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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 18 13
Rank change year-on-year -11 -5 +8
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 437 343 825
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 5.13% 9.23% 9.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.77% 9.76% 11.74%
Number of salaries quoted 348 274 675
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,250 £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 £82,751 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,474 £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 6,455 3,513 7,028
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 75.82% 94.49% 84.16%
Number of salaries quoted 3,578 2,142 5,634
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,619 £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 £69,000 £70,000 £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 24 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 24 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 -10 337 £70,000 +3.70% 111
Cheshire -12 52 £60,000 +17.07% 23
Merseyside -5 24 £65,000 - 7
Lancashire -15 24 £60,000 +18.81% 20
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 (1.37%) Apache Spark
2 4 (0.92%) Apache
2 4 (0.92%) Apache Solr
2 4 (0.92%) GeoServer
3 3 (0.69%) Confluence
4 2 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.46%) nginx
5 1 (0.23%) CMS
5 1 (0.23%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.23%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (0.46%) Adobe XD
1 2 (0.46%) EngageOne
1 2 (0.46%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (2.29%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 100 (22.88%) AWS
2 89 (20.37%) Azure
3 33 (7.55%) SaaS
4 25 (5.72%) Serverless
5 18 (4.12%) GCP
6 12 (2.75%) Azure AKS
7 9 (2.06%) AWS Lambda
7 9 (2.06%) Figma
8 6 (1.37%) Anthropic Claude
8 6 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (1.37%) IaaS
8 6 (1.37%) PaaS
9 5 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (0.92%) Cloud Computing
10 4 (0.92%) Entra ID
10 4 (0.92%) GitHub
10 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Copilot
10 4 (0.92%) OpenShift
10 4 (0.92%) Twilio
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.92%) AMQP
2 2 (0.46%) HTTP
2 2 (0.46%) RTP
3 1 (0.23%) LTE
3 1 (0.23%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (7.32%) NoSQL
2 14 (3.20%) MongoDB
3 10 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (1.83%) Elasticsearch
4 8 (1.83%) MySQL
5 7 (1.60%) Neo4j
6 6 (1.37%) Big Data
6 6 (1.37%) Hadoop
6 6 (1.37%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.14%) SQL Server
8 4 (0.92%) Cloudera CDH
8 4 (0.92%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.92%) GIS
8 4 (0.92%) QGIS
9 3 (0.69%) DocumentDB
9 3 (0.69%) Power BI
10 2 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.46%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.46%) PostHog
10 2 (0.46%) Redis
Development Applications
1 10 (2.29%) Git
2 7 (1.60%) Claude Code
3 6 (1.37%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.92%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.92%) GitLab
4 4 (0.92%) JIRA
5 3 (0.69%) NUnit
6 2 (0.46%) Vagrant
7 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.23%) GDB
7 1 (0.23%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.23%) JUnit
7 1 (0.23%) Postman
7 1 (0.23%) Protractor
7 1 (0.23%) Selenium
7 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.23%) WinDbg
General
1 49 (11.21%) Finance
2 46 (10.53%) Social Skills
3 26 (5.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 20 (4.58%) Public Sector
5 18 (4.12%) Analytical Skills
6 15 (3.43%) Manufacturing
7 8 (1.83%) Retail
8 7 (1.60%) Electronics
9 5 (1.14%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.14%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.92%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.69%) Automotive
11 3 (0.69%) Banking
11 3 (0.69%) French Language
11 3 (0.69%) Games
11 3 (0.69%) Legal
11 3 (0.69%) Marketing
11 3 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.69%) Portuguese Language
11 3 (0.69%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 267 (61.10%) Software Engineer
