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 11 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 45 15 14
Rank change year-on-year -30 -1 -1
Permanent jobs citing Software Engineering 213 512 424
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 3.84% 8.53% 11.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.46% 9.92% 12.35%
Number of salaries quoted 162 294 292
10th Percentile £50,025 £40,186 £41,250
25th Percentile £57,500 £48,750 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £57,530 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +21.68% -11.49% +8.33%
75th Percentile £86,250 £69,950 £77,715
90th Percentile £102,250 £75,000 £86,250
England median annual salary £75,000 £70,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +7.14% - -

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 4,779 5,163 3,433
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 86.19% 86.04% 94.29%
Number of salaries quoted 2,365 2,670 2,602
10th Percentile £27,750 £32,099 £31,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £51,369 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.67% -6.60% +2.33%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £83,750
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

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 11 December 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 11 December 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 -15 161 £72,500 +20.83% 162
Cheshire -22 31 £62,500 +19.05% 43
Merseyside -14 13 £66,250 +1.92% 16
Lancashire -17 7 £67,663 +33.99% 63
Cumbria -6 1 £60,000 +22.45% 3
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 3 (1.41%) Apache
1 3 (1.41%) Apache Solr
1 3 (1.41%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.94%) nginx
3 1 (0.47%) Confluence
3 1 (0.47%) IIS
3 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.47%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (0.94%) Adobe XD
1 2 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.94%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 68 (31.92%) Azure
2 62 (29.11%) AWS
3 25 (11.74%) SaaS
4 17 (7.98%) GCP
5 9 (4.23%) Serverless
6 8 (3.76%) IaaS
6 8 (3.76%) PaaS
6 8 (3.76%) Power Platform
7 6 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
7 6 (2.82%) GitHub
8 5 (2.35%) Azure AKS
8 5 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.35%) Figma
9 4 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
10 3 (1.41%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.41%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.41%) Power Automate
11 2 (0.94%) AWS Step Functions
11 2 (0.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.94%) AMQP
1 2 (0.94%) HTTP
1 2 (0.94%) Internet
2 1 (0.47%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.47%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (9.39%) NoSQL
2 11 (5.16%) MongoDB
2 11 (5.16%) MySQL
3 9 (4.23%) SQL Server
4 6 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (2.82%) Power BI
5 5 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (2.35%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (1.88%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.88%) Relational Database
7 3 (1.41%) Big Data
7 3 (1.41%) DynamoDB
7 3 (1.41%) Neo4j
8 2 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.94%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.94%) Cloudera CDH
8 2 (0.94%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.94%) PostHog
8 2 (0.94%) Redis
9 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 11 (5.16%) Git
2 6 (2.82%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.88%) GitLab
3 4 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.94%) JIRA
5 1 (0.47%) Gatling
5 1 (0.47%) JMeter
5 1 (0.47%) LoadRunner
5 1 (0.47%) NUnit
5 1 (0.47%) Protractor
General
1 39 (18.31%) Social Skills
2 38 (17.84%) Finance
3 13 (6.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 8 (3.76%) Marketing
5 7 (3.29%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (3.29%) Banking
5 7 (3.29%) Retail
6 5 (2.35%) Billing
6 5 (2.35%) Public Sector
7 4 (1.88%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.41%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.41%) Automotive
8 3 (1.41%) Electronics
8 3 (1.41%) Financial Institution
8 3 (1.41%) Games
8 3 (1.41%) Legal
9 2 (0.94%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (0.94%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.47%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 95 (44.60%) Software Engineer
2 61 (28.64%) Senior
3 33 (15.49%) Lead
