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 14 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 27 11 18
Rank change year-on-year -16 +7 -7
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 490 815 391
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 9.61% 11.30% 9.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.80% 14.07% 9.82%
Number of salaries quoted 160 355 266
10th Percentile £47,665 £40,500 £41,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,750 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £56,509 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +23.88% -9.59% +4.17%
75th Percentile £86,250 £68,750 £77,188
90th Percentile £100,000 £75,750 £86,250
England median annual salary £77,500 £67,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year +14.81% -3.57% -

All Process and 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 4,538 5,791 3,983
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 88.96% 80.26% 94.56%
Number of salaries quoted 2,199 2,978 3,056
10th Percentile £27,195 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £34,750 £40,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £51,750 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -5.91% +4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,800
% change year-on-year -8.33% -1.32% +1.33%

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 14 October 2025.

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 14 October 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 -5 270 £70,000 +16.67% 136
Cheshire -4 102 £67,500 +22.73% 42
Lancashire -27 99 £47,683 -5.58% 77
Merseyside -29 18 £66,250 +1.92% 8
Cumbria +7 1 £60,000 +9.09% 2
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 47 (9.59%) Confluence
2 3 (0.61%) IIS
2 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.41%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.20%) Apache
4 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.20%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (1.43%) Simulink
2 4 (0.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.41%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.41%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.20%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.20%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 1 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 364 (74.29%) AWS
2 335 (68.37%) Azure
3 225 (45.92%) GCP
4 20 (4.08%) SaaS
5 14 (2.86%) GitHub
6 13 (2.65%) Serverless
7 9 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
8 8 (1.63%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.63%) Power Platform
9 6 (1.22%) Microsoft 365
10 4 (0.82%) IaaS
10 4 (0.82%) PaaS
11 3 (0.61%) Amazon Cognito
11 3 (0.61%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (0.61%) CloudFront
12 2 (0.41%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 2 (0.41%) Azure Logic Apps
12 2 (0.41%) Azure Service Bus
12 2 (0.41%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (0.41%) Workato
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.82%) Internet
2 1 (0.20%) HTTP
2 1 (0.20%) HTTPS
2 1 (0.20%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (23.88%) SQL Server
2 17 (3.47%) MongoDB
3 15 (3.06%) NoSQL
4 13 (2.65%) MySQL
5 12 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (1.43%) Relational Database
7 6 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.82%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.82%) Power BI
9 3 (0.61%) Data Hub
9 3 (0.61%) DynamoDB
9 3 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (0.61%) SQL CLR
10 2 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
11 1 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
11 1 (0.20%) Apache Cassandra
11 1 (0.20%) Big Data
11 1 (0.20%) Data Lake
11 1 (0.20%) Neo4j
11 1 (0.20%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 118 (24.08%) JIRA
2 117 (23.88%) GitLab
3 115 (23.47%) Cucumber
3 115 (23.47%) Selenium
4 109 (22.24%) Bitbucket
4 109 (22.24%) Maven
4 109 (22.24%) SonarQube
4 109 (22.24%) Sonatype Nexus
5 9 (1.84%) Git
6 7 (1.43%) Cypress.io
7 6 (1.22%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.61%) Jasmine
8 3 (0.61%) Karma Test Runner
9 2 (0.41%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.41%) webpack
10 1 (0.20%) CMake
10 1 (0.20%) Gatling
10 1 (0.20%) JMeter
10 1 (0.20%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.20%) Protractor
General
1 282 (57.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 156 (31.84%) Finance
3 116 (23.67%) Banking
4 82 (16.73%) Retail
5 70 (14.29%) Corporate Banking
5 70 (14.29%) Investment Banking
6 31 (6.33%) Social Skills
7 11 (2.24%) Marketing
8 8 (1.63%) Public Sector
9 7 (1.43%) Manufacturing
10 6 (1.22%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.02%) Analytical Skills
11 5 (1.02%) Billing
11 5 (1.02%) Electronics
11 5 (1.02%) Legal
12 4 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.61%) Back Office
13 3 (0.61%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.61%) Games
14 2 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 368 (75.10%) Software Engineer
