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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 113 84
Rank change year-on-year +14 -29 +9
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,259 734 1,078
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.48% 2.45% 2.47%
As % of the General category 4.56% 3.86% 4.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 743 377 599
10th Percentile £258 £308 £298
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £505
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% +1.49% -4.72%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -1.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 32 87
10th Percentile £13.03 £14.04 £11.50
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £19.40 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% +21.25% -19.23%
75th Percentile £22.50 £51.88 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £86.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.92 £15.73 £15.95
% change year-on-year +7.57% -1.38% -19.49%

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 27,583 19,019 24,847
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.32% 63.47% 56.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,651 11,970 15,527
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,865 925 2,025
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.46 £12.78
25th Percentile £18.25 £16.55 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.23 £28.00 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.09% -9.68% +3.33%
75th Percentile £61.18 £53.75 £52.78
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.50 £67.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.50 £24.34 £30.00
% change year-on-year +29.42% -18.87% +17.19%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 +12 1,155 £525 - 1,124
London +11 666 £550 - 429
UK excluding London +5 502 £500 - 829
Work from Home -19 272 £500 - 392
South East +8 152 £525 -1.18% 267
North of England -36 136 £550 +10.00% 199
Midlands -8 96 £500 +8.11% 162
North West 0 90 £575 +15.00% 106
East of England +7 57 £550 - 97
East Midlands -2 53 £495 +7.03% 95
West Midlands -31 43 £500 +5.26% 67
Yorkshire -56 43 £500 - 77
South West -24 34 £329 -27.00% 81
Scotland -8 21 £496 -6.85% 32
Northern Ireland +2 3 £196 -64.32% 14
Wales -16 3 £190 +29.52% 11
North East -35 3 £173 -76.98% 22

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 34 (2.70%) Confluence
2 16 (1.27%) CMS
3 14 (1.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 12 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.56%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.40%) SAS
7 3 (0.24%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.16%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.16%) CICS
9 1 (0.079%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 32 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.43%) Microsoft Project
4 17 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.03%) Chatbot
6 11 (0.87%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.71%) Photoshop
8 8 (0.64%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.40%) InDesign
10 3 (0.24%) Notion
10 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
11 2 (0.16%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.079%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.079%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.079%) Maya
12 1 (0.079%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.079%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 28 (2.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.83%) Shopify
3 13 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.79%) Oracle Retail
5 9 (0.71%) SAP Retail
6 7 (0.56%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 7 (0.56%) SAP CRM
7 6 (0.48%) Finacle
8 5 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.40%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.32%) Magento
9 4 (0.32%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
10 3 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 3 (0.24%) SAP CAR
10 3 (0.24%) SAP SD
11 2 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 2 (0.16%) SAP ERP
11 2 (0.16%) SAP MM
12 1 (0.079%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 147 (11.68%) Azure
2 120 (9.53%) AWS
3 75 (5.96%) GCP
4 66 (5.24%) Power Platform
5 44 (3.49%) Snowflake
