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

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 84 95
Rank change year-on-year -48 +11 -18
Contract jobs citing Retail 643 737 867
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.98% 2.80% 2.30%
As % of the General category 3.29% 4.48% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 387 382 506
10th Percentile £207 £268 £263
25th Percentile £404 £413 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -0.95%
75th Percentile £628 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £772 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -7.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 10 39
10th Percentile £12.95 £15.82 £10.93
25th Percentile £16.17 £18.13 £12.38
Median hourly rate £16.34 £30.75 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -46.88% +57.69% -1.56%
75th Percentile £19.50 £34.88 £21.03
90th Percentile £24.61 £39.75 £24.35
UK median hourly rate £16.34 £30.75 £19.50
% change year-on-year -46.88% +57.69% -1.56%

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 19,520 16,439 22,220
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.96% 62.54% 58.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,426 9,889 14,759
10th Percentile £288 £300 £265
25th Percentile £404 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £528 £545
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% -3.21% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,206 540 1,367
10th Percentile £14.04 £15.62 £13.30
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.24 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.00 £29.12 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.02% +11.98% +1.13%
75th Percentile £47.69 £57.50 £55.20
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.88 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £27.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -16.91% +5.77% +4.00%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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 27 January 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 -37 343 £550 - 255
South East -35 87 £520 -5.45% 407
North of England -50 75 £495 +10.00% 239
Midlands -45 69 £479 -4.25% 201
East Midlands -4 46 £495 -1.00% 104
Yorkshire -34 41 £506 +26.56% 93
East of England -15 36 £529 +0.71% 164
North West -31 32 £495 +10.00% 119
West Midlands -46 22 £275 -47.62% 97
South West -14 15 £183 -56.55% 123
North East -16 3 £213 -64.58% 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 28 (4.35%) Confluence
2 15 (2.33%) CMS
2 15 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.93%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 5 (0.78%) Camunda
5 5 (0.78%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.62%) WordPress
7 3 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.31%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.31%) SAS
9 1 (0.16%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.16%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 21 (3.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 10 (1.56%) MS Visio
3 9 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.31%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.31%) Trello
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.16%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 21 (3.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (2.02%) Shopify
3 10 (1.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (1.56%) SAP Retail
4 6 (0.93%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (0.93%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.78%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.62%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.62%) Finacle
6 4 (0.62%) Oracle Retail
6 4 (0.62%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.47%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.47%) SAP MDG
7 3 (0.47%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.31%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.31%) Magento
8 2 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.31%) SAP GTS
8 2 (0.31%) SAP MM
9 1 (0.16%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 79 (12.29%) Azure
2 40 (6.22%) Power Platform
3 38 (5.91%) AWS
4 32 (4.98%) GCP
