Retail Contract Job Trends in the North West

Retailing
England > North West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Retail in contract job vacancies in the North West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Retail over the 6 months leading up to 20 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 82 88
Rank change year-on-year +9 +6 -22
Contract jobs citing Retail 122 51 33
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.13% 2.35% 1.37%
As % of the General category 6.12% 3.83% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 84 38 27
10th Percentile £381 £236 £368
25th Percentile £500 £434 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £463
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +8.11% -11.90%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £575
90th Percentile £685 £672 £620
England median daily rate £550 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 1
10th Percentile £12.98 - -
25th Percentile £13.09 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £13.81 £19.00 £12.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.32% +58.33% -
75th Percentile £21.00 £57.25 -
90th Percentile - £79.90 -
England median hourly rate £15.67 £16.34 £16.30
% change year-on-year -4.07% +0.21% -17.72%

All General Skills
North West

Retail 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 1,993 1,332 1,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 51.10% 61.33% 56.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,120 858 765
10th Percentile £230 £270 £275
25th Percentile £400 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £458 £493
Median % change year-on-year +9.29% -7.20% -1.40%
75th Percentile £594 £575 £585
90th Percentile £680 £688 £678
England median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 110 80
10th Percentile £14.68 £12.82 £15.99
25th Percentile £23.60 £15.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate £35.30 £25.94 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.11% -25.89% +55.35%
75th Percentile £60.94 £49.28 £46.51
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.02 £58.45
England median hourly rate £30.90 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +22.86% -34.02% +27.07%

Retail
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Retail job vacancy trend in the North West

Retail
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Retail
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Retail in the North West over the 6 months to 20 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Retail in the North West

Retail
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Retail
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 Retail within the North West region over the 6 months to 20 September 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 +3 81 £550 +10.00% 188
Merseyside -3 21 £588 +18.69% 60
Cheshire -1 8 £465 +287.29% 44
Lancashire -16 7 - - 36
Retail
England

