Retail Contract Job Trends

Retailing
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Retail in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Retail over the 6 months leading up to 13 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 88 100
Rank change year-on-year -61 +12 -13
Contract jobs citing Retail 755 863 995
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.89% 2.79% 2.23%
As % of the General category 3.21% 4.50% 3.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 465 445 578
10th Percentile £195 £264 £263
25th Percentile £363 £410 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £506
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £759 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -10.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 13 49
10th Percentile £12.95 £16.63 £11.00
25th Percentile £16.17 £18.13 £12.15
Median hourly rate £18.00 £32.50 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -44.62% +99.39% -17.72%
75th Percentile £20.63 £67.50 £20.75
90th Percentile £45.09 £85.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £18.13 £13.47
% change year-on-year -9.90% +34.60% -32.00%

All General Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 23,513 19,195 26,121
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.78% 61.98% 58.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,720 11,553 16,876
10th Percentile £291 £284 £265
25th Percentile £402 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £650
90th Percentile £735 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,443 606 1,625
10th Percentile £13.72 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.35 £20.12 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.85 £29.00 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.21% +14.85% -2.88%
75th Percentile £50.00 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.00 £67.71
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.80 £27.00 £24.05
% change year-on-year -19.26% +12.27% -1.92%

Retail
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Retail job vacancy trend in the UK

Retail
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Retail

Retail
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Retail over the 6 months to 13 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Retail in the UK

Retail
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Retail

Retail
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Retail over the 6 months to 13 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Retail in the UK

Retail
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Retail within the UK over the 6 months to 13 February 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
England -55 687 £500 -4.76% 942
London -40 375 £550 - 289
UK excluding London -46 320 £450 -10.00% 790
Work from Home -71 186 £500 -6.98% 315
South East -35 88 £500 -9.09% 257
North of England -50 79 £475 +5.56% 171
Midlands -51 69 £456 -8.75% 164
East Midlands -15 43 £495 -1.00% 89
Yorkshire -50 41 £500 +25.00% 52
East of England -23 37 £526 -4.32% 91
North West -33 35 £500 +11.11% 106
West Midlands -58 25 £275 -47.62% 75
Scotland +5 21 £450 -14.29% 33
South West -6 20 £201 -45.97% 75
Wales -6 4 £453 +210.25% 20
North East -14 4 £206 -65.63% 13
Northern Ireland -3 2 £190 +41.31% 8

