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 5 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 131 83 95
Rank change year-on-year -48 +12 -28
Contract jobs citing Retail 683 834 922
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.19% 2.72% 2.42%
As % of the General category 3.49% 4.49% 4.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 403 451 522
10th Percentile £206 £264 £281
25th Percentile £400 £413 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £644
90th Percentile £737 £773 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 10 30
10th Percentile £14.73 £16.05 £15.33
25th Percentile £15.48 £18.13 £19.06
Median hourly rate £16.34 £32.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -49.74% +64.06% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £37.88 £21.12
90th Percentile £25.15 £49.38 £29.75
UK median hourly rate £16.34 £32.50 £19.81
% change year-on-year -49.74% +64.06% -

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,567 18,586 22,759
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 62.80% 60.55% 59.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,456 11,217 15,436
10th Percentile £277 £300 £290
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £626 £650 £667
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,255 671 1,035
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.25 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.00 £17.23
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.76% -6.31% +26.41%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.51 £60.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £72.50 £70.59
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £27.50 £31.71
% change year-on-year -12.73% -13.28% +26.84%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 -32 360 £525 -5.66% 188
South East -13 98 £525 -4.55% 255
North of England -52 73 £500 +8.11% 167
Midlands -39 57 £438 -12.50% 131
East of England -10 44 £595 +10.70% 72
East Midlands 0 38 £438 -12.50% 59
Yorkshire -31 35 £525 +16.67% 72
North West -29 33 £500 +9.59% 74
South West +4 29 £183 -55.38% 55
West Midlands -49 18 £450 -16.28% 71
North East -4 6 £206 -65.63% 22
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 25 (3.66%) Confluence
2 17 (2.49%) CMS
3 13 (1.90%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.88%) Camunda
6 5 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.73%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.59%) WordPress
8 2 (0.29%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.15%) Appian
9 1 (0.15%) SAS
9 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 27 (3.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (2.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (1.76%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.44%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.44%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.15%) Trello
6 1 (0.15%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 29 (4.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.76%) Shopify
3 8 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (1.17%) Oracle Retail
3 8 (1.17%) SAP Retail
4 6 (0.88%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.73%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.73%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.59%) SAP GTS
6 4 (0.59%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.44%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.44%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.29%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.29%) Magento
8 2 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.29%) Sprinklr
9 1 (0.15%) Avolution ABACUS
9 1 (0.15%) OpenText VIM for SAP
Cloud Services
1 76 (11.13%) Azure
2 40 (5.86%) Power Platform
3 39 (5.71%) AWS
4 24 (3.51%) GCP
5 22 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
5 22 (3.22%) Dynamics 365
6 14 (2.05%) Microsoft 365
6 14 (2.05%) SaaS
7 10 (1.46%) Entra ID
7 10 (1.46%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
8 9 (1.32%) Figma
