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 1 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 27 10
Rank change year-on-year +13 -17 +11
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 880 565 934
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 7.20% 10.87% 11.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.96% 12.12% 14.74%
Number of salaries quoted 729 230 509
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,500 £42,500
25th Percentile £58,750 £52,500 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,269 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.06% +12.11% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £110,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £72,500 £75,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -3.33% +15.38% -10.34%

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 8,832 4,663 6,337
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 72.25% 89.74% 77.42%
Number of salaries quoted 6,704 2,269 3,980
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £51,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -1.96% -7.27%
75th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £79,263
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%

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 1 September 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 1 September 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 +6 690 £75,000 +7.14% 341
Cheshire -9 79 £65,000 +8.33% 30
Merseyside +22 59 £70,000 +7.69% 26
Lancashire -13 40 £60,000 +25.83% 40
Cumbria -3 12 £50,000 -16.67% 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 6 (0.68%) Apache
1 6 (0.68%) SharePoint Server
2 5 (0.57%) Apache Spark
2 5 (0.57%) FactoryTalk
3 4 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 4 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.34%) Apache Solr
4 3 (0.34%) GeoServer
5 2 (0.23%) nginx
5 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.23%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.23%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.23%) WinCC
6 1 (0.11%) CMS
6 1 (0.11%) Confluence
6 1 (0.11%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 4 (0.45%) Trello
2 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 165 (18.75%) AWS
2 93 (10.57%) Azure
3 81 (9.20%) SaaS
4 39 (4.43%) Serverless
5 35 (3.98%) GCP
6 27 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
7 20 (2.27%) Anthropic Claude
7 20 (2.27%) GitHub
8 19 (2.16%) Power Platform
9 18 (2.05%) AWS Lambda
10 15 (1.70%) Datadog
11 12 (1.36%) Dynamics 365
12 11 (1.25%) Firebase
12 11 (1.25%) Route 53
13 8 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (0.91%) Microsoft Copilot
14 6 (0.68%) Azure AI
14 6 (0.68%) dbt
14 6 (0.68%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (0.68%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.80%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.34%) Firewall
3 2 (0.23%) AMQP
3 2 (0.23%) Bluetooth
3 2 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (0.23%) Wireless
3 2 (0.23%) ZigBee
4 1 (0.11%) LTE
4 1 (0.11%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.39%) NoSQL
2 20 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (1.93%) SQL Server
4 16 (1.82%) MongoDB
5 9 (1.02%) MySQL
6 7 (0.80%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.57%) Chroma
7 5 (0.57%) FileMaker
7 5 (0.57%) Pinecone
7 5 (0.57%) Power BI
8 4 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (0.45%) DynamoDB
8 4 (0.45%) Redis
9 3 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.34%) MariaDB
9 3 (0.34%) Metadata
9 3 (0.34%) Power Query
9 3 (0.34%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 24 (2.73%) Git
2 19 (2.16%) Claude Code
3 14 (1.59%) GitLab
4 12 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 12 (1.36%) JUnit
5 10 (1.14%) Maven
6 9 (1.02%) JIRA
6 9 (1.02%) Spock
7 5 (0.57%) Cypress.io
7 5 (0.57%) IntelliJ
8 4 (0.45%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.45%) NUnit
8 4 (0.45%) Storybook
9 2 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.23%) Mocha
9 2 (0.23%) Mockito
9 2 (0.23%) Selenium
9 2 (0.23%) Vite
10 1 (0.11%) GDB
10 1 (0.11%) WinDbg
General
1 77 (8.75%) Finance
2 73 (8.30%) Social Skills
3 36 (4.09%) Retail
4 33 (3.75%) Public Sector
5 22 (2.50%) Electronics
5 22 (2.50%) Legal
6 14 (1.59%) Aviation
7 13 (1.48%) Analytical Skills
7 13 (1.48%) Law
8 12 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (0.91%) Aerospace
10 7 (0.80%) Games
11 6 (0.68%) Billing
12 5 (0.57%) Automotive
12 5 (0.57%) Manufacturing
12 5 (0.57%) Marketing
13 4 (0.45%) Publishing
14 3 (0.34%) Banking
14 3 (0.34%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 570 (64.77%) Software Engineer
2 248 (28.18%) Senior
3 180 (20.45%) Senior Software Engineer
4 117 (13.30%) Lead
5 86 (9.77%) Developer
