Project Management Contract Job Trends in the North West

Project Management
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Project Management skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 23 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Project Management 170 158 173
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.48% 7.22% 7.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.40% 8.16% 8.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 109 97
10th Percentile £358 £343 £302
25th Percentile £400 £403 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £538 £575 £550
90th Percentile £600 £678 £624
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 14 20
10th Percentile £21.00 £28.23 £20.72
25th Percentile £28.87 £38.52 £25.34
Median hourly rate £33.75 £60.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.75% +71.43% -
75th Percentile £70.15 £77.19 £46.76
90th Percentile £71.45 £80.33 £59.09
England median hourly rate £42.65 £40.50 £38.12
% change year-on-year +5.31% +6.24% -5.29%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Project Management 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 3,149 1,936 2,003
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.04% 88.48% 84.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,837 1,254 1,214
10th Percentile £275 £280 £308
25th Percentile £400 £375 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £457 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.37% -8.65% -
75th Percentile £598 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £665 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 125 176
10th Percentile £16.01 £13.50 £10.95
25th Percentile £24.19 £18.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £46.80 £28.43 £32.75
Median % change year-on-year +64.61% -13.19% -0.76%
75th Percentile £73.25 £58.27 £51.91
90th Percentile £85.00 £74.50 £70.90
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% -

Project Management
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Project Management job vacancy trend in the North West

Project Management
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Project Management
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Project Management in the North West over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Project Management in the North West

Project Management
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Project Management
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Project Management in the North West over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Project Management in the North West

Project Management
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 Project Management within the North West region over the 6 months to 8 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
Manchester -26 85 £450 -2.49% 78
Cheshire -17 39 £465 +8.14% 28
Lancashire +5 22 £594 +7.95% 28
Merseyside -8 13 £525 -6.67% 24
Cumbria -13 10 £478 +0.72% 6
Project Management
England

