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 18 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 95 78
Rank change year-on-year -2 -17 +10
Contract jobs citing Retail 956 663 989
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.33% 2.71% 2.71%
As % of the General category 4.31% 4.23% 4.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 568 352 544
10th Percentile £238 £313 £278
25th Percentile £411 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -1.67% +1.94% -2.37%
75th Percentile £625 £632 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £505
% change year-on-year -4.31% +3.47% -5.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 16 86
10th Percentile £13.30 £15.25 £11.44
25th Percentile £15.86 £16.30 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £25.75 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.45% +60.94% -20.99%
75th Percentile £31.25 £54.13 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £72.50 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £30.25 £16.00
% change year-on-year -30.58% +89.06% -20.12%

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 22,176 15,681 21,191
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.12% 64.08% 58.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,726 10,164 13,658
10th Percentile £308 £293 £281
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -2.88% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,471 678 1,777
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.77 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £16.95 £15.43
Median hourly rate £30.58 £27.45 £30.12
Median % change year-on-year +11.40% -8.86% -6.75%
75th Percentile £63.75 £55.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.45
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 -11 522 £540 -1.82% 426
North of England -36 128 £505 +12.22% 258
South East -15 125 £463 -2.63% 279
Midlands -25 87 £495 -1.00% 162
North West -2 77 £510 +4.62% 144
East Midlands +1 51 £495 -1.00% 75
East of England -4 50 £509 -3.05% 105
Yorkshire -51 48 £513 +38.51% 102
West Midlands -48 36 £500 +12.68% 86
South West -8 30 £326 -34.75% 84
North East -20 3 £201 -73.17% 16
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 35 (3.66%) Confluence
2 14 (1.46%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 7 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.63%) CMS
6 4 (0.42%) SAS
7 2 (0.21%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.21%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.10%) CICS
8 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.10%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 33 (3.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (2.09%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (2.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (1.99%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (1.36%) Chatbot
5 11 (1.15%) MS Visio
6 8 (0.84%) Photoshop
7 6 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.31%) InDesign
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.21%) UserZoom
10 1 (0.10%) 3ds Max
10 1 (0.10%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.10%) Maya
10 1 (0.10%) PlantUML
10 1 (0.10%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
10 1 (0.10%) Trello
Business Applications
1 21 (2.20%) Shopify
2 16 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.84%) SAP Retail
5 7 (0.73%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (0.73%) Oracle Retail
6 6 (0.63%) Finacle
7 5 (0.52%) SAP CRM
7 5 (0.52%) SAP MDG
8 3 (0.31%) Magento
8 3 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
9 2 (0.21%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 2 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
9 2 (0.21%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.21%) Temenos T24
10 1 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 95 (9.94%) Azure
2 73 (7.64%) AWS
3 55 (5.75%) GCP
4 50 (5.23%) Power Platform
5 27 (2.82%) Snowflake
6 22 (2.30%) Dynamics 365
6 22 (2.30%) GitHub
7 16 (1.67%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (1.57%) Azure DevOps
9 14 (1.46%) GitHub Actions
