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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 84 85
Rank change year-on-year -51 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing Retail 747 708 947
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.99% 2.92% 2.51%
As % of the General category 3.48% 4.60% 4.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 474 383 547
10th Percentile £200 £306 £278
25th Percentile £363 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £606 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £748 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 15 70
10th Percentile £12.83 £16.40 £11.12
25th Percentile £14.25 £19.69 £12.15
Median hourly rate £16.34 £32.50 £15.95
Median % change year-on-year -49.74% +103.76% -19.49%
75th Percentile £23.75 £50.00 £21.37
90th Percentile £51.95 £62.60 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £16.50 £32.50 £15.90
% change year-on-year -49.23% +104.40% -19.74%

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 21,474 15,403 22,070
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.18% 63.48% 58.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,551 10,052 14,391
10th Percentile £303 £300 £272
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,350 606 1,679
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.95 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.78 £15.21
Median hourly rate £25.38 £30.21 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.97% +16.17% -25.71%
75th Percentile £60.41 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.78 £75.13 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.12 £29.15 £26.00
% change year-on-year -13.83% +12.12% -25.71%

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 26 March 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 26 March 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 26 March 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 -40 415 £525 -4.55% 362
South East -36 101 £413 -23.26% 242
North of England -42 88 £500 +11.11% 224
Midlands -43 69 £495 -1.00% 186
North West -38 44 £500 +11.11% 111
East Midlands -10 42 £495 -1.00% 118
Yorkshire -29 40 £513 +28.13% 91
East of England -19 38 £492 -1.60% 88
West Midlands -62 26 £463 -11.90% 68
South West -20 19 £261 -26.41% 84
North East -10 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 33 (4.42%) Confluence
2 14 (1.87%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 11 (1.47%) CMS
5 10 (1.34%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.54%) WordPress
7 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.27%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.27%) SAS
9 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 27 (3.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (2.41%) Microsoft Project
3 14 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
4 13 (1.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (1.61%) Chatbot
6 10 (1.34%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.54%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.40%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.27%) InDesign
9 2 (0.27%) Trello
10 1 (0.13%) 3ds Max
10 1 (0.13%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.13%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.13%) Maya
10 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
10 1 (0.13%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 17 (2.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (2.14%) Shopify
3 12 (1.61%) SAP Retail
4 10 (1.34%) Dynamics CRM
5 8 (1.07%) Oracle Retail
6 6 (0.80%) Finacle
6 6 (0.80%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 5 (0.67%) SAP Payroll
8 4 (0.54%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.54%) Temenos T24
9 3 (0.40%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 2 (0.27%) BambooHR
10 2 (0.27%) Sprinklr
11 1 (0.13%) Endur
11 1 (0.13%) ResourceLink
11 1 (0.13%) SAP CAR
11 1 (0.13%) SAP CRM
11 1 (0.13%) SAP ERP
11 1 (0.13%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 82 (10.98%) Azure
2 51 (6.83%) Power Platform
3 45 (6.02%) AWS
4 44 (5.89%) GCP
5 24 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (2.81%) GitHub