Project Management
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 12 (7.06%) Confluence
2 9 (5.29%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.59%) SAS
Applications
1 12 (7.06%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (5.88%) Microsoft Project
3 7 (4.12%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (3.53%) MS Visio
5 5 (2.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 12 (7.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (2.94%) Primavera
3 4 (2.35%) SAP HCM
3 4 (2.35%) SAP MM
4 2 (1.18%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.59%) ResourceLink
5 1 (0.59%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 13 (7.65%) Power Platform
2 11 (6.47%) Azure
3 7 (4.12%) Google Workspace
3 7 (4.12%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (2.35%) GCP
4 4 (2.35%) Google Sheets
4 4 (2.35%) SaaS
5 3 (1.76%) Asana
5 3 (1.76%) AWS
5 3 (1.76%) Google Drive
5 3 (1.76%) Power Automate
5 3 (1.76%) PowerApps
5 3 (1.76%) Smartsheet
6 2 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 2 (1.18%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.18%) OneDrive
6 2 (1.18%) Snowflake
7 1 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.35%) BGP
1 4 (2.35%) DNS
1 4 (2.35%) Network Security
1 4 (2.35%) SSH
1 4 (2.35%) TCP/IP
2 3 (1.76%) DKIM
2 3 (1.76%) DMARC
3 1 (0.59%) Cisco Nexus
3 1 (0.59%) DHCP
3 1 (0.59%) Ethernet VPN
3 1 (0.59%) Firewall
3 1 (0.59%) MPLS
3 1 (0.59%) OSPF
3 1 (0.59%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.59%) Software-Defined Networking
3 1 (0.59%) VPN
3 1 (0.59%) VXLAN
3 1 (0.59%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (7.06%) Power BI
2 5 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (2.35%) SAP HANA
4 3 (1.76%) Data Lake
5 2 (1.18%) Power Query
5 2 (1.18%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.59%) Big Data
6 1 (0.59%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.59%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.59%) MySQL
6 1 (0.59%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 17 (10.00%) JIRA
2 2 (1.18%) Git
2 2 (1.18%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.59%) GitLab
3 1 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 80 (47.06%) Social Skills
2 77 (45.29%) Finance
3 37 (21.76%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (8.82%) Banking
5 13 (7.65%) Manufacturing
5 13 (7.65%) Retail
6 12 (7.06%) Public Sector
7 11 (6.47%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (5.29%) Telecoms
9 7 (4.12%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (3.53%) Legal
11 3 (1.76%) Aviation
12 2 (1.18%) Automotive
12 2 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (1.18%) Financial Institution
12 2 (1.18%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.59%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.59%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.59%) Local Government
13 1 (0.59%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 73 (42.94%) Project Manager
2 15 (8.82%) Senior
3 14 (8.24%) Lead
3 14 (8.24%) Senior Manager
4 13 (7.65%) Senior Project Manager
5 12 (7.06%) Consultant
5 12 (7.06%) Finance Manager
6 11 (6.47%) Finance Project Manager
6 11 (6.47%) IT Manager
6 11 (6.47%) IT Project Manager
7 10 (5.88%) Accountant
7 10 (5.88%) SAP Consultant
7 10 (5.88%) Systems Accountant
8 9 (5.29%) Engagement Manager
9 7 (4.12%) Analyst
9 7 (4.12%) Programme Manager
9 7 (4.12%) Security Manager
9 7 (4.12%) Security Project Manager
10 6 (3.53%) Migration Project Manager
10 6 (3.53%) Transformation Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.35%) OAuth
2 2 (1.18%) REST
3 1 (0.59%) JSON
3 1 (0.59%) LangChain
3 1 (0.59%) LangGraph
3 1 (0.59%) Middleware
3 1 (0.59%) SailPoint
3 1 (0.59%) SAML
3 1 (0.59%) SOAP
3 1 (0.59%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.82%) Management Information System
2 8 (4.71%) Product Ownership
3 6 (3.53%) Credit Risk
3 6 (3.53%) Distributed Systems
3 6 (3.53%) EPoS
3 6 (3.53%) Mobile App
3 6 (3.53%) Taxonomies
4 5 (2.94%) Freedom of Information
4 5 (2.94%) Onboarding
4 5 (2.94%) PKI
5 4 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (2.35%) Low-Code
5 4 (2.35%) Operational Technology
6 3 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (1.76%) PMI
6 3 (1.76%) Tandem
7 2 (1.18%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.18%) Client/Server
7 2 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.53%) Windows
2 5 (2.94%) Unix
3 2 (1.18%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.59%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (39.41%) Stakeholder Management
2 42 (24.71%) Agile
3 38 (22.35%) Change Management
3 38 (22.35%) Migration
4 36 (21.18%) Problem-Solving
4 36 (21.18%) Project Delivery
5 27 (15.88%) PRINCE2
6 26 (15.29%) Continuous Improvement
7 23 (13.53%) ERP
8 22 (12.94%) Risk Management
9 21 (12.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 20 (11.76%) AI
11 19 (11.18%) Workshop Facilitation
12 18 (10.59%) Cybersecurity
12 18 (10.59%) Data Migration
13 15 (8.82%) Business Transformation
13 15 (8.82%) Decision-Making
13 15 (8.82%) Project Governance
13 15 (8.82%) Validation
13 15 (8.82%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 7 (4.12%) Python
2 6 (3.53%) SQL
3 2 (1.18%) ABAP
4 1 (0.59%) Bash
4 1 (0.59%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.59%) MATLAB
4 1 (0.59%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 19 (11.18%) Security Cleared
2 15 (8.82%) Degree
3 11 (6.47%) PMI Certification
3 11 (6.47%) SC Cleared
4 10 (5.88%) ACCA
4 10 (5.88%) CIMA
4 10 (5.88%) CIPFA
5 9 (5.29%) PMP
6 4 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.35%) PRINCE2 Certification
7 3 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (1.18%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.18%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.18%) CISA
8 2 (1.18%) CISM
8 2 (1.18%) CISSP
8 2 (1.18%) CRISC
8 2 (1.18%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.59%) CCIE
9 1 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.12%) PMO
2 6 (3.53%) Data Quality
3 4 (2.35%) SLA
4 3 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (1.76%) NIST
5 2 (1.18%) GRC
5 2 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 2 (1.18%) QA
6 1 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.59%) GDPR
System Software
1 5 (2.94%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.59%) Docker
2 1 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.59%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 4 (2.35%) Ansible
2 3 (1.76%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.59%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.59%) Progress Chef
3 1 (0.59%) Puppet
3 1 (0.59%) Terraform
Vendors
1 27 (15.88%) SAP
2 19 (11.18%) Microsoft
3 7 (4.12%) Google
4 6 (3.53%) Sage
5 5 (2.94%) Databricks
6 4 (2.35%) Cisco
6 4 (2.35%) Concur
6 4 (2.35%) DocuSign
6 4 (2.35%) Gemalto
6 4 (2.35%) Oracle
6 4 (2.35%) Salesforce
6 4 (2.35%) ServiceNow
6 4 (2.35%) Thales
7 3 (1.76%) Alteryx
7 3 (1.76%) Arista
7 3 (1.76%) IBM
8 2 (1.18%) Atlassian
8 2 (1.18%) Infor
9 1 (0.59%) Qualys
9 1 (0.59%) Veeam