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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 21 13
Rank change year-on-year -9 -8 +4
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 359 342 687
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 4.78% 7.71% 10.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.16% 8.25% 11.81%
Number of salaries quoted 281 218 553
10th Percentile £50,000 £42,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,750 £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 £77,500 £77,500
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 5,825 4,144 5,815
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 77.54% 93.38% 86.01%
Number of salaries quoted 3,092 2,087 4,738
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,110 £28,000
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% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £66,778
90th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £80,180
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 23 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 23 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 -6 274 £70,000 +7.69% 119
Cheshire -7 49 £60,000 +14.29% 23
Merseyside -8 21 £65,000 -3.70% 3
Lancashire -23 15 £60,000 +17.90% 36
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 (1.67%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.11%) Apache
3 3 (0.84%) Apache Solr
4 2 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.56%) Confluence
4 2 (0.56%) nginx
5 1 (0.28%) GeoServer
5 1 (0.28%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Adobe XD
1 2 (0.56%) EngageOne
1 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.56%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 10 (2.79%) Magento
2 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 90 (25.07%) Azure
2 86 (23.96%) AWS
3 30 (8.36%) SaaS
4 21 (5.85%) GCP
5 16 (4.46%) Serverless
6 9 (2.51%) Azure AKS
6 9 (2.51%) IaaS
6 9 (2.51%) PaaS
7 7 (1.95%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (1.95%) Figma
7 7 (1.95%) Power Platform
8 5 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
9 4 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
9 4 (1.11%) OpenShift
9 4 (1.11%) Twilio
10 3 (0.84%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.84%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.11%) AMQP
2 2 (0.56%) HTTP
2 2 (0.56%) RTP
3 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (7.24%) NoSQL
2 12 (3.34%) MongoDB
3 9 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (1.95%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (1.95%) MySQL
5 6 (1.67%) Big Data
5 6 (1.67%) Hadoop
5 6 (1.67%) Neo4j
5 6 (1.67%) Power BI
6 5 (1.39%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.11%) Cloudera CDH
7 4 (1.11%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.56%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.56%) DocumentDB
8 2 (0.56%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.56%) PostHog
8 2 (0.56%) Redis
9 1 (0.28%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 7 (1.95%) Git
2 6 (1.67%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.11%) GitLab
3 4 (1.11%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.56%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.56%) JIRA
4 2 (0.56%) Vagrant
5 1 (0.28%) NUnit
5 1 (0.28%) Postman
5 1 (0.28%) Protractor
5 1 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 50 (13.93%) Finance
2 44 (12.26%) Social Skills
3 25 (6.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 15 (4.18%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (3.34%) Manufacturing
5 12 (3.34%) Public Sector
6 6 (1.67%) Banking
6 6 (1.67%) Electronics
7 5 (1.39%) Aerospace
7 5 (1.39%) Billing
7 5 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (1.39%) Marketing
7 5 (1.39%) Retail
8 4 (1.11%) Italian Language
9 3 (0.84%) Automotive
9 3 (0.84%) Financial Institution
9 3 (0.84%) French Language
9 3 (0.84%) Games
9 3 (0.84%) Portuguese Language
9 3 (0.84%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 199 (55.43%) Software Engineer
