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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 106 84
Rank change year-on-year +6 -22 +11
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,188 739 1,084
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.39% 2.52% 2.50%
As % of the General category 4.43% 3.99% 4.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 695 379 597
10th Percentile £244 £313 £297
25th Percentile £411 £413 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £505
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% +2.97% -6.48%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £625
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 27 87
10th Percentile £13.18 £14.71 £11.50
25th Percentile £15.63 £15.25 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £25.15 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.50% +57.19% -19.23%
75th Percentile £22.50 £54.50 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £87.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.21 £16.30 £15.95
% change year-on-year +5.58% +2.19% -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 26,812 18,543 24,777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.97% 63.34% 57.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,219 11,673 15,531
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,788 856 1,998
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.41 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.87 £16.94 £15.50
Median hourly rate £31.46 £28.00 £30.06
Median % change year-on-year +12.36% -6.85% -5.83%
75th Percentile £60.30 £53.95 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £67.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £24.50 £28.42
% change year-on-year +24.82% -13.79% +3.35%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +4 1,084 £525 - 1,089
London +13 610 £550 - 384
UK excluding London +3 487 £500 - 836
Work from Home -32 273 £500 - 377
South East +2 147 £520 +0.24% 257
North of England -37 135 £513 +2.50% 241
Midlands -20 96 £495 +10.00% 140
North West 0 84 £550 +10.00% 130
East Midlands -5 56 £495 +6.74% 73
East of England -4 51 £509 -3.05% 83
Yorkshire -55 48 £506 +6.58% 88
West Midlands -39 40 £500 +14.29% 67
South West -16 32 £326 -23.68% 76
Scotland -2 21 £500 -6.10% 36
Wales -12 3 £190 +29.52% 14
North East -25 3 £173 -76.98% 25
Northern Ireland +3 2 £190 -44.48% 15

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 38 (3.20%) Confluence
2 14 (1.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 14 (1.18%) CMS
3 12 (1.01%) SharePoint
4 11 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.42%) SAS
6 2 (0.17%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.17%) CICS
6 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.084%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 30 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (2.10%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.60%) Microsoft Project
4 16 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.09%) Chatbot
6 11 (0.93%) MS Visio
7 10 (0.84%) Photoshop
8 8 (0.67%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.51%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 5 (0.42%) InDesign
11 3 (0.25%) Notion
11 3 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
12 2 (0.17%) UserZoom
13 1 (0.084%) 3ds Max
13 1 (0.084%) Adobe After Effects
13 1 (0.084%) Adobe XD
13 1 (0.084%) Maya
13 1 (0.084%) PlantUML
13 1 (0.084%) SOLIDWORKS
13 1 (0.084%) Trello
Business Applications
1 23 (1.94%) Shopify
2 22 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 14 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.76%) SAP Retail
5 7 (0.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (0.59%) SAP CRM
6 6 (0.51%) Finacle
6 6 (0.51%) Oracle Retail
7 5 (0.42%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.42%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.34%) Magento
8 4 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
10 2 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
10 2 (0.17%) Sage X3
10 2 (0.17%) SAP CAR
10 2 (0.17%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.17%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.17%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 126 (10.61%) Azure
2 97 (8.16%) AWS
