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 15 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 24 14
Rank change year-on-year -2 -10 +12
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 612 608 864
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 5.87% 13.14% 9.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.19% 13.72% 11.21%
Number of salaries quoted 500 284 725
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £67,269 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.34% +12.11% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £106,000 £86,250
England median annual salary £72,500 £72,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year - +16.00% -13.97%

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 7,470 4,431 7,710
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 71.69% 95.78% 81.98%
Number of salaries quoted 4,875 2,124 6,113
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,750 £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 £71,250 £70,000 £65,603
90th Percentile £90,000 £83,750 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -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 15 May 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 15 May 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 +3 482 £70,000 +1.82% 125
Cheshire -23 64 £65,000 +23.81% 22
Lancashire -20 32 £60,000 +25.83% 31
Merseyside -11 31 £70,000 +5.66% 16
Cumbria -23 3 £50,000 +25.00% 3
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 5 (0.82%) Apache Spark
1 5 (0.82%) FactoryTalk
2 4 (0.65%) Apache Solr
2 4 (0.65%) GeoServer
3 3 (0.49%) Apache
4 2 (0.33%) Confluence
4 2 (0.33%) nginx
4 2 (0.33%) SharePoint Server
5 1 (0.16%) CMS
5 1 (0.16%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 2 (0.33%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 10 (1.63%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 116 (18.95%) AWS
2 82 (13.40%) Azure
3 50 (8.17%) SaaS
4 33 (5.39%) Serverless
5 17 (2.78%) GCP
6 15 (2.45%) Anthropic Claude
7 11 (1.80%) Azure AKS
7 11 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.31%) Figma
8 8 (1.31%) GitHub
9 7 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (0.82%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.65%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (0.65%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 4 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
11 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Copilot
11 4 (0.65%) Twilio
12 3 (0.49%) Azure Key Vault
12 3 (0.49%) ChatGPT
12 3 (0.49%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.49%) AMQP
2 2 (0.33%) RTP
3 1 (0.16%) LTE
3 1 (0.16%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (3.92%) NoSQL
2 16 (2.61%) MongoDB
3 9 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (1.14%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (1.14%) MySQL
4 7 (1.14%) Neo4j
5 6 (0.98%) Relational Database
6 5 (0.82%) Big Data
6 5 (0.82%) FileMaker
6 5 (0.82%) Hadoop
7 4 (0.65%) DocumentDB
7 4 (0.65%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.65%) GIS
7 4 (0.65%) QGIS
7 4 (0.65%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.49%) Cloudera CDH
9 2 (0.33%) PostHog
9 2 (0.33%) Power BI
9 2 (0.33%) Redis
Development Applications
1 16 (2.61%) Claude Code
2 9 (1.47%) Git
3 8 (1.31%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.49%) GitLab
4 3 (0.49%) JIRA
4 3 (0.49%) NUnit
5 2 (0.33%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.33%) Maven
5 2 (0.33%) Vagrant
6 1 (0.16%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.16%) GDB
6 1 (0.16%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.16%) JUnit
6 1 (0.16%) Postman
6 1 (0.16%) Selenium
6 1 (0.16%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.16%) WinDbg
General
1 61 (9.97%) Finance
2 39 (6.37%) Social Skills
3 23 (3.76%) Public Sector
4 21 (3.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 17 (2.78%) Retail
6 16 (2.61%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (2.29%) Manufacturing
8 11 (1.80%) Electronics
9 7 (1.14%) Legal
10 6 (0.98%) Aerospace
11 5 (0.82%) Health Technology
12 4 (0.65%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.49%) Aviation
13 3 (0.49%) Banking
13 3 (0.49%) French Language
13 3 (0.49%) Marketing
