Software Engineering Job Trends in the North West

Software Engineering
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 22 13
Rank change year-on-year -8 -9 +4
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 367 337 688
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.84% 7.71% 10.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.26% 8.23% 11.81%
Number of salaries quoted 290 220 553
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,750 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £60,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +7.44% +0.83%
75th Percentile £85,000 £77,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £93,778 £86,250
England median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -3.45% +11.54% -7.14%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,864 4,097 5,827
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 77.40% 93.75% 86.02%
Number of salaries quoted 3,125 2,095 4,742
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,110 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,748 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £66,725
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £80,399
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -12.00%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the North West

Software Engineering
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Software Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the North West over the 6 months to 26 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Engineering in the North West

Software Engineering
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 Engineering within the North West region over the 6 months to 26 February 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 -8 280 £70,000 +7.69% 88
Cheshire -10 49 £60,000 +14.29% 10
Merseyside -9 21 £65,000 -3.70% 2
Lancashire -22 17 £60,000 +17.90% 9
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
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 (1.63%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.09%) Apache
2 4 (1.09%) Apache Solr
3 2 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.54%) Confluence
3 2 (0.54%) nginx
4 1 (0.27%) GeoServer
4 1 (0.27%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (0.54%) Adobe XD
1 2 (0.54%) EngageOne
1 2 (0.54%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (2.72%) Magento
2 1 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 91 (24.80%) AWS
2 90 (24.52%) Azure
3 32 (8.72%) SaaS
4 21 (5.72%) GCP
5 19 (5.18%) Serverless
6 9 (2.45%) Azure AKS
6 9 (2.45%) IaaS
6 9 (2.45%) PaaS
7 7 (1.91%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (1.91%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (1.91%) Figma
8 5 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (1.36%) Power Platform
9 4 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
9 4 (1.09%) OpenShift
9 4 (1.09%) Twilio
10 3 (0.82%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.82%) GitHub
10 3 (0.82%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.09%) AMQP
2 2 (0.54%) HTTP
2 2 (0.54%) RTP
3 1 (0.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (7.36%) NoSQL
2 13 (3.54%) MongoDB
3 9 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (2.18%) Elasticsearch
5 7 (1.91%) MySQL
5 7 (1.91%) Neo4j
6 6 (1.63%) Big Data
6 6 (1.63%) Hadoop
7 5 (1.36%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.36%) SQL Server
8 4 (1.09%) Cloudera CDH
8 4 (1.09%) Power BI
9 3 (0.82%) DocumentDB
10 2 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.54%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.54%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.54%) PostHog
10 2 (0.54%) Redis
11 1 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 7 (1.91%) Git
2 6 (1.63%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.09%) GitLab
3 4 (1.09%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.82%) Claude Code
5 2 (0.54%) JIRA
5 2 (0.54%) Vagrant
6 1 (0.27%) NUnit
6 1 (0.27%) Postman
6 1 (0.27%) Protractor
6 1 (0.27%) Selenium
General
1 49 (13.35%) Finance
2 45 (12.26%) Social Skills
3 25 (6.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 15 (4.09%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (3.27%) Manufacturing
5 12 (3.27%) Public Sector
6 7 (1.91%) Banking
7 6 (1.63%) Electronics
8 5 (1.36%) Aerospace
8 5 (1.36%) Billing
8 5 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.36%) Marketing
8 5 (1.36%) Retail
9 4 (1.09%) Italian Language
10 3 (0.82%) Automotive