3 69 (5.81%) GCP
4 58 (4.88%) Power Platform
5 41 (3.45%) Snowflake
6 27 (2.27%) GitHub
7 24 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
9 19 (1.60%) Entra ID
9 19 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
10 17 (1.43%) Figma
11 16 (1.35%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
12 15 (1.26%) Microsoft 365
12 15 (1.26%) SaaS
13 13 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
14 12 (1.01%) BigCommerce
14 12 (1.01%) dbt
15 11 (0.93%) Cloud Run
15 11 (0.93%) Google Workspace
16 10 (0.84%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.09%) ATM
2 12 (1.01%) Firewall
2 12 (1.01%) WAN
3 10 (0.84%) Network Security
3 10 (0.84%) VPN
4 9 (0.76%) Wireless
5 8 (0.67%) RFID
6 6 (0.51%) Cisco Firepower
6 6 (0.51%) Cisco Nexus
6 6 (0.51%) LAN
6 6 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
7 5 (0.42%) SD-WAN
7 5 (0.42%) VSAN
8 4 (0.34%) BGP
8 4 (0.34%) OSPF
9 3 (0.25%) Broadband
9 3 (0.25%) IPsec
9 3 (0.25%) MPLS
10 2 (0.17%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (4.63%) Power BI
2 29 (2.44%) BigQuery
3 21 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
4 17 (1.43%) MySQL
4 17 (1.43%) SQL Server
5 16 (1.35%) Tableau
6 13 (1.09%) Metadata
7 11 (0.93%) Data Lake
8 9 (0.76%) NoSQL
9 6 (0.51%) Data Vault
9 6 (0.51%) MongoDB
9 6 (0.51%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
10 5 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
11 4 (0.34%) Big Data
11 4 (0.34%) Looker
11 4 (0.34%) Semantic Layer
12 3 (0.25%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.25%) DynamoDB
12 3 (0.25%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 80 (6.73%) JIRA
2 22 (1.85%) Git
3 16 (1.35%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.93%) GitLab
5 4 (0.34%) JMeter
5 4 (0.34%) Maven
5 4 (0.34%) Subversion
6 3 (0.25%) ERwin
6 3 (0.25%) Hudson
6 3 (0.25%) Selenium
6 3 (0.25%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.17%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.17%) Eclipse
7 2 (0.17%) Gatling
7 2 (0.17%) git-flow
7 2 (0.17%) MLflow
7 2 (0.17%) Postman
7 2 (0.17%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.084%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.084%) Toad
General
1 334 (28.11%) Social Skills
2 284 (23.91%) Finance
3 113 (9.51%) Analytical Skills
4 105 (8.84%) Banking
5 70 (5.89%) Marketing
6 57 (4.80%) Manufacturing
7 55 (4.63%) Organisational Skills
8 54 (4.55%) Retail Banking
9 44 (3.70%) Investment Banking
10 40 (3.37%) Corporate Banking
11 29 (2.44%) Public Sector
12 27 (2.27%) Telecoms
13 26 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
14 22 (1.85%) Legal
15 21 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
16 19 (1.60%) French Language
17 18 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
18 16 (1.35%) Advertising
19 13 (1.09%) Back Office
19 13 (1.09%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 179 (15.07%) Architect
2 171 (14.39%) Analyst
3 144 (12.12%) Senior
4 119 (10.02%) Project Manager
5 98 (8.25%) Business Analyst
6 91 (7.66%) Lead
7 82 (6.90%) Solutions Architect
8 59 (4.97%) Senior Manager
9 47 (3.96%) Developer
10 45 (3.79%) Technical Manager
11 40 (3.37%) Designer
12 36 (3.03%) Enterprise Architect
13 35 (2.95%) Consultant
14 34 (2.86%) Product Manager
14 34 (2.86%) Senior Project Manager
15 28 (2.36%) Data Engineer
16 26 (2.19%) Data Architect
17 25 (2.10%) 2nd Line Support
17 25 (2.10%) Programme Manager
17 25 (2.10%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (2.95%) REST
2 33 (2.78%) Middleware
3 28 (2.36%) React
4 26 (2.19%) VML
5 24 (2.02%) Spring
6 19 (1.60%) Kafka
7 18 (1.52%) Node.js
7 18 (1.52%) Spring Boot
8 15 (1.26%) CSS
9 14 (1.18%) AngularJS
10 13 (1.09%) HTML
10 13 (1.09%) RESTful
11 10 (0.84%) .NET
11 10 (0.84%) MACH
12 8 (0.67%) OpenTelemetry
12 8 (0.67%) SOAP
13 7 (0.59%) JSON
13 7 (0.59%) LangChain
13 7 (0.59%) OAuth
13 7 (0.59%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 72 (6.06%) Product Ownership
2 44 (3.70%) EPoS
3 41 (3.45%) Driving Licence
4 40 (3.37%) FMCG
5 34 (2.86%) Cloud Native
6 33 (2.78%) Onboarding
7 21 (1.77%) Data Structures
8 20 (1.68%) Mainframe
9 19 (1.60%) Data Centre
10 18 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
11 17 (1.43%) Mobile App
