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

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 78 84
Rank change year-on-year -23 +6 +10
Contract jobs citing Retail 118 74 120
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.00% 2.45% 2.18%
As % of the General category 4.14% 3.97% 4.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 35 69
10th Percentile £171 £199 £300
25th Percentile £191 £336 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% +5.26% -13.64%
75th Percentile £603 £588 £600
90th Percentile £738 £675 £729
England median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 3 6
10th Percentile £16.17 £16.45 £11.00
25th Percentile £16.64 £18.25 £12.25
Median hourly rate £18.46 £22.50 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.96% +40.63% -13.51%
75th Percentile £22.50 £28.25 -
90th Percentile £22.88 £30.95 £20.13
England median hourly rate £21.00 £30.25 £16.00
% change year-on-year -30.58% +89.06% -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 2,848 1,862 2,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 48.30% 61.68% 50.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,795 1,182 1,530
10th Percentile £250 £220 £205
25th Percentile £393 £385 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £497
Median % change year-on-year - +0.70% -0.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £689 £674 £688
England median daily rate £508 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -3.24% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 315 132 333
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.12 £12.88
25th Percentile £22.64 £15.00 £18.35
Median hourly rate £49.00 £22.29 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +119.88% -50.48% -2.70%
75th Percentile £82.25 £60.38 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £70.00
England median hourly rate £30.50 £27.50 £30.27
% change year-on-year +10.89% -9.14% -6.59%

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 May 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 May 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 -25 65 £525 +5.00% 76
Hampshire +5 38 £291 -41.01% 32
Berkshire -27 35 £625 +2.04% 34
Buckinghamshire -22 23 £203 -55.00% 26
Oxfordshire -15 7 £525 +5.00% 16
Kent -5 6 £155 -24.22% 28
Surrey -10 4 £450 +50.00% 31
East Sussex +1 1 £475 - 4
West Sussex -13 1 £550 +175.00% 5
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 (3.39%) SharePoint
2 3 (2.54%) Confluence
3 1 (0.85%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.85%) CMS
Applications
1 8 (6.78%) Microsoft Project
2 7 (5.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (2.54%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (3.39%) Oracle Retail
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.85%) Sage X3
2 1 (0.85%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.85%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.85%) SAP Hybris
2 1 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 20 (16.95%) Power Platform
2 12 (10.17%) Azure
3 5 (4.24%) AWS
4 3 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
4 3 (2.54%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (2.54%) SaaS
5 1 (0.85%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (0.85%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (0.85%) GCP
5 1 (0.85%) SAP Commerce Cloud
5 1 (0.85%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (6.78%) VPN
2 5 (4.24%) ATM
2 5 (4.24%) RFID
3 4 (3.39%) Firewall
4 3 (2.54%) Cisco ASA
4 3 (2.54%) Cisco Firepower
4 3 (2.54%) Cisco Nexus
4 3 (2.54%) VSAN
5 2 (1.69%) LAN
6 1 (0.85%) Broadband
6 1 (0.85%) MPLS
6 1 (0.85%) SAN
6 1 (0.85%) WAN
6 1 (0.85%) Wireless
6 1 (0.85%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (16.95%) Power BI
2 1 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.85%) Data Lake
2 1 (0.85%) Metadata
2 1 (0.85%) MySQL
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle ODI
2 1 (0.85%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (11.02%) JIRA
2 1 (0.85%) Git
General
1 36 (30.51%) Finance
