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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 90 93
Rank change year-on-year -50 +3 -4
Contract jobs citing Retail 854 801 1,050
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.76% 2.38%
As % of the General category 3.39% 4.38% 4.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 535 427 601
10th Percentile £191 £291 £288
25th Percentile £358 £407 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £627 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -7.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 18 74
10th Percentile £12.87 £17.27 £11.13
25th Percentile £14.75 £23.19 £12.15
Median hourly rate £16.50 £33.00 £15.95
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% +106.90% -19.49%
75th Percentile £29.19 £64.44 £21.37
90th Percentile £50.05 £87.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £22.50 £14.62
% change year-on-year -27.40% +53.95% -26.22%

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 25,165 18,276 25,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.21% 62.88% 58.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,671 11,716 16,376
10th Percentile £300 £300 £269
25th Percentile £406 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,561 716 1,854
10th Percentile £13.69 £15.00 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.14 £19.00 £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.39 £29.04 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.57% +11.67% -25.71%
75th Percentile £59.00 £58.62 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.09 £27.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year -12.40% +10.00% -19.03%

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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 -46 776 £500 -4.76% 1,108
London -32 429 £525 -4.55% 362
UK excluding London -37 355 £463 -7.50% 867
Work from Home -66 207 £500 -4.76% 379
South East -25 110 £420 -21.86% 242
North of England -47 90 £500 +11.11% 224
Midlands -38 74 £495 -1.00% 186
East Midlands -9 44 £495 -1.00% 118
North West -34 44 £500 +5.26% 111
Yorkshire -34 42 £513 +28.13% 91
East of England -21 38 £475 -9.52% 88
West Midlands -60 29 £514 +5.52% 68
Scotland +6 20 £450 -15.49% 41
South West -21 19 £310 -4.62% 84
North East -12 4 £206 -72.50% 25
Northern Ireland 0 2 £190 -44.48% 9
Wales -13 2 £235 +60.19% 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 37 (4.33%) Confluence
2 15 (1.76%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.52%) CMS
4 12 (1.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 9 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.47%) WordPress
7 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.35%) SAS
8 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.23%) Magnolia
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 27 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (2.11%) Microsoft Project
3 14 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
4 13 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (1.29%) Chatbot
6 10 (1.17%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.59%) Photoshop
8 4 (0.47%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.35%) InDesign
10 2 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.23%) Trello
11 1 (0.12%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.12%) Maya
11 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
11 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
11 1 (0.12%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 18 (2.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.99%) Shopify
3 13 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 12 (1.41%) SAP Retail
5 9 (1.05%) Oracle Retail
6 6 (0.70%) Finacle
6 6 (0.70%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 5 (0.59%) SAP Payroll
8 4 (0.47%) ResourceLink
8 4 (0.47%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.47%) Temenos T24
9 3 (0.35%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 2 (0.23%) BambooHR
10 2 (0.23%) NetSuite
10 2 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
10 2 (0.23%) Sage X3
10 2 (0.23%) Sprinklr
11 1 (0.12%) SAP CRM
11 1 (0.12%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 88 (10.30%) Azure
2 56 (6.56%) Power Platform
3 55 (6.44%) AWS
4 54 (6.32%) GCP
5 24 (2.81%) Dynamics 365
