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

6 months to
24 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 127 85 94
Rank change year-on-year -42 +9 -25
Contract jobs citing Retail 699 828 956
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.31% 2.66% 2.44%
As % of the General category 3.64% 4.45% 4.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 410 442 550
10th Percentile £206 £265 £281
25th Percentile £400 £409 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £749 £751
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 11 31
10th Percentile £14.50 £16.25 £18.50
25th Percentile £15.25 £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 £43.75 £20.94
90th Percentile £25.15 £55.00 £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 19,198 18,600 23,401
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.45% 59.74% 59.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,153 11,159 15,928
10th Percentile £275 £300 £290
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £628 £650 £670
90th Percentile £738 £775 £772
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,261 695 1,035
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.15 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.00 £17.36
Median hourly rate £24.61 £31.97 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.02% -3.12% +28.35%
75th Percentile £46.00 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £72.50 £71.01
UK median hourly rate £24.09 £29.00 £32.00
% change year-on-year -16.93% -9.38% +28.00%

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 24 November 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 24 November 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 24 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
London -27 362 £525 -4.55% 247
South East -12 102 £525 -4.55% 287
North of England -40 82 £500 +9.59% 163
Midlands -37 58 £425 -15.00% 172
East of England -10 42 £579 +7.67% 84
East Midlands +4 40 £425 -15.00% 84
North West -22 39 £500 +11.11% 86
Yorkshire -33 38 £563 +18.42% 59
South West +21 33 £183 -55.38% 88
West Midlands -37 17 £400 -25.58% 84
North East -6 6 £206 -65.63% 19
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 26 (3.72%) Confluence
2 18 (2.58%) CMS
3 12 (1.72%) SharePoint
4 8 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.86%) Camunda
6 5 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.72%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.57%) WordPress
8 3 (0.43%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.14%) Apache
9 1 (0.14%) Appian
9 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 27 (3.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.43%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.29%) UserZoom
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.14%) InDesign
6 1 (0.14%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 30 (4.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (2.00%) Shopify
3 9 (1.29%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (1.14%) Oracle Retail
4 8 (1.14%) SAP Retail
5 6 (0.86%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.72%) Dynamics AX
6 5 (0.72%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.57%) SAP GTS
7 4 (0.57%) Sprinklr
8 3 (0.43%) Avolution ABACUS
8 3 (0.43%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.43%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.43%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.29%) Magento
9 2 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 2 (0.29%) Temenos T24
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 82 (11.73%) Azure
2 45 (6.44%) AWS
2 45 (6.44%) Power Platform
3 29 (4.15%) GCP
4 28 (4.01%) Dynamics 365
5 24 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (2.43%) SaaS
7 12 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
8 10 (1.43%) Figma
9 9 (1.29%) GitHub
9 9 (1.29%) Snowflake
9 9 (1.29%) Vertex AI
10 8 (1.14%) Entra ID
10 8 (1.14%) Power Automate
