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 8 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 126 84 94
Rank change year-on-year -42 +10 -26
Contract jobs citing Retail 678 827 929
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.19% 2.73% 2.41%
As % of the General category 3.50% 4.49% 4.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 401 448 527
10th Percentile £206 £263 £278
25th Percentile £400 £413 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £531 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +1.19% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £644
90th Percentile £738 £773 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 10 30
10th Percentile £14.65 £16.05 £15.33
25th Percentile £15.48 £18.13 £19.06
Median hourly rate £16.34 £32.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -49.74% +64.06% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £37.88 £21.12
90th Percentile £25.15 £49.38 £29.75
UK median hourly rate £16.34 £32.50 £19.81
% change year-on-year -49.74% +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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,379 18,404 22,985
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 62.58% 60.70% 59.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,319 11,118 15,590
10th Percentile £275 £300 £290
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £650 £667
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,255 665 1,041
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.25 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.80 £18.00 £17.22
Median hourly rate £23.58 £30.45 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.58% -6.31% +26.41%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £71.50 £72.50 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £31.71
% change year-on-year -13.36% -13.28% +26.84%

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 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
London -30 362 £525 -6.67% 315
South East -17 96 £525 -4.55% 373
North of England -52 72 £500 +8.11% 280
Midlands -48 54 £438 -12.50% 229
East of England -7 44 £595 +8.18% 142
East Midlands -7 35 £438 -12.50% 104
Yorkshire -39 35 £525 +16.67% 111
North West -25 32 £500 +9.59% 138
South West -2 28 £185 -54.77% 105
West Midlands -50 18 £450 -16.28% 120
North East -2 6 £206 -65.63% 32
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 24 (3.54%) Confluence
2 16 (2.36%) CMS
3 14 (2.06%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.88%) Camunda
6 5 (0.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.74%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.59%) WordPress
8 2 (0.29%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.15%) Appian
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 26 (3.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (2.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.44%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.44%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.15%) Trello
6 1 (0.15%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 29 (4.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.77%) Shopify
3 8 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (1.18%) Oracle Retail
3 8 (1.18%) SAP Retail
4 6 (0.88%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.74%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.74%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.59%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.44%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.44%) SAP GTS
7 3 (0.44%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.29%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.29%) Magento
8 2 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.29%) Sprinklr
9 1 (0.15%) Avolution ABACUS
9 1 (0.15%) OpenText VIM for SAP
Cloud Services
1 76 (11.21%) Azure
2 40 (5.90%) Power Platform
3 39 (5.75%) AWS
4 24 (3.54%) GCP
5 22 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (3.10%) Dynamics 365
7 15 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
8 14 (2.06%) SaaS
9 10 (1.47%) Entra ID
9 10 (1.47%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 9 (1.33%) Figma
10 9 (1.33%) Power Automate
10 9 (1.33%) Snowflake
10 9 (1.33%) Vertex AI
11 7 (1.03%) GitHub
11 7 (1.03%) OCI
11 7 (1.03%) Serverless
11 7 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
12 6 (0.88%) Microsoft Copilot
12 6 (0.88%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.80%) RFID
2 18 (2.65%) NFC
2 18 (2.65%) Wireless
3 10 (1.47%) VPN
4 8 (1.18%) Firewall
4 8 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
5 7 (1.03%) WAN
6 5 (0.74%) LAN
7 4 (0.59%) Cisco Nexus
8 3 (0.44%) BGP
8 3 (0.44%) Broadband
8 3 (0.44%) EIGRP
8 3 (0.44%) OSPF
8 3 (0.44%) VoIP
9 2 (0.29%) DNS
9 2 (0.29%) MPLS
9 2 (0.29%) Network Security
9 2 (0.29%) SAN
9 2 (0.29%) WLAN
10 1 (0.15%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (4.87%) Power BI
2 13 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
3 12 (1.77%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.77%) Metadata
4 11 (1.62%) SQL Server
4 11 (1.62%) Tableau
5 6 (0.88%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.59%) Power Query
6 4 (0.59%) Redis
6 4 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.44%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.44%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.44%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.44%) SAP BW
7 3 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
7 3 (0.44%) Star Schema
8 2 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.29%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 45 (6.64%) JIRA
2 14 (2.06%) Git
3 9 (1.33%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.59%) Selenium
4 4 (0.59%) Storybook
5 3 (0.44%) Postman
6 2 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.29%) ERwin
6 2 (0.29%) JUnit
6 2 (0.29%) MLflow
6 2 (0.29%) PowerDesigner
6 2 (0.29%) SoapUI
6 2 (0.29%) Xcode
7 1 (0.15%) Gradle
7 1 (0.15%) JMeter
7 1 (0.15%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.15%) Maven