6 25 (1.99%) GitHub
7 24 (1.91%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.59%) Entra ID
10 17 (1.35%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 16 (1.27%) Figma
11 16 (1.27%) GitHub Actions
12 15 (1.19%) SaaS
13 13 (1.03%) dbt
14 12 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (0.87%) BigCommerce
15 11 (0.87%) Google Workspace
15 11 (0.87%) Microsoft 365
16 10 (0.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 9 (0.71%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.03%) ATM
1 13 (1.03%) Firewall
1 13 (1.03%) WAN
2 12 (0.95%) Network Security
3 11 (0.87%) VPN
3 11 (0.87%) Wireless
4 9 (0.71%) RFID
5 7 (0.56%) LAN
6 6 (0.48%) Cisco Firepower
6 6 (0.48%) SD-WAN
6 6 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.40%) BGP
7 5 (0.40%) Cisco ASA
7 5 (0.40%) Cisco Nexus
7 5 (0.40%) IPsec
7 5 (0.40%) OSPF
7 5 (0.40%) VSAN
8 4 (0.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 4 (0.32%) Internet
8 4 (0.32%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (5.08%) Power BI
2 25 (1.99%) BigQuery
3 22 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.67%) MySQL
5 20 (1.59%) Tableau
6 16 (1.27%) Metadata
7 15 (1.19%) SQL Server
8 12 (0.95%) NoSQL
9 11 (0.87%) Data Lake
9 11 (0.87%) Relational Database
10 8 (0.64%) PostgreSQL
11 6 (0.48%) Data Vault
11 6 (0.48%) MongoDB
11 6 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
12 5 (0.40%) Power Query
13 4 (0.32%) Big Data
13 4 (0.32%) Looker
13 4 (0.32%) Redis
13 4 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.32%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 75 (5.96%) JIRA
2 23 (1.83%) Git
3 12 (0.95%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.40%) GitLab
5 4 (0.32%) Maven
5 4 (0.32%) Subversion
6 3 (0.24%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.24%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.24%) ERwin
6 3 (0.24%) Hudson
6 3 (0.24%) JMeter
6 3 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
6 3 (0.24%) Selenium
6 3 (0.24%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.16%) git-flow
7 2 (0.16%) MLflow
7 2 (0.16%) Postman
7 2 (0.16%) WebDriver
7 2 (0.16%) webpack
8 1 (0.079%) Cucumber
General
1 360 (28.59%) Social Skills
2 297 (23.59%) Finance
3 120 (9.53%) Analytical Skills
4 114 (9.05%) Banking
5 72 (5.72%) Marketing
6 68 (5.40%) Manufacturing
7 59 (4.69%) Organisational Skills
7 59 (4.69%) Retail Banking
8 46 (3.65%) Investment Banking
9 42 (3.34%) Corporate Banking
10 27 (2.14%) Telecoms
11 26 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
11 26 (2.07%) Public Sector
12 23 (1.83%) French Language
13 22 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
14 21 (1.67%) Legal
15 20 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
16 18 (1.43%) Spanish Language
17 17 (1.35%) Advertising
18 15 (1.19%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 201 (15.97%) Architect
2 182 (14.46%) Analyst
3 154 (12.23%) Senior
4 116 (9.21%) Project Manager
5 102 (8.10%) Business Analyst
6 98 (7.78%) Lead
7 95 (7.55%) Solutions Architect
8 62 (4.92%) Senior Manager
9 49 (3.89%) Developer
10 42 (3.34%) Designer
11 41 (3.26%) Technical Manager
12 38 (3.02%) Consultant
12 38 (3.02%) Enterprise Architect
13 35 (2.78%) Product Manager
13 35 (2.78%) Senior Project Manager
14 29 (2.30%) 2nd Line Support
15 28 (2.22%) Data Engineer
16 27 (2.14%) Data Analyst
17 26 (2.07%) Data Architect
17 26 (2.07%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.05%) REST
2 34 (2.70%) Middleware
3 29 (2.30%) React
4 25 (1.99%) VML
5 23 (1.83%) Spring
6 21 (1.67%) Kafka
7 17 (1.35%) Spring Boot
8 16 (1.27%) Node.js
9 15 (1.19%) CSS
9 15 (1.19%) HTML
9 15 (1.19%) RESTful
10 12 (0.95%) MACH
10 12 (0.95%) OAuth
11 11 (0.87%) .NET
11 11 (0.87%) J2EE
12 10 (0.79%) Django
12 10 (0.79%) SOAP
13 9 (0.71%) AngularJS
14 8 (0.64%) OAuth2
14 8 (0.64%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 75 (5.96%) Product Ownership
2 46 (3.65%) EPoS
2 46 (3.65%) FMCG
3 41 (3.26%) Driving Licence
4 38 (3.02%) Cloud Native
5 36 (2.86%) Onboarding
6 25 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
7 21 (1.67%) Data Structures
8 20 (1.59%) Data Centre
9 19 (1.51%) Mobile App
10 18 (1.43%) Mainframe
11 17 (1.35%) Marketing Technology
11 17 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
12 16 (1.27%) Management Information System
13 15 (1.19%) AI Agents
