 (7.33%) SQL
5 43 (7.00%) C#
6 27 (4.40%) JavaScript
7 25 (4.07%) Go
8 12 (1.95%) C++
8 12 (1.95%) Ruby
9 11 (1.79%) C
10 7 (1.14%) PHP
11 3 (0.49%) Bash
12 1 (0.16%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.16%) Rust
12 1 (0.16%) Scala
Qualifications
1 58 (9.45%) Security Cleared
2 46 (7.49%) SC Cleared
3 32 (5.21%) DV Cleared
4 15 (2.44%) Degree
5 6 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.65%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.33%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.16%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (1.14%) QA
2 4 (0.65%) Accessibility
2 4 (0.65%) Data Quality
3 3 (0.49%) WCAG
4 2 (0.33%) IEC 61131
4 2 (0.33%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 30 (4.89%) Docker
2 7 (1.14%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 33 (5.37%) Kubernetes
2 13 (2.12%) Ansible
3 3 (0.49%) Podman
3 3 (0.49%) Puppet
4 2 (0.33%) Packer
4 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 9 (1.47%) Splunk
2 8 (1.30%) Rockwell
3 6 (0.98%) Red Hat
4 5 (0.81%) New Relic
4 5 (0.81%) Siemens
5 4 (0.65%) Databricks
5 4 (0.65%) Google
5 4 (0.65%) Microsoft
5 4 (0.65%) Xamarin
6 3 (0.49%) IBM
6 3 (0.49%) OpenAI
6 3 (0.49%) SaltStack
6 3 (0.49%) Thales
7 2 (0.33%) Mistral
8 1 (0.16%) Alteryx