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 22 December 2025.

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

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 84 54 43
Rank change year-on-year -30 -11 +19
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 106 215 196
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 1.74% 4.06% 5.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.03% 4.36% 5.94%
Number of salaries quoted 88 113 133
10th Percentile £50,000 £45,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £57,500 £51,750 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £60,000 £64,000
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -6.25% +16.36%
75th Percentile £85,625 £72,500 £77,715
90th Percentile £102,875 £81,750 £83,710
England median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year - - +1.84%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 5,225 4,931 3,299
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 85.95% 93.00% 95.65%
Number of salaries quoted 2,794 2,626 2,536
10th Percentile £28,000 £32,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,854 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.68% -7.54% +4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,603 £69,800
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £82,548
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -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 22 December 2025.

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 22 December 2025. 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 -13 87 £67,500 +10.66% 81
Cheshire -24 7 £95,000 +72.73% 9
Lancashire -7 6 £75,000 +36.36% 21
Merseyside -13 5 £61,000 -12.86%
Cumbria +5 1 £60,000 +9.09%
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 22 December 2025, 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.

1 106 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 34 (32.08%) React
3 33 (31.13%) AWS
4 31 (29.25%) CI/CD
5 30 (28.30%) Agile
5 30 (28.30%) Java
6 29 (27.36%) Azure
7 28 (26.42%) Microservices
8 27 (25.47%) .NET
9 24 (22.64%) C#
10 23 (21.70%) Kubernetes
11 22 (20.75%) Containerisation
11 22 (20.75%) DevOps
12 21 (19.81%) SQL
12 21 (19.81%) TypeScript
13 20 (18.87%) Docker
14 19 (17.92%) Python
14 19 (17.92%) Security Cleared
15 18 (16.98%) Mentoring
15 18 (16.98%) TDD
16 16 (15.09%) AngularJS
16 16 (15.09%) DV Cleared
17 15 (14.15%) JavaScript
17 15 (14.15%) NoSQL
18 14 (13.21%) Scrum
19 13 (12.26%) RESTful
20 12 (11.32%) AI
21 11 (10.38%) Full-Stack Development
22 10 (9.43%) Clean Code
22 10 (9.43%) 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 4 (3.77%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.83%) Apache
3 1 (0.94%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 2 (1.89%) Adobe XD
1 2 (1.89%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 2 (1.89%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 33 (31.13%) AWS
2 29 (27.36%) Azure
3 9 (8.49%) GCP
4 8 (7.55%) Serverless
5 5 (4.72%) AWS Lambda
6 4 (3.77%) Azure AKS
6 4 (3.77%) SaaS
7 3 (2.83%) Amazon EKS
7 3 (2.83%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (2.83%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (2.83%) GitHub
7 3 (2.83%) OpenShift
8 2 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (1.89%) Amazon S3
8 2 (1.89%) Figma
9 1 (0.94%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.94%) Amazon EventBridge
9 1 (0.94%) AWS Fargate
9 1 (0.94%) Google App Engine
9 1 (0.94%) Twilio
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.83%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (14.15%) NoSQL
2 9 (8.49%) MySQL
3 6 (5.66%) MongoDB
4 5 (4.72%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (3.77%) Big Data
5 4 (3.77%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (3.77%) Hadoop
5 4 (3.77%) Neo4j
6 3 (2.83%) Cloudera CDH
6 3 (2.83%) Relational Database
7 2 (1.89%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.94%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.94%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.94%) DocumentDB
8 1 (0.94%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 5 (4.72%) Git
2 4 (3.77%) Cypress.io
3 2 (1.89%) GitLab
3 2 (1.89%) Jenkins
General
1 13 (12.26%) Finance
2 7 (6.60%) Social Skills
3 4 (3.77%) Public Sector
4 3 (2.83%) Aerospace
4 3 (2.83%) Games
5 2 (1.89%) Banking
5 2 (1.89%) Billing
6 1 (0.94%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (0.94%) Automotive
6 1 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (0.94%) Legal
6 1 (0.94%) Marketing
6 1 (0.94%) Retail
6 1 (0.94%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (32.08%) React
2 27 (25.47%) .NET
3 16 (15.09%) AngularJS
4 13 (12.26%) RESTful
5 10 (9.43%) Node.js
6 9 (8.49%) REST
7 8 (7.55%) .NET Framework
8 7 (6.60%) CSS
8 7 (6.60%) Spring
8 7 (6.60%) Spring Boot
8 7 (6.60%) Vue
9 6 (5.66%) .NET Core
9 6 (5.66%) Django
10 5 (4.72%) HTML
10 5 (4.72%) Next.js
11 4 (3.77%) Celery
11 4 (3.77%) FastAPI
11 4 (3.77%) Flask
11 4 (3.77%) Jest
11 4 (3.77%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 21 (19.81%) Cloud Native
2 8 (7.55%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (4.72%) Distributed Computing
4 4 (3.77%) AI Agents
4 4 (3.77%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.89%) Animation
5 2 (1.89%) Embedded Systems
5 2 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.89%) IoT
5 2 (1.89%) Marketing Technology
5 2 (1.89%) Online Banking
6 1 (0.94%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.94%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.94%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (0.94%) Private Cloud
6 1 (0.94%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 5 (4.72%) Linux
2 3 (2.83%) CentOS
2 3 (2.83%) Debian
2 3 (2.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 3 (2.83%) Ubuntu
3 1 (0.94%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 31 (29.25%) CI/CD
3 30 (28.30%) Agile
4 28 (26.42%) Microservices
5 22 (20.75%) Containerisation
5 22 (20.75%) DevOps
6 18 (16.98%) Mentoring
6 18 (16.98%) TDD
7 14 (13.21%) Scrum
8 12 (11.32%) AI
9 11 (10.38%) Full-Stack Development
10 10 (9.43%) Clean Code
11 8 (7.55%) Data Pipeline
12 7 (6.60%) B2B
12 7 (6.60%) Fintech
12 7 (6.60%) Software Architecture
13 6 (5.66%) Computer Science
13 6 (5.66%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 6 (5.66%) Pair Programming
13 6 (5.66%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 30 (28.30%) Java
2 24 (22.64%) C#
3 21 (19.81%) SQL
3 21 (19.81%) TypeScript
4 19 (17.92%) Python
5 15 (14.15%) JavaScript
6 5 (4.72%) C
7 4 (3.77%) PHP
8 3 (2.83%) C++
8 3 (2.83%) Scala
9 2 (1.89%) Embedded C++
9 2 (1.89%) Go
9 2 (1.89%) Kotlin
9 2 (1.89%) Ruby
10 1 (0.94%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 19 (17.92%) Security Cleared
2 16 (15.09%) DV Cleared
3 6 (5.66%) Computer Science Degree
3 6 (5.66%) Degree
4 4 (3.77%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.83%) QA
2 2 (1.89%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.94%) MISRA
3 1 (0.94%) MISRA C
System Software
1 20 (18.87%) Docker
Systems Management
1 23 (21.70%) Kubernetes
2 8 (7.55%) Terraform
3 3 (2.83%) Ansible
3 3 (2.83%) Grafana
3 3 (2.83%) Puppet
Vendors
1 3 (2.83%) Google
1 3 (2.83%) Red Hat
1 3 (2.83%) SaltStack
2 2 (1.89%) Adobe
3 1 (0.94%) Databricks
3 1 (0.94%) Dynatrace
3 1 (0.94%) Salesforce