Retail
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 11 (9.02%) Confluence
2 4 (3.28%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.82%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.82%) Mendix
3 1 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.82%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 3 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (3.28%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (3.28%) Shopify
2 3 (2.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (1.64%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.82%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.82%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.82%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.82%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.82%) SAP SD
4 1 (0.82%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 32 (26.23%) AWS
2 14 (11.48%) Azure
3 10 (8.20%) GitHub
4 8 (6.56%) GitHub Actions
4 8 (6.56%) Snowflake
5 7 (5.74%) GCP
6 6 (4.92%) Anthropic Claude
6 6 (4.92%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (4.92%) Google Gemini
7 5 (4.10%) SaaS
8 3 (2.46%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (2.46%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (2.46%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (2.46%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (2.46%) dbt
8 3 (2.46%) Fivetran
8 3 (2.46%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (2.46%) Power Platform
8 3 (2.46%) Serverless
9 2 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.64%) Firewall
1 2 (1.64%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (1.64%) Wireless
2 1 (0.82%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (0.82%) Network Security
2 1 (0.82%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.82%) Unified Communications
2 1 (0.82%) VPN
2 1 (0.82%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.92%) Data Lake
1 6 (4.92%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (4.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 4 (3.28%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (2.46%) Power BI
4 3 (2.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 3 (2.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (1.64%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.82%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 11 (9.02%) JIRA
2 6 (4.92%) Claude Code
3 4 (3.28%) Git
4 2 (1.64%) GitLab
5 1 (0.82%) Hudson
General
1 59 (48.36%) Social Skills
2 44 (36.07%) Finance
3 19 (15.57%) Banking
3 19 (15.57%) Manufacturing
4 10 (8.20%) Back Office
5 6 (4.92%) Marketing
5 6 (4.92%) Retail Banking
6 5 (4.10%) Telecoms
7 4 (3.28%) Legal
8 3 (2.46%) Advertising
8 3 (2.46%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.46%) Billing
9 2 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.82%) Retail Finance
Job Titles
1 19 (15.57%) Architect
1 19 (15.57%) Senior
2 17 (13.93%) Analyst
3 14 (11.48%) Solutions Architect
4 12 (9.84%) Business Analyst
5 10 (8.20%) Project Manager
6 7 (5.74%) Lead
6 7 (5.74%) Product Manager
7 6 (4.92%) Finance Manager
7 6 (4.92%) IT Manager
7 6 (4.92%) Software Engineer
8 5 (4.10%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 5 (4.10%) IT Project Manager
8 5 (4.10%) Systems Analyst
8 5 (4.10%) Technical Analyst
9 4 (3.28%) Business Systems Analyst
9 4 (3.28%) Data Business Analyst
9 4 (3.28%) Senior Developer
9 4 (3.28%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
9 4 (3.28%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (8.20%) React
1 10 (8.20%) Terraform
2 7 (5.74%) Node.js
2 7 (5.74%) REST
3 6 (4.92%) Next.js
4 5 (4.10%) MACH
5 4 (3.28%) Middleware
5 4 (3.28%) Spring
5 4 (3.28%) Spring Boot
6 3 (2.46%) Jakarta EE
7 2 (1.64%) EDI
7 2 (1.64%) Kafka
8 1 (0.82%) JSON
8 1 (0.82%) Lambda Expressions
8 1 (0.82%) OAuth
8 1 (0.82%) OAuth2
8 1 (0.82%) OpenAPI
8 1 (0.82%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 15 (12.30%) Cloud Native
2 14 (11.48%) Product Ownership
3 10 (8.20%) Credit Risk
3 10 (8.20%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (6.56%) Mobile App
5 5 (4.10%) Digital Media
5 5 (4.10%) EPoS
6 4 (3.28%) Culture of Ownership
6 4 (3.28%) FMCG
6 4 (3.28%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (2.46%) Management Information System
7 3 (2.46%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.64%) Data Structures
8 2 (1.64%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.64%) iPad
9 1 (0.82%) Contactless
9 1 (0.82%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.82%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.64%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (40.16%) Agile
2 46 (37.70%) Stakeholder Management
3 25 (20.49%) E-Commerce
3 25 (20.49%) Migration
4 24 (19.67%) CI/CD
4 24 (19.67%) Logistics
5 21 (17.21%) Event-Driven
6 20 (16.39%) Supplier Management
7 18 (14.75%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 16 (13.11%) Continuous Improvement
8 16 (13.11%) Project Management
9 15 (12.30%) Roadmaps
9 15 (12.30%) Software Engineering
10 14 (11.48%) AI
10 14 (11.48%) Data Modelling
10 14 (11.48%) DevOps
11 13 (10.66%) CRM
12 12 (9.84%) Customer Experience
12 12 (9.84%) Microservices
12 12 (9.84%) Systems Analysis
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.02%) TypeScript
2 9 (7.38%) SQL
3 5 (4.10%) Python
4 4 (3.28%) Java
5 2 (1.64%) Bash
6 1 (0.82%) Bicep
6 1 (0.82%) C#
Qualifications
1 5 (4.10%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (3.28%) Security Cleared
3 2 (1.64%) City & Guilds
3 2 (1.64%) ITIL Certification
3 2 (1.64%) SC Cleared
4 1 (0.82%) Azure Certification
4 1 (0.82%) DBS Check
4 1 (0.82%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.38%) QA
2 4 (3.28%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.82%) GRC
3 1 (0.82%) PMO
3 1 (0.82%) SLA
System Software
1 7 (5.74%) Docker
2 2 (1.64%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 7 (5.74%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 13 (10.66%) Salesforce
2 11 (9.02%) Microsoft
3 10 (8.20%) SAP
4 7 (5.74%) Databricks
5 3 (2.46%) Cisco
5 3 (2.46%) Infor
5 3 (2.46%) MuleSoft
5 3 (2.46%) Oracle
5 3 (2.46%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.64%) Ariba
6 2 (1.64%) Fortinet
6 2 (1.64%) Informatica
6 2 (1.64%) Teradata
6 2 (1.64%) Workday
7 1 (0.82%) IFS
7 1 (0.82%) Meraki
7 1 (0.82%) Okta
7 1 (0.82%) OpenText
7 1 (0.82%) Palo Alto
7 1 (0.82%) Tenable