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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 109 88
Rank change year-on-year +33 -21 +2
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,510 685 842
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.26% 2.50% 2.59%
As % of the General category 5.84% 3.89% 4.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 869 367 461
10th Percentile £325 £300 £285
25th Percentile £456 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% - -
75th Percentile £675 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £743 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 62 32
10th Percentile £12.76 £15.25 £12.15
25th Percentile £13.45 £15.48 £15.78
Median hourly rate £15.50 £16.34 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -5.11% +0.21% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £19.50 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £25.15 £37.89
UK median hourly rate £15.24 £16.34 £16.30
% change year-on-year -6.70% +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 25,874 17,612 18,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.90% 64.23% 58.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,203 11,142 11,529
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
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 2,256 1,011 945
10th Percentile £13.63 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £16.17 £17.50
Median hourly rate £31.16 £25.15 £38.85
Median % change year-on-year +23.88% -35.26% +33.97%
75th Percentile £57.00 £46.47 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £72.10
UK median hourly rate £29.78 £25.15 £35.36
% change year-on-year +18.41% -28.87% +28.58%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +43 838 £568 +3.18% 1,493
North of England -11 199 £550 +10.00% 520
South East +5 167 £575 +4.55% 497
Midlands +34 160 £550 +29.41% 353
North West +10 124 £550 +10.00% 291
East Midlands +22 92 £500 +17.86% 160
East of England +6 81 £544 -7.45% 179
West Midlands -1 67 £575 +35.29% 193
Yorkshire -45 57 £500 -4.76% 180
South West -20 49 £400 +26.98% 163
North East -22 18 £525 +288.89% 54
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 50 (3.31%) Confluence
2 22 (1.46%) CMS
3 15 (0.99%) SharePoint
4 13 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.33%) SAS
7 4 (0.26%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.26%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.20%) Apache
9 2 (0.13%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.13%) CICS
9 2 (0.13%) WordPress
10 1 (0.066%) Mendix
10 1 (0.066%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.066%) Mule
10 1 (0.066%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 65 (4.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (3.25%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.99%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 12 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.66%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 8 (0.53%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.40%) CPLEX
9 6 (0.40%) InDesign
10 4 (0.26%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.26%) Notion
11 1 (0.066%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.066%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.066%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.066%) SOLIDWORKS
11 1 (0.066%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 49 (3.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (1.66%) Shopify
3 14 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.66%) Oracle Retail
5 8 (0.53%) Magento
5 8 (0.53%) SAP Retail
6 6 (0.40%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.40%) SAP CRM
7 5 (0.33%) SAP MDG
7 5 (0.33%) Workday HCM
8 4 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.26%) SAP SD
9 3 (0.20%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.20%) SAP IBP
9 3 (0.20%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 205 (13.58%) Azure
2 143 (9.47%) AWS
3 75 (4.97%) Power Platform
4 74 (4.90%) GCP
5 55 (3.64%) Snowflake
6 48 (3.18%) GitHub
7 37 (2.45%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (2.25%) Entra ID
9 29 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
10 26 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
10 26 (1.72%) SaaS
11 20 (1.32%) Figma
12 18 (1.19%) dbt
