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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 98 84
Rank change year-on-year +14 -14 +13
Contract jobs citing Retail 176 66 111
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.64% 1.89% 2.23%
As % of the General category 5.16% 3.19% 4.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 33 65
10th Percentile £188 £209 £255
25th Percentile £363 £300 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £560 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +12.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £738 £638 £638
90th Percentile - £713 £715
England median daily rate £550 £519 £525
% change year-on-year +6.02% -1.19% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 3 5
10th Percentile £13.60 £16.45 -
25th Percentile £15.87 £18.25 -
Median hourly rate £18.46 £22.50 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.96% +40.63% -
75th Percentile £22.50 £28.25 -
90th Percentile - £30.95 £20.95
England median hourly rate £18.75 £16.30 £16.30
% change year-on-year +15.03% - -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 3,411 2,066 2,441
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 51.11% 59.06% 48.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,893 1,272 1,405
10th Percentile £254 £200 £213
25th Percentile £413 £360 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -
75th Percentile £619 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £538
% change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 478 185 240
10th Percentile £14.18 £13.00 £15.15
25th Percentile £21.35 £14.30 £26.25
Median hourly rate £47.54 £18.82 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +152.60% -67.18% +14.70%
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.75 £66.93
90th Percentile £88.00 £78.00 £75.24
England median hourly rate £33.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +33.20% -34.02% +32.59%

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 2 August 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 2 August 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 0 95 £588 +11.90% 111
Hampshire +17 61 £475 -25.49% 49
Berkshire +3 54 £725 +33.64% 60
Buckinghamshire -21 30 £203 -36.12% 26
Oxfordshire -12 11 £525 -22.22% 27
Kent +6 8 £155 -75.15% 26
Surrey -21 6 £375 +25.00% 55
West Sussex -17 3 £550 +175.00% 9
Home Counties +2 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 4 (2.27%) Confluence
2 1 (0.57%) CMS
Applications
1 4 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (2.27%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.70%) Oracle Retail
1 3 (1.70%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.57%) Cognos Controller
2 1 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.57%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
2 1 (0.57%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.57%) SAP MDG
2 1 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.57%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 18 (10.23%) Power Platform
2 12 (6.82%) Azure
3 6 (3.41%) AWS
4 5 (2.84%) Azure Sentinel
5 3 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
5 3 (1.70%) SaaS
6 1 (0.57%) GCP
6 1 (0.57%) Google Sheets
6 1 (0.57%) iPaaS
6 1 (0.57%) Salsify
6 1 (0.57%) Snowflake
6 1 (0.57%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.98%) ATM
2 5 (2.84%) Cisco ASA
2 5 (2.84%) Cisco Firepower
2 5 (2.84%) Cisco Nexus
2 5 (2.84%) VPN
2 5 (2.84%) VSAN
3 4 (2.27%) Firewall
4 3 (1.70%) RFID
5 2 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.57%) DHCP
6 1 (0.57%) LAN
6 1 (0.57%) Structured Cabling
6 1 (0.57%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (10.23%) Power BI
2 3 (1.70%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.57%) Metadata
3 1 (0.57%) Oracle ODI
3 1 (0.57%) Tableau
3 1 (0.57%) Tableau Desktop
3 1 (0.57%) Tableau Server
Development Applications
1 8 (4.55%) JIRA
2 2 (1.14%) Postman
3 1 (0.57%) MSI
General
1 51 (28.98%) Finance
2 38 (21.59%) Social Skills
3 37 (21.02%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (9.09%) French Language
4 16 (9.09%) Spanish Language
5 13 (7.39%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (6.25%) Public Sector
7 9 (5.11%) Manufacturing
8 8 (4.55%) Marketing
9 6 (3.41%) Telecoms
10 5 (2.84%) Banking
11 4 (2.27%) Automotive
11 4 (2.27%) Legal
12 3 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (1.14%) Local Government
