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 23 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 83 70
Rank change year-on-year -1 -13 +4
Contract jobs citing Retail 80 41 65
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.42% 2.12% 2.45%
As % of the General category 4.41% 3.62% 4.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 59 27 49
10th Percentile £310 £338 £126
25th Percentile £368 £413 £308
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £575
90th Percentile £625 £666 £600
England median daily rate £525 £525 £513
% change year-on-year - +2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 10
10th Percentile £12.98 - £11.13
25th Percentile £16.99 - £12.25
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 £25.75 £16.00
% change year-on-year -18.45% +60.94% -22.42%

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 1,815 1,134 1,425
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 54.82% 58.54% 53.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,041 708 868
10th Percentile £225 £266 £300
25th Percentile £366 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year -3.37% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £639 £675 £678
England median daily rate £514 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.10% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 100 191
10th Percentile £16.30 £13.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £14.50
Median hourly rate £35.50 £29.25 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.37% +62.50% -30.77%
75th Percentile £62.88 £58.34 £37.18
90th Percentile £84.75 £76.38 £51.91
England median hourly rate £30.81 £27.39 £30.00
% change year-on-year +12.50% -8.71% -7.12%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -13 50 £518 +3.50% 92
Merseyside -2 16 £588 +48.73% 20
Cheshire -9 8 £331 -22.12% 16
Lancashire -5 4 £425 -10.53% 23
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 (12.50%) Confluence
2 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.25%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (5.00%) MS Visio
2 3 (3.75%) Chatbot
3 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (1.25%) BambooHR
1 1 (1.25%) Dynamics AX
1 1 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 10 (12.50%) AWS
2 9 (11.25%) Azure
3 4 (5.00%) Azure Data Factory
3 4 (5.00%) Azure Synapse Analytics
3 4 (5.00%) Serverless
4 3 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (3.75%) Dynamics 365
4 3 (3.75%) Entra ID
4 3 (3.75%) SaaS
5 2 (2.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 2 (2.50%) Amazon ECS
5 2 (2.50%) AWS Lambda
5 2 (2.50%) Azure Functions
5 2 (2.50%) Azure Logic Apps
5 2 (2.50%) Azure Monitor
5 2 (2.50%) Azure Storage
5 2 (2.50%) GitHub
5 2 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (2.50%) PaaS
5 2 (2.50%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.50%) Firewall
1 2 (2.50%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (2.50%) Wireless
2 1 (1.25%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (1.25%) Network Security
2 1 (1.25%) SD-WAN
2 1 (1.25%) Unified Communications
2 1 (1.25%) VPN
2 1 (1.25%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.75%) Data Lake
2 2 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (2.50%) DynamoDB
3 1 (1.25%) Power BI
3 1 (1.25%) SQL Server
3 1 (1.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 11 (13.75%) JIRA
2 2 (2.50%) Git
3 1 (1.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 28 (35.00%) Social Skills
2 27 (33.75%) Finance
3 10 (12.50%) Back Office
4 9 (11.25%) Banking
5 6 (7.50%) Manufacturing
6 5 (6.25%) Telecoms
7 4 (5.00%) Marketing
8 3 (3.75%) Advertising
9 2 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (2.50%) Retail Banking
10 1 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 22 (27.50%) Architect
2 13 (16.25%) Analyst
3 11 (13.75%) Solutions Architect
4 10 (12.50%) Business Analyst
5 9 (11.25%) Senior
5 9 (11.25%) Software Engineer
6 6 (7.50%) Lead
6 6 (7.50%) Principal Engineer
6 6 (7.50%) Principal Software Engineer
6 6 (7.50%) Project Manager
7 5 (6.25%) Banking Analyst
7 5 (6.25%) Banking Business Analyst
7 5 (6.25%) Senior Manager
7 5 (6.25%) Senior Project Manager
7 5 (6.25%) Service Management Architect
8 4 (5.00%) E-Commerce Manager
8 4 (5.00%) Enterprise Architect
9 3 (3.75%) E-Commerce Project Manager
9 3 (3.75%) IT Sales Executive
9 3 (3.75%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (6.25%) Middleware
2 4 (5.00%) React
3 3 (3.75%) MACH
4 2 (2.50%) ARM Templates
5 1 (1.25%) .NET
5 1 (1.25%) .NET Core
5 1 (1.25%) ASP.NET
5 1 (1.25%) ASP.NET MVC
5 1 (1.25%) CSS
5 1 (1.25%) HTML
5 1 (1.25%) Kafka
5 1 (1.25%) PySpark
5 1 (1.25%) REST
5 1 (1.25%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 13 (16.25%) Product Ownership
2 9 (11.25%) Cloud Native
3 6 (7.50%) EPoS
4 5 (6.25%) CMDB
4 5 (6.25%) Driving Licence
4 5 (6.25%) Onboarding
5 3 (3.75%) Data Centre
5 3 (3.75%) Data Structures
5 3 (3.75%) Taxonomies
6 2 (2.50%) AI Agents
6 2 (2.50%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (2.50%) iPad
7 1 (1.25%) Contactless
7 1 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (1.25%) EMV
7 1 (1.25%) FMCG
7 1 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.25%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.25%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.50%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (28.75%) Agile
2 20 (25.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 14 (17.50%) Project Management
4 11 (13.75%) Software Engineering
5 10 (12.50%) CI/CD
6 9 (11.25%) E-Commerce
6 9 (11.25%) Event-Driven
6 9 (11.25%) Roadmaps
6 9 (11.25%) Supplier Management
7 8 (10.00%) Business Strategy
7 8 (10.00%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 8 (10.00%) Microservices
8 7 (8.75%) Logistics
8 7 (8.75%) User Stories
9 6 (7.50%) B2C
9 6 (7.50%) Data Modelling
9 6 (7.50%) Enterprise Architecture
9 6 (7.50%) Observability
9 6 (7.50%) Problem-Solving
9 6 (7.50%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 7 (8.75%) SQL
2 5 (6.25%) Python
3 3 (3.75%) TypeScript
4 2 (2.50%) Bicep
4 2 (2.50%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.25%) C#
5 1 (1.25%) Java
5 1 (1.25%) Korn
Qualifications
1 5 (6.25%) Degree
2 4 (5.00%) Master's Degree
2 4 (5.00%) MBA
2 4 (5.00%) Security Cleared
3 2 (2.50%) Azure Certification
3 2 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
3 2 (2.50%) City & Guilds
3 2 (2.50%) SC Cleared
4 1 (1.25%) DBS Check
4 1 (1.25%) IIBA
4 1 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.75%) Data Quality
2 2 (2.50%) QA
3 1 (1.25%) GDPR
3 1 (1.25%) PMO
System Software
1 3 (3.75%) Active Directory
1 3 (3.75%) Docker
2 2 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 2 (2.50%) Kubernetes
1 2 (2.50%) SCCM
1 2 (2.50%) Terraform
2 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 9 (11.25%) Microsoft
2 4 (5.00%) BMC
3 3 (3.75%) ServiceNow
4 2 (2.50%) Cisco
4 2 (2.50%) Databricks
4 2 (2.50%) Dynatrace
4 2 (2.50%) Fortinet
4 2 (2.50%) Google
4 2 (2.50%) Infor
4 2 (2.50%) Oracle
4 2 (2.50%) Salesforce
4 2 (2.50%) SAP
4 2 (2.50%) SolarWinds
5 1 (1.25%) Barracuda Networks
5 1 (1.25%) Informatica
5 1 (1.25%) MuleSoft
5 1 (1.25%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.25%) Sitecore
5 1 (1.25%) Workday