7 20 (2.68%) Dynamics 365
8 17 (2.28%) Snowflake
9 16 (2.14%) Microsoft 365
10 14 (1.87%) GitHub Actions
11 13 (1.74%) SaaS
12 12 (1.61%) Google Workspace
13 11 (1.47%) Figma
14 10 (1.34%) Entra ID
14 10 (1.34%) Miro
15 9 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
15 9 (1.20%) BigCommerce
15 9 (1.20%) Cloud Run
15 9 (1.20%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
15 9 (1.20%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.01%) RFID
2 14 (1.87%) VPN
3 11 (1.47%) WAN
3 11 (1.47%) Wireless
4 10 (1.34%) Firewall
5 8 (1.07%) NFC
6 7 (0.94%) LAN
7 6 (0.80%) Cisco Nexus
7 6 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.67%) BGP
8 5 (0.67%) OSPF
9 4 (0.54%) EIGRP
9 4 (0.54%) VoIP
10 3 (0.40%) MPLS
11 2 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
11 2 (0.27%) Cisco Firepower
11 2 (0.27%) Network Security
11 2 (0.27%) SAN
11 2 (0.27%) SD-WAN
11 2 (0.27%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (5.76%) Power BI
2 25 (3.35%) BigQuery
3 17 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (1.74%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.61%) MySQL
6 11 (1.47%) Tableau
7 8 (1.07%) Metadata
8 7 (0.94%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.94%) Data Vault
9 6 (0.80%) Delta Lake
10 5 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.67%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.54%) NoSQL
11 4 (0.54%) Redis
11 4 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.40%) Looker
12 3 (0.40%) OLAP
12 3 (0.40%) Oracle OLAP
12 3 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 68 (9.10%) JIRA
2 9 (1.20%) Git
2 9 (1.20%) Jenkins
3 7 (0.94%) GitLab
4 5 (0.67%) ERwin
5 4 (0.54%) Maven
5 4 (0.54%) MLflow
6 3 (0.40%) Selenium
6 3 (0.40%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.27%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.27%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.13%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.13%) Gatling
8 1 (0.13%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.13%) Mockito
8 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.13%) Xcode
8 1 (0.13%) Zephyr
General
1 254 (34.00%) Social Skills
2 185 (24.77%) Finance
3 87 (11.65%) Analytical Skills
4 65 (8.70%) Banking
5 56 (7.50%) Marketing
6 37 (4.95%) Manufacturing
7 36 (4.82%) Organisational Skills
8 33 (4.42%) Public Sector
9 24 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
10 22 (2.95%) Influencing Skills
10 22 (2.95%) Investment Banking
11 21 (2.81%) Presentation Skills
11 21 (2.81%) Retail Banking
12 20 (2.68%) Corporate Banking
13 13 (1.74%) Telecoms
14 11 (1.47%) Legal
15 9 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 7 (0.94%) Financial Institution
16 7 (0.94%) Publishing
17 6 (0.80%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 133 (17.80%) Analyst
2 95 (12.72%) Project Manager
3 92 (12.32%) Architect
3 92 (12.32%) Senior
4 72 (9.64%) Business Analyst
5 61 (8.17%) Lead
6 40 (5.35%) Senior Manager
7 36 (4.82%) Solutions Architect
8 34 (4.55%) Consultant
9 28 (3.75%) Technical Manager
10 22 (2.95%) Senior Project Manager
11 21 (2.81%) Programme Manager
12 18 (2.41%) Data Architect
13 17 (2.28%) Service Manager
14 16 (2.14%) Developer
14 16 (2.14%) Product Manager
15 15 (2.01%) Designer
16 14 (1.87%) Data Engineer
16 14 (1.87%) IT Manager
17 13 (1.74%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.81%) VML
2 20 (2.68%) Middleware
2 20 (2.68%) REST
3 15 (2.01%) Spring
4 12 (1.61%) AngularJS
5 11 (1.47%) React
6 10 (1.34%) Spring Boot
7 9 (1.20%) PySpark
7 9 (1.20%) scikit-learn
8 8 (1.07%) .NET
8 8 (1.07%) CSS
8 8 (1.07%) HTML
8 8 (1.07%) Node.js
9 7 (0.94%) PyTorch
10 6 (0.80%) jQuery
10 6 (0.80%) LangChain
10 6 (0.80%) OpenTelemetry
11 4 (0.54%) J2EE
11 4 (0.54%) JSON
11 4 (0.54%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.96%) Product Ownership
2 27 (3.61%) Driving Licence
3 24 (3.21%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.21%) Self-Motivation
4 21 (2.81%) Onboarding
5 19 (2.54%) Data Centre
5 19 (2.54%) FMCG
5 19 (2.54%) Management Information System
6 16 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
7 15 (2.01%) Data Structures
7 15 (2.01%) EPoS
8 11 (1.47%) Mobile App
