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 2 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 68 76
Rank change year-on-year -3 +8 -2
Contract jobs citing Retail 115 57 46
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.05% 2.60% 1.92%
As % of the General category 5.82% 4.34% 3.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 80 44 36
10th Percentile £358 £303 £126
25th Percentile £468 £425 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +11.11% -12.20%
75th Percentile £600 £636 £575
90th Percentile £700 £693 £600
England median daily rate £550 £519 £525
% change year-on-year +6.02% -1.19% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 4
10th Percentile £12.98 - £12.30
25th Percentile £13.60 - £12.75
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 £18.75 £16.30 £16.30
% change year-on-year +15.03% - -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 1,975 1,313 1,282
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 52.42% 59.82% 53.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,123 834 773
10th Percentile £250 £269 £300
25th Percentile £400 £384 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.26% -6.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £580 £585
90th Percentile £650 £688 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £538
% change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 111 113
10th Percentile £16.33 £12.82 -
25th Percentile £25.38 £14.55 £16.06
Median hourly rate £35.69 £28.75 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.12% -4.17% +10.29%
75th Percentile £67.63 £50.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £72.50 £56.80
England median hourly rate £33.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +33.20% -34.02% +32.59%

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 2 August 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 2 August 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% 112
Merseyside -3 19 £588 +18.69% 27
Cheshire -11 6 £492 +19.27% 19
Lancashire -7 4 - - 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 9 (7.83%) Confluence
2 1 (0.87%) Anypoint
2 1 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.87%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.61%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (3.48%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (3.48%) Shopify
2 2 (1.74%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.74%) SAP MDG
3 1 (0.87%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.87%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.87%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 32 (27.83%) AWS
2 17 (14.78%) Azure
3 11 (9.57%) GitHub
4 9 (7.83%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (6.09%) GCP
5 7 (6.09%) Snowflake
6 6 (5.22%) Anthropic Claude
6 6 (5.22%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (5.22%) Google Gemini
7 5 (4.35%) Serverless
8 4 (3.48%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (3.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 4 (3.48%) SaaS
9 3 (2.61%) Amazon ECS
9 3 (2.61%) Azure Logic Apps
9 3 (2.61%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (2.61%) dbt
9 3 (2.61%) Entra ID
9 3 (2.61%) Fivetran
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.74%) Firewall
1 2 (1.74%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (1.74%) Wireless
2 1 (0.87%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (0.87%) Network Security
2 1 (0.87%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.87%) Unified Communications
2 1 (0.87%) VPN
2 1 (0.87%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.35%) Data Lake
1 5 (4.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 4 (3.48%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (2.61%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (2.61%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 3 (2.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 2 (1.74%) DynamoDB
4 2 (1.74%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (8.70%) JIRA
2 6 (5.22%) Claude Code
2 6 (5.22%) Git
3 1 (0.87%) GitLab
General
1 43 (37.39%) Social Skills
2 36 (31.30%) Finance
3 18 (15.65%) Manufacturing
