Retail Contract Job Trends in the South East

Retailing
England > South East

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Retail in contract job vacancies in the South East. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Retail over the 6 months leading up to 12 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 83 85
Rank change year-on-year -7 +2 +20
Contract jobs citing Retail 160 87 102
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.45% 2.45% 2.37%
As % of the General category 4.52% 4.22% 4.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 91 49 49
10th Percentile £263 £300 £200
25th Percentile £459 £470 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +10.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £675 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £662
England median daily rate £550 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 7 3
10th Percentile £13.45 - -
25th Percentile £14.20 £16.17 -
Median hourly rate £15.22 £16.34 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.83% +2.09% -27.27%
75th Percentile £22.50 £16.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £14.50 £16.34 £16.30
% change year-on-year -11.23% +0.21% -17.72%

All General Skills
South East

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 the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 3,536 2,063 2,300
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 54.17% 58.06% 53.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,779 1,303 1,305
10th Percentile £263 £200 £216
25th Percentile £413 £328 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £625 £588 £608
90th Percentile £725 £668 £684
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 590 199 131
10th Percentile £13.48 £13.00 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.61 £14.88 £26.13
Median hourly rate £32.81 £20.40 £56.75
Median % change year-on-year +60.81% -64.05% +8.09%
75th Percentile £67.50 £38.42 £70.00
90th Percentile £91.31 £73.15 £75.24
England median hourly rate £29.00 £25.08 £35.00
% change year-on-year +15.65% -28.36% +16.67%

Retail
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Retail relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Retail job vacancy trend in the South East

Retail
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Retail.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Retail

Retail
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Retail in the South East over the 6 months to 12 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Retail in the South East

Retail
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Retail.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Retail

Retail
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Retail in the South East over the 6 months to 12 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Retail in the South East

Retail
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Retail within the South East region over the 6 months to 12 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
Thames Valley -2 91 £613 +11.36% 220
Berkshire -2 50 £725 +33.64% 139
Hampshire -10 46 £480 -8.57% 82
Buckinghamshire -16 24 £387 -44.79% 55
Oxfordshire -12 17 £675 +22.73% 26
Surrey -15 9 £175 -41.67% 55
Kent -3 8 £155 -72.98% 31
West Sussex - 3 £550 - 29
Home Counties - 2 £650 -
Retail
England

