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 12 August 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 37 25
Rank change year-on-year +9 -12 +65
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Engineer 545 426 520
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.61% 8.25% 6.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.84% 9.15% 6.49%
Number of salaries quoted 471 116 306
10th Percentile £50,000 £50,625 £40,000
25th Percentile £57,500 £61,250 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £75,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +25.00% -
75th Percentile £80,000 £92,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £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 11,259 4,655 8,014
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 95.14% 90.13% 95.47%
Number of salaries quoted 8,434 2,429 5,624
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 £66,250 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
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 12 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 12 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 +4 432 £75,000 - 149
Lancashire -1 40 £60,000 -20.00% 12
Cheshire -31 37 £60,000 -19.46% 10
Merseyside -8 24 £70,000 +7.69% 16
Cumbria -6 12 £50,000 -16.67% 2
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 12 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.

1 545 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 88 (16.15%) AWS
3 77 (14.13%) Agile
4 70 (12.84%) Python
5 69 (12.66%) Full-Stack Development
5 69 (12.66%) Java
6 61 (11.19%) AI
6 61 (11.19%) DevOps
7 55 (10.09%) CI/CD
7 55 (10.09%) TypeScript
8 54 (9.91%) Mentoring
9 50 (9.17%) C#
10 49 (8.99%) .NET
10 49 (8.99%) SQL
11 48 (8.81%) Microservices
12 47 (8.62%) SaaS
13 44 (8.07%) Security Cleared
14 43 (7.89%) React
15 41 (7.52%) Problem-Solving
16 40 (7.34%) Azure
16 40 (7.34%) JavaScript
17 32 (5.87%) DV Cleared
17 32 (5.87%) Node.js
18 31 (5.69%) SC Cleared
18 31 (5.69%) TDD
19 28 (5.14%) Docker
19 28 (5.14%) Next.js
20 27 (4.95%) Serverless
21 26 (4.77%) Kubernetes
21 26 (4.77%) Terraform

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 (1.10%) Apache
1 6 (1.10%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.92%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (0.73%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.55%) GeoServer
5 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.37%) WinCC
6 1 (0.18%) CMS
6 1 (0.18%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.18%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.18%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
Cloud Services
1 88 (16.15%) AWS
2 47 (8.62%) SaaS
3 40 (7.34%) Azure
4 27 (4.95%) Serverless
5 15 (2.75%) GCP
6 14 (2.57%) Anthropic Claude
7 10 (1.83%) Firebase
8 8 (1.47%) GitHub
9 6 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (0.92%) Snowflake
11 4 (0.73%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (0.73%) Azure AKS
11 4 (0.73%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.73%) dbt
11 4 (0.73%) GitHub Copilot
12 3 (0.55%) Amazon OpenSearch
12 3 (0.55%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 3 (0.55%) Vercel
13 2 (0.37%) LangSmith
13 2 (0.37%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.73%) TCP/IP
2 2 (0.37%) AMQP
2 2 (0.37%) Bluetooth
2 2 (0.37%) Firewall
2 2 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
2 2 (0.37%) Wireless
2 2 (0.37%) ZigBee
3 1 (0.18%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.49%) NoSQL
2 18 (3.30%) MongoDB
3 16 (2.94%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.83%) SQL Server
5 5 (0.92%) FileMaker
6 4 (0.73%) DynamoDB
6 4 (0.73%) Pinecone
7 3 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.55%) DocumentDB
7 3 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (0.55%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.55%) GIS
7 3 (0.55%) MySQL
7 3 (0.55%) Neo4j
7 3 (0.55%) QGIS
7 3 (0.55%) Redis
8 2 (0.37%) Big Data
8 2 (0.37%) Cloudera CDH
