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

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 141 80 88
Rank change year-on-year -61 +8 -8
Contract jobs citing Retail 682 747 918
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.97% 2.89% 2.43%
As % of the General category 3.33% 4.63% 4.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 431 390 530
10th Percentile £206 £291 £263
25th Percentile £363 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -4.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 11 52
10th Percentile £12.95 £18.13 £11.01
25th Percentile £16.17 £23.57 £12.79
Median hourly rate £18.00 £32.50 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -44.62% +99.39% -17.72%
75th Percentile £20.38 £52.00 £21.37
90th Percentile £46.25 £67.50 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £18.00 £33.50 £16.30
% change year-on-year -46.27% +105.52% -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 20,480 16,151 22,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.22% 62.56% 58.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,989 9,855 14,596
10th Percentile £300 £298 £265
25th Percentile £405 £411 £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 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,284 513 1,528
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £16.82 £20.00 £15.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.45 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.48% +17.12% -10.34%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.00 £51.66
90th Percentile £72.35 £75.00 £67.29
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -21.34% +11.54% -3.70%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -45 377 £550 - 310
South East -34 84 £494 -10.23% 266
North of England -50 77 £475 +5.56% 169
Midlands -48 68 £456 -8.75% 160
East Midlands -8 42 £495 -1.00% 91
East of England -25 37 £526 -4.32% 90
North West -27 37 £500 +11.11% 106
Yorkshire -44 37 £500 +25.00% 50
West Midlands -55 25 £275 -47.62% 69
South West -11 20 £201 -38.08% 69
North East -13 4 £206 -65.63% 13
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 (4.11%) Confluence
2 15 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.76%) CMS
4 9 (1.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 9 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.59%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.59%) WordPress
6 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.29%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.29%) SAS
8 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 22 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.76%) Microsoft Project
3 10 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (1.47%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.03%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.44%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.29%) Trello
7 1 (0.15%) 3ds Max
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.15%) InDesign
7 1 (0.15%) Maya
7 1 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.15%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 19 (2.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.76%) SAP Retail
2 12 (1.76%) Shopify
3 10 (1.47%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.88%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (0.88%) Oracle Retail
5 5 (0.73%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.59%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.59%) Finacle
6 4 (0.59%) SAP MDG
6 4 (0.59%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.44%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.29%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.29%) Sprinklr
9 1 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
9 1 (0.15%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.15%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 77 (11.29%) Azure
2 43 (6.30%) Power Platform
3 41 (6.01%) AWS
4 38 (5.57%) GCP
5 20 (2.93%) Dynamics 365
6 19 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
7 16 (2.35%) GitHub
8 15 (2.20%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (2.20%) Snowflake
9 13 (1.91%) SaaS
10 12 (1.76%) Figma
11 11 (1.61%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (1.47%) Google Workspace
13 9 (1.32%) Cloud Run
13 9 (1.32%) Entra ID
14 8 (1.17%) dbt
14 8 (1.17%) Miro
15 7 (1.03%) BigCommerce
15 7 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
15 7 (1.03%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 23 (3.37%) RFID
2 18 (2.64%) NFC
2 18 (2.64%) Wireless
3 10 (1.47%) VPN
4 9 (1.32%) WAN
5 7 (1.03%) Firewall
6 5 (0.73%) LAN
6 5 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (0.59%) BGP
7 4 (0.59%) Cisco Nexus
7 4 (0.59%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.59%) OSPF
7 4 (0.59%) VoIP
8 2 (0.29%) MPLS
8 2 (0.29%) SAN
8 2 (0.29%) WLAN
9 1 (0.15%) Broadband
9 1 (0.15%) FTP
9 1 (0.15%) SMS
9 1 (0.15%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (5.28%) Power BI
2 23 (3.37%) BigQuery
3 20 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (2.20%) Metadata
5 14 (2.05%) SQL Server
6 13 (1.91%) Tableau
7 9 (1.32%) Data Lake
7 9 (1.32%) MySQL
8 7 (1.03%) Data Vault
9 5 (0.73%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
10 4 (0.59%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.59%) MongoDB
10 4 (0.59%) Redis
10 4 (0.59%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.44%) OLAP
11 3 (0.44%) Oracle OLAP
11 3 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 67 (9.82%) JIRA
2 12 (1.76%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.17%) GitLab
4 6 (0.88%) Git
5 5 (0.73%) ERwin
5 5 (0.73%) Selenium
6 3 (0.44%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.29%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.29%) JMeter
7 2 (0.29%) JUnit
7 2 (0.29%) Maven
7 2 (0.29%) MLflow
7 2 (0.29%) Mockito
7 2 (0.29%) Postman
7 2 (0.29%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.29%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.29%) Xcode
7 2 (0.29%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
General
1 242 (35.48%) Social Skills
2 147 (21.55%) Finance
