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 9 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 16 13
Rank change year-on-year -15 -3 +5
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 396 362 773
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.96% 9.07% 9.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.49% 9.57% 11.53%
Number of salaries quoted 314 272 633
10th Percentile £50,000 £41,375 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,839 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +8.33% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,528 £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 6,098 3,783 6,705
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 76.39% 94.79% 85.09%
Number of salaries quoted 3,317 2,123 5,435
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,748 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £54,793 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.75% +9.59% -9.09%
75th Percentile £68,666 £68,750 £66,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £83,750 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +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 9 March 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 9 March 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 -9 306 £70,000 +7.69% 91
Cheshire -13 50 £60,000 +20.00% 32
Merseyside -1 22 £65,000 -3.70% 7
Lancashire -23 18 £60,000 +17.90% 23
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 (1.52%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.01%) Apache
2 4 (1.01%) Apache Solr
3 3 (0.76%) Confluence
3 3 (0.76%) GeoServer
4 2 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.51%) nginx
5 1 (0.25%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (0.51%) Adobe XD
1 2 (0.51%) EngageOne
1 2 (0.51%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (2.53%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 93 (23.48%) AWS
2 89 (22.47%) Azure
3 32 (8.08%) SaaS
4 23 (5.81%) Serverless
5 20 (5.05%) GCP
6 11 (2.78%) Azure AKS
7 9 (2.27%) AWS Lambda
8 8 (2.02%) IaaS
8 8 (2.02%) PaaS
9 7 (1.77%) Figma
10 5 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
10 5 (1.26%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (1.01%) Anthropic Claude
11 4 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (1.01%) Cloud Computing
11 4 (1.01%) GitHub
11 4 (1.01%) Microsoft Copilot
11 4 (1.01%) OpenShift
11 4 (1.01%) Power Platform
11 4 (1.01%) Twilio
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.01%) AMQP
2 2 (0.51%) HTTP
2 2 (0.51%) RTP
3 1 (0.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (7.58%) NoSQL
2 14 (3.54%) MongoDB
3 10 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (2.02%) Elasticsearch
4 8 (2.02%) MySQL
5 7 (1.77%) Neo4j
6 6 (1.52%) Big Data
6 6 (1.52%) Hadoop
7 5 (1.26%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.26%) SQL Server
8 4 (1.01%) Cloudera CDH
8 4 (1.01%) Power BI
9 3 (0.76%) DocumentDB
9 3 (0.76%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.76%) GIS
9 3 (0.76%) QGIS
10 2 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.51%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.51%) Redis
Development Applications
1 9 (2.27%) Git
2 6 (1.52%) Cypress.io
2 6 (1.52%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.01%) Claude Code
3 4 (1.01%) GitLab
3 4 (1.01%) JIRA
4 2 (0.51%) Vagrant
5 1 (0.25%) NUnit
5 1 (0.25%) Postman
5 1 (0.25%) Protractor
5 1 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 55 (13.89%) Finance
2 45 (11.36%) Social Skills
3 25 (6.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 17 (4.29%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.04%) Analytical Skills
6 15 (3.79%) Manufacturing
7 10 (2.53%) Retail
8 6 (1.52%) Banking
8 6 (1.52%) Electronics
9 5 (1.26%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.26%) Marketing
10 4 (1.01%) Billing
10 4 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.01%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.76%) Automotive
11 3 (0.76%) French Language
11 3 (0.76%) Games
11 3 (0.76%) Health Technology
11 3 (0.76%) Portuguese Language
11 3 (0.76%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 228 (57.58%) Software Engineer
2 79 (19.95%) Lead
3 74 (18.69%) Senior
4 57 (14.39%) Developer
