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 5 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 107 81 77
Rank change year-on-year -26 -4 +19
Contract jobs citing Retail 34 34 57
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 1.36% 1.62% 2.13%
As % of the General category 2.24% 2.79% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 18 36
10th Percentile £155 £291 £308
25th Percentile £331 £416 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £456 £550
Median % change year-on-year +8.49% -17.05% +15.79%
75th Percentile £550 £547 £638
90th Percentile £600 £638 £738
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.13 -
Median hourly rate £19.00 £25.32 £13.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.95% +94.73% -21.52%
75th Percentile £19.50 £33.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £17.00 £32.50 £19.81
% change year-on-year -47.69% +64.06% -

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 1,517 1,217 1,462
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 60.85% 58.09% 54.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 984 659 954
10th Percentile £200 £250 £256
25th Percentile £350 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £703
England median daily rate £500 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 91 113
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.90 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.57 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.60 £25.43 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.40% +21.10% -2.33%
75th Percentile £45.46 £37.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £52.62
England median hourly rate £23.58 £30.00 £32.32
% change year-on-year -21.42% -7.18% +25.71%

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 5 January 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 5 January 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 -15 19 £500 +5.26% 50
Cheshire -16 9 £313 +7.56% 16
Merseyside -7 4 £495 +16.47% 7
Lancashire - 2 £385 - 21
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 5 (14.71%) Confluence
2 2 (5.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (5.88%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (11.76%) MS Visio
2 1 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (2.94%) BambooHR
1 1 (2.94%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (2.94%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 5 (14.71%) Azure
2 4 (11.76%) GCP
3 3 (8.82%) AWS
4 2 (5.88%) Cloud Computing
4 2 (5.88%) Entra ID
4 2 (5.88%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (5.88%) OneDrive
5 1 (2.94%) Dataform
5 1 (2.94%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (2.94%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.94%) SuccessFactors
5 1 (2.94%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (5.88%) NFC
1 2 (5.88%) RFID
1 2 (5.88%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.94%) BigQuery
1 1 (2.94%) Power BI
1 1 (2.94%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 5 (14.71%) JIRA
2 1 (2.94%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 1 (2.94%) Selenium
General
1 19 (55.88%) Social Skills
2 6 (17.65%) Finance
3 5 (14.71%) Banking
4 2 (5.88%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (5.88%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (5.88%) Marketing
5 1 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 6 (17.65%) Analyst
1 6 (17.65%) Architect
1 6 (17.65%) Business Analyst
2 4 (11.76%) Banking Analyst
2 4 (11.76%) Banking Business Analyst
2 4 (11.76%) Project Manager
3 3 (8.82%) Lead
3 3 (8.82%) Solutions Architect
4 2 (5.88%) Administrator
4 2 (5.88%) Cybersecurity Manager
4 2 (5.88%) Delivery Manager
4 2 (5.88%) Finance Business Analyst
4 2 (5.88%) Financial Analyst
4 2 (5.88%) Microsoft 365 Administrator
4 2 (5.88%) Security Manager
4 2 (5.88%) Senior
4 2 (5.88%) Senior Manager
4 2 (5.88%) Senior Project Manager
4 2 (5.88%) Service Transition Manager
4 2 (5.88%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.94%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 6 (17.65%) IoT
2 3 (8.82%) Driving Licence
2 3 (8.82%) Product Ownership
2 3 (8.82%) Security Operations Centre
3 2 (5.88%) Cloud Native
3 2 (5.88%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (2.94%) Data Centre
4 1 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (2.94%) EPoS
4 1 (2.94%) Management Information System
4 1 (2.94%) Mobile Banking
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (29.41%) Stakeholder Management
2 9 (26.47%) Agile
2 9 (26.47%) Migration
3 8 (23.53%) Project Management
4 6 (17.65%) Translating Business Requirements
5 5 (14.71%) Supplier Management
5 5 (14.71%) User Stories
6 4 (11.76%) BPMN
6 4 (11.76%) Business Process Modelling
6 4 (11.76%) Data Analysis
6 4 (11.76%) E-Commerce
6 4 (11.76%) Incident Response
6 4 (11.76%) Visualisation
7 3 (8.82%) AI
7 3 (8.82%) Customer Experience
7 3 (8.82%) Data Modelling
7 3 (8.82%) ERP
7 3 (8.82%) Problem-Solving
7 3 (8.82%) Roadmaps
7 3 (8.82%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 6 (17.65%) SQL
2 3 (8.82%) Python
3 2 (5.88%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 1 (2.94%) Java
Qualifications
1 5 (14.71%) Degree
2 4 (11.76%) Master's Degree
2 4 (11.76%) MBA
3 2 (5.88%) Microsoft Certification
4 1 (2.94%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (5.88%) Data Quality
1 2 (5.88%) GDPR
1 2 (5.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (2.94%) Accessibility
2 1 (2.94%) NIST
2 1 (2.94%) QA
System Software
1 2 (5.88%) Active Directory
Vendors
1 5 (14.71%) Microsoft
2 2 (5.88%) Google
3 1 (2.94%) Salesforce
3 1 (2.94%) SAP
3 1 (2.94%) Workday