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

6 months to
21 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 81 76
Rank change year-on-year -2 -5 0
Contract jobs citing Retail 88 45 59
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.51% 2.25% 2.08%
As % of the General category 4.65% 3.82% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 65 32 46
10th Percentile £313 £407 £126
25th Percentile £381 £425 £308
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £500 £431
Median % change year-on-year +15.00% +15.94% -13.75%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £569
90th Percentile £645 £698 £588
England median daily rate £525 £525 £513
% change year-on-year - +2.44% -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 1,893 1,178 1,505
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 53.95% 58.99% 52.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,067 758 881
10th Percentile £275 £305 £284
25th Percentile £375 £380 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £465 £490
Median % change year-on-year +0.75% -5.10% -2.00%
75th Percentile £578 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £656
England median daily rate £520 £520 £534
% change year-on-year - -2.62% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 102 201
10th Percentile £16.50 £12.84 £12.50
25th Percentile £25.38 £13.30 £15.00
Median hourly rate £36.00 £29.54 £22.11
Median % change year-on-year +21.89% +33.58% -4.49%
75th Percentile £69.08 £59.83 £40.00
90th Percentile £84.13 £77.38 £51.00
England median hourly rate £32.50 £28.34 £31.97
% change year-on-year +14.68% -11.35% +12.18%

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 21 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 21 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 -14 58 £575 +13.58% 54
Merseyside +2 16 £588 +48.73% 14
Cheshire -14 8 £331 -30.32% 17
Lancashire -5 4 £425 -10.53% 22
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 (11.36%) Confluence
2 1 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.14%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (4.55%) MS Visio
2 3 (3.41%) Chatbot
3 1 (1.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (3.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.14%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 16 (18.18%) AWS
2 12 (13.64%) Azure
3 5 (5.68%) Azure Data Factory
3 5 (5.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 4 (4.55%) SaaS
4 4 (4.55%) Serverless
5 3 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (3.41%) Dynamics 365
5 3 (3.41%) Entra ID
5 3 (3.41%) GCP
5 3 (3.41%) Snowflake
6 2 (2.27%) Amazon ECS
6 2 (2.27%) Azure AKS
6 2 (2.27%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (2.27%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (2.27%) Azure Storage
6 2 (2.27%) dbt
6 2 (2.27%) Fivetran
6 2 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (2.27%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.27%) Firewall
1 2 (2.27%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (2.27%) Wireless
2 1 (1.14%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (1.14%) Network Security
2 1 (1.14%) SD-WAN
2 1 (1.14%) Unified Communications
2 1 (1.14%) VPN
2 1 (1.14%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.41%) Data Lake
2 2 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (2.27%) DynamoDB
2 2 (2.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (1.14%) Power BI
3 1 (1.14%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (12.50%) JIRA
2 2 (2.27%) Git
General
1 34 (38.64%) Social Skills
2 32 (36.36%) Finance
3 12 (13.64%) Banking
4 10 (11.36%) Back Office
5 9 (10.23%) Manufacturing
6 5 (5.68%) Telecoms
7 4 (4.55%) Marketing
