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 26 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 92 82
Rank change year-on-year -24 -10 +4
Contract jobs citing Retail 866 686 976
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.17% 2.80% 2.62%
As % of the General category 3.92% 4.38% 4.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 377 552
10th Percentile £206 £308 £292
25th Percentile £390 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -
75th Percentile £619 £629 £644
90th Percentile £738 £743 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £524 £515
% change year-on-year -4.53% +1.70% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 17 83
10th Percentile £12.95 £15.88 £11.25
25th Percentile £15.85 £16.30 £12.15
Median hourly rate £19.93 £29.00 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.29% +81.25% -19.23%
75th Percentile £23.57 £51.25 £21.37
90th Percentile £46.25 £60.15 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £31.50 £16.00
% change year-on-year -33.33% +96.88% -19.23%

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 22,084 15,674 21,735
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.27% 64.06% 58.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,833 10,196 14,043
10th Percentile £305 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,432 674 1,773
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.08 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.26 £17.44 £15.39
Median hourly rate £30.08 £28.18 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.72% -6.07% -13.82%
75th Percentile £61.31 £58.71 £51.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £28.17 £28.50
% change year-on-year +2.96% -1.18% -18.57%

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 26 April 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 26 April 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 26 April 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 -27 465 £525 -4.55% 249
North of England -35 120 £500 +11.11% 198
South East -25 116 £413 -19.51% 239
Midlands -26 80 £495 -1.00% 134
North West -10 69 £500 +2.56% 114
East of England -13 46 £535 -2.73% 98
Yorkshire -48 46 £513 +38.51% 65
East Midlands -15 42 £495 -1.00% 78
West Midlands -48 37 £500 +11.11% 56
South West -21 23 £318 -25.73% 64
North East -16 5 £206 -72.50% 23
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 36 (4.16%) Confluence
2 17 (1.96%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 8 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.81%) CMS
6 4 (0.46%) SAS
7 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.23%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.12%) CICS
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere Application Server
9 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 32 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.19%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.50%) Chatbot
4 13 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
5 11 (1.27%) MS Visio
6 8 (0.92%) Photoshop
7 6 (0.69%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.35%) InDesign
9 2 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.23%) Trello
9 2 (0.23%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.12%) 3ds Max
10 1 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.12%) Maya
10 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 20 (2.31%) Shopify
2 14 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.92%) Oracle Retail
5 7 (0.81%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (0.81%) SAP Retail
6 6 (0.69%) Finacle
7 4 (0.46%) SAP MDG
7 4 (0.46%) Temenos T24
8 3 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
8 3 (0.35%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 2 (0.23%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 2 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
9 2 (0.23%) SAP CRM
9 2 (0.23%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.23%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.23%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 89 (10.28%) Azure
2 56 (6.47%) AWS
3 53 (6.12%) Power Platform
4 50 (5.77%) GCP
5 24 (2.77%) Dynamics 365
6 22 (2.54%) Snowflake
7 21 (2.42%) GitHub
