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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 97 79
Rank change year-on-year -27 -18 +4
Contract jobs citing Retail 827 675 976
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.11% 2.77% 2.63%
As % of the General category 3.78% 4.33% 4.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 513 370 561
10th Percentile £206 £307 £278
25th Percentile £380 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -0.95%
75th Percentile £606 £630 £638
90th Percentile £738 £751 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 15 80
10th Percentile £12.91 £15.67 £11.13
25th Percentile £15.25 £18.13 £12.15
Median hourly rate £16.92 £31.50 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.29% +96.88% -19.23%
75th Percentile £23.03 £43.25 £21.37
90th Percentile £48.15 £62.60 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £16.92 £32.50 £16.00
% change year-on-year -47.94% +103.13% -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 21,907 15,575 21,659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.89% 63.85% 58.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,758 10,131 14,014
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £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 1,407 645 1,748
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £17.61 £15.39
Median hourly rate £28.55 £29.00 £27.59
Median % change year-on-year -1.55% +5.10% -21.16%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -21.43%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -19 456 £525 -4.55% 251
South East -16 117 £416 -22.56% 207
North of England -41 103 £500 +11.11% 209
Midlands -37 75 £495 -1.00% 160
North West -25 57 £500 - 113
Yorkshire -38 42 £513 +38.51% 76
East Midlands -10 40 £495 -1.00% 85
East of England -16 40 £475 -9.52% 107
West Midlands -55 34 £481 +8.45% 75
South West -23 20 £318 -6.62% 71
North East -18 4 £206 -72.50% 25
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 (4.35%) Confluence
2 15 (1.81%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 10 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (1.09%) CMS
6 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.36%) SAS
6 3 (0.36%) WordPress
7 2 (0.24%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.24%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.12%) CICS
8 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.12%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 32 (3.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.30%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (1.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
5 13 (1.57%) Chatbot
6 11 (1.33%) MS Visio
7 6 (0.73%) Photoshop
8 5 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.36%) InDesign
10 2 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.24%) Trello
11 1 (0.12%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.12%) Maya
11 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
11 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
11 1 (0.12%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 19 (2.30%) Shopify
2 16 (1.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (1.21%) SAP Retail
5 8 (0.97%) Oracle Retail
6 6 (0.73%) Finacle
6 6 (0.73%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 5 (0.60%) SAP Payroll
8 4 (0.48%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.48%) Temenos T24
9 3 (0.36%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.36%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 2 (0.24%) BambooHR
10 2 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
10 2 (0.24%) Sprinklr
11 1 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
11 1 (0.12%) OpenText VIM for SAP
11 1 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
11 1 (0.12%) Sage X3
11 1 (0.12%) SAP CAR
Cloud Services
1 87 (10.52%) Azure
2 57 (6.89%) Power Platform
3 51 (6.17%) AWS
4 50 (6.05%) GCP
5 24 (2.90%) Dynamics 365
6 21 (2.54%) Snowflake
7 20 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
7 20 (2.42%) GitHub
8 18 (2.18%) Microsoft 365
9 13 (1.57%) Entra ID
9 13 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (1.57%) SaaS
