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 16 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 22 13
Rank change year-on-year -9 -9 +4
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 351 350 680
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.79% 7.61% 10.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.15% 8.17% 11.85%
Number of salaries quoted 273 217 547
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,750 £48,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £63,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £77,500 £76,875
90th Percentile £100,000 £93,778 £86,250
England median annual salary £70,000 £72,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -3.45% +11.54% -7.14%

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 5,709 4,285 5,737
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 77.94% 93.17% 85.82%
Number of salaries quoted 2,993 2,112 4,683
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £27,800
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,620 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -8.90%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £66,778
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £80,056
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -12.00% +13.64% -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 16 February 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 16 February 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 -8 274 £70,000 +7.69% 114
Cheshire -12 45 £60,000 +14.29% 20
Merseyside -9 19 £55,000 -18.52% 3
Lancashire -24 13 £60,163 +18.68% 28
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 (1.71%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.14%) Apache
2 4 (1.14%) Apache Solr
3 2 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.57%) Confluence
3 2 (0.57%) nginx
4 1 (0.28%) GeoServer
4 1 (0.28%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (0.57%) Adobe XD
1 2 (0.57%) EngageOne
1 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.57%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (2.85%) Magento
2 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 93 (26.50%) Azure
2 88 (25.07%) AWS
3 31 (8.83%) SaaS
4 20 (5.70%) GCP
5 15 (4.27%) Serverless
6 9 (2.56%) Azure AKS
6 9 (2.56%) IaaS
6 9 (2.56%) PaaS
7 8 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (1.99%) Figma
8 7 (1.99%) Power Platform
9 6 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
11 4 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (1.14%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.85%) Power Automate
12 3 (0.85%) Twilio
13 2 (0.57%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.14%) AMQP
2 2 (0.57%) HTTP
2 2 (0.57%) RTP
3 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.12%) NoSQL
2 11 (3.13%) MongoDB
3 8 (2.28%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (2.28%) MySQL
3 8 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.71%) Big Data
4 6 (1.71%) Hadoop
4 6 (1.71%) Neo4j
4 6 (1.71%) Power BI
4 6 (1.71%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.42%) SQL Server
6 4 (1.14%) Cloudera CDH
7 2 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.57%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.57%) DocumentDB
7 2 (0.57%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.57%) PostHog
7 2 (0.57%) Redis
8 1 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 8 (2.28%) Git
2 6 (1.71%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.14%) GitLab
3 4 (1.14%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.57%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.57%) JIRA
4 2 (0.57%) Vagrant
5 1 (0.28%) NUnit
5 1 (0.28%) Postman
5 1 (0.28%) Protractor
5 1 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 51 (14.53%) Finance
2 46 (13.11%) Social Skills
3 26 (7.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 15 (4.27%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (3.42%) Public Sector
6 6 (1.71%) Banking
6 6 (1.71%) Electronics
7 5 (1.42%) Aerospace
7 5 (1.42%) Billing
7 5 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (1.42%) Manufacturing
7 5 (1.42%) Marketing
8 4 (1.14%) Italian Language
8 4 (1.14%) Retail
9 3 (0.85%) Automotive
9 3 (0.85%) Financial Institution
9 3 (0.85%) French Language
9 3 (0.85%) Games
9 3 (0.85%) Portuguese Language
9 3 (0.85%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 188 (53.56%) Software Engineer
2 69 (19.66%) Senior
