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 28 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 80 78
Rank change year-on-year -6 -2 +2
Contract jobs citing Retail 91 46 57
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.59% 2.26% 2.05%
As % of the General category 4.83% 3.85% 3.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 33 45
10th Percentile £327 £408 £126
25th Percentile £425 £425 £308
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £500 £438
Median % change year-on-year +15.00% +14.29% -12.50%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £575
90th Percentile £640 £720 £600
England median daily rate £538 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +2.38% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 7
10th Percentile £12.98 - £11.13
25th Percentile £16.99 - £11.56
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 £16.00
% change year-on-year +28.83% +1.88% -19.23%

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 1,883 1,195 1,495
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 53.66% 58.66% 53.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,055 764 883
10th Percentile £275 £302 £300
25th Percentile £380 £378 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £464 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.43% -5.36% -2.00%
75th Percentile £583 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £656
England median daily rate £525 £520 £535
% change year-on-year +1.01% -2.85% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 107 192
10th Percentile £16.50 £12.82 £12.86
25th Percentile £25.38 £13.60 £15.50
Median hourly rate £35.82 £29.80 £22.98
Median % change year-on-year +20.20% +29.71% -4.57%
75th Percentile £67.84 £58.94 £42.88
90th Percentile £84.50 £76.75 £51.79
England median hourly rate £32.50 £27.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +17.07% -15.61% +9.65%

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 28 June 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 28 June 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 -7 63 £588 +14.63% 58
Merseyside 0 16 £588 +48.73% 21
Cheshire -6 6 £341 -28.32% 17
Lancashire -6 4 £425 -10.53% 19
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 10 (10.99%) Confluence
2 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.10%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (3.30%) Chatbot
2 2 (2.20%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (2.20%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.10%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 19 (20.88%) AWS
2 15 (16.48%) Azure
3 6 (6.59%) GCP
4 5 (5.49%) Azure Data Factory
4 5 (5.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 5 (5.49%) Snowflake
5 4 (4.40%) SaaS
5 4 (4.40%) Serverless
6 3 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (3.30%) Entra ID
7 2 (2.20%) Amazon ECS
7 2 (2.20%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (2.20%) Azure Functions
7 2 (2.20%) Azure Logic Apps
7 2 (2.20%) Azure Storage
7 2 (2.20%) dbt
7 2 (2.20%) Fivetran
7 2 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (2.20%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.20%) Firewall
1 2 (2.20%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (2.20%) Wireless
2 1 (1.10%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (1.10%) Network Security
2 1 (1.10%) SD-WAN
2 1 (1.10%) Unified Communications
2 1 (1.10%) VPN
2 1 (1.10%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (5.49%) Data Lake
2 4 (4.40%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (4.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 2 (2.20%) Amazon Redshift
3 2 (2.20%) DynamoDB
3 2 (2.20%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 2 (2.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 1 (1.10%) Power BI
4 1 (1.10%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (12.09%) JIRA
