Software Engineer Job Trends in the North West

Software Engineer
England > North West

The median Software Engineer salary in the North West is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 May 2026.

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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 34 32
Rank change year-on-year -6 -2 +62
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 418 444 511
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 3.93% 9.48% 5.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.28% 10.69% 5.67%
Number of salaries quoted 355 139 415
10th Percentile £50,000 £48,595 £38,084
25th Percentile £53,750 £57,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £67,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +17.39% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £92,889 £70,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £110,000 £82,500
England median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -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 9,777 4,153 9,011
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 88.64% 94.70%
Number of salaries quoted 6,765 2,150 7,192
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £84,250 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £53,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +7.48% -12.01%

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 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 19 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 +1 339 £70,000 +3.70% 62
Cheshire -36 37 £51,250 -31.21% 8
Lancashire -20 26 £60,000 -4.04% 12
Merseyside -15 13 £70,000 +7.69% 5
Cumbria -18 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 19 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.

1 416 (99.52%) Software Engineering
2 88 (21.05%) AWS
3 75 (17.94%) Java
4 74 (17.70%) Agile
5 63 (15.07%) DevOps
6 56 (13.40%) Full-Stack Development
7 55 (13.16%) .NET
7 55 (13.16%) Azure
8 54 (12.92%) Python
9 51 (12.20%) CI/CD
10 47 (11.24%) C#
11 44 (10.53%) Microservices
12 42 (10.05%) JavaScript
13 39 (9.33%) Mentoring
14 38 (9.09%) TDD
15 37 (8.85%) TypeScript
16 36 (8.61%) React
16 36 (8.61%) Security Cleared
16 36 (8.61%) SQL
17 35 (8.37%) AI
18 34 (8.13%) SaaS
19 30 (7.18%) Node.js
20 29 (6.94%) Kubernetes
20 29 (6.94%) Scrum
20 29 (6.94%) Serverless
21 27 (6.46%) DV Cleared
22 26 (6.22%) Problem-Solving
23 25 (5.98%) SC Cleared
24 24 (5.74%) Containerisation
24 24 (5.74%) Docker