8 3 (3.41%) Advertising
8 3 (3.41%) Retail Banking
9 2 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 24 (27.27%) Architect
2 13 (14.77%) Analyst
2 13 (14.77%) Solutions Architect
3 10 (11.36%) Business Analyst
3 10 (11.36%) Senior
3 10 (11.36%) Software Engineer
4 7 (7.95%) Principal Engineer
4 7 (7.95%) Principal Software Engineer
4 7 (7.95%) Project Manager
5 5 (5.68%) Banking Analyst
5 5 (5.68%) Banking Business Analyst
5 5 (5.68%) Lead
5 5 (5.68%) Senior Manager
5 5 (5.68%) Senior Project Manager
5 5 (5.68%) Service Management Architect
6 4 (4.55%) E-Commerce Manager
6 4 (4.55%) Enterprise Architect
6 4 (4.55%) IT Manager
7 3 (3.41%) E-Commerce Project Manager
7 3 (3.41%) IT Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.68%) Middleware
1 5 (5.68%) React
2 4 (4.55%) MACH
3 3 (3.41%) J2EE
3 3 (3.41%) Java EE
3 3 (3.41%) Spring
3 3 (3.41%) Spring Boot
4 2 (2.27%) ARM Templates
4 2 (2.27%) Kafka
5 1 (1.14%) .NET
5 1 (1.14%) .NET Core
5 1 (1.14%) ASP.NET
5 1 (1.14%) ASP.NET MVC
5 1 (1.14%) CSS
5 1 (1.14%) HTML
5 1 (1.14%) Lambda Expressions
5 1 (1.14%) PySpark
5 1 (1.14%) REST
5 1 (1.14%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 14 (15.91%) Product Ownership
2 9 (10.23%) Cloud Native
3 6 (6.82%) EPoS
4 5 (5.68%) CMDB
4 5 (5.68%) Driving Licence
4 5 (5.68%) Onboarding
5 3 (3.41%) Credit Risk
5 3 (3.41%) Data Centre
5 3 (3.41%) Data Structures
5 3 (3.41%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (3.41%) Taxonomies
6 2 (2.27%) AI Agents
6 2 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (2.27%) iPad
7 1 (1.14%) Contactless
7 1 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (1.14%) FMCG
7 1 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.14%) Mobile App
7 1 (1.14%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.27%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (31.82%) Agile
2 25 (28.41%) Stakeholder Management
3 16 (18.18%) Project Management
4 15 (17.05%) Software Engineering
5 14 (15.91%) CI/CD
6 13 (14.77%) E-Commerce
7 12 (13.64%) Roadmaps
8 11 (12.50%) Event-Driven
8 11 (12.50%) Supplier Management
9 9 (10.23%) B2C
9 9 (10.23%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 9 (10.23%) Logistics
9 9 (10.23%) Migration
10 8 (9.09%) Business Strategy
10 8 (9.09%) DevOps
10 8 (9.09%) Microservices
11 7 (7.95%) CRM
11 7 (7.95%) Customer Service
11 7 (7.95%) User Stories
12 6 (6.82%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 8 (9.09%) SQL
2 6 (6.82%) Python
3 4 (4.55%) Java
3 4 (4.55%) TypeScript
4 2 (2.27%) Bicep
4 2 (2.27%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.14%) C#
5 1 (1.14%) Korn
Qualifications
1 5 (5.68%) Degree
2 4 (4.55%) Master's Degree
2 4 (4.55%) MBA
2 4 (4.55%) Security Cleared
3 2 (2.27%) Azure Certification
3 2 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
3 2 (2.27%) City & Guilds
3 2 (2.27%) SC Cleared
4 1 (1.14%) DBS Check
4 1 (1.14%) IIBA
4 1 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.41%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.14%) GDPR
2 1 (1.14%) PMO
2 1 (1.14%) QA
System Software
1 3 (3.41%) Active Directory
1 3 (3.41%) Docker
2 2 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 2 (2.27%) Kubernetes
1 2 (2.27%) SCCM
1 2 (2.27%) Terraform
2 1 (1.14%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 11 (12.50%) Microsoft
2 5 (5.68%) ServiceNow
3 4 (4.55%) BMC
3 4 (4.55%) Salesforce
4 2 (2.27%) Cisco
4 2 (2.27%) Databricks
4 2 (2.27%) Dynatrace
4 2 (2.27%) Fortinet
4 2 (2.27%) Google
4 2 (2.27%) Infor
4 2 (2.27%) Informatica
4 2 (2.27%) MuleSoft
4 2 (2.27%) Oracle
4 2 (2.27%) SAP
4 2 (2.27%) SolarWinds
5 1 (1.14%) Barracuda Networks
5 1 (1.14%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.14%) Sitecore