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

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 91 78
Rank change year-on-year -28 -13 +2
Contract jobs citing Retail 32 34 62
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 1.22% 1.61% 2.15%
As % of the General category 2.02% 2.73% 3.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 17 42
10th Percentile £318 £291 £150
25th Percentile £383 £413 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -18.18% +15.79%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £625 £638 £738
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 6
10th Percentile - - £11.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.13 £11.59
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 £16.34 £32.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -49.74% +66.67% -1.56%

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 1,582 1,245 1,575
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 60.31% 59.00% 54.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,028 680 1,001
10th Percentile £200 £264 £256
25th Percentile £352 £362 £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 £638 £675 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 96 167
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.95 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.96 £14.18
Median hourly rate £29.60 £27.50 £20.07
Median % change year-on-year +7.64% +37.02% -10.80%
75th Percentile £45.46 £39.63 £38.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £66.59 £46.91
England median hourly rate £22.54 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -24.88% +15.38% -

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 1 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 1 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 -16 20 £600 +23.08% 59
Cheshire -23 6 £331 +13.75% 20
Merseyside -9 3 £495 +16.47% 15
Lancashire - 3 £425 - 29
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 (15.63%) Confluence
2 2 (6.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (6.25%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (12.50%) MS Visio
2 1 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (3.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (3.13%) BambooHR
1 1 (3.13%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (3.13%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 5 (15.63%) Azure
2 3 (9.38%) GCP
3 2 (6.25%) AWS
3 2 (6.25%) Cloud Computing
3 2 (6.25%) Dynamics 365
3 2 (6.25%) Entra ID
3 2 (6.25%) Microsoft 365
3 2 (6.25%) OneDrive
3 2 (6.25%) PaaS
3 2 (6.25%) Power Platform
3 2 (6.25%) SaaS
4 1 (3.13%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (3.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 1 (3.13%) Dataform
4 1 (3.13%) SuccessFactors
4 1 (3.13%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (6.25%) NFC
1 2 (6.25%) RFID
1 2 (6.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.25%) Power BI
2 1 (3.13%) BigQuery
2 1 (3.13%) Data Lake
2 1 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (3.13%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 5 (15.63%) JIRA
2 1 (3.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 1 (3.13%) Selenium
General
1 16 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 10 (31.25%) Finance
3 6 (18.75%) Banking
4 3 (9.38%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (3.13%) Marketing
5 1 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 11 (34.38%) Architect
2 6 (18.75%) Service Management Architect
3 5 (15.63%) Analyst
3 5 (15.63%) Business Analyst
4 4 (12.50%) Banking Analyst
4 4 (12.50%) Banking Business Analyst
4 4 (12.50%) Enterprise Architect
4 4 (12.50%) Lead
5 3 (9.38%) E-Commerce Manager
5 3 (9.38%) Project Manager
6 2 (6.25%) Administrator
6 2 (6.25%) Applications Architect
6 2 (6.25%) E-Commerce Project Manager
6 2 (6.25%) Financial Analyst
6 2 (6.25%) IT Architect
6 2 (6.25%) Principal Software Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Senior Manager
6 2 (6.25%) Senior Project Manager
6 2 (6.25%) Software Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (6.25%) Middleware
1 2 (6.25%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 6 (18.75%) Product Ownership
2 5 (15.63%) CMDB
3 3 (9.38%) Cloud Native
3 3 (9.38%) Data Centre
3 3 (9.38%) Data Structures
3 3 (9.38%) Driving Licence
3 3 (9.38%) Taxonomies
4 2 (6.25%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (6.25%) EPoS
4 2 (6.25%) IoT
4 2 (6.25%) Mobile Banking
4 2 (6.25%) Onboarding
5 1 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (3.13%) Management Information System
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (34.38%) Agile
1 11 (34.38%) Stakeholder Management
2 7 (21.88%) Data Modelling
2 7 (21.88%) Migration
2 7 (21.88%) Translating Business Requirements
3 6 (18.75%) Project Management
3 6 (18.75%) Service Management
4 5 (15.63%) Enterprise Architecture
4 5 (15.63%) Integration Patterns
4 5 (15.63%) ITSM
4 5 (15.63%) Roadmaps
4 5 (15.63%) User Stories
5 4 (12.50%) B2C
5 4 (12.50%) BPMN
5 4 (12.50%) Business Process Modelling
5 4 (12.50%) Data Analysis
5 4 (12.50%) E-Commerce
5 4 (12.50%) Software Engineering
5 4 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 4 (12.50%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 5 (15.63%) SQL
2 2 (6.25%) Java
2 2 (6.25%) PowerShell
2 2 (6.25%) Python
3 1 (3.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 5 (15.63%) Degree
2 4 (12.50%) Master's Degree
2 4 (12.50%) MBA
3 2 (6.25%) Microsoft Certification
4 1 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (3.13%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (12.50%) Data Quality
2 2 (6.25%) GDPR
2 2 (6.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (3.13%) Accessibility
3 1 (3.13%) QA
System Software
1 2 (6.25%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (6.25%) SCCM
Vendors
1 6 (18.75%) Microsoft
2 4 (12.50%) BMC
3 3 (9.38%) Google
3 3 (9.38%) ServiceNow
4 2 (6.25%) Dynatrace
4 2 (6.25%) SolarWinds
5 1 (3.13%) Salesforce
5 1 (3.13%) SAP
5 1 (3.13%) Workday