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 10 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 83 95
Rank change year-on-year -13 +12 +1
Contract jobs citing Retail 116 75 116
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.05% 2.51% 2.06%
As % of the General category 4.06% 4.14% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 36 70
10th Percentile £171 £313 £300
25th Percentile £191 £422 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £416 £538 £481
Median % change year-on-year -22.56% +11.69% -8.33%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £597
90th Percentile £666 £655 £703
England median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 4
10th Percentile - £16.45 -
25th Percentile £16.17 £18.25 £11.00
Median hourly rate £16.92 £22.50 £13.75
Median % change year-on-year -24.80% +63.64% -25.68%
75th Percentile £17.05 £28.25 £18.06
90th Percentile £21.07 £30.95 £21.78
England median hourly rate £16.92 £32.00 £16.00
% change year-on-year -47.13% +100.00% -19.23%

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 2,859 1,811 2,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 50.59% 60.53% 52.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,849 1,137 1,628
10th Percentile £255 £214 £211
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £663 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 120 331
10th Percentile £15.15 £14.17 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.34 £15.19 £18.98
Median hourly rate £45.00 £24.66 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +82.48% -41.98% -5.56%
75th Percentile £82.25 £57.81 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £67.50
England median hourly rate £27.50 £29.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -5.17% +5.45% -21.43%

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 10 April 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
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 10 April 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 -28 73 £508 -3.19% 56
Berkshire -33 37 £625 +6.38% 34
Hampshire -10 33 £321 -40.29% 40
Buckinghamshire -15 25 £190 -62.93% 14
Oxfordshire -6 11 £525 +5.00% 8
Surrey -7 4 £450 - 32
East Sussex +1 1 £475 - 9
Kent -7 1 £625 - 17
Middlesex - 1 £740 - 7
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 4 (3.45%) SharePoint
2 3 (2.59%) Confluence
3 1 (0.86%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.86%) CMS
Applications
1 8 (6.90%) Microsoft Project
2 7 (6.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (3.45%) Oracle Retail
2 1 (0.86%) Sage X3
2 1 (0.86%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.86%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 17 (14.66%) Power Platform
2 14 (12.07%) Azure
3 5 (4.31%) AWS
4 4 (3.45%) SaaS
5 3 (2.59%) GCP
5 3 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (1.72%) Azure Sentinel
6 2 (1.72%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.86%) Azure API Management
7 1 (0.86%) Azure Data Factory
7 1 (0.86%) Azure Functions
7 1 (0.86%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (0.86%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (0.86%) GitHub
7 1 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.86%) IaaS
7 1 (0.86%) PaaS
7 1 (0.86%) Serverless
7 1 (0.86%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (6.90%) VPN
2 5 (4.31%) RFID
3 4 (3.45%) Firewall
4 2 (1.72%) Cisco ASA
4 2 (1.72%) Cisco Firepower
4 2 (1.72%) Cisco Nexus
4 2 (1.72%) LAN
4 2 (1.72%) VSAN
5 1 (0.86%) Broadband
5 1 (0.86%) MPLS
5 1 (0.86%) SAN
5 1 (0.86%) WAN
5 1 (0.86%) Wireless
5 1 (0.86%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (14.66%) Power BI
2 1 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.86%) Data Lake
2 1 (0.86%) MySQL
2 1 (0.86%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (12.93%) JIRA
2 1 (0.86%) Burp Suite
2 1 (0.86%) Git
2 1 (0.86%) Jenkins
General
1 28 (24.14%) Finance
2 24 (20.69%) Social Skills
3 23 (19.83%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (10.34%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (4.31%) Public Sector
6 3 (2.59%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.72%) Automotive
7 2 (1.72%) Billing
7 2 (1.72%) French Language
