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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 37 24
Rank change year-on-year +10 -13 +70
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 548 420 520
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.56% 8.08% 6.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.80% 8.95% 6.49%
Number of salaries quoted 471 111 305
10th Percentile £50,000 £51,250 £40,000
25th Percentile £60,000 £61,250 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £74,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.04% +24.17% -
75th Percentile £80,000 £87,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £110,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +28.00% -10.71%

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 11,420 4,691 8,016
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 95.00% 90.30% 95.50%
Number of salaries quoted 8,533 2,427 5,567
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £75,000 £65,125 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £78,750
England median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -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 19 August 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 19 August 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 +4 438 £75,000 - 94
Lancashire -8 35 £60,000 -20.00% 8
Cheshire -33 35 £60,000 -19.46% 6
Merseyside -8 28 £70,000 +7.69% 12
Cumbria -5 12 £50,000 -16.67% 1
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 August 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.

1 548 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 88 (16.06%) AWS
3 75 (13.69%) Agile
4 74 (13.50%) Full-Stack Development
5 72 (13.14%) Python
6 69 (12.59%) Java
7 63 (11.50%) AI
8 59 (10.77%) DevOps
9 58 (10.58%) TypeScript
10 55 (10.04%) CI/CD
10 55 (10.04%) Mentoring
11 48 (8.76%) .NET
11 48 (8.76%) C#
11 48 (8.76%) SaaS
11 48 (8.76%) Security Cleared
11 48 (8.76%) SQL
12 46 (8.39%) Microservices
13 43 (7.85%) React
14 42 (7.66%) Problem-Solving
15 41 (7.48%) Azure
16 40 (7.30%) JavaScript
17 36 (6.57%) Node.js
18 35 (6.39%) SC Cleared
19 32 (5.84%) DV Cleared
20 28 (5.11%) Next.js
20 28 (5.11%) TDD
21 27 (4.93%) Docker
22 26 (4.74%) Serverless
22 26 (4.74%) Technical Leadership
23 25 (4.56%) Kubernetes