4 32 (15.02%) Senior Software Engineer
5 22 (10.33%) Developer
6 13 (6.10%) Architect
7 12 (5.63%) Lead Software Engineer
8 10 (4.69%) Solutions Architect
9 9 (4.23%) Control Systems Engineer
9 9 (4.23%) Data Engineer
9 9 (4.23%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
9 9 (4.23%) Senior Systems Engineer
9 9 (4.23%) Systems Engineer
10 8 (3.76%) Senior Data Engineer
11 7 (3.29%) Engineering Manager
11 7 (3.29%) Python Engineer
11 7 (3.29%) Senior Developer
12 6 (2.82%) Analyst
12 6 (2.82%) Business Analyst
12 6 (2.82%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (23.94%) .NET
2 44 (20.66%) React
3 19 (8.92%) RESTful
4 18 (8.45%) AngularJS
5 15 (7.04%) .NET Framework
6 12 (5.63%) .NET Core
6 12 (5.63%) Node.js
6 12 (5.63%) Spring
6 12 (5.63%) Spring Boot
7 10 (4.69%) CSS
8 9 (4.23%) HTML
9 8 (3.76%) Entity Framework
9 8 (3.76%) Next.js
9 8 (3.76%) Vue
10 7 (3.29%) Kafka
10 7 (3.29%) RabbitMQ
10 7 (3.29%) REST
11 6 (2.82%) Django
11 6 (2.82%) Jest
12 5 (2.35%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 33 (15.49%) Cloud Native
2 19 (8.92%) Distributed Systems
3 15 (7.04%) Greenfield Project
4 13 (6.10%) Product Ownership
5 9 (4.23%) SCADA
6 6 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (2.35%) Distributed Computing
8 4 (1.88%) AI Agents
8 4 (1.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 3 (1.41%) BBC
9 3 (1.41%) IoT
9 3 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.41%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 2 (0.94%) Animation
10 2 (0.94%) Client/Server
10 2 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (0.94%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.94%) Marketing Technology
10 2 (0.94%) Online Banking
10 2 (0.94%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.29%) Linux
2 4 (1.88%) Windows
3 3 (1.41%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.94%) CentOS
4 2 (0.94%) Debian
4 2 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.94%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.47%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (35.21%) CI/CD
2 68 (31.92%) Agile
3 52 (24.41%) Microservices
4 49 (23.00%) Mentoring
5 45 (21.13%) DevOps
6 33 (15.49%) Containerisation
7 32 (15.02%) Problem-Solving
7 32 (15.02%) TDD
8 31 (14.55%) Continuous Improvement
9 29 (13.62%) Coaching
10 24 (11.27%) AI
11 21 (9.86%) Full-Stack Development
12 20 (9.39%) Clean Code
13 17 (7.98%) Scrum
13 17 (7.98%) User Experience
14 16 (7.51%) Analytics
14 16 (7.51%) Stakeholder Management
15 15 (7.04%) Fintech
15 15 (7.04%) Technical Leadership
16 14 (6.57%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 54 (25.35%) C#
2 40 (18.78%) Java
3 39 (18.31%) SQL
4 32 (15.02%) TypeScript
5 29 (13.62%) Python
6 22 (10.33%) JavaScript
7 5 (2.35%) C
7 5 (2.35%) PHP
8 3 (1.41%) C++
8 3 (1.41%) Ruby
8 3 (1.41%) Rust
9 2 (0.94%) Bash
9 2 (0.94%) Embedded C++
9 2 (0.94%) Go
9 2 (0.94%) Kotlin
9 2 (0.94%) Scala
10 1 (0.47%) Embedded C
10 1 (0.47%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.47%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 23 (10.80%) Security Cleared
2 16 (7.51%) DV Cleared
3 8 (3.76%) Degree
3 8 (3.76%) SC Cleared
4 7 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (0.94%) Postgraduate
6 1 (0.47%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.47%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (5.63%) QA
2 5 (2.35%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.41%) ISO 20022
3 3 (1.41%) SEPA
3 3 (1.41%) TARGET2
4 1 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.47%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.47%) MISRA
4 1 (0.47%) MISRA C
System Software
1 39 (18.31%) Docker
2 2 (0.94%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.47%) Firmware
3 1 (0.47%) KVM
3 1 (0.47%) QEMU
3 1 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 36 (16.90%) Kubernetes
2 16 (7.51%) Terraform
3 7 (3.29%) Ansible
4 6 (2.82%) Grafana
5 3 (1.41%) Puppet
6 2 (0.94%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.47%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 1 (0.47%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 27 (12.68%) Microsoft
2 12 (5.63%) Cisco
2 12 (5.63%) Salesforce
3 8 (3.76%) BiZZdesign
4 4 (1.88%) Google
5 3 (1.41%) Databricks
5 3 (1.41%) SaltStack
6 2 (0.94%) Concur
6 2 (0.94%) Oracle
6 2 (0.94%) Red Hat
6 2 (0.94%) Sage
6 2 (0.94%) SAP
7 1 (0.47%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.47%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.47%) HubSpot
7 1 (0.47%) TOWER Software
7 1 (0.47%) VMware