Retail
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 31 (4.11%) Confluence
2 18 (2.38%) CMS
3 16 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (1.06%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.66%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.53%) WordPress
8 3 (0.40%) Camunda
8 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.26%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.26%) Magnolia
9 2 (0.26%) SAS
10 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 22 (2.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.59%) Microsoft Project
3 10 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 9 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (1.06%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.40%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.26%) Trello
8 1 (0.13%) 3ds Max
8 1 (0.13%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.13%) InDesign
8 1 (0.13%) Maya
8 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.13%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 19 (2.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.59%) SAP Retail
2 12 (1.59%) Shopify
3 8 (1.06%) Oracle Retail
4 6 (0.79%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 6 (0.79%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.66%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.53%) Finacle
6 4 (0.53%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.53%) SAP MDG
6 4 (0.53%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.40%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.26%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.26%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.26%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.26%) SAP GTS
8 2 (0.26%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 91 (12.05%) Azure
2 51 (6.75%) AWS
3 49 (6.49%) Power Platform
4 44 (5.83%) GCP
5 24 (3.18%) Dynamics 365
6 21 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
7 18 (2.38%) Snowflake
8 16 (2.12%) Figma
8 16 (2.12%) GitHub
9 15 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
9 15 (1.99%) SaaS
10 11 (1.46%) Cloud Run
10 11 (1.46%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (1.46%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 9 (1.19%) OCI
11 9 (1.19%) Power Automate
12 8 (1.06%) dbt
12 8 (1.06%) Google Workspace
12 8 (1.06%) Serverless
12 8 (1.06%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 23 (3.05%) RFID
2 18 (2.38%) NFC
2 18 (2.38%) Wireless
3 10 (1.32%) Firewall
3 10 (1.32%) VPN
4 9 (1.19%) WAN
5 5 (0.66%) LAN
5 5 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (0.53%) BGP
6 4 (0.53%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (0.53%) EIGRP
6 4 (0.53%) OSPF
6 4 (0.53%) VoIP
7 2 (0.26%) MPLS
7 2 (0.26%) SAN
7 2 (0.26%) WLAN
8 1 (0.13%) Broadband
8 1 (0.13%) FTP
8 1 (0.13%) SMS
8 1 (0.13%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (5.43%) Power BI
2 22 (2.91%) BigQuery
3 20 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (1.99%) Metadata
4 15 (1.99%) Tableau
5 14 (1.85%) SQL Server
6 9 (1.19%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.06%) MySQL
8 7 (0.93%) Data Vault
9 6 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.66%) MongoDB
10 5 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
10 5 (0.66%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.66%) Snowflake Schema
11 4 (0.53%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.53%) Redis
11 4 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.40%) Oracle OLAP
12 3 (0.40%) SAP BW
12 3 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 71 (9.40%) JIRA
2 13 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 11 (1.46%) Git
4 10 (1.32%) GitLab
5 5 (0.66%) ERwin
5 5 (0.66%) Selenium
6 4 (0.53%) Storybook
7 3 (0.40%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.26%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.26%) JMeter
8 2 (0.26%) JUnit
8 2 (0.26%) MLflow
8 2 (0.26%) Mockito
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.26%) Postman
8 2 (0.26%) PowerDesigner
8 2 (0.26%) SoapUI
8 2 (0.26%) Xcode
8 2 (0.26%) Zephyr
General
1 261 (34.57%) Social Skills
2 159 (21.06%) Finance
3 77 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (8.48%) Banking
5 55 (7.28%) Marketing
6 41 (5.43%) Organisational Skills
7 37 (4.90%) Manufacturing
7 37 (4.90%) Public Sector
8 29 (3.84%) Retail Banking
9 26 (3.44%) Corporate Banking
10 24 (3.18%) Influencing Skills
11 23 (3.05%) Investment Banking
12 21 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
13 19 (2.52%) Legal
13 19 (2.52%) Presentation Skills
14 13 (1.72%) Telecoms
15 11 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 7 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
17 6 (0.79%) Financial Institution
17 6 (0.79%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 135 (17.88%) Analyst
2 95 (12.58%) Project Manager
3 80 (10.60%) Senior
4 75 (9.93%) Architect
5 65 (8.61%) Lead
6 63 (8.34%) Business Analyst
7 39 (5.17%) Senior Manager
8 33 (4.37%) Solutions Architect
9 30 (3.97%) Consultant
10 24 (3.18%) Technical Manager
