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 14 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 99 78
Rank change year-on-year +2 -21 +10
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,117 646 1,000
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.61% 2.62% 2.66%
As % of the General category 4.80% 4.07% 4.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 661 333 555
10th Percentile £281 £325 £283
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year - +2.44% -3.30%
75th Percentile £638 £629 £625
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £505
% change year-on-year +0.96% +2.97% -6.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 26 86
10th Percentile £13.14 £14.36 £11.44
25th Percentile £15.38 £15.25 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £19.40 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% +21.25% -21.59%
75th Percentile £22.50 £36.69 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £61.38 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.83 £16.00
% change year-on-year -11.86% +48.91% -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 23,290 15,868 21,499
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.47% 64.34% 57.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,227 10,218 13,751
10th Percentile £313 £281 £281
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £520 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -2.35% -3.18%
75th Percentile £638 £640 £650
90th Percentile £745 £763 £775
UK median daily rate £513 £504 £525
% change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,608 748 1,833
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.43 £12.88
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £28.08 £31.97
Median % change year-on-year +15.76% -12.18% +4.82%
75th Percentile £63.75 £53.75 £52.78
90th Percentile £81.41 £75.00 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £28.00 £30.83
% change year-on-year +14.29% -9.16% -0.17%

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 14 June 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 14 June 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 14 June 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 +11 641 £550 - 415
South East -1 147 £525 -1.18% 270
North of England -30 136 £513 +2.50% 225
Midlands -16 94 £495 +10.00% 157
North West -2 86 £563 +12.50% 115
East of England +1 53 £523 -4.86% 85
East Midlands -7 53 £495 +7.03% 91
Yorkshire -48 47 £500 - 83
West Midlands -31 41 £500 +12.68% 66
South West -15 33 £333 -26.11% 79
North East -33 3 £173 -76.98% 29
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 33 (2.95%) Confluence
2 15 (1.34%) CMS
3 14 (1.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 10 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.72%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.36%) SAS
7 3 (0.27%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.18%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.18%) CICS
9 1 (0.090%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 31 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (2.24%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 16 (1.43%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (1.16%) Chatbot
5 11 (0.98%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.90%) Photoshop
7 8 (0.72%) Adobe Illustrator
8 7 (0.63%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 5 (0.45%) InDesign
10 3 (0.27%) Notion
10 3 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
11 2 (0.18%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.090%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.090%) Maya
12 1 (0.090%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.090%) SOLIDWORKS
12 1 (0.090%) Trello
Business Applications
1 23 (2.06%) Shopify
2 21 (1.88%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.81%) SAP Retail
5 7 (0.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (0.63%) Oracle Retail
6 6 (0.54%) Finacle
6 6 (0.54%) SAP CRM
7 5 (0.45%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.36%) Magento
8 4 (0.36%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 3 (0.27%) SAP CAR
9 3 (0.27%) SAP SD
10 2 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 2 (0.18%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.18%) SAP MM
11 1 (0.090%) Cognos Controller
Cloud Services