10 3 (0.82%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.82%) French Language
10 3 (0.82%) Games
10 3 (0.82%) Portuguese Language
10 3 (0.82%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 206 (56.13%) Software Engineer
2 69 (18.80%) Lead
2 69 (18.80%) Senior
3 48 (13.08%) Developer
4 43 (11.72%) Senior Software Engineer
5 26 (7.08%) Lead Software Engineer
6 22 (5.99%) Software Developer
7 20 (5.45%) Java Engineer
8 17 (4.63%) Java Software Engineer
9 15 (4.09%) Lead Developer
10 14 (3.81%) Project Manager
11 13 (3.54%) Architect
12 12 (3.27%) Principal Engineer
12 12 (3.27%) Python Engineer
13 11 (3.00%) Analyst
13 11 (3.00%) AWS Engineer
13 11 (3.00%) Business Analyst
13 11 (3.00%) Principal Software Engineer
13 11 (3.00%) Senior Developer
14 10 (2.72%) Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (18.53%) .NET
2 51 (13.90%) React
3 24 (6.54%) RESTful
4 22 (5.99%) Node.js
5 20 (5.45%) AngularJS
6 15 (4.09%) .NET Framework
6 15 (4.09%) REST
7 13 (3.54%) Spring
7 13 (3.54%) Spring Boot
8 11 (3.00%) .NET Core
8 11 (3.00%) CSS
9 10 (2.72%) Flask
10 9 (2.45%) HTML
10 9 (2.45%) Next.js
11 7 (1.91%) Django
11 7 (1.91%) Vue
12 6 (1.63%) FastAPI
12 6 (1.63%) RabbitMQ
13 5 (1.36%) Jest
13 5 (1.36%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 46 (12.53%) Cloud Native
2 16 (4.36%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (3.54%) Greenfield Project
4 11 (3.00%) Product Ownership
5 8 (2.18%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.18%) Industry 4.0
6 7 (1.91%) IoT
7 5 (1.36%) Distributed Computing
7 5 (1.36%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.09%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 4 (1.09%) SCADA
9 3 (0.82%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.82%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.82%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 2 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.54%) Animation
10 2 (0.54%) Client/Server
10 2 (0.54%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.54%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.91%) Linux
2 6 (1.63%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.09%) Android
3 4 (1.09%) CentOS
3 4 (1.09%) Debian
3 4 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (1.09%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.54%) Windows
5 1 (0.27%) Unix
5 1 (0.27%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (26.16%) Agile
2 76 (20.71%) CI/CD
3 62 (16.89%) Mentoring
4 57 (15.53%) Microservices
5 50 (13.62%) DevOps
6 47 (12.81%) Coaching
7 39 (10.63%) Full-Stack Development
8 38 (10.35%) TDD
9 37 (10.08%) Scrum
10 34 (9.26%) Containerisation
11 33 (8.99%) AI
11 33 (8.99%) Problem-Solving
12 30 (8.17%) Technical Leadership
13 29 (7.90%) Analytics
14 26 (7.08%) Open Source
15 24 (6.54%) Continuous Improvement
16 23 (6.27%) Clean Code
17 21 (5.72%) Fintech
18 20 (5.45%) User Experience
19 19 (5.18%) B2B
Programming Languages
1 66 (17.98%) Java
2 60 (16.35%) C#
3 50 (13.62%) Python
4 47 (12.81%) SQL
5 37 (10.08%) TypeScript
6 34 (9.26%) JavaScript
7 16 (4.36%) PHP
8 6 (1.63%) C
8 6 (1.63%) Go
9 4 (1.09%) Scala
10 3 (0.82%) C++
10 3 (0.82%) Rust
11 2 (0.54%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.54%) Ruby
12 1 (0.27%) Bash
12 1 (0.27%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 26 (7.08%) Security Cleared
2 17 (4.63%) DV Cleared
3 11 (3.00%) Degree
3 11 (3.00%) SC Cleared
4 8 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (0.82%) DBS Check
6 1 (0.27%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.27%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.81%) QA
2 7 (1.91%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.82%) ISO 20022
3 3 (0.82%) SEPA
3 3 (0.82%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.27%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (9.26%) Docker
2 2 (0.54%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.27%) Firmware
3 1 (0.27%) KVM
3 1 (0.27%) QEMU
3 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 38 (10.35%) Kubernetes
2 17 (4.63%) Terraform
3 6 (1.63%) Ansible
4 4 (1.09%) Puppet
5 3 (0.82%) Grafana
6 2 (0.54%) Packer
6 2 (0.54%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 32 (8.72%) Microsoft
2 29 (7.90%) Salesforce
3 25 (6.81%) Cisco
4 10 (2.72%) Adobe
5 9 (2.45%) BiZZdesign
6 5 (1.36%) Google
6 5 (1.36%) SaltStack
7 4 (1.09%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.27%) Atlassian
8 1 (0.27%) Databricks
8 1 (0.27%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.27%) HubSpot
8 1 (0.27%) Oracle
8 1 (0.27%) SAP
8 1 (0.27%) Xamarin