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 18 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 45 55
Rank change year-on-year -4 +10 -1
Contract jobs citing Retail 77 34 41
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 3.95% 3.47% 3.00%
As % of the General category 7.36% 5.87% 5.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 26 38
10th Percentile £368 £413 £126
25th Percentile £500 £436 £308
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +15.00% +11.11% -11.11%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £575
90th Percentile £700 £725 £625
North West median daily rate £575 £500 £450
% change year-on-year +15.00% +11.11% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 0
10th Percentile £12.98 - -
25th Percentile £16.99 - -
Median hourly rate £21.00 £95.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -77.89% - -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate £21.00 £95.00 £13.00
% change year-on-year -77.89% +630.77% -

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 general skills in Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,046 579 699
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 53.70% 59.14% 51.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 380 436
10th Percentile £275 £263 £313
25th Percentile £391 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £700 £675
North West median daily rate £481 £463 £493
% change year-on-year +4.00% -6.19% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 43 53
10th Percentile £19.08 - £13.31
25th Percentile £28.23 £13.00 £15.92
Median hourly rate £41.06 £20.00 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year +105.28% -20.79% +42.66%
75th Percentile £74.75 £60.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £74.50 £62.50
North West median hourly rate £36.00 £29.01 £23.80
% change year-on-year +24.10% +21.89% +5.64%

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 18 July 2026.

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 18 July 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Bury - 10 £550 - 5
Salford - 1 £375 -
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 8 (10.39%) Confluence
2 1 (1.30%) Anypoint
Applications
1 3 (3.90%) Chatbot
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (5.19%) Shopify
2 2 (2.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (2.60%) SAP MDG
2 2 (2.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (1.30%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 22 (28.57%) AWS
2 15 (19.48%) Azure
3 8 (10.39%) GitHub
4 7 (9.09%) GitHub Actions
5 6 (7.79%) GCP
5 6 (7.79%) Snowflake
6 4 (5.19%) Anthropic Claude
6 4 (5.19%) Azure Data Factory
6 4 (5.19%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (5.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 4 (5.19%) GitHub Copilot
6 4 (5.19%) Google Gemini
6 4 (5.19%) Serverless
7 3 (3.90%) Azure Logic Apps
7 3 (3.90%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (3.90%) dbt
7 3 (3.90%) Fivetran
7 3 (3.90%) SaaS
8 2 (2.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (2.60%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.60%) Firewall
1 2 (2.60%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (2.60%) Wireless
2 1 (1.30%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (1.30%) Network Security
2 1 (1.30%) SD-WAN
2 1 (1.30%) Unified Communications
2 1 (1.30%) VPN
2 1 (1.30%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.19%) Data Lake
1 4 (5.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 3 (3.90%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (2.60%) Amazon Redshift
3 2 (2.60%) DynamoDB
3 2 (2.60%) SQL Server
3 2 (2.60%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 2 (2.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 9 (11.69%) JIRA
2 6 (7.79%) Git
3 4 (5.19%) Claude Code
General
1 30 (38.96%) Social Skills
2 16 (20.78%) Finance
3 13 (16.88%) Manufacturing
4 7 (9.09%) Banking
5 5 (6.49%) Telecoms
6 1 (1.30%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.30%) Marketing
6 1 (1.30%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 17 (22.08%) Senior
2 14 (18.18%) Analyst
3 11 (14.29%) Software Engineer
4 9 (11.69%) Principal Engineer
5 8 (10.39%) Project Manager
6 7 (9.09%) Business Analyst
6 7 (9.09%) Principal Software Engineer
7 6 (7.79%) Architect
7 6 (7.79%) Senior Manager
8 5 (6.49%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 5 (6.49%) Product Manager
8 5 (6.49%) Senior Project Manager
9 4 (5.19%) E-Commerce Manager
9 4 (5.19%) IT Manager
9 4 (5.19%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
9 4 (5.19%) Systems Analyst
9 4 (5.19%) Technical Analyst
10 3 (3.90%) Business Systems Analyst
10 3 (3.90%) Developer
10 3 (3.90%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (11.69%) React
2 5 (6.49%) Node.js
2 5 (6.49%) REST
3 4 (5.19%) MACH
3 4 (5.19%) Next.js
4 3 (3.90%) J2EE
4 3 (3.90%) Java EE
4 3 (3.90%) Spring
4 3 (3.90%) Spring Boot
5 2 (2.60%) ARM Templates
5 2 (2.60%) Kafka
6 1 (1.30%) .NET Core
6 1 (1.30%) JSON
6 1 (1.30%) Lambda Expressions
6 1 (1.30%) OAuth
6 1 (1.30%) OAuth2
6 1 (1.30%) OpenAPI
6 1 (1.30%) PySpark
6 1 (1.30%) Swagger
6 1 (1.30%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 11 (14.29%) Cloud Native
1 11 (14.29%) Product Ownership
2 7 (9.09%) Legacy Systems
3 6 (7.79%) EPoS
4 5 (6.49%) Mobile App
5 4 (5.19%) Driving Licence
5 4 (5.19%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (3.90%) Credit Risk
6 3 (3.90%) Culture of Ownership
6 3 (3.90%) FMCG
7 2 (2.60%) AI Agents
7 2 (2.60%) CMDB
7 2 (2.60%) Data Structures
7 2 (2.60%) iPad
8 1 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (1.30%) Contactless
8 1 (1.30%) Data Centre
8 1 (1.30%) EMV
8 1 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (1.30%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.30%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (50.65%) Agile
2 29 (37.66%) Stakeholder Management
3 23 (29.87%) CI/CD
4 21 (27.27%) E-Commerce
5 19 (24.68%) Software Engineering
6 14 (18.18%) AI
6 14 (18.18%) DevOps
6 14 (18.18%) Logistics
6 14 (18.18%) Roadmaps
7 13 (16.88%) Project Management
8 12 (15.58%) Migration
9 11 (14.29%) Event-Driven
10 9 (11.69%) Analytics
10 9 (11.69%) B2C
10 9 (11.69%) Customer Experience
10 9 (11.69%) Data Modelling
10 9 (11.69%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 9 (11.69%) Infrastructure as Code
10 9 (11.69%) Microservices
10 9 (11.69%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 9 (11.69%) TypeScript
2 6 (7.79%) Python
3 5 (6.49%) SQL
4 3 (3.90%) Bicep
4 3 (3.90%) Java
5 2 (2.60%) C#
5 2 (2.60%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.30%) Bash
6 1 (1.30%) Korn
Qualifications
1 6 (7.79%) BPSS Clearance
2 3 (3.90%) Azure Certification
3 2 (2.60%) City & Guilds
3 2 (2.60%) Security Cleared
4 1 (1.30%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (7.79%) QA
2 4 (5.19%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.30%) GDPR
3 1 (1.30%) PMO
System Software
1 7 (9.09%) Docker
2 2 (2.60%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.60%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (10.39%) Terraform
2 6 (7.79%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 7 (9.09%) Microsoft
1 7 (9.09%) Salesforce
2 4 (5.19%) Databricks
2 4 (5.19%) SAP
3 3 (3.90%) MuleSoft
4 2 (2.60%) BMC
4 2 (2.60%) Cisco
4 2 (2.60%) Fortinet
4 2 (2.60%) Infor
4 2 (2.60%) Informatica
4 2 (2.60%) Oracle
4 2 (2.60%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.30%) Barracuda Networks
5 1 (1.30%) Google
5 1 (1.30%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.30%) Sitecore
5 1 (1.30%) Workday