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 17 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 90 104
Rank change year-on-year -59 +14 -23
Contract jobs citing Retail 697 834 936
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.87% 2.62% 2.16%
As % of the General category 3.11% 4.26% 3.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 412 439 531
10th Percentile £206 £265 £263
25th Percentile £402 £411 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £625
90th Percentile £735 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.75% - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 9 35
10th Percentile £12.95 £15.38 £10.78
25th Percentile £16.17 £18.13 £13.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £32.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -46.15% +64.06% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £35.25 £21.03
90th Percentile £24.99 £40.75 £27.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £18.13 £19.81
% change year-on-year -9.90% -8.48% -

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 22,421 19,586 25,516
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 60.10% 61.57% 58.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,109 11,683 16,675
10th Percentile £283 £285 £270
25th Percentile £400 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £727 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,372 660 1,289
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.48 £13.48
25th Percentile £16.48 £19.94 £15.75
Median hourly rate £23.00 £27.50 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.36% -5.17% +16.00%
75th Percentile £46.00 £53.75 £56.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.38 £26.50 £27.08
% change year-on-year -19.32% -2.15% +20.37%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 -48 644 £500 -4.76% 1,347
London -36 334 £550 - 235
UK excluding London -42 312 £481 -3.75% 1,269
Work from Home -70 170 £528 +0.48% 589
South East -18 90 £517 -6.09% 386
North of England -57 78 £475 +4.11% 282
Midlands -32 69 £463 -7.50% 198
East Midlands -5 47 £495 -1.00% 104
Yorkshire -42 41 £500 +25.00% 126
East of England -18 39 £533 +1.43% 181
North West -26 33 £485 +4.86% 121
West Midlands -51 21 £275 -47.62% 93
Scotland -4 17 £450 -14.29% 50
South West -13 15 £183 -56.55% 143
North East -10 5 £200 -66.67% 38
Wales +2 3 £625 +331.03% 50
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 24

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 33 (4.73%) Confluence
2 16 (2.30%) CMS
3 15 (2.15%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.29%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.86%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.72%) Camunda
6 5 (0.72%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.57%) WordPress
8 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.29%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.29%) Magnolia
10 1 (0.14%) SAS
10 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 24 (3.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.43%) MS Visio
4 8 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.72%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.29%) Trello
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.14%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 22 (3.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.87%) Shopify
3 10 (1.43%) Dynamics CRM
3 10 (1.43%) SAP Retail
4 6 (0.86%) Oracle Retail
4 6 (0.86%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.72%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.57%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.57%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.57%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (0.57%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.57%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.43%) Finacle
7 3 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.43%) SAP MDG
8 2 (0.29%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.29%) Magento
8 2 (0.29%) SAP GTS
8 2 (0.29%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.29%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 90 (12.91%) Azure
2 49 (7.03%) AWS
3 46 (6.60%) Power Platform
4 36 (5.16%) GCP
5 23 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
6 21 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
7 16 (2.30%) SaaS
8 15 (2.15%) GitHub
8 15 (2.15%) Microsoft 365
9 14 (2.01%) Snowflake
10 11 (1.58%) Figma
10 11 (1.58%) OCI
10 11 (1.58%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 10 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (1.29%) Power Automate
12 9 (1.29%) SuccessFactors
13 8 (1.15%) Entra ID
13 8 (1.15%) Vertex AI
14 7 (1.00%) BigCommerce
14 7 (1.00%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.73%) RFID
2 18 (2.58%) NFC
2 18 (2.58%) Wireless
3 12 (1.72%) Firewall
4 10 (1.43%) VPN
5 7 (1.00%) WAN
6 6 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (0.57%) BGP
7 4 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
7 4 (0.57%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.57%) OSPF
7 4 (0.57%) VoIP
8 3 (0.43%) LAN
9 2 (0.29%) MPLS
9 2 (0.29%) SAN
9 2 (0.29%) WLAN
10 1 (0.14%) FTP
10 1 (0.14%) HTTPS
10 1 (0.14%) Intranet
10 1 (0.14%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.60%) Power BI
2 19 (2.73%) BigQuery
3 17 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (2.15%) Tableau
5 14 (2.01%) Metadata
5 14 (2.01%) SQL Server
6 7 (1.00%) Data Lake
7 6 (0.86%) Data Vault
7 6 (0.86%) MySQL
8 5 (0.72%) MongoDB
8 5 (0.72%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.72%) Snowflake Schema
9 4 (0.57%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
9 4 (0.57%) Power Query
9 4 (0.57%) Redis
9 4 (0.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.43%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.43%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 70 (10.04%) JIRA
2 11 (1.58%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.15%) Git
4 7 (1.00%) GitLab
5 4 (0.57%) ERwin
5 4 (0.57%) Selenium
5 4 (0.57%) Storybook
6 3 (0.43%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.29%) JMeter
7 2 (0.29%) JUnit
7 2 (0.29%) MLflow
7 2 (0.29%) Mockito
7 2 (0.29%) Postman
7 2 (0.29%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.29%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.29%) Xcode
7 2 (0.29%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio
General
1 249 (35.72%) Social Skills
2 142 (20.37%) Finance
3 79 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (8.18%) Banking
5 48 (6.89%) Marketing
6 41 (5.88%) Organisational Skills
7 39 (5.60%) Public Sector
8 35 (5.02%) Manufacturing
9 27 (3.87%) Retail Banking
10 23 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (3.16%) Legal
12 21 (3.01%) Corporate Banking
13 20 (2.87%) Investment Banking
14 18 (2.58%) Presentation Skills
15 11 (1.58%) Telecoms
16 10 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 6 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 6 (0.86%) Publishing
18 4 (0.57%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 137 (19.66%) Analyst
2 80 (11.48%) Project Manager
3 75 (10.76%) Architect
4 66 (9.47%) Senior
5 65 (9.33%) Business Analyst
6 57 (8.18%) Lead
7 35 (5.02%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (4.45%) Consultant
9 27 (3.87%) Senior Manager
10 19 (2.73%) Product Manager
11 17 (2.44%) Developer
11 17 (2.44%) Programme Manager
11 17 (2.44%) Technical Manager
12 14 (2.01%) SAP Consultant
12 14 (2.01%) Service Manager
13 13 (1.87%) Data Analyst
13 13 (1.87%) Help Desk Analyst
13 13 (1.87%) Support Analyst
14 12 (1.72%) Field Engineer
14 12 (1.72%) Senior Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.30%) React
2 19 (2.73%) VML
3 16 (2.30%) Node.js
4 15 (2.15%) REST
5 14 (2.01%) PySpark
6 10 (1.43%) HTML
7 8 (1.15%) .NET
7 8 (1.15%) AngularJS
8 7 (1.00%) React Native
8 