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 (1.09%) Apache
1 6 (1.09%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.91%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (0.73%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.55%) GeoServer
5 2 (0.36%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.36%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.36%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.36%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.36%) WinCC
6 1 (0.18%) CMS
6 1 (0.18%) Headless CMS
Cloud Services
1 88 (16.06%) AWS
2 48 (8.76%) SaaS
3 41 (7.48%) Azure
4 26 (4.74%) Serverless
5 16 (2.92%) GCP
6 14 (2.55%) Anthropic Claude
7 10 (1.82%) Firebase
8 9 (1.64%) GitHub
9 6 (1.09%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (0.91%) GitHub Copilot
10 5 (0.91%) Snowflake
11 4 (0.73%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 4 (0.73%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (0.73%) Azure AKS
11 4 (0.73%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.73%) dbt
12 3 (0.55%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 3 (0.55%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.55%) Vercel
13 2 (0.36%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.91%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.55%) Firewall
3 2 (0.36%) AMQP
3 2 (0.36%) Bluetooth
3 2 (0.36%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.36%) Wireless
3 2 (0.36%) ZigBee
4 1 (0.18%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (3.28%) NoSQL
2 16 (2.92%) MongoDB
3 15 (2.74%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.82%) SQL Server
5 5 (0.91%) FileMaker
6 4 (0.73%) DynamoDB
6 4 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.73%) Pinecone
7 3 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.55%) DocumentDB
7 3 (0.55%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.55%) GIS
7 3 (0.55%) Neo4j
7 3 (0.55%) QGIS
7 3 (0.55%) Redis
7 3 (0.55%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.36%) Big Data
8 2 (0.36%) Cloudera CDH
8 2 (0.36%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.36%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 13 (2.37%) Claude Code
2 8 (1.46%) Git
3 7 (1.28%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.73%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.73%) GitLab
5 3 (0.55%) JUnit
6 2 (0.36%) Maven
6 2 (0.36%) Mocha
6 2 (0.36%) Mockito
6 2 (0.36%) Selenium
6 2 (0.36%) Vite
7 1 (0.18%) GDB
7 1 (0.18%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.18%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.18%) JIRA
7 1 (0.18%) Postman
7 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.18%) WinDbg
General
1 24 (4.38%) Social Skills
2 23 (4.20%) Public Sector
3 22 (4.01%) Electronics
3 22 (4.01%) Finance
4 20 (3.65%) Retail
5 7 (1.28%) Manufacturing
6 6 (1.09%) Aerospace
6 6 (1.09%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (1.09%) Billing
7 4 (0.73%) Law
8 3 (0.55%) Health Technology
8 3 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (0.36%) Games
9 2 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.36%) Marketing
10 1 (0.18%) Automotive
10 1 (0.18%) Banking
10 1 (0.18%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.18%) Legal
10 1 (0.18%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (8.76%) .NET
2 43 (7.85%) React
3 36 (6.57%) Node.js
4 28 (5.11%) Next.js
5 23 (4.20%) Spring
6 19 (3.47%) Spring Boot
7 18 (3.28%) React Native
7 18 (3.28%) RESTful
8 12 (2.19%) AngularJS
9 11 (2.01%) REST
9 11 (2.01%) Ruby on Rails
9 11 (2.01%) Vue
10 10 (1.82%) FastAPI
11 6 (1.09%) CSS
12 5 (0.91%) .NET Core
13 4 (0.73%) .NET Framework
13 4 (0.73%) Jest
13 4 (0.73%) LangChain
13 4 (0.73%) OpenAPI
13 4 (0.73%) pgvector
Miscellaneous
1 61 (11.13%) Cloud Native
2 20 (3.65%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.55%) AI Agents
4 13 (2.37%) Distributed Systems
4 13 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
5 11 (2.01%) Greenfield Project
6 10 (1.82%) Mobile App
7 5 (0.91%) Embedded Systems
7 5 (0.91%) IoT
7 5 (0.91%) Robotics
8 4 (0.73%) Industry 4.0
9 3 (0.55%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (0.55%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (0.55%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.18%) Algorithms
10 1 (0.18%) Blog
10 1 (0.18%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 18 (3.28%) Linux
2 6 (1.09%) Windows
3 5 (0.91%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (0.73%) Android
5 2 (0.36%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.36%) CentOS
5 2 (0.36%) Debian
5 2 (0.36%) FreeRTOS
5 2 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.36%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 548 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 75 (13.69%) Agile
3 74 (13.50%) Full-Stack Development
4 63 (11.50%) AI
5 59 (10.77%) DevOps
6 55 (10.04%) CI/CD
6 55 (10.04%) Mentoring
7 46 (8.39%) Microservices
8 42 (7.66%) Problem-Solving
9 28 (5.11%) TDD
10 26 (4.74%) Technical Leadership
11 25 (4.56%) Platform Engineering
12 22 (4.01%) Scrum
13 21 (3.83%) Code Quality
14 20 (3.65%) B2B
14 20 (3.65%) Containerisation
14 20 (3.65%) Test Automation
15 19 (3.47%) Infrastructure as Code
15 19 (3.47%) Observability
15 19 (3.47%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 72 (13.14%) Python
2 69 (12.59%) Java
3 58 (10.58%) TypeScript
4 48 (8.76%) C#
4 48 (8.76%) SQL
5 40 (7.30%) JavaScript
6 23 (4.20%) Go
7 19 (3.47%) C++
8 14 (2.55%) C
9 12 (2.19%) Ruby
10 10 (1.82%) PHP
11 5 (0.91%) COBOL
12 1 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 48 (8.76%) Security Cleared
2 35 (6.39%) SC Cleared
3 32 (5.84%) DV Cleared
4 18 (3.28%) Degree
5 8 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.73%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.36%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.64%) QA
2 5 (0.91%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.73%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.36%) IEC 61131
4 2 (0.36%) IEC 61508
4 2 (0.36%) WCAG
System Software
1 27 (4.93%) Docker
2 7 (1.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 25 (4.56%) Kubernetes
1 25 (4.56%) Terraform
2 9 (1.64%) Ansible
3 2 (0.36%) Puppet
Vendors
1 11 (2.01%) Rockwell
2 9 (1.64%) Splunk
3 8 (1.46%) Siemens
4 4 (0.73%) Databricks
4 4 (0.73%) Google
4 4 (0.73%) New Relic
4 4 (0.73%) Xamarin
5 3 (0.55%) OpenAI
6 2 (0.36%) IBM
6 2 (0.36%) Red Hat
6 2 (0.36%) SaltStack
7 1 (0.18%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.18%) Microsoft