5 21 (3.27%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (3.27%) Dynamics 365
6 16 (2.49%) GitHub
6 16 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
7 13 (2.02%) Figma
7 13 (2.02%) SaaS
7 13 (2.02%) Snowflake
8 11 (1.71%) GitHub Actions
8 11 (1.71%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
9 8 (1.24%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.24%) Vertex AI
10 7 (1.09%) BigCommerce
10 7 (1.09%) dbt
10 7 (1.09%) Serverless
10 7 (1.09%) SuccessFactors
11 6 (0.93%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.11%) RFID
2 18 (2.80%) NFC
2 18 (2.80%) Wireless
3 10 (1.56%) VPN
4 8 (1.24%) Firewall
5 7 (1.09%) WAN
6 6 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (0.62%) BGP
7 4 (0.62%) Cisco Nexus
7 4 (0.62%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.62%) OSPF
7 4 (0.62%) VoIP
8 3 (0.47%) LAN
9 2 (0.31%) MPLS
9 2 (0.31%) SAN
9 2 (0.31%) WLAN
10 1 (0.16%) Broadband
10 1 (0.16%) FTP
10 1 (0.16%) SMS
10 1 (0.16%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (4.98%) Power BI
2 20 (3.11%) BigQuery
3 18 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (2.33%) SQL Server
5 14 (2.18%) Metadata
6 13 (2.02%) Tableau
7 8 (1.24%) MySQL
8 7 (1.09%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.93%) Data Vault
10 5 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.78%) Snowflake Schema
11 4 (0.62%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.62%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.62%) Redis
11 4 (0.62%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.62%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.47%) Oracle OLAP
12 3 (0.47%) Power Query
12 3 (0.47%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 63 (9.80%) JIRA
2 12 (1.87%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.24%) GitLab
4 6 (0.93%) Git
5 5 (0.78%) ERwin
5 5 (0.78%) Selenium
6 4 (0.62%) Storybook
7 3 (0.47%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.31%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.31%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.31%) JMeter
8 2 (0.31%) JUnit
8 2 (0.31%) MLflow
8 2 (0.31%) Mockito
8 2 (0.31%) Postman
8 2 (0.31%) PowerDesigner
8 2 (0.31%) SoapUI
8 2 (0.31%) Xcode
8 2 (0.31%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.16%) WebDriver
General
1 226 (35.15%) Social Skills
2 130 (20.22%) Finance
3 76 (11.82%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (8.09%) Banking
5 49 (7.62%) Marketing
6 38 (5.91%) Organisational Skills
7 33 (5.13%) Public Sector
8 32 (4.98%) Manufacturing
9 23 (3.58%) Influencing Skills
10 21 (3.27%) Retail Banking
11 19 (2.95%) Corporate Banking
11 19 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
12 18 (2.80%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (2.64%) Investment Banking
14 16 (2.49%) Legal
15 13 (2.02%) Telecoms
16 10 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 6 (0.93%) Publishing
18 4 (0.62%) Automotive
18 4 (0.62%) Law
Job Titles
1 127 (19.75%) Analyst
2 72 (11.20%) Project Manager
3 71 (11.04%) Architect
4 68 (10.58%) Senior
5 63 (9.80%) Business Analyst
6 55 (8.55%) Lead
7 33 (5.13%) Solutions Architect
8 29 (4.51%) Consultant
9 28 (4.35%) Senior Manager
10 19 (2.95%) Product Manager
11 18 (2.80%) Programme Manager
12 17 (2.64%) Technical Manager
13 14 (2.18%) Developer
13 14 (2.18%) Support Analyst
14 13 (2.02%) Help Desk Analyst
15 12 (1.87%) SAP Consultant
15 12 (1.87%) Senior Analyst
15 12 (1.87%) Senior Project Manager
15 12 (1.87%) Service Manager
16 11 (1.71%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (3.11%) React
2 19 (2.95%) VML
3 15 (2.33%) Node.js
4 12 (1.87%) REST
5 11 (1.71%) PySpark
6 9 (1.40%) AngularJS
6 9 (1.40%) HTML
7 8 (1.24%) .NET
7 8 (1.24%) Spring
7 8 (1.24%) Spring Boot
8 7 (1.09%) OpenTelemetry
8 7 (1.09%) scikit-learn
9 6 (0.93%) LangChain
9 6 (0.93%) Middleware
10 5 (0.78%) CSS
10 5 (0.78%) Kafka
10 5 (0.78%) Matplotlib
10 5 (0.78%) RESTful
10 5 (0.78%) XGBoost
10 5 (0.78%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (5.29%) Product Ownership
2 23 (3.58%) Self-Motivation
3 22 (3.42%) Legacy Systems
4 20 (3.11%) IoT
5 19 (2.95%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.80%) Management Information System
7 17 (2.64%) FMCG
8 14 (2.18%) Cloud Native
