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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 48 52
Rank change year-on-year -13 +4 +2
Contract jobs citing Retail 52 26 41
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 2.97% 2.94% 2.89%
As % of the General category 5.49% 5.06% 6.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 36 17 41
10th Percentile £358 £393 £126
25th Percentile £425 £425 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% - -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £575
90th Percentile £638 £676 £600
North West median daily rate £525 £500 £450
% change year-on-year +5.00% +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 948 514 676
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 54.20% 58.21% 47.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 555 335 444
10th Percentile £298 £218 £300
25th Percentile £375 £376 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £463 £484
Median % change year-on-year +1.95% -4.39% -3.25%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £575
90th Percentile £638 £669 £654
North West median daily rate £461 £475 £493
% change year-on-year -3.03% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 33 61
10th Percentile £17.83 - £12.24
25th Percentile £23.00 £13.00 £13.31
Median hourly rate £41.06 £14.40 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year +185.10% -38.72% +17.50%
75th Percentile £76.00 £60.00 £33.00
90th Percentile £91.00 £77.00 £60.00
North West median hourly rate £35.50 £28.75 £18.59
% change year-on-year +23.48% +54.65% -28.50%

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 27 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 27 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 - 3 £563 - 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 (11.54%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (5.77%) Chatbot
2 1 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.92%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (3.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.92%) BambooHR
2 1 (1.92%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 8 (15.38%) Azure
2 7 (13.46%) AWS
3 4 (7.69%) Serverless
4 3 (5.77%) Azure Data Factory
4 3 (5.77%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (5.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 3 (5.77%) SaaS
5 2 (3.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 2 (3.85%) Amazon ECS
5 2 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
5 2 (3.85%) Azure AKS
5 2 (3.85%) Azure Functions
5 2 (3.85%) Azure Logic Apps
5 2 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
5 2 (3.85%) Azure Storage
5 2 (3.85%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (3.85%) GitHub
5 2 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (3.85%) PaaS
5 2 (3.85%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.85%) Firewall
1 2 (3.85%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (3.85%) Wireless
2 1 (1.92%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (1.92%) Network Security
2 1 (1.92%) SD-WAN
2 1 (1.92%) Unified Communications
2 1 (1.92%) VPN
2 1 (1.92%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.85%) Data Lake
1 2 (3.85%) DynamoDB
2 1 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (1.92%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 7 (13.46%) JIRA
2 2 (3.85%) Git
3 1 (1.92%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 15 (28.85%) Social Skills
2 8 (15.38%) Finance
3 6 (11.54%) Manufacturing
4 5 (9.62%) Telecoms
5 2 (3.85%) Banking
6 1 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.92%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 9 (17.31%) Senior
1 9 (17.31%) Software Engineer
2 8 (15.38%) Analyst
2 8 (15.38%) Architect
3 6 (11.54%) Principal Engineer
3 6 (11.54%) Principal Software Engineer
3 6 (11.54%) Project Manager
4 5 (9.62%) Business Analyst
4 5 (9.62%) Senior Manager
4 5 (9.62%) Senior Project Manager
4 5 (9.62%) Service Management Architect
5 4 (7.69%) E-Commerce Manager
5 4 (7.69%) Enterprise Architect
6 3 (5.77%) Data Engineer
6 3 (5.77%) E-Commerce Project Manager
6 3 (5.77%) IT Manager
6 3 (5.77%) Lead
6 3 (5.77%) Scrum Master
6 3 (5.77%) Senior E-Commerce Manager
6 3 (5.77%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (7.69%) React
2 3 (5.77%) MACH
3 2 (3.85%) ARM Templates
3 2 (3.85%) Middleware
4 1 (1.92%) .NET
4 1 (1.92%) .NET Core
4 1 (1.92%) ASP.NET
4 1 (1.92%) ASP.NET MVC
4 1 (1.92%) CSS
4 1 (1.92%) HTML
4 1 (1.92%) Kafka
4 1 (1.92%) PySpark
4 1 (1.92%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 10 (19.23%) Product Ownership
2 6 (11.54%) Cloud Native
2 6 (11.54%) EPoS
3 5 (9.62%) CMDB
4 4 (7.69%) Driving Licence
5 3 (5.77%) Data Centre
5 3 (5.77%) Onboarding
5 3 (5.77%) Taxonomies
6 2 (3.85%) AI Agents
6 2 (3.85%) Data Structures
6 2 (3.85%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (3.85%) iPad
6 2 (3.85%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.92%) Contactless
7 1 (1.92%) EMV
7 1 (1.92%) FMCG
7 1 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.92%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.92%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.92%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (32.69%) Agile
2 15 (28.85%) Stakeholder Management
3 11 (21.15%) Project Management
4 10 (19.23%) CI/CD
4 10 (19.23%) Software Engineering
5 9 (17.31%) E-Commerce
6 8 (15.38%) Roadmaps
7 7 (13.46%) B2C
7 7 (13.46%) Logistics
8 6 (11.54%) Observability
8 6 (11.54%) Supplier Management
9 5 (9.62%) Data Modelling
9 5 (9.62%) DevOps
9 5 (9.62%) Enterprise Architecture
9 5 (9.62%) Microservices
9 5 (9.62%) Project Planning
9 5 (9.62%) Scrum
9 5 (9.62%) Service Management
10 4 (7.69%) ITSM
10 4 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 4 (7.69%) Python
2 3 (5.77%) TypeScript
3 2 (3.85%) Bicep
3 2 (3.85%) PowerShell
3 2 (3.85%) SQL
4 1 (1.92%) C#
4 1 (1.92%) Korn
Qualifications
1 2 (3.85%) Azure Certification
1 2 (3.85%) City & Guilds
1 2 (3.85%) Security Cleared
2 1 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
2 1 (1.92%) Degree
2 1 (1.92%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (5.77%) Data Quality
2 2 (3.85%) QA
3 1 (1.92%) GDPR
3 1 (1.92%) PMO
System Software
1 3 (5.77%) Docker
2 2 (3.85%) Active Directory
2 2 (3.85%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 2 (3.85%) Kubernetes
1 2 (3.85%) SCCM
1 2 (3.85%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (11.54%) Microsoft
2 4 (7.69%) BMC
2 4 (7.69%) ServiceNow
3 3 (5.77%) Salesforce
4 2 (3.85%) Cisco
4 2 (3.85%) Databricks
4 2 (3.85%) Dynatrace
4 2 (3.85%) Fortinet
4 2 (3.85%) Infor
4 2 (3.85%) Oracle
4 2 (3.85%) SAP
4 2 (3.85%) SolarWinds
5 1 (1.92%) Barracuda Networks
5 1 (1.92%) Google
5 1 (1.92%) Informatica
5 1 (1.92%) MuleSoft
5 1 (1.92%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.92%) Sitecore
5 1 (1.92%) Workday