2 68 (18.94%) Senior
3 66 (18.38%) Lead
4 46 (12.81%) Developer
5 40 (11.14%) Senior Software Engineer
6 24 (6.69%) Lead Software Engineer
7 21 (5.85%) Software Developer
8 19 (5.29%) Java Engineer
9 16 (4.46%) Java Software Engineer
10 14 (3.90%) Lead Developer
10 14 (3.90%) Project Manager
11 13 (3.62%) Architect
12 12 (3.34%) Principal Engineer
12 12 (3.34%) Python Engineer
13 11 (3.06%) Analyst
13 11 (3.06%) AWS Engineer
13 11 (3.06%) Business Analyst
13 11 (3.06%) Principal Software Engineer
13 11 (3.06%) Senior Developer
14 10 (2.79%) Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (18.38%) .NET
2 50 (13.93%) React
3 24 (6.69%) RESTful
4 21 (5.85%) Node.js
5 19 (5.29%) AngularJS
6 15 (4.18%) .NET Framework
7 14 (3.90%) REST
8 12 (3.34%) Spring
8 12 (3.34%) Spring Boot
9 11 (3.06%) .NET Core
9 11 (3.06%) CSS
10 10 (2.79%) Flask
11 9 (2.51%) HTML
11 9 (2.51%) Next.js
12 7 (1.95%) Django
12 7 (1.95%) Vue
13 6 (1.67%) FastAPI
13 6 (1.67%) RabbitMQ
14 5 (1.39%) Jest
14 5 (1.39%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 44 (12.26%) Cloud Native
2 16 (4.46%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (3.62%) Greenfield Project
4 10 (2.79%) Product Ownership
5 8 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.23%) Industry 4.0
6 7 (1.95%) IoT
7 5 (1.39%) Distributed Computing
7 5 (1.39%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.11%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 4 (1.11%) SCADA
9 3 (0.84%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.84%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 2 (0.56%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.56%) Animation
10 2 (0.56%) Client/Server
10 2 (0.56%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.56%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.95%) Linux
2 6 (1.67%) Apple iOS
3 4 (1.11%) Android
3 4 (1.11%) CentOS
3 4 (1.11%) Debian
3 4 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (1.11%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.56%) Windows
5 1 (0.28%) Unix
5 1 (0.28%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (25.91%) Agile
2 75 (20.89%) CI/CD
3 61 (16.99%) Mentoring
4 57 (15.88%) Microservices
5 46 (12.81%) Coaching
6 45 (12.53%) DevOps
7 38 (10.58%) Full-Stack Development
8 37 (10.31%) TDD
9 35 (9.75%) Scrum
10 33 (9.19%) Containerisation
10 33 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
11 31 (8.64%) AI
12 29 (8.08%) Analytics
13 28 (7.80%) Technical Leadership
14 27 (7.52%) Continuous Improvement
15 25 (6.96%) Open Source
16 23 (6.41%) Clean Code
16 23 (6.41%) Fintech
17 20 (5.57%) User Experience
18 18 (5.01%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 64 (17.83%) Java
2 59 (16.43%) C#
3 50 (13.93%) Python
4 46 (12.81%) SQL
5 35 (9.75%) TypeScript
6 33 (9.19%) JavaScript
7 16 (4.46%) PHP
8 6 (1.67%) C
8 6 (1.67%) Go
9 4 (1.11%) Scala
10 3 (0.84%) C++
10 3 (0.84%) Rust
11 2 (0.56%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.56%) Ruby
12 1 (0.28%) Bash
12 1 (0.28%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 26 (7.24%) Security Cleared
2 17 (4.74%) DV Cleared
3 11 (3.06%) Degree
3 11 (3.06%) SC Cleared
4 8 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (0.84%) DBS Check
6 1 (0.28%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.28%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.90%) QA
2 7 (1.95%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.84%) ISO 20022
3 3 (0.84%) SEPA
3 3 (0.84%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.28%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (9.19%) Docker
2 2 (0.56%) 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 37 (10.31%) Kubernetes
2 16 (4.46%) Terraform
3 6 (1.67%) Ansible
4 4 (1.11%) Puppet
5 3 (0.84%) Grafana
6 2 (0.56%) Packer
6 2 (0.56%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 34 (9.47%) Microsoft
2 29 (8.08%) Salesforce
3 25 (6.96%) Cisco
4 10 (2.79%) Adobe
5 9 (2.51%) BiZZdesign
6 5 (1.39%) Google
6 5 (1.39%) SaltStack
7 4 (1.11%) Red Hat
8 2 (0.56%) Concur
8 2 (0.56%) 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