8 14 (2.18%) Data Structures
9 13 (2.02%) Data Centre
10 12 (1.87%) EPoS
11 10 (1.56%) Mobile App
12 9 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.40%) Driving Licence
13 7 (1.09%) Social Media
14 6 (0.93%) Algorithms
14 6 (0.93%) CMDB
14 6 (0.93%) Reference Data
14 6 (0.93%) Replication
15 5 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 33 (5.13%) Windows
2 11 (1.71%) Linux
3 7 (1.09%) Mac OS
4 6 (0.93%) Android
5 5 (0.78%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.47%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.31%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.16%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.16%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.16%) VMS
8 1 (0.16%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (23.64%) Agile
2 149 (23.17%) Stakeholder Management
3 105 (16.33%) Problem-Solving
4 78 (12.13%) Project Management
5 75 (11.66%) E-Commerce
6 73 (11.35%) Analytics
7 67 (10.42%) Migration
8 65 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 59 (9.18%) Workshop Facilitation
10 57 (8.86%) Roadmaps
11 55 (8.55%) Continuous Improvement
12 51 (7.93%) Scrum
13 49 (7.62%) AI
14 47 (7.31%) Data Modelling
15 46 (7.15%) DevOps
16 44 (6.84%) Business Intelligence
17 42 (6.53%) CRM
17 42 (6.53%) Project Delivery
18 39 (6.07%) Customer Experience
18 39 (6.07%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 60 (9.33%) SQL
2 51 (7.93%) Python
3 16 (2.49%) Java
4 13 (2.02%) JavaScript
5 11 (1.71%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.56%) Bash
7 8 (1.24%) Shell Script
8 7 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
9 6 (0.93%) C#
10 5 (0.78%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.47%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.31%) ABAP
12 2 (0.31%) PHP
12 2 (0.31%) Swift
12 2 (0.31%) VBA
13 1 (0.16%) CLIST
13 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.16%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.16%) R
13 1 (0.16%) Scala
Qualifications
1 32 (4.98%) Degree
2 20 (3.11%) PMP
3 19 (2.95%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.64%) PMI Certification
5 9 (1.40%) Master's Degree
6 7 (1.09%) MBA
6 7 (1.09%) SC Cleared
7 6 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.78%) APMP
8 5 (0.78%) CISSP
9 4 (0.62%) CCIE
9 4 (0.62%) CCNP
9 4 (0.62%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.62%) CISM
9 4 (0.62%) CRISC
9 4 (0.62%) CSPO
10 3 (0.47%) GIAC
10 3 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.20%) Data Quality
2 24 (3.73%) QA
3 17 (2.64%) PMO
4 15 (2.33%) Accessibility
5 13 (2.02%) GDPR
6 12 (1.87%) SLA
7 5 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (0.62%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.47%) IFRS
9 3 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.47%) NCSC
10 2 (0.31%) COBIT
10 2 (0.31%) NIST
11 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.16%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.16%) MiFID
11 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.16%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 12 (1.87%) Docker
2 7 (1.09%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (0.47%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.16%) RACF
4 1 (0.16%) Varnish
4 1 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 18 (2.80%) Terraform
2 12 (1.87%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.93%) Argo
3 6 (0.93%) Istio
4 4 (0.62%) Grafana
4 4 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
5 3 (0.47%) SCCM
5 3 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.31%) Ansible
7 1 (0.16%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.16%) Cacti
7 1 (0.16%) Control-M
7 1 (0.16%) Nmap
7 1 (0.16%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.16%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.16%) zSecure
Vendors
1 69 (10.73%) Microsoft
2 57 (8.86%) SAP
3 42 (6.53%) Salesforce
4 39 (6.07%) Oracle
5 32 (4.98%) Google
6 18 (2.80%) Adobe
7 17 (2.64%) Databricks
8 10 (1.56%) ServiceNow
9 7 (1.09%) Sitecore
10 6 (0.93%) Apple
10 6 (0.93%) BMC
10 6 (0.93%) CheckPoint
10 6 (0.93%) F5
10 6 (0.93%) HP
10 6 (0.93%) Temenos
11 5 (0.78%) Dell
11 5 (0.78%) Dynatrace
11 5 (0.78%) Meraki
11 5 (0.78%) MicroStrategy
11 5 (0.78%) Workday