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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 110 90
Rank change year-on-year +33 -20 +5
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,500 694 824
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.22% 2.48% 2.55%
As % of the General category 5.73% 3.87% 4.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 865 379 442
10th Percentile £350 £300 £285
25th Percentile £456 £425 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% - -
75th Percentile £675 £638 £638
90th Percentile £745 £740 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 121 62 24
10th Percentile £12.76 £15.25 £12.78
25th Percentile £13.45 £15.48 £16.00
Median hourly rate £15.24 £16.34 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% +0.21% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £19.50 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £25.15 £50.13
UK median hourly rate £15.04 £16.34 £16.30
% change year-on-year -7.93% +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 26,178 17,926 18,958
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.23% 64.16% 58.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,313 11,375 11,385
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.19% -3.09%
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 2,344 1,026 885
10th Percentile £13.51 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.75 £16.17 £17.50
Median hourly rate £29.50 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.30% -32.93% +29.87%
75th Percentile £56.21 £45.00 £61.43
90th Percentile £78.54 £69.65 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £28.50 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +13.32% -28.14% +27.27%

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 1 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 +45 833 £575 +4.55% 1,906
North of England -7 199 £550 +10.00% 611
South East -6 163 £588 +6.82% 558
Midlands +33 160 £550 +29.41% 441
North West +12 125 £550 +10.00% 336
East Midlands +20 90 £500 +17.86% 208
East of England +7 78 £550 -6.38% 218
West Midlands +10 69 £575 +35.29% 233
Yorkshire -37 56 £500 -4.76% 236
South West -14 52 £430 +36.51% 188
North East -23 18 £525 +288.89% 47
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 49 (3.27%) Confluence
2 22 (1.47%) CMS
3 20 (1.33%) SharePoint
4 18 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.60%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.33%) SAS
7 4 (0.27%) Apache
7 4 (0.27%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.27%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.13%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.13%) CICS
8 2 (0.13%) WordPress
9 1 (0.067%) Mendix
9 1 (0.067%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.067%) Mule
9 1 (0.067%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 71 (4.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 50 (3.33%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (1.00%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 12 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
6 11 (0.73%) 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 (0.27%) Notion
11 3 (0.20%) Chatbot
12 1 (0.067%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.067%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.067%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.067%) SOLIDWORKS
12 1 (0.067%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 55 (3.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.73%) Shopify
3 13 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.60%) Oracle Retail
4 9 (0.60%) SAP Retail
5 8 (0.53%) Magento
6 7 (0.47%) SAP CRM
7 6 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.40%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.33%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.33%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
9 4 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.27%) SAP CAR
9 4 (0.27%) SAP SD
10 3 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.20%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 206 (13.73%) Azure
2 149 (9.93%) AWS
3 78 (5.20%) Power Platform
4 73 (4.87%) GCP
5 54 (3.60%) Snowflake
6 50 (3.33%) GitHub
7 39 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
8 32 (2.13%) Entra ID