6 23 (2.69%) Snowflake
7 20 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
8 19 (2.22%) GitHub
9 18 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
10 15 (1.76%) SaaS
11 12 (1.41%) Entra ID
11 12 (1.41%) GitHub Actions
11 12 (1.41%) Google Workspace
12 11 (1.29%) Cloud Run
12 11 (1.29%) Figma
13 10 (1.17%) BigCommerce
13 10 (1.17%) Miro
13 10 (1.17%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 9 (1.05%) SuccessFactors
15 8 (0.94%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.87%) RFID
2 15 (1.76%) VPN
3 11 (1.29%) Firewall
3 11 (1.29%) WAN
3 11 (1.29%) Wireless
4 8 (0.94%) NFC
5 7 (0.82%) LAN
6 6 (0.70%) Cisco Nexus
6 6 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.59%) BGP
7 5 (0.59%) OSPF
8 4 (0.47%) EIGRP
8 4 (0.47%) VoIP
9 3 (0.35%) MPLS
10 2 (0.23%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.23%) Cisco Firepower
10 2 (0.23%) Network Security
10 2 (0.23%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.23%) VSAN
10 2 (0.23%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (5.62%) Power BI
2 27 (3.16%) BigQuery
3 16 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (1.52%) SQL Server
4 13 (1.52%) Tableau
5 12 (1.41%) MySQL
6 10 (1.17%) Metadata
7 7 (0.82%) Data Vault
8 6 (0.70%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.59%) Data Lake
9 5 (0.59%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
9 5 (0.59%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.47%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.35%) Looker
11 3 (0.35%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.35%) Oracle OLAP
11 3 (0.35%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.35%) SAP HANA
11 3 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 70 (8.20%) JIRA
2 14 (1.64%) Git
3 10 (1.17%) GitLab
4 9 (1.05%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.59%) ERwin
6 4 (0.47%) Maven
7 3 (0.35%) Selenium
7 3 (0.35%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.23%) MLflow
8 2 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
8 2 (0.23%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.12%) Gatling
9 1 (0.12%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.12%) JMeter
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.12%) Xcode
9 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 292 (34.19%) Social Skills
2 208 (24.36%) Finance
3 99 (11.59%) Analytical Skills
4 79 (9.25%) Banking
5 59 (6.91%) Marketing
6 39 (4.57%) Manufacturing
7 37 (4.33%) Organisational Skills
8 36 (4.22%) Public Sector
9 32 (3.75%) Retail Banking
10 30 (3.51%) Investment Banking
11 28 (3.28%) Corporate Banking
12 27 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
13 24 (2.81%) Presentation Skills
14 23 (2.69%) Influencing Skills
15 14 (1.64%) Legal
16 13 (1.52%) Telecoms
17 9 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 8 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
18 8 (0.94%) Private Banking
19 7 (0.82%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 156 (18.27%) Analyst
2 105 (12.30%) Project Manager
3 100 (11.71%) Senior
4 99 (11.59%) Architect
5 86 (10.07%) Business Analyst
6 68 (7.96%) Lead
7 42 (4.92%) Senior Manager
8 38 (4.45%) Consultant
9 37 (4.33%) Solutions Architect
10 32 (3.75%) Technical Manager
11 22 (2.58%) Data Architect
11 22 (2.58%) Developer
11 22 (2.58%) Senior Project Manager
12 20 (2.34%) Programme Manager
13 18 (2.11%) Data Analyst
13 18 (2.11%) Service Manager
14 16 (1.87%) Designer
15 15 (1.76%) Data Engineer
15 15 (1.76%) Product Manager
16 14 (1.64%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (2.93%) Middleware
2 23 (2.69%) REST
2 23 (2.69%) VML
3 17 (1.99%) Spring
4 13 (1.52%) React
5 12 (1.41%) AngularJS
5 12 (1.41%) Spring Boot
6 11 (1.29%) PySpark
7 9 (1.05%) CSS
7 9 (1.05%) HTML
8 8 (0.94%) .NET
8 8 (0.94%) Node.js
9 7 (0.82%) scikit-learn
10 6 (0.70%) jQuery
10 6 (0.70%) JSON
10 6 (0.70%) Kafka
10 6 (0.70%) LangChain
10 6 (0.70%) OpenTelemetry
11 5 (0.59%) OAuth
11 5 (0.59%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 55 (6.44%) Product Ownership
2 35 (4.10%) Driving Licence
3 26 (3.04%) Cloud Native
3 26 (3.04%) Self-Motivation
4 23 (2.69%) Onboarding
5 22 (2.58%) EPoS
6 20 (2.34%) Data Centre
6 20 (2.34%) FMCG
6 20 (2.34%) Management Information System
7 17 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