2 26 (22.03%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (21.19%) Social Skills
4 15 (12.71%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (5.08%) French Language
5 6 (5.08%) Public Sector
5 6 (5.08%) Spanish Language
6 4 (3.39%) Automotive
6 4 (3.39%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.69%) Banking
7 2 (1.69%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.85%) Advertising
8 1 (0.85%) German Language
8 1 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.85%) Legal
8 1 (0.85%) Local Government
8 1 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.85%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 22 (18.64%) Analyst
2 20 (16.95%) Lead
3 17 (14.41%) Architect
4 15 (12.71%) Solutions Architect
5 8 (6.78%) PMO Analyst
6 7 (5.93%) Project Manager
7 6 (5.08%) 2nd Line Support
7 6 (5.08%) 2nd Line Technical Support
7 6 (5.08%) Oracle Architect
7 6 (5.08%) Oracle Solutions Architect
7 6 (5.08%) Technical Support
8 5 (4.24%) Business Analyst
9 4 (3.39%) Business Development Manager
9 4 (3.39%) Business Manager
9 4 (3.39%) Desktop Support
9 4 (3.39%) Desktop Support Analyst
9 4 (3.39%) Development Manager
9 4 (3.39%) Head of IT
9 4 (3.39%) Help Desk Analyst
9 4 (3.39%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.69%) MACH
2 1 (0.85%) GraphQL
2 1 (0.85%) Middleware
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
2 1 (0.85%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 13 (11.02%) Data Centre
2 8 (6.78%) Driving Licence
3 7 (5.93%) EPoS
4 6 (5.08%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (3.39%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (3.39%) Management Information System
6 3 (2.54%) Product Ownership
6 3 (2.54%) Smartphone
7 2 (1.69%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.69%) FMCG
7 2 (1.69%) Learning Management System
7 2 (1.69%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.85%) AI Agents
8 1 (0.85%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.85%) Fat Client
8 1 (0.85%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.85%) Life Science
8 1 (0.85%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.85%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 13 (11.02%) Windows
2 4 (3.39%) Windows Server
3 3 (2.54%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (27.97%) Problem-Solving
1 33 (27.97%) Stakeholder Management
2 29 (24.58%) Change Management
3 23 (19.49%) Business Intelligence
3 23 (19.49%) ERP
4 22 (18.64%) Customer Service
5 18 (15.25%) Agile
5 18 (15.25%) Migration
6 16 (13.56%) User Acceptance Testing
7 14 (11.86%) Data Protection
7 14 (11.86%) Process Improvement
7 14 (11.86%) Requirements Gathering
7 14 (11.86%) Roadmaps
7 14 (11.86%) Scenario Testing
7 14 (11.86%) Validation
8 13 (11.02%) Continuous Improvement
8 13 (11.02%) Customer Experience
8 13 (11.02%) Data Cleansing
8 13 (11.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 12 (10.17%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 8 (6.78%) SQL
2 1 (0.85%) Java
2 1 (0.85%) Python
Qualifications
1 6 (5.08%) Degree
2 3 (2.54%) CCNP
2 3 (2.54%) CCSE
2 3 (2.54%) CCSM
2 3 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
3 2 (1.69%) DBS Check
3 2 (1.69%) PMP
4 1 (0.85%) PMI Certification
4 1 (0.85%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (15.25%) GDPR
2 11 (9.32%) PMO
3 7 (5.93%) SLA
4 4 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (2.54%) QA
6 1 (0.85%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.85%) Data Quality
System Software
1 4 (3.39%) Active Directory
1 4 (3.39%) VMware NSX
2 3 (2.54%) VMware ESXi
2 3 (2.54%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (3.39%) Microsoft Intune
1 4 (3.39%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (1.69%) MOM
Vendors
1 13 (11.02%) IFS
2 10 (8.47%) Oracle
3 7 (5.93%) Palo Alto
3 7 (5.93%) VMware
4 6 (5.08%) Microsoft
5 4 (3.39%) Zscaler
6 3 (2.54%) CheckPoint
6 3 (2.54%) Cisco
6 3 (2.54%) Fortinet
6 3 (2.54%) SAP
7 2 (1.69%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.85%) Adobe
8 1 (0.85%) Databricks
8 1 (0.85%) Qualys
8 1 (0.85%) Rapid7
8 1 (0.85%) Sage
8 1 (0.85%) Tenable