2 90 (20.59%) Lead
3 80 (18.31%) Senior
4 60 (13.73%) Developer
5 53 (12.13%) Senior Software Engineer
6 43 (9.84%) Lead Software Engineer
7 27 (6.18%) Software Developer
8 24 (5.49%) Java Engineer
9 21 (4.81%) Java Software Engineer
9 21 (4.81%) Lead Developer
10 17 (3.89%) Senior Developer
11 14 (3.20%) Project Manager
12 13 (2.97%) Embedded Engineer
12 13 (2.97%) Embedded Software Engineer
12 13 (2.97%) PLC Software Engineer
13 12 (2.75%) .NET Software Engineer
13 12 (2.75%) Principal Engineer
13 12 (2.75%) Python Engineer
14 11 (2.52%) Business Analyst
14 11 (2.52%) Principal Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (18.76%) .NET
2 48 (10.98%) React
3 32 (7.32%) Node.js
4 27 (6.18%) RESTful
5 21 (4.81%) AngularJS
6 20 (4.58%) .NET Framework
7 17 (3.89%) REST
8 15 (3.43%) Spring
9 14 (3.20%) Spring Boot
10 12 (2.75%) .NET Core
11 11 (2.52%) CSS
12 10 (2.29%) Flask
13 9 (2.06%) HTML
13 9 (2.06%) Next.js
13 9 (2.06%) Vue
14 7 (1.60%) Django
15 6 (1.37%) Entity Framework
15 6 (1.37%) FastAPI
15 6 (1.37%) RabbitMQ
16 5 (1.14%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 48 (10.98%) Cloud Native
2 15 (3.43%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (3.20%) Greenfield Project
4 10 (2.29%) IoT
4 10 (2.29%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.06%) Industry 4.0
6 5 (1.14%) Distributed Computing
6 5 (1.14%) Management Information System
6 5 (1.14%) Onboarding
7 4 (0.92%) Algorithms
7 4 (0.92%) Robotics
7 4 (0.92%) SCADA
8 3 (0.69%) Data Centre
8 3 (0.69%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.46%) AI Agents
9 2 (0.46%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (0.46%) Animation
9 2 (0.46%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (0.46%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.52%) Linux
2 7 (1.60%) Apple iOS
3 5 (1.14%) Android
4 4 (0.92%) CentOS
4 4 (0.92%) Debian
4 4 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.92%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.92%) Windows
5 1 (0.23%) Unix
5 1 (0.23%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (25.40%) Agile
2 88 (20.14%) CI/CD
3 62 (14.19%) DevOps
4 61 (13.96%) Mentoring
5 58 (13.27%) Microservices
6 55 (12.59%) Full-Stack Development
7 47 (10.76%) Coaching
7 47 (10.76%) Scrum
8 42 (9.61%) TDD
9 37 (8.47%) AI
10 36 (8.24%) Problem-Solving
10 36 (8.24%) Technical Leadership
11 32 (7.32%) Analytics
12 31 (7.09%) Containerisation
13 29 (6.64%) Clean Code
13 29 (6.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (6.64%) Open Source
14 20 (4.58%) Design Patterns
14 20 (4.58%) Infrastructure as Code
15 18 (4.12%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (18.31%) Java
2 59 (13.50%) C#
3 57 (13.04%) Python
4 54 (12.36%) SQL
5 43 (9.84%) JavaScript
6 42 (9.61%) TypeScript
7 18 (4.12%) PHP
8 8 (1.83%) C
8 8 (1.83%) C++
8 8 (1.83%) Go
9 6 (1.37%) Kotlin
10 4 (0.92%) Scala
11 2 (0.46%) Bicep
11 2 (0.46%) COBOL
11 2 (0.46%) Ruby
12 1 (0.23%) Bash
Qualifications
1 27 (6.18%) Security Cleared
2 20 (4.58%) DV Cleared
3 13 (2.97%) Degree
4 9 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
4 9 (2.06%) SC Cleared
5 3 (0.69%) DBS Check
6 1 (0.23%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.23%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.20%) QA
2 9 (2.06%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.23%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (7.55%) Docker
2 2 (0.46%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.23%) Firmware
3 1 (0.23%) KVM
3 1 (0.23%) QEMU
3 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 40 (9.15%) Kubernetes
2 25 (5.72%) Terraform
3 6 (1.37%) Ansible
4 4 (0.92%) Puppet
5 2 (0.46%) Grafana
5 2 (0.46%) Packer
5 2 (0.46%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 32 (7.32%) Microsoft
2 29 (6.64%) Salesforce
3 25 (5.72%) Cisco
4 10 (2.29%) Adobe
5 6 (1.37%) BiZZdesign
6 5 (1.14%) Google
6 5 (1.14%) SaltStack
7 4 (0.92%) Red Hat
8 2 (0.46%) DevExpress
9 1 (0.23%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.23%) Databricks
9 1 (0.23%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.23%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle
9 1 (0.23%) Rockwell
9 1 (0.23%) SAP
9 1 (0.23%) Siemens
9 1 (0.23%) Xamarin