8 16 (1.87%) Mainframe
9 15 (1.76%) Data Structures
10 14 (1.64%) Mobile App
11 9 (1.05%) IoT
11 9 (1.05%) Virtual Team
12 8 (0.94%) Algorithms
12 8 (0.94%) Reference Data
13 7 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
13 7 (0.82%) Enterprise Software
13 7 (0.82%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 37 (4.33%) Windows
2 19 (2.22%) Linux
3 9 (1.05%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.59%) Android
4 5 (0.59%) zOS
5 4 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.47%) Unix
5 4 (0.47%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.12%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.12%) VMS
6 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 200 (23.42%) Stakeholder Management
2 192 (22.48%) Agile
3 168 (19.67%) Problem-Solving
4 112 (13.11%) E-Commerce
5 100 (11.71%) Migration
6 99 (11.59%) Project Management
7 93 (10.89%) Analytics
8 89 (10.42%) Roadmaps
9 87 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 76 (8.90%) Customer Experience
11 72 (8.43%) ERP
12 70 (8.20%) AI
12 70 (8.20%) Project Delivery
12 70 (8.20%) Workshop Facilitation
13 69 (8.08%) Continuous Improvement
14 68 (7.96%) Change Management
15 64 (7.49%) Decision-Making
15 64 (7.49%) Scrum
16 62 (7.26%) Business Intelligence
17 60 (7.03%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 73 (8.55%) SQL
2 63 (7.38%) Python
3 30 (3.51%) Java
4 19 (2.22%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.64%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.05%) Bash
6 9 (1.05%) Shell Script
7 8 (0.94%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.82%) C#
9 5 (0.59%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.59%) PL/SQL
9 5 (0.59%) TypeScript
10 4 (0.47%) Scala
10 4 (0.47%) VBA
11 3 (0.35%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.35%) SOQL
11 3 (0.35%) SOSL
12 2 (0.23%) Bicep
12 2 (0.23%) Korn
12 2 (0.23%) R
Qualifications
1 47 (5.50%) Degree
2 26 (3.04%) Security Cleared
3 20 (2.34%) PMP
4 15 (1.76%) PMI Certification
5 13 (1.52%) SC Cleared
6 8 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.82%) APMP
7 7 (0.82%) CISSP
7 7 (0.82%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.70%) CCNP
8 6 (0.70%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.70%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (0.70%) CSPO
8 6 (0.70%) MBA
9 4 (0.47%) CCIE
9 4 (0.47%) CISM
9 4 (0.47%) CRISC
10 3 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.35%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (5.50%) Data Quality
2 45 (5.27%) QA
3 30 (3.51%) PMO
4 27 (3.16%) GDPR
5 19 (2.22%) SLA
6 12 (1.41%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.70%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.47%) IFRS
9 4 (0.47%) NIST
10 3 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.23%) GRC
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
11 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.12%) COBIT
12 1 (0.12%) GAAP
12 1 (0.12%) ISO 8583
12 1 (0.12%) MiFID
12 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (2.11%) Active Directory
2 15 (1.76%) Docker
3 4 (0.47%) RACF
3 4 (0.47%) VMware NSX
4 3 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 21 (2.46%) Terraform
2 13 (1.52%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.82%) Grafana
3 7 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (0.82%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 6 (0.70%) Argo
4 6 (0.70%) Istio
5 5 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.47%) SCCM
7 2 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.23%) CA Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.23%) MOM
7 2 (0.23%) PingFederate
8 1 (0.12%) Control-M
8 1 (0.12%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.12%) Nmap
8 1 (0.12%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.12%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.12%) zSecure
Vendors
1 79 (9.25%) Microsoft
2 67 (7.85%) SAP
3 53 (6.21%) Google
4 51 (5.97%) Oracle
5 38 (4.45%) Salesforce
6 34 (3.98%) Databricks
7 25 (2.93%) Adobe
8 19 (2.22%) ServiceNow
9 13 (1.52%) Sitecore
10 11 (1.29%) Cisco
11 9 (1.05%) IBM
11 9 (1.05%) IFS
12 8 (0.94%) Temenos
13 7 (0.82%) CheckPoint
13 7 (0.82%) Splunk
13 7 (0.82%) VMware
13 7 (0.82%) Workday
14 6 (0.70%) Apple
14 6 (0.70%) Palo Alto
14 6 (0.70%) Zscaler