10 8 (1.14%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 8 (1.14%) Serverless
11 6 (0.86%) BigCommerce
11 6 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (0.86%) Microsoft Copilot
11 6 (0.86%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.72%) RFID
2 18 (2.58%) NFC
2 18 (2.58%) Wireless
3 6 (0.86%) Firewall
3 6 (0.86%) VPN
3 6 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
4 4 (0.57%) LAN
4 4 (0.57%) WAN
5 3 (0.43%) Broadband
6 2 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
6 2 (0.29%) DNS
6 2 (0.29%) Network Security
6 2 (0.29%) SAN
7 1 (0.14%) BGP
7 1 (0.14%) EIGRP
7 1 (0.14%) MPLS
7 1 (0.14%) Multicast
7 1 (0.14%) NAS
7 1 (0.14%) OSPF
7 1 (0.14%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (5.29%) Power BI
2 15 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (2.00%) Metadata
4 13 (1.86%) BigQuery
5 11 (1.57%) SQL Server
6 10 (1.43%) Data Lake
6 10 (1.43%) Tableau
7 5 (0.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (0.57%) Big Data
8 4 (0.57%) Power Query
8 4 (0.57%) Redis
9 3 (0.43%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.43%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.43%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (0.43%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.29%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.29%) SAP BW
10 2 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 48 (6.87%) JIRA
2 16 (2.29%) Git
3 12 (1.72%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.57%) Artifactory
4 4 (0.57%) Selenium
4 4 (0.57%) Storybook
5 3 (0.43%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.43%) Postman
5 3 (0.43%) Xcode
6 2 (0.29%) Android Studio
6 2 (0.29%) ERwin
6 2 (0.29%) Gradle
6 2 (0.29%) JUnit
6 2 (0.29%) MLflow
6 2 (0.29%) PowerDesigner
6 2 (0.29%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.14%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.14%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio
General
1 255 (36.48%) Social Skills
2 152 (21.75%) Finance
3 81 (11.59%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (9.44%) Banking
5 55 (7.87%) Marketing
6 42 (6.01%) Manufacturing
7 38 (5.44%) Public Sector
7 38 (5.44%) Retail Banking
8 37 (5.29%) Investment Banking
9 36 (5.15%) Corporate Banking
10 34 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
11 23 (3.29%) Legal
12 19 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
13 18 (2.58%) Influencing Skills
14 17 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 16 (2.29%) Presentation Skills
16 10 (1.43%) Automotive
16 10 (1.43%) Telecoms
17 9 (1.29%) French Language
17 9 (1.29%) Law
Job Titles
1 141 (20.17%) Analyst
2 80 (11.44%) Architect
3 67 (9.59%) Project Manager
4 56 (8.01%) Business Analyst
5 54 (7.73%) Senior
6 49 (7.01%) Lead
7 41 (5.87%) Solutions Architect
8 30 (4.29%) Consultant
9 27 (3.86%) Developer
10 21 (3.00%) Administrator
10 21 (3.00%) Senior Manager
11 20 (2.86%) Programme Manager
12 19 (2.72%) Product Manager
13 16 (2.29%) Data Analyst
14 13 (1.86%) Product Owner
14 13 (1.86%) Senior Analyst
15 12 (1.72%) Data Engineer
15 12 (1.72%) Help Desk Analyst
16 11 (1.57%) Security Analyst
16 11 (1.57%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (2.58%) React
2 17 (2.43%) HTML
2 17 (2.43%) REST
3 14 (2.00%) Node.js
4 11 (1.57%) CSS
4 11 (1.57%) PySpark
5 9 (1.29%) .NET
5 9 (1.29%) React Native
6 8 (1.14%) Kafka
6 8 (1.14%) Oracle Fusion
6 8 (1.14%) VML
7 7 (1.00%) scikit-learn
8 6 (0.86%) EDI
8 6 (0.86%) Redux
8 6 (0.86%) RESTful
9 5 (0.72%) CSS3
9 5 (0.72%) HTML5
9 5 (0.72%) Matplotlib
9 5 (0.72%) PyTorch
9 5 (0.72%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (5.29%) Product Ownership
2 24 (3.43%) Legacy Systems
3 22 (3.15%) IoT
4 21 (3.00%) EPoS
4 21 (3.00%) Mobile App
5 20 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
6 16 (2.29%) Onboarding
7 15 (2.15%) FMCG
8 12 (1.72%) Cloud Native
9 11 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
9 11 (1.57%) Data Structures
10 10 (1.43%) Management Information System