11 17 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.26%) Management Information System
13 14 (1.18%) AI Agents
13 14 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
14 11 (0.93%) Smartphone
15 10 (0.84%) Marketing Technology
15 10 (0.84%) Operational Technology
15 10 (0.84%) Virtual Team
16 9 (0.76%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 50 (4.21%) Windows
2 22 (1.85%) Linux
3 11 (0.93%) Android
4 7 (0.59%) Unix
4 7 (0.59%) zOS
5 5 (0.42%) Mac OS
5 5 (0.42%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.084%) Debian
8 1 (0.084%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.084%) SUSE
8 1 (0.084%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.084%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.084%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 261 (21.97%) Agile
2 249 (20.96%) Stakeholder Management
3 186 (15.66%) Problem-Solving
4 170 (14.31%) E-Commerce
5 146 (12.29%) Migration
6 137 (11.53%) Roadmaps
7 120 (10.10%) Project Management
8 117 (9.85%) Analytics
9 116 (9.76%) Customer Experience
10 100 (8.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 92 (7.74%) ERP
12 90 (7.58%) AI
13 88 (7.41%) Project Delivery
14 85 (7.15%) Decision-Making
15 84 (7.07%) Change Management
15 84 (7.07%) Continuous Improvement
16 82 (6.90%) Scrum
17 81 (6.82%) User Acceptance Testing
18 77 (6.48%) CI/CD
19 76 (6.40%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 90 (7.58%) SQL
2 65 (5.47%) Python
3 40 (3.37%) Java
4 24 (2.02%) JavaScript
5 17 (1.43%) TypeScript
6 10 (0.84%) Shell Script
7 9 (0.76%) C#
7 9 (0.76%) PowerShell
8 7 (0.59%) SOQL
9 6 (0.51%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.42%) Apex Code
10 5 (0.42%) Bash
10 5 (0.42%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.42%) SOSL
11 4 (0.34%) Bicep
11 4 (0.34%) Scala
12 3 (0.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.25%) R
12 3 (0.25%) VBA
Qualifications
1 52 (4.38%) Degree
2 41 (3.45%) Security Cleared
3 29 (2.44%) SC Cleared
4 19 (1.60%) PMP
5 11 (0.93%) PMI Certification
6 10 (0.84%) DBS Check
7 9 (0.76%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (0.67%) CISSP
9 7 (0.59%) APMP
9 7 (0.59%) Master's Degree
10 6 (0.51%) CCNP
10 6 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (0.42%) CCSE
11 5 (0.42%) CCSM
11 5 (0.42%) CISM
11 5 (0.42%) CSPO
11 5 (0.42%) MBA
12 4 (0.34%) City & Guilds
12 4 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (4.97%) QA
2 54 (4.55%) Data Quality
3 38 (3.20%) GDPR
4 35 (2.95%) PMO
5 16 (1.35%) Accessibility
6 13 (1.09%) PCI DSS
7 12 (1.01%) SLA
8 8 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.42%) NIST
10 3 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.17%) GRC
11 2 (0.17%) PSD2
11 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.17%) WCAG
12 1 (0.084%) Basel III
12 1 (0.084%) COBIT
12 1 (0.084%) GAAP
12 1 (0.084%) GxP
12 1 (0.084%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 25 (2.10%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.94%) Docker
3 6 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
3 6 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.17%) RACF
5 2 (0.17%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.084%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 27 (2.27%) Terraform
2 21 (1.77%) Kubernetes
3 12 (1.01%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.51%) Argo
5 6 (0.51%) Grafana
5 6 (0.51%) Istio
6 5 (0.42%) SCCM
6 5 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.25%) Ansible
8 2 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.17%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.17%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.17%) MOM
8 2 (0.17%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.084%) Nagios
9 1 (0.084%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.084%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 100 (8.42%) Microsoft
2 80 (6.73%) SAP
3 71 (5.98%) Oracle
4 55 (4.63%) Google
5 54 (4.55%) Salesforce
6 42 (3.54%) Databricks
7 31 (2.61%) Adobe
8 21 (1.77%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.26%) Cisco
9 15 (1.26%) IFS
10 14 (1.18%) Sitecore
11 11 (0.93%) IBM
11 11 (0.93%) Splunk
11 11 (0.93%) Zscaler
12 10 (0.84%) MuleSoft
12 10 (0.84%) VMware
13 9 (0.76%) Fortinet
13 9 (0.76%) Palo Alto
14 7 (0.59%) Dynatrace
14 7 (0.59%) Workday