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 4 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 106 84
Rank change year-on-year +26 -22 +6
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,467 689 859
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.21% 2.53% 2.64%
As % of the General category 5.80% 3.93% 4.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 850 363 475
10th Percentile £325 £297 £300
25th Percentile £456 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.32% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £675 £638 £638
90th Percentile £739 £735 £713
UK median daily rate £550 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +7.32% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 58 41
10th Percentile £12.76 - £12.15
25th Percentile £13.50 £15.25 £12.50
Median hourly rate £16.92 £16.34 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% +0.21% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £19.50 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £25.15 £30.12
UK median hourly rate £15.92 £16.34 £16.30
% change year-on-year -2.54% +0.21% -17.72%

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 25,305 17,531 18,851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.45% 64.41% 57.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,011 11,116 11,810
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £423 £400 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,046 981 1,038
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.46 £14.55
25th Percentile £17.25 £16.17 £18.00
Median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +25.25% -34.02% +38.62%
75th Percentile £57.00 £50.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £30.50 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +21.27% -32.93% +36.36%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 +40 832 £569 +3.41% 1,608
North of England -20 194 £550 +10.00% 551
South East +1 170 £550 - 443
Midlands +26 142 £513 +19.05% 328
North West +13 119 £550 +10.00% 301
East Midlands +15 82 £500 +14.68% 163
East of England +14 71 £600 +14.29% 172
West Midlands -9 59 £550 +29.41% 165
Yorkshire -42 57 £500 - 197
South West -33 46 £375 +19.05% 157
North East -25 18 £525 +18.64% 58
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 51 (3.48%) Confluence
2 21 (1.43%) CMS
3 12 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
3 12 (0.82%) SharePoint
4 9 (0.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 5 (0.34%) SAS
6 4 (0.27%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.20%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.14%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.14%) Apache
8 2 (0.14%) CICS
9 1 (0.068%) Mendix
9 1 (0.068%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.068%) Mule
9 1 (0.068%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 54 (3.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (1.09%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 15 (1.02%) Microsoft Project
6 11 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.68%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.55%) MS Visio
10 7 (0.48%) InDesign
11 6 (0.41%) CPLEX
12 5 (0.34%) Chatbot
13 4 (0.27%) Notion
14 1 (0.068%) 3ds Max
14 1 (0.068%) PlantUML
14 1 (0.068%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.068%) SOLIDWORKS
14 1 (0.068%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 44 (3.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.91%) Shopify
3 11 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.68%) Oracle Retail
5 8 (0.55%) Magento
5 8 (0.55%) SAP Retail
6 6 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.41%) SAP CRM
7 5 (0.34%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.34%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.27%) SAP SD
9 3 (0.20%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.20%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.20%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.14%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 194 (13.22%) Azure
2 141 (9.61%) AWS
3 78 (5.32%) Power Platform
4 69 (4.70%) GCP
5 53 (3.61%) Snowflake
6 42 (2.86%) GitHub
7 35 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
8 31 (2.11%) Entra ID
9 26 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
10 25 (1.70%) GitHub Actions
11 22 (1.50%) SaaS
12 20 (1.36%) Figma