8 20 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
10 14 (1.62%) Entra ID
10 14 (1.62%) Figma
11 13 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
11 13 (1.50%) Google Workspace
11 13 (1.50%) SaaS
12 12 (1.39%) BigCommerce
12 12 (1.39%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
13 11 (1.27%) Miro
14 9 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (1.04%) Cloud Run
15 8 (0.92%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 18 (2.08%) VPN
2 16 (1.85%) RFID
3 15 (1.73%) Firewall
4 14 (1.62%) WAN
5 12 (1.39%) Wireless
6 8 (0.92%) LAN
6 8 (0.92%) NFC
7 6 (0.69%) BGP
7 6 (0.69%) Cisco Nexus
7 6 (0.69%) OSPF
7 6 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (0.46%) EIGRP
8 4 (0.46%) VoIP
9 3 (0.35%) Cisco Firepower
9 3 (0.35%) MPLS
9 3 (0.35%) Network Security
9 3 (0.35%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.35%) WLAN
10 2 (0.23%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.23%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (5.31%) Power BI
2 24 (2.77%) BigQuery
3 18 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (1.73%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.39%) MySQL
6 10 (1.15%) Metadata
6 10 (1.15%) Tableau
7 8 (0.92%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.81%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.69%) Data Vault
10 5 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
11 4 (0.46%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.46%) NoSQL
11 4 (0.46%) Snowflake Schema
12 3 (0.35%) Looker
12 3 (0.35%) OLAP
12 3 (0.35%) Oracle OLAP
13 2 (0.23%) MongoDB
13 2 (0.23%) Oracle Reports
13 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 69 (7.97%) JIRA
2 9 (1.04%) Git
2 9 (1.04%) Jenkins
3 8 (0.92%) GitLab
4 5 (0.58%) ERwin
5 4 (0.46%) Maven
6 3 (0.35%) Selenium
6 3 (0.35%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.23%) MLflow
7 2 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.23%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.12%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.12%) Gatling
8 1 (0.12%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.12%) Hudson
8 1 (0.12%) JMeter
8 1 (0.12%) Mockito
8 1 (0.12%) Toad
8 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 264 (30.48%) Social Skills
2 222 (25.64%) Finance
3 101 (11.66%) Analytical Skills
4 72 (8.31%) Banking
5 56 (6.47%) Marketing
6 40 (4.62%) Manufacturing
6 40 (4.62%) Organisational Skills
7 29 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (3.00%) Presentation Skills
8 26 (3.00%) Public Sector
9 25 (2.89%) Retail Banking
10 24 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (2.54%) Investment Banking
11 22 (2.54%) Telecoms
12 21 (2.42%) Corporate Banking
13 14 (1.62%) Legal
14 13 (1.50%) Back Office
15 8 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
16 7 (0.81%) Private Banking
17 6 (0.69%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 142 (16.40%) Analyst
2 129 (14.90%) Architect
3 110 (12.70%) Senior
4 102 (11.78%) Project Manager
5 85 (9.82%) Business Analyst
6 66 (7.62%) Lead
7 47 (5.43%) Senior Manager
8 46 (5.31%) Solutions Architect
9 35 (4.04%) Consultant
10 31 (3.58%) Designer
11 30 (3.46%) Technical Manager
12 26 (3.00%) Senior Project Manager
13 24 (2.77%) Enterprise Architect
14 22 (2.54%) Data Architect
14 22 (2.54%) Programme Manager
15 18 (2.08%) Developer
16 17 (1.96%) Product Manager
17 15 (1.73%) IT Manager
17 15 (1.73%) Network Engineer
17 15 (1.73%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.23%) VML
2 25 (2.89%) Middleware
3 22 (2.54%) REST
4 15 (1.73%) Spring
5 14 (1.62%) React
6 12 (1.39%) AngularJS
7 11 (1.27%) Node.js
8 10 (1.15%) Spring Boot
9 9 (1.04%) CSS
10 8 (0.92%) PySpark
11 7 (0.81%) .NET
11 7 (0.81%) LangChain
12 6 (0.69%) HTML
12 6 (0.69%) jQuery
12 6 (0.69%) OAuth
12 6 (0.69%) OAuth2
12 6 (0.69%) OpenID
12 6 (0.69%) OpenTelemetry
12 6 (0.69%) SAML
13 5 (0.58%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 58 (6.70%) Product Ownership
2 29 (3.35%) Cloud Native
3 26 (3.00%) Self-Motivation
4 24 (2.77%) Driving Licence
5 23 (2.66%) Data Centre
5 23 (2.66%) Onboarding
6 20 (2.31%) FMCG
6 20 (2.31%) Management Information System
7 18 (2.08%) EPoS
8 17 (1.96%) Data Structures
9 15 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
