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 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 38 25
Rank change year-on-year +12 -13 +63
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 568 417 499
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.64% 8.04% 6.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.89% 8.95% 6.39%
Number of salaries quoted 490 108 277
10th Percentile £50,000 £50,000 £42,000
25th Percentile £60,000 £60,938 £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 £100,000 £110,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £80,000 £63,500
% change year-on-year -12.50% +25.98% -9.29%

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 11,612 4,658 7,811
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.91% 89.82% 95.47%
Number of salaries quoted 8,665 2,421 5,170
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 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £77,500
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 2 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 2 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 +6 453 £75,000 - 136
Cheshire -34 37 £66,250 -11.07% 13
Merseyside +3 33 £70,000 +7.69% 16
Lancashire -17 33 £60,000 -7.69% 10
Cumbria -3 12 £50,000 -16.67% 3
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 568 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 84 (14.79%) AWS
3 74 (13.03%) Agile
4 73 (12.85%) Full-Stack Development
5 69 (12.15%) Python
6 68 (11.97%) AI
7 65 (11.44%) Java
8 60 (10.56%) TypeScript
9 56 (9.86%) DevOps
10 54 (9.51%) Security Cleared
11 53 (9.33%) Mentoring
12 51 (8.98%) CI/CD
13 47 (8.27%) SaaS
14 46 (8.10%) SQL
15 44 (7.75%) React
16 43 (7.57%) C#
17 42 (7.39%) Microservices
17 42 (7.39%) Problem-Solving
18 41 (7.22%) .NET
18 41 (7.22%) SC Cleared
19 34 (5.99%) Azure
19 34 (5.99%) JavaScript
20 32 (5.63%) DV Cleared
21 31 (5.46%) Platform Engineering
22 30 (5.28%) Node.js
23 28 (4.93%) Next.js
23 28 (4.93%) Technical Leadership
24 26 (4.58%) Docker
25 24 (4.23%) Go
25 24 (4.23%) 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 (1.06%) Apache
1 6 (1.06%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.88%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.53%) Apache Solr
5 2 (0.35%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.35%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.35%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.35%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.35%) WinCC
6 1 (0.18%) CMS
6 1 (0.18%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.18%) Headless CMS
Cloud Services
1 84 (14.79%) AWS
2 47 (8.27%) SaaS
3 34 (5.99%) Azure
4 21 (3.70%) Serverless
5 16 (2.82%) GCP
6 12 (2.11%) Anthropic Claude
7 10 (1.76%) Firebase
8 9 (1.58%) GitHub
9 6 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (0.88%) GitHub Copilot
10 5 (0.88%) Snowflake
11 4 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (0.70%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.70%) dbt
12 3 (0.53%) Amazon OpenSearch
12 3 (0.53%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 3 (0.53%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.53%) Vercel
13 2 (0.35%) Apigee
13 2 (0.35%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.88%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.53%) Firewall
3 2 (0.35%) AMQP
3 2 (0.35%) Bluetooth
3 2 (0.35%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.35%) Wireless
3 2 (0.35%) ZigBee
4 1 (0.18%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.64%) NoSQL
1 15 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (2.46%) MongoDB
3 9 (1.58%) SQL Server
4 5 (0.88%) FileMaker
5 4 (0.70%) Chroma
5 4 (0.70%) DynamoDB
5 4 (0.70%) Pinecone
6 3 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (0.53%) Redis
6 3 (0.53%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.35%) Big Data
7 2 (0.35%) Cloudera CDH
7 2 (0.35%) DocumentDB
7 2 (0.35%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.35%) MySQL
7 2 (0.35%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.18%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.18%) GIS
Development Applications
1 11 (1.94%) Claude Code
2 8 (1.41%) Git