2 2 (2.20%) Git
General
1 37 (40.66%) Social Skills
2 32 (35.16%) Finance
3 14 (15.38%) Manufacturing
4 12 (13.19%) Banking
5 10 (10.99%) Back Office
6 5 (5.49%) Telecoms
7 4 (4.40%) Marketing
8 3 (3.30%) Advertising
8 3 (3.30%) Retail Banking
9 1 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 24 (26.37%) Architect
2 15 (16.48%) Analyst
3 13 (14.29%) Solutions Architect
4 10 (10.99%) Senior
4 10 (10.99%) Software Engineer
5 9 (9.89%) Business Analyst
6 8 (8.79%) Project Manager
7 7 (7.69%) Principal Engineer
7 7 (7.69%) Principal Software Engineer
8 5 (5.49%) Lead
8 5 (5.49%) Senior Manager
8 5 (5.49%) Senior Project Manager
8 5 (5.49%) Service Management Architect
9 4 (4.40%) E-Commerce Manager
9 4 (4.40%) Enterprise Architect
9 4 (4.40%) IT Manager
10 3 (3.30%) Banking Analyst
10 3 (3.30%) E-Commerce Project Manager
10 3 (3.30%) IT Sales Executive
10 3 (3.30%) Trainee
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.49%) Middleware
1 5 (5.49%) React
2 4 (4.40%) MACH
3 3 (3.30%) J2EE
3 3 (3.30%) Java EE
3 3 (3.30%) Spring
3 3 (3.30%) Spring Boot
4 2 (2.20%) ARM Templates
4 2 (2.20%) Kafka
5 1 (1.10%) .NET
5 1 (1.10%) .NET Core
5 1 (1.10%) ASP.NET
5 1 (1.10%) ASP.NET MVC
5 1 (1.10%) CSS
5 1 (1.10%) HTML
5 1 (1.10%) Lambda Expressions
5 1 (1.10%) PySpark
5 1 (1.10%) REST
5 1 (1.10%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 13 (14.29%) Product Ownership
2 9 (9.89%) Cloud Native
3 6 (6.59%) EPoS
3 6 (6.59%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (5.49%) CMDB
4 5 (5.49%) Driving Licence
4 5 (5.49%) Onboarding
5 3 (3.30%) Credit Risk
5 3 (3.30%) Data Centre
5 3 (3.30%) Data Structures
5 3 (3.30%) Taxonomies
6 2 (2.20%) AI Agents
6 2 (2.20%) FMCG
6 2 (2.20%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (2.20%) iPad
7 1 (1.10%) Contactless
7 1 (1.10%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.10%) Mobile Banking
7 1 (1.10%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.20%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (34.07%) Agile
2 30 (32.97%) Stakeholder Management
3 16 (17.58%) CI/CD
4 15 (16.48%) Project Management
4 15 (16.48%) Software Engineering
5 14 (15.38%) E-Commerce
5 14 (15.38%) Logistics
6 13 (14.29%) Roadmaps
7 11 (12.09%) Event-Driven
7 11 (12.09%) Supplier Management
8 10 (10.99%) Data Modelling
9 9 (9.89%) B2C
9 9 (9.89%) CRM
9 9 (9.89%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 9 (9.89%) Migration
10 8 (8.79%) DevOps
10 8 (8.79%) Microservices
11 7 (7.69%) Analytics
11 7 (7.69%) Data Integration
11 7 (7.69%) Systems Analysis
Programming Languages
1 8 (8.79%) SQL
2 6 (6.59%) Python
3 4 (4.40%) Java
3 4 (4.40%) TypeScript
4 2 (2.20%) Bicep
4 2 (2.20%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.10%) C#
5 1 (1.10%) Korn
Qualifications
1 4 (4.40%) Security Cleared
2 2 (2.20%) Azure Certification
2 2 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
2 2 (2.20%) City & Guilds
2 2 (2.20%) Degree
2 2 (2.20%) Master's Degree
2 2 (2.20%) MBA
2 2 (2.20%) SC Cleared
3 1 (1.10%) DBS Check
3 1 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
3 1 (1.10%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.40%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.10%) GDPR
2 1 (1.10%) PMO
2 1 (1.10%) QA
System Software
1 3 (3.30%) Active Directory
1 3 (3.30%) Docker
2 2 (2.20%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 2 (2.20%) Kubernetes
1 2 (2.20%) SCCM
1 2 (2.20%) Terraform
2 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 10 (10.99%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.59%) Salesforce
3 5 (5.49%) ServiceNow
4 4 (4.40%) BMC
4 4 (4.40%) Databricks
5 2 (2.20%) Cisco
5 2 (2.20%) Dynatrace
5 2 (2.20%) Fortinet
5 2 (2.20%) Google
5 2 (2.20%) Infor
5 2 (2.20%) Informatica
5 2 (2.20%) MuleSoft
5 2 (2.20%) Oracle
5 2 (2.20%) SAP
5 2 (2.20%) SolarWinds
6 1 (1.10%) Barracuda Networks
6 1 (1.10%) Palo Alto
6 1 (1.10%) Sitecore