Software Engineer Job Trends in the North West

Software Engineer
England > North West

The median Software Engineer salary in the North West is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 4 March 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 66 34
Rank change year-on-year +13 -32 +49
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 219 155 419
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 2.80% 3.72% 5.79%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.20% 4.12% 6.10%
Number of salaries quoted 188 105 328
10th Percentile £48,289 £45,000 £38,084
25th Percentile £53,438 £52,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +13.04% +2.22%
75th Percentile £81,563 £82,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,517 £82,548
England median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.45% +16.00% -8.09%

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 6,835 3,762 6,866
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 87.38% 90.39% 94.86%
Number of salaries quoted 4,109 2,135 5,630
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,500 £27,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,748 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £69,250 £67,500 £65,000
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.84%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 +11 174 £70,000 +7.69% 62
Cheshire -24 23 £50,000 -9.09% 16
Lancashire -5 14 £60,000 -11.11% 13
Merseyside -6 8 £65,000 +18.18% 8
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 4 March 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.

1 217 (99.09%) Software Engineering
2 60 (27.40%) AWS
3 53 (24.20%) Agile
4 52 (23.74%) Azure
5 47 (21.46%) Java
6 42 (19.18%) CI/CD
7 41 (18.72%) .NET
8 38 (17.35%) C#
9 37 (16.89%) DevOps
9 37 (16.89%) Microservices
10 35 (15.98%) React
11 33 (15.07%) Kubernetes
12 30 (13.70%) Python
12 30 (13.70%) TDD
12 30 (13.70%) TypeScript
13 29 (13.24%) Containerisation
13 29 (13.24%) SQL
14 26 (11.87%) Scrum
15 25 (11.42%) Docker
15 25 (11.42%) JavaScript
16 24 (10.96%) NoSQL
17 22 (10.05%) Mentoring
18 21 (9.59%) RESTful
19 19 (8.68%) AngularJS
20 18 (8.22%) Full-Stack Development
21 17 (7.76%) Security Cleared
21 17 (7.76%) Serverless
22 16 (7.31%) AI
22 16 (7.31%) Clean Code
22 16 (7.31%) Node.js

