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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 63 72
Rank change year-on-year -26 +9 +11
Contract jobs citing Legal 87 63 67
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.42% 3.06% 2.41%
As % of the General category 4.56% 5.21% 4.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 53 46
10th Percentile £133 £230 £200
25th Percentile £230 £363 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% - -
75th Percentile £544 £575 £600
90th Percentile £600 £700 £850
England median daily rate £525 £503 £500
% change year-on-year +4.48% +0.50% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 0 13
10th Percentile - - £13.15
25th Percentile - - £25.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 - £26.00
75th Percentile £74.26 - £57.50
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +75.84% -37.50% +77.78%

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 1,906 1,209 1,495
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 53.12% 58.80% 53.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,070 775 884
10th Percentile £275 £302 £300
25th Percentile £383 £379 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £491
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -5.85% -1.75%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £576
90th Percentile £650 £675 £661
England median daily rate £525 £520 £535
% change year-on-year +0.96% -2.80% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 108 192
10th Percentile £16.50 £12.82 £13.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £13.90 £15.50
Median hourly rate £35.55 £29.54 £22.98
Median % change year-on-year +20.37% +28.55% -0.76%
75th Percentile £67.42 £58.76 £42.88
90th Percentile £84.25 £76.63 £51.79
England median hourly rate £32.50 £27.50 £32.90
% change year-on-year +18.18% -16.40% +9.65%

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 2 July 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Legal in the North West over the 6 months to 2 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Legal in the North West

