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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 55 51
Rank change year-on-year -7 -4 +12
Contract jobs citing Retail 47 24 45
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 2.79% 2.59% 2.97%
As % of the General category 5.01% 4.58% 6.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 32 16 40
10th Percentile £358 £356 £126
25th Percentile £425 £422 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -2.44% +7.89%
75th Percentile £606 £638 £578
90th Percentile £625 £649 £630
North West median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 0
Median hourly rate £21.00 - -
North West median hourly rate £21.00 £32.50 £13.00
% change year-on-year -35.38% +150.00% -

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 938 524 731
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 55.73% 56.59% 48.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 586 339 477
10th Percentile £299 £250 £313
25th Percentile £375 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -6.00% -
75th Percentile £574 £558 £588
90th Percentile £632 £676 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 40 62
10th Percentile £18.16 - £12.27
25th Percentile £22.68 £13.00 £13.31
Median hourly rate £41.06 £19.77 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year +107.72% -9.02% -13.10%
75th Percentile £76.00 £40.31 £31.50
90th Percentile £95.00 £72.75 £59.75
North West median hourly rate £36.00 £28.75 £17.72
% change year-on-year +25.22% +62.25% -31.85%

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 May 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 1 May 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
Salford - 2 £750 - 3
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 6 (12.77%) Confluence
2 2 (4.26%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (4.26%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (6.38%) Chatbot
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (2.13%) BambooHR
1 1 (2.13%) Dynamics AX
1 1 (2.13%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 7 (14.89%) Azure
2 6 (12.77%) AWS
3 4 (8.51%) Entra ID
3 4 (8.51%) Serverless
4 3 (6.38%) Azure DevOps
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon ECS
5 2 (4.26%) AWS Lambda
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Data Factory
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Functions
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Logic Apps
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Storage
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 2 (4.26%) Cloud Computing
5 2 (4.26%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (4.26%) GitHub
5 2 (4.26%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (4.26%) OneDrive
5 2 (4.26%) PaaS
5 2 (4.26%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.13%) Cisco Firepower
1 1 (2.13%) Firewall
1 1 (2.13%) SD-WAN
1 1 (2.13%) VPN
1 1 (2.13%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.26%) Data Lake
1 2 (4.26%) DynamoDB
2 1 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (2.13%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 7 (14.89%) JIRA
2 2 (4.26%) Git
3 1 (2.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 11 (23.40%) Social Skills
2 7 (14.89%) Finance
3 5 (10.64%) Manufacturing
3 5 (10.64%) Telecoms
4 2 (4.26%) Banking
5 1 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (2.13%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 9 (19.15%) Senior
1 9 (19.15%) Software Engineer
2 8 (17.02%) Analyst
3 7 (14.89%) Architect
4 6 (12.77%) Principal Engineer
4 6 (12.77%) Principal Software Engineer
4 6 (12.77%) Project Manager
5 5 (10.64%) Business Analyst
5 5 (10.64%) Senior Manager
5 5 (10.64%) Senior Project Manager
5 5 (10.64%) Service Management Architect
6 4 (8.51%) E-Commerce Manager
6 4 (8.51%) Enterprise Architect
7 3 (6.38%) E-Commerce Project Manager
7 3 (6.38%) IT Manager
7 3 (6.38%) Scrum Master
7 3 (6.38%) Senior E-Commerce Manager
7 3 (6.38%) Senior Software Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Microsoft 365 Administrator
8 2 (4.26%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (8.51%) React
2 3 (6.38%) MACH
3 2 (4.26%) ARM Templates
3 2 (4.26%) Middleware
4 1 (2.13%) .NET
4 1 (2.13%) .NET Core
4 1 (2.13%) ASP.NET
4 1 (2.13%) ASP.NET MVC
4 1 (2.13%) CSS
4 1 (2.13%) HTML
4 1 (2.13%) PySpark
4 1 (2.13%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 10 (21.28%) Product Ownership
2 6 (12.77%) Cloud Native
2 6 (12.77%) EPoS
3 5 (10.64%) CMDB
4 4 (8.51%) Driving Licence
5 3 (6.38%) Onboarding
5 3 (6.38%) Taxonomies
6 2 (4.26%) AI Agents
6 2 (4.26%) Data Centre
6 2 (4.26%) Data Structures
6 2 (4.26%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (2.13%) Contactless
7 1 (2.13%) EMV
7 1 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (2.13%) Management Information System
7 1 (2.13%) Online Banking
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (31.91%) Agile
2 13 (27.66%) Stakeholder Management
3 10 (21.28%) CI/CD
3 10 (21.28%) Project Management
3 10 (21.28%) Software Engineering
4 7 (14.89%) E-Commerce
5 6 (12.77%) B2C
5 6 (12.77%) Logistics
5 6 (12.77%) Observability
5 6 (12.77%) Supplier Management
6 5 (10.64%) Data Modelling
6 5 (10.64%) DevOps
6 5 (10.64%) Enterprise Architecture
6 5 (10.64%) Microservices
6 5 (10.64%) Project Planning
6 5 (10.64%) Roadmaps
6 5 (10.64%) Scrum
6 5 (10.64%) Service Management
7 4 (8.51%) Incident Response
7 4 (8.51%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 4 (8.51%) PowerShell
2 3 (6.38%) Python
2 3 (6.38%) TypeScript
3 2 (4.26%) Bicep
4 1 (2.13%) C#
4 1 (2.13%) Korn
4 1 (2.13%) SQL
Qualifications
1 2 (4.26%) Azure Certification
1 2 (4.26%) Microsoft Certification
2 1 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
2 1 (2.13%) Degree
2 1 (2.13%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.38%) Data Quality
1 3 (6.38%) GDPR
2 2 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (4.26%) QA
3 1 (2.13%) PMO
System Software
1 4 (8.51%) Active Directory
2 3 (6.38%) Docker
3 2 (4.26%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 2 (4.26%) Kubernetes
1 2 (4.26%) SCCM
1 2 (4.26%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (14.89%) Microsoft
2 4 (8.51%) BMC
3 3 (6.38%) ServiceNow
4 2 (4.26%) Databricks
4 2 (4.26%) Dynatrace
4 2 (4.26%) Infor
4 2 (4.26%) Oracle
4 2 (4.26%) Salesforce
4 2 (4.26%) SAP
4 2 (4.26%) SolarWinds
5 1 (2.13%) Barracuda Networks
5 1 (2.13%) Cisco
5 1 (2.13%) Fortinet
5 1 (2.13%) Google
5 1 (2.13%) Palo Alto
5 1 (2.13%) Sitecore
5 1 (2.13%) Workday