13 3 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.49%) Portuguese Language
13 3 (0.49%) Spanish Language
14 2 (0.33%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 409 (66.83%) Software Engineer
2 118 (19.28%) Senior
3 104 (16.99%) Lead
4 87 (14.22%) Senior Software Engineer
5 75 (12.25%) Developer
6 58 (9.48%) Lead Software Engineer
7 37 (6.05%) Java Engineer
8 33 (5.39%) Software Developer
9 31 (5.07%) Full-Stack Engineer
9 31 (5.07%) Java Software Engineer
10 28 (4.58%) Principal Engineer
10 28 (4.58%) Principal Software Engineer
11 24 (3.92%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
11 24 (3.92%) Lead Developer
11 24 (3.92%) PLC Software Engineer
12 23 (3.76%) Senior Developer
13 18 (2.94%) C# Software Engineer
13 18 (2.94%) Senior Java Engineer
13 18 (2.94%) Software Manager
14 16 (2.61%) Python Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (14.05%) .NET
2 49 (8.01%) React
3 38 (6.21%) Node.js
4 27 (4.41%) RESTful
5 25 (4.08%) Spring
6 23 (3.76%) Spring Boot
7 21 (3.43%) AngularJS
7 21 (3.43%) REST
8 15 (2.45%) .NET Framework
9 12 (1.96%) Vue
10 11 (1.80%) CSS
10 11 (1.80%) Next.js
11 9 (1.47%) .NET Core
12 8 (1.31%) Flask
13 7 (1.14%) HTML
14 5 (0.82%) CSS3
14 5 (0.82%) Django
14 5 (0.82%) Entity Framework
14 5 (0.82%) RabbitMQ
14 5 (0.82%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 67 (10.95%) Cloud Native
2 22 (3.59%) Product Ownership
3 21 (3.43%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (1.63%) IoT
4 10 (1.63%) Mobile App
5 9 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
5 9 (1.47%) Industry 4.0
6 6 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (0.82%) AI Agents
7 5 (0.82%) Management Information System
7 5 (0.82%) Robotics
8 4 (0.65%) Algorithms
8 4 (0.65%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.49%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.49%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.49%) Life Science
10 2 (0.33%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.33%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.33%) Legacy Applications
11 1 (0.16%) Smart City
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.63%) Linux
2 9 (1.47%) Android
3 7 (1.14%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.65%) Windows
5 3 (0.49%) CentOS
5 3 (0.49%) Debian
5 3 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.49%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.16%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (18.46%) Agile
2 100 (16.34%) Full-Stack Development
3 92 (15.03%) DevOps
4 83 (13.56%) CI/CD
5 70 (11.44%) Mentoring
6 60 (9.80%) Microservices
7 57 (9.31%) AI
8 48 (7.84%) TDD
9 46 (7.52%) Problem-Solving
10 44 (7.19%) Coaching
11 42 (6.86%) Scrum
12 38 (6.21%) Technical Leadership
13 35 (5.72%) Open Source
14 31 (5.07%) Continuous Improvement
15 29 (4.74%) Containerisation
15 29 (4.74%) Event-Driven
16 26 (4.25%) Analytics
17 25 (4.08%) Clean Code
18 23 (3.76%) Infrastructure as Code
18 23 (3.76%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 105 (17.16%) Java
2 82 (13.40%) Python
3 68 (11.11%) C#
4 59 (9.64%) JavaScript
4 59 (9.64%) SQL
5 48 (7.84%) TypeScript
6 19 (3.10%) C++
7 15 (2.45%) PHP
8 13 (2.12%) Go
9 12 (1.96%) C
10 5 (0.82%) COBOL
11 4 (0.65%) Bash
11 4 (0.65%) Bicep
11 4 (0.65%) Kotlin
11 4 (0.65%) Ruby
12 3 (0.49%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.33%) Scala
14 1 (0.16%) Apex Code
14 1 (0.16%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 50 (8.17%) Security Cleared
2 35 (5.72%) DV Cleared
2 35 (5.72%) SC Cleared
3 15 (2.45%) Degree
4 10 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (0.49%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (2.78%) QA
2 9 (1.47%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (4.74%) Docker
2 5 (0.82%) Firmware
3 1 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 28 (4.58%) Terraform
3 5 (0.82%) Grafana
4 3 (0.49%) Ansible
4 3 (0.49%) Prometheus
4 3 (0.49%) Puppet
5 2 (0.33%) Packer
5 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 24 (3.92%) Microsoft
1 24 (3.92%) Salesforce
2 19 (3.10%) Cisco
3 11 (1.80%) Rockwell
4 10 (1.63%) Adobe
5 6 (0.98%) Google
5 6 (0.98%) Siemens
6 5 (0.82%) Xamarin
7 3 (0.49%) BiZZdesign
7 3 (0.49%) DevExpress
7 3 (0.49%) Red Hat
7 3 (0.49%) SaltStack
8 1 (0.16%) OpenAI