Social Skills Contract Job Trends in the North West

Social Skills (Interpersonal, Communication)
England > North West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Social Skills in contract job vacancies in the North West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Social Skills over the 6 months leading up to 15 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 1 1
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 0
Contract jobs citing Social Skills 872 599 508
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 22.21% 27.96% 21.43%
As % of the General category 43.64% 45.21% 38.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 546 346 296
10th Percentile £193 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £358 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £486 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.83% +2.37% +0.26%
75th Percentile £588 £579 £563
90th Percentile £664 £688 £655
England median daily rate £513 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +2.50% -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 79 29
10th Percentile £13.67 £12.82 £15.81
25th Percentile £16.13 £13.00 £17.44
Median hourly rate £40.73 £17.44 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +133.54% -36.58% -
75th Percentile £64.09 £47.12 £45.00
90th Percentile £79.20 £63.72 £51.91
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.63 £22.00
% change year-on-year -1.27% -1.70% +16.00%

All General Skills
North West

Social Skills 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 1,998 1,325 1,314
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 50.89% 61.86% 55.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,131 844 756
10th Percentile £240 £271 £276
25th Percentile £400 £378 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £455 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -8.91% -0.10%
75th Percentile £594 £556 £586
90th Percentile £680 £674 £688
England median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 111 77
10th Percentile £14.68 £12.82 £16.00
25th Percentile £23.94 £14.35 £18.00
Median hourly rate £35.53 £22.63 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.98% -35.34% +55.35%
75th Percentile £63.84 £48.56 £46.18
90th Percentile £81.63 £70.00 £55.40
England median hourly rate £31.16 £25.15 £38.85
% change year-on-year +23.88% -35.26% +41.27%

Social Skills
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Social Skills relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Social Skills job vacancy trend in the North West

Social Skills
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Social Skills.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Social Skills

Social Skills
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Social Skills in the North West over the 6 months to 15 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Social Skills in the North West

Social Skills
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Social Skills.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Social Skills

Social Skills
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Social Skills in the North West over the 6 months to 15 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Social Skills in the North West

Social Skills
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 Social Skills within the North West region over the 6 months to 15 September 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 0 445 £500 - 1,004
Cheshire 0 217 £475 +6.26% 231
Lancashire -1 80 £469 -6.25% 198
Cumbria +1 60 £498 +1.22% 25
Merseyside -2 52 £500 +5.26% 138
Social Skills
England

