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 18 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 97 81 81
Rank change year-on-year -16 0 +15
Contract jobs citing Retail 43 39 60
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 1.77% 1.69% 2.19%
As % of the General category 2.87% 2.91% 3.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 24 41
10th Percentile £237 £297 £406
25th Percentile £463 £419 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -14.29% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £563 £625
90th Percentile £703 £676 £738
England median daily rate £518 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -1.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.13 -
Median hourly rate £19.00 £25.32 -
Median % change year-on-year -24.95% - -
75th Percentile £19.50 £33.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £16.34 £33.00 £19.81
% change year-on-year -50.50% +66.58% -

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 1,499 1,338 1,509
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 61.84% 57.87% 55.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 971 715 986
10th Percentile £215 £265 £255
25th Percentile £363 £375 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £593
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 147 96 112
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.00 £15.75
25th Percentile £18.26 £18.13 £17.14
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £22.53
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% +44.25% +12.65%
75th Percentile £45.46 £43.26 £45.88
90th Percentile £70.06 £62.50 £61.30
England median hourly rate £24.34 £32.00 £32.32
% change year-on-year -23.94% -0.99% +26.23%

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 18 November 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
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 18 November 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 -1 29 £550 +18.92% 75
Cheshire -20 6 £120 -58.76% 16
Merseyside -1 4 £495 - 10
Lancashire - 4 £488 - 44
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 3 (6.98%) SharePoint
2 2 (4.65%) Confluence
2 2 (4.65%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (6.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (2.33%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (2.33%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 8 (18.60%) Azure
2 5 (11.63%) AWS
2 5 (11.63%) GCP
3 4 (9.30%) Dynamics 365
4 3 (6.98%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (6.98%) Power Platform
5 2 (4.65%) Azure Data Factory
5 2 (4.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 2 (4.65%) Cloud Computing
5 2 (4.65%) Entra ID
5 2 (4.65%) OneDrive
6 1 (2.33%) SaaS
6 1 (2.33%) Serverless
6 1 (2.33%) Stripe
6 1 (2.33%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.65%) NFC
1 2 (4.65%) RFID
1 2 (4.65%) Wireless
2 1 (2.33%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.98%) Power BI
2 2 (4.65%) Data Lake
2 2 (4.65%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.33%) BigQuery
3 1 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (2.33%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 2 (4.65%) Jenkins
1 2 (4.65%) JIRA
2 1 (2.33%) Artifactory
2 1 (2.33%) Bitbucket
2 1 (2.33%) Robot Framework
2 1 (2.33%) Selenium
General
1 20 (46.51%) Social Skills
2 8 (18.60%) Finance
3 4 (9.30%) Documentation Skills
3 4 (9.30%) Organisational Skills
4 3 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (6.98%) Banking
4 3 (6.98%) Marketing
5 2 (4.65%) Corporate Banking
5 2 (4.65%) Investment Banking
5 2 (4.65%) Retail Banking
6 1 (2.33%) Financial Institution
6 1 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (2.33%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 8 (18.60%) Architect
2 6 (13.95%) Analyst
3 4 (9.30%) Lead
3 4 (9.30%) Project Manager
3 4 (9.30%) Solutions Architect
4 3 (6.98%) Business Analyst
5 2 (4.65%) Administrator
5 2 (4.65%) Cloud Architect
5 2 (4.65%) Cybersecurity Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Data Scientist
5 2 (4.65%) Delivery Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Developer
5 2 (4.65%) Implementation Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Microsoft 365 Administrator
5 2 (4.65%) Security Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Senior Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Senior Project Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Service Security Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Service Transition Manager
5 2 (4.65%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.33%) GraphQL
1 1 (2.33%) Kafka
1 1 (2.33%) Node.js
1 1 (2.33%) OpenTelemetry
1 1 (2.33%) pytest
1 1 (2.33%) REST
1 1 (2.33%) RESTful
1 1 (2.33%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 6 (13.95%) IoT
2 3 (6.98%) Cloud Native
2 3 (6.98%) Data Structures
2 3 (6.98%) Driving Licence
2 3 (6.98%) EPoS
2 3 (6.98%) Security Operations Centre
3 2 (4.65%) Legacy Systems
3 2 (4.65%) Product Ownership
4 1 (2.33%) Data Centre
4 1 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (2.33%) FMCG
4 1 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (2.33%) Management Information System
4 1 (2.33%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.33%) Linux
1 1 (2.33%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (30.23%) Stakeholder Management
2 10 (23.26%) Migration
3 6 (13.95%) Agile
3 6 (13.95%) Analytics
3 6 (13.95%) Problem-Solving
3 6 (13.95%) Project Management
3 6 (13.95%) Supplier Management
4 5 (11.63%) Data Modelling
4 5 (11.63%) E-Commerce
4 5 (11.63%) Incident Response
5 4 (9.30%) CI/CD
5 4 (9.30%) Customer Experience
5 4 (9.30%) Cybersecurity
5 4 (9.30%) Project Delivery
6 3 (6.98%) Actionable Insight
6 3 (6.98%) Continuous Improvement
6 3 (6.98%) Data Governance
6 3 (6.98%) DevOps
6 3 (6.98%) Requirements Gathering
6 3 (6.98%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 5 (11.63%) Python
2 4 (9.30%) SQL
3 2 (4.65%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 1 (2.33%) Java
4 1 (2.33%) JavaScript
4 1 (2.33%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (2.33%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 2 (4.65%) Microsoft Certification
2 1 (2.33%) CISM
2 1 (2.33%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (4.65%) Data Quality
2 2 (4.65%) GDPR
2 2 (4.65%) NIST
3 1 (2.33%) Accessibility
System Software
1 2 (4.65%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.33%) Docker
2 1 (2.33%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 2 (4.65%) Ansible
1 2 (4.65%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.33%) Terraform
2 1 (2.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 7 (16.28%) Microsoft
2 2 (4.65%) Google
2 2 (4.65%) SAP
3 1 (2.33%) BiZZdesign
3 1 (2.33%) Dynatrace
3 1 (2.33%) Splunk
3 1 (2.33%) VMware