2 236 (48.16%) Senior
3 206 (42.04%) Senior Software Engineer
4 35 (7.14%) Developer
5 31 (6.33%) Lead
6 16 (3.27%) Java Engineer
7 14 (2.86%) Lead Software Engineer
8 13 (2.65%) Java Software Engineer
9 12 (2.45%) Systems Engineer
10 11 (2.24%) AWS Engineer
10 11 (2.24%) Senior Developer
11 10 (2.04%) Principal Engineer
12 9 (1.84%) Architect
13 8 (1.63%) AWS Software Engineer
13 8 (1.63%) Engineering Manager
14 7 (1.43%) Data Engineer
15 6 (1.22%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
15 6 (1.22%) Python Software Engineer
15 6 (1.22%) Software Developer
15 6 (1.22%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (43.47%) .NET
2 188 (38.37%) Node.js
3 152 (31.02%) React
4 132 (26.94%) Spring
4 132 (26.94%) Spring Boot
5 126 (25.71%) Kafka
6 123 (25.10%) HTML
7 122 (24.90%) CSS
8 112 (22.86%) Redux
9 109 (22.24%) JPA
10 82 (16.73%) RESTful
11 80 (16.33%) REST
12 77 (15.71%) Jest
13 75 (15.31%) HTML5
14 74 (15.10%) CSS3
15 73 (14.90%) Sass
16 44 (8.98%) Hibernate
17 18 (3.67%) AngularJS
18 13 (2.65%) .NET Core
19 9 (1.84%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 172 (35.10%) Cyberattack
1 172 (35.10%) Linux Command Line
1 172 (35.10%) Self-Motivation
2 128 (26.12%) Product Ownership
3 110 (22.45%) Enterprise Software
4 22 (4.49%) Cloud Native
5 16 (3.27%) Greenfield Project
6 15 (3.06%) Distributed Systems
7 9 (1.84%) AI Agents
8 8 (1.63%) Wiki
9 5 (1.02%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.02%) SCADA
10 4 (0.82%) Algorithms
10 4 (0.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (0.82%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.61%) BBC
11 3 (0.61%) Embedded Systems
11 3 (0.61%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.61%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 3 (0.61%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 177 (36.12%) Linux
2 8 (1.63%) Windows
3 5 (1.02%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.20%) Android
4 1 (0.20%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 360 (73.47%) Agile
2 331 (67.55%) Microservices
3 276 (56.33%) Mentoring
4 257 (52.45%) User Experience
5 182 (37.14%) Scrum
6 181 (36.94%) Machine Learning
7 180 (36.73%) CI/CD
8 178 (36.33%) Cloud Security
8 178 (36.33%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 173 (35.31%) Data Engineering
10 164 (33.47%) DevOps
11 142 (28.98%) Containerisation
12 139 (28.37%) Full-Stack Development
13 129 (26.33%) Test Automation
14 122 (24.90%) SDLC
15 117 (23.88%) Front End Development
16 116 (23.67%) Performance Optimisation
17 81 (16.53%) TDD
18 75 (15.31%) Migration
19 72 (14.69%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 341 (69.59%) Java
2 313 (63.88%) JavaScript
3 207 (42.24%) Python
4 179 (36.53%) C++
5 176 (35.92%) Rust
6 175 (35.71%) Go
7 143 (29.18%) SQL
8 116 (23.67%) TypeScript
9 46 (9.39%) C#
10 7 (1.43%) MATLAB
11 5 (1.02%) Ruby
12 4 (0.82%) PHP
13 3 (0.61%) Bash
13 3 (0.61%) C
13 3 (0.61%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.41%) Embedded C++
14 2 (0.41%) Scala
15 1 (0.20%) Embedded C
15 1 (0.20%) PowerShell
15 1 (0.20%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 190 (38.78%) Security Cleared
2 184 (37.55%) DV Cleared
3 172 (35.10%) AWS Certification
3 172 (35.10%) AWS Certified Developer
3 172 (35.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 23 (4.69%) Degree
5 11 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.43%) HNC
6 7 (1.43%) HND
6 7 (1.43%) SC Cleared
7 2 (0.41%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.41%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 2 (0.41%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.41%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (23.47%) QA
2 73 (14.90%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.61%) ISO 20022
3 3 (0.61%) SEPA
3 3 (0.61%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.20%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.20%) GDPR
4 1 (0.20%) MISRA
4 1 (0.20%) MISRA C
4 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 151 (30.82%) Docker
2 3 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.41%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.20%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.20%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 140 (28.57%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.67%) Terraform
3 5 (1.02%) Ansible
4 4 (0.82%) Grafana
5 3 (0.61%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.20%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 1 (0.20%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.20%) Puppet
Vendors
1 109 (22.24%) Solace
2 20 (4.08%) Microsoft
3 5 (1.02%) Ping Identity
4 4 (0.82%) BiZZdesign
4 4 (0.82%) Google
4 4 (0.82%) Oracle
4 4 (0.82%) SAP
5 3 (0.61%) VMware
6 2 (0.41%) Avaya
6 2 (0.41%) Concur
6 2 (0.41%) Databricks
6 2 (0.41%) ForgeRock
6 2 (0.41%) IBM
6 2 (0.41%) Sage
7 1 (0.20%) Adobe
7 1 (0.20%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.20%) HubSpot
7 1 (0.20%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.20%) Talend
7 1 (0.20%) TOWER Software