9 31 (2.07%) GitHub Actions
10 27 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
10 27 (1.80%) SaaS
11 24 (1.60%) dbt
12 20 (1.33%) Figma
13 18 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
14 17 (1.13%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
15 16 (1.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 16 (1.07%) Microsoft 365
16 14 (0.93%) OCI
17 11 (0.73%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 9 (0.60%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.47%) WAN
2 21 (1.40%) Firewall
3 17 (1.13%) VPN
4 14 (0.93%) ATM
4 14 (0.93%) Network Security
5 13 (0.87%) LAN
5 13 (0.87%) Wireless
6 12 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (0.47%) BGP
7 7 (0.47%) Internet
7 7 (0.47%) IPsec
7 7 (0.47%) OSPF
7 7 (0.47%) SD-WAN
8 6 (0.40%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 6 (0.40%) Structured Cabling
8 6 (0.40%) VLAN
9 5 (0.33%) DNS
10 4 (0.27%) Broadband
10 4 (0.27%) Cisco Firepower
10 4 (0.27%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 77 (5.13%) Power BI
2 41 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
3 29 (1.93%) BigQuery
4 28 (1.87%) Data Lake
5 22 (1.47%) SQL Server
6 20 (1.33%) Metadata
7 19 (1.27%) MongoDB
7 19 (1.27%) Tableau
8 18 (1.20%) NoSQL
9 15 (1.00%) Amazon Redshift
9 15 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
9 15 (1.00%) SAP BW
10 14 (0.93%) Relational Database
11 13 (0.87%) MySQL
11 13 (0.87%) SAP HANA
12 12 (0.80%) Power Query
13 11 (0.73%) Redis
14 10 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 9 (0.60%) Couchbase
15 9 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 74 (4.93%) JIRA
2 22 (1.47%) Git
2 22 (1.47%) Jenkins
3 8 (0.53%) Subversion
4 7 (0.47%) Claude Code
5 5 (0.33%) Cypress.io
6 4 (0.27%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.27%) GitLab
6 4 (0.27%) JMeter
7 3 (0.20%) Hudson
7 3 (0.20%) Postman
8 2 (0.13%) git-flow
8 2 (0.13%) LSMW
8 2 (0.13%) MLflow
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.13%) Selenium
8 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.13%) webpack
9 1 (0.067%) JUnit
General
1 441 (29.40%) Social Skills
2 335 (22.33%) Finance
3 152 (10.13%) Analytical Skills
4 127 (8.47%) Marketing
5 110 (7.33%) Banking
6 106 (7.07%) Manufacturing
7 65 (4.33%) Organisational Skills
8 55 (3.67%) Retail Banking
9 37 (2.47%) Corporate Banking
9 37 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
10 36 (2.40%) Investment Banking
11 29 (1.93%) Advertising
12 28 (1.87%) Legal
12 28 (1.87%) Telecoms
13 27 (1.80%) Public Sector
14 18 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
15 17 (1.13%) French Language
15 17 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 17 (1.13%) Spanish Language
16 16 (1.07%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 261 (17.40%) Architect
2 204 (13.60%) Analyst
3 159 (10.60%) Senior
4 148 (9.87%) Solutions Architect
5 117 (7.80%) Project Manager
6 106 (7.07%) Business Analyst
7 104 (6.93%) Lead
8 76 (5.07%) Developer
9 52 (3.47%) Product Manager
10 51 (3.40%) Consultant
11 50 (3.33%) Designer
12 42 (2.80%) Supply Chain Architect
13 41 (2.73%) Senior Manager
14 33 (2.20%) Data Analyst
15 32 (2.13%) Senior Developer
16 30 (2.00%) Enterprise Architect
17 27 (1.80%) Data Architect
17 27 (1.80%) Technical Manager
18 26 (1.73%) Data Engineer
19 25 (1.67%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (4.33%) REST
2 47 (3.13%) Terraform
3 40 (2.67%) Kafka
4 39 (2.60%) React
5 30 (2.00%) Spring
6 26 (1.73%) Spring Boot
7 24 (1.60%) Middleware
7 24 (1.60%) Node.js
8 22 (1.47%) Django
9 21 (1.40%) MACH
9 21 (1.40%) RESTful
10 20 (1.33%) SOAP
11 17 (1.13%) SAP Fiori
11 17 (1.13%) VML
12 16 (1.07%) Next.js
13 15 (1.00%) HTML
14 13 (0.87%) SAPUI5
15 11 (0.73%) .NET
15 11 (0.73%) CSS
15 11 (0.73%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 73 (4.87%) Product Ownership
2 70 (4.67%) FMCG
3 57 (3.80%) EPoS
4 52 (3.47%) Onboarding
5 50 (3.33%) Cloud Native
6 33 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (2.00%) Management Information System
7 30 (2.00%) Mobile App
8 27 (1.80%) Greenfield Project
9 26 (1.73%) Data Centre
9 26 (1.73%) Driving Licence
10 23 (1.53%) Data Structures
10 23 (1.53%) Marketing Technology
11 21 (1.40%) Operational Technology
12 20 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
