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 6 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 75 78
Rank change year-on-year +2 +3 -10
Contract jobs citing Retail 120 53 37
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.02% 2.44% 1.57%
As % of the General category 5.94% 3.97% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 83 39 30
10th Percentile £374 £250 £313
25th Percentile £492 £463 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +11.11% -13.88%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £575
90th Percentile £690 £680 £605
England median daily rate £550 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +5.77% -0.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 3 1
10th Percentile £12.98 - -
25th Percentile £13.09 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £17.41 £19.00 £12.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.39% +58.33% -
75th Percentile £21.00 £57.25 -
90th Percentile - £79.90 -
England median hourly rate £16.92 £16.34 £16.30
% change year-on-year +3.58% +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 2,021 1,334 1,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 50.82% 61.47% 54.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,154 851 754
10th Percentile £243 £273 £265
25th Percentile £400 £380 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £458 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.29% -8.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £588
90th Percentile £676 £675 £688
England median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 252 112 83
10th Percentile £14.95 £12.84 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.14 £14.11 £18.03
Median hourly rate £35.00 £23.57 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.53% -32.67% +55.35%
75th Percentile £63.84 £47.84 £45.59
90th Percentile £83.70 £69.73 £54.00
England median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £38.31
% change year-on-year +25.25% -34.35% +39.31%

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 6 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 6 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 -2 80 £550 +10.00% 131
Merseyside +3 21 £588 +18.69% 50
Cheshire -9 8 £465 +287.29% 40
Lancashire -11 6 - - 38
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 (9.17%) Confluence
2 3 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.83%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.83%) Mendix
3 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.83%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.83%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (3.33%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (3.33%) Shopify
2 2 (1.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.67%) SAP MDG
3 1 (0.83%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.83%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.83%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.83%) SAP SD
3 1 (0.83%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 31 (25.83%) AWS
2 14 (11.67%) Azure
3 10 (8.33%) GitHub
4 8 (6.67%) GitHub Actions
4 8 (6.67%) Snowflake
5 7 (5.83%) GCP
6 6 (5.00%) Anthropic Claude
6 6 (5.00%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (5.00%) Google Gemini
7 5 (4.17%) SaaS
8 3 (2.50%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (2.50%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (2.50%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (2.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (2.50%) dbt
8 3 (2.50%) Fivetran
8 3 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (2.50%) Power Platform
8 3 (2.50%) Serverless
9 2 (1.67%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.67%) Firewall
1 2 (1.67%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (1.67%) Wireless
2 1 (0.83%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (0.83%) Network Security
2 1 (0.83%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.83%) Unified Communications
2 1 (0.83%) VPN
2 1 (0.83%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.00%) Data Lake
1 6 (5.00%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (4.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 4 (3.33%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (2.50%) Power BI
