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

6 months to
10 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 54 9 14
Rank change year-on-year -45 +5 -1
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 261 764 429
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 5.13% 11.12% 10.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.04% 13.69% 11.50%
Number of salaries quoted 178 317 284
10th Percentile £46,250 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,750 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £57,500 £63,500
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -9.45% +5.83%
75th Percentile £87,188 £68,750 £76,563
90th Percentile £100,000 £75,000 £86,250
England median annual salary £75,000 £68,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +10.29% -2.86% -

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 4,318 5,581 3,730
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 84.85% 81.26% 94.17%
Number of salaries quoted 2,415 2,755 2,838
10th Percentile £27,000 £32,114 £31,250
25th Percentile £34,750 £40,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% +4.76%
75th Percentile £64,612 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £83,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

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 10 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 10 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 -13 188 £72,500 +20.83% 354
Cheshire -23 44 £60,000 +10.09% 96
Lancashire -49 16 £51,342 +1.67% 148
Merseyside -26 12 £62,500 -3.85% 19
Cumbria +4 1 £60,000 +4.35% 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 9 (3.45%) Confluence
2 3 (1.15%) Apache
2 3 (1.15%) Apache Solr
2 3 (1.15%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.77%) IIS
3 2 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.38%) CMS
4 1 (0.38%) OpenStack
Applications
1 4 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.15%) Adobe XD
2 3 (1.15%) Sketch
3 2 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.77%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.77%) Simulink
4 1 (0.38%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 112 (42.91%) AWS
2 94 (36.02%) Azure
3 24 (9.20%) SaaS
4 18 (6.90%) GCP
5 14 (5.36%) Serverless
6 13 (4.98%) GitHub
7 10 (3.83%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (3.45%) Power Platform
9 6 (2.30%) Microsoft 365
10 5 (1.92%) IaaS
10 5 (1.92%) PaaS
11 4 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (1.15%) Amazon ECS
12 3 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
12 3 (1.15%) Amazon S3
12 3 (1.15%) Figma
12 3 (1.15%) OpenShift
13 2 (0.77%) Cloud Computing
13 2 (0.77%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.15%) Internet
2 2 (0.77%) AMQP
2 2 (0.77%) HTTP
3 1 (0.38%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (13.79%) SQL Server
2 22 (8.43%) NoSQL
3 21 (8.05%) MongoDB
4 14 (5.36%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (4.21%) MySQL
6 6 (2.30%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.92%) Power BI
8 4 (1.53%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 4 (1.53%) DynamoDB
8 4 (1.53%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (1.15%) Big Data
9 3 (1.15%) Neo4j
10 2 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.77%) Cloudera CDH
10 2 (0.77%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.77%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.77%) SQL CLR
11 1 (0.38%) Data Mining
11 1 (0.38%) GIS
Development Applications
1 39 (14.94%) JIRA
2 37 (14.18%) GitLab
3 35 (13.41%) Cucumber
3 35 (13.41%) Selenium
4 29 (11.11%) Bitbucket
4 29 (11.11%) Maven
4 29 (11.11%) SonarQube
4 29 (11.11%) Sonatype Nexus
5 9 (3.45%) Cypress.io
5 9 (3.45%) Git
6 5 (1.92%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.77%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.77%) webpack
8 1 (0.38%) Gatling
8 1 (0.38%) Jasmine
8 1 (0.38%) JMeter
8 1 (0.38%) Karma Test Runner
8 1 (0.38%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.38%) NUnit
8 1 (0.38%) Protractor
General
1 76 (29.12%) Finance
2 38 (14.56%) Retail
3 37 (14.18%) Social Skills
4 36 (13.79%) Banking
5 34 (13.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 29 (11.11%) Corporate Banking
6 29 (11.11%) Investment Banking
7 9 (3.45%) Marketing
7 9 (3.45%) Public Sector
8 7 (2.68%) Analytical Skills
9 6 (2.30%) Legal
9 6 (2.30%) Manufacturing
9 6 (2.30%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.92%) Billing
11 4 (1.53%) Electronics
11 4 (1.53%) Games
11 4 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.15%) Financial Institution
13 2 (0.77%) Back Office
13 2 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 139 (53.26%) Software Engineer
2 70 (26.82%) Senior
3 38 (14.56%) Senior Software Engineer
4 32 (12.26%) Developer
5 29 (11.11%) Lead
6 15 (5.75%) Java Engineer
