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 27 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 40 11 14
Rank change year-on-year -29 +3 -1
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 229 742 428
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.57% 10.89% 11.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.42% 12.97% 12.21%
Number of salaries quoted 178 317 294
10th Percentile £48,200 £40,372 £41,250
25th Percentile £56,531 £48,750 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £57,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -11.54% +8.33%
75th Percentile £86,188 £68,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £75,000 £86,250
England median annual salary £75,000 £70,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% - -

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 4,227 5,721 3,504
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 84.37% 83.98% 94.32%
Number of salaries quoted 2,451 2,876 2,645
10th Percentile £27,500 £32,375 £31,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% +3.54%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £84,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -2.44%

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 27 November 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 27 November 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 -10 177 £70,000 +16.67% 119
Cheshire -20 32 £60,000 +14.29% 37
Merseyside -16 11 £62,500 -3.85% 12
Lancashire -43 8 £60,326 +19.46% 72
Cumbria +3 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 3 (1.31%) Apache
1 3 (1.31%) Apache Solr
1 3 (1.31%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.87%) Confluence
3 1 (0.44%) CMS
3 1 (0.44%) IIS
3 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.44%) nginx
3 1 (0.44%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (1.31%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.87%) Adobe XD
2 2 (0.87%) Sketch
3 1 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.44%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 74 (32.31%) AWS
2 69 (30.13%) Azure
3 24 (10.48%) SaaS
4 17 (7.42%) GCP
5 13 (5.68%) Serverless
6 10 (4.37%) Power Platform
7 9 (3.93%) AWS Lambda
8 7 (3.06%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (3.06%) IaaS
8 7 (3.06%) PaaS
9 6 (2.62%) GitHub
10 5 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (1.75%) Azure AKS
12 3 (1.31%) Amazon ECS
12 3 (1.31%) Amazon S3
12 3 (1.31%) Figma
12 3 (1.31%) Power Automate
13 2 (0.87%) AWS Step Functions
13 2 (0.87%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.87%) AMQP
1 2 (0.87%) HTTP
1 2 (0.87%) Internet
2 1 (0.44%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (9.17%) NoSQL
2 14 (6.11%) MongoDB
3 12 (5.24%) MySQL
4 8 (3.49%) SQL Server
5 7 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (2.62%) Power BI
6 6 (2.62%) Relational Database
7 5 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (2.18%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (1.75%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 4 (1.75%) DynamoDB
8 4 (1.75%) Neo4j
9 3 (1.31%) Big Data
10 2 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.87%) Cloudera CDH
10 2 (0.87%) Hadoop
11 1 (0.44%) Apache Cassandra
11 1 (0.44%) Data Mining
11 1 (0.44%) GIS
Development Applications
1 13 (5.68%) Git
2 9 (3.93%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.75%) GitLab
3 4 (1.75%) Jenkins
4 3 (1.31%) JIRA
5 2 (0.87%) Visual Studio
5 2 (0.87%) webpack
6 1 (0.44%) Gatling
6 1 (0.44%) Jasmine
6 1 (0.44%) JMeter
6 1 (0.44%) Karma Test Runner
6 1 (0.44%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.44%) NUnit
6 1 (0.44%) Protractor
General
1 42 (18.34%) Finance
2 39 (17.03%) Social Skills
3 9 (3.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 9 (3.93%) Marketing
4 8 (3.49%) Public Sector
4 8 (3.49%) Retail
5 7 (3.06%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (3.06%) Banking
6 6 (2.62%) Legal
7 5 (2.18%) Billing
7 5 (2.18%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.75%) Games
8 4 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (1.75%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.31%) Aerospace
9 3 (1.31%) Electronics
9 3 (1.31%) Financial Institution
10 2 (0.87%) Automotive
10 2 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.44%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 105 (45.85%) Software Engineer
2 65 (28.38%) Senior
3 34 (14.85%) Lead
4 33 (14.41%) Developer
4 33 (14.41%) Senior Software Engineer
5 13 (5.68%) Lead Software Engineer
6 12 (5.24%) Architect
7 11 (4.80%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
7 11 (4.80%) Python Engineer
8 9 (3.93%) Control Systems Engineer
8 9 (3.93%) Data Engineer
