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 10 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 19 17
Rank change year-on-year -13 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing Project Management 153 166 232
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.74% 7.92% 8.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.61% 8.94% 9.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 73 78 160
10th Percentile £338 £291 £265
25th Percentile £411 £356 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £444 £475
Median % change year-on-year +12.68% -6.58% -2.01%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £575
90th Percentile £675 £575 £638
England median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 24 28
10th Percentile £29.85 £23.86 £22.44
25th Percentile - £30.37 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% -18.75% -36.77%
75th Percentile £56.88 £33.75 £43.75
90th Percentile £68.66 £60.00 £53.00
England median hourly rate £39.75 £38.11 £37.75
% change year-on-year +4.30% +0.95% -24.51%

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 2,313 1,856 2,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 86.76% 88.51% 86.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,506 1,097 1,642
10th Percentile £213 £270 £306
25th Percentile £358 £381 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £572 £588
90th Percentile £650 £658 £680
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 98 218
10th Percentile £16.28 £16.04 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.93 £21.62 £15.54
Median hourly rate £42.69 £30.95 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.92% +3.17% -20.00%
75th Percentile £60.93 £52.13 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.58 £54.13
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 10 February 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 10 February 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 10 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 -31 47 £451 +0.33% 59
Cheshire -18 41 £475 +33.43% 17
Lancashire +9 40 £500 -4.31% 24
Cumbria +2 17 £503 +25.75% 2
Merseyside -18 6 £700 +60.00% 9
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 17 (11.11%) Confluence
2 14 (9.15%) SharePoint
3 8 (5.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (4.58%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (4.58%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.65%) CMS
5 1 (0.65%) IIS
5 1 (0.65%) Moodle
5 1 (0.65%) SAS
Applications
1 17 (11.11%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (9.80%) MS Visio
3 13 (8.50%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (7.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (6.54%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 18 (11.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (3.92%) SAP Payroll
3 3 (1.96%) Primavera
4 2 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (1.31%) SAP HCM
4 2 (1.31%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.65%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.65%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 15 (9.80%) Azure
2 12 (7.84%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (5.23%) OneDrive
4 6 (3.92%) Power Platform
5 4 (2.61%) SuccessFactors
6 3 (1.96%) AWS
6 3 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (1.96%) Google Workspace
7 2 (1.31%) Serverless
7 2 (1.31%) Smartsheet
8 1 (0.65%) Amazon Cognito
8 1 (0.65%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.65%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.65%) Google Ads
8 1 (0.65%) IaaS
8 1 (0.65%) Lucidchart
8 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Copilot
8 1 (0.65%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.58%) Skype
2 3 (1.96%) SSH
3 1 (0.65%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (0.65%) DNS
3 1 (0.65%) Firewall
3 1 (0.65%) Internet
3 1 (0.65%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.65%) SSL
3 1 (0.65%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.65%) WAN
3 1 (0.65%) WebEx
3 1 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.65%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.61%) Power BI
2 3 (1.96%) SAP HANA
3 1 (0.65%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.65%) EDRMS
3 1 (0.65%) GIS
3 1 (0.65%) Looker
3 1 (0.65%) Metadata
3 1 (0.65%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.65%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.65%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 23 (15.03%) JIRA
2 1 (0.65%) Appium
2 1 (0.65%) Git
2 1 (0.65%) Jenkins
2 1 (0.65%) Selenium
General
1 83 (54.25%) Social Skills
2 58 (37.91%) Finance
