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

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 132 85 93
Rank change year-on-year -47 +8 -21
Contract jobs citing Retail 677 799 894
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.15% 2.77% 2.40%
As % of the General category 3.48% 4.50% 4.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 403 425 509
10th Percentile £206 £263 £275
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.62% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £644
90th Percentile £738 £759 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 9 29
10th Percentile £15.03 £17.75 £14.86
25th Percentile £15.50 £18.13 £18.50
Median hourly rate £16.34 £32.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -49.74% +64.06% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £38.75 £21.31
90th Percentile £25.15 £50.00 £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 19,441 17,763 22,199
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 61.74% 61.50% 59.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,279 10,768 15,032
10th Percentile £280 £300 £285
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £627 £650 £663
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,270 609 999
10th Percentile £14.05 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.77 £18.40 £17.18
Median hourly rate £23.50 £30.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.67% -9.09% +32.00%
75th Percentile £45.68 £58.27 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.60 £70.65
UK median hourly rate £23.58 £27.37 £33.00
% change year-on-year -13.86% -17.07% +32.00%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -33 356 £543 -1.36% 156
South East -17 98 £525 -4.55% 201
North of England -52 75 £500 +6.67% 154
Midlands -51 60 £450 -10.00% 94
East of England -15 44 £595 +10.70% 43
East Midlands -4 40 £456 -8.75% 40
Yorkshire -42 39 £513 +17.14% 58
North West -33 31 £500 +6.67% 75
South West +2 23 £183 -55.38% 49
West Midlands -53 19 £413 -15.38% 54
North East -7 6 £206 -65.63% 21
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 (3.69%) Confluence
2 18 (2.66%) SharePoint
3 17 (2.51%) CMS
4 7 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.89%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.74%) Camunda
6 5 (0.74%) Jupyter
6 5 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.59%) WordPress
8 2 (0.30%) Apache Spark
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 24 (3.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.44%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.44%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.30%) Trello
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 26 (3.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.48%) Shopify
3 8 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (1.18%) Oracle Retail
3 8 (1.18%) SAP Retail
4 6 (0.89%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.74%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.74%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.59%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.44%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.44%) SAP GTS
7 3 (0.44%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.30%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.30%) Magento
8 2 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.30%) Sprinklr
9 1 (0.15%) Avolution ABACUS
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 81 (11.96%) Azure
2 40 (5.91%) Power Platform
3 38 (5.61%) AWS
4 29 (4.28%) GCP
5 22 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (3.10%) Dynamics 365
7 17 (2.51%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (2.22%) SaaS
9 13 (1.92%) GitHub
10 11 (1.62%) Figma
10 11 (1.62%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 10 (1.48%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (1.33%) Entra ID
12 9 (1.33%) Snowflake
12 9 (1.33%) Vertex AI
13 8 (1.18%) Power Automate
14 7 (1.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 7 (1.03%) OCI
14 7 (1.03%) Serverless
14 7 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.81%) RFID
2 18 (2.66%) NFC
2 18 (2.66%) Wireless
3 11 (1.62%) VPN
4 10 (1.48%) Firewall
5 8 (1.18%) WAN
5 8 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
6 5 (0.74%) Cisco Nexus
6 5 (0.74%) LAN
7 4 (0.59%) BGP
7 4 (0.59%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.59%) OSPF
7 4 (0.59%) VoIP
8 3 (0.44%) Broadband
9 2 (0.30%) DNS
9 2 (0.30%) MPLS
9 2 (0.30%) SAN
9 2 (0.30%) WLAN
10 1 (0.15%) DHCP
10 1 (0.15%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (4.73%) Power BI
2 18 (2.66%) BigQuery
3 13 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (1.77%) Metadata
5 11 (1.62%) Tableau
6 10 (1.48%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.89%) Data Lake
8 4 (0.59%) Delta Lake
8 4 (0.59%) MongoDB
8 4 (0.59%) Power Query
8 4 (0.59%) Redis
8 4 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.44%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.44%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (0.44%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.30%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 51 (7.53%) JIRA
2 14 (2.07%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.77%) Git
4 6 (0.89%) GitLab
5 4 (0.59%) Selenium
5 4 (0.59%) Storybook
6 3 (0.44%) Postman
7 2 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.30%) ERwin
7 2 (0.30%) JMeter
7 2 (0.30%) JUnit
7 2 (0.30%) MLflow
7 2 (0.30%) Mockito
7 2 (0.30%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.30%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.30%) Xcode
7 2 (0.30%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.15%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 243 (35.89%) Social Skills
2 134 (19.79%) Finance
3 75 (11.08%) Analytical Skills
4 54 (7.98%) Marketing
5 52 (7.68%) Banking
6 42 (6.20%) Public Sector
7 38 (5.61%) Manufacturing
8 36 (5.32%) Organisational Skills
