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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 80 85
Rank change year-on-year +10 +5 -18
Contract jobs citing Retail 118 53 42
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.01% 2.37% 1.72%
As % of the General category 5.88% 3.87% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 82 41 35
10th Percentile £373 £278 £198
25th Percentile £494 £463 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +11.11% -13.46%
75th Percentile £600 £635 £575
90th Percentile £695 £675 £600
England median daily rate £550 £513 £515
% change year-on-year +7.32% -0.49% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 1
10th Percentile £12.98 - -
25th Percentile £13.60 - -
Median hourly rate £21.00 £95.00 £12.00
Median % change year-on-year -77.89% +691.67% -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £17.50 £16.30 £16.30
% change year-on-year +7.36% - -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 2,008 1,368 1,338
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 51.19% 61.29% 54.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,143 868 800
10th Percentile £250 £270 £300
25th Percentile £400 £380 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.50% -6.10% -
75th Percentile £588 £580 £585
90th Percentile £675 £688 £676
England median daily rate £525 £508 £538
% change year-on-year +3.45% -5.58% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 115 94
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £16.06
25th Percentile £25.00 £15.64 £18.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £28.75 £32.95
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -12.74% +23.86%
75th Percentile £55.00 £51.25 £45.89
90th Percentile £83.75 £71.56 £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 23 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 23 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 +7 82 £550 +10.00% 77
Merseyside -1 19 £588 +18.69% 23
Cheshire -1 8 £465 +287.29% 38
Lancashire -8 4 - - 43
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 12 (10.17%) Confluence
2 1 (0.85%) Anypoint
2 1 (0.85%) Mendix
2 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.85%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.85%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 2 (1.69%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (3.39%) SAP S/4HANA
1 4 (3.39%) Shopify
2 2 (1.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.69%) SAP MDG
3 1 (0.85%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.85%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.85%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.85%) SAP SD
3 1 (0.85%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 32 (27.12%) AWS
2 15 (12.71%) Azure
3 11 (9.32%) GitHub
4 9 (7.63%) GitHub Actions
5 8 (6.78%) Snowflake
6 7 (5.93%) GCP
7 6 (5.08%) Anthropic Claude
7 6 (5.08%) GitHub Copilot
7 6 (5.08%) Google Gemini
8 5 (4.24%) Serverless
9 4 (3.39%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (3.39%) AWS Lambda
9 4 (3.39%) SaaS
10 3 (2.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 3 (2.54%) Azure Logic Apps
10 3 (2.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 3 (2.54%) dbt
10 3 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 3 (2.54%) Fivetran
10 3 (2.54%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.69%) Firewall
1 2 (1.69%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (1.69%) Wireless
2 1 (0.85%) Cisco Firepower
2 1 (0.85%) Network Security
2 1 (0.85%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.85%) Unified Communications
2 1 (0.85%) VPN
2 1 (0.85%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.08%) Data Lake
1 6 (5.08%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (4.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 4 (3.39%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (2.54%) Power BI
4 3 (2.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 3 (2.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 2 (1.69%) DynamoDB
