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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 102 76
Rank change year-on-year +16 -26 +13
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,279 704 1,034
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.84% 2.60% 2.80%
As % of the General category 5.13% 4.07% 4.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 773 359 576
10th Percentile £308 £308 £300
25th Percentile £419 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% - -0.94%
75th Percentile £675 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £525 £513 £520
% change year-on-year +2.44% -1.44% -2.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 38 82
10th Percentile £13.03 £15.03 £12.15
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.24
Median hourly rate £21.00 £16.30 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +28.83% - -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £25.15 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £54.20 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £16.30 £16.30
% change year-on-year +28.83% - -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 24,910 17,305 21,194
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.31% 63.84% 57.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,047 11,096 13,517
10th Percentile £313 £285 £300
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £533
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.41% -3.09%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £763 £775
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,799 887 1,721
10th Percentile £14.40 £13.25 £13.18
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.39 £16.00
Median hourly rate £33.00 £27.21 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +21.28% -17.72% +8.28%
75th Percentile £63.75 £52.08 £56.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £74.25 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £27.17 £32.50
% change year-on-year +19.63% -16.41% +6.42%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 11 July 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 +22 742 £550 - 460
South East +10 167 £525 -3.45% 282
North of England -20 159 £550 +7.32% 248
North West +3 106 £575 +15.00% 136
Midlands -17 102 £500 +9.59% 183
East of England +13 60 £550 -4.35% 101
East Midlands -4 53 £495 +7.03% 106
West Midlands -35 49 £550 +22.22% 75
Yorkshire -48 47 £513 -2.38% 88
South West -33 36 £325 -8.59% 71
North East -30 6 £173 -79.07% 28
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 35 (2.74%) Confluence
2 19 (1.49%) CMS
3 15 (1.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 10 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.55%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.31%) SAS
6 4 (0.31%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.16%) Anypoint
7 2 (0.16%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.16%) CICS
8 1 (0.078%) Apache
8 1 (0.078%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.078%) Mule
Applications
1 37 (2.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (1.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (1.02%) Chatbot
6 11 (0.86%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 10 (0.78%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.70%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.47%) InDesign
9 6 (0.47%) MS Visio
10 3 (0.23%) Notion
10 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
11 2 (0.16%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.078%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.078%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.078%) Maya
12 1 (0.078%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.078%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 31 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (2.11%) Shopify
3 12 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.78%) Oracle Retail
5 7 (0.55%) Magento
5 7 (0.55%) SAP CRM
6 6 (0.47%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.47%) SAP Retail
7 4 (0.31%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.31%) SAP MDG
7 4 (0.31%) SAP SD
8 3 (0.23%) Finacle
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 3 (0.23%) SAP CAR
8 3 (0.23%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.16%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 2 (0.16%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 158 (12.35%) Azure