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 2 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
Manchester -33 37 £500 - 68
Merseyside +4 22 £140 - 14
Cumbria -3 11 £240 +14.29%
Lancashire -6 9 £500 -5.66% 21
Cheshire -18 7 £525 +16.67% 13
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 17 (19.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.30%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (2.30%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.15%) AutoCAD
2 1 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (1.15%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 3 (3.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (1.15%) Elite 3E
2 1 (1.15%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 27 (31.03%) Microsoft 365
2 22 (25.29%) Azure
3 8 (9.20%) Entra ID
4 7 (8.05%) Microsoft Copilot
5 5 (5.75%) Microsoft Purview
5 5 (5.75%) Power Platform
6 4 (4.60%) Power Automate
6 4 (4.60%) PowerApps
7 1 (1.15%) IaaS
7 1 (1.15%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (6.90%) SSL
1 6 (6.90%) VPN
2 5 (5.75%) Firewall
2 5 (5.75%) Wi-Fi
3 3 (3.45%) BGP
3 3 (3.45%) DNS
3 3 (3.45%) TCP/IP
3 3 (3.45%) VLAN
3 3 (3.45%) WebEx
4 2 (2.30%) Cisco Nexus
4 2 (2.30%) LAN
4 2 (2.30%) MPLS
4 2 (2.30%) Network Security
4 2 (2.30%) OSPF
4 2 (2.30%) WAN
4 2 (2.30%) Wireshark
5 1 (1.15%) Kerberos
5 1 (1.15%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.60%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.30%) Data Mining
3 1 (1.15%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 3 (3.45%) MSI
General
1 26 (29.89%) Social Skills
2 24 (27.59%) Finance
3 15 (17.24%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (9.20%) Public Sector
5 7 (8.05%) Organisational Skills
6 6 (6.90%) Law
7 5 (5.75%) Banking
8 4 (4.60%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (2.30%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (2.30%) Military
10 1 (1.15%) Advertising
10 1 (1.15%) Financial Institution
10 1 (1.15%) Investment Banking
10 1 (1.15%) Legal Technology
10 1 (1.15%) Marketing
10 1 (1.15%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 13 (14.94%) 1st Line Support
2 11 (12.64%) Administrator
3 10 (11.49%) Project Manager
4 4 (4.60%) Senior
5 3 (3.45%) Applications Packager
5 3 (3.45%) Consultant
5 3 (3.45%) Desktop Engineer
5 3 (3.45%) Lead
5 3 (3.45%) Network Engineer
6 2 (2.30%) Analyst
6 2 (2.30%) Cloud Engineer
6 2 (2.30%) Data Migration Lead
6 2 (2.30%) Deployment Engineer
6 2 (2.30%) Microsoft Specialist
6 2 (2.30%) Migration Engineer
6 2 (2.30%) Programme Manager
6 2 (2.30%) Rollout Manager
6 2 (2.30%) Rollout Project Manager
6 2 (2.30%) SC Cleared Application Packager
6 2 (2.30%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (4.60%) ISPF
1 4 (4.60%) Middleware
2 3 (3.45%) XMPP
3 2 (2.30%) Microsoft Graph
3 2 (2.30%) REST
3 2 (2.30%) SailPoint
4 1 (1.15%) .NET
4 1 (1.15%) JDBC
4 1 (1.15%) OAuth
4 1 (1.15%) OpenID
4 1 (1.15%) RESTful
4 1 (1.15%) SAML
4 1 (1.15%) SOAP
4 1 (1.15%) Web Services
4 1 (1.15%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (6.90%) Podcast
1 6 (6.90%) Virtual Team
1 6 (6.90%) Web Conferencing
2 5 (5.75%) Product Ownership
3 4 (4.60%) Clustering
3 4 (4.60%) Mainframe
3 4 (4.60%) Operational Technology
4 3 (3.45%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (3.45%) Fat Client
4 3 (3.45%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.45%) Thin Client
5 2 (2.30%) Data Centre
5 2 (2.30%) Management Information System
5 2 (2.30%) PKI
5 2 (2.30%) Security Posture
6 1 (1.15%) Algorithms
6 1 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 24 (27.59%) Windows
2 21 (24.14%) Windows 10
3 4 (4.60%) zOS
4 1 (1.15%) Linux
4 1 (1.15%) Mac OS
4 1 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (1.15%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (22.99%) Customer Service
2 18 (20.69%) Data Protection
3 12 (13.79%) Problem-Solving
4 10 (11.49%) ITIL
4 10 (11.49%) Risk Management
4 10 (11.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 9 (10.34%) AI
5 9 (10.34%) Data Loss Prevention
5 9 (10.34%) Migration
5 9 (10.34%) Stakeholder Management
6 8 (9.20%) Agile
6 8 (9.20%) Change Management
6 8 (9.20%) PRINCE2
6 8 (9.20%) Service Management
7 6 (6.90%) Application Packaging
7 6 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
7 6 (6.90%) Data Governance
8 5 (5.75%) Continuous Improvement
8 5 (5.75%) E-Discovery
8 5 (5.75%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 7 (8.05%) PowerShell
2 4 (4.60%) SQL
3 2 (2.30%) Python
4 1 (1.15%) Bash
4 1 (1.15%) C#
4 1 (1.15%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.15%) Perl
4 1 (1.15%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 18 (20.69%) SC Cleared
1 18 (20.69%) Security Cleared
2 9 (10.34%) BPSS Clearance
3 8 (9.20%) Degree
4 4 (4.60%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (3.45%) CCNP
5 3 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (3.45%) PMP
6 2 (2.30%) DBS Check
6 2 (2.30%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.15%) CCDP
7 1 (1.15%) CCIE
7 1 (1.15%) CCNA
7 1 (1.15%) Chartered Engineer
7 1 (1.15%) CISSP
7 1 (1.15%) CREST Certified
7 1 (1.15%) GCFA
7 1 (1.15%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.90%) GDPR
2 2 (2.30%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.15%) EU AI Act
3 1 (1.15%) GRC
3 1 (1.15%) NCSC
3 1 (1.15%) NIST
3 1 (1.15%) SOC 2
3 1 (1.15%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 22 (25.29%) Active Directory
2 4 (4.60%) RACF
3 2 (2.30%) Firmware
4 1 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (4.60%) OMEGAMON
1 4 (4.60%) SCCM
2 3 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (2.30%) McAfee ePO
3 2 (2.30%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (1.15%) CASB
Vendors
1 34 (39.08%) Microsoft
2 14 (16.09%) ServiceNow
3 11 (12.64%) Bomgar
3 11 (12.64%) iManage
4 6 (6.90%) Cisco
5 4 (4.60%) Citrix
5 4 (4.60%) IBM
6 3 (3.45%) Juniper
6 3 (3.45%) Remedy
7 2 (2.30%) CyberArk
7 2 (2.30%) F5
7 2 (2.30%) Forcepoint
7 2 (2.30%) Fortinet
7 2 (2.30%) HP
7 2 (2.30%) McAfee
8 1 (1.15%) HubSpot
8 1 (1.15%) Red Hat
8 1 (1.15%) SolarWinds
8 1 (1.15%) TOWER Software
8 1 (1.15%) VMware