10 12 (1.45%) BigCommerce
10 12 (1.45%) Google Workspace
11 11 (1.33%) Figma
11 11 (1.33%) Miro
12 9 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
12 9 (1.09%) Cloud Run
12 9 (1.09%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
13 8 (0.97%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.06%) VPN
2 16 (1.93%) RFID
3 13 (1.57%) Firewall
3 13 (1.57%) WAN
4 11 (1.33%) Wireless
5 8 (0.97%) LAN
5 8 (0.97%) NFC
6 6 (0.73%) Cisco Nexus
6 6 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.60%) BGP
7 5 (0.60%) OSPF
8 4 (0.48%) EIGRP
8 4 (0.48%) VoIP
9 3 (0.36%) Cisco Firepower
9 3 (0.36%) MPLS
9 3 (0.36%) Network Security
9 3 (0.36%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.36%) WLAN
10 2 (0.24%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.24%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (5.93%) Power BI
2 24 (2.90%) BigQuery
3 19 (2.30%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (1.81%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.45%) MySQL
5 12 (1.45%) Tableau
6 10 (1.21%) Metadata
7 8 (0.97%) Data Lake
7 8 (0.97%) Data Vault
8 5 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (0.60%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.48%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.48%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.36%) Looker
10 3 (0.36%) OLAP
10 3 (0.36%) Oracle OLAP
10 3 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.36%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.24%) Redis
11 2 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 69 (8.34%) JIRA
2 9 (1.09%) Git
2 9 (1.09%) Jenkins
3 7 (0.85%) GitLab
4 5 (0.60%) ERwin
5 4 (0.48%) Maven
6 3 (0.36%) Selenium
6 3 (0.36%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.24%) MLflow
7 2 (0.24%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.24%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
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%) Zephyr
General
1 272 (32.89%) Social Skills
2 210 (25.39%) Finance
3 103 (12.45%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (8.34%) Banking
5 59 (7.13%) Marketing
6 40 (4.84%) Manufacturing
6 40 (4.84%) Organisational Skills
7 28 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (3.39%) Public Sector
8 26 (3.14%) Presentation Skills
9 25 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
10 24 (2.90%) Investment Banking
11 23 (2.78%) Retail Banking
12 22 (2.66%) Corporate Banking
13 17 (2.06%) Telecoms
14 13 (1.57%) Legal
15 8 (0.97%) Back Office
15 8 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 8 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
16 6 (0.73%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 141 (17.05%) Analyst
2 116 (14.03%) Architect
3 106 (12.82%) Project Manager
4 104 (12.58%) Senior
5 82 (9.92%) Business Analyst
6 68 (8.22%) Lead
7 45 (5.44%) Senior Manager
8 43 (5.20%) Solutions Architect
9 34 (4.11%) Consultant
10 32 (3.87%) Technical Manager
11 25 (3.02%) Senior Project Manager
12 23 (2.78%) Data Architect
12 23 (2.78%) Enterprise Architect
13 22 (2.66%) Designer
14 21 (2.54%) Programme Manager
15 16 (1.93%) IT Manager
15 16 (1.93%) Product Manager
16 15 (1.81%) Data Engineer
16 15 (1.81%) Developer
16 15 (1.81%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.26%) VML
2 24 (2.90%) Middleware
3 19 (2.30%) REST
4 15 (1.81%) Spring
5 13 (1.57%) React
6 12 (1.45%) AngularJS
7 10 (1.21%) Spring Boot
8 9 (1.09%) PySpark
9 8 (0.97%) .NET
9 8 (0.97%) CSS
9 8 (0.97%) Node.js
10 7 (0.85%) HTML
10 7 (0.85%) scikit-learn
11 6 (0.73%) jQuery
11 6 (0.73%) LangChain
11 6 (0.73%) OpenTelemetry
12 5 (0.60%) Kafka
12 5 (0.60%) OAuth2
12 5 (0.60%) PyTorch
12 5 (0.60%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 56 (6.77%) Product Ownership
2 27 (3.26%) Cloud Native
2 27 (3.26%) Self-Motivation
3 24 (2.90%) Driving Licence
4 22 (2.66%) Data Centre
5 21 (2.54%) Onboarding
6 20 (2.42%) Management Information System
7 19 (2.30%) FMCG
8 16 (1.93%) Data Structures
8 16 (1.93%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (1.57%) EPoS
9 13 (1.57%) Mainframe
10 11 (1.33%) Mobile App
