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 9 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 24 12
Rank change year-on-year +10 -12 +15
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 691 610 1,140
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 6.48% 13.00% 10.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.41% 13.70% 13.38%
Number of salaries quoted 577 274 761
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,875 £40,000
25th Percentile £57,500 £52,500 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +12.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £71,991
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £85,000
England median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -6.67% +20.00% -16.67%

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 7,340 4,453 8,517
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 68.84% 94.93% 79.26%
Number of salaries quoted 5,580 2,032 6,460
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,625 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £73,750 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £84,975 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £58,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.45% +5.45% -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 9 June 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 9 June 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 +2 542 £70,000 -3.45% 123
Cheshire -5 72 £65,000 +13.04% 19
Lancashire -2 39 £60,000 +25.83% 41
Merseyside -4 35 £70,000 +5.66% 7
Cumbria - 3 £50,000 - 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 6 (0.87%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.72%) Apache Spark
2 5 (0.72%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.58%) Apache Solr
3 4 (0.58%) GeoServer
4 3 (0.43%) Apache
5 2 (0.29%) nginx
6 1 (0.14%) CMS
6 1 (0.14%) Confluence
6 1 (0.14%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 2 (0.29%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 10 (1.45%) Magento
2 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 141 (20.41%) AWS
2 84 (12.16%) Azure
3 55 (7.96%) SaaS
4 39 (5.64%) Serverless
5 19 (2.75%) GCP
6 17 (2.46%) Anthropic Claude
7 14 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (1.30%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (1.30%) Azure AKS
9 8 (1.16%) GitHub
10 6 (0.87%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (0.72%) Figma
12 4 (0.58%) Amazon EC2
12 4 (0.58%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (0.58%) Amazon OpenSearch
12 4 (0.58%) Amazon S3
12 4 (0.58%) Azure Key Vault
12 4 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (0.58%) Twilio
13 3 (0.43%) ChatGPT
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.43%) AMQP
2 2 (0.29%) RTP
3 1 (0.14%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (3.91%) NoSQL
2 17 (2.46%) MongoDB
3 9 (1.30%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (1.16%) MySQL
5 6 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (0.87%) Neo4j
6 5 (0.72%) Big Data
6 5 (0.72%) FileMaker
6 5 (0.72%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.72%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (0.58%) DocumentDB
7 4 (0.58%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.58%) GIS
7 4 (0.58%) QGIS
7 4 (0.58%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.43%) Cloudera CDH
9 2 (0.29%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.29%) MariaDB
10 1 (0.14%) Redis
Development Applications
1 18 (2.60%) Claude Code
2 10 (1.45%) Git
3 9 (1.30%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.43%) Bitbucket
4 3 (0.43%) JIRA
4 3 (0.43%) NUnit
5 2 (0.29%) Maven
5 2 (0.29%) Vagrant
6 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.14%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.14%) GDB
6 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.14%) GitLab
6 1 (0.14%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.14%) JUnit
6 1 (0.14%) Postman
6 1 (0.14%) Selenium
6 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.14%) WinDbg
General
1 71 (10.27%) Finance
2 42 (6.08%) Social Skills
3 25 (3.62%) Public Sector
4 19 (2.75%) Retail
5 17 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 15 (2.17%) Analytical Skills
6 15 (2.17%) Manufacturing
7 13 (1.88%) Legal
8 12 (1.74%) Electronics
9 6 (0.87%) Aerospace
10 5 (0.72%) Health Technology
11 4 (0.58%) Italian Language
11 4 (0.58%) Marketing
12 3 (0.43%) Aviation
12 3 (0.43%) Banking