11 8 (1.14%) Algorithms
11 8 (1.14%) Driving Licence
11 8 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
12 7 (1.00%) Data Centre
12 7 (1.00%) Social Media
13 6 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (0.86%) Replication
14 5 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.58%) Windows
2 7 (1.00%) Apple iOS
2 7 (1.00%) Linux
3 5 (0.72%) Mac OS
4 3 (0.43%) Android
4 3 (0.43%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.29%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.14%) VMS
6 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (22.75%) Agile
2 158 (22.60%) Stakeholder Management
3 100 (14.31%) Problem-Solving
4 84 (12.02%) E-Commerce
5 77 (11.02%) Analytics
6 72 (10.30%) Project Management
7 63 (9.01%) Roadmaps
8 57 (8.15%) Customer Experience
9 56 (8.01%) Migration
10 55 (7.87%) CRM
10 55 (7.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 52 (7.44%) Continuous Improvement
11 52 (7.44%) DevOps
12 50 (7.15%) Workshop Facilitation
13 47 (6.72%) Data Modelling
14 46 (6.58%) AI
15 45 (6.44%) Project Delivery
16 44 (6.29%) Business Intelligence
17 42 (6.01%) ERP
17 42 (6.01%) Requirements Gathering
Programming Languages
1 64 (9.16%) Python
2 54 (7.73%) SQL
3 21 (3.00%) JavaScript
4 11 (1.57%) Java
4 11 (1.57%) PowerShell
5 10 (1.43%) Bash
6 9 (1.29%) TypeScript
7 8 (1.14%) C#
8 6 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (0.86%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (0.43%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.29%) ABAP
10 2 (0.29%) PHP
10 2 (0.29%) R
10 2 (0.29%) Swift
11 1 (0.14%) CLIST
11 1 (0.14%) Go
11 1 (0.14%) JSX
11 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 31 (4.43%) Degree
2 19 (2.72%) PMP
3 16 (2.29%) PMI Certification
4 11 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
4 11 (1.57%) Security Cleared
5 6 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
5 6 (0.86%) Master's Degree
6 5 (0.72%) CISSP
7 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (0.43%) ACCA
8 3 (0.43%) CISM
9 2 (0.29%) CRISC
9 2 (0.29%) GIAC
9 2 (0.29%) MBA
9 2 (0.29%) SC Cleared
9 2 (0.29%) Six Sigma Green Belt
9 2 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.14%) CSPO
10 1 (0.14%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (3.15%) QA
2 18 (2.58%) Data Quality
2 18 (2.58%) GDPR
3 12 (1.72%) Accessibility
4 10 (1.43%) SLA
5 6 (0.86%) PMO
6 5 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (0.72%) GRC
7 4 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.43%) NIST
8 3 (0.43%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.29%) COBIT
9 2 (0.29%) MiFID
9 2 (0.29%) NCSC
10 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.14%) FATCA
10 1 (0.14%) SEPA
10 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 11 (1.57%) Active Directory
1 11 (1.57%) Docker
2 2 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (0.29%) VMware NSX
3 1 (0.14%) RACF
3 1 (0.14%) Varnish
3 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.14%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 20 (2.86%) Terraform
2 17 (2.43%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.29%) Ansible
4 4 (0.57%) Grafana
4 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (0.57%) SCCM
5 3 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
5 3 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.14%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.14%) Cacti
7 1 (0.14%) Control-M
7 1 (0.14%) Nmap
7 1 (0.14%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.14%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.14%) zSecure
Vendors
1 81 (11.59%) Microsoft
2 67 (9.59%) SAP
3 42 (6.01%) Salesforce
4 35 (5.01%) Oracle
5 23 (3.29%) Google
6 17 (2.43%) Adobe
7 13 (1.86%) Databricks
8 12 (1.72%) HP
9 9 (1.29%) Splunk
10 6 (0.86%) Dell
10 6 (0.86%) Dynatrace
10 6 (0.86%) Sitecore
10 6 (0.86%) Workday
11 5 (0.72%) Apple
11 5 (0.72%) ServiceNow
11 5 (0.72%) VMware
12 4 (0.57%) Cisco
12 4 (0.57%) Planview
12 4 (0.57%) Qualys
13 3 (0.43%) CheckPoint