3 36 (23.53%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (7.84%) Banking
5 10 (6.54%) Public Sector
6 8 (5.23%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (5.23%) Manufacturing
7 7 (4.58%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (4.58%) Retail
8 4 (2.61%) Legal
9 3 (1.96%) Marketing
10 2 (1.31%) Corporate Banking
10 2 (1.31%) Local Government
10 2 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.31%) Retail Banking
10 2 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.65%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.65%) Automotive
11 1 (0.65%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.65%) Law
Job Titles
1 41 (26.80%) Project Manager
2 29 (18.95%) Lead
3 22 (14.38%) Analyst
4 15 (9.80%) Consultant
5 11 (7.19%) SAP Consultant
6 10 (6.54%) Engagement Manager
7 9 (5.88%) Senior
8 8 (5.23%) Finance Manager
8 8 (5.23%) Finance Project Manager
8 8 (5.23%) Support Analyst
8 8 (5.23%) Transformation Consultant
9 7 (4.58%) Operational Support Analyst
9 7 (4.58%) Operations Analyst
9 7 (4.58%) Operations Support Analyst
10 6 (3.92%) Business Analyst
10 6 (3.92%) Programme Manager
10 6 (3.92%) Senior Manager
10 6 (3.92%) Senior Project Manager
11 5 (3.27%) IT Manager
11 5 (3.27%) Project Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (0.65%) REST
1 1 (0.65%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 14 (9.15%) Virtual Team
2 6 (3.92%) Management Information System
3 5 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 4 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (1.96%) EPoS
5 3 (1.96%) Learning Management System
5 3 (1.96%) Onboarding
5 3 (1.96%) Operational Technology
5 3 (1.96%) Tandem
6 2 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.31%) Life Science
6 2 (1.31%) PMI
6 2 (1.31%) Renewable Energy
6 2 (1.31%) SCADA
7 1 (0.65%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.65%) Data Fabric
7 1 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.65%) Marketing Technology
7 1 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.92%) Windows
2 4 (2.61%) Unix
3 2 (1.31%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.65%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (37.91%) Agile
2 56 (36.60%) Change Management
3 48 (31.37%) Problem-Solving
4 41 (26.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 38 (24.84%) ITIL
5 38 (24.84%) Migration
6 37 (24.18%) Project Delivery
7 35 (22.88%) Continuous Improvement
8 31 (20.26%) ERP
9 30 (19.61%) Validation
10 25 (16.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 24 (15.69%) PRINCE2
11 24 (15.69%) Six Sigma
12 22 (14.38%) Budget Management
13 20 (13.07%) Data Migration
14 19 (12.42%) Cybersecurity
14 19 (12.42%) DevOps
15 18 (11.76%) Service Delivery
15 18 (11.76%) Workshop Facilitation
16 17 (11.11%) Lean Six Sigma
Programming Languages
1 10 (6.54%) SQL
2 6 (3.92%) Python
3 2 (1.31%) ABAP
3 2 (1.31%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 1 (0.65%) Java
4 1 (0.65%) VBA
Qualifications
1 45 (29.41%) Degree
2 23 (15.03%) Security Cleared
3 15 (9.80%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
3 15 (9.80%) SC Cleared
4 12 (7.84%) PMP
5 9 (5.88%) PMI Certification
6 8 (5.23%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (3.92%) Master's Degree
7 6 (3.92%) MBA
8 5 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.31%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (1.31%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (1.31%) PRINCE2 Certification
9 2 (1.31%) SAFe Agilist
10 1 (0.65%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.65%) CISM
10 1 (0.65%) CISSP
10 1 (0.65%) MCSA
10 1 (0.65%) MCSE
10 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.88%) QA
2 8 (5.23%) PMO
3 2 (1.31%) Basel III
3 2 (1.31%) GDPR
3 2 (1.31%) NEBOSH
3 2 (1.31%) PMBOK
4 1 (0.65%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.65%) EU AI Act
4 1 (0.65%) GRC
4 1 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.65%) NIST
4 1 (0.65%) P3O
4 1 (0.65%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.65%) SLA
4 1 (0.65%) SOC 2
System Software
1 8 (5.23%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.65%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (5.23%) Microsoft Intune
1 8 (5.23%) SCCM
2 1 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (0.65%) Terraform
Vendors
1 33 (21.57%) Microsoft
2 29 (18.95%) SAP
3 8 (5.23%) Sage
4 5 (3.27%) ServiceNow
5 4 (2.61%) Cisco
5 4 (2.61%) Google
6 3 (1.96%) Citrix
6 3 (1.96%) Gemalto
6 3 (1.96%) IBM
6 3 (1.96%) Oracle
6 3 (1.96%) Palo Alto
6 3 (1.96%) Thales
7 2 (1.31%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.31%) Snow
7 2 (1.31%) Workday
8 1 (0.65%) Fortinet
8 1 (0.65%) NEC
8 1 (0.65%) Saba
8 1 (0.65%) Teradata
8 1 (0.65%) VMware