7 2 (1.72%) Spanish Language
7 2 (1.72%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.86%) Advertising
8 1 (0.86%) Aviation
8 1 (0.86%) Banking
8 1 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.86%) Law
8 1 (0.86%) Marketing
8 1 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.86%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 32 (27.59%) Analyst
2 17 (14.66%) Lead
3 16 (13.79%) Architect
4 13 (11.21%) Solutions Architect
5 9 (7.76%) Desktop Analyst
5 9 (7.76%) Desktop Support
5 9 (7.76%) Desktop Support Analyst
5 9 (7.76%) Project Manager
5 9 (7.76%) Support Analyst
6 8 (6.90%) PMO Analyst
7 7 (6.03%) Business Analyst
8 6 (5.17%) Oracle Architect
8 6 (5.17%) Oracle Solutions Architect
9 5 (4.31%) Business Manager
10 4 (3.45%) Business Development Manager
10 4 (3.45%) Development Manager
10 4 (3.45%) Head of Infrastructure
10 4 (3.45%) Head of IT
10 4 (3.45%) Head of IT Infrastructure
10 4 (3.45%) Help Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.72%) GraphQL
2 1 (0.86%) .NET
2 1 (0.86%) .NET Core
2 1 (0.86%) ARM Templates
2 1 (0.86%) MACH
2 1 (0.86%) Middleware
2 1 (0.86%) OAuth
2 1 (0.86%) OAuth2
2 1 (0.86%) OpenID
2 1 (0.86%) Oracle Fusion
2 1 (0.86%) REST
2 1 (0.86%) RESTful
2 1 (0.86%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (10.34%) Data Centre
2 10 (8.62%) Self-Motivation
3 8 (6.90%) Management Information System
4 6 (5.17%) Driving Licence
5 5 (4.31%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (3.45%) FMCG
7 3 (2.59%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.72%) EPoS
8 2 (1.72%) Learning Management System
8 2 (1.72%) Mobile App
8 2 (1.72%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.86%) Cyber Defence
9 1 (0.86%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.86%) Fat Client
9 1 (0.86%) Life Science
9 1 (0.86%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.86%) Mainframe
9 1 (0.86%) Thin Client
9 1 (0.86%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.90%) Windows
2 4 (3.45%) Windows Server
3 3 (2.59%) Linux
4 1 (0.86%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (27.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 28 (24.14%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (21.55%) Change Management
4 21 (18.10%) Customer Service
5 20 (17.24%) Business Intelligence
6 19 (16.38%) Agile
7 17 (14.66%) ERP
8 14 (12.07%) Migration
8 14 (12.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 13 (11.21%) Roadmaps
9 13 (11.21%) Service Delivery
10 12 (10.34%) User Acceptance Testing
11 11 (9.48%) Data Protection
11 11 (9.48%) Process Improvement
11 11 (9.48%) Project Delivery
11 11 (9.48%) Requirements Gathering
11 11 (9.48%) Scenario Testing
11 11 (9.48%) Validation
11 11 (9.48%) Waterfall
12 10 (8.62%) Data Cleansing
Programming Languages
1 4 (3.45%) SQL
2 2 (1.72%) Python
3 1 (0.86%) Bash
3 1 (0.86%) C#
3 1 (0.86%) Java
3 1 (0.86%) JavaScript
3 1 (0.86%) PHP
3 1 (0.86%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (5.17%) Degree
2 2 (1.72%) CCNP
2 2 (1.72%) CCSE
2 2 (1.72%) CCSM
2 2 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
2 2 (1.72%) PMP
3 1 (0.86%) CEH
3 1 (0.86%) CISSP
3 1 (0.86%) CompTIA Security+
3 1 (0.86%) PMI Certification
3 1 (0.86%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (12.07%) GDPR
2 11 (9.48%) PMO
3 10 (8.62%) SLA
4 4 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (2.59%) QA
6 1 (0.86%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.86%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.86%) NIST
System Software
1 5 (4.31%) Active Directory
2 4 (3.45%) VMware NSX
3 2 (1.72%) VMware ESXi
3 2 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
1 4 (3.45%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (1.72%) MOM
3 1 (0.86%) Nmap
3 1 (0.86%) Terraform
Vendors
1 10 (8.62%) IFS
2 9 (7.76%) Microsoft
2 9 (7.76%) Oracle
3 6 (5.17%) Palo Alto
3 6 (5.17%) VMware
4 4 (3.45%) Zscaler
5 3 (2.59%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.72%) CheckPoint
6 2 (1.72%) Cisco
6 2 (1.72%) Fortinet
6 2 (1.72%) Qualys
6 2 (1.72%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.86%) Adobe
7 1 (0.86%) Databricks
7 1 (0.86%) Google
7 1 (0.86%) Planon
7 1 (0.86%) Rapid7
7 1 (0.86%) Sage
7 1 (0.86%) Splunk
7 1 (0.86%) Tenable