9 28 (4.14%) Retail Banking
10 24 (3.55%) Corporate Banking
11 23 (3.40%) Investment Banking
12 21 (3.10%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (3.10%) Legal
13 16 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
14 15 (2.22%) Presentation Skills
15 14 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 10 (1.48%) Telecoms
17 7 (1.03%) Automotive
18 6 (0.89%) Law
18 6 (0.89%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 127 (18.76%) Analyst
2 79 (11.67%) Architect
3 77 (11.37%) Project Manager
4 63 (9.31%) Senior
5 55 (8.12%) Business Analyst
6 50 (7.39%) Lead
7 34 (5.02%) Solutions Architect
8 26 (3.84%) Consultant
9 23 (3.40%) Senior Manager
10 20 (2.95%) Programme Manager
11 19 (2.81%) Developer
12 17 (2.51%) Product Manager
13 16 (2.36%) Administrator
14 12 (1.77%) Help Desk Analyst
14 12 (1.77%) Senior Analyst
14 12 (1.77%) Support Analyst
15 11 (1.62%) Data Analyst
15 11 (1.62%) Product Owner
15 11 (1.62%) Service Analyst
15 11 (1.62%) Technical Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.40%) React
2 18 (2.66%) Node.js
3 13 (1.92%) PySpark
3 13 (1.92%) REST
4 12 (1.77%) HTML
4 12 (1.77%) VML
5 9 (1.33%) .NET
6 8 (1.18%) AngularJS
7 7 (1.03%) CSS
7 7 (1.03%) Kafka
7 7 (1.03%) React Native
7 7 (1.03%) scikit-learn
7 7 (1.03%) Spring
7 7 (1.03%) Spring Boot
8 6 (0.89%) LangChain
8 6 (0.89%) OpenTelemetry
8 6 (0.89%) Oracle Fusion
8 6 (0.89%) RESTful
9 5 (0.74%) PyTorch
9 5 (0.74%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 36 (5.32%) Product Ownership
2 25 (3.69%) Self-Motivation
3 22 (3.25%) IoT
3 22 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
4 17 (2.51%) Mobile App
4 17 (2.51%) Onboarding
5 16 (2.36%) Cloud Native
6 15 (2.22%) EPoS
6 15 (2.22%) FMCG
7 11 (1.62%) Data Centre
7 11 (1.62%) Management Information System
8 10 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
9 9 (1.33%) Driving Licence
10 8 (1.18%) Data Structures
11 7 (1.03%) Algorithms
11 7 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
12 6 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (0.89%) Replication
12 6 (0.89%) Social Media
13 5 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.76%) Windows
2 6 (0.89%) Linux
2 6 (0.89%) Mac OS
3 5 (0.74%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.44%) Android
4 3 (0.44%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.30%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.15%) VMS
6 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (23.19%) Stakeholder Management
2 153 (22.60%) Agile
3 102 (15.07%) Problem-Solving
4 78 (11.52%) Analytics
4 78 (11.52%) E-Commerce
4 78 (11.52%) Project Management
5 58 (8.57%) Roadmaps
5 58 (8.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 57 (8.42%) Customer Experience
7 56 (8.27%) Continuous Improvement
8 52 (7.68%) DevOps
9 51 (7.53%) Migration
10 50 (7.39%) AI
11 49 (7.24%) Workshop Facilitation
12 47 (6.94%) CRM
12 47 (6.94%) Waterfall
13 46 (6.79%) ERP
13 46 (6.79%) Project Delivery
14 45 (6.65%) Data Modelling
15 41 (6.06%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 55 (8.12%) Python
2 53 (7.83%) SQL
3 16 (2.36%) JavaScript
4 13 (1.92%) Java
5 11 (1.62%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.48%) Bash
7 8 (1.18%) TypeScript
8 7 (1.03%) C#
9 6 (0.89%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.44%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.30%) ABAP
11 2 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (0.30%) PHP
11 2 (0.30%) R
11 2 (0.30%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.30%) Swift
11 2 (0.30%) VBA
12 1 (0.15%) JCL
12 1 (0.15%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.15%) ProC
Qualifications
1 29 (4.28%) Degree
2 22 (3.25%) PMP
3 19 (2.81%) PMI Certification
4 17 (2.51%) Security Cleared
5 7 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
6 6 (0.89%) Master's Degree
7 5 (0.74%) CISSP
8 4 (0.59%) CCIE
8 4 (0.59%) CCNP
8 4 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (0.59%) CSPO
8 4 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (0.59%) SC Cleared
9 3 (0.44%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.44%) CISM
9 3 (0.44%) CRISC
9 3 (0.44%) GIAC
10 2 (0.30%) APMP
10 2 (0.30%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.55%) QA
2 18 (2.66%) Data Quality
3 14 (2.07%) SLA
4 13 (1.92%) Accessibility
4 13 (1.92%) GDPR
5 11 (1.62%) PMO
6 5 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.44%) IFRS
7 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.44%) NCSC
7 3 (0.44%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.30%) COBIT
8 2 (0.30%) NIST
8 2 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.15%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.15%) MiFID
9 1 (0.15%) PSD2
9 1 (0.15%) Solvency II
System Software
1 15 (2.22%) Docker
2 9 (1.33%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (0.44%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.15%) RACF
4 1 (0.15%) Varnish
4 1 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 19 (2.81%) Terraform
2 15 (2.22%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.89%) Ansible
3 6 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (0.74%) Argo
4 5 (0.74%) Grafana
4 5 (0.74%) Istio
5 4 (0.59%) SCCM
5 4 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.30%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.15%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.15%) Cacti
8 1 (0.15%) Control-M
8 1 (0.15%) Nmap
8 1 (0.15%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.15%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.15%) zSecure
Vendors
1 73 (10.78%) Microsoft
2 60 (8.86%) SAP
3 41 (6.06%) Salesforce
4 38 (5.61%) Oracle
5 28 (4.14%) Google
6 17 (2.51%) Databricks
7 16 (2.36%) Adobe
8 10 (1.48%) HP
9 7 (1.03%) Cisco
10 6 (0.89%) CheckPoint
10 6 (0.89%) Dell
10 6 (0.89%) F5
10 6 (0.89%) Splunk
11 5 (0.74%) Apple
11 5 (0.74%) Meraki
11 5 (0.74%) ServiceNow
11 5 (0.74%) VMware
11 5 (0.74%) Workday
11 5 (0.74%) Zscaler
12 4 (0.59%) Palo Alto