Retail Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Retailing
North West > Manchester

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Retail in contract job vacancies in Manchester. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Retail over the 6 months leading up to 1 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 69 61 62
Rank change year-on-year -8 +1 +18
Contract jobs citing Retail 23 26 41
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 2.04% 2.25% 2.58%
As % of the General category 3.30% 3.77% 4.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 19 25
10th Percentile £463 £400 £418
25th Percentile £500 £425 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -13.64% +15.79%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £625
90th Percentile £733 £710 £738
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £550
% change year-on-year +11.11% -18.18% +15.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £18.50 - -
Median hourly rate £19.00 - -
75th Percentile £19.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate £19.00 £25.32 £13.00
% change year-on-year -24.95% +94.73% -21.52%

All General Skills
Manchester

Retail falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring common skills in Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 696 690 838
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 61.81% 59.84% 52.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 475 379 572
10th Percentile £300 £294 £255
25th Percentile £364 £398 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £579 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
North West median daily rate £450 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -6.25% -4.00% +3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 37 38
10th Percentile £17.08 £15.96 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.26 £21.25 £16.26
Median hourly rate £22.00 £32.50 £19.25
Median % change year-on-year -32.31% +68.83% -3.75%
75th Percentile £31.83 £43.75 £42.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.00 £63.75
North West median hourly rate £29.60 £30.00 £22.25
% change year-on-year -1.33% +34.83% +10.89%

Retail
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Retail relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Retail job vacancy trend in Manchester

Retail
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Retail.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Retail

Retail
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Retail in Manchester over the 6 months to 1 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Retail in Manchester

Retail
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Retail.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Retail

Retail
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Retail within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 1 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Salford - 1 £575 -
Retail
North West

Retail
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 2 (8.70%) Confluence
1 2 (8.70%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (8.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (4.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (4.35%) BambooHR
Cloud Services
1 5 (21.74%) Azure
2 4 (17.39%) AWS
2 4 (17.39%) GCP
3 3 (13.04%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (8.70%) Cloud Computing
4 2 (8.70%) Entra ID
4 2 (8.70%) OneDrive
5 1 (4.35%) SaaS
5 1 (4.35%) Serverless
5 1 (4.35%) Stripe
5 1 (4.35%) SuccessFactors
5 1 (4.35%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (8.70%) NFC
1 2 (8.70%) RFID
1 2 (8.70%) Wireless
2 1 (4.35%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.35%) BigQuery
1 1 (4.35%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 2 (8.70%) JIRA
2 1 (4.35%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 1 (4.35%) Jenkins
2 1 (4.35%) Robot Framework
General
1 12 (52.17%) Social Skills
2 3 (13.04%) Documentation Skills
3 2 (8.70%) Marketing
4 1 (4.35%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (4.35%) Finance
4 1 (4.35%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 3 (13.04%) Architect
1 3 (13.04%) Lead
1 3 (13.04%) Project Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Administrator
2 2 (8.70%) Analyst
2 2 (8.70%) Cloud Architect
2 2 (8.70%) Cybersecurity Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Data Scientist
2 2 (8.70%) Delivery Manager
2 2 (8.70%) GCP Architect
2 2 (8.70%) Implementation Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Microsoft 365 Administrator
2 2 (8.70%) Security Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Senior
2 2 (8.70%) Senior Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Senior Project Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Service Security Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Service Transition Manager
2 2 (8.70%) Transition Manager
3 1 (4.35%) Security Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.35%) GraphQL
1 1 (4.35%) Node.js
1 1 (4.35%) pytest
1 1 (4.35%) RESTful
1 1 (4.35%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 3 (13.04%) Security Operations Centre
2 2 (8.70%) Cloud Native
2 2 (8.70%) Driving Licence
2 2 (8.70%) IoT
3 1 (4.35%) EPoS
3 1 (4.35%) FMCG
3 1 (4.35%) Greenfield Project
3 1 (4.35%) Management Information System
3 1 (4.35%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.35%) Linux
1 1 (4.35%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (39.13%) Stakeholder Management
2 6 (26.09%) Supplier Management
3 5 (21.74%) Incident Response
4 4 (17.39%) Agile
4 4 (17.39%) Cybersecurity
4 4 (17.39%) E-Commerce
4 4 (17.39%) Migration
4 4 (17.39%) Project Management
5 3 (13.04%) AI
5 3 (13.04%) Analytics
5 3 (13.04%) CI/CD
5 3 (13.04%) Logistics
5 3 (13.04%) Project Delivery
5 3 (13.04%) Security Operations
6 2 (8.70%) Architecture Governance
6 2 (8.70%) Data Science
6 2 (8.70%) Knowledge Transfer
6 2 (8.70%) MLOps
6 2 (8.70%) Problem-Solving
6 2 (8.70%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 3 (13.04%) Python
2 2 (8.70%) PowerShell
2 2 (8.70%) SQL
3 1 (4.35%) JavaScript
3 1 (4.35%) Kusto Query Language
3 1 (4.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 2 (8.70%) Microsoft Certification
2 1 (4.35%) CISM
2 1 (4.35%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (13.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (8.70%) GDPR
2 2 (8.70%) NIST
3 1 (4.35%) Data Quality
3 1 (4.35%) QA
System Software
1 2 (8.70%) Active Directory
2 1 (4.35%) Docker
2 1 (4.35%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 1 (4.35%) Ansible
1 1 (4.35%) Kubernetes
1 1 (4.35%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 4 (17.39%) Microsoft
2 1 (4.35%) BiZZdesign
2 1 (4.35%) Google
2 1 (4.35%) VMware
2 1 (4.35%) Workday