7 12 (4.60%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
7 12 (4.60%) Java Software Engineer
7 12 (4.60%) Lead Software Engineer
8 11 (4.21%) Systems Engineer
9 10 (3.83%) Architect
9 10 (3.83%) AWS Engineer
9 10 (3.83%) Python Engineer
10 9 (3.45%) Control Systems Engineer
10 9 (3.45%) Principal Engineer
10 9 (3.45%) Python Software Engineer
10 9 (3.45%) Senior Developer
10 9 (3.45%) Senior Systems Engineer
11 8 (3.07%) Data Engineer
12 7 (2.68%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (30.27%) React
2 53 (20.31%) Spring
2 53 (20.31%) Spring Boot
3 46 (17.62%) .NET
3 46 (17.62%) RESTful
4 45 (17.24%) Kafka
5 42 (16.09%) CSS
6 41 (15.71%) HTML
7 39 (14.94%) REST
8 38 (14.56%) Jest
9 33 (12.64%) CSS3
10 32 (12.26%) HTML5
10 32 (12.26%) Redux
11 30 (11.49%) Sass
12 29 (11.11%) JPA
13 21 (8.05%) AngularJS
14 15 (5.75%) Node.js
15 13 (4.98%) .NET Core
16 10 (3.83%) .NET Framework
17 9 (3.45%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 46 (17.62%) Product Ownership
2 32 (12.26%) Enterprise Software
3 29 (11.11%) Cloud Native
4 17 (6.51%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (6.13%) Greenfield Project
6 9 (3.45%) SCADA
7 8 (3.07%) Wiki
8 7 (2.68%) AI Agents
9 4 (1.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 3 (1.15%) BBC
10 3 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (1.15%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.15%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.15%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 2 (0.77%) Animation
11 2 (0.77%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.77%) Distributed Computing
11 2 (0.77%) Embedded Systems
11 2 (0.77%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 2 (0.77%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 6 (2.30%) Linux
1 6 (2.30%) Windows
2 4 (1.53%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.77%) CentOS
3 2 (0.77%) Debian
3 2 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (0.77%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.38%) Android
4 1 (0.38%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (42.91%) Agile
2 108 (41.38%) CI/CD
3 90 (34.48%) DevOps
4 82 (31.42%) Microservices
5 68 (26.05%) Mentoring
6 66 (25.29%) Containerisation
7 59 (22.61%) Full-Stack Development
8 47 (18.01%) Test Automation
9 45 (17.24%) User Experience
10 42 (16.09%) SDLC
10 42 (16.09%) TDD
11 35 (13.41%) Front End Development
11 35 (13.41%) Performance Optimisation
12 34 (13.03%) Migration
13 31 (11.88%) Strategic Thinking
14 30 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
14 30 (11.49%) Problem-Solving
14 30 (11.49%) Responsive Web Design
15 25 (9.58%) AI
16 21 (8.05%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 87 (33.33%) Java
2 70 (26.82%) SQL
2 70 (26.82%) TypeScript
3 59 (22.61%) JavaScript
4 52 (19.92%) C#
5 37 (14.18%) Python
6 6 (2.30%) C++
7 5 (1.92%) PHP
7 5 (1.92%) Ruby
8 4 (1.53%) C
9 3 (1.15%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.15%) Rust
10 2 (0.77%) Bash
10 2 (0.77%) Embedded C++
10 2 (0.77%) Go
10 2 (0.77%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.77%) Scala
11 1 (0.38%) Embedded C
11 1 (0.38%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.38%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 27 (10.34%) Security Cleared
2 20 (7.66%) Degree
3 18 (6.90%) DV Cleared
4 13 (4.98%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (3.83%) SC Cleared
6 2 (0.77%) DBS Check
6 2 (0.77%) HNC
6 2 (0.77%) HND
6 2 (0.77%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 2 (0.77%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.38%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (13.41%) QA
2 33 (12.64%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.15%) ISO 20022
3 3 (1.15%) SEPA
3 3 (1.15%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.38%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.38%) GDPR
4 1 (0.38%) MISRA
4 1 (0.38%) MISRA C
4 1 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 74 (28.35%) Docker
2 2 (0.77%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.38%) KVM
3 1 (0.38%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 66 (25.29%) Kubernetes
2 19 (7.28%) Terraform
3 7 (2.68%) Ansible
4 4 (1.53%) Grafana
5 3 (1.15%) Puppet
6 2 (0.77%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.38%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 1 (0.38%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 29 (11.11%) Solace
2 24 (9.20%) Microsoft
3 5 (1.92%) BiZZdesign
3 5 (1.92%) Google
4 4 (1.53%) Cisco
4 4 (1.53%) Oracle
4 4 (1.53%) Salesforce
4 4 (1.53%) SAP
5 3 (1.15%) Databricks
5 3 (1.15%) SaltStack
6 2 (0.77%) Avaya
6 2 (0.77%) Concur
6 2 (0.77%) Ping Identity
6 2 (0.77%) Red Hat
6 2 (0.77%) Sage
6 2 (0.77%) VMware
7 1 (0.38%) Adobe
7 1 (0.38%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.38%) IBM
7 1 (0.38%) TOWER Software