14 11 (0.87%) Operational Technology
14 11 (0.87%) Smartphone
14 11 (0.87%) Taxonomies
15 10 (0.79%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 53 (4.21%) Windows
2 26 (2.07%) Linux
3 12 (0.95%) Android
4 10 (0.79%) Unix
5 7 (0.56%) zOS
6 6 (0.48%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.40%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.40%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.40%) Windows Server
8 3 (0.24%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.079%) Debian
9 1 (0.079%) SUSE
9 1 (0.079%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.079%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 293 (23.27%) Agile
2 281 (22.32%) Stakeholder Management
3 188 (14.93%) Problem-Solving
4 183 (14.54%) E-Commerce
5 161 (12.79%) Migration
6 150 (11.91%) Roadmaps
7 130 (10.33%) Analytics
8 122 (9.69%) Customer Experience
9 116 (9.21%) Project Management
10 109 (8.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 106 (8.42%) AI
12 94 (7.47%) ERP
13 89 (7.07%) Decision-Making
13 89 (7.07%) Project Delivery
14 87 (6.91%) Change Management
14 87 (6.91%) CI/CD
14 87 (6.91%) Continuous Improvement
14 87 (6.91%) User Acceptance Testing
15 86 (6.83%) Business Intelligence
16 85 (6.75%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 107 (8.50%) SQL
2 81 (6.43%) Python
3 50 (3.97%) Java
4 26 (2.07%) JavaScript
5 19 (1.51%) TypeScript
6 10 (0.79%) C#
6 10 (0.79%) Shell Script
7 9 (0.71%) PowerShell
8 7 (0.56%) PL/SQL
8 7 (0.56%) SOQL
9 6 (0.48%) Apex Code
9 6 (0.48%) Bash
9 6 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (0.48%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.40%) Bicep
10 5 (0.40%) SOSL
11 4 (0.32%) ABAP
11 4 (0.32%) Groovy
11 4 (0.32%) R
11 4 (0.32%) Scala
Qualifications
1 55 (4.37%) Degree
2 40 (3.18%) Security Cleared
3 26 (2.07%) SC Cleared
4 17 (1.35%) PMP
5 10 (0.79%) DBS Check
5 10 (0.79%) PMI Certification
6 9 (0.71%) CISSP
6 9 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.56%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.48%) CISM
9 5 (0.40%) APMP
9 5 (0.40%) CCNP
9 5 (0.40%) CCSE
9 5 (0.40%) CCSM
9 5 (0.40%) CSPO
9 5 (0.40%) MBA
10 4 (0.32%) City & Guilds
11 3 (0.24%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (4.77%) QA
2 57 (4.53%) Data Quality
3 38 (3.02%) GDPR
4 33 (2.62%) PMO
5 18 (1.43%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.19%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.95%) SLA
8 9 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.56%) NIST
10 3 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.24%) PSD2
11 2 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.16%) GAAP
11 2 (0.16%) GRC
11 2 (0.16%) IFRS
11 2 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.16%) WCAG
12 1 (0.079%) Basel III
12 1 (0.079%) COBIT
12 1 (0.079%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 24 (1.91%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.83%) Docker
3 6 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
3 6 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.16%) Firmware
5 2 (0.16%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 33 (2.62%) Terraform
2 25 (1.99%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.03%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 9 (0.71%) Ansible
5 6 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (0.40%) Grafana
6 5 (0.40%) SCCM
6 5 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.32%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.16%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.16%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.16%) MOM
8 2 (0.16%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.079%) Argo
9 1 (0.079%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.079%) Istio
9 1 (0.079%) Nagios
9 1 (0.079%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.079%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 102 (8.10%) Microsoft
2 84 (6.67%) SAP
3 75 (5.96%) Oracle
4 59 (4.69%) Salesforce
5 53 (4.21%) Google
6 43 (3.42%) Databricks
7 32 (2.54%) Adobe
8 22 (1.75%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.27%) Cisco
10 14 (1.11%) IFS
11 13 (1.03%) IBM
11 13 (1.03%) Sitecore
11 13 (1.03%) Splunk
11 13 (1.03%) Zscaler
12 11 (0.87%) Fortinet
12 11 (0.87%) MuleSoft
12 11 (0.87%) Palo Alto
13 10 (0.79%) VMware
14 8 (0.64%) Dynatrace
15 7 (0.56%) Workday