13 17 (1.13%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 16 (1.06%) Azure Data Factory
15 15 (0.99%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 15 (0.99%) Microsoft 365
15 15 (0.99%) OCI
16 13 (0.86%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 8 (0.53%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.46%) Firewall
1 22 (1.46%) WAN
2 17 (1.13%) VPN
3 14 (0.93%) ATM
3 14 (0.93%) Network Security
3 14 (0.93%) Wireless
4 13 (0.86%) LAN
5 12 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
6 8 (0.53%) BGP
6 8 (0.53%) IPsec
6 8 (0.53%) OSPF
7 7 (0.46%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 7 (0.46%) Internet
7 7 (0.46%) SD-WAN
7 7 (0.46%) VLAN
8 6 (0.40%) Structured Cabling
9 5 (0.33%) DNS
10 4 (0.26%) Broadband
10 4 (0.26%) Cisco Firepower
10 4 (0.26%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (4.97%) Power BI
2 39 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
3 34 (2.25%) BigQuery
4 27 (1.79%) Data Lake
5 21 (1.39%) Metadata
5 21 (1.39%) SQL Server
6 19 (1.26%) MongoDB
6 19 (1.26%) NoSQL
7 17 (1.13%) Tableau
8 14 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
8 14 (0.93%) Relational Database
9 13 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
9 13 (0.86%) Power Query
10 12 (0.79%) MySQL
11 11 (0.73%) Redis
12 10 (0.66%) SAP BW
12 10 (0.66%) SAP HANA
12 10 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 9 (0.60%) Couchbase
14 8 (0.53%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 77 (5.10%) JIRA
2 22 (1.46%) Git
3 20 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.53%) Subversion
5 7 (0.46%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.33%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.26%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.26%) GitLab
7 4 (0.26%) Hudson
7 4 (0.26%) JMeter
8 3 (0.20%) Postman
9 2 (0.13%) git-flow
9 2 (0.13%) MLflow
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.13%) Selenium
9 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.13%) webpack
10 1 (0.066%) MSI
10 1 (0.066%) Toad
General
1 444 (29.40%) Social Skills
2 341 (22.58%) Finance
3 158 (10.46%) Analytical Skills
4 127 (8.41%) Marketing
5 113 (7.48%) Banking
6 106 (7.02%) Manufacturing
7 68 (4.50%) Organisational Skills
8 56 (3.71%) Retail Banking
9 38 (2.52%) Corporate Banking
10 37 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
10 37 (2.45%) Investment Banking
11 28 (1.85%) Advertising
11 28 (1.85%) Telecoms
12 27 (1.79%) Legal
12 27 (1.79%) Public Sector
13 22 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
14 18 (1.19%) French Language
14 18 (1.19%) Spanish Language
15 17 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 16 (1.06%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 266 (17.62%) Architect
2 207 (13.71%) Analyst
3 163 (10.79%) Senior
4 150 (9.93%) Solutions Architect
5 117 (7.75%) Project Manager
6 111 (7.35%) Business Analyst
7 106 (7.02%) Lead
8 78 (5.17%) Developer
9 52 (3.44%) Product Manager
10 49 (3.25%) Consultant
10 49 (3.25%) Designer
11 45 (2.98%) Senior Manager
12 42 (2.78%) Supply Chain Architect
13 33 (2.19%) Senior Developer
14 32 (2.12%) Data Architect
15 31 (2.05%) Technical Manager
16 30 (1.99%) Data Analyst
16 30 (1.99%) Enterprise Architect
17 26 (1.72%) 2nd Line Support
17 26 (1.72%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (4.11%) REST
2 49 (3.25%) Terraform
3 38 (2.52%) React
4 37 (2.45%) Kafka
5 28 (1.85%) Spring
6 25 (1.66%) Spring Boot
7 24 (1.59%) Node.js
8 23 (1.52%) Middleware
9 21 (1.39%) Django
9 21 (1.39%) MACH
10 19 (1.26%) RESTful
10 19 (1.26%) VML
11 18 (1.19%) SOAP
12 16 (1.06%) HTML
12 16 (1.06%) Next.js
13 13 (0.86%) SAP Fiori
14 12 (0.79%) CSS
14 12 (0.79%) OAuth
15 10 (0.66%) .NET
15 10 (0.66%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 74 (4.90%) Product Ownership
2 70 (4.64%) FMCG
3 57 (3.77%) EPoS
4 53 (3.51%) Onboarding
5 46 (3.05%) Cloud Native
6 34 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
7 28 (1.85%) Management Information System
8 27 (1.79%) Driving Licence
8 27 (1.79%) Mobile App
9 26 (1.72%) Data Centre
10 25 (1.66%) Greenfield Project
11 24 (1.59%) Data Structures
12 22 (1.46%) Marketing Technology
12 22 (1.46%) Operational Technology
13 20 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
14 19 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
15 17 (1.13%) Smartphone
