Software Engineer Job Trends in the North West

Software Engineer
England > North West

The median Software Engineer salary in the North West is £69,305 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 26 May 2026.

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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 36 31
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 +66
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 430 433 524
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 3.94% 9.59% 5.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.28% 10.80% 5.69%
Number of salaries quoted 365 126 419
10th Percentile £50,000 £48,869 £38,066
25th Percentile £53,750 £60,625 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £69,305 £75,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.59% +30.43% -
75th Percentile £80,000 £93,778 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £115,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £77,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -9.68% +29.17% -14.29%

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 10,057 4,008 9,205
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.20% 88.75% 94.78%
Number of salaries quoted 7,007 1,953 7,345
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £53,250 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.29% +6.50% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £71,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £85,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,777
% change year-on-year -4.35% +8.95% -13.20%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 -2 346 £70,000 -6.67% 110
Cheshire -35 38 £52,500 -29.53% 5
Lancashire -16 30 £60,000 -4.04% 18
Merseyside -19 13 £70,000 +7.69%
Cumbria -11 3 £50,000 - 2
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 26 May 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.

1 428 (99.53%) Software Engineering
2 89 (20.70%) AWS
3 76 (17.67%) Java
4 74 (17.21%) Agile
5 66 (15.35%) DevOps
6 60 (13.95%) .NET
7 59 (13.72%) Full-Stack Development
8 57 (13.26%) Azure
9 56 (13.02%) Python
10 54 (12.56%) CI/CD
11 49 (11.40%) C#
12 46 (10.70%) Microservices
13 43 (10.00%) JavaScript
14 41 (9.53%) Mentoring
15 39 (9.07%) TDD
16 37 (8.60%) AI
16 37 (8.60%) React
16 37 (8.60%) SQL
17 36 (8.37%) Security Cleared
18 35 (8.14%) SaaS
19 34 (7.91%) TypeScript
20 31 (7.21%) Node.js
20 31 (7.21%) Serverless
21 30 (6.98%) Scrum
22 29 (6.74%) Problem-Solving
23 27 (6.28%) DV Cleared
23 27 (6.28%) Kubernetes
24 26 (6.05%) SC Cleared
25 25 (5.81%) Technical Leadership
26 24 (5.58%) Open Source