2 130 (10.16%) AWS
3 74 (5.79%) GCP
4 65 (5.08%) Power Platform
5 46 (3.60%) Snowflake
6 31 (2.42%) GitHub
7 24 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
9 22 (1.72%) GitHub Actions
10 20 (1.56%) Entra ID
10 20 (1.56%) Figma
11 18 (1.41%) SaaS
12 16 (1.25%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
13 12 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
13 12 (0.94%) dbt
14 11 (0.86%) Google Workspace
14 11 (0.86%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 10 (0.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 10 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
16 9 (0.70%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.09%) WAN
2 13 (1.02%) ATM
2 13 (1.02%) Firewall
2 13 (1.02%) Network Security
2 13 (1.02%) Wireless
3 11 (0.86%) VPN
4 9 (0.70%) RFID
5 8 (0.63%) LAN
5 8 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.47%) Cisco Firepower
6 6 (0.47%) SD-WAN
7 5 (0.39%) BGP
7 5 (0.39%) Cisco ASA
7 5 (0.39%) Cisco Nexus
7 5 (0.39%) IPsec
7 5 (0.39%) OSPF
7 5 (0.39%) VSAN
8 4 (0.31%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 4 (0.31%) Internet
8 4 (0.31%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (4.93%) Power BI
2 31 (2.42%) BigQuery
3 24 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
4 20 (1.56%) MySQL
5 19 (1.49%) Tableau
6 18 (1.41%) Data Lake
6 18 (1.41%) Metadata
7 15 (1.17%) NoSQL
7 15 (1.17%) SQL Server
8 12 (0.94%) Relational Database
9 8 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
9 8 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 7 (0.55%) MongoDB
10 7 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
10 7 (0.55%) Power Query
11 6 (0.47%) Data Vault
11 6 (0.47%) Looker
11 6 (0.47%) SAP HANA
11 6 (0.47%) Semantic Layer
12 5 (0.39%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 70 (5.47%) JIRA
2 25 (1.95%) Git
3 18 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.55%) Subversion
5 4 (0.31%) Eclipse
5 4 (0.31%) Maven
6 3 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.23%) ERwin
6 3 (0.23%) GitLab
6 3 (0.23%) Selenium
7 2 (0.16%) git-flow
7 2 (0.16%) Hudson
7 2 (0.16%) JMeter
7 2 (0.16%) MLflow
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.16%) Postman
7 2 (0.16%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.16%) WebDriver
7 2 (0.16%) webpack
General
1 366 (28.62%) Social Skills
2 297 (23.22%) Finance
3 117 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (8.37%) Banking
5 89 (6.96%) Marketing
6 78 (6.10%) Manufacturing
7 57 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
8 51 (3.99%) Retail Banking
9 40 (3.13%) Investment Banking
10 38 (2.97%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (2.11%) Telecoms
12 25 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
13 24 (1.88%) Public Sector
14 23 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
15 21 (1.64%) Legal
15 21 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
16 19 (1.49%) French Language
17 18 (1.41%) Advertising
17 18 (1.41%) Spanish Language
18 13 (1.02%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 222 (17.36%) Architect
2 172 (13.45%) Analyst
3 155 (12.12%) Senior
4 122 (9.54%) Project Manager
5 116 (9.07%) Solutions Architect
6 91 (7.11%) Business Analyst
7 90 (7.04%) Lead
8 63 (4.93%) Senior Manager
9 53 (4.14%) Developer
10 47 (3.67%) Designer
11 43 (3.36%) Product Manager
12 38 (2.97%) Consultant
12 38 (2.97%) Technical Manager
13 37 (2.89%) Enterprise Architect
13 37 (2.89%) Senior Project Manager
14 30 (2.35%) Data Architect
14 30 (2.35%) Programme Manager
15 29 (2.27%) Supply Chain Architect
16 28 (2.19%) 2nd Line Support
16 28 (2.19%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (4.38%) REST
2 32 (2.50%) Middleware
3 30 (2.35%) React
4 25 (1.95%) Spring
5 22 (1.72%) VML
6 21 (1.64%) Kafka
7 18 (1.41%) Node.js
8 17 (1.33%) Spring Boot
9 16 (1.25%) HTML
10 15 (1.17%) CSS
10 15 (1.17%) MACH
10 15 (1.17%) RESTful
11 14 (1.09%) Django
11 14 (1.09%) OAuth
12 13 (1.02%) J2EE
12 13 (1.02%) SOAP
13 11 (0.86%) .NET
14 9 (0.70%) AngularJS
14 9 (0.70%) OAuth2
15 8 (0.63%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 76 (5.94%) Product Ownership
2 53 (4.14%) FMCG
3 42 (3.28%) Onboarding
4 41 (3.21%) EPoS
5 37 (2.89%) Cloud Native
6 29 (2.27%) Driving Licence
7 28 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
8 26 (2.03%) Data Centre
9 23 (1.80%) Data Structures
9 23 (1.80%) Mobile App
10 20 (1.56%) Marketing Technology
