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 9 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 70 80
Rank change year-on-year 0 +10 -3
Contract jobs citing Retail 116 59 42
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.06% 2.67% 1.78%
As % of the General category 5.82% 4.41% 3.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 80 46 34
10th Percentile £362 £320 £180
25th Percentile £488 £434 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +11.11% -13.46%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £575
90th Percentile £700 £688 £600
England median daily rate £550 £525 £505
% change year-on-year +4.76% +3.96% -6.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 2
10th Percentile £12.98 - £12.10
25th Percentile £13.60 - £12.25
Median hourly rate £21.00 £95.00 £12.50
Median % change year-on-year -77.89% +660.00% -
75th Percentile - - £12.75
90th Percentile - - £12.90
England median hourly rate £18.75 £16.30 £16.30
% change year-on-year +15.03% - -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 1,994 1,339 1,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 52.52% 60.67% 53.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,137 857 769
10th Percentile £240 £268 £300
25th Percentile £400 £384 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.68% -6.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £586
90th Percentile £670 £675 £676
England median daily rate £525 £513 £538
% change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 248 111 105
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 -
25th Percentile £24.14 £15.64 £16.06
Median hourly rate £33.61 £28.75 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.91% -4.17% +9.09%
75th Percentile £62.44 £50.00 £43.10
90th Percentile £83.75 £72.50 £57.50
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%

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 9 August 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 9 August 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 -1 82 £550 +10.00% 115
Merseyside 0 19 £588 +18.69% 30
Cheshire -16 7 £492 +19.27% 24
Lancashire -8 4 - - 31
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 (8.62%) Confluence
2 1 (0.86%) Anypoint
2 1 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.86%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.59%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (3.45%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (3.45%) Shopify
2 2 (1.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.72%) SAP MDG
3 1 (0.86%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.86%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.86%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.86%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 32 (27.59%) AWS
2 16 (13.79%) Azure
3 11 (9.48%) GitHub
4 9 (7.76%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (6.03%) GCP
5 7 (6.03%) Snowflake
6 6 (5.17%) Anthropic Claude
6 6 (5.17%) GitHub Copilot
6 6 (5.17%) Google Gemini
7 5 (4.31%) Serverless
8 4 (3.45%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (3.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 4 (3.45%) SaaS
9 3 (2.59%) Amazon ECS
9 3 (2.59%) Azure Logic Apps
9 3 (2.59%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (2.59%) dbt
9 3 (2.59%) Entra ID
9 3 (2.59%) Fivetran
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.72%) Firewall
1 2 (1.72%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (1.72%) Wireless
2 1 (0.86%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (0.86%) Network Security
2 1 (0.86%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.86%) Unified Communications
2 1 (0.86%) VPN
2 1 (0.86%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.17%) Data Lake
2 5 (4.31%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (4.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 3 (2.59%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (2.59%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 3 (2.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 2 (1.72%) DynamoDB
4 2 (1.72%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.86%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 10 (8.62%) JIRA