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.15%) Subversion
7 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 245 (36.14%) Social Skills
2 142 (20.94%) Finance
3 76 (11.21%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (8.85%) Banking
5 54 (7.96%) Marketing
6 39 (5.75%) Manufacturing
6 39 (5.75%) Public Sector
7 34 (5.01%) Organisational Skills
8 32 (4.72%) Retail Banking
9 29 (4.28%) Investment Banking
10 28 (4.13%) Corporate Banking
11 23 (3.39%) Legal
12 20 (2.95%) Influencing Skills
13 16 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
13 16 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 16 (2.36%) Presentation Skills
14 10 (1.47%) Telecoms
15 9 (1.33%) Automotive
16 7 (1.03%) Advertising
16 7 (1.03%) Law
Job Titles
1 131 (19.32%) Analyst
2 75 (11.06%) Architect
3 70 (10.32%) Project Manager
4 58 (8.55%) Senior
5 54 (7.96%) Business Analyst
6 51 (7.52%) Lead
7 34 (5.01%) Solutions Architect
8 29 (4.28%) Consultant
9 24 (3.54%) Senior Manager
10 20 (2.95%) Programme Manager
11 19 (2.80%) Administrator
11 19 (2.80%) Developer
12 18 (2.65%) Product Manager
13 13 (1.92%) Data Analyst
13 13 (1.92%) Senior Analyst
14 12 (1.77%) Help Desk Analyst
14 12 (1.77%) Product Owner
14 12 (1.77%) Support Analyst
15 11 (1.62%) Service Analyst
16 10 (1.47%) Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.80%) React
2 15 (2.21%) REST
3 14 (2.06%) Node.js
4 13 (1.92%) HTML
5 11 (1.62%) VML
6 10 (1.47%) .NET
7 9 (1.33%) PySpark
8 8 (1.18%) CSS
8 8 (1.18%) Oracle Fusion
9 7 (1.03%) React Native
9 7 (1.03%) scikit-learn
10 6 (0.88%) RESTful
11 5 (0.74%) CSS3
11 5 (0.74%) HTML5
11 5 (0.74%) Kafka
11 5 (0.74%) Matplotlib
11 5 (0.74%) PyTorch
11 5 (0.74%) XGBoost
11 5 (0.74%) XML
12 4 (0.59%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 35 (5.16%) Product Ownership
2 23 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
2 23 (3.39%) Self-Motivation
3 22 (3.24%) IoT
4 19 (2.80%) Mobile App
4 19 (2.80%) Onboarding
5 17 (2.51%) EPoS
6 15 (2.21%) FMCG
7 11 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (1.62%) Cloud Native
7 11 (1.62%) Management Information System
8 10 (1.47%) Data Centre
9 8 (1.18%) Data Structures
9 8 (1.18%) Driving Licence
10 7 (1.03%) Algorithms
10 7 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
11 6 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (0.88%) Replication
11 6 (0.88%) Social Media
12 5 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.75%) Windows
2 7 (1.03%) Linux
2 7 (1.03%) Mac OS
3 6 (0.88%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.44%) Android
4 3 (0.44%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.29%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.15%) VMS
6 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (23.01%) Stakeholder Management
2 151 (22.27%) Agile
3 96 (14.16%) Problem-Solving
4 77 (11.36%) E-Commerce
5 73 (10.77%) Project Management
6 70 (10.32%) Analytics
7 61 (9.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 58 (8.55%) Roadmaps
9 55 (8.11%) Continuous Improvement
10 54 (7.96%) Customer Experience
11 52 (7.67%) Migration
12 51 (7.52%) CRM
13 49 (7.23%) Workshop Facilitation
14 48 (7.08%) DevOps
15 47 (6.93%) AI
16 43 (6.34%) ERP
17 42 (6.19%) Data Modelling
18 41 (6.05%) Business Intelligence
18 41 (6.05%) Logistics
18 41 (6.05%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 60 (8.85%) Python
2 52 (7.67%) SQL
3 19 (2.80%) JavaScript
4 12 (1.77%) PowerShell
5 11 (1.62%) Java
6 10 (1.47%) Bash
7 8 (1.18%) C#
7 8 (1.18%) TypeScript
8 7 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (0.44%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.29%) ABAP
10 2 (0.29%) PHP
10 2 (0.29%) R
10 2 (0.29%) Swift
10 2 (0.29%) VBA
11 1 (0.15%) REXX
11 1 (0.15%) Scala
11 1 (0.15%) VB
11 1 (0.15%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 30 (4.42%) Degree
2 19 (2.80%) PMP
3 17 (2.51%) PMI Certification
4 13 (1.92%) Security Cleared
5 8 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (0.88%) Master's Degree
7 5 (0.74%) CISSP
7 5 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.44%) ACCA
9 3 (0.44%) CCIE
9 3 (0.44%) CCNP
9 3 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.44%) CISM
9 3 (0.44%) CRISC
9 3 (0.44%) CSPO
9 3 (0.44%) GIAC
10 2 (0.29%) MBA
10 2 (0.29%) SC Cleared
10 2 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.54%) QA
2 16 (2.36%) GDPR
3 15 (2.21%) Data Quality
4 14 (2.06%) SLA
5 10 (1.47%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.88%) PMO
7 5 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.44%) IFRS
8 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.44%) NCSC
8 3 (0.44%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.29%) COBIT
9 2 (0.29%) MiFID
9 2 (0.29%) NIST
10 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.15%) GRC
10 1 (0.15%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.15%) Solvency II
System Software
1 11 (1.62%) Active Directory
1 11 (1.62%) Docker
2 3 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
2 3 (0.44%) VMware NSX
3 1 (0.15%) RACF
3 1 (0.15%) Varnish
3 1 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 16 (2.36%) Terraform
2 12 (1.77%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.88%) Ansible
4 5 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.59%) Grafana
5 4 (0.59%) Jamf Pro
5 4 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.44%) SCCM
7 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.15%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.15%) Cacti
8 1 (0.15%) Control-M
8 1 (0.15%) Nmap
8 1 (0.15%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.15%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.15%) zSecure
Vendors
1 76 (11.21%) Microsoft
2 63 (9.29%) SAP
3 43 (6.34%) Salesforce
4 37 (5.46%) Oracle
5 21 (3.10%) Google
6 15 (2.21%) Adobe
7 12 (1.77%) Databricks
8 11 (1.62%) HP
9 6 (0.88%) Apple
9 6 (0.88%) Cisco
9 6 (0.88%) Dell
9 6 (0.88%) ServiceNow
9 6 (0.88%) Splunk
9 6 (0.88%) Workday
10 5 (0.74%) CheckPoint
10 5 (0.74%) F5
10 5 (0.74%) Sitecore
10 5 (0.74%) VMware
10 5 (0.74%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.59%) Palo Alto