13 17 (1.16%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 16 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 15 (1.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 15 (1.02%) dbt
15 15 (1.02%) Microsoft 365
16 13 (0.89%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 12 (0.82%) OCI
18 10 (0.68%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.57%) WAN
2 20 (1.36%) Firewall
3 16 (1.09%) Wireless
4 15 (1.02%) LAN
4 15 (1.02%) Network Security
4 15 (1.02%) VPN
5 14 (0.95%) ATM
6 12 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (0.55%) BGP
7 8 (0.55%) IPsec
7 8 (0.55%) OSPF
7 8 (0.55%) SD-WAN
8 7 (0.48%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 7 (0.48%) VLAN
9 6 (0.41%) Cisco Firepower
9 6 (0.41%) Internet
9 6 (0.41%) Structured Cabling
9 6 (0.41%) VSAN
10 5 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (0.34%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 78 (5.32%) Power BI
2 37 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
3 33 (2.25%) BigQuery
4 27 (1.84%) Data Lake
5 21 (1.43%) Metadata
6 20 (1.36%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.36%) SQL Server
7 18 (1.23%) MongoDB
8 17 (1.16%) Tableau
9 13 (0.89%) Power Query
10 12 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
10 12 (0.82%) Relational Database
11 11 (0.75%) MySQL
11 11 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
12 10 (0.68%) Redis
12 10 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (0.55%) Couchbase
13 8 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 8 (0.55%) Star Schema
14 7 (0.48%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 79 (5.39%) JIRA
2 25 (1.70%) Git
3 18 (1.23%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.55%) Subversion
5 7 (0.48%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.34%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.27%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.27%) GitLab
7 4 (0.27%) Hudson
7 4 (0.27%) JMeter
8 3 (0.20%) Selenium
9 2 (0.14%) git-flow
9 2 (0.14%) MLflow
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.14%) Postman
9 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.14%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) webpack
10 1 (0.068%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.068%) ScriptRunner
General
1 415 (28.29%) Social Skills
2 343 (23.38%) Finance
3 158 (10.77%) Analytical Skills
4 121 (8.25%) Banking
5 111 (7.57%) Marketing
6 100 (6.82%) Manufacturing
7 61 (4.16%) Organisational Skills
8 58 (3.95%) Retail Banking
9 39 (2.66%) Corporate Banking
9 39 (2.66%) Investment Banking
10 32 (2.18%) Influencing Skills
11 30 (2.04%) Telecoms
12 28 (1.91%) Public Sector
13 27 (1.84%) Advertising
13 27 (1.84%) Legal
14 24 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
15 19 (1.30%) French Language
16 18 (1.23%) Documentation Skills
16 18 (1.23%) Spanish Language
17 16 (1.09%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 251 (17.11%) Architect
2 208 (14.18%) Analyst
3 166 (11.32%) Senior
4 142 (9.68%) Solutions Architect
5 120 (8.18%) Project Manager
6 109 (7.43%) Business Analyst
7 106 (7.23%) Lead
8 77 (5.25%) Developer
9 50 (3.41%) Product Manager
10 48 (3.27%) Designer
11 47 (3.20%) Consultant
12 46 (3.14%) Senior Manager
13 41 (2.79%) Supply Chain Architect
14 34 (2.32%) Senior Developer
14 34 (2.32%) Technical Manager
15 32 (2.18%) Data Architect
15 32 (2.18%) Programme Manager
16 31 (2.11%) Enterprise Architect
17 29 (1.98%) Data Analyst
18 26 (1.77%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (4.16%) REST
2 50 (3.41%) Terraform
3 39 (2.66%) React
4 32 (2.18%) Kafka
5 27 (1.84%) Spring
6 25 (1.70%) Node.js
7 24 (1.64%) Middleware
8 23 (1.57%) Spring Boot
9 21 (1.43%) MACH
9 21 (1.43%) VML
10 20 (1.36%) Django
11 18 (1.23%) RESTful
12 17 (1.16%) SOAP
13 16 (1.09%) Next.js
14 15 (1.02%) HTML
15 12 (0.82%) OAuth
16 10 (0.68%) .NET
16 10 (0.68%) CSS
16 10 (0.68%) PySpark
17 9 (0.61%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 76 (5.18%) Product Ownership
2 67 (4.57%) FMCG
3 52 (3.54%) Onboarding
4 51 (3.48%) EPoS
5 43 (2.93%) Cloud Native
6 35 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
7 28 (1.91%) Data Centre
8 27 (1.84%) Mobile App
9 25 (1.70%) Data Structures
10 22 (1.50%) Greenfield Project
10 22 (1.50%) Marketing Technology
10 22 (1.50%) Operational Technology
11 20 (1.36%) Management Information System
12 18 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