4 12 (10.43%) Banking
5 10 (8.70%) Back Office
6 5 (4.35%) Marketing
6 5 (4.35%) Telecoms
7 3 (2.61%) Advertising
7 3 (2.61%) Legal
7 3 (2.61%) Retail Banking
8 2 (1.74%) Analytical Skills
8 2 (1.74%) Billing
9 1 (0.87%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.87%) Retail Finance
Job Titles
1 20 (17.39%) Senior
2 19 (16.52%) Analyst
3 18 (15.65%) Architect
4 13 (11.30%) Solutions Architect
5 11 (9.57%) Business Analyst
6 10 (8.70%) Software Engineer
7 8 (6.96%) Principal Engineer
8 7 (6.09%) Lead
9 6 (5.22%) Project Manager
10 5 (4.35%) Developer
10 5 (4.35%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 5 (4.35%) Principal Software Engineer
10 5 (4.35%) Systems Analyst
10 5 (4.35%) Technical Analyst
11 4 (3.48%) Data Business Analyst
11 4 (3.48%) Product Manager
11 4 (3.48%) Senior Developer
11 4 (3.48%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
11 4 (3.48%) Senior Manager
11 4 (3.48%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.57%) React
2 7 (6.09%) Node.js
2 7 (6.09%) REST
3 6 (5.22%) Next.js
4 4 (3.48%) MACH
4 4 (3.48%) Spring
4 4 (3.48%) Spring Boot
5 3 (2.61%) Jakarta EE
5 3 (2.61%) Middleware
6 2 (1.74%) ARM Templates
6 2 (1.74%) Kafka
7 1 (0.87%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.87%) ASP.NET MVC
7 1 (0.87%) JSON
7 1 (0.87%) Lambda Expressions
7 1 (0.87%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.87%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.87%) PySpark
7 1 (0.87%) Swagger
7 1 (0.87%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 16 (13.91%) Cloud Native
2 12 (10.43%) Product Ownership
3 9 (7.83%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (4.35%) Driving Licence
4 5 (4.35%) EPoS
4 5 (4.35%) Mobile App
5 4 (3.48%) Credit Risk
5 4 (3.48%) Greenfield Project
5 4 (3.48%) Onboarding
6 3 (2.61%) Culture of Ownership
6 3 (2.61%) FMCG
7 2 (1.74%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.74%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.74%) Digital Media
7 2 (1.74%) iPad
8 1 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.87%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.87%) Digital Wallet
8 1 (0.87%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.74%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (38.26%) Agile
2 36 (31.30%) Stakeholder Management
3 28 (24.35%) CI/CD
4 24 (20.87%) E-Commerce
5 22 (19.13%) Logistics
6 20 (17.39%) Software Engineering
7 18 (15.65%) AI
7 18 (15.65%) Event-Driven
8 17 (14.78%) DevOps
8 17 (14.78%) Migration
9 16 (13.91%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 16 (13.91%) Roadmaps
10 14 (12.17%) Microservices
11 13 (11.30%) Continuous Improvement
11 13 (11.30%) Data Modelling
12 12 (10.43%) Analytics
12 12 (10.43%) Customer Experience
12 12 (10.43%) Infrastructure as Code
12 12 (10.43%) Observability
12 12 (10.43%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.57%) TypeScript
2 8 (6.96%) Python
2 8 (6.96%) SQL
3 4 (3.48%) Java
4 3 (2.61%) Bicep
5 2 (1.74%) Bash
5 2 (1.74%) C#
5 2 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.87%) Korn
Qualifications
1 6 (5.22%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (3.48%) Security Cleared
3 3 (2.61%) Azure Certification
4 2 (1.74%) City & Guilds
4 2 (1.74%) ITIL Certification
4 2 (1.74%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.87%) DBS Check
5 1 (0.87%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.83%) QA
2 4 (3.48%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.87%) GDPR
3 1 (0.87%) PMO
System Software
1 9 (7.83%) Docker
2 3 (2.61%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.74%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (9.57%) Terraform
2 8 (6.96%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 8 (6.96%) Microsoft
1 8 (6.96%) Salesforce
2 7 (6.09%) SAP
3 5 (4.35%) Databricks
4 3 (2.61%) MuleSoft
5 2 (1.74%) Ariba
5 2 (1.74%) Cisco
5 2 (1.74%) Fortinet
5 2 (1.74%) Infor
5 2 (1.74%) Informatica
5 2 (1.74%) Oracle
5 2 (1.74%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.87%) Barracuda Networks
6 1 (0.87%) Google
6 1 (0.87%) OpenText
6 1 (0.87%) Palo Alto
6 1 (0.87%) Qualys
6 1 (0.87%) Sitecore
6 1 (0.87%) Tenable
6 1 (0.87%) Workday