16 16 (1.06%) Mainframe
17 15 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
17 15 (0.99%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 50 (3.31%) Windows
2 16 (1.06%) Linux
3 12 (0.79%) Android
4 7 (0.46%) Apple iOS
4 7 (0.46%) Mac OS
4 7 (0.46%) Unix
5 6 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.40%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.26%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.13%) Debian
7 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.13%) zOS
8 1 (0.066%) OS/2
8 1 (0.066%) SUSE
8 1 (0.066%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.066%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 411 (27.22%) Stakeholder Management
2 345 (22.85%) Agile
3 226 (14.97%) E-Commerce
4 187 (12.38%) Migration
5 179 (11.85%) Analytics
6 173 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
7 172 (11.39%) Logistics
8 163 (10.79%) AI
8 163 (10.79%) Roadmaps
9 140 (9.27%) Decision-Making
10 135 (8.94%) Continuous Improvement
10 135 (8.94%) Customer Experience
11 126 (8.34%) CRM
12 120 (7.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 116 (7.68%) CI/CD
14 113 (7.48%) Project Management
15 108 (7.15%) Customer Service
16 106 (7.02%) Business Intelligence
17 105 (6.95%) DevOps
18 101 (6.69%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 128 (8.48%) SQL
2 101 (6.69%) Python
3 49 (3.25%) Java
4 35 (2.32%) TypeScript
5 22 (1.46%) JavaScript
6 13 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 11 (0.73%) ABAP
8 10 (0.66%) C#
8 10 (0.66%) R
9 8 (0.53%) Bash
10 7 (0.46%) PowerShell
11 6 (0.40%) Apex Code
11 6 (0.40%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.33%) Groovy
12 5 (0.33%) Scala
13 4 (0.26%) Bicep
13 4 (0.26%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.26%) SOQL
13 4 (0.26%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.13%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 59 (3.91%) Degree
2 44 (2.91%) Security Cleared
3 22 (1.46%) PMP
4 20 (1.32%) SC Cleared
5 11 (0.73%) ITIL Certification
5 11 (0.73%) PMI Certification
6 10 (0.66%) DBS Check
7 6 (0.40%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (0.40%) CISSP
8 5 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (0.33%) CISM
8 5 (0.33%) City & Guilds
8 5 (0.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (0.33%) Six Sigma Green Belt
9 4 (0.26%) CSPO
10 3 (0.20%) APMG
10 3 (0.20%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.20%) CCSM
10 3 (0.20%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 3 (0.20%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (4.64%) QA
2 66 (4.37%) Data Quality
3 30 (1.99%) GDPR
4 24 (1.59%) Accessibility
4 24 (1.59%) PMO
5 14 (0.93%) PCI DSS
6 8 (0.53%) SLA
7 7 (0.46%) NIST
8 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (0.33%) WCAG
10 3 (0.20%) GRC
10 3 (0.20%) PSD2
11 2 (0.13%) GAAP
11 2 (0.13%) IFRS
11 2 (0.13%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.066%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.066%) GxP
12 1 (0.066%) IASME
System Software
1 35 (2.32%) Docker
2 27 (1.79%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.33%) Firmware
5 5 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.066%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (2.52%) Kubernetes
2 11 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (0.66%) Ansible
4 7 (0.46%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.40%) FortiGate
5 6 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.26%) Bosun
6 4 (0.26%) SCCM
7 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.13%) AirWatch
7 2 (0.13%) CA Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.13%) logstash
7 2 (0.13%) PingFederate
7 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.066%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.066%) CSIRT
8 1 (0.066%) Grafana
8 1 (0.066%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.066%) vMotion
Vendors
1 147 (9.74%) Microsoft
2 118 (7.81%) SAP
3 82 (5.43%) Salesforce
4 78 (5.17%) Databricks
5 71 (4.70%) Oracle
6 49 (3.25%) Google
7 37 (2.45%) Adobe
8 25 (1.66%) MuleSoft
8 25 (1.66%) Zscaler
9 18 (1.19%) Cisco
9 18 (1.19%) Workday
10 17 (1.13%) ServiceNow
11 15 (0.99%) IBM
12 13 (0.86%) Apple
12 13 (0.86%) New Relic
13 12 (0.79%) Fortinet
14 11 (0.73%) Braze
14 11 (0.73%) Palo Alto
14 11 (0.73%) Splunk
15 10 (0.66%) IFS
3,173 Retail jobs in England