Legal Contract Job Trends in the North West

Legal
England > North West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Legal in contract job vacancies in the North West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Legal over the 6 months leading up to 27 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 54 80
Rank change year-on-year -26 +26 +13
Contract jobs citing Legal 71 73 58
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.54% 3.54% 2.09%
As % of the General category 4.26% 6.12% 3.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 60 33
10th Percentile - £355 £320
25th Percentile £133 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £370 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -26.00% - +1.27%
75th Percentile £491 £575 £575
90th Percentile £550 £718 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £493
% change year-on-year -0.05% +1.57% -3.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 4 11
10th Percentile - £16.88 £10.57
25th Percentile - £24.82 £19.85
Median hourly rate £74.26 £50.80 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.17% +95.39% +36.84%
75th Percentile - £73.86 £26.58
90th Percentile - £74.39 £26.66
England median hourly rate £18.00 £38.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -53.25% +48.08% +17.33%

All General Skills
North West

Legal 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 the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,667 1,192 1,518
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 59.60% 57.78% 54.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,060 679 938
10th Percentile £200 £267 £265
25th Percentile £356 £375 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +3.65%
75th Percentile £551 £575 £588
90th Percentile £638 £675 £686
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 129 98 194
10th Percentile £15.60 £16.04 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.56 £14.50
Median hourly rate £35.50 £28.99 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +22.46% +63.60% -29.12%
75th Percentile £57.50 £48.11 £36.64
90th Percentile £74.26 £71.07 £46.18
England median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £26.00
% change year-on-year -21.76% +17.12% -15.09%

Legal
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Legal relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Legal job vacancy trend in the North West

Legal
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Legal.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Legal

Legal
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Legal in the North West over the 6 months to 27 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Legal in the North West

Legal
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Legal.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Legal

Legal
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Legal within the North West region over the 6 months to 27 February 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
Manchester -34 25 £441 -11.75% 35
Merseyside -1 22 £135 -32.50% 11
Lancashire -20 13 £550 +2.33% 12
Cheshire -21 7 £400 +12.36% 10
Cumbria +5 3 £220 -42.86% 2
Legal
England