Social Skills
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 42 (4.82%) SharePoint
2 40 (4.59%) Confluence
3 14 (1.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.80%) Apache
5 6 (0.69%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.69%) CMS
6 3 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.23%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.23%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.11%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.11%) CICS
8 1 (0.11%) IIS
8 1 (0.11%) JBoss
8 1 (0.11%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.11%) Mule
8 1 (0.11%) Mule ESB
8 1 (0.11%) SAS
8 1 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.11%) WebLogic
Applications
1 44 (5.05%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (4.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (2.06%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.34%) Windchill
7 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 23 (2.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.80%) Oracle Payables
3 7 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.34%) Adobe Campaign
4 3 (0.34%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.34%) SAP HCM
4 3 (0.34%) SAP MDG
4 3 (0.34%) SAP Payroll
5 2 (0.23%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.23%) SAP GRC
5 2 (0.23%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.11%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP CRM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP FI
6 1 (0.11%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.11%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP SD
6 1 (0.11%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 121 (13.88%) Azure
2 114 (13.07%) AWS
3 88 (10.09%) Microsoft 365
4 57 (6.54%) Power Platform
5 31 (3.56%) Entra ID
6 26 (2.98%) GCP
7 20 (2.29%) Power Automate
8 14 (1.61%) SaaS
9 13 (1.49%) GitHub
9 13 (1.49%) Microsoft Copilot
9 13 (1.49%) PowerApps
10 11 (1.26%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.15%) Serverless
11 10 (1.15%) SuccessFactors
12 9 (1.03%) OneDrive
13 8 (0.92%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (0.92%) Snowflake
14 7 (0.80%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (0.80%) Copilot Studio
14 7 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 36 (4.13%) Firewall
2 29 (3.33%) DNS
3 28 (3.21%) VPN
4 25 (2.87%) Wireless
5 21 (2.41%) DHCP
6 19 (2.18%) Network Security
6 19 (2.18%) WAN
7 16 (1.83%) Structured Cabling
8 15 (1.72%) TCP/IP
9 13 (1.49%) Cisco IOS
9 13 (1.49%) NAS
9 13 (1.49%) NX-OS
9 13 (1.49%) SAN
10 12 (1.38%) VLAN
11 10 (1.15%) LAN
11 10 (1.15%) SD-WAN
11 10 (1.15%) Wi-Fi
12 5 (0.57%) NetScaler
12 5 (0.57%) SNMP
13 4 (0.46%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (5.05%) Power BI
2 30 (3.44%) SQL Server
3 25 (2.87%) Data Warehouse
4 17 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (1.83%) MySQL
6 15 (1.72%) Data Lake
7 12 (1.38%) Relational Database
8 9 (1.03%) NoSQL
9 8 (0.92%) Metadata
9 8 (0.92%) MongoDB
10 7 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
10 7 (0.80%) DataStage
10 7 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 6 (0.69%) Db2
11 6 (0.69%) Power Query
11 6 (0.69%) Tableau
12 5 (0.57%) Sybase ASE
13 4 (0.46%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 4 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 55 (6.31%) JIRA
2 16 (1.83%) Git
3 14 (1.61%) Jenkins
4 12 (1.38%) GitLab
5 5 (0.57%) MSI
6 4 (0.46%) Claude Code
7 3 (0.34%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.34%) Hudson
7 3 (0.34%) Mockito
7 3 (0.34%) Selenium
8 2 (0.23%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.23%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.23%) Gatling
8 2 (0.23%) JMeter
8 2 (0.23%) JUnit
8 2 (0.23%) Maven
8 2 (0.23%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.23%) Serenity BDD
8 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 263 (30.16%) Finance
2 151 (17.32%) Analytical Skills
3 88 (10.09%) Banking
4 73 (8.37%) Organisational Skills
5 62 (7.11%) Manufacturing
6 58 (6.65%) Retail
7 56 (6.42%) Public Sector
8 40 (4.59%) Legal
9 39 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
10 29 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (2.06%) Marketing
12 14 (1.61%) Telecoms
13 13 (1.49%) Automotive
14 11 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (0.92%) Financial Institution
16 7 (0.80%) Aerospace
16 7 (0.80%) Retail Banking
17 6 (0.69%) Law
17 6 (0.69%) Local Government
18 5 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 110 (12.61%) Analyst
2 79 (9.06%) Architect
3 66 (7.57%) Lead
4 64 (7.34%) Senior
5 57 (6.54%) Developer
6 53 (6.08%) Support Engineer
7 52 (5.96%) IT Support
8 49 (5.62%) Project Manager
9 42 (4.82%) Business Analyst
9 42 (4.82%) Consultant
10 37 (4.24%) Administrator
11 33 (3.78%) IT Engineer
12 32 (3.67%) Solutions Architect
13 31 (3.56%) IT Support Engineer
14 26 (2.98%) Software Engineer
15 19 (2.18%) Data Engineer
15 19 (2.18%) DBA
15 19 (2.18%) Desktop Engineer
15 19 (2.18%) Java Engineer
16 17 (1.95%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (3.90%) REST
1 34 (3.90%) Spring
2 31 (3.56%) Spring Boot
3 18 (2.06%) Terraform
4 17 (1.95%) Kafka
5 14 (1.61%) React
6 12 (1.38%) AngularJS
6 12 (1.38%) Node.js
7 11 (1.26%) PySpark
8 9 (1.03%) .NET
9 8 (0.92%) HTML
9 8 (0.92%) JSON
9 8 (0.92%) Software Packaging
10 7 (0.80%) Jakarta EE
10 7 (0.80%) RESTful
11 6 (0.69%) AWS CDK