13 17 (1.16%) Driving Licence
13 17 (1.16%) Smartphone
14 16 (1.09%) Mainframe
15 15 (1.02%) IoT
16 14 (0.95%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 48 (3.27%) Windows
2 18 (1.23%) Linux
3 11 (0.75%) Android
4 8 (0.55%) Apple iOS
5 7 (0.48%) Unix
6 6 (0.41%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.41%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.14%) Debian
8 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.14%) zOS
9 1 (0.068%) SUSE
9 1 (0.068%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.068%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 399 (27.20%) Stakeholder Management
2 349 (23.79%) Agile
3 223 (15.20%) E-Commerce
4 188 (12.82%) Migration
5 178 (12.13%) Problem-Solving
6 176 (12.00%) Analytics
7 168 (11.45%) Logistics
8 164 (11.18%) Roadmaps
9 161 (10.97%) AI
10 131 (8.93%) Customer Experience
11 129 (8.79%) Decision-Making
12 127 (8.66%) Continuous Improvement
13 126 (8.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 116 (7.91%) CI/CD
14 116 (7.91%) Project Management
15 111 (7.57%) CRM
16 109 (7.43%) Business Intelligence
17 104 (7.09%) DevOps
18 100 (6.82%) User Acceptance Testing
19 97 (6.61%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 126 (8.59%) SQL
2 102 (6.95%) Python
3 49 (3.34%) Java
4 36 (2.45%) TypeScript
5 23 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 13 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 10 (0.68%) C#
7 10 (0.68%) R
8 8 (0.55%) ABAP
8 8 (0.55%) Apex Code
8 8 (0.55%) Bash
9 7 (0.48%) PowerShell
10 6 (0.41%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.41%) Scala
10 6 (0.41%) SOQL
11 5 (0.34%) Groovy
12 4 (0.27%) Bicep
12 4 (0.27%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.27%) SOSL
12 4 (0.27%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 63 (4.29%) Degree
2 44 (3.00%) Security Cleared
3 22 (1.50%) PMP
4 19 (1.30%) SC Cleared
5 11 (0.75%) DBS Check
5 11 (0.75%) PMI Certification
6 7 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
7 6 (0.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (0.41%) CISSP
7 6 (0.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (0.34%) CCNP
8 5 (0.34%) CCSE
8 5 (0.34%) CCSM
8 5 (0.34%) CISM
8 5 (0.34%) CSPO
8 5 (0.34%) Six Sigma Green Belt
9 4 (0.27%) City & Guilds
10 3 (0.20%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.20%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (4.70%) QA
2 65 (4.43%) Data Quality
3 31 (2.11%) GDPR
4 23 (1.57%) Accessibility
4 23 (1.57%) PMO
5 14 (0.95%) PCI DSS
6 10 (0.68%) SLA
7 7 (0.48%) NIST
8 6 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.34%) WCAG
10 4 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.20%) GRC
11 3 (0.20%) PSD2
12 2 (0.14%) GAAP
12 2 (0.14%) IFRS
12 2 (0.14%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.068%) Basel III
13 1 (0.068%) GxP
13 1 (0.068%) HL7
System Software
1 35 (2.39%) Docker
2 27 (1.84%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.34%) Firmware
5 5 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.20%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.068%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 37 (2.52%) Kubernetes
2 10 (0.68%) Ansible
3 9 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (0.48%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.41%) FortiGate
6 5 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.27%) SCCM
8 3 (0.20%) Bosun
9 2 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.14%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.14%) CA Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.14%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.14%) logstash
9 2 (0.14%) PingFederate
9 2 (0.14%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.068%) CloudHub
10 1 (0.068%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.068%) Grafana
10 1 (0.068%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.068%) vMotion
Vendors
1 139 (9.48%) Microsoft
2 110 (7.50%) SAP
3 76 (5.18%) Databricks
4 74 (5.04%) Salesforce
5 68 (4.64%) Oracle
6 44 (3.00%) Google
7 39 (2.66%) Adobe
8 25 (1.70%) Zscaler
9 19 (1.30%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.16%) Cisco
11 16 (1.09%) ServiceNow
11 16 (1.09%) Workday
12 14 (0.95%) Fortinet
13 13 (0.89%) Apple
13 13 (0.89%) Palo Alto
13 13 (0.89%) VMware
14 12 (0.82%) IBM
15 11 (0.75%) Braze
15 11 (0.75%) IFS
15 11 (0.75%) New Relic
3,136 Retail jobs in England