9 15 (1.73%) Mainframe
10 11 (1.27%) Mobile App
11 10 (1.15%) IoT
11 10 (1.15%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
13 8 (0.92%) Reference Data
14 7 (0.81%) AI Agents
15 6 (0.69%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 36 (4.16%) Windows
2 18 (2.08%) Linux
3 8 (0.92%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.58%) Android
4 5 (0.58%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.46%) Unix
5 4 (0.46%) zOS
6 2 (0.23%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.23%) VMS
7 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 196 (22.63%) Stakeholder Management
2 186 (21.48%) Agile
3 169 (19.52%) Problem-Solving
4 122 (14.09%) E-Commerce
5 113 (13.05%) Migration
6 104 (12.01%) Roadmaps
7 102 (11.78%) Project Management
8 87 (10.05%) Analytics
9 83 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 80 (9.24%) Customer Experience
11 79 (9.12%) ERP
12 74 (8.55%) Workshop Facilitation
13 73 (8.43%) AI
14 66 (7.62%) Project Delivery
14 66 (7.62%) Scrum
15 64 (7.39%) Change Management
15 64 (7.39%) Continuous Improvement
16 61 (7.04%) Business Intelligence
17 58 (6.70%) Decision-Making
18 56 (6.47%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 58 (6.70%) SQL
2 56 (6.47%) Python
3 26 (3.00%) Java
4 20 (2.31%) JavaScript
5 15 (1.73%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.04%) Bash
6 9 (1.04%) Shell Script
7 7 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
8 6 (0.69%) C#
9 5 (0.58%) TypeScript
10 4 (0.46%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.46%) VBA
11 3 (0.35%) Kotlin
11 3 (0.35%) Scala
12 2 (0.23%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.23%) Google Apps Script
12 2 (0.23%) R
12 2 (0.23%) SOQL
12 2 (0.23%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 44 (5.08%) Degree
2 34 (3.93%) Security Cleared
3 23 (2.66%) SC Cleared
4 19 (2.19%) PMP
5 15 (1.73%) PMI Certification
6 9 (1.04%) CSPO
7 7 (0.81%) APMP
7 7 (0.81%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.81%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.69%) CCNP
8 6 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (0.58%) CISSP
9 5 (0.58%) MBA
10 4 (0.46%) CCIE
10 4 (0.46%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.35%) CRISC
11 3 (0.35%) IIBA
11 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.35%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.50%) Data Quality
2 38 (4.39%) QA
3 34 (3.93%) GDPR
4 30 (3.46%) PMO
5 17 (1.96%) SLA
6 14 (1.62%) Accessibility
7 10 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (1.04%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.58%) NIST
10 4 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
10 4 (0.46%) IFRS
11 3 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.23%) GRC
12 2 (0.23%) WCAG
13 1 (0.12%) COBIT
13 1 (0.12%) GAAP
13 1 (0.12%) IFRS 9
13 1 (0.12%) ISO 8583
13 1 (0.12%) NCSC
System Software
1 19 (2.19%) Active Directory
2 16 (1.85%) Docker
3 5 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.58%) VMware NSX
4 4 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.12%) RACF
6 1 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 22 (2.54%) Terraform
2 13 (1.50%) Kubernetes
3 8 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (0.81%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.69%) Argo
5 6 (0.69%) Istio
6 5 (0.58%) Grafana
6 5 (0.58%) SCCM
7 2 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.23%) Ansible
7 2 (0.23%) CA Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.23%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.23%) MOM
7 2 (0.23%) PingFederate
8 1 (0.12%) Control-M
8 1 (0.12%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.12%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.12%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 75 (8.66%) Microsoft
2 64 (7.39%) SAP
3 54 (6.24%) Oracle
4 48 (5.54%) Google
5 46 (5.31%) Salesforce
6 33 (3.81%) Databricks
7 27 (3.12%) Adobe
8 18 (2.08%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.73%) Sitecore
10 12 (1.39%) IFS
11 11 (1.27%) Cisco
12 9 (1.04%) Palo Alto
12 9 (1.04%) VMware
13 8 (0.92%) Temenos
13 8 (0.92%) Workday
13 8 (0.92%) Zscaler
14 7 (0.81%) CheckPoint
15 6 (0.69%) Apple
15 6 (0.69%) Avaloq
15 6 (0.69%) GoldenSource