1 127 (11.37%) Azure
2 96 (8.59%) AWS
3 63 (5.64%) GCP
4 58 (5.19%) Power Platform
5 37 (3.31%) Snowflake
6 28 (2.51%) GitHub
7 21 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
9 19 (1.70%) GitHub Actions
10 18 (1.61%) Entra ID
11 17 (1.52%) Figma
12 12 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
12 12 (1.07%) BigCommerce
12 12 (1.07%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
13 11 (0.98%) dbt
13 11 (0.98%) Google Workspace
13 11 (0.98%) Microsoft 365
13 11 (0.98%) SaaS
14 9 (0.81%) Cloud Run
14 9 (0.81%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.16%) ATM
1 13 (1.16%) WAN
2 12 (1.07%) Firewall
3 11 (0.98%) Network Security
4 10 (0.90%) VPN
4 10 (0.90%) Wireless
5 9 (0.81%) RFID
6 7 (0.63%) LAN
7 6 (0.54%) Cisco Firepower
7 6 (0.54%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.45%) Cisco ASA
8 5 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (0.45%) VSAN
9 4 (0.36%) BGP
9 4 (0.36%) IPsec
9 4 (0.36%) OSPF
10 3 (0.27%) Broadband
10 3 (0.27%) MPLS
10 3 (0.27%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (4.92%) Power BI
2 29 (2.60%) BigQuery
3 19 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (1.61%) MySQL
5 17 (1.52%) SQL Server
6 16 (1.43%) Tableau
7 14 (1.25%) Metadata
8 12 (1.07%) Data Lake
9 10 (0.90%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.81%) Relational Database
11 6 (0.54%) Data Vault
12 5 (0.45%) MongoDB
12 5 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
13 4 (0.36%) Big Data
13 4 (0.36%) Looker
13 4 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
13 4 (0.36%) Snowflake Schema
14 3 (0.27%) Amazon QuickSight
14 3 (0.27%) Amazon Redshift
14 3 (0.27%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 72 (6.45%) JIRA
2 18 (1.61%) Git
3 15 (1.34%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.72%) GitLab
5 4 (0.36%) Maven
5 4 (0.36%) Subversion
6 3 (0.27%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.27%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.27%) ERwin
6 3 (0.27%) Selenium
6 3 (0.27%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.18%) git-flow
7 2 (0.18%) Hudson
7 2 (0.18%) JMeter
7 2 (0.18%) MLflow
7 2 (0.18%) Postman
7 2 (0.18%) WebDriver
7 2 (0.18%) webpack
8 1 (0.090%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.090%) Toad
General
1 317 (28.38%) Social Skills
2 267 (23.90%) Finance
3 103 (9.22%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (8.59%) Banking
5 71 (6.36%) Marketing
6 56 (5.01%) Manufacturing
7 55 (4.92%) Organisational Skills
8 44 (3.94%) Retail Banking
9 37 (3.31%) Investment Banking
10 33 (2.95%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (2.42%) Telecoms
12 25 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (2.24%) Public Sector
13 21 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
14 19 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
14 19 (1.70%) Legal
15 16 (1.43%) Advertising
15 16 (1.43%) French Language
16 14 (1.25%) Spanish Language
17 13 (1.16%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 179 (16.03%) Architect
2 152 (13.61%) Analyst
3 135 (12.09%) Senior
4 109 (9.76%) Project Manager
5 85 (7.61%) Solutions Architect
6 84 (7.52%) Business Analyst
6 84 (7.52%) Lead
7 58 (5.19%) Senior Manager
8 41 (3.67%) Designer
8 41 (3.67%) Technical Manager
9 40 (3.58%) Developer
10 35 (3.13%) Enterprise Architect
10 35 (3.13%) Product Manager
11 34 (3.04%) Consultant
11 34 (3.04%) Senior Project Manager
12 26 (2.33%) 2nd Line Support
12 26 (2.33%) Data Engineer
13 25 (2.24%) Data Architect
14 24 (2.15%) Programme Manager
15 20 (1.79%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (3.13%) REST
2 28 (2.51%) Middleware
2 28 (2.51%) React
3 25 (2.24%) Spring
3 25 (2.24%) VML
4 19 (1.70%) Spring Boot
5 17 (1.52%) Node.js
6 16 (1.43%) Kafka
7 14 (1.25%) AngularJS
7 14 (1.25%) CSS
7 14 (1.25%) HTML
8 12 (1.07%) RESTful
9 10 (0.90%) .NET
9 10 (0.90%) J2EE
9 10 (0.90%) MACH
10 9 (0.81%) OAuth
11 8 (0.72%) Django
11 8 (0.72%) OpenTelemetry
12 7 (0.63%) LangChain
12 7 (0.63%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 71 (6.36%) Product Ownership
2 41 (3.67%) FMCG
3 37 (3.31%) EPoS
4 33 (2.95%) Cloud Native
5 31 (2.78%) Onboarding
6 30 (2.69%) Driving Licence
7 21 (1.88%) Data Structures
8 20 (1.79%) Data Centre
9 18 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
9 18 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (1.34%) Mobile App