5 45 (11.36%) Senior Software Engineer
6 34 (8.59%) Lead Software Engineer
7 23 (5.81%) Software Developer
8 20 (5.05%) Java Engineer
9 18 (4.55%) Lead Developer
10 17 (4.29%) Java Software Engineer
11 16 (4.04%) Senior Developer
12 14 (3.54%) Project Manager
13 12 (3.03%) Principal Engineer
13 12 (3.03%) Python Engineer
14 11 (2.78%) .NET Software Engineer
14 11 (2.78%) Analyst
14 11 (2.78%) Architect
14 11 (2.78%) Business Analyst
14 11 (2.78%) Embedded Engineer
14 11 (2.78%) Principal Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (18.43%) .NET
2 49 (12.37%) React
3 29 (7.32%) Node.js
4 25 (6.31%) RESTful
5 19 (4.80%) AngularJS
6 17 (4.29%) .NET Framework
7 16 (4.04%) Spring
7 16 (4.04%) Spring Boot
8 15 (3.79%) REST
9 12 (3.03%) CSS
10 11 (2.78%) .NET Core
11 10 (2.53%) Flask
11 10 (2.53%) HTML
12 9 (2.27%) Vue
13 8 (2.02%) Next.js
14 7 (1.77%) Django
15 6 (1.52%) FastAPI
15 6 (1.52%) RabbitMQ
16 5 (1.26%) Celery
16 5 (1.26%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 47 (11.87%) Cloud Native
2 16 (4.04%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (3.54%) Greenfield Project
4 11 (2.78%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.27%) Industry 4.0
6 8 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.02%) IoT
7 5 (1.26%) Distributed Computing
7 5 (1.26%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.01%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.01%) Management Information System
8 4 (1.01%) SCADA
9 3 (0.76%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.51%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.51%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.51%) Animation
10 2 (0.51%) Client/Server
10 2 (0.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 2 (0.51%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.77%) Linux
2 6 (1.52%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.01%) Android
3 4 (1.01%) CentOS
3 4 (1.01%) Debian
3 4 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (1.01%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.51%) Windows
5 1 (0.25%) Unix
5 1 (0.25%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (25.76%) Agile
2 79 (19.95%) CI/CD
3 61 (15.40%) Mentoring
4 59 (14.90%) Microservices
5 51 (12.88%) DevOps
6 50 (12.63%) Full-Stack Development
7 46 (11.62%) Coaching
8 44 (11.11%) Scrum
9 40 (10.10%) TDD
10 34 (8.59%) AI
10 34 (8.59%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (8.08%) Containerisation
11 32 (8.08%) Technical Leadership
12 29 (7.32%) Analytics
13 27 (6.82%) Clean Code
13 27 (6.82%) Open Source
14 26 (6.57%) Continuous Improvement
15 19 (4.80%) Design Patterns
15 19 (4.80%) Fintech
15 19 (4.80%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 74 (18.69%) Java
2 57 (14.39%) C#
3 53 (13.38%) Python
4 50 (12.63%) SQL
5 41 (10.35%) JavaScript
6 39 (9.85%) TypeScript
7 16 (4.04%) PHP
8 6 (1.52%) C
8 6 (1.52%) Go
8 6 (1.52%) Kotlin
9 4 (1.01%) Scala
10 3 (0.76%) C++
11 2 (0.51%) Ruby
12 1 (0.25%) Bash
12 1 (0.25%) Rust
Qualifications
1 25 (6.31%) Security Cleared
2 19 (4.80%) DV Cleared
3 11 (2.78%) Degree
4 8 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
4 8 (2.02%) SC Cleared
5 3 (0.76%) DBS Check
6 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.25%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.54%) QA
2 7 (1.77%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.51%) ISO 20022
3 2 (0.51%) SEPA
3 2 (0.51%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.25%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (8.08%) Docker
2 2 (0.51%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.25%) Firmware
3 1 (0.25%) KVM
3 1 (0.25%) QEMU
3 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 38 (9.60%) Kubernetes
2 19 (4.80%) Terraform
3 6 (1.52%) Ansible
4 4 (1.01%) Puppet
5 3 (0.76%) Grafana
6 2 (0.51%) Packer
6 2 (0.51%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 30 (7.58%) Microsoft
2 29 (7.32%) Salesforce
3 25 (6.31%) Cisco
4 10 (2.53%) Adobe
5 8 (2.02%) BiZZdesign
6 5 (1.26%) Google
6 5 (1.26%) SaltStack
7 4 (1.01%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.25%) Atlassian
8 1 (0.25%) Databricks
8 1 (0.25%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.25%) HubSpot
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle
8 1 (0.25%) SAP
8 1 (0.25%) Xamarin