13 2 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (1.14%) Retail Banking
14 1 (0.57%) German Language
14 1 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 1 (0.57%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 38 (21.59%) Architect
2 37 (21.02%) Solutions Architect
3 18 (10.23%) Analyst
4 17 (9.66%) Lead
5 16 (9.09%) 2nd Line Support
5 16 (9.09%) 2nd Line Technical Support
5 16 (9.09%) Technical Support
6 12 (6.82%) Project Manager
6 12 (6.82%) Supply Chain Architect
7 9 (5.11%) Dynamics 365 Architect
7 9 (5.11%) Dynamics 365 Solution Architect
7 9 (5.11%) ERP Architect
8 8 (4.55%) Business Analyst
9 6 (3.41%) Senior
9 6 (3.41%) Senior Manager
10 5 (2.84%) EPoS Engineer
10 5 (2.84%) Network Engineer
10 5 (2.84%) NOC Engineer
10 5 (2.84%) Programme Manager
11 4 (2.27%) Head of Infrastructure
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.41%) MACH
1 6 (3.41%) RESTful
2 4 (2.27%) Middleware
3 2 (1.14%) .NET
3 2 (1.14%) .NET Core
3 2 (1.14%) .NET Framework
3 2 (1.14%) AngularJS
3 2 (1.14%) Blazor
3 2 (1.14%) JSON
3 2 (1.14%) Razor View Engine
3 2 (1.14%) XML
4 1 (0.57%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (0.57%) REST
4 1 (0.57%) SOAP
4 1 (0.57%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 13 (7.39%) EPoS
2 10 (5.68%) Data Centre
3 9 (5.11%) Driving Licence
4 6 (3.41%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (2.84%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.84%) Smartphone
6 4 (2.27%) FMCG
7 3 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.70%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.14%) Data Structures
8 2 (1.14%) IVR
8 2 (1.14%) Learning Management System
8 2 (1.14%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.57%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.57%) Chip and PIN
9 1 (0.57%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 1 (0.57%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.57%) Robotics
9 1 (0.57%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 29 (16.48%) Windows
2 7 (3.98%) Linux
3 4 (2.27%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.70%) Windows 10
5 2 (1.14%) Debian
5 2 (1.14%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.57%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.57%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (26.14%) Problem-Solving
1 46 (26.14%) Stakeholder Management
2 34 (19.32%) Customer Service
3 33 (18.75%) ERP
4 30 (17.05%) Change Management
5 25 (14.20%) Migration
6 24 (13.64%) Business Intelligence
6 24 (13.64%) Customer Experience
7 21 (11.93%) Continuous Improvement
8 19 (10.80%) Project Delivery
8 19 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 18 (10.23%) Roadmaps
9 18 (10.23%) User Acceptance Testing
10 17 (9.66%) Process Improvement
11 16 (9.09%) Data Protection
11 16 (9.09%) Validation
12 15 (8.52%) Agile
12 15 (8.52%) Requirements Gathering
13 14 (7.95%) Analytics
13 14 (7.95%) Scenario Testing
Programming Languages
1 24 (13.64%) SQL
2 2 (1.14%) C#
2 2 (1.14%) PL/SQL
2 2 (1.14%) PowerShell
2 2 (1.14%) VBScript
3 1 (0.57%) Python
Qualifications
1 7 (3.98%) Degree
2 5 (2.84%) CCNP
2 5 (2.84%) CCSE
2 5 (2.84%) CCSM
2 5 (2.84%) Cisco Certification
3 2 (1.14%) DBS Check
4 1 (0.57%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (11.36%) GDPR
2 6 (3.41%) PMO
3 5 (2.84%) SLA
4 4 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.14%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.14%) QA
6 1 (0.57%) GAAP
6 1 (0.57%) IFRS
6 1 (0.57%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 6 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (2.84%) VMware ESXi
3 4 (2.27%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.57%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 4 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (1.14%) AirWatch
2 2 (1.14%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.14%) MOM
3 1 (0.57%) SCCM
3 1 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (7.95%) Oracle
2 13 (7.39%) IFS
3 9 (5.11%) Microsoft
4 8 (4.55%) SAP
4 8 (4.55%) VMware
5 6 (3.41%) Palo Alto
5 6 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 5 (2.84%) CheckPoint
6 5 (2.84%) Cisco
6 5 (2.84%) Fortinet
7 3 (1.70%) Databricks
7 3 (1.70%) Workday
8 2 (1.14%) Adobe
8 2 (1.14%) Apple
8 2 (1.14%) Google
9 1 (0.57%) Cognos
9 1 (0.57%) IBM
9 1 (0.57%) Informatica
9 1 (0.57%) Meraki
9 1 (0.57%) Zscaler