Which pays more, Edinburgh or Manchester?

The median advertised salary for each is in the table above, along with the 25th and 75th percentiles so you can see the spread rather than one number.

Which has more openings?

Both counts are live and computed at the same moment, so the comparison is like for like.

Postings are read from company career systems continuously; the age row shows how old the listings themselves are.

Side by side

Edinburgh vs Manchester

Edinburgh pays more: a median of £58,500 against £55,500. There is 1.6× more demand for Manchester. Listings for Manchester move faster — median age 49 days against 70.

Comparison

Side by side

Measure	Edinburgh	Manchester	Gap
Open postings	18,001	28,212	-10,211
Posted this week	1,220	714
Median salary	£58,500	£55,500	+£3k
25th percentile	£46k	£44k
75th percentile	£72.5k	£69k
Salary disclosed	6.2%	5.1%
Remote share	8.0%	4.4%	+3.6pp
Median age of posting	70d	49d
Open over 60 days	38.9%	45.8%
Visa sponsorship	25.7%	24.8%

Pay

Pay distribution

Edinburgh

£26k£101k

Manchester

£25k£96k

Freshness

How old the listings are

Edinburgh

just posted70d median90d+

Manchester

just posted49d median90d+

Demand

What each side asks for

Edinburgh — technologies

GCP

72.0%

Kotlin

65.8%

Java

59.6%

AWS

53.4%

Kubernetes

47.2%

SQL

41.0%

Docker

34.8%

Manchester — technologies

Swift

72.0%

SQL

65.8%

HubSpot

59.6%

Snowflake

53.4%

React

47.2%

Azure

41.0%

GCP

34.8%

Edinburgh — employers

Ironbark Manufacturing

9.4%

Solstice Biotech

8.7%

Tidewater Insurance

8.0%

Cobalt Financial

7.2%

Brightline Retail

6.5%

Halcyon Energy

5.8%

Northwind Systems

5.1%

Manchester — employers

Ironbark Manufacturing

9.4%

Quarry Analytics

8.7%

Northwind Systems

8.0%

Brightline Retail

7.2%

Solstice Biotech

6.5%

Umbra Security

5.8%

Beacon Robotics

5.1%

More comparisons

Other United Kingdom city comparisons

Edinburgh vs London London vs Manchester

Both sides are counted the same way on the same day, so the gap is comparable even where the absolute numbers move. Salary figures use only postings that publish a range — the disclosure rate is in the table because a median over 20% of a cohort is a weaker number than one over 70%.