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 12 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 96 79
Rank change year-on-year -24 -17 +7
Contract jobs citing Retail 34 34 61
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 1.25% 1.62% 2.18%
As % of the General category 2.09% 2.78% 4.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 26 17 42
10th Percentile £313 £291 £128
25th Percentile £361 £413 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £531
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -15.29% +11.84%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £616
90th Percentile £625 £638 £736
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 8
10th Percentile - - £11.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.13 £12.53
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 £17.25 £32.50 £16.30
% change year-on-year -46.92% +99.39% -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 1,625 1,221 1,520
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 59.94% 58.20% 54.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,045 678 958
10th Percentile £200 £259 £263
25th Percentile £353 £360 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £588
90th Percentile £641 £675 £693
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 95 175
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.65 £12.10
25th Percentile £18.87 £19.72 £14.07
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% +41.03% -17.29%
75th Percentile £50.00 £45.34 £37.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £66.91 £47.27
England median hourly rate £22.85 £30.43 £25.25
% change year-on-year -24.91% +20.51% -8.18%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 -17 23 £600 +23.08% 61
Cheshire -24 6 £331 +13.75% 13
Merseyside -10 2 £506 +19.12% 11
Lancashire - 2 £298 - 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 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
Cloud Services
1 6 (17.65%) Azure
2 3 (8.82%) GCP
3 2 (5.88%) AWS
3 2 (5.88%) Cloud Computing
3 2 (5.88%) Entra ID
3 2 (5.88%) Microsoft 365
3 2 (5.88%) OneDrive
3 2 (5.88%) PaaS
3 2 (5.88%) Power Platform
3 2 (5.88%) SaaS
4 1 (2.94%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (2.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 1 (2.94%) Dataform
4 1 (2.94%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (2.94%) SuccessFactors
4 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 2 (5.88%) Power BI
2 1 (2.94%) BigQuery
2 1 (2.94%) Data Lake
2 1 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (2.94%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 6 (17.65%) JIRA
2 1 (2.94%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 1 (2.94%) Selenium
General
1 17 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 10 (29.41%) Finance
3 6 (17.65%) Banking
4 3 (8.82%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (2.94%) Manufacturing
5 1 (2.94%) Marketing
5 1 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (26.47%) Architect
2 6 (17.65%) Service Management Architect
3 5 (14.71%) Analyst
3 5 (14.71%) Business Analyst
4 4 (11.76%) Banking Analyst
4 4 (11.76%) Banking Business Analyst
4 4 (11.76%) E-Commerce Manager
4 4 (11.76%) Enterprise Architect
4 4 (11.76%) Lead
4 4 (11.76%) Project Manager
5 3 (8.82%) E-Commerce Project Manager
5 3 (8.82%) Principal Engineer
5 3 (8.82%) Principal Software Engineer
5 3 (8.82%) Senior
5 3 (8.82%) Senior E-Commerce Manager
5 3 (8.82%) Senior Manager
5 3 (8.82%) Senior Project Manager
5 3 (8.82%) Software Engineer
6 2 (5.88%) Administrator
6 2 (5.88%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (5.88%) Middleware
1 2 (5.88%) REST
2 1 (2.94%) .NET
2 1 (2.94%) .NET Core
2 1 (2.94%) ASP.NET
2 1 (2.94%) ASP.NET MVC
2 1 (2.94%) CSS
2 1 (2.94%) HTML
2 1 (2.94%) React
2 1 (2.94%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 7 (20.59%) Product Ownership
2 5 (14.71%) CMDB
3 4 (11.76%) Driving Licence
4 3 (8.82%) Cloud Native
4 3 (8.82%) Data Centre
4 3 (8.82%) Data Structures
4 3 (8.82%) Taxonomies
5 2 (5.88%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (5.88%) EPoS
5 2 (5.88%) IoT
5 2 (5.88%) Mobile Banking
5 2 (5.88%) Onboarding
6 1 (2.94%) Management Information System
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (38.24%) Agile
2 12 (35.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 7 (20.59%) Data Modelling
3 7 (20.59%) Project Management
3 7 (20.59%) Translating Business Requirements
4 6 (17.65%) B2C
4 6 (17.65%) E-Commerce
4 6 (17.65%) Service Management
4 6 (17.65%) Software Engineering
5 5 (14.71%) Enterprise Architecture
5 5 (14.71%) Integration Patterns
5 5 (14.71%) ITSM
5 5 (14.71%) Migration
5 5 (14.71%) Roadmaps
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%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 4 (11.76%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 5 (14.71%) SQL
2 2 (5.88%) Java
2 2 (5.88%) PowerShell
2 2 (5.88%) Python
3 1 (2.94%) C#
3 1 (2.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
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%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (2.94%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (11.76%) Data Quality
2 2 (5.88%) GDPR
2 2 (5.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (2.94%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.94%) QA
System Software
1 2 (5.88%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.94%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (5.88%) SCCM
Vendors
1 6 (17.65%) Microsoft
2 4 (11.76%) BMC
2 4 (11.76%) Google
3 3 (8.82%) ServiceNow
4 2 (5.88%) Dynatrace
4 2 (5.88%) SolarWinds
5 1 (2.94%) Salesforce
5 1 (2.94%) Sitecore
5 1 (2.94%) Workday