Retail Contract Job Trends in England

Retailing
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Retail in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Retail over the 6 months leading up to 2 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 86 94
Rank change year-on-year -49 +8 -19
Contract jobs citing Retail 665 774 871
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 2.78% 2.38%
As % of the General category 3.42% 4.49% 4.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 397 415 500
10th Percentile £206 £272 £275
25th Percentile £394 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £644
90th Percentile £738 £759 £739
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -5.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 8 28
10th Percentile £15.25 £17.57 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.17 £18.13 £17.71
Median hourly rate £16.67 £32.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -48.72% +64.06% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £36.13 £21.46
90th Percentile £25.10 £41.75 £29.75
UK median hourly rate £17.00 £32.50 £19.81
% change year-on-year -47.69% +64.06% -

All General Skills
England

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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 19,417 17,235 21,650
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 61.27% 61.91% 59.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,345 10,403 14,588
10th Percentile £284 £300 £275
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £534 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.37% -2.91% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £660
90th Percentile £738 £775 £757
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £543
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.31% -1.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,218 590 1,035
10th Percentile £14.08 £15.61 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.86 £18.50 £16.54
Median hourly rate £23.58 £30.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.42% -9.09% +29.31%
75th Percentile £46.56 £58.20 £59.71
90th Percentile £71.50 £74.76 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £27.50 £32.75
% change year-on-year -14.55% -16.03% +31.00%

Retail
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Retail relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Retail job vacancy trend in England

Retail
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Retail.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Retail

Retail
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Retail in England over the 6 months to 2 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Retail in England

Retail
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Retail.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Retail

Retail
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Retail in England over the 6 months to 2 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Retail in England

Retail
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Retail within the England region over the 6 months to 2 January 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
London -44 342 £550 - 310
South East -20 99 £518 -5.77% 203
North of England -32 79 £485 +4.86% 212
Midlands -38 63 £450 -10.00% 125
East Midlands -1 43 £495 -1.00% 63
East of England -19 41 £549 -0.23% 55
Yorkshire -42 41 £500 +17.65% 86
North West -30 34 £495 +8.49% 111
South West -5 19 £180 -55.99% 70
West Midlands -58 19 £375 -28.57% 61
North East -7 5 £200 -66.67% 15
Retail
UK