2 6 (5.17%) Claude Code
2 6 (5.17%) Git
3 1 (0.86%) GitLab
3 1 (0.86%) Hudson
General
1 45 (38.79%) Social Skills
2 39 (33.62%) Finance
3 18 (15.52%) Manufacturing
4 14 (12.07%) Banking
5 10 (8.62%) Back Office
6 5 (4.31%) Marketing
6 5 (4.31%) Telecoms
7 4 (3.45%) Legal
8 3 (2.59%) Advertising
8 3 (2.59%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.59%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.72%) Billing
10 1 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.86%) Retail Finance
Job Titles
1 20 (17.24%) Analyst
2 19 (16.38%) Senior
3 18 (15.52%) Architect
4 13 (11.21%) Solutions Architect
5 12 (10.34%) Business Analyst
6 9 (7.76%) Software Engineer
7 7 (6.03%) Lead
7 7 (6.03%) Principal Engineer
7 7 (6.03%) Project Manager
8 5 (4.31%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 5 (4.31%) Systems Analyst
8 5 (4.31%) Technical Analyst
9 4 (3.45%) Business Systems Analyst
9 4 (3.45%) Data Business Analyst
9 4 (3.45%) Developer
9 4 (3.45%) Principal Software Engineer
9 4 (3.45%) Product Manager
9 4 (3.45%) Senior Developer
9 4 (3.45%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
9 4 (3.45%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (8.62%) React
2 7 (6.03%) Node.js
2 7 (6.03%) REST
3 6 (5.17%) Next.js
4 4 (3.45%) MACH
4 4 (3.45%) Spring
4 4 (3.45%) Spring Boot
5 3 (2.59%) Jakarta EE
5 3 (2.59%) Middleware
6 2 (1.72%) ARM Templates
6 2 (1.72%) Kafka
7 1 (0.86%) EDI
7 1 (0.86%) JSON
7 1 (0.86%) Lambda Expressions
7 1 (0.86%) OAuth
7 1 (0.86%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.86%) OpenAPI
7 1 (0.86%) PySpark
7 1 (0.86%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 16 (13.79%) Cloud Native
2 12 (10.34%) Product Ownership
3 10 (8.62%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (5.17%) Mobile App
5 5 (4.31%) Credit Risk
5 5 (4.31%) EPoS
6 4 (3.45%) Driving Licence
6 4 (3.45%) Greenfield Project
6 4 (3.45%) Onboarding
7 3 (2.59%) Culture of Ownership
7 3 (2.59%) FMCG
8 2 (1.72%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.72%) Data Structures
8 2 (1.72%) Digital Media
8 2 (1.72%) iPad
9 1 (0.86%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.86%) Contactless
9 1 (0.86%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.86%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.72%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (38.79%) Agile
2 38 (32.76%) Stakeholder Management
3 28 (24.14%) CI/CD
4 23 (19.83%) E-Commerce
5 22 (18.97%) Logistics
6 18 (15.52%) AI
6 18 (15.52%) Event-Driven
6 18 (15.52%) Migration
6 18 (15.52%) Software Engineering
7 17 (14.66%) DevOps
8 16 (13.79%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 16 (13.79%) Roadmaps
9 14 (12.07%) Continuous Improvement
9 14 (12.07%) Data Modelling
9 14 (12.07%) Microservices
10 13 (11.21%) Project Management
10 13 (11.21%) Supplier Management
11 12 (10.34%) Analytics
11 12 (10.34%) Infrastructure as Code
11 12 (10.34%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.48%) TypeScript
2 9 (7.76%) SQL
3 8 (6.90%) Python
4 4 (3.45%) Java
5 3 (2.59%) Bicep
6 2 (1.72%) Bash
6 2 (1.72%) PowerShell
7 1 (0.86%) C#
7 1 (0.86%) Korn
Qualifications
1 6 (5.17%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (3.45%) Security Cleared
3 3 (2.59%) Azure Certification
4 2 (1.72%) City & Guilds
4 2 (1.72%) ITIL Certification
4 2 (1.72%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.86%) DBS Check
5 1 (0.86%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.76%) QA
2 4 (3.45%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.86%) GDPR
3 1 (0.86%) GRC
3 1 (0.86%) PMO
System Software
1 8 (6.90%) Docker
2 3 (2.59%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (9.48%) Terraform
2 8 (6.90%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 8 (6.90%) Microsoft
1 8 (6.90%) Salesforce
1 8 (6.90%) SAP
2 6 (5.17%) Databricks
3 3 (2.59%) MuleSoft
4 2 (1.72%) Ariba
4 2 (1.72%) Cisco
4 2 (1.72%) Fortinet
4 2 (1.72%) Infor
4 2 (1.72%) Informatica
4 2 (1.72%) Oracle
4 2 (1.72%) ServiceNow
5 1 (0.86%) Barracuda Networks
5 1 (0.86%) OpenText
5 1 (0.86%) Palo Alto
5 1 (0.86%) Qualys
5 1 (0.86%) Tenable
5 1 (0.86%) Teradata
5 1 (0.86%) Workday