11 23 (3.05%) Developer
12 20 (2.65%) Product Manager
13 19 (2.52%) Programme Manager
13 19 (2.52%) Senior Project Manager
14 15 (1.99%) E-Commerce Manager
15 14 (1.85%) Data Engineer
15 14 (1.85%) Designer
16 13 (1.72%) SAP Consultant
16 13 (1.72%) Support Analyst
17 12 (1.59%) Help Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.78%) React
2 20 (2.65%) REST
3 19 (2.52%) VML
4 14 (1.85%) PySpark
5 13 (1.72%) Node.js
5 13 (1.72%) Spring
5 13 (1.72%) Spring Boot
6 12 (1.59%) HTML
7 11 (1.46%) Middleware
8 9 (1.19%) .NET
8 9 (1.19%) scikit-learn
9 8 (1.06%) AngularJS
9 8 (1.06%) CSS
10 7 (0.93%) FastAPI
10 7 (0.93%) Kafka
10 7 (0.93%) OpenTelemetry
10 7 (0.93%) XML
11 6 (0.79%) LangChain
11 6 (0.79%) Next.js
11 6 (0.79%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.17%) Product Ownership
2 30 (3.97%) Driving Licence
3 26 (3.44%) EPoS
4 23 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
5 22 (2.91%) Legacy Systems
5 22 (2.91%) Onboarding
6 19 (2.52%) Management Information System
7 18 (2.38%) Cloud Native
7 18 (2.38%) FMCG
7 18 (2.38%) IoT
8 16 (2.12%) Mobile App
9 15 (1.99%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.72%) Data Centre
11 10 (1.32%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.19%) Mainframe
13 8 (1.06%) Social Media
14 6 (0.79%) CMDB
14 6 (0.79%) Reference Data
14 6 (0.79%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 33 (4.37%) Windows
2 12 (1.59%) Linux
3 8 (1.06%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.66%) Android
5 4 (0.53%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.40%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.40%) zOS
7 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (23.97%) Stakeholder Management
2 178 (23.58%) Agile
3 139 (18.41%) Problem-Solving
4 99 (13.11%) Project Management
5 92 (12.19%) E-Commerce
6 84 (11.13%) Analytics
7 73 (9.67%) Migration
8 70 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 69 (9.14%) Roadmaps
10 65 (8.61%) Continuous Improvement
11 62 (8.21%) Customer Experience
12 59 (7.81%) Workshop Facilitation
13 57 (7.55%) Scrum
14 55 (7.28%) Decision-Making
15 54 (7.15%) Business Intelligence
15 54 (7.15%) DevOps
16 53 (7.02%) AI
17 52 (6.89%) Customer Service
18 51 (6.75%) Project Delivery
19 49 (6.49%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 72 (9.54%) SQL
2 65 (8.61%) Python
3 25 (3.31%) Java
4 15 (1.99%) JavaScript
5 12 (1.59%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.46%) Bash
7 9 (1.19%) Shell Script
7 9 (1.19%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (0.93%) C#
10 6 (0.79%) Kotlin
11 5 (0.66%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.26%) PHP
12 2 (0.26%) Swift
12 2 (0.26%) VBA
13 1 (0.13%) CLIST
13 1 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.13%) Google Apps Script
13 1 (0.13%) R
13 1 (0.13%) Scala
Qualifications
1 43 (5.70%) Degree
2 22 (2.91%) PMP
3 19 (2.52%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.25%) PMI Certification
5 10 (1.32%) Master's Degree
6 8 (1.06%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (0.93%) MBA
7 7 (0.93%) SC Cleared
8 6 (0.79%) APMP
8 6 (0.79%) CISSP
8 6 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (0.53%) CCIE
9 4 (0.53%) CCNP
9 4 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.53%) CISM
9 4 (0.53%) CRISC
9 4 (0.53%) CSPO
10 3 (0.40%) GIAC
10 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.37%) QA
2 30 (3.97%) Data Quality
3 23 (3.05%) PMO
4 17 (2.25%) Accessibility
4 17 (2.25%) GDPR
5 12 (1.59%) SLA
6 5 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.53%) COBIT
7 4 (0.53%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.40%) IFRS
8 3 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.40%) NCSC
9 2 (0.26%) NIST
10 1 (0.13%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.13%) MiFID
10 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.13%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 13 (1.72%) Docker
2 10 (1.32%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.53%) RACF
4 3 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (0.40%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.13%) Varnish
5 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 21 (2.78%) Terraform
2 12 (1.59%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.19%) Grafana
4 6 (0.79%) Argo
4 6 (0.79%) Istio
5 4 (0.53%) Ansible
5 4 (0.53%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.40%) SCCM
6 3 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.13%) Cacti
8 1 (0.13%) Control-M
8 1 (0.13%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.13%) Nmap
8 1 (0.13%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.13%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.13%) zSecure
Vendors
1 75 (9.93%) Microsoft
2 59 (7.81%) SAP
3 47 (6.23%) Oracle
4 46 (6.09%) Google
5 39 (5.17%) Salesforce
6 25 (3.31%) Databricks
7 21 (2.78%) Adobe
8 12 (1.59%) ServiceNow
9 10 (1.32%) Dell
10 9 (1.19%) Sitecore
11 8 (1.06%) CheckPoint
11 8 (1.06%) Cisco
11 8 (1.06%) F5
11 8 (1.06%) HP
11 8 (1.06%) Splunk
12 7 (0.93%) Dynatrace
12 7 (0.93%) IBM
13 6 (0.79%) Temenos
14 5 (0.66%) Apple
14 5 (0.66%) BMC