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 28 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 91 82 76
Rank change year-on-year -9 -6 +21
Contract jobs citing Retail 47 33 72
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.01% 1.42% 2.56%
As % of the General category 3.26% 2.47% 4.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 25 57
10th Percentile £158 £313 £413
25th Percentile £463 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -18.18% +10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £588
90th Percentile £710 £673 £693
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £18.50 - -
Median hourly rate £19.00 - -
75th Percentile £57.25 - -
90th Percentile £79.90 - -
England median hourly rate £16.34 £33.50 £19.81
% change year-on-year -51.24% +69.11% -

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 common skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 1,441 1,335 1,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 61.48% 57.59% 55.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 942 720 1,028
10th Percentile £250 £266 £256
25th Percentile £375 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.76% -4.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £595
90th Percentile £675 £669 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 84 115
10th Percentile £13.00 £16.41 £15.72
25th Percentile £15.62 £20.83 £16.70
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £22.53
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% +55.35% -8.34%
75th Percentile £48.56 £44.06 £44.38
90th Percentile £70.16 £65.00 £60.19
England median hourly rate £24.61 £32.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -24.28% +8.33% +16.69%

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 28 October 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Retail in the North West over the 6 months to 28 October 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Retail in the North West

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 28 October 2025. 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 +4 32 £525 +10.53% 122
Cheshire -22 6 £120 -61.81% 46
Merseyside +7 5 £495 - 9
Lancashire - 4 £488 - 42
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 2 (4.26%) Confluence
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (2.13%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (6.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (2.13%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (2.13%) NetSuite
1 1 (2.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 7 (14.89%) AWS
2 5 (10.64%) Azure
3 4 (8.51%) Dynamics 365
3 4 (8.51%) GCP
4 3 (6.38%) Power Platform
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Data Factory
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 2 (4.26%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (2.13%) SaaS
6 1 (2.13%) Serverless
6 1 (2.13%) Stripe
6 1 (2.13%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.26%) NFC
1 2 (4.26%) RFID
1 2 (4.26%) Wireless
2 1 (2.13%) ATM
2 1 (2.13%) DHCP
2 1 (2.13%) DNS
2 1 (2.13%) Network Security
2 1 (2.13%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.38%) Power BI
2 2 (4.26%) Data Lake
2 2 (4.26%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.13%) BigQuery
3 1 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (2.13%) Power Query
3 1 (2.13%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (4.26%) Jenkins
1 2 (4.26%) JIRA
2 1 (2.13%) Artifactory
2 1 (2.13%) Bitbucket
2 1 (2.13%) Robot Framework
General
1 21 (44.68%) Social Skills
2 10 (21.28%) Finance
3 4 (8.51%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (8.51%) Documentation Skills
3 4 (8.51%) Organisational Skills
4 3 (6.38%) Banking
4 3 (6.38%) Marketing
5 2 (4.26%) Corporate Banking
5 2 (4.26%) Investment Banking
5 2 (4.26%) Manufacturing
5 2 (4.26%) Retail Banking
6 1 (2.13%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 8 (17.02%) Analyst
2 7 (14.89%) Architect
3 4 (8.51%) Business Analyst
3 4 (8.51%) Lead
3 4 (8.51%) Project Manager
3 4 (8.51%) Solutions Architect
4 3 (6.38%) Developer
5 2 (4.26%) Change Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Cloud Architect
5 2 (4.26%) Cybersecurity Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Data Scientist
5 2 (4.26%) Delivery Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Implementation Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Security Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Senior Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Senior Project Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Service Security Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Service Transition Manager
5 2 (4.26%) Systems Analyst
5 2 (4.26%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.13%) .NET
1 1 (2.13%) ASP.NET
1 1 (2.13%) ASP.NET MVC
1 1 (2.13%) CSS
1 1 (2.13%) GraphQL
1 1 (2.13%) HTML
1 1 (2.13%) Kafka
1 1 (2.13%) Node.js
1 1 (2.13%) OpenTelemetry
1 1 (2.13%) pytest
1 1 (2.13%) RESTful
1 1 (2.13%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 6 (12.77%) IoT
2 4 (8.51%) Data Structures
3 3 (6.38%) EPoS
3 3 (6.38%) Security Operations Centre
4 2 (4.26%) Cloud Native
4 2 (4.26%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (4.26%) Management Information System
5 1 (2.13%) Data Centre
5 1 (2.13%) Driving Licence
5 1 (2.13%) FMCG
5 1 (2.13%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (2.13%) Product Ownership
5 1 (2.13%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (4.26%) Windows
2 1 (2.13%) Linux
2 1 (2.13%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (27.66%) Stakeholder Management
2 9 (19.15%) Migration
3 8 (17.02%) Agile
4 7 (14.89%) Problem-Solving
4 7 (14.89%) Project Management
5 6 (12.77%) Analytics
5 6 (12.77%) DevOps
5 6 (12.77%) E-Commerce
5 6 (12.77%) Supplier Management
6 5 (10.64%) Data Modelling
6 5 (10.64%) Project Delivery
7 4 (8.51%) CI/CD
7 4 (8.51%) Containerisation
7 4 (8.51%) Cybersecurity
7 4 (8.51%) Requirements Gathering
8 3 (6.38%) Actionable Insight
8 3 (6.38%) Continuous Improvement
8 3 (6.38%) Data Governance
8 3 (6.38%) Infrastructure as Code
8 3 (6.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 5 (10.64%) SQL
2 4 (8.51%) Python
3 2 (4.26%) Java
3 2 (4.26%) JavaScript
4 1 (2.13%) C#
4 1 (2.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 1 (2.13%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (2.13%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 1 (2.13%) CISM
1 1 (2.13%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.26%) Data Quality
1 2 (4.26%) NIST
2 1 (2.13%) Accessibility
2 1 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 2 (4.26%) Docker
2 1 (2.13%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.13%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 4 (8.51%) Kubernetes
2 2 (4.26%) Ansible
3 1 (2.13%) Terraform
3 1 (2.13%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 6 (12.77%) Microsoft
2 4 (8.51%) SAP
3 1 (2.13%) BiZZdesign
3 1 (2.13%) Dynatrace
3 1 (2.13%) Google
3 1 (2.13%) SendGrid
3 1 (2.13%) Splunk
3 1 (2.13%) VMware