Operational Stability Contract Job Trends in the North West

Operational Stability
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Operational Stability skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 124 137
Rank change year-on-year -21 +13 +27
Contract jobs citing Operational Stability 17 3 4
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.59% 0.14% 0.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.69% 0.16% 0.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 0 0
10th Percentile £300 - -
25th Percentile £312 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £393 - -
75th Percentile £398 - -
90th Percentile £400 - -
England median daily rate £450 £600 £496
% change year-on-year -25.00% +20.91% -0.75%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Operational Stability falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,462 1,897 2,466
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 85.55% 89.31% 86.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,559 1,158 1,605
10th Percentile £213 £279 £303
25th Percentile £359 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £663 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 213 111 255
10th Percentile £17.13 £16.25 £11.38
25th Percentile £24.26 £23.23 £14.18
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £23.61
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% +37.65% -37.04%
75th Percentile £63.75 £59.95 £45.88
90th Percentile £75.96 £80.59 £54.20
England median hourly rate £29.61 £35.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -15.40% +6.06% -6.46%

Operational Stability
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Operational Stability job vacancy trend in the North West

Operational Stability
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Operational Stability
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Operational Stability in the North West over the 6 months to 7 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Operational Stability in the North West

Operational Stability
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 Operational Stability within the North West region over the 6 months to 7 March 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
Merseyside - 13 £393 -
Manchester -24 4 £400 - 2
Operational Stability
England

Operational Stability
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:

Cloud Services
1 5 (29.41%) AWS
1 5 (29.41%) Azure
2 4 (23.53%) Microsoft 365
2 4 (23.53%) Nutanix
3 1 (5.88%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (23.53%) DHCP
1 4 (23.53%) DNS
1 4 (23.53%) Firewall
1 4 (23.53%) NetScaler
1 4 (23.53%) TCP/IP
General
1 13 (76.47%) Finance
2 10 (58.82%) Social Skills
3 5 (29.41%) Public Sector
4 4 (23.53%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (5.88%) Banking
5 1 (5.88%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 7 (41.18%) Test Manager
2 4 (23.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 4 (23.53%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
2 4 (23.53%) Platform Engineer
3 3 (17.65%) Lead
4 2 (11.76%) Developer
4 2 (11.76%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
4 2 (11.76%) Test Leader
5 1 (5.88%) Azure DevOps Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) Azure Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) DevOps Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (11.76%) AngularJS
1 2 (11.76%) CSS
1 2 (11.76%) HTML
1 2 (11.76%) Node.js
1 2 (11.76%) React
1 2 (11.76%) Vue
2 1 (5.88%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 4 (23.53%) Private Cloud
1 4 (23.53%) Public Cloud
2 2 (11.76%) Cloud Native
3 1 (5.88%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (5.88%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 4 (23.53%) Windows
1 4 (23.53%) Windows Server
1 4 (23.53%) Windows Server 2012
1 4 (23.53%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (58.82%) Stakeholder Management
2 9 (52.94%) Change Management
2 9 (52.94%) Cutover Planning
2 9 (52.94%) Data Validation
2 9 (52.94%) ETL
2 9 (52.94%) Operational Acceptance Testing
2 9 (52.94%) Regression Testing
2 9 (52.94%) Test Management
2 9 (52.94%) Test Strategy
2 9 (52.94%) User Acceptance Testing
2 9 (52.94%) Validation
3 8 (47.06%) Data Governance
4 5 (29.41%) DevOps
4 5 (29.41%) Problem-Solving
5 4 (23.53%) Business Continuity
5 4 (23.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 4 (23.53%) Load Balancing
5 4 (23.53%) Mentoring
5 4 (23.53%) Project Delivery
5 4 (23.53%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 4 (23.53%) PowerShell
2 2 (11.76%) JavaScript
2 2 (11.76%) TypeScript
3 1 (5.88%) SQL
Qualifications
1 3 (17.65%) BPSS Clearance
1 3 (17.65%) Degree
1 3 (17.65%) Master's Degree
2 2 (11.76%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (47.06%) IFRS
1 8 (47.06%) IFRS 17
2 7 (41.18%) QA
3 2 (11.76%) Accessibility
3 2 (11.76%) WCAG
System Software
1 4 (23.53%) Active Directory
1 4 (23.53%) Docker
1 4 (23.53%) Virtual Desktop
1 4 (23.53%) VMware Infrastructure
1 4 (23.53%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 4 (23.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
1 4 (23.53%) Kubernetes
1 4 (23.53%) Microsoft Intune
1 4 (23.53%) SCCM
2 1 (5.88%) Terraform
Vendors
1 4 (23.53%) F5
1 4 (23.53%) Veeam
1 4 (23.53%) VMware
2 1 (5.88%) Virgin Media