3 66 (18.80%) Lead
4 47 (13.39%) Developer
5 41 (11.68%) Senior Software Engineer
6 24 (6.84%) Lead Software Engineer
7 21 (5.98%) Software Developer
8 19 (5.41%) Java Engineer
9 15 (4.27%) Java Software Engineer
10 14 (3.99%) Project Manager
11 13 (3.70%) Architect
11 13 (3.70%) Lead Developer
12 11 (3.13%) Analyst
12 11 (3.13%) AWS Engineer
12 11 (3.13%) Business Analyst
12 11 (3.13%) Python Engineer
13 10 (2.85%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
13 10 (2.85%) Embedded Engineer
13 10 (2.85%) Senior Developer
13 10 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (19.37%) .NET
2 52 (14.81%) React
3 23 (6.55%) Node.js
3 23 (6.55%) RESTful
4 22 (6.27%) AngularJS
5 15 (4.27%) .NET Framework
6 14 (3.99%) REST
7 13 (3.70%) CSS
7 13 (3.70%) Spring
7 13 (3.70%) Spring Boot
8 11 (3.13%) .NET Core
8 11 (3.13%) HTML
9 9 (2.56%) Flask
9 9 (2.56%) Next.js
10 7 (1.99%) Vue
11 6 (1.71%) Django
11 6 (1.71%) RabbitMQ
11 6 (1.71%) Web Services
12 5 (1.42%) Jest
12 5 (1.42%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 43 (12.25%) Cloud Native
2 16 (4.56%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (3.70%) Greenfield Project
4 10 (2.85%) Product Ownership
5 8 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (1.99%) IoT
7 5 (1.42%) Distributed Computing
7 5 (1.42%) Onboarding
7 5 (1.42%) SCADA
8 4 (1.14%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 3 (0.85%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.85%) Industry 4.0
9 3 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.85%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 2 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.57%) Animation
10 2 (0.57%) Client/Server
10 2 (0.57%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.57%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.28%) Linux
2 6 (1.71%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.14%) Android
3 4 (1.14%) CentOS
3 4 (1.14%) Debian
3 4 (1.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (1.14%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.85%) Windows
5 2 (0.57%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.28%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (27.07%) Agile
2 76 (21.65%) CI/CD
3 64 (18.23%) Mentoring
4 60 (17.09%) Microservices
5 47 (13.39%) Coaching
6 44 (12.54%) DevOps
7 41 (11.68%) Full-Stack Development
8 39 (11.11%) TDD
9 35 (9.97%) Scrum
10 34 (9.69%) Containerisation
11 33 (9.40%) Problem-Solving
12 31 (8.83%) AI
13 29 (8.26%) Analytics
13 29 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 28 (7.98%) Technical Leadership
15 25 (7.12%) Open Source
16 24 (6.84%) Fintech
17 23 (6.55%) Clean Code
18 20 (5.70%) User Experience
19 18 (5.13%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 64 (18.23%) Java
2 62 (17.66%) C#
3 49 (13.96%) Python
4 45 (12.82%) SQL
5 36 (10.26%) TypeScript
6 35 (9.97%) JavaScript
7 17 (4.84%) PHP
8 6 (1.71%) C
8 6 (1.71%) Go
9 4 (1.14%) Scala
10 3 (0.85%) C++
10 3 (0.85%) Rust
11 2 (0.57%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.57%) Ruby
12 1 (0.28%) Bash
12 1 (0.28%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 25 (7.12%) Security Cleared
2 16 (4.56%) DV Cleared
3 11 (3.13%) Degree
3 11 (3.13%) SC Cleared
4 7 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (0.85%) DBS Check
6 1 (0.28%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.28%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (4.27%) QA
2 7 (1.99%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.85%) ISO 20022
3 3 (0.85%) SEPA
3 3 (0.85%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.28%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (9.40%) Docker
2 2 (0.57%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.28%) Firmware
3 1 (0.28%) KVM
3 1 (0.28%) QEMU
3 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 35 (9.97%) Kubernetes
2 17 (4.84%) Terraform
3 7 (1.99%) Ansible
4 4 (1.14%) Puppet
5 3 (0.85%) Grafana
6 2 (0.57%) Packer
6 2 (0.57%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 36 (10.26%) Microsoft
2 29 (8.26%) Salesforce
3 25 (7.12%) Cisco
4 10 (2.85%) Adobe
5 9 (2.56%) BiZZdesign
6 5 (1.42%) Google
6 5 (1.42%) SaltStack
7 4 (1.14%) Red Hat
8 2 (0.57%) Concur
8 2 (0.57%) Sage
9 1 (0.28%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.28%) Databricks
9 1 (0.28%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.28%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.28%) Oracle
9 1 (0.28%) SAP
9 1 (0.28%) Xamarin