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 23 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 88 94
Rank change year-on-year -50 +6 -19
Contract jobs citing Retail 654 735 859
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.01% 2.74% 2.32%
As % of the General category 3.34% 4.40% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 398 389 503
10th Percentile £206 £274 £263
25th Percentile £406 £415 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -3.26%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £773 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 10 36
10th Percentile £12.95 £15.82 £10.81
25th Percentile £16.17 £18.13 £12.69
Median hourly rate £16.67 £30.75 £19.66
Median % change year-on-year -45.80% +56.45% -0.78%
75th Percentile £19.50 £34.88 £20.89
90th Percentile £24.66 £39.75 £26.38
UK median hourly rate £17.00 £30.75 £19.50
% change year-on-year -44.72% +57.69% -1.56%

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 19,559 16,719 21,770
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.25% 62.38% 58.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,484 10,095 14,489
10th Percentile £286 £299 £267
25th Percentile £404 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £533 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.19% -3.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,216 556 1,290
10th Percentile £14.07 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.00 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.33% +11.13% +5.00%
75th Percentile £46.38 £57.53 £55.94
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.93 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £27.50 £26.72
% change year-on-year -16.91% +2.92% +6.88%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -39 341 £550 - 255
South East -26 89 £520 -5.45% 444
North of England -45 81 £475 +5.56% 276
Midlands -41 70 £479 -4.25% 225
East Midlands -5 46 £495 -1.00% 120
Yorkshire -39 41 £500 +25.00% 112
East of England -19 39 £550 +4.76% 201
North West -27 36 £495 +8.49% 131
West Midlands -59 23 £363 -30.95% 105
South West -7 15 £183 -56.55% 146
North East -12 5 £200 -66.67% 35
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 28 (4.28%) Confluence
2 15 (2.29%) CMS
3 14 (2.14%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.92%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.76%) Camunda
6 5 (0.76%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.61%) WordPress
8 3 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.31%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.31%) SAS
10 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 22 (3.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.83%) MS Visio
3 11 (1.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (1.22%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.31%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.31%) Trello
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 22 (3.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.99%) Shopify
3 10 (1.53%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (1.53%) SAP Retail
4 6 (0.92%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.76%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.61%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.61%) Finacle
6 4 (0.61%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (0.61%) Oracle Retail
6 4 (0.61%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.46%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.46%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.46%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.31%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.31%) Magento
8 2 (0.31%) SAP GTS
8 2 (0.31%) SAP MM
9 1 (0.15%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 82 (12.54%) Azure
2 41 (6.27%) Power Platform
3 40 (6.12%) AWS
4 32 (4.89%) GCP
5 21 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (3.21%) Dynamics 365
6 15 (2.29%) GitHub
6 15 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
7 13 (1.99%) SaaS
7 13 (1.99%) Snowflake
8 11 (1.68%) Figma
8 11 (1.68%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
9 10 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (1.22%) Entra ID
10 8 (1.22%) Vertex AI
11 7 (1.07%) BigCommerce
11 7 (1.07%) dbt
11 7 (1.07%) Serverless
11 7 (1.07%) SuccessFactors
12 6 (0.92%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.06%) RFID
2 18 (2.75%) NFC
2 18 (2.75%) Wireless
3 10 (1.53%) VPN
4 8 (1.22%) Firewall
5 7 (1.07%) WAN
6 6 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (0.61%) BGP
7 4 (0.61%) Cisco Nexus
7 4 (0.61%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.61%) OSPF
7 4 (0.61%) VoIP
8 3 (0.46%) LAN
9 2 (0.31%) MPLS
9 2 (0.31%) SAN
9 2 (0.31%) WLAN
10 1 (0.15%) FTP
10 1 (0.15%) HTTPS
10 1 (0.15%) SMS
10 1 (0.15%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (5.20%) Power BI
2 19 (2.91%) BigQuery
3 18 (2.75%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (2.29%) SQL Server
5 14 (2.14%) Metadata
6 13 (1.99%) Tableau
7 7 (1.07%) Data Lake
7 7 (1.07%) MySQL
8 6 (0.92%) Data Vault
9 5 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.76%) Snowflake Schema
10 4 (0.61%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.61%) MongoDB
10 4 (0.61%) Redis
10 4 (0.61%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.46%) Oracle OLAP
11 3 (0.46%) Power Query
11 3 (0.46%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 65 (9.94%) JIRA
2 11 (1.68%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.22%) Git
4 7 (1.07%) GitLab
5 5 (0.76%) ERwin
5 5 (0.76%) Selenium
6 4 (0.61%) Storybook
7 3 (0.46%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.31%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.31%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.31%) JMeter
8 2 (0.31%) JUnit
8 2 (0.31%) MLflow
8 2 (0.31%) Mockito
8 2 (0.31%) Postman
8 2 (0.31%) PowerDesigner
8 2 (0.31%) SoapUI
8 2 (0.31%) Xcode
8 2 (0.31%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.15%) WebDriver