12 3 (0.43%) Billing
12 3 (0.43%) French Language
12 3 (0.43%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.43%) Portuguese Language
12 3 (0.43%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 463 (67.00%) Software Engineer
2 159 (23.01%) Senior
3 120 (17.37%) Senior Software Engineer
4 106 (15.34%) Lead
5 91 (13.17%) Developer
6 61 (8.83%) Lead Software Engineer
7 42 (6.08%) Software Developer
8 41 (5.93%) Java Engineer
9 37 (5.35%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 35 (5.07%) Java Software Engineer
11 34 (4.92%) Principal Engineer
12 30 (4.34%) Principal Software Engineer
12 30 (4.34%) Senior Developer
13 28 (4.05%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
13 28 (4.05%) Lead Developer
13 28 (4.05%) Software Manager
14 25 (3.62%) PLC Software Engineer
15 22 (3.18%) Senior Java Engineer
16 20 (2.89%) Python Engineer
16 20 (2.89%) Python Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (14.62%) .NET
2 56 (8.10%) React
3 43 (6.22%) Node.js
4 28 (4.05%) RESTful
4 28 (4.05%) Spring
5 26 (3.76%) Spring Boot
6 24 (3.47%) REST
7 22 (3.18%) AngularJS
7 22 (3.18%) Next.js
8 16 (2.32%) Vue
9 12 (1.74%) .NET Framework
10 11 (1.59%) React Native
10 11 (1.59%) Ruby on Rails
11 10 (1.45%) .NET Core
11 10 (1.45%) CSS
12 8 (1.16%) Flask
13 7 (1.01%) FastAPI
14 6 (0.87%) HTML
15 5 (0.72%) CSS3
15 5 (0.72%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 82 (11.87%) Cloud Native
2 33 (4.78%) Product Ownership
3 32 (4.63%) Distributed Systems
4 16 (2.32%) Mobile App
5 14 (2.03%) AI Agents
6 9 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
6 9 (1.30%) Industry 4.0
6 9 (1.30%) IoT
6 9 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (0.72%) Life Science
7 5 (0.72%) Onboarding
7 5 (0.72%) Robotics
8 4 (0.58%) Algorithms
8 4 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (0.58%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.43%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.43%) Legacy Applications
10 2 (0.29%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.29%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.29%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 13 (1.88%) Linux
2 9 (1.30%) Android
3 7 (1.01%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.58%) Windows
5 3 (0.43%) CentOS
5 3 (0.43%) Debian
5 3 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.43%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (18.23%) Full-Stack Development
2 116 (16.79%) Agile
3 106 (15.34%) DevOps
4 98 (14.18%) CI/CD
5 80 (11.58%) AI
6 78 (11.29%) Mentoring
7 72 (10.42%) Microservices
8 57 (8.25%) Problem-Solving
9 53 (7.67%) TDD
10 43 (6.22%) Coaching
11 42 (6.08%) Technical Leadership
12 40 (5.79%) Scrum
13 37 (5.35%) Continuous Improvement
14 36 (5.21%) Open Source
15 35 (5.07%) Event-Driven
16 34 (4.92%) Test Automation
17 30 (4.34%) Infrastructure as Code
18 29 (4.20%) Containerisation
19 28 (4.05%) Clean Code
20 27 (3.91%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 110 (15.92%) Java
2 102 (14.76%) Python
3 80 (11.58%) C#
4 69 (9.99%) SQL
5 65 (9.41%) JavaScript
6 55 (7.96%) TypeScript
7 21 (3.04%) C++
8 17 (2.46%) Go
8 17 (2.46%) PHP
9 11 (1.59%) C
9 11 (1.59%) Ruby
10 5 (0.72%) Bash
10 5 (0.72%) COBOL
11 4 (0.58%) Bicep
11 4 (0.58%) Kotlin
11 4 (0.58%) PowerShell
12 2 (0.29%) Scala
13 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.14%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 53 (7.67%) Security Cleared
2 38 (5.50%) DV Cleared
2 38 (5.50%) SC Cleared
3 16 (2.32%) Degree
4 11 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (0.58%) DBS Check
6 2 (0.29%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.14%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (1.88%) QA
2 6 (0.87%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.14%) GDPR
4 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (4.63%) Docker
2 5 (0.72%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 36 (5.21%) Kubernetes
2 35 (5.07%) Terraform
3 6 (0.87%) Ansible
4 3 (0.43%) Grafana
4 3 (0.43%) Prometheus
4 3 (0.43%) Puppet
5 2 (0.29%) Packer
5 2 (0.29%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.14%) Argo
Vendors
1 21 (3.04%) Microsoft
2 18 (2.60%) Salesforce
3 13 (1.88%) Cisco
4 11 (1.59%) Rockwell
5 10 (1.45%) Adobe
6 6 (0.87%) Google
6 6 (0.87%) Siemens
7 5 (0.72%) Xamarin
8 3 (0.43%) DevExpress
8 3 (0.43%) Red Hat
8 3 (0.43%) SaltStack
8 3 (0.43%) Splunk
9 2 (0.29%) OpenAI
10 1 (0.14%) BiZZdesign
10 1 (0.14%) Databricks