Legal
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 23 (32.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (8.45%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.41%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 3 (4.23%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (2.82%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (2.82%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (1.41%) Elite 3E
2 1 (1.41%) Loan IQ
2 1 (1.41%) NetSuite
2 1 (1.41%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (1.41%) SAP BPC
2 1 (1.41%) SAP HCM
2 1 (1.41%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 25 (35.21%) Microsoft 365
2 19 (26.76%) Azure
3 7 (9.86%) Microsoft Copilot
4 5 (7.04%) Entra ID
5 4 (5.63%) Microsoft Purview
5 4 (5.63%) Power Platform
6 2 (2.82%) Power Automate
6 2 (2.82%) PowerApps
7 1 (1.41%) AWS
7 1 (1.41%) Azure Data Factory
7 1 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.41%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (1.41%) Figma
7 1 (1.41%) OCI
7 1 (1.41%) PaaS
7 1 (1.41%) SaaS
7 1 (1.41%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 9 (12.68%) WebEx
2 4 (5.63%) DNS
3 3 (4.23%) BGP
3 3 (4.23%) Firewall
3 3 (4.23%) VLAN
4 2 (2.82%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (1.41%) Network Security
5 1 (1.41%) SSL
5 1 (1.41%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.82%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.41%) EDRMS
2 1 (1.41%) Oracle Database
2 1 (1.41%) Power BI
2 1 (1.41%) RDBMS
2 1 (1.41%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 1 (1.41%) JIRA
General
1 16 (22.54%) Social Skills
2 8 (11.27%) Finance
3 7 (9.86%) Law
4 5 (7.04%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (7.04%) Public Sector
5 3 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.82%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.41%) Automotive
7 1 (1.41%) Banking
7 1 (1.41%) Local Government
7 1 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 18 (25.35%) 1st Line Support
2 7 (9.86%) Administrator
3 6 (8.45%) Platform Engineer
3 6 (8.45%) Project Manager
4 3 (4.23%) Deployment Engineer
5 2 (2.82%) Analyst
5 2 (2.82%) Change Manager
5 2 (2.82%) Cloud Engineer
5 2 (2.82%) Consultant
5 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Specialist
5 2 (2.82%) Migration Engineer
5 2 (2.82%) Network Engineer
5 2 (2.82%) Rollout Manager
5 2 (2.82%) Rollout Project Manager
5 2 (2.82%) SC Cleared Deployment Engineer
5 2 (2.82%) Senior
6 1 (1.41%) 1st Line Service Desk Analyst
6 1 (1.41%) Lead
6 1 (1.41%) Senior Service Designer
6 1 (1.41%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (12.68%) XMPP
2 1 (1.41%) Microsoft Graph
2 1 (1.41%) REST
2 1 (1.41%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 13 (18.31%) Product Ownership
2 4 (5.63%) Fat Client
2 4 (5.63%) Thin Client
3 3 (4.23%) Data Centre
4 2 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.82%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.41%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.41%) PKI
5 1 (1.41%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.41%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 26 (36.62%) Windows
2 16 (22.54%) Windows 10
3 7 (9.86%) Linux
3 7 (9.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (9.86%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.41%) Solaris
4 1 (1.41%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (23.94%) Problem-Solving
2 15 (21.13%) Customer Service
2 15 (21.13%) Service Management
3 12 (16.90%) Acceptance Criteria
3 12 (16.90%) User Stories
4 11 (15.49%) Digital Transformation Programme
4 11 (15.49%) Product Requirements
5 10 (14.08%) ITSM
5 10 (14.08%) Platform Engineering
6 9 (12.68%) Identity Access Management
6 9 (12.68%) Stakeholder Management
7 7 (9.86%) Data Protection
7 7 (9.86%) Migration
7 7 (9.86%) Risk Management
8 6 (8.45%) Change Control
8 6 (8.45%) Data Loss Prevention
8 6 (8.45%) Knowledge Management
8 6 (8.45%) Performance Monitoring
9 5 (7.04%) Agile
9 5 (7.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 14 (19.72%) PowerShell
2 9 (12.68%) Bash
2 9 (12.68%) Perl
3 8 (11.27%) Python
4 2 (2.82%) SQL
5 1 (1.41%) C#
5 1 (1.41%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 14 (19.72%) SC Cleared
1 14 (19.72%) Security Cleared
2 5 (7.04%) CCDP
2 5 (7.04%) CCNA
2 5 (7.04%) CCNP
2 5 (7.04%) Cisco Certification
2 5 (7.04%) Degree
3 4 (5.63%) BPSS Clearance
3 4 (5.63%) DBS Check
4 2 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (1.41%) APMG
5 1 (1.41%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 1 (1.41%) PMI Certification
5 1 (1.41%) PMP
5 1 (1.41%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (11.27%) GDPR
2 3 (4.23%) QA
3 2 (2.82%) SLA
4 1 (1.41%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.41%) EU AI Act
4 1 (1.41%) SOC 2
System Software
1 25 (35.21%) Active Directory
2 3 (4.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.41%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 4 (5.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 2 (2.82%) FortiGate
3 1 (1.41%) Ansible
3 1 (1.41%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (1.41%) Red Hat Satellite
3 1 (1.41%) SCCM
3 1 (1.41%) SCOM
3 1 (1.41%) SCOrch
3 1 (1.41%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 46 (64.79%) Microsoft
2 16 (22.54%) ServiceNow
3 14 (19.72%) Bomgar
3 14 (19.72%) iManage
4 11 (15.49%) Cisco
5 10 (14.08%) Citrix
6 7 (9.86%) Red Hat
6 7 (9.86%) VMware
7 3 (4.23%) Oracle
7 3 (4.23%) SAP
8 2 (2.82%) Palo Alto
8 2 (2.82%) Remedy
9 1 (1.41%) Anaplan
9 1 (1.41%) DocuSign
9 1 (1.41%) Epicor
9 1 (1.41%) HubSpot
9 1 (1.41%) Reuters
9 1 (1.41%) Veeam