The current study focused on forced convection water boundary layer flow on permeable diverging channel for variable physical properties of fluid. The formation of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations is expressed in terms of non-dimensional quantity using similarity transformation. The solution of non-dimensional differential equation obtained by numerical finite difference scheme with combination of quasi-linearization technique. It is found that the Eckert number is significant in the boundary layer region in laminar flow, and also, the effects of physical parameters are investigated numerically and shown graphically. © 2021, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.