8 9 (3.93%) Python Software Engineer
8 9 (3.93%) Senior Developer
8 9 (3.93%) Senior Systems Engineer
8 9 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
8 9 (3.93%) Systems Engineer
9 8 (3.49%) AWS Engineer
9 8 (3.49%) Senior Data Engineer
10 7 (3.06%) Engineering Manager
10 7 (3.06%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (23.14%) .NET
2 51 (22.27%) React
3 22 (9.61%) AngularJS
4 19 (8.30%) RESTful
5 15 (6.55%) CSS
5 15 (6.55%) Node.js
5 15 (6.55%) Spring
5 15 (6.55%) Spring Boot
6 14 (6.11%) .NET Framework
6 14 (6.11%) HTML
7 13 (5.68%) .NET Core
8 9 (3.93%) Jest
8 9 (3.93%) Kafka
8 9 (3.93%) Next.js
8 9 (3.93%) REST
8 9 (3.93%) Vue
9 7 (3.06%) Entity Framework
10 6 (2.62%) Django
10 6 (2.62%) FastAPI
10 6 (2.62%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 35 (15.28%) Cloud Native
2 19 (8.30%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (6.99%) Greenfield Project
4 15 (6.55%) Product Ownership
5 9 (3.93%) SCADA
6 5 (2.18%) AI Agents
6 5 (2.18%) Distributed Computing
6 5 (2.18%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 3 (1.31%) BBC
8 3 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.31%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.31%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 2 (0.87%) Algorithms
9 2 (0.87%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.87%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (0.87%) IoT
9 2 (0.87%) Marketing Technology
9 2 (0.87%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.87%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.06%) Linux
2 6 (2.62%) Windows
3 3 (1.31%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.87%) CentOS
4 2 (0.87%) Debian
4 2 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.87%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.44%) Android
5 1 (0.44%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.44%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (34.50%) CI/CD
2 75 (32.75%) Agile
3 53 (23.14%) Microservices
4 52 (22.71%) DevOps
5 44 (19.21%) Mentoring
6 36 (15.72%) TDD
7 35 (15.28%) Containerisation
8 32 (13.97%) Problem-Solving
9 31 (13.54%) Continuous Improvement
10 27 (11.79%) Full-Stack Development
11 25 (10.92%) AI
11 25 (10.92%) Coaching
12 19 (8.30%) Clean Code
13 18 (7.86%) Stakeholder Management
14 17 (7.42%) Technical Leadership
14 17 (7.42%) User Experience
15 16 (6.99%) Computer Science
15 16 (6.99%) Scrum
16 15 (6.55%) Fintech
16 15 (6.55%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 56 (24.45%) C#
2 47 (20.52%) Java
3 42 (18.34%) TypeScript
4 40 (17.47%) SQL
5 36 (15.72%) Python
6 31 (13.54%) JavaScript
7 6 (2.62%) C
8 5 (2.18%) C++
8 5 (2.18%) PHP
9 3 (1.31%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.31%) Ruby
9 3 (1.31%) Rust
10 2 (0.87%) Bash
10 2 (0.87%) Embedded C++
10 2 (0.87%) Go
10 2 (0.87%) Scala
11 1 (0.44%) Embedded C
11 1 (0.44%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.44%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.44%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 27 (11.79%) Security Cleared
2 18 (7.86%) DV Cleared
3 15 (6.55%) Degree
4 12 (5.24%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (4.37%) SC Cleared
6 2 (0.87%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.44%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.44%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.44%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 1 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.37%) QA
2 4 (1.75%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.31%) ISO 20022
3 3 (1.31%) SEPA
3 3 (1.31%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.44%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.44%) GDPR
4 1 (0.44%) MISRA
4 1 (0.44%) MISRA C
System Software
1 43 (18.78%) Docker
2 2 (0.87%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.44%) KVM
3 1 (0.44%) QEMU
3 1 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.44%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 36 (15.72%) Kubernetes
2 18 (7.86%) Terraform
3 7 (3.06%) Ansible
4 5 (2.18%) Grafana
5 3 (1.31%) Puppet
6 2 (0.87%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.44%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 1 (0.44%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 27 (11.79%) Microsoft
2 8 (3.49%) Cisco
2 8 (3.49%) Salesforce
3 7 (3.06%) BiZZdesign
4 4 (1.75%) Google
5 3 (1.31%) Databricks
5 3 (1.31%) Oracle
5 3 (1.31%) SaltStack
5 3 (1.31%) SAP
6 2 (0.87%) Concur
6 2 (0.87%) Red Hat
6 2 (0.87%) Sage
7 1 (0.44%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.44%) Avaya
7 1 (0.44%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.44%) HubSpot
7 1 (0.44%) TOWER Software
7 1 (0.44%) VMware