11 14 (1.25%) Mainframe
12 13 (1.16%) Management Information System
13 12 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
13 12 (1.07%) Marketing Technology
14 11 (0.98%) AI Agents
14 11 (0.98%) Operational Technology
14 11 (0.98%) Smartphone
15 10 (0.90%) Virtual Team
16 9 (0.81%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 50 (4.48%) Windows
2 23 (2.06%) Linux
3 11 (0.98%) Android
4 6 (0.54%) Mac OS
4 6 (0.54%) Unix
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.36%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.36%) zOS
7 3 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.27%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.090%) Debian
8 1 (0.090%) SUSE
8 1 (0.090%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.090%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (22.56%) Stakeholder Management
2 248 (22.20%) Agile
3 172 (15.40%) Problem-Solving
4 166 (14.86%) E-Commerce
5 144 (12.89%) Migration
6 137 (12.26%) Roadmaps
7 116 (10.38%) Analytics
8 110 (9.85%) Customer Experience
9 106 (9.49%) Project Management
10 93 (8.33%) AI
11 91 (8.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 89 (7.97%) ERP
13 81 (7.25%) Change Management
14 80 (7.16%) Project Delivery
15 79 (7.07%) Continuous Improvement
16 78 (6.98%) Scrum
17 77 (6.89%) Decision-Making
17 77 (6.89%) User Acceptance Testing
18 76 (6.80%) Workshop Facilitation
19 75 (6.71%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 78 (6.98%) SQL
2 66 (5.91%) Python
3 43 (3.85%) Java
4 24 (2.15%) JavaScript
5 16 (1.43%) TypeScript
6 9 (0.81%) C#
6 9 (0.81%) PowerShell
6 9 (0.81%) Shell Script
7 5 (0.45%) Bicep
7 5 (0.45%) SOQL
8 4 (0.36%) Bash
8 4 (0.36%) Kotlin
8 4 (0.36%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.36%) Scala
9 3 (0.27%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (0.27%) Groovy
9 3 (0.27%) R
9 3 (0.27%) SOSL
9 3 (0.27%) VBA
Qualifications
1 53 (4.74%) Degree
2 39 (3.49%) Security Cleared
3 27 (2.42%) SC Cleared
4 18 (1.61%) PMP
5 10 (0.90%) DBS Check
5 10 (0.90%) PMI Certification
6 9 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (0.63%) APMP
7 7 (0.63%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.63%) CISSP
7 7 (0.63%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.45%) CCNP
8 5 (0.45%) CCSE
8 5 (0.45%) CCSM
8 5 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (0.45%) CISM
8 5 (0.45%) CSPO
8 5 (0.45%) MBA
9 4 (0.36%) City & Guilds
9 4 (0.36%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (4.21%) QA
2 41 (3.67%) Data Quality
3 34 (3.04%) GDPR
4 31 (2.78%) PMO
5 16 (1.43%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.34%) PCI DSS
7 10 (0.90%) SLA
8 8 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (0.54%) NIST
10 3 (0.27%) PSD2
11 2 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.18%) GAAP
11 2 (0.18%) GRC
11 2 (0.18%) IFRS
11 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.18%) WCAG
12 1 (0.090%) COBIT
12 1 (0.090%) GxP
12 1 (0.090%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 26 (2.33%) Docker
2 22 (1.97%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
3 6 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.18%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.090%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 31 (2.78%) Terraform
2 23 (2.06%) Kubernetes
3 12 (1.07%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 6 (0.54%) Argo
4 6 (0.54%) Istio
4 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.45%) Ansible
5 5 (0.45%) SCCM
6 4 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.27%) FortiGate
7 3 (0.27%) Grafana
8 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.18%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.18%) MOM
8 2 (0.18%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.090%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.090%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 95 (8.50%) Microsoft
2 77 (6.89%) SAP
3 68 (6.09%) Oracle
4 54 (4.83%) Google
5 49 (4.39%) Salesforce
6 41 (3.67%) Databricks
7 33 (2.95%) Adobe
8 20 (1.79%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.25%) IFS
9 14 (1.25%) Sitecore
10 12 (1.07%) Cisco
10 12 (1.07%) Zscaler
11 10 (0.90%) Fortinet
11 10 (0.90%) Palo Alto
11 10 (0.90%) VMware
12 8 (0.72%) MuleSoft
12 8 (0.72%) Splunk
13 7 (0.63%) Apple
13 7 (0.63%) IBM
14 6 (0.54%) CheckPoint