8 9 (1.32%) Power Automate
8 9 (1.32%) Snowflake
8 9 (1.32%) Vertex AI
9 7 (1.02%) GitHub
9 7 (1.02%) OCI
9 7 (1.02%) Serverless
9 7 (1.02%) SuccessFactors
10 6 (0.88%) Microsoft Copilot
10 6 (0.88%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.78%) RFID
2 18 (2.64%) NFC
2 18 (2.64%) Wireless
3 10 (1.46%) VPN
4 8 (1.17%) Firewall
4 8 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
5 6 (0.88%) WAN
6 4 (0.59%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (0.59%) LAN
7 3 (0.44%) BGP
7 3 (0.44%) Broadband
7 3 (0.44%) EIGRP
7 3 (0.44%) OSPF
7 3 (0.44%) VoIP
8 2 (0.29%) DNS
8 2 (0.29%) Network Security
8 2 (0.29%) SAN
9 1 (0.15%) HTTPS
9 1 (0.15%) Intranet
9 1 (0.15%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (4.83%) Power BI
2 13 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
3 12 (1.76%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.76%) Metadata
4 11 (1.61%) SQL Server
4 11 (1.61%) Tableau
5 6 (0.88%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.59%) Power Query
6 4 (0.59%) Redis
6 4 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.44%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.44%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.44%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.44%) SAP BW
7 3 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
7 3 (0.44%) Star Schema
8 2 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.29%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 46 (6.73%) JIRA
2 15 (2.20%) Git
3 9 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.59%) Selenium
4 4 (0.59%) Storybook
5 3 (0.44%) Postman
6 2 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.29%) ERwin
6 2 (0.29%) JUnit
6 2 (0.29%) MLflow
6 2 (0.29%) PowerDesigner
6 2 (0.29%) SoapUI
6 2 (0.29%) Xcode
7 1 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.15%) JMeter
7 1 (0.15%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.15%) Maven
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.15%) Subversion
7 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 248 (36.31%) Social Skills
2 142 (20.79%) Finance
3 79 (11.57%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (8.78%) Banking
5 55 (8.05%) Marketing
6 41 (6.00%) Manufacturing
7 39 (5.71%) Public Sector
8 34 (4.98%) Organisational Skills
9 31 (4.54%) Retail Banking
10 28 (4.10%) Investment Banking
11 27 (3.95%) Corporate Banking
12 24 (3.51%) Legal
13 20 (2.93%) Influencing Skills
14 17 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 16 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
15 16 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
16 10 (1.46%) Telecoms
17 9 (1.32%) Automotive
18 7 (1.02%) Advertising
18 7 (1.02%) Law
Job Titles
1 135 (19.77%) Analyst
2 76 (11.13%) Architect
3 70 (10.25%) Project Manager
4 56 (8.20%) Senior
5 55 (8.05%) Business Analyst
6 50 (7.32%) Lead
7 35 (5.12%) Solutions Architect
8 29 (4.25%) Consultant
9 23 (3.37%) Senior Manager
10 20 (2.93%) Programme Manager
11 19 (2.78%) Administrator
11 19 (2.78%) Developer
12 17 (2.49%) Product Manager
13 13 (1.90%) Data Analyst
13 13 (1.90%) Senior Analyst
14 12 (1.76%) Help Desk Analyst
14 12 (1.76%) Product Owner
14 12 (1.76%) Support Analyst
15 11 (1.61%) Service Analyst
16 10 (1.46%) Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.78%) React
2 15 (2.20%) REST
3 14 (2.05%) HTML
3 14 (2.05%) Node.js
4 11 (1.61%) VML
5 10 (1.46%) .NET
6 9 (1.32%) CSS
6 9 (1.32%) PySpark
7 8 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
8 7 (1.02%) React Native
8 7 (1.02%) scikit-learn
9 6 (0.88%) RESTful
10 5 (0.73%) CSS3
10 5 (0.73%) HTML5
10 5 (0.73%) Kafka
10 5 (0.73%) Matplotlib
10 5 (0.73%) PyTorch
10 5 (0.73%) XGBoost
10 5 (0.73%) XML
11 4 (0.59%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 35 (5.12%) Product Ownership
2 23 (3.37%) Legacy Systems
2 23 (3.37%) Self-Motivation
3 22 (3.22%) IoT
4 19 (2.78%) Mobile App
4 19 (2.78%) Onboarding
5 18 (2.64%) EPoS
6 15 (2.20%) FMCG
7 11 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (1.61%) Cloud Native