9 14 (1.46%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 13 (1.36%) BigCommerce
10 13 (1.36%) Figma
11 10 (1.05%) Entra ID
11 10 (1.05%) Google Workspace
11 10 (1.05%) Miro
11 10 (1.05%) SaaS
12 9 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
12 9 (0.94%) Cloud Run
13 8 (0.84%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.57%) Firewall
2 14 (1.46%) VPN
2 14 (1.46%) WAN
3 12 (1.26%) RFID
4 11 (1.15%) Wireless
5 10 (1.05%) ATM
6 8 (0.84%) Cisco Nexus
7 7 (0.73%) LAN
7 7 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.63%) BGP
8 6 (0.63%) OSPF
9 5 (0.52%) Cisco Firepower
9 5 (0.52%) Network Security
10 4 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
10 4 (0.42%) EIGRP
10 4 (0.42%) NFC
10 4 (0.42%) VoIP
10 4 (0.42%) VSAN
11 3 (0.31%) SD-WAN
12 2 (0.21%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (4.81%) Power BI
2 28 (2.93%) BigQuery
3 17 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (1.36%) MySQL
4 13 (1.36%) SQL Server
5 11 (1.15%) Tableau
6 10 (1.05%) Data Lake
7 9 (0.94%) Metadata
8 6 (0.63%) Relational Database
9 5 (0.52%) Data Vault
9 5 (0.52%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.42%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.42%) MongoDB
10 4 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
10 4 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
11 3 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.31%) Big Data
11 3 (0.31%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.31%) Looker
11 3 (0.31%) Oracle OLAP
Development Applications
1 74 (7.74%) JIRA
2 14 (1.46%) Git
3 12 (1.26%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.84%) GitLab
5 4 (0.42%) Maven
6 3 (0.31%) ERwin
6 3 (0.31%) JMeter
6 3 (0.31%) Subversion
7 2 (0.21%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.21%) git-flow
7 2 (0.21%) MLflow
7 2 (0.21%) Selenium
7 2 (0.21%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.21%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.10%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.10%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.10%) Gatling
8 1 (0.10%) Mockito
8 1 (0.10%) webpack
8 1 (0.10%) Zephyr
General
1 277 (28.97%) Social Skills
2 248 (25.94%) Finance
3 95 (9.94%) Analytical Skills
4 84 (8.79%) Banking
5 61 (6.38%) Marketing
6 45 (4.71%) Organisational Skills
7 41 (4.29%) Manufacturing
8 40 (4.18%) Retail Banking
9 34 (3.56%) Investment Banking
10 30 (3.14%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (2.82%) Public Sector
12 25 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (2.62%) Telecoms
13 24 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
14 21 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
15 16 (1.67%) Legal
16 14 (1.46%) Advertising
17 13 (1.36%) Back Office
18 10 (1.05%) French Language
18 10 (1.05%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 148 (15.48%) Architect
2 138 (14.44%) Analyst
3 121 (12.66%) Senior
4 104 (10.88%) Project Manager
5 82 (8.58%) Business Analyst
6 69 (7.22%) Lead
7 60 (6.28%) Solutions Architect
8 56 (5.86%) Senior Manager
9 39 (4.08%) Technical Manager
10 32 (3.35%) Consultant
11 31 (3.24%) Designer
11 31 (3.24%) Enterprise Architect
12 30 (3.14%) Senior Project Manager
13 29 (3.03%) Developer
14 26 (2.72%) Data Architect
15 24 (2.51%) Product Manager
16 20 (2.09%) Programme Manager
17 19 (1.99%) Service Manager
18 18 (1.88%) Data Engineer
18 18 (1.88%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.03%) VML
2 27 (2.82%) Middleware
3 23 (2.41%) REST
4 22 (2.30%) React
5 18 (1.88%) Spring
6 16 (1.67%) Node.js
7 13 (1.36%) AngularJS
8 12 (1.26%) Spring Boot
9 9 (0.94%) CSS
10 8 (0.84%) OpenTelemetry
10 8 (0.84%) PySpark
11 7 (0.73%) Kafka
11 7 (0.73%) LangChain
11 7 (0.73%) MACH
11 7 (0.73%) OAuth
11 7 (0.73%) OAuth2
11 7 (0.73%) OpenID
11 7 (0.73%) RESTful
12 6 (0.63%) GraphQL
12 6 (0.63%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 68 (7.11%) Product Ownership
2 30 (3.14%) EPoS
3 28 (2.93%) Cloud Native
4 27 (2.82%) Driving Licence
5 25 (2.62%) Onboarding
6 23 (2.41%) Data Centre
6 23 (2.41%) FMCG
7 19 (1.99%) Data Structures
8 18 (1.88%) Management Information System