8 2 (0.37%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 13 (2.39%) Claude Code
2 7 (1.28%) Git
2 7 (1.28%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.55%) GitLab
4 2 (0.37%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.37%) JUnit
4 2 (0.37%) Maven
4 2 (0.37%) Vite
5 1 (0.18%) GDB
5 1 (0.18%) Gemini Tracker
5 1 (0.18%) IntelliJ
5 1 (0.18%) JIRA
5 1 (0.18%) Mocha
5 1 (0.18%) Mockito
5 1 (0.18%) Postman
5 1 (0.18%) Selenium
5 1 (0.18%) Vagrant
5 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.18%) WinDbg
General
1 23 (4.22%) Finance
1 23 (4.22%) Public Sector
1 23 (4.22%) Social Skills
2 22 (4.04%) Electronics
3 21 (3.85%) Retail
4 11 (2.02%) Manufacturing
5 6 (1.10%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (1.10%) Billing
6 5 (0.92%) Aerospace
7 4 (0.73%) Law
8 3 (0.55%) Health Technology
8 3 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.37%) 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
10 1 (0.18%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (8.99%) .NET
2 43 (7.89%) React
3 32 (5.87%) Node.js
4 28 (5.14%) Next.js
5 23 (4.22%) Spring
6 20 (3.67%) Spring Boot
7 19 (3.49%) RESTful
8 17 (3.12%) React Native
9 12 (2.20%) AngularJS
9 12 (2.20%) Vue
10 11 (2.02%) FastAPI
10 11 (2.02%) REST
10 11 (2.02%) Ruby on Rails
11 7 (1.28%) .NET Core
12 6 (1.10%) CSS
13 4 (0.73%) .NET Framework
13 4 (0.73%) CSS3
13 4 (0.73%) LangChain
13 4 (0.73%) pgvector
13 4 (0.73%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 62 (11.38%) Cloud Native
2 21 (3.85%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.57%) AI Agents
4 13 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
5 11 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
5 11 (2.02%) Greenfield Project
6 10 (1.83%) Mobile App
7 6 (1.10%) Industry 4.0
8 5 (0.92%) Embedded Systems
8 5 (0.92%) IoT
8 5 (0.92%) Robotics
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 15 (2.75%) Linux
2 5 (0.92%) Windows
3 4 (0.73%) Android
3 4 (0.73%) Embedded Linux
4 2 (0.37%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.37%) CentOS
4 2 (0.37%) Debian
4 2 (0.37%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.37%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 545 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 77 (14.13%) Agile
3 69 (12.66%) Full-Stack Development
4 61 (11.19%) AI
4 61 (11.19%) DevOps
5 55 (10.09%) CI/CD
6 54 (9.91%) Mentoring
7 48 (8.81%) Microservices
8 41 (7.52%) Problem-Solving
9 31 (5.69%) TDD
10 25 (4.59%) Technical Leadership
11 23 (4.22%) Scrum
12 21 (3.85%) B2B
12 21 (3.85%) Code Quality
12 21 (3.85%) Platform Engineering
13 20 (3.67%) Containerisation
13 20 (3.67%) Open Source
13 20 (3.67%) Test Automation
14 19 (3.49%) Event-Driven
15 18 (3.30%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 70 (12.84%) Python
2 69 (12.66%) Java
3 55 (10.09%) TypeScript
4 50 (9.17%) C#
5 49 (8.99%) SQL
6 40 (7.34%) JavaScript
7 22 (4.04%) Go
8 19 (3.49%) C++
9 14 (2.57%) C
10 12 (2.20%) Ruby
11 10 (1.83%) PHP
12 5 (0.92%) COBOL
13 1 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 44 (8.07%) Security Cleared
2 32 (5.87%) DV Cleared
3 31 (5.69%) SC Cleared
4 19 (3.49%) Degree
5 9 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.73%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.37%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.65%) QA
2 4 (0.73%) Accessibility
2 4 (0.73%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.37%) IEC 61131
3 2 (0.37%) IEC 61508
4 1 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 28 (5.14%) Docker
2 7 (1.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 26 (4.77%) Kubernetes
1 26 (4.77%) Terraform
2 8 (1.47%) Ansible
3 2 (0.37%) Puppet
4 1 (0.18%) Packer
4 1 (0.18%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 11 (2.02%) Rockwell
2 8 (1.47%) Siemens
2 8 (1.47%) Splunk
3 4 (0.73%) Databricks
3 4 (0.73%) Google
3 4 (0.73%) Xamarin
4 3 (0.55%) OpenAI
5 2 (0.37%) New Relic
5 2 (0.37%) Red Hat
5 2 (0.37%) SaltStack
6 1 (0.18%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.18%) IBM
6 1 (0.18%) Microsoft