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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 50 54
Rank change year-on-year +5 +4 -1
Contract jobs citing Retail 84 36 34
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 4.27% 3.52% 2.84%
As % of the General category 8.05% 5.80% 5.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 28 31
10th Percentile £409 £421 £126
25th Percentile £500 £467 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +11.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £575
90th Percentile £700 £708 £600
North West median daily rate £550 £500 £450
% change year-on-year +10.00% +11.11% -13.46%
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 £12.00
% change year-on-year -77.89% +691.67% -

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 1,044 621 615
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 53.13% 60.70% 51.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 606 393 372
10th Percentile £275 £282 £330
25th Percentile £395 £393 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £595 £588 £600
90th Percentile £700 £688 £700
North West median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.50% -6.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 51 30
10th Percentile £18.00 - £16.70
25th Percentile £24.19 £13.00 £23.96
Median hourly rate £37.50 £21.53 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.18% -36.68% +92.09%
75th Percentile £69.50 £55.25 £57.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £63.23
North West median hourly rate £35.00 £29.14 £32.90
% change year-on-year +20.13% -11.43% +23.67%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 - 13 £600 -
Salford - 1 £375 - 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 12 (14.29%) Confluence
2 1 (1.19%) Anypoint
Applications
1 3 (3.57%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (4.76%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (4.76%) Shopify
2 2 (2.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (2.38%) SAP MDG
3 1 (1.19%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (1.19%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (1.19%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 26 (30.95%) AWS
2 14 (16.67%) Azure
3 12 (14.29%) GitHub
4 10 (11.90%) GitHub Actions
5 8 (9.52%) Snowflake
6 6 (7.14%) Anthropic Claude
6 6 (7.14%) GCP
6 6 (7.14%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (7.14%) Google Gemini
7 5 (5.95%) Serverless
8 3 (3.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (3.57%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (3.57%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (3.57%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (3.57%) Azure Logic Apps
8 3 (3.57%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (3.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (3.57%) dbt
8 3 (3.57%) Fivetran
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.38%) Firewall
1 2 (2.38%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (2.38%) Wireless
2 1 (1.19%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (1.19%) Network Security
2 1 (1.19%) SD-WAN
2 1 (1.19%) Unified Communications
2 1 (1.19%) VPN
2 1 (1.19%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (7.14%) Data Lake
1 6 (7.14%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (5.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 4 (4.76%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (3.57%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 3 (3.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (2.38%) DynamoDB
5 2 (2.38%) Power BI
5 2 (2.38%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (14.29%) JIRA
2 6 (7.14%) Claude Code
2 6 (7.14%) Git
3 1 (1.19%) GitLab
3 1 (1.19%) Hudson
General
1 37 (44.05%) Social Skills
2 27 (32.14%) Finance
3 17 (20.24%) Banking
4 16 (19.05%) Manufacturing
5 5 (5.95%) Telecoms
6 4 (4.76%) Retail Banking
7 3 (3.57%) Analytical Skills
8 2 (2.38%) Marketing
9 1 (1.19%) Billing
9 1 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.19%) Retail Finance
Job Titles
1 17 (20.24%) Analyst
1 17 (20.24%) Senior
2 11 (13.10%) Business Analyst
3 9 (10.71%) Project Manager
4 6 (7.14%) Product Manager
4 6 (7.14%) Software Engineer
5 5 (5.95%) Full-Stack Engineer
5 5 (5.95%) Principal Engineer
6 4 (4.76%) Architect
6 4 (4.76%) Business Systems Analyst
6 4 (4.76%) Data Business Analyst
6 4 (4.76%) Developer
6 4 (4.76%) Finance Manager
6 4 (4.76%) IT Manager
6 4 (4.76%) IT Project Manager
6 4 (4.76%) Lead
6 4 (4.76%) Senior Developer
6 4 (4.76%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
6 4 (4.76%) Systems Analyst
6 4 (4.76%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (14.29%) Terraform
2 10 (11.90%) React
3 7 (8.33%) Node.js
3 7 (8.33%) REST
4 6 (7.14%) Next.js
5 5 (5.95%) MACH
6 3 (3.57%) Jakarta EE
6 3 (3.57%) Spring
6 3 (3.57%) Spring Boot
7 2 (2.38%) ARM Templates
7 2 (2.38%) Kafka
8 1 (1.19%) EDI
8 1 (1.19%) JSON
8 1 (1.19%) Lambda Expressions
8 1 (1.19%) OAuth
8 1 (1.19%) OAuth2
8 1 (1.19%) OpenAPI
8 1 (1.19%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 13 (15.48%) Cloud Native
2 11 (13.10%) Product Ownership
3 9 (10.71%) Credit Risk
4 8 (9.52%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (8.33%) Mobile App
6 5 (5.95%) EPoS
7 4 (4.76%) Driving Licence
7 4 (4.76%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (3.57%) Culture of Ownership
8 3 (3.57%) FMCG
9 2 (2.38%) AI Agents
9 2 (2.38%) Data Structures
9 2 (2.38%) Digital Media
9 2 (2.38%) iPad
10 1 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
10 1 (1.19%) Contactless
10 1 (1.19%) Digital Wallet
10 1 (1.19%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (1.19%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.19%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (54.76%) Agile
2 35 (41.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 26 (30.95%) CI/CD
4 23 (27.38%) E-Commerce
5 20 (23.81%) Migration
6 18 (21.43%) Logistics
7 17 (20.24%) AI
7 17 (20.24%) DevOps
8 15 (17.86%) Project Management
8 15 (17.86%) Software Engineering
8 15 (17.86%) Supplier Management
9 14 (16.67%) Event-Driven
9 14 (16.67%) Roadmaps
10 13 (15.48%) Data Modelling
10 13 (15.48%) Infrastructure as Code
10 13 (15.48%) Observability
11 12 (14.29%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 11 (13.10%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (13.10%) Scrum
12 11 (13.10%) Systems Analysis
Programming Languages
1 11 (13.10%) TypeScript
2 9 (10.71%) SQL
3 7 (8.33%) Python
4 3 (3.57%) Bicep
4 3 (3.57%) Java
5 2 (2.38%) Bash
5 2 (2.38%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.19%) C#
6 1 (1.19%) Korn
Qualifications
1 6 (7.14%) BPSS Clearance
2 3 (3.57%) Azure Certification
3 2 (2.38%) City & Guilds
3 2 (2.38%) Security Cleared
4 1 (1.19%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (8.33%) QA
2 4 (4.76%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.19%) GRC
System Software
1 9 (10.71%) Docker
2 2 (2.38%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.38%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 9 (10.71%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 10 (11.90%) Salesforce
2 7 (8.33%) Microsoft
2 7 (8.33%) SAP
3 6 (7.14%) Databricks
4 3 (3.57%) MuleSoft
5 2 (2.38%) Ariba
5 2 (2.38%) Cisco
5 2 (2.38%) Fortinet
5 2 (2.38%) Infor
5 2 (2.38%) Informatica
5 2 (2.38%) Oracle
5 2 (2.38%) ServiceNow
5 2 (2.38%) Teradata
6 1 (1.19%) Barracuda Networks
6 1 (1.19%) OpenText
6 1 (1.19%) Palo Alto
6 1 (1.19%) Qualys
6 1 (1.19%) Tenable
6 1 (1.19%) Workday