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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 75 75
Rank change year-on-year +3 0 +7
Contract jobs citing Retail 111 52 53
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.98% 2.37% 2.12%
As % of the General category 5.68% 4.01% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 81 39 42
10th Percentile £358 £398 £126
25th Percentile £492 £444 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +15.00% +11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £636 £575
90th Percentile £700 £705 £600
England median daily rate £550 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 5
10th Percentile £12.98 - £12.40
25th Percentile £16.99 - -
Median hourly rate £21.00 £95.00 £13.00
Median % change year-on-year -77.89% +630.77% -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £21.00 £16.30 £16.30
% change year-on-year +28.83% - -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 1,953 1,297 1,353
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 52.51% 59.12% 54.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,115 826 815
10th Percentile £263 £270 £300
25th Percentile £400 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.06% -6.30% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £585
90th Percentile £650 £681 £674
England median daily rate £525 £510 £538
% change year-on-year +2.94% -5.12% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 112 134
10th Percentile £16.50 £12.84 £15.15
25th Percentile £25.38 £14.73 £16.06
Median hourly rate £35.91 £28.75 £25.10
Median % change year-on-year +24.90% +14.56% +8.40%
75th Percentile £69.88 £49.06 £43.59
90th Percentile £85.00 £70.14 £54.00
England median hourly rate £34.00 £25.32 £38.12
% change year-on-year +34.26% -33.58% +26.86%

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 26 July 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 26 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 -3 78 £575 +15.00% 86
Merseyside +3 19 £588 +48.73% 17
Cheshire -8 5 £492 +15.76% 15
Lancashire -4 4 £425 -10.53% 16
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 8 (7.21%) Confluence
2 1 (0.90%) Anypoint
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.90%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.70%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (3.60%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (3.60%) Shopify
2 2 (1.80%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.80%) SAP MDG
3 1 (0.90%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.90%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.90%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 30 (27.03%) AWS
2 18 (16.22%) Azure
3 9 (8.11%) GitHub
4 8 (7.21%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (6.31%) GCP
6 6 (5.41%) Snowflake
7 5 (4.50%) Anthropic Claude
7 5 (4.50%) Azure Data Factory
7 5 (4.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 5 (4.50%) GitHub Copilot
7 5 (4.50%) Google Gemini
7 5 (4.50%) Serverless
8 4 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (3.60%) SaaS
9 3 (2.70%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (2.70%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (2.70%) dbt
9 3 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
9 3 (2.70%) Entra ID
9 3 (2.70%) Fivetran
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.80%) Firewall
1 2 (1.80%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (1.80%) Wireless
2 1 (0.90%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (0.90%) Network Security
2 1 (0.90%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.90%) Unified Communications
2 1 (0.90%) VPN
2 1 (0.90%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.50%) Data Lake
2 4 (3.60%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (3.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 2 (1.80%) Amazon Redshift
3 2 (1.80%) DynamoDB
3 2 (1.80%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.80%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 2 (1.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 1 (0.90%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 9 (8.11%) JIRA
2 6 (5.41%) Git