11 6 (0.69%) CSS
11 6 (0.69%) OAuth
12 5 (0.57%) Middleware
12 5 (0.57%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 56 (6.42%) Onboarding
2 42 (4.82%) Product Ownership
3 36 (4.13%) Legacy Systems
3 36 (4.13%) Management Information System
4 28 (3.21%) Cloud Native
5 27 (3.10%) Data Protection Act
6 26 (2.98%) Virtual Team
7 23 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
7 23 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
8 22 (2.52%) Data Centre
9 21 (2.41%) Web Conferencing
10 20 (2.29%) Podcast
11 17 (1.95%) Mobile App
12 16 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (1.83%) Driving Licence
13 14 (1.61%) Credit Risk
14 13 (1.49%) Data Structures
15 12 (1.38%) CMDB
16 11 (1.26%) Operational Technology
17 9 (1.03%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 108 (12.39%) Windows
2 51 (5.85%) Windows 10
3 29 (3.33%) Linux
4 23 (2.64%) Unix
5 14 (1.61%) Android
6 12 (1.38%) Solaris
7 11 (1.26%) Windows Server
8 9 (1.03%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.69%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.46%) AIX
11 3 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 3 (0.34%) VMS
12 2 (0.23%) HPUX
12 2 (0.23%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.23%) SUSE
12 2 (0.23%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 297 (34.06%) Stakeholder Management
2 200 (22.94%) Problem-Solving
3 175 (20.07%) Agile
4 144 (16.51%) Continuous Improvement
5 127 (14.56%) ITIL
6 109 (12.50%) Customer Service
6 109 (12.50%) Migration
7 102 (11.70%) CI/CD
8 94 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 83 (9.52%) Decision-Making
10 82 (9.40%) Roadmaps
11 77 (8.83%) Analytics
12 76 (8.72%) AI
13 73 (8.37%) Project Management
14 66 (7.57%) Change Management
15 63 (7.22%) Data Modelling
15 63 (7.22%) Data Protection
16 55 (6.31%) Service Management
17 54 (6.19%) Software Engineering
18 53 (6.08%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 90 (10.32%) SQL
2 69 (7.91%) Python
3 63 (7.22%) Java
4 30 (3.44%) PowerShell
5 20 (2.29%) JavaScript
6 19 (2.18%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.03%) C#
7 9 (1.03%) Kotlin
7 9 (1.03%) Search Processing Language
8 8 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 7 (0.80%) Bash
9 7 (0.80%) PL/SQL
9 7 (0.80%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.80%) T-SQL
10 5 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.46%) Apex Code
11 4 (0.46%) Go
12 3 (0.34%) ABAP
12 3 (0.34%) Bicep
13 2 (0.23%) Swift
Qualifications
1 134 (15.37%) Security Cleared
2 111 (12.73%) SC Cleared
3 70 (8.03%) Degree
4 53 (6.08%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (2.87%) Microsoft Certification
6 23 (2.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (2.41%) CISSP
8 20 (2.29%) Network+ Certification
9 19 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
9 19 (2.18%) ITIL Certification
10 16 (1.83%) CCNP
11 13 (1.49%) CCNA
12 11 (1.26%) Server+ Certification
13 8 (0.92%) A+ Certification
14 7 (0.80%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.80%) DBS Check
14 7 (0.80%) GCIH
15 6 (0.69%) AWS Certification
15 6 (0.69%) HNC
15 6 (0.69%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (6.77%) Data Quality
2 29 (3.33%) SLA
3 27 (3.10%) QA
4 25 (2.87%) GRC
5 21 (2.41%) Accessibility
5 21 (2.41%) GDPR
5 21 (2.41%) NIST
6 19 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.95%) PMO
8 15 (1.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (1.15%) PCI DSS
10 8 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
11 6 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.57%) NCSC
13 4 (0.46%) GxP
14 3 (0.34%) GAAP
14 3 (0.34%) IFRS
14 3 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 3 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 80 (9.17%) Active Directory
2 24 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (1.95%) Docker
4 14 (1.61%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.69%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.46%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 4 (0.46%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.46%) XenApp
6 4 (0.46%) XenDesktop
7 3 (0.34%) Ceph
7 3 (0.34%) KVM
8 2 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.23%) vSphere
9 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.11%) Firmware
9 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 33 (3.78%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (3.33%) SCCM
3 25 (2.87%) Kubernetes
4 19 (2.18%) Ansible
5 10 (1.15%) Progress Chef
6 5 (0.57%) CASB
6 5 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.46%) Grafana
8 2 (0.23%) AirWatch
8 2 (0.23%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.11%) Argo
9 1 (0.11%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.11%) Functional Safety
9 1 (0.11%) Opsgenie
9 1 (0.11%) Puppet
9 1 (0.11%) QRadar
9 1 (0.11%) SCOM
9 1 (0.11%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 1 (0.11%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.11%) WSUS
Vendors
1 185 (21.22%) Microsoft
2 73 (8.37%) ServiceNow
3 63 (7.22%) SAP
4 34 (3.90%) Oracle
5 33 (3.78%) Salesforce
6 26 (2.98%) Cisco
6 26 (2.98%) VMware
7 24 (2.75%) Databricks
8 20 (2.29%) Splunk
9 15 (1.72%) Citrix
9 15 (1.72%) IBM
10 13 (1.49%) Google
11 12 (1.38%) Workday
12 9 (1.03%) Adobe
12 9 (1.03%) Teradata
13 8 (0.92%) Qualtrics
14 7 (0.80%) Atlassian
14 7 (0.80%) Remedy
15 6 (0.69%) MuleSoft
15 6 (0.69%) UiPath