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 5 (1.20%) Apache Spark
1 5 (1.20%) FactoryTalk
2 4 (0.96%) Apache Solr
2 4 (0.96%) GeoServer
2 4 (0.96%) SharePoint Server
3 3 (0.72%) Apache
4 1 (0.24%) CMS
4 1 (0.24%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 2 (0.48%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 10 (2.39%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 88 (21.05%) AWS
2 55 (13.16%) Azure
3 34 (8.13%) SaaS
4 29 (6.94%) Serverless
5 13 (3.11%) GCP
6 9 (2.15%) Anthropic Claude
7 8 (1.91%) Azure AKS
8 6 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (0.96%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 4 (0.96%) Twilio
11 3 (0.72%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.72%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (0.72%) OpenShift
12 2 (0.48%) Apigee
12 2 (0.48%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (0.48%) Salesforce Einstein
13 1 (0.24%) Azure Functions
13 1 (0.24%) GitHub
13 1 (0.24%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.72%) AMQP
2 2 (0.48%) RTP
3 1 (0.24%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (5.26%) NoSQL
2 14 (3.35%) MongoDB
3 7 (1.67%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (1.67%) Neo4j
4 6 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.20%) Big Data
5 5 (1.20%) FileMaker
5 5 (1.20%) Hadoop
5 5 (1.20%) MySQL
6 4 (0.96%) DocumentDB
6 4 (0.96%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (0.96%) GIS
6 4 (0.96%) QGIS
7 3 (0.72%) Cloudera CDH
7 3 (0.72%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.24%) InfluxDB
9 1 (0.24%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (2.39%) Claude Code
2 5 (1.20%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.96%) Git
4 2 (0.48%) GitLab
4 2 (0.48%) Maven
4 2 (0.48%) Vagrant
5 1 (0.24%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.24%) GDB
5 1 (0.24%) IntelliJ
5 1 (0.24%) JUnit
5 1 (0.24%) Postman
5 1 (0.24%) Selenium
5 1 (0.24%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.24%) WinDbg
General
1 18 (4.31%) Public Sector
2 14 (3.35%) Finance
2 14 (3.35%) Manufacturing
3 12 (2.87%) Retail
4 11 (2.63%) Electronics
5 10 (2.39%) Social Skills
6 5 (1.20%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (0.72%) Aerospace
7 3 (0.72%) Health Technology
7 3 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.24%) Banking
8 1 (0.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.24%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.24%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (13.16%) .NET
2 36 (8.61%) React
3 30 (7.18%) Node.js
4 22 (5.26%) Spring
5 20 (4.78%) RESTful
5 20 (4.78%) Spring Boot
6 19 (4.55%) REST
7 17 (4.07%) AngularJS
8 11 (2.63%) Next.js
9 10 (2.39%) Vue
10 9 (2.15%) .NET Core
10 9 (2.15%) .NET Framework
11 6 (1.44%) CSS
11 6 (1.44%) React Native
11 6 (1.44%) Ruby on Rails
12 5 (1.20%) CSS3
13 4 (0.96%) Django
13 4 (0.96%) Leaflet
13 4 (0.96%) OpenLayers
13 4 (0.96%) PostGIS
Miscellaneous
1 57 (13.64%) Cloud Native
2 17 (4.07%) Product Ownership
3 10 (2.39%) Mobile App
4 9 (2.15%) Industry 4.0
5 8 (1.91%) IoT
6 5 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
6 5 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.20%) Robotics
7 4 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (0.96%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.48%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.48%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.48%) Embedded Systems
8 2 (0.48%) Legacy Applications
9 1 (0.24%) Distributed Computing
9 1 (0.24%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.91%) Linux
2 5 (1.20%) Android
3 3 (0.72%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.72%) CentOS
3 3 (0.72%) Debian
3 3 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (0.72%) Ubuntu
3 3 (0.72%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 416 (99.52%) Software Engineering
2 74 (17.70%) Agile
3 63 (15.07%) DevOps
4 56 (13.40%) Full-Stack Development
5 51 (12.20%) CI/CD
6 44 (10.53%) Microservices
7 39 (9.33%) Mentoring
8 38 (9.09%) TDD
9 35 (8.37%) AI
10 29 (6.94%) Scrum
11 26 (6.22%) Problem-Solving
12 24 (5.74%) Containerisation
12 24 (5.74%) Open Source
12 24 (5.74%) Technical Leadership
13 18 (4.31%) Event-Driven
13 18 (4.31%) Platform Engineering
14 17 (4.07%) Software Architecture
15 16 (3.83%) Coaching
15 16 (3.83%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 16 (3.83%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 75 (17.94%) Java
2 54 (12.92%) Python
3 47 (11.24%) C#
4 42 (10.05%) JavaScript
5 37 (8.85%) TypeScript
6 36 (8.61%) SQL
7 14 (3.35%) PHP
8 12 (2.87%) C++
9 9 (2.15%) C
9 9 (2.15%) Go
10 6 (1.44%) Ruby
11 5 (1.20%) COBOL
12 2 (0.48%) Scala
Qualifications
1 36 (8.61%) Security Cleared
2 27 (6.46%) DV Cleared
3 25 (5.98%) SC Cleared
4 9 (2.15%) Degree
5 7 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.44%) QA
2 2 (0.48%) Accessibility
System Software
1 24 (5.74%) Docker
2 5 (1.20%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 29 (6.94%) Kubernetes
2 22 (5.26%) Terraform
3 4 (0.96%) Ansible
4 3 (0.72%) Puppet
5 2 (0.48%) Packer
5 2 (0.48%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 11 (2.63%) Rockwell
2 10 (2.39%) Adobe
3 6 (1.44%) Siemens
4 5 (1.20%) Google
4 5 (1.20%) Xamarin
5 3 (0.72%) Red Hat
5 3 (0.72%) SaltStack
6 2 (0.48%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.24%) Splunk