3 5 (4.50%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.90%) GitLab
General
1 44 (39.64%) Social Skills
2 36 (32.43%) Finance
3 16 (14.41%) Manufacturing
4 11 (9.91%) Banking
5 10 (9.01%) Back Office
6 5 (4.50%) Telecoms
7 4 (3.60%) Marketing
8 3 (2.70%) Advertising
8 3 (2.70%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.80%) Billing
9 2 (1.80%) Legal
10 1 (0.90%) Analytical Skills
10 1 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (18.02%) Senior
2 18 (16.22%) Architect
3 17 (15.32%) Analyst
4 13 (11.71%) Solutions Architect
5 11 (9.91%) Software Engineer
6 9 (8.11%) Business Analyst
7 8 (7.21%) Principal Engineer
7 8 (7.21%) Project Manager
8 6 (5.41%) Lead
8 6 (5.41%) Principal Software Engineer
8 6 (5.41%) Senior Manager
9 5 (4.50%) Developer
9 5 (4.50%) Full-Stack Engineer
9 5 (4.50%) Product Manager
9 5 (4.50%) Senior Project Manager
9 5 (4.50%) Systems Analyst
9 5 (4.50%) Technical Analyst
10 4 (3.60%) E-Commerce Manager
10 4 (3.60%) IT Manager
10 4 (3.60%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (9.01%) React
2 6 (5.41%) Node.js
2 6 (5.41%) REST
3 5 (4.50%) Next.js
4 4 (3.60%) MACH
4 4 (3.60%) Spring
4 4 (3.60%) Spring Boot
5 3 (2.70%) Jakarta EE
5 3 (2.70%) Middleware
6 2 (1.80%) ARM Templates
6 2 (1.80%) Kafka
7 1 (0.90%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.90%) ASP.NET MVC
7 1 (0.90%) Lambda Expressions
7 1 (0.90%) OAuth
7 1 (0.90%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.90%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.90%) PySpark
7 1 (0.90%) Swagger
7 1 (0.90%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 15 (13.51%) Cloud Native
2 13 (11.71%) Product Ownership
3 9 (8.11%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (5.41%) EPoS
5 5 (4.50%) Driving Licence
5 5 (4.50%) Mobile App
6 4 (3.60%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (2.70%) Credit Risk
7 3 (2.70%) Culture of Ownership
7 3 (2.70%) Data Structures
7 3 (2.70%) FMCG
7 3 (2.70%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.80%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.80%) iPad
9 1 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.90%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.90%) Digital Wallet
9 1 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.80%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (39.64%) Agile
2 38 (34.23%) Stakeholder Management
3 25 (22.52%) CI/CD
3 25 (22.52%) E-Commerce
4 20 (18.02%) Software Engineering
5 19 (17.12%) Logistics
6 17 (15.32%) Event-Driven
6 17 (15.32%) Migration
7 16 (14.41%) AI
7 16 (14.41%) Roadmaps
8 15 (13.51%) DevOps
8 15 (13.51%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 14 (12.61%) Project Management
10 13 (11.71%) Microservices
11 11 (9.91%) Analytics
11 11 (9.91%) Continuous Improvement
11 11 (9.91%) CRM
11 11 (9.91%) Customer Experience
11 11 (9.91%) Data Modelling
11 11 (9.91%) Supplier Management
Programming Languages
1 10 (9.01%) TypeScript
2 6 (5.41%) Python
2 6 (5.41%) SQL
3 4 (3.60%) Java
4 3 (2.70%) Bicep
5 2 (1.80%) C#
5 2 (1.80%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.90%) Bash
6 1 (0.90%) Korn
Qualifications
1 6 (5.41%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (3.60%) Security Cleared
3 3 (2.70%) Azure Certification
4 2 (1.80%) City & Guilds
4 2 (1.80%) ITIL Certification
4 2 (1.80%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.90%) DBS Check
5 1 (0.90%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (7.21%) QA
2 4 (3.60%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.90%) GDPR
3 1 (0.90%) PMO
System Software
1 8 (7.21%) Docker
2 3 (2.70%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.80%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 9 (8.11%) Terraform
2 7 (6.31%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 9 (8.11%) Microsoft
2 8 (7.21%) Salesforce
3 7 (6.31%) SAP
4 4 (3.60%) Databricks
5 3 (2.70%) MuleSoft
6 2 (1.80%) Ariba
6 2 (1.80%) Cisco
6 2 (1.80%) Fortinet
6 2 (1.80%) Infor
6 2 (1.80%) Informatica
6 2 (1.80%) Oracle
6 2 (1.80%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.90%) Barracuda Networks
7 1 (0.90%) Google
7 1 (0.90%) OpenText
7 1 (0.90%) Palo Alto
7 1 (0.90%) Qualys
7 1 (0.90%) Sitecore
7 1 (0.90%) Tenable
7 1 (0.90%) Workday