5 2 (1.69%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (10.17%) JIRA
2 6 (5.08%) Claude Code
3 5 (4.24%) Git
4 2 (1.69%) GitLab
5 1 (0.85%) Hudson
General
1 50 (42.37%) Social Skills
2 43 (36.44%) Finance
3 19 (16.10%) Banking
3 19 (16.10%) Manufacturing
4 10 (8.47%) Back Office
5 6 (5.08%) Marketing
5 6 (5.08%) Retail Banking
6 5 (4.24%) Telecoms
7 4 (3.39%) Legal
8 3 (2.54%) Advertising
8 3 (2.54%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.54%) Billing
9 2 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.85%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.85%) Retail Finance
Job Titles
1 19 (16.10%) Analyst
2 18 (15.25%) Architect
2 18 (15.25%) Senior
3 13 (11.02%) Business Analyst
3 13 (11.02%) Solutions Architect
4 9 (7.63%) Project Manager
5 7 (5.93%) Software Engineer
6 6 (5.08%) Lead
6 6 (5.08%) Product Manager
7 5 (4.24%) Finance Manager
7 5 (4.24%) Full-Stack Engineer
7 5 (4.24%) Principal Engineer
7 5 (4.24%) Systems Analyst
7 5 (4.24%) Technical Analyst
8 4 (3.39%) Business Systems Analyst
8 4 (3.39%) Developer
8 4 (3.39%) IT Manager
8 4 (3.39%) IT Project Manager
8 4 (3.39%) Senior Developer
8 4 (3.39%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.32%) Terraform
2 10 (8.47%) React
3 7 (5.93%) Node.js
3 7 (5.93%) REST
4 6 (5.08%) Next.js
5 5 (4.24%) MACH
6 4 (3.39%) Spring
6 4 (3.39%) Spring Boot
7 3 (2.54%) Jakarta EE
7 3 (2.54%) Middleware
8 2 (1.69%) EDI
8 2 (1.69%) Kafka
9 1 (0.85%) ARM Templates
9 1 (0.85%) JSON
9 1 (0.85%) Lambda Expressions
9 1 (0.85%) OAuth
9 1 (0.85%) OAuth2
9 1 (0.85%) OpenAPI
9 1 (0.85%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 16 (13.56%) Cloud Native
2 14 (11.86%) Product Ownership
3 10 (8.47%) Legacy Systems
4 9 (7.63%) Credit Risk
5 7 (5.93%) Mobile App
6 5 (4.24%) EPoS
7 4 (3.39%) FMCG
7 4 (3.39%) Greenfield Project
7 4 (3.39%) Onboarding
8 3 (2.54%) Culture of Ownership
8 3 (2.54%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.69%) Data Structures
9 2 (1.69%) Digital Media
9 2 (1.69%) iPad
10 1 (0.85%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.85%) EMV
10 1 (0.85%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (0.85%) Online Banking
10 1 (0.85%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.69%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (41.53%) Agile
2 42 (35.59%) Stakeholder Management
3 26 (22.03%) CI/CD
4 25 (21.19%) E-Commerce
5 24 (20.34%) Migration
6 23 (19.49%) Logistics
7 20 (16.95%) Event-Driven
8 18 (15.25%) Supplier Management
9 17 (14.41%) AI
9 17 (14.41%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 16 (13.56%) DevOps
10 16 (13.56%) Roadmaps
10 16 (13.56%) Software Engineering
11 15 (12.71%) Project Management
12 14 (11.86%) Data Modelling
13 13 (11.02%) Continuous Improvement
13 13 (11.02%) Microservices
14 12 (10.17%) CRM
14 12 (10.17%) Infrastructure as Code
14 12 (10.17%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.32%) TypeScript
2 9 (7.63%) SQL
3 6 (5.08%) Python
4 4 (3.39%) Java
5 2 (1.69%) Bash
5 2 (1.69%) Bicep
6 1 (0.85%) C#
6 1 (0.85%) Korn
6 1 (0.85%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (5.08%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (3.39%) Security Cleared
3 2 (1.69%) Azure Certification
3 2 (1.69%) City & Guilds
3 2 (1.69%) ITIL Certification
3 2 (1.69%) SC Cleared
4 1 (0.85%) DBS Check
4 1 (0.85%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.63%) QA
2 4 (3.39%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.85%) GRC
System Software
1 8 (6.78%) Docker
2 2 (1.69%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (6.78%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 12 (10.17%) Salesforce
2 9 (7.63%) SAP
3 8 (6.78%) Microsoft
4 7 (5.93%) Databricks
5 3 (2.54%) Cisco
5 3 (2.54%) MuleSoft
5 3 (2.54%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.69%) Ariba
6 2 (1.69%) Fortinet
6 2 (1.69%) Infor
6 2 (1.69%) Informatica
6 2 (1.69%) Oracle
6 2 (1.69%) Teradata
6 2 (1.69%) Workday
7 1 (0.85%) Barracuda Networks
7 1 (0.85%) Meraki
7 1 (0.85%) Okta
7 1 (0.85%) OpenText
7 1 (0.85%) Palo Alto
7 1 (0.85%) Tenable