11 10 (1.21%) IoT
12 9 (1.09%) Virtual Team
13 8 (0.97%) Reference Data
14 7 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
14 7 (0.85%) Social Media
15 6 (0.73%) Algorithms
15 6 (0.73%) Learning Management System
Operating Systems
1 34 (4.11%) Windows
2 19 (2.30%) Linux
3 9 (1.09%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.60%) Android
5 4 (0.48%) Unix
5 4 (0.48%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.48%) zOS
6 3 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.12%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.12%) VMS
7 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 192 (23.22%) Stakeholder Management
2 181 (21.89%) Agile
3 164 (19.83%) Problem-Solving
4 113 (13.66%) E-Commerce
5 106 (12.82%) Migration
6 102 (12.33%) Project Management
7 97 (11.73%) Roadmaps
8 89 (10.76%) Analytics
9 83 (10.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 80 (9.67%) Customer Experience
11 71 (8.59%) AI
11 71 (8.59%) ERP
12 70 (8.46%) Workshop Facilitation
13 67 (8.10%) Project Delivery
14 65 (7.86%) Change Management
15 64 (7.74%) Business Intelligence
15 64 (7.74%) Continuous Improvement
16 63 (7.62%) Scrum
17 57 (6.89%) Decision-Making
18 55 (6.65%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 57 (6.89%) SQL
2 53 (6.41%) Python
3 26 (3.14%) Java
4 18 (2.18%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.69%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.09%) Bash
6 9 (1.09%) Shell Script
7 8 (0.97%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.85%) C#
9 5 (0.60%) TypeScript
10 4 (0.48%) VBA
11 3 (0.36%) Kotlin
11 3 (0.36%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.36%) Scala
12 2 (0.24%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.24%) Google Apps Script
12 2 (0.24%) R
12 2 (0.24%) SOQL
12 2 (0.24%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 47 (5.68%) Degree
2 32 (3.87%) Security Cleared
3 22 (2.66%) PMP
3 22 (2.66%) SC Cleared
4 17 (2.06%) PMI Certification
5 8 (0.97%) CSPO
5 8 (0.97%) Master's Degree
6 7 (0.85%) APMP
6 7 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (0.73%) CCNP
7 6 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (0.73%) CISSP
7 6 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (0.73%) MBA
8 4 (0.48%) CCIE
8 4 (0.48%) CISM
8 4 (0.48%) CRISC
8 4 (0.48%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.36%) IIBA
9 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.72%) Data Quality
2 35 (4.23%) QA
3 31 (3.75%) PMO
4 29 (3.51%) GDPR
5 17 (2.06%) SLA
6 12 (1.45%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.73%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.60%) NIST
10 4 (0.48%) IFRS
11 3 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.24%) GRC
12 2 (0.24%) NCSC
13 1 (0.12%) GAAP
13 1 (0.12%) GxP
13 1 (0.12%) IFRS 9
13 1 (0.12%) ISO 8583
13 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (2.18%) Active Directory
2 15 (1.81%) Docker
3 5 (0.60%) VMware NSX
4 4 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.12%) RACF
7 1 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 20 (2.42%) Terraform
2 12 (1.45%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (0.85%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 6 (0.73%) Argo
4 6 (0.73%) Istio
5 5 (0.60%) Grafana
6 4 (0.48%) SCCM
7 2 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.24%) CA Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.24%) MOM
7 2 (0.24%) PingFederate
8 1 (0.12%) Ansible
8 1 (0.12%) Cacti
8 1 (0.12%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.12%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.12%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.12%) zSecure
Vendors
1 78 (9.43%) Microsoft
2 65 (7.86%) SAP
3 49 (5.93%) Oracle
4 48 (5.80%) Google
5 40 (4.84%) Salesforce
6 34 (4.11%) Databricks
7 28 (3.39%) Adobe
8 19 (2.30%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.81%) Sitecore
10 11 (1.33%) IFS
11 10 (1.21%) Cisco
12 8 (0.97%) Palo Alto
12 8 (0.97%) Temenos
12 8 (0.97%) VMware
13 7 (0.85%) CheckPoint
13 7 (0.85%) Workday
13 7 (0.85%) Zscaler
14 6 (0.73%) Apple
14 6 (0.73%) Avaloq
14 6 (0.73%) GoldenSource