Retail
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 5 (3.13%) Confluence
2 2 (1.25%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.63%) CMS
Applications
1 6 (3.75%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.88%) MS Visio
4 2 (1.25%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (1.25%) Oracle ERP
1 2 (1.25%) Salesforce CRM
1 2 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.63%) Cognos Controller
2 1 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.63%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (0.63%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 1 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
2 1 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
2 1 (0.63%) Oracle Retail
2 1 (0.63%) SAP CAR
2 1 (0.63%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.63%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.63%) SAP MDG
2 1 (0.63%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 22 (13.75%) Azure
2 11 (6.88%) Power Platform
3 6 (3.75%) OCI
4 5 (3.13%) SaaS
5 3 (1.88%) AWS
5 3 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (1.88%) Azure Functions
5 3 (1.88%) Azure Sentinel
5 3 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
5 3 (1.88%) Entra ID
5 3 (1.88%) GitHub
5 3 (1.88%) Lucidchart
5 3 (1.88%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
5 3 (1.88%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
5 3 (1.88%) Serverless
6 2 (1.25%) Azure API Management
6 2 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.25%) Azure Storage
6 2 (1.25%) PowerApps
6 2 (1.25%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.38%) ATM
2 3 (1.88%) Cisco ASA
2 3 (1.88%) Cisco Firepower
2 3 (1.88%) Cisco Nexus
2 3 (1.88%) DNS
2 3 (1.88%) Firewall
2 3 (1.88%) Structured Cabling
2 3 (1.88%) VSAN
3 2 (1.25%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (0.63%) DHCP
4 1 (0.63%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.63%) Power BI
2 4 (2.50%) BigQuery
3 3 (1.88%) Tableau
4 2 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (1.25%) Data Lake
4 2 (1.25%) Metadata
5 1 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.63%) BusinessObjects
5 1 (0.63%) Data Mining
5 1 (0.63%) Oracle ODI
5 1 (0.63%) SAP BW
5 1 (0.63%) SQLPlus
5 1 (0.63%) Tableau Desktop
5 1 (0.63%) Tableau Server
Development Applications
1 7 (4.38%) JIRA
2 2 (1.25%) Postman
3 1 (0.63%) MSI
General
1 51 (31.88%) Social Skills
2 42 (26.25%) Finance
3 24 (15.00%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (12.50%) Marketing
5 14 (8.75%) French Language
5 14 (8.75%) Spanish Language
6 7 (4.38%) Manufacturing
7 6 (3.75%) Public Sector
8 5 (3.13%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (3.13%) Telecoms
9 4 (2.50%) Automotive
9 4 (2.50%) Banking
9 4 (2.50%) Legal
9 4 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (1.25%) Local Government
12 1 (0.63%) Advertising
12 1 (0.63%) German Language
12 1 (0.63%) Publishing
12 1 (0.63%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 48 (30.00%) Architect
2 44 (27.50%) Solutions Architect
3 15 (9.38%) Analyst
4 14 (8.75%) 2nd Line Support
4 14 (8.75%) 2nd Line Technical Support
4 14 (8.75%) Project Manager
4 14 (8.75%) Technical Support
5 12 (7.50%) Supply Chain Architect
6 7 (4.38%) Business Manager
6 7 (4.38%) EPoS Engineer
6 7 (4.38%) ERP Architect
6 7 (4.38%) Salesforce Architect
6 7 (4.38%) Salesforce Solution Architect
7 6 (3.75%) Business Analyst
7 6 (3.75%) Cloud Architect
7 6 (3.75%) Dynamics 365 Architect
7 6 (3.75%) Dynamics 365 Solution Architect
7 6 (3.75%) Oracle Architect
7 6 (3.75%) Senior
7 6 (3.75%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.38%) MACH
2 5 (3.13%) RESTful
3 4 (2.50%) .NET
3 4 (2.50%) Middleware
4 3 (1.88%) REST
5 2 (1.25%) .NET Core
5 2 (1.25%) .NET Framework
5 2 (1.25%) AngularJS
5 2 (1.25%) ARM Templates
5 2 (1.25%) Blazor
5 2 (1.25%) JSON
5 2 (1.25%) Razor View Engine
5 2 (1.25%) XML
6 1 (0.63%) Next.js
6 1 (0.63%) Node.js
6 1 (0.63%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.63%) Oracle Fusion
6 1 (0.63%) React
6 1 (0.63%) SOAP
6 1 (0.63%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 13 (8.13%) EPoS
2 6 (3.75%) Enterprise Software
2 6 (3.75%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.13%) Driving Licence
3 5 (3.13%) Smartphone
4 4 (2.50%) Data Centre
5 3 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (1.88%) FMCG
5 3 (1.88%) Greenfield Project
5 3 (1.88%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.25%) AS400
6 2 (1.25%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.25%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (1.25%) IVR
6 2 (1.25%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.63%) Chip and PIN
7 1 (0.63%) Photography
7 1 (0.63%) Replication
7 1 (0.63%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 21 (13.13%) Windows
2 5 (3.13%) Linux
3 3 (1.88%) Windows 10
4 2 (1.25%) Debian
4 2 (1.25%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.63%) macOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (28.75%) Stakeholder Management
2 26 (16.25%) Problem-Solving
3 24 (15.00%) Customer Service
3 24 (15.00%) Migration
4 20 (12.50%) ERP
5 17 (10.63%) Analytics
5 17 (10.63%) Continuous Improvement
6 16 (10.00%) Architecture Governance
7 15 (9.38%) Agile
7 15 (9.38%) CRM
7 15 (9.38%) Customer Experience
7 15 (9.38%) Decision-Making
7 15 (9.38%) Project Delivery
8 14 (8.75%) Business Intelligence
9 13 (8.13%) Change Management
10 11 (6.88%) Enterprise Architecture
10 11 (6.88%) User Acceptance Testing
11 10 (6.25%) Roadmaps
11 10 (6.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 9 (5.63%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 24 (15.00%) SQL
2 4 (2.50%) C#
2 4 (2.50%) Python
3 2 (1.25%) JavaScript
3 2 (1.25%) PL/SQL
3 2 (1.25%) PowerShell
3 2 (1.25%) VBScript
4 1 (0.63%) R
4 1 (0.63%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 8 (5.00%) Degree
2 3 (1.88%) CCNP
2 3 (1.88%) CCSE
2 3 (1.88%) CCSM
2 3 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
3 2 (1.25%) DBS Check
4 1 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (0.63%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.38%) GDPR
2 4 (2.50%) PMO
3 3 (1.88%) Data Quality
3 3 (1.88%) QA
3 3 (1.88%) SLA
4 1 (0.63%) GAAP
4 1 (0.63%) IFRS
4 1 (0.63%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (1.88%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 3 (1.88%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (1.25%) AirWatch
2 2 (1.25%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.63%) SCCM
Vendors
1 15 (9.38%) Salesforce
2 14 (8.75%) Oracle
3 13 (8.13%) Microsoft
4 9 (5.63%) SAP
5 7 (4.38%) Databricks
5 7 (4.38%) MuleSoft
6 5 (3.13%) VMware
7 4 (2.50%) Workday
8 3 (1.88%) CheckPoint
8 3 (1.88%) Cisco
8 3 (1.88%) Fortinet
8 3 (1.88%) HP
8 3 (1.88%) IFS
8 3 (1.88%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.25%) Adobe
9 2 (1.25%) Apple
9 2 (1.25%) Google
10 1 (0.63%) Samsung
10 1 (0.63%) Splunk
10 1 (0.63%) Teradata