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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 29 10 19
Rank change year-on-year -19 +9 -5
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 519 886 407
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 10.06% 11.38% 8.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.25% 14.66% 9.14%
Number of salaries quoted 187 450 254
10th Percentile £47,610 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £54,750 £48,750 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £58,500 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +19.66% -6.40% +4.17%
75th Percentile £86,875 £69,950 £76,250
90th Percentile £107,500 £80,000 £86,250
England median annual salary £77,500 £65,000 £72,500
% change year-on-year +19.23% -10.34% +3.57%

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 4,613 6,042 4,451
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 89.38% 77.57% 94.78%
Number of salaries quoted 2,205 3,527 3,239
10th Percentile £27,550 £30,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £41,923
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,309 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.61% -8.53% +4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £79,375 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% -8.00% +4.17%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Software Engineering as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineering 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 13 September 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 13 September 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 -6 299 £72,500 +20.83% 134
Lancashire -27 103 £47,683 -13.30% 82
Cheshire -2 97 £63,750 +15.91% 46
Merseyside -26 19 £65,000 - 12
Cumbria +2 1 £60,000 +9.09% 3
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 48 (9.25%) Confluence
2 3 (0.58%) IIS
2 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.19%) Apache
3 1 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.19%) Apache Solr
3 1 (0.19%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.19%) CMS
Applications
1 9 (1.73%) Simulink
2 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.39%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.39%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.19%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.19%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 380 (73.22%) AWS
2 334 (64.35%) Azure
3 229 (44.12%) GCP
4 19 (3.66%) SaaS
5 18 (3.47%) Serverless
6 12 (2.31%) GitHub
7 10 (1.93%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (1.35%) Power Platform
10 6 (1.16%) Microsoft 365
11 5 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
12 3 (0.58%) Amazon Cognito
12 3 (0.58%) Amazon ECS
12 3 (0.58%) Amazon S3
12 3 (0.58%) Apigee
12 3 (0.58%) Azure Service Bus
12 3 (0.58%) CloudFront
12 3 (0.58%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 3 (0.58%) IaaS
12 3 (0.58%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.96%) Internet
2 2 (0.39%) HTTP
3 1 (0.19%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.19%) Software-Defined Radio
3 1 (0.19%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.19%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (22.93%) SQL Server
2 21 (4.05%) NoSQL
3 20 (3.85%) MongoDB
4 12 (2.31%) MySQL
5 11 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (1.16%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (0.96%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.58%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.58%) Data Hub
8 3 (0.58%) Power BI
8 3 (0.58%) SQL CLR
9 2 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.19%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.19%) Big Data
10 1 (0.19%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.19%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.19%) Neo4j
10 1 (0.19%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 119 (22.93%) JIRA
2 117 (22.54%) GitLab
3 115 (22.16%) Cucumber
3 115 (22.16%) Selenium
4 112 (21.58%) Maven
4 112 (21.58%) SonarQube
4 112 (21.58%) Sonatype Nexus
5 109 (21.00%) Bitbucket
6 12 (2.31%) Git
7 6 (1.16%) Jenkins
8 4 (0.77%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.58%) Jasmine
9 3 (0.58%) JUnit
9 3 (0.58%) Karma Test Runner
10 2 (0.39%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.39%) webpack
11 1 (0.19%) CMake
11 1 (0.19%) Gatling
11 1 (0.19%) JMeter
11 1 (0.19%) LoadRunner
General
1 283 (54.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 160 (30.83%) Finance
3 121 (23.31%) Banking
4 84 (16.18%) Retail
5 70 (13.49%) Corporate Banking
5 70 (13.49%) Investment Banking
6 34 (6.55%) Social Skills
7 8 (1.54%) Marketing
8 7 (1.35%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (1.35%) Public Sector
9 6 (1.16%) Manufacturing
10 5 (0.96%) Legal
10 5 (0.96%) Telecoms
11 4 (0.77%) Electronics
12 3 (0.58%) Back Office