4 3 (2.50%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 3 (2.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (1.67%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.83%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 11 (9.17%) JIRA
2 6 (5.00%) Claude Code
3 4 (3.33%) Git
4 2 (1.67%) GitLab
5 1 (0.83%) Hudson
General
1 55 (45.83%) Social Skills
2 43 (35.83%) Finance
3 20 (16.67%) Banking
4 19 (15.83%) Manufacturing
5 10 (8.33%) Back Office
6 6 (5.00%) Marketing
6 6 (5.00%) Retail Banking
7 5 (4.17%) Telecoms
8 4 (3.33%) Legal
9 3 (2.50%) Advertising
9 3 (2.50%) Analytical Skills
9 3 (2.50%) Billing
10 2 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.83%) Retail Finance
Job Titles
1 18 (15.00%) Analyst
1 18 (15.00%) Architect
1 18 (15.00%) Senior
2 13 (10.83%) Business Analyst
2 13 (10.83%) Solutions Architect
3 11 (9.17%) Project Manager
4 7 (5.83%) Lead
5 6 (5.00%) Finance Manager
5 6 (5.00%) Product Manager
5 6 (5.00%) Software Engineer
6 5 (4.17%) Full-Stack Engineer
6 5 (4.17%) IT Manager
6 5 (4.17%) IT Project Manager
6 5 (4.17%) Systems Analyst
6 5 (4.17%) Technical Analyst
7 4 (3.33%) Business Systems Analyst
7 4 (3.33%) Data Business Analyst
7 4 (3.33%) Developer
7 4 (3.33%) Senior Developer
7 4 (3.33%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (8.33%) React
1 10 (8.33%) Terraform
2 7 (5.83%) Node.js
2 7 (5.83%) REST
3 6 (5.00%) Next.js
4 5 (4.17%) MACH
5 4 (3.33%) Spring
5 4 (3.33%) Spring Boot
6 3 (2.50%) Jakarta EE
6 3 (2.50%) Middleware
7 2 (1.67%) EDI
7 2 (1.67%) Kafka
8 1 (0.83%) JSON
8 1 (0.83%) Lambda Expressions
8 1 (0.83%) OAuth
8 1 (0.83%) OAuth2
8 1 (0.83%) OpenAPI
8 1 (0.83%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 15 (12.50%) Cloud Native
2 13 (10.83%) Product Ownership
3 10 (8.33%) Credit Risk
3 10 (8.33%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (6.67%) Mobile App
5 5 (4.17%) EPoS
6 4 (3.33%) Culture of Ownership
6 4 (3.33%) Digital Media
6 4 (3.33%) FMCG
6 4 (3.33%) Greenfield Project
6 4 (3.33%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.67%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.67%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.67%) iPad
7 2 (1.67%) Management Information System
8 1 (0.83%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.83%) EMV
8 1 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.83%) Online Banking
8 1 (0.83%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.67%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (41.67%) Agile
2 45 (37.50%) Stakeholder Management
3 26 (21.67%) E-Commerce
4 24 (20.00%) CI/CD
4 24 (20.00%) Migration
5 23 (19.17%) Logistics
6 20 (16.67%) Event-Driven
7 19 (15.83%) Supplier Management
8 17 (14.17%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 16 (13.33%) AI
9 16 (13.33%) Project Management
9 16 (13.33%) Roadmaps
10 15 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
10 15 (12.50%) Software Engineering
11 14 (11.67%) Data Modelling
11 14 (11.67%) DevOps
12 12 (10.00%) CRM
12 12 (10.00%) Customer Experience
12 12 (10.00%) Microservices
12 12 (10.00%) Systems Analysis
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.17%) TypeScript
2 9 (7.50%) SQL
3 5 (4.17%) Python
4 4 (3.33%) Java
5 2 (1.67%) Bash
6 1 (0.83%) Bicep
6 1 (0.83%) C#
6 1 (0.83%) Korn
Qualifications
1 5 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (3.33%) Security Cleared
3 2 (1.67%) City & Guilds
3 2 (1.67%) ITIL Certification
3 2 (1.67%) SC Cleared
4 1 (0.83%) Azure Certification
4 1 (0.83%) DBS Check
4 1 (0.83%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.50%) QA
2 4 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.83%) GRC
3 1 (0.83%) SLA
System Software
1 7 (5.83%) Docker
2 2 (1.67%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 7 (5.83%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 12 (10.00%) Salesforce
2 10 (8.33%) Microsoft
3 9 (7.50%) SAP
4 7 (5.83%) Databricks
5 3 (2.50%) Cisco
5 3 (2.50%) MuleSoft
5 3 (2.50%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.67%) Ariba
6 2 (1.67%) Fortinet
6 2 (1.67%) Infor
6 2 (1.67%) Informatica
6 2 (1.67%) Oracle
6 2 (1.67%) Teradata
6 2 (1.67%) Workday
7 1 (0.83%) Barracuda Networks
7 1 (0.83%) Meraki
7 1 (0.83%) Okta
7 1 (0.83%) Palo Alto
7 1 (0.83%) Qualys
7 1 (0.83%) Tenable