9 9 (1.20%) IoT
9 9 (1.20%) Mainframe
9 9 (1.20%) Virtual Team
10 8 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
10 8 (1.07%) Reference Data
11 7 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (0.94%) Social Media
12 6 (0.80%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 35 (4.69%) Windows
2 19 (2.54%) Linux
3 9 (1.20%) Mac OS
4 4 (0.54%) Android
4 4 (0.54%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.54%) Unix
5 3 (0.40%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.40%) zOS
6 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.13%) VMS
6 1 (0.13%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (22.89%) Stakeholder Management
2 170 (22.76%) Agile
3 147 (19.68%) Problem-Solving
4 109 (14.59%) E-Commerce
5 88 (11.78%) Migration
5 88 (11.78%) Project Management
6 81 (10.84%) Analytics
6 81 (10.84%) Roadmaps
7 73 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 68 (9.10%) Workshop Facilitation
9 66 (8.84%) Customer Experience
10 65 (8.70%) ERP
11 63 (8.43%) Continuous Improvement
12 62 (8.30%) AI
13 61 (8.17%) Project Delivery
13 61 (8.17%) Scrum
14 58 (7.76%) DevOps
15 57 (7.63%) Business Intelligence
16 56 (7.50%) Change Management
17 51 (6.83%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 58 (7.76%) SQL
2 56 (7.50%) Python
3 25 (3.35%) Java
4 18 (2.41%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.87%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.47%) Bash
7 9 (1.20%) Shell Script
8 8 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (0.94%) C#
10 4 (0.54%) VBA
11 3 (0.40%) Kotlin
11 3 (0.40%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.40%) Scala
11 3 (0.40%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.27%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.27%) Google Apps Script
12 2 (0.27%) R
12 2 (0.27%) SOQL
12 2 (0.27%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 44 (5.89%) Degree
2 23 (3.08%) Security Cleared
3 20 (2.68%) PMP
4 15 (2.01%) PMI Certification
5 9 (1.20%) SC Cleared
6 8 (1.07%) Master's Degree
7 7 (0.94%) APMP
7 7 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.94%) MBA
8 6 (0.80%) CCNP
8 6 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.80%) CISSP
8 6 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (0.67%) CSPO
10 4 (0.54%) CCIE
10 4 (0.54%) CISM
10 4 (0.54%) CRISC
10 4 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.40%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.42%) Data Quality
1 33 (4.42%) QA
2 29 (3.88%) PMO
3 18 (2.41%) SLA
4 16 (2.14%) GDPR
5 12 (1.61%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (0.80%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.54%) IFRS
8 3 (0.40%) NIST
9 2 (0.27%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.27%) NCSC
9 2 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.13%) COBIT
10 1 (0.13%) GAAP
10 1 (0.13%) GRC
10 1 (0.13%) MiFID
10 1 (0.13%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (2.28%) Docker
2 13 (1.74%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.54%) VMware NSX
4 3 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.13%) RACF
6 1 (0.13%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 22 (2.95%) Terraform
2 15 (2.01%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.94%) Grafana
3 7 (0.94%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 6 (0.80%) Argo
4 6 (0.80%) Istio
4 6 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.40%) SCCM
5 3 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (0.27%) MOM
7 1 (0.13%) Ansible
7 1 (0.13%) Cacti
7 1 (0.13%) Control-M
7 1 (0.13%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.13%) Nmap
7 1 (0.13%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.13%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.13%) zSecure
Vendors
1 69 (9.24%) Microsoft
2 61 (8.17%) SAP
3 49 (6.56%) Google
4 47 (6.29%) Oracle
5 31 (4.15%) Salesforce
6 26 (3.48%) Databricks
7 23 (3.08%) Adobe
8 14 (1.87%) ServiceNow
9 11 (1.47%) Sitecore
10 8 (1.07%) Cisco
10 8 (1.07%) Temenos
11 7 (0.94%) CheckPoint
11 7 (0.94%) VMware
11 7 (0.94%) Workday
12 6 (0.80%) Avaloq
12 6 (0.80%) GoldenSource
12 6 (0.80%) IFS
12 6 (0.80%) Palo Alto
12 6 (0.80%) Zscaler
13 5 (0.67%) F5