Retail
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 30 (4.51%) Confluence
2 17 (2.56%) CMS
3 16 (2.41%) SharePoint
4 8 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.90%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.75%) Camunda
6 5 (0.75%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.60%) WordPress
8 2 (0.30%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.15%) SAS
9 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 25 (3.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (1.05%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.30%) Trello
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 25 (3.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.50%) SAP Retail
2 10 (1.50%) Shopify
3 9 (1.35%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (1.20%) Oracle Retail
5 6 (0.90%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.75%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
7 4 (0.60%) Temenos T24
8 3 (0.45%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.45%) SAP GTS
8 3 (0.45%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.30%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.30%) Finacle
9 2 (0.30%) Magento
9 2 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.30%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 2 (0.30%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 78 (11.73%) Azure
2 43 (6.47%) Power Platform
3 34 (5.11%) AWS
4 28 (4.21%) GCP
5 22 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (3.16%) Dynamics 365
7 16 (2.41%) Microsoft 365
8 14 (2.11%) GitHub
8 14 (2.11%) SaaS
9 11 (1.65%) Figma
10 10 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (1.50%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 10 (1.50%) Snowflake
11 8 (1.20%) Entra ID
11 8 (1.20%) Vertex AI
12 7 (1.05%) OCI
12 7 (1.05%) Power Automate
12 7 (1.05%) Serverless
12 7 (1.05%) SuccessFactors
13 6 (0.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.86%) RFID
2 18 (2.71%) NFC
2 18 (2.71%) Wireless
3 11 (1.65%) VPN
4 9 (1.35%) Firewall
5 7 (1.05%) WAN
6 6 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (0.60%) BGP
7 4 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
7 4 (0.60%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.60%) OSPF
7 4 (0.60%) VoIP
8 3 (0.45%) LAN
9 2 (0.30%) Broadband
9 2 (0.30%) DNS
9 2 (0.30%) MPLS
9 2 (0.30%) SAN
9 2 (0.30%) WLAN
10 1 (0.15%) Intranet
10 1 (0.15%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (5.26%) Power BI
2 17 (2.56%) BigQuery
3 15 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (1.65%) Tableau
5 10 (1.50%) Metadata
5 10 (1.50%) SQL Server
6 7 (1.05%) Data Lake
7 4 (0.60%) Data Vault
7 4 (0.60%) Delta Lake
7 4 (0.60%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.60%) Power Query
7 4 (0.60%) Redis
7 4 (0.60%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
7 4 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.45%) SAP BW
8 3 (0.45%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.30%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.30%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 61 (9.17%) JIRA
2 10 (1.50%) Jenkins
3 9 (1.35%) Git
4 6 (0.90%) GitLab
5 4 (0.60%) Selenium
5 4 (0.60%) Storybook
6 3 (0.45%) Postman
7 2 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.30%) ERwin
7 2 (0.30%) JMeter
7 2 (0.30%) JUnit
7 2 (0.30%) MLflow
7 2 (0.30%) Mockito
7 2 (0.30%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.30%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.30%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.30%) Xcode
7 2 (0.30%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.15%) Maven
8 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 240 (36.09%) Social Skills
2 136 (20.45%) Finance
3 76 (11.43%) Analytical Skills
4 51 (7.67%) Banking
5 49 (7.37%) Marketing
6 39 (5.86%) Public Sector
7 35 (5.26%) Organisational Skills
8 34 (5.11%) Manufacturing
9 24 (3.61%) Retail Banking
10 22 (3.31%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (3.16%) Corporate Banking
12 20 (3.01%) Investment Banking
13 19 (2.86%) Legal
14 17 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
15 15 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
16 11 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 10 (1.50%) Telecoms
18 6 (0.90%) Publishing
19 5 (0.75%) Automotive
19 5 (0.75%) Law
Job Titles
1 131 (19.70%) Analyst
2 75 (11.28%) Architect
3 74 (11.13%) Project Manager
4 64 (9.62%) Senior
5 60 (9.02%) Business Analyst
6 55 (8.27%) Lead
7 31 (4.66%) Solutions Architect
8 28 (4.21%) Consultant
9 24 (3.61%) Senior Manager
10 20 (3.01%) Programme Manager
11 19 (2.86%) Product Manager
12 16 (2.41%) Developer
13 13 (1.95%) Administrator
13 13 (1.95%) Senior Analyst
14 12 (1.80%) Help Desk Analyst
14 12 (1.80%) SAP Consultant
14 12 (1.80%) Support Analyst
14 12 (1.80%) Technical Manager
15 11 (1.65%) Data Analyst
15 11 (1.65%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.46%) React
2 16 (2.41%) Node.js
3 14 (2.11%) VML