3 5 (0.88%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.70%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.70%) GitLab
5 3 (0.53%) JUnit
6 2 (0.35%) Maven
6 2 (0.35%) Mocha
6 2 (0.35%) Mockito
6 2 (0.35%) Selenium
6 2 (0.35%) 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 25 (4.40%) Social Skills
2 24 (4.23%) Finance
3 23 (4.05%) Public Sector
4 22 (3.87%) Electronics
5 19 (3.35%) Retail
6 6 (1.06%) Aerospace
6 6 (1.06%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (1.06%) Billing
7 4 (0.70%) Law
8 2 (0.35%) Games
8 2 (0.35%) Health Technology
8 2 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.35%) Legal
8 2 (0.35%) Marketing
8 2 (0.35%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (0.35%) Publishing
9 1 (0.18%) Automotive
9 1 (0.18%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.18%) Local Government
9 1 (0.18%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (7.75%) React
2 41 (7.22%) .NET
3 30 (5.28%) Node.js
4 28 (4.93%) Next.js
5 24 (4.23%) Spring
6 22 (3.87%) Terraform
7 20 (3.52%) Spring Boot
8 18 (3.17%) React Native
9 16 (2.82%) RESTful
10 13 (2.29%) Vue
11 11 (1.94%) AngularJS
11 11 (1.94%) Ruby on Rails
12 10 (1.76%) FastAPI
12 10 (1.76%) REST
13 6 (1.06%) CSS
14 5 (0.88%) .NET Core
15 4 (0.70%) CSS3
15 4 (0.70%) Jest
15 4 (0.70%) OpenAPI
15 4 (0.70%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 58 (10.21%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.35%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.46%) AI Agents
4 13 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
4 13 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
5 10 (1.76%) Mobile App
6 9 (1.58%) Greenfield Project
7 5 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
7 5 (0.88%) IoT
8 4 (0.70%) Robotics
9 3 (0.53%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (0.53%) Legacy Applications
10 2 (0.35%) Media Streaming
10 2 (0.35%) Podcast
11 1 (0.18%) Algorithms
11 1 (0.18%) Blog
11 1 (0.18%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.18%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 24 (4.23%) Linux
2 11 (1.94%) Windows
3 6 (1.06%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (0.70%) Android
5 2 (0.35%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.35%) CentOS
5 2 (0.35%) Debian
5 2 (0.35%) FreeRTOS
5 2 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.35%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 568 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 74 (13.03%) Agile
3 73 (12.85%) Full-Stack Development
4 68 (11.97%) AI
5 56 (9.86%) DevOps
6 53 (9.33%) Mentoring
7 51 (8.98%) CI/CD
8 42 (7.39%) Microservices
8 42 (7.39%) Problem-Solving
9 31 (5.46%) Platform Engineering
10 28 (4.93%) Technical Leadership
11 23 (4.05%) Code Quality
11 23 (4.05%) TDD
12 20 (3.52%) B2B
12 20 (3.52%) Observability
13 19 (3.35%) Containerisation
13 19 (3.35%) Test Automation
14 18 (3.17%) Continuous Improvement
14 18 (3.17%) Event-Driven
14 18 (3.17%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 69 (12.15%) Python
2 65 (11.44%) Java
3 60 (10.56%) TypeScript
4 46 (8.10%) SQL
5 43 (7.57%) C#
6 34 (5.99%) JavaScript
7 24 (4.23%) Go
8 19 (3.35%) C++
9 14 (2.46%) C
10 12 (2.11%) Ruby
11 9 (1.58%) PHP
12 5 (0.88%) COBOL
13 1 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 54 (9.51%) Security Cleared
2 41 (7.22%) SC Cleared
3 32 (5.63%) DV Cleared
4 18 (3.17%) Degree
5 8 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.70%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.35%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.58%) QA
2 5 (0.88%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.70%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.35%) IEC 61131
4 2 (0.35%) IEC 61508
4 2 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 26 (4.58%) Docker
2 7 (1.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 24 (4.23%) Kubernetes
2 9 (1.58%) Ansible
3 2 (0.35%) Puppet
Vendors
1 11 (1.94%) Rockwell
2 9 (1.58%) Splunk
3 8 (1.41%) Siemens
4 4 (0.70%) Databricks
4 4 (0.70%) Google
4 4 (0.70%) New Relic
4 4 (0.70%) Xamarin
5 3 (0.53%) OpenAI
6 2 (0.35%) IBM
6 2 (0.35%) Mistral
6 2 (0.35%) Red Hat
6 2 (0.35%) SaltStack
7 1 (0.18%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.18%) Microsoft