8 18 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (1.46%) Mainframe
10 12 (1.26%) Mobile App
11 10 (1.05%) AI Agents
11 10 (1.05%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.05%) Virtual Team
12 9 (0.94%) Smartphone
13 8 (0.84%) CCTV
14 7 (0.73%) Enterprise Cloud
15 6 (0.63%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 44 (4.60%) Windows
2 20 (2.09%) Linux
3 8 (0.84%) Android
4 7 (0.73%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.63%) Unix
6 5 (0.52%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.42%) zOS
8 3 (0.31%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.21%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 207 (21.65%) Agile
1 207 (21.65%) Stakeholder Management
2 167 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
3 140 (14.64%) E-Commerce
4 118 (12.34%) Migration
5 108 (11.30%) Roadmaps
6 103 (10.77%) Project Management
7 99 (10.36%) Analytics
8 92 (9.62%) Customer Experience
9 80 (8.37%) ERP
9 80 (8.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 72 (7.53%) Continuous Improvement
10 72 (7.53%) Scrum
11 71 (7.43%) Project Delivery
12 70 (7.32%) AI
13 69 (7.22%) Change Management
14 67 (7.01%) Decision-Making
15 65 (6.80%) Workshop Facilitation
16 64 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
17 61 (6.38%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 59 (6.17%) SQL
2 52 (5.44%) Python
3 28 (2.93%) Java
4 22 (2.30%) JavaScript
5 11 (1.15%) TypeScript
6 10 (1.05%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.05%) Shell Script
7 6 (0.63%) Bash
8 5 (0.52%) C#
8 5 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.42%) Bicep
9 4 (0.42%) Scala
9 4 (0.42%) SOQL
9 4 (0.42%) VBA
10 3 (0.31%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.31%) Kotlin
10 3 (0.31%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.31%) SOSL
11 2 (0.21%) Korn
11 2 (0.21%) R
Qualifications
1 48 (5.02%) Degree
2 39 (4.08%) Security Cleared
3 26 (2.72%) SC Cleared
4 17 (1.78%) PMP
5 11 (1.15%) PMI Certification
6 8 (0.84%) CCNP
6 8 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
6 8 (0.84%) CSPO
7 7 (0.73%) APMP
7 7 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.73%) DBS Check
7 7 (0.73%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (0.52%) CISSP
9 5 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (0.52%) MBA
10 4 (0.42%) CCIE
10 4 (0.42%) CCSE
10 4 (0.42%) CCSM
11 3 (0.31%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (4.18%) QA
2 39 (4.08%) Data Quality
3 34 (3.56%) GDPR
4 32 (3.35%) PMO
5 14 (1.46%) SLA
6 13 (1.36%) Accessibility
7 10 (1.05%) PCI DSS
8 8 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.52%) NIST
10 4 (0.42%) IFRS
11 3 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.21%) GRC
12 2 (0.21%) WCAG
13 1 (0.10%) COBIT
13 1 (0.10%) GAAP
13 1 (0.10%) IFRS 9
13 1 (0.10%) NCSC
13 1 (0.10%) Solvency II
System Software
1 20 (2.09%) Docker
2 17 (1.78%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.31%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.10%) RACF
Systems Management
1 22 (2.30%) Terraform
2 14 (1.46%) Kubernetes
3 8 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (0.73%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.63%) Argo
5 6 (0.63%) Istio
6 5 (0.52%) SCCM
6 5 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.42%) Grafana
8 2 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.21%) Ansible
8 2 (0.21%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.21%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.21%) MOM
8 2 (0.21%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.10%) Control-M
9 1 (0.10%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.10%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.10%) zSecure
Vendors
1 80 (8.37%) Microsoft
2 71 (7.43%) SAP
3 58 (6.07%) Oracle
4 47 (4.92%) Salesforce
5 44 (4.60%) Google
6 39 (4.08%) Databricks
7 24 (2.51%) Adobe
8 15 (1.57%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.57%) Sitecore
9 14 (1.46%) IFS
10 13 (1.36%) Cisco
11 10 (1.05%) VMware
12 9 (0.94%) CheckPoint
12 9 (0.94%) Palo Alto
13 8 (0.84%) Fortinet
13 8 (0.84%) Temenos
14 7 (0.73%) Workday
15 6 (0.63%) F5
15 6 (0.63%) IBM
15 6 (0.63%) Zscaler