13 17 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.13%) Smartphone
14 15 (1.00%) IoT
15 14 (0.93%) Credit Risk
15 14 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 48 (3.20%) Windows
2 16 (1.07%) Linux
3 12 (0.80%) Android
4 7 (0.47%) Apple iOS
4 7 (0.47%) Mac OS
4 7 (0.47%) Unix
5 6 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.40%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.27%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.20%) zOS
8 2 (0.13%) Debian
8 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.067%) OS/2
9 1 (0.067%) SUSE
9 1 (0.067%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.067%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 406 (27.07%) Stakeholder Management
2 340 (22.67%) Agile
3 232 (15.47%) E-Commerce
4 184 (12.27%) Migration
5 181 (12.07%) Analytics
6 174 (11.60%) Logistics
7 163 (10.87%) AI
7 163 (10.87%) Problem-Solving
8 160 (10.67%) Roadmaps
9 147 (9.80%) Decision-Making
10 132 (8.80%) CRM
11 131 (8.73%) Continuous Improvement
12 129 (8.60%) Customer Experience
13 119 (7.93%) CI/CD
14 112 (7.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 110 (7.33%) Project Management
16 106 (7.07%) Business Intelligence
16 106 (7.07%) DevOps
17 105 (7.00%) Customer Service
18 101 (6.73%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 136 (9.07%) SQL
2 105 (7.00%) Python
3 50 (3.33%) Java
4 36 (2.40%) TypeScript
5 23 (1.53%) JavaScript
6 13 (0.87%) ABAP
7 12 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 11 (0.73%) C#
9 10 (0.67%) R
10 8 (0.53%) Bash
11 7 (0.47%) PowerShell
12 6 (0.40%) Apex Code
12 6 (0.40%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.33%) Groovy
14 4 (0.27%) Bicep
14 4 (0.27%) Scala
14 4 (0.27%) Shell Script
14 4 (0.27%) SOQL
14 4 (0.27%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.13%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 59 (3.93%) Degree
2 40 (2.67%) Security Cleared
3 22 (1.47%) PMP
4 18 (1.20%) SC Cleared
5 14 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
6 11 (0.73%) PMI Certification
7 9 (0.60%) DBS Check
8 6 (0.40%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (0.40%) CISSP
8 6 (0.40%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (0.33%) CISM
9 5 (0.33%) City & Guilds
9 5 (0.33%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 4 (0.27%) SAP Certification
11 3 (0.20%) APMG
11 3 (0.20%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.20%) CCSE
11 3 (0.20%) CCSM
11 3 (0.20%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (5.00%) Data Quality
2 72 (4.80%) QA
3 27 (1.80%) GDPR
4 25 (1.67%) Accessibility
5 22 (1.47%) PMO
6 13 (0.87%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.53%) SLA
8 6 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
8 6 (0.40%) NIST
9 5 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.33%) WCAG
10 3 (0.20%) PSD2
11 2 (0.13%) GAAP
11 2 (0.13%) GRC
11 2 (0.13%) IFRS
11 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.067%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.067%) GxP
12 1 (0.067%) IASME
12 1 (0.067%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 35 (2.33%) Docker
2 24 (1.60%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.87%) 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 (0.067%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (2.60%) Kubernetes
2 10 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (0.60%) Ansible
4 7 (0.47%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.33%) FortiGate
7 4 (0.27%) Bosun
8 3 (0.20%) SCCM
9 2 (0.13%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.13%) logstash
9 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.067%) Argo
10 1 (0.067%) CloudHub
10 1 (0.067%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.067%) Grafana
10 1 (0.067%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.067%) vMotion
Vendors
1 154 (10.27%) Microsoft
2 123 (8.20%) SAP
3 77 (5.13%) Salesforce
4 74 (4.93%) Databricks
5 68 (4.53%) Oracle
6 50 (3.33%) Google
7 37 (2.47%) Adobe
8 25 (1.67%) MuleSoft
9 24 (1.60%) Zscaler
10 18 (1.20%) Cisco
10 18 (1.20%) IBM
11 17 (1.13%) Workday
12 13 (0.87%) New Relic
13 12 (0.80%) Apple
13 12 (0.80%) ServiceNow
13 12 (0.80%) Splunk
14 11 (0.73%) Braze
14 11 (0.73%) Fortinet
15 10 (0.67%) Palo Alto
15 10 (0.67%) VMware
3,949 Retail jobs in England