General
1 237 (36.24%) Social Skills
2 131 (20.03%) Finance
3 78 (11.93%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (7.95%) Banking
5 49 (7.49%) Marketing
6 41 (6.27%) Organisational Skills
7 34 (5.20%) Manufacturing
7 34 (5.20%) Public Sector
8 24 (3.67%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (3.21%) Retail Banking
10 20 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
11 19 (2.91%) Corporate Banking
12 18 (2.75%) Legal
12 18 (2.75%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (2.60%) Investment Banking
14 11 (1.68%) Telecoms
15 10 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 6 (0.92%) Publishing
17 4 (0.61%) Automotive
17 4 (0.61%) Law
Job Titles
1 131 (20.03%) Analyst
2 72 (11.01%) Architect
3 71 (10.86%) Project Manager
4 65 (9.94%) Business Analyst
4 65 (9.94%) Senior
5 55 (8.41%) Lead
6 33 (5.05%) Solutions Architect
7 29 (4.43%) Consultant
8 26 (3.98%) Senior Manager
9 19 (2.91%) Product Manager
10 18 (2.75%) Programme Manager
11 16 (2.45%) Technical Manager
12 14 (2.14%) Developer
12 14 (2.14%) Service Manager
13 13 (1.99%) Help Desk Analyst
13 13 (1.99%) Support Analyst
14 12 (1.83%) Data Engineer
14 12 (1.83%) SAP Consultant
14 12 (1.83%) Senior Analyst
15 11 (1.68%) Senior Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.21%) React
2 19 (2.91%) VML
3 16 (2.45%) Node.js
4 13 (1.99%) REST
5 12 (1.83%) PySpark
6 10 (1.53%) HTML
7 8 (1.22%) .NET
7 8 (1.22%) AngularJS
8 7 (1.07%) React Native
8 7 (1.07%) scikit-learn
8 7 (1.07%) Spring
8 7 (1.07%) Spring Boot
9 6 (0.92%) Middleware
9 6 (0.92%) OpenTelemetry
10 5 (0.76%) CSS
10 5 (0.76%) LangChain
10 5 (0.76%) Matplotlib
10 5 (0.76%) RESTful
10 5 (0.76%) XGBoost
10 5 (0.76%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (5.35%) Product Ownership
2 24 (3.67%) Self-Motivation
3 23 (3.52%) Legacy Systems
4 20 (3.06%) IoT
5 19 (2.91%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.60%) Management Information System
7 16 (2.45%) FMCG
8 14 (2.14%) Data Structures
8 14 (2.14%) EPoS
9 13 (1.99%) Cloud Native
9 13 (1.99%) Data Centre
10 10 (1.53%) Mobile App
11 9 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.38%) Driving Licence
12 7 (1.07%) Social Media
13 6 (0.92%) Algorithms
13 6 (0.92%) CMDB
13 6 (0.92%) Reference Data
13 6 (0.92%) Replication
14 5 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 33 (5.05%) Windows
2 10 (1.53%) Linux
3 7 (1.07%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.76%) Android
4 5 (0.76%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.46%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.31%) 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
1 155 (23.70%) Agile
2 152 (23.24%) Stakeholder Management
3 106 (16.21%) Problem-Solving
4 81 (12.39%) Project Management
5 77 (11.77%) Analytics
6 76 (11.62%) E-Commerce
7 67 (10.24%) Migration
8 64 (9.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 58 (8.87%) Roadmaps
9 58 (8.87%) Workshop Facilitation
10 54 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
11 51 (7.80%) Scrum
12 50 (7.65%) AI
13 48 (7.34%) Data Modelling
14 45 (6.88%) Business Intelligence
14 45 (6.88%) DevOps
14 45 (6.88%) Project Delivery
15 44 (6.73%) Customer Experience
16 43 (6.57%) CRM
17 41 (6.27%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 64 (9.79%) SQL
2 54 (8.26%) Python
3 16 (2.45%) Java
4 14 (2.14%) JavaScript
5 11 (1.68%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.53%) Bash
7 7 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
7 7 (1.07%) Shell Script
8 6 (0.92%) C#
9 5 (0.76%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.46%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.31%) ABAP
11 2 (0.31%) PHP
11 2 (0.31%) Swift
11 2 (0.31%) VBA
12 1 (0.15%) CLIST
12 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.15%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.15%) R
12 1 (0.15%) Scala
Qualifications
1 31 (4.74%) Degree
2 20 (3.06%) PMP
3 19 (2.91%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.60%) PMI Certification
5 9 (1.38%) Master's Degree
6 7 (1.07%) MBA
6 7 (1.07%) SC Cleared
7 6 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (0.92%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.76%) APMP
8 5 (0.76%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (0.76%) CISSP
9 4 (0.61%) CCIE
9 4 (0.61%) CCNP
9 4 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.61%) CISM
9 4 (0.61%) CRISC
9 4 (0.61%) CSPO
10 3 (0.46%) GIAC
10 3 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.13%) Data Quality
2 24 (3.67%) QA
3 17 (2.60%) PMO
4 14 (2.14%) Accessibility
4 14 (2.14%) GDPR
5 12 (1.83%) SLA
6 5 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.61%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.46%) IFRS
8 3 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.46%) NCSC
8 3 (0.46%) NIST
9 2 (0.31%) COBIT
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 11 (1.68%) Docker
2 7 (1.07%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (0.46%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.15%) RACF
4 1 (0.15%) Varnish
4 1 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 17 (2.60%) Terraform
2 11 (1.68%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.76%) Argo
3 5 (0.76%) Istio
4 4 (0.61%) Grafana
4 4 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
5 3 (0.46%) SCCM
5 3 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.31%) Ansible
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%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.15%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.15%) zSecure
Vendors
1 71 (10.86%) Microsoft
2 59 (9.02%) SAP
3 42 (6.42%) Salesforce
4 37 (5.66%) Oracle
5 30 (4.59%) Google
6 18 (2.75%) Adobe
7 17 (2.60%) Databricks
8 8 (1.22%) ServiceNow
9 7 (1.07%) HP
9 7 (1.07%) Sitecore
10 6 (0.92%) Apple
10 6 (0.92%) BMC
10 6 (0.92%) CheckPoint
10 6 (0.92%) Dell
10 6 (0.92%) F5
10 6 (0.92%) Temenos
11 5 (0.76%) Cisco
11 5 (0.76%) Dynatrace
11 5 (0.76%) Meraki
11 5 (0.76%) MicroStrategy