7 11 (1.61%) Management Information System
8 10 (1.46%) Data Centre
9 9 (1.32%) Data Structures
10 8 (1.17%) Algorithms
10 8 (1.17%) Driving Licence
11 7 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
12 6 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (0.88%) Replication
12 6 (0.88%) Social Media
13 5 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 40 (5.86%) Windows
2 8 (1.17%) Linux
3 7 (1.02%) Mac OS
4 6 (0.88%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.44%) Android
5 3 (0.44%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.29%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.15%) VMS
7 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (22.69%) Stakeholder Management
2 154 (22.55%) Agile
3 97 (14.20%) Problem-Solving
4 78 (11.42%) E-Commerce
5 72 (10.54%) Project Management
6 71 (10.40%) Analytics
7 63 (9.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 59 (8.64%) Roadmaps
9 55 (8.05%) Continuous Improvement
9 55 (8.05%) Customer Experience
10 51 (7.47%) CRM
11 50 (7.32%) Migration
11 50 (7.32%) Workshop Facilitation
12 48 (7.03%) AI
12 48 (7.03%) DevOps
13 44 (6.44%) ERP
14 43 (6.30%) Project Delivery
15 42 (6.15%) Business Intelligence
15 42 (6.15%) Data Modelling
15 42 (6.15%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 61 (8.93%) Python
2 52 (7.61%) SQL
3 19 (2.78%) JavaScript
4 12 (1.76%) Java
4 12 (1.76%) PowerShell
5 10 (1.46%) Bash
6 8 (1.17%) C#
6 8 (1.17%) TypeScript
7 7 (1.02%) Kusto Query Language
8 3 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.44%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.29%) ABAP
9 2 (0.29%) PHP
9 2 (0.29%) R
9 2 (0.29%) Swift
9 2 (0.29%) VBA
10 1 (0.15%) CLIST
10 1 (0.15%) Go
10 1 (0.15%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.15%) Scala
Qualifications
1 32 (4.69%) Degree
2 19 (2.78%) PMP
3 17 (2.49%) PMI Certification
4 13 (1.90%) Security Cleared
5 9 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (0.88%) Master's Degree
7 5 (0.73%) CISSP
8 4 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.44%) ACCA
9 3 (0.44%) CCIE
9 3 (0.44%) CCNP
9 3 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.44%) CISM
9 3 (0.44%) CRISC
9 3 (0.44%) CSPO
9 3 (0.44%) GIAC
10 2 (0.29%) SC Cleared
10 2 (0.29%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 2 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.51%) QA
2 17 (2.49%) GDPR
3 14 (2.05%) Data Quality
3 14 (2.05%) SLA
4 10 (1.46%) Accessibility
5 6 (0.88%) PMO
6 5 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.44%) GRC
7 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.44%) NCSC
7 3 (0.44%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.29%) COBIT
8 2 (0.29%) IFRS
8 2 (0.29%) MiFID
8 2 (0.29%) NIST
9 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.15%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.15%) PSD2
System Software
1 11 (1.61%) Active Directory
1 11 (1.61%) Docker
2 3 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
2 3 (0.44%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.15%) RACF
4 1 (0.15%) Varnish
4 1 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 16 (2.34%) Terraform
2 12 (1.76%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.88%) Ansible
4 5 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.59%) Grafana
5 4 (0.59%) Jamf Pro
5 4 (0.59%) SCCM
5 4 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.15%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.15%) Cacti
7 1 (0.15%) Control-M
7 1 (0.15%) Nmap
7 1 (0.15%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.15%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.15%) zSecure
Vendors
1 77 (11.27%) Microsoft
2 65 (9.52%) SAP
3 43 (6.30%) Salesforce
4 37 (5.42%) Oracle
5 22 (3.22%) Google
6 15 (2.20%) Adobe
7 13 (1.90%) Databricks
8 12 (1.76%) HP
9 6 (0.88%) Apple
9 6 (0.88%) Cisco
9 6 (0.88%) Dell
9 6 (0.88%) ServiceNow
9 6 (0.88%) Splunk
9 6 (0.88%) VMware
9 6 (0.88%) Workday
10 5 (0.73%) CheckPoint
10 5 (0.73%) F5
10 5 (0.73%) Sitecore
10 5 (0.73%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.59%) Palo Alto