3 73 (10.70%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (8.06%) Banking
4 55 (8.06%) Marketing
5 39 (5.72%) Organisational Skills
6 34 (4.99%) Manufacturing
7 31 (4.55%) Public Sector
8 24 (3.52%) Influencing Skills
9 20 (2.93%) Corporate Banking
9 20 (2.93%) Retail Banking
10 19 (2.79%) Presentation Skills
11 18 (2.64%) Investment Banking
12 17 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
13 13 (1.91%) Telecoms
14 12 (1.76%) Legal
15 11 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 6 (0.88%) Publishing
17 5 (0.73%) Automotive
17 5 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 125 (18.33%) Analyst
2 88 (12.90%) Project Manager
3 78 (11.44%) Senior
4 73 (10.70%) Architect
5 60 (8.80%) Business Analyst
6 59 (8.65%) Lead
7 38 (5.57%) Senior Manager
8 31 (4.55%) Consultant
8 31 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
9 22 (3.23%) Technical Manager
10 19 (2.79%) Product Manager
10 19 (2.79%) Senior Project Manager
11 17 (2.49%) Programme Manager
12 14 (2.05%) Data Engineer
12 14 (2.05%) Designer
12 14 (2.05%) E-Commerce Manager
13 13 (1.91%) Developer
13 13 (1.91%) Service Manager
13 13 (1.91%) Support Analyst
14 12 (1.76%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.79%) VML
2 15 (2.20%) REST
3 12 (1.76%) PySpark
3 12 (1.76%) Spring
4 11 (1.61%) Spring Boot
5 10 (1.47%) React
6 9 (1.32%) .NET
6 9 (1.32%) Middleware
7 8 (1.17%) AngularJS
7 8 (1.17%) scikit-learn
8 7 (1.03%) HTML
8 7 (1.03%) Node.js
8 7 (1.03%) OpenTelemetry
9 6 (0.88%) LangChain
9 6 (0.88%) PyTorch
10 5 (0.73%) Kafka
10 5 (0.73%) XML
11 4 (0.59%) CSS
11 4 (0.59%) JSON
11 4 (0.59%) Matplotlib
Miscellaneous
1 37 (5.43%) Product Ownership
2 22 (3.23%) Self-Motivation
3 20 (2.93%) Driving Licence
3 20 (2.93%) Onboarding
4 19 (2.79%) Management Information System
5 18 (2.64%) Cloud Native
5 18 (2.64%) IoT
6 17 (2.49%) FMCG
7 16 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (2.20%) EPoS
9 14 (2.05%) Data Structures
9 14 (2.05%) Mobile App
10 13 (1.91%) Data Centre
11 9 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.17%) Social Media
13 7 (1.03%) Algorithms
13 7 (1.03%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.88%) CMDB
14 6 (0.88%) Reference Data
14 6 (0.88%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 31 (4.55%) Windows
2 13 (1.91%) Linux
3 8 (1.17%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.73%) Android
5 4 (0.59%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.44%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.29%) zOS
8 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.15%) Unix
8 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (23.75%) Stakeholder Management
2 158 (23.17%) Agile
3 126 (18.48%) Problem-Solving
4 89 (13.05%) Project Management
5 88 (12.90%) E-Commerce
6 75 (11.00%) Analytics
7 66 (9.68%) Migration
8 65 (9.53%) Roadmaps
9 64 (9.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 59 (8.65%) Workshop Facilitation
11 58 (8.50%) Customer Experience
12 57 (8.36%) Continuous Improvement
13 52 (7.62%) Scrum
14 50 (7.33%) AI
15 49 (7.18%) Business Intelligence
16 46 (6.74%) Data Modelling
16 46 (6.74%) DevOps
16 46 (6.74%) Project Delivery
17 43 (6.30%) Decision-Making
18 40 (5.87%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 62 (9.09%) SQL
2 56 (8.21%) Python
3 22 (3.23%) Java
4 14 (2.05%) JavaScript
5 12 (1.76%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.61%) Bash
7 9 (1.32%) Shell Script
8 8 (1.17%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (1.03%) C#
10 5 (0.73%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.59%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.44%) VBA
13 2 (0.29%) Google Apps Script
13 2 (0.29%) PHP
13 2 (0.29%) Swift
14 1 (0.15%) CLIST
14 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.15%) R
14 1 (0.15%) Scala
Qualifications
1 40 (5.87%) Degree
2 22 (3.23%) PMP
3 18 (2.64%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.49%) PMI Certification
5 9 (1.32%) Master's Degree
6 7 (1.03%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.03%) CISSP
6 7 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.03%) MBA
6 7 (1.03%) SC Cleared
7 6 (0.88%) APMP
7 6 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.73%) CISM
8 5 (0.73%) CRISC
9 4 (0.59%) CCIE
9 4 (0.59%) CCNP
9 4 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.59%) CSPO
10 3 (0.44%) GIAC
10 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.11%) Data Quality
1 28 (4.11%) QA
2 22 (3.23%) PMO
3 17 (2.49%) Accessibility
4 13 (1.91%) GDPR
4 13 (1.91%) SLA
5 6 (0.88%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.59%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.44%) IFRS
7 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.44%) NCSC
7 3 (0.44%) NIST
8 2 (0.29%) COBIT
9 1 (0.15%) GRC
9 1 (0.15%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.15%) MiFID
9 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.15%) Solvency II
9 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 13 (1.91%) Docker
2 8 (1.17%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (0.44%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.15%) RACF
4 1 (0.15%) Varnish
4 1 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 17 (2.49%) Terraform
2 12 (1.76%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.03%) Grafana
4 6 (0.88%) Argo
4 6 (0.88%) Istio
5 5 (0.73%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.44%) SCCM
6 3 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.15%) Ansible
8 1 (0.15%) Cacti
8 1 (0.15%) Control-M
8 1 (0.15%) Nmap
8 1 (0.15%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.15%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.15%) zSecure
Vendors
1 65 (9.53%) Microsoft
2 56 (8.21%) SAP
3 46 (6.74%) Google
4 38 (5.57%) Oracle
5 33 (4.84%) Salesforce
6 21 (3.08%) Adobe
6 21 (3.08%) Databricks
7 12 (1.76%) ServiceNow
8 8 (1.17%) Sitecore
9 6 (0.88%) Splunk
9 6 (0.88%) Temenos
10 5 (0.73%) Apple
10 5 (0.73%) BMC
10 5 (0.73%) CheckPoint
10 5 (0.73%) Cisco
10 5 (0.73%) F5
10 5 (0.73%) MicroStrategy
10 5 (0.73%) Workday
10 5 (0.73%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.59%) TikTok