6 81 (9.20%) Lead Software Engineer
7 53 (6.02%) Principal Engineer
8 46 (5.23%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 46 (5.23%) Software Manager
9 44 (5.00%) Principal Software Engineer
10 40 (4.55%) Java Engineer
11 39 (4.43%) Engineering Manager
12 38 (4.32%) Python Engineer
13 33 (3.75%) Java Software Engineer
14 32 (3.64%) Embedded Engineer
15 28 (3.18%) Python Software Engineer
15 28 (3.18%) Senior Java Engineer
16 27 (3.07%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 27 (3.07%) Lead Developer
16 27 (3.07%) Software Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (9.77%) .NET
2 65 (7.39%) React
3 45 (5.11%) Node.js
4 40 (4.55%) Terraform
5 34 (3.86%) AngularJS
5 34 (3.86%) Spring
6 33 (3.75%) Next.js
7 23 (2.61%) REST
7 23 (2.61%) RESTful
8 22 (2.50%) React Native
9 20 (2.27%) Spring Boot
9 20 (2.27%) Vue
10 14 (1.59%) Ruby on Rails
11 11 (1.25%) CSS
11 11 (1.25%) FastAPI
12 9 (1.02%) LangChain
12 9 (1.02%) Playwright
13 8 (0.91%) .NET Framework
14 7 (0.80%) .NET Core
14 7 (0.80%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 104 (11.82%) Cloud Native
2 49 (5.57%) Distributed Systems
3 39 (4.43%) Product Ownership
4 23 (2.61%) AI Agents
5 19 (2.16%) Mobile App
6 14 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
6 14 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (1.02%) Private Cloud
8 7 (0.80%) IoT
8 7 (0.80%) Life Science
8 7 (0.80%) Onboarding
9 6 (0.68%) Management Information System
10 5 (0.57%) Embedded Systems
10 5 (0.57%) Robotics
10 5 (0.57%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.45%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (0.34%) Distributed Architecture
12 3 (0.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 3 (0.34%) Legacy Applications
12 3 (0.34%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 35 (3.98%) Linux
2 12 (1.36%) Windows
3 6 (0.68%) Android
3 6 (0.68%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (0.45%) VMS
5 3 (0.34%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.23%) CentOS
6 2 (0.23%) Debian
6 2 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
6 2 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.23%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (16.02%) Agile
2 137 (15.57%) AI
3 133 (15.11%) Full-Stack Development
4 131 (14.89%) CI/CD
4 131 (14.89%) DevOps
5 105 (11.93%) Mentoring
6 82 (9.32%) Problem-Solving
7 78 (8.86%) Microservices
8 73 (8.30%) Continuous Improvement
9 63 (7.16%) Test Automation
10 60 (6.82%) Technical Leadership
11 57 (6.48%) Observability
12 50 (5.68%) TDD
13 44 (5.00%) Collaborative Culture
14 43 (4.89%) Stakeholder Management
15 41 (4.66%) Roadmaps
16 40 (4.55%) Platform Engineering
17 39 (4.43%) Architectural Patterns
17 39 (4.43%) Infrastructure as Code
17 39 (4.43%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 135 (15.34%) Python
2 108 (12.27%) Java
3 98 (11.14%) TypeScript
4 84 (9.55%) SQL
5 83 (9.43%) C#
6 80 (9.09%) JavaScript
7 32 (3.64%) Go
8 31 (3.52%) C++
9 19 (2.16%) C
10 15 (1.70%) Ruby
11 14 (1.59%) PHP
12 8 (0.91%) Bash
13 6 (0.68%) PowerShell
14 5 (0.57%) COBOL
15 4 (0.45%) Bicep
15 4 (0.45%) Groovy
15 4 (0.45%) Scala
16 3 (0.34%) Kotlin
17 2 (0.23%) Shell Script
18 1 (0.11%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 71 (8.07%) Security Cleared
2 53 (6.02%) SC Cleared
3 42 (4.77%) DV Cleared
4 27 (3.07%) Degree
5 13 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (0.68%) PMI Certification
7 5 (0.57%) DBS Check
8 4 (0.45%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (0.45%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.45%) PMP
9 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.11%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.11%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (3.64%) QA
2 14 (1.59%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.68%) WCAG
4 4 (0.45%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.34%) GDPR
5 3 (0.34%) IEC 61131
5 3 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.23%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 53 (6.02%) Docker
2 7 (0.80%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 44 (5.00%) Kubernetes
2 9 (1.02%) Ansible
3 6 (0.68%) Grafana
3 6 (0.68%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.23%) Argo
4 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.23%) Puppet
5 1 (0.11%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 25 (2.84%) Microsoft
2 18 (2.05%) Splunk
3 15 (1.70%) Google
4 11 (1.25%) Rockwell
5 9 (1.02%) AppDynamics
5 9 (1.02%) Siemens
6 8 (0.91%) Databricks
7 7 (0.80%) OpenAI
8 4 (0.45%) Adobe
8 4 (0.45%) New Relic
8 4 (0.45%) Xamarin
9 3 (0.34%) DevExpress
9 3 (0.34%) OneTrust
9 3 (0.34%) YouTube
10 2 (0.23%) IBM
10 2 (0.23%) MEDITECH
10 2 (0.23%) Mistral
10 2 (0.23%) Red Hat
10 2 (0.23%) SaltStack
11 1 (0.11%) Salesforce