12 3 (0.58%) Law
13 2 (0.39%) Billing
13 2 (0.39%) Games
13 2 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.39%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 392 (75.53%) Software Engineer
2 246 (47.40%) Senior
3 218 (42.00%) Senior Software Engineer
4 41 (7.90%) Lead
5 37 (7.13%) Developer
6 20 (3.85%) Lead Software Engineer
7 16 (3.08%) Java Engineer
8 14 (2.70%) AWS Engineer
8 14 (2.70%) Principal Engineer
8 14 (2.70%) Systems Engineer
9 13 (2.50%) Java Software Engineer
10 12 (2.31%) AWS Software Engineer
11 10 (1.93%) Senior Developer
12 8 (1.54%) Principal Software Engineer
13 7 (1.35%) .NET Developer
13 7 (1.35%) Architect
13 7 (1.35%) Engineering Manager
14 6 (1.16%) Data Engineer
14 6 (1.16%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
14 6 (1.16%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 218 (42.00%) .NET
2 195 (37.57%) Node.js
3 162 (31.21%) React
4 135 (26.01%) Spring Boot
5 134 (25.82%) Spring
6 127 (24.47%) Kafka
7 122 (23.51%) HTML
8 121 (23.31%) CSS
9 111 (21.39%) Redux
10 109 (21.00%) JPA
11 85 (16.38%) RESTful
12 82 (15.80%) REST
13 74 (14.26%) HTML5
13 74 (14.26%) Jest
14 73 (14.07%) CSS3
14 73 (14.07%) Sass
15 47 (9.06%) Hibernate
16 20 (3.85%) AngularJS
17 17 (3.28%) .NET Core
18 8 (1.54%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 172 (33.14%) Cyberattack
1 172 (33.14%) Linux Command Line
1 172 (33.14%) Self-Motivation
2 132 (25.43%) Product Ownership
3 109 (21.00%) Enterprise Software
4 26 (5.01%) Cloud Native
5 17 (3.28%) Greenfield Project
6 16 (3.08%) Distributed Systems
7 9 (1.73%) AI Agents
7 9 (1.73%) Wiki
8 7 (1.35%) Mobile App
9 5 (0.96%) Algorithms
9 5 (0.96%) Embedded Systems
9 5 (0.96%) SCADA
10 4 (0.77%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.58%) BBC
11 3 (0.58%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.58%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.58%) Team-Oriented Environment
12 2 (0.39%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 182 (35.07%) Linux
2 7 (1.35%) Windows
3 4 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.58%) Android
4 3 (0.58%) Unix
5 1 (0.19%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 366 (70.52%) Agile
2 337 (64.93%) Microservices
3 276 (53.18%) Mentoring
4 254 (48.94%) User Experience
5 187 (36.03%) CI/CD
6 182 (35.07%) Scrum
7 181 (34.87%) Cloud Security
7 181 (34.87%) Machine Learning
8 180 (34.68%) DevOps
9 177 (34.10%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 173 (33.33%) Data Engineering
11 143 (27.55%) Full-Stack Development
12 139 (26.78%) Containerisation
13 130 (25.05%) Test Automation
14 120 (23.12%) SDLC
15 118 (22.74%) Performance Optimisation
16 117 (22.54%) Front End Development
17 86 (16.57%) TDD
18 73 (14.07%) Migration
19 71 (13.68%) Responsive Web Design
Programming Languages
1 345 (66.47%) Java
2 324 (62.43%) JavaScript
3 214 (41.23%) Python
4 181 (34.87%) C++
5 180 (34.68%) Go
6 175 (33.72%) Rust
7 147 (28.32%) SQL
8 124 (23.89%) TypeScript
9 48 (9.25%) C#
10 9 (1.73%) MATLAB
11 5 (0.96%) Ruby
12 4 (0.77%) C
12 4 (0.77%) PHP
13 3 (0.58%) Bash
14 2 (0.39%) Embedded C++
14 2 (0.39%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.19%) Embedded C
15 1 (0.19%) Objective-C
15 1 (0.19%) Perl
15 1 (0.19%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 190 (36.61%) Security Cleared
2 183 (35.26%) DV Cleared
3 172 (33.14%) AWS Certification
3 172 (33.14%) AWS Certified Developer
3 172 (33.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 35 (6.74%) Degree
5 18 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (1.73%) HNC
6 9 (1.73%) HND
7 7 (1.35%) SC Cleared
8 2 (0.39%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.39%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 2 (0.39%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.39%) Postgraduate
9 1 (0.19%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (21.97%) QA
2 74 (14.26%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.19%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.19%) GDPR
3 1 (0.19%) ISO 20022
3 1 (0.19%) MISRA
3 1 (0.19%) MISRA C
3 1 (0.19%) SEPA
3 1 (0.19%) TARGET2
3 1 (0.19%) WCAG
System Software
1 156 (30.06%) Docker
2 3 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 148 (28.52%) Kubernetes
2 29 (5.59%) Terraform
3 4 (0.77%) Ansible
4 3 (0.58%) Grafana
4 3 (0.58%) Istio
4 3 (0.58%) Progress Chef
5 2 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 1 (0.19%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.19%) Puppet
Vendors
1 109 (21.00%) Solace
2 18 (3.47%) Microsoft
3 7 (1.35%) Ping Identity
4 5 (0.96%) Google
5 3 (0.58%) BiZZdesign
5 3 (0.58%) Oracle
5 3 (0.58%) SAP
5 3 (0.58%) VMware
6 2 (0.39%) Avaya
6 2 (0.39%) Concur
6 2 (0.39%) Databricks
6 2 (0.39%) ForgeRock
6 2 (0.39%) IBM
6 2 (0.39%) Sage
7 1 (0.19%) Adobe
7 1 (0.19%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.19%) Talend
7 1 (0.19%) TOWER Software
7 1 (0.19%) Workday
7 1 (0.19%) Xilinx