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 (1.40%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (1.16%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.16%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.93%) Apache Solr
3 4 (0.93%) GeoServer
4 3 (0.70%) Apache
5 1 (0.23%) CMS
5 1 (0.23%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 2 (0.47%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 10 (2.33%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 89 (20.70%) AWS
2 57 (13.26%) Azure
3 35 (8.14%) SaaS
4 31 (7.21%) Serverless
5 13 (3.02%) GCP
6 10 (2.33%) Anthropic Claude
7 9 (2.09%) Azure AKS
8 7 (1.63%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (1.16%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (0.93%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 4 (0.93%) Twilio
11 3 (0.70%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (0.70%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 3 (0.70%) OpenShift
12 2 (0.47%) Apigee
12 2 (0.47%) Azure Functions
12 2 (0.47%) Salesforce Einstein
13 1 (0.23%) Azure Service Bus
13 1 (0.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.70%) AMQP
2 2 (0.47%) RTP
3 1 (0.23%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (5.12%) NoSQL
2 15 (3.49%) MongoDB
3 6 (1.40%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (1.40%) Neo4j
3 6 (1.40%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.16%) Big Data
4 5 (1.16%) FileMaker
4 5 (1.16%) Hadoop
5 4 (0.93%) DocumentDB
5 4 (0.93%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (0.93%) GIS
5 4 (0.93%) QGIS
6 3 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.70%) Cloudera CDH
6 3 (0.70%) MySQL
6 3 (0.70%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.47%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (2.56%) Claude Code
2 6 (1.40%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.70%) Git
4 2 (0.47%) Maven
4 2 (0.47%) Vagrant
5 1 (0.23%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.23%) GDB
5 1 (0.23%) GitLab
5 1 (0.23%) IntelliJ
5 1 (0.23%) JUnit
5 1 (0.23%) Postman
5 1 (0.23%) Selenium
5 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.23%) WinDbg
General
1 20 (4.65%) Public Sector
2 14 (3.26%) Finance
2 14 (3.26%) Manufacturing
3 12 (2.79%) Electronics
3 12 (2.79%) Retail
3 12 (2.79%) Social Skills
4 7 (1.63%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (0.93%) Aerospace
6 3 (0.70%) Health Technology
6 3 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (0.23%) Automotive
7 1 (0.23%) Banking
7 1 (0.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.23%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (13.95%) .NET
2 37 (8.60%) React
3 31 (7.21%) Node.js
4 22 (5.12%) Spring
5 21 (4.88%) RESTful
6 20 (4.65%) Spring Boot
7 18 (4.19%) REST
8 15 (3.49%) AngularJS
9 12 (2.79%) Next.js
10 10 (2.33%) .NET Core
10 10 (2.33%) Vue
11 9 (2.09%) .NET Framework
12 7 (1.63%) React Native
12 7 (1.63%) Ruby on Rails
13 5 (1.16%) CSS
13 5 (1.16%) CSS3
13 5 (1.16%) FastAPI
14 4 (0.93%) Leaflet
14 4 (0.93%) OpenLayers
14 4 (0.93%) PostGIS
Miscellaneous
1 57 (13.26%) Cloud Native
2 17 (3.95%) Product Ownership
3 10 (2.33%) Mobile App
4 9 (2.09%) Industry 4.0
5 8 (1.86%) IoT
6 7 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
7 5 (1.16%) Robotics
8 4 (0.93%) AI Agents
8 4 (0.93%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.70%) Legacy Applications
10 2 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.47%) Embedded Systems
11 1 (0.23%) Algorithms
11 1 (0.23%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.86%) Linux
2 5 (1.16%) Android
3 3 (0.70%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.70%) CentOS
3 3 (0.70%) Debian
3 3 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (0.70%) Ubuntu
3 3 (0.70%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 428 (99.53%) Software Engineering
2 74 (17.21%) Agile
3 66 (15.35%) DevOps
4 59 (13.72%) Full-Stack Development
5 54 (12.56%) CI/CD
6 46 (10.70%) Microservices
7 41 (9.53%) Mentoring
8 39 (9.07%) TDD
9 37 (8.60%) AI
10 30 (6.98%) Scrum
11 29 (6.74%) Problem-Solving
12 25 (5.81%) Technical Leadership
13 24 (5.58%) Open Source
14 23 (5.35%) Containerisation
15 18 (4.19%) Platform Engineering
16 17 (3.95%) Coaching
16 17 (3.95%) Digital Transformation Programme
16 17 (3.95%) Event-Driven
17 16 (3.72%) Kanban
17 16 (3.72%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 76 (17.67%) Java
2 56 (13.02%) Python
3 49 (11.40%) C#
4 43 (10.00%) JavaScript
5 37 (8.60%) SQL
6 34 (7.91%) TypeScript
7 14 (3.26%) PHP
8 13 (3.02%) C++
9 10 (2.33%) Go
10 8 (1.86%) C
11 7 (1.63%) Ruby
12 5 (1.16%) COBOL
13 2 (0.47%) Scala
Qualifications
1 36 (8.37%) Security Cleared
2 27 (6.28%) DV Cleared
3 26 (6.05%) SC Cleared
4 9 (2.09%) Degree
5 7 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (1.63%) QA
2 2 (0.47%) Accessibility
System Software
1 23 (5.35%) Docker
2 5 (1.16%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 27 (6.28%) Kubernetes
2 24 (5.58%) Terraform
3 5 (1.16%) Ansible
4 3 (0.70%) Puppet
5 2 (0.47%) Packer
5 2 (0.47%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 11 (2.56%) Rockwell
2 10 (2.33%) Adobe
3 6 (1.40%) Siemens
4 5 (1.16%) Google
4 5 (1.16%) Xamarin
5 3 (0.70%) Red Hat
5 3 (0.70%) SaltStack
6 2 (0.47%) Salesforce
6 2 (0.47%) Splunk
7 1 (0.23%) Microsoft