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 (2.74%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.83%) Apache
3 2 (0.91%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.46%) GeoServer
Applications
1 2 (0.91%) Adobe XD
1 2 (0.91%) EngageOne
1 2 (0.91%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (4.57%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 60 (27.40%) AWS
2 52 (23.74%) Azure
3 17 (7.76%) Serverless
4 14 (6.39%) GCP
5 9 (4.11%) Azure AKS
6 8 (3.65%) SaaS
7 6 (2.74%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.83%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.83%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (1.83%) OpenShift
9 4 (1.83%) Twilio
10 2 (0.91%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 2 (0.91%) Amazon S3
10 2 (0.91%) Figma
10 2 (0.91%) Salesforce Einstein
11 1 (0.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 1 (0.46%) Amazon EC2
11 1 (0.46%) GitHub
11 1 (0.46%) Google App Engine
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.83%) AMQP
2 2 (0.91%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (10.96%) NoSQL
2 10 (4.57%) MongoDB
3 8 (3.65%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (2.74%) Big Data
4 6 (2.74%) Elasticsearch
4 6 (2.74%) Hadoop
4 6 (2.74%) MySQL
4 6 (2.74%) Neo4j
5 4 (1.83%) Cloudera CDH
6 3 (1.37%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.91%) DocumentDB
7 2 (0.91%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.46%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.46%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.46%) GIS
8 1 (0.46%) InfluxDB
8 1 (0.46%) QGIS
8 1 (0.46%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (2.28%) Git
2 4 (1.83%) Cypress.io
3 2 (0.91%) GitLab
3 2 (0.91%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.91%) Vagrant
4 1 (0.46%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.46%) Postman
4 1 (0.46%) Selenium
General
1 16 (7.31%) Finance
2 13 (5.94%) Manufacturing
3 9 (4.11%) Public Sector
3 9 (4.11%) Social Skills
4 4 (1.83%) Aerospace
4 4 (1.83%) Electronics
5 3 (1.37%) Games
5 3 (1.37%) Retail
6 2 (0.91%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (0.91%) Billing
7 1 (0.46%) Automotive
7 1 (0.46%) Banking
7 1 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.46%) Marketing
7 1 (0.46%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (18.72%) .NET
2 35 (15.98%) React
3 21 (9.59%) RESTful
4 19 (8.68%) AngularJS
5 16 (7.31%) Node.js
6 14 (6.39%) REST
7 12 (5.48%) .NET Framework
8 11 (5.02%) Spring
8 11 (5.02%) Spring Boot
9 10 (4.57%) .NET Core
10 7 (3.20%) CSS
10 7 (3.20%) Django
10 7 (3.20%) Next.js
10 7 (3.20%) Vue
11 5 (2.28%) Celery
11 5 (2.28%) FastAPI
11 5 (2.28%) Flask
11 5 (2.28%) HTML
11 5 (2.28%) Web Services
12 4 (1.83%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 34 (15.53%) Cloud Native
2 9 (4.11%) Industry 4.0
3 7 (3.20%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (2.28%) Distributed Computing
4 5 (2.28%) IoT
5 2 (0.91%) AI Agents
5 2 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (0.91%) Animation
5 2 (0.91%) Embedded Systems
5 2 (0.91%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (0.91%) Product Ownership
6 1 (0.46%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.46%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.46%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (0.46%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.46%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.46%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.46%) Online Banking
6 1 (0.46%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.83%) CentOS
1 4 (1.83%) Debian
1 4 (1.83%) Linux
1 4 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 4 (1.83%) Ubuntu
2 3 (1.37%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.46%) Android
3 1 (0.46%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 217 (99.09%) Software Engineering
2 53 (24.20%) Agile
3 42 (19.18%) CI/CD
4 37 (16.89%) DevOps
4 37 (16.89%) Microservices
5 30 (13.70%) TDD
6 29 (13.24%) Containerisation
7 26 (11.87%) Scrum
8 22 (10.05%) Mentoring
9 18 (8.22%) Full-Stack Development
10 16 (7.31%) AI
10 16 (7.31%) Clean Code
11 15 (6.85%) Technical Leadership
12 13 (5.94%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 12 (5.48%) Open Source
13 12 (5.48%) Software Architecture
14 11 (5.02%) B2B
14 11 (5.02%) Coaching
14 11 (5.02%) Event-Driven
14 11 (5.02%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 47 (21.46%) Java
2 38 (17.35%) C#
3 30 (13.70%) Python
3 30 (13.70%) TypeScript
4 29 (13.24%) SQL
5 25 (11.42%) JavaScript
6 12 (5.48%) PHP
7 5 (2.28%) C
8 4 (1.83%) Go
8 4 (1.83%) Scala
9 3 (1.37%) C++
10 2 (0.91%) Kotlin
10 2 (0.91%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 17 (7.76%) Security Cleared
2 15 (6.85%) DV Cleared
3 8 (3.65%) Computer Science Degree
3 8 (3.65%) Degree
4 5 (2.28%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.37%) QA
2 2 (0.91%) Accessibility
System Software
1 25 (11.42%) Docker
Systems Management
1 33 (15.07%) Kubernetes
2 13 (5.94%) Terraform
3 4 (1.83%) Ansible
3 4 (1.83%) Puppet
4 2 (0.91%) Packer
4 2 (0.91%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.46%) Grafana
Vendors
1 10 (4.57%) Adobe
2 4 (1.83%) Google
2 4 (1.83%) Red Hat
2 4 (1.83%) SaltStack
3 2 (0.91%) Salesforce
4 1 (0.46%) Databricks
4 1 (0.46%) Dynatrace
4 1 (0.46%) Xamarin