4 13 (1.95%) PySpark
4 13 (1.95%) REST
5 11 (1.65%) HTML
6 8 (1.20%) .NET
6 8 (1.20%) AngularJS
7 7 (1.05%) React Native
7 7 (1.05%) scikit-learn
7 7 (1.05%) Spring
7 7 (1.05%) Spring Boot
8 6 (0.90%) CSS
8 6 (0.90%) OpenTelemetry
9 5 (0.75%) CSS3
9 5 (0.75%) HTML5
9 5 (0.75%) Kafka
9 5 (0.75%) Matplotlib
9 5 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
9 5 (0.75%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (5.11%) Product Ownership
2 25 (3.76%) Self-Motivation
3 22 (3.31%) IoT
3 22 (3.31%) Legacy Systems
4 16 (2.41%) Onboarding
5 15 (2.26%) Cloud Native
5 15 (2.26%) EPoS
5 15 (2.26%) FMCG
6 12 (1.80%) Management Information System
6 12 (1.80%) Mobile App
7 11 (1.65%) Data Centre
8 10 (1.50%) Data Structures
9 9 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
9 9 (1.35%) Driving Licence
10 6 (0.90%) Algorithms
10 6 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
10 6 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (0.90%) Replication
10 6 (0.90%) Social Media
11 5 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 37 (5.56%) Windows
2 7 (1.05%) Linux
3 6 (0.90%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.75%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.45%) Android
5 3 (0.45%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.30%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.15%) VMS
7 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (23.61%) Agile
2 155 (23.31%) Stakeholder Management
3 104 (15.64%) Problem-Solving
4 83 (12.48%) Project Management
5 76 (11.43%) E-Commerce
6 75 (11.28%) Analytics
7 57 (8.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 55 (8.27%) Continuous Improvement
8 55 (8.27%) Roadmaps
9 54 (8.12%) Migration
9 54 (8.12%) Workshop Facilitation
10 49 (7.37%) AI
10 49 (7.37%) Customer Experience
11 47 (7.07%) DevOps
11 47 (7.07%) ERP
12 46 (6.92%) CRM
12 46 (6.92%) Waterfall
13 45 (6.77%) Business Intelligence
13 45 (6.77%) Data Modelling
14 43 (6.47%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 59 (8.87%) SQL
2 53 (7.97%) Python
3 14 (2.11%) JavaScript
4 13 (1.95%) Java
5 11 (1.65%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.50%) Bash
7 7 (1.05%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.90%) C#
8 6 (0.90%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (0.45%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.45%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.30%) ABAP
10 2 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.30%) PHP
10 2 (0.30%) R
10 2 (0.30%) Swift
10 2 (0.30%) VBA
11 1 (0.15%) Go
11 1 (0.15%) REXX
11 1 (0.15%) Scala
Qualifications
1 29 (4.36%) Degree
2 22 (3.31%) PMP
3 19 (2.86%) PMI Certification
3 19 (2.86%) Security Cleared
4 9 (1.35%) Master's Degree
5 6 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
5 6 (0.90%) MBA
5 6 (0.90%) SC Cleared
6 5 (0.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (0.60%) CCIE
7 4 (0.60%) CCNP
7 4 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (0.60%) CISSP
7 4 (0.60%) CSPO
7 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (0.45%) APMP
8 3 (0.45%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (0.45%) CISM
8 3 (0.45%) CRISC
8 3 (0.45%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.61%) QA
2 21 (3.16%) Data Quality
3 17 (2.56%) PMO
4 14 (2.11%) SLA
5 13 (1.95%) Accessibility
6 12 (1.80%) GDPR
7 5 (0.75%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.45%) IFRS
8 3 (0.45%) NCSC
8 3 (0.45%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.30%) COBIT
9 2 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.30%) NIST
10 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.15%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.15%) MiFID
10 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.15%) Solvency II
System Software
1 12 (1.80%) Docker
2 7 (1.05%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (0.45%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.15%) RACF
4 1 (0.15%) Varnish
4 1 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 19 (2.86%) Terraform
2 12 (1.80%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.75%) Argo
3 5 (0.75%) Grafana
3 5 (0.75%) Istio
3 5 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.45%) Ansible
5 3 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
5 3 (0.45%) SCCM
6 2 (0.30%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.15%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.15%) Cacti
7 1 (0.15%) Control-M
7 1 (0.15%) Nmap
7 1 (0.15%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.15%) zSecure
Vendors
1 73 (10.98%) Microsoft
2 61 (9.17%) SAP
3 42 (6.32%) Salesforce
4 38 (5.71%) Oracle
5 25 (3.76%) Google
6 18 (2.71%) Databricks
7 17 (2.56%) Adobe
8 9 (1.35%) HP
9 6 (0.90%) CheckPoint
9 6 (0.90%) Dell
9 6 (0.90%) F5
10 5 (0.75%) Cisco
10 5 (0.75%) Meraki
10 5 (0.75%) ServiceNow
10 5 (0.75%) Sitecore
10 5 (0.75%) Workday
10 5 (0.75%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.60%) Apple
11 4 (0.60%) Temenos
11 4 (0.60%) VMware