11 19 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
12 18 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
13 15 (1.17%) Mainframe
14 14 (1.09%) Operational Technology
15 13 (1.02%) Management Information System
16 11 (0.86%) AI Agents
16 11 (0.86%) Graphic Design
16 11 (0.86%) Smartphone
16 11 (0.86%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 52 (4.07%) Windows
2 25 (1.95%) Linux
3 11 (0.86%) Android
3 11 (0.86%) Unix
4 7 (0.55%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 6 (0.47%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.39%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.31%) zOS
8 2 (0.16%) Debian
9 1 (0.078%) SUSE
9 1 (0.078%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.078%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 320 (25.02%) Stakeholder Management
2 309 (24.16%) Agile
3 202 (15.79%) E-Commerce
4 179 (14.00%) Problem-Solving
5 175 (13.68%) Migration
6 166 (12.98%) Roadmaps
7 141 (11.02%) Analytics
8 127 (9.93%) Customer Experience
9 124 (9.70%) AI
10 110 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 106 (8.29%) Project Management
12 99 (7.74%) CRM
12 99 (7.74%) Logistics
13 96 (7.51%) Decision-Making
14 95 (7.43%) CI/CD
14 95 (7.43%) Continuous Improvement
14 95 (7.43%) ERP
15 92 (7.19%) Project Delivery
16 89 (6.96%) Business Intelligence
17 85 (6.65%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 103 (8.05%) SQL
2 84 (6.57%) Python
3 52 (4.07%) Java
4 25 (1.95%) JavaScript
5 23 (1.80%) TypeScript
6 11 (0.86%) C#
7 10 (0.78%) PowerShell
8 8 (0.63%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.55%) ABAP
9 7 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 6 (0.47%) Bicep
10 6 (0.47%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.47%) R
10 6 (0.47%) Scala
11 5 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 5 (0.39%) Bash
11 5 (0.39%) Groovy
11 5 (0.39%) SOQL
12 4 (0.31%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 62 (4.85%) Degree
2 37 (2.89%) Security Cleared
3 22 (1.72%) SC Cleared
4 17 (1.33%) PMP
5 10 (0.78%) DBS Check
6 9 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (0.70%) CISSP
6 9 (0.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (0.63%) PMI Certification
8 7 (0.55%) CISM
9 6 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (0.39%) CCNP
10 5 (0.39%) CCSE
10 5 (0.39%) CCSM
10 5 (0.39%) CSPO
11 4 (0.31%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.31%) City & Guilds
12 3 (0.23%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.23%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (4.38%) QA
2 51 (3.99%) Data Quality
3 39 (3.05%) GDPR
4 28 (2.19%) PMO
5 21 (1.64%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.33%) PCI DSS
7 11 (0.86%) SLA
8 9 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.55%) NIST
10 3 (0.23%) GAAP
10 3 (0.23%) IFRS
10 3 (0.23%) PSD2
11 2 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.16%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.16%) GRC
11 2 (0.16%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.16%) WCAG
12 1 (0.078%) COBIT
12 1 (0.078%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 29 (2.27%) Docker
2 24 (1.88%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.23%) Firmware
7 2 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 35 (2.74%) Terraform
2 27 (2.11%) Kubernetes
3 14 (1.09%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 8 (0.63%) Ansible
5 6 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.47%) SCCM
6 5 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.31%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.23%) Grafana
9 2 (0.16%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.16%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.16%) CA Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.16%) MOM
9 2 (0.16%) PingFederate
10 1 (0.078%) Argo
10 1 (0.078%) CloudHub
10 1 (0.078%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.078%) Istio
10 1 (0.078%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 104 (8.13%) Microsoft
2 90 (7.04%) SAP
3 72 (5.63%) Oracle
4 59 (4.61%) Salesforce
5 53 (4.14%) Databricks
6 51 (3.99%) Google
7 37 (2.89%) Adobe
8 21 (1.64%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.17%) MuleSoft
10 14 (1.09%) IFS
10 14 (1.09%) Zscaler
11 13 (1.02%) Cisco
12 12 (0.94%) VMware
13 11 (0.86%) Fortinet
13 11 (0.86%) Palo Alto
14 10 (0.78%) IBM
14 10 (0.78%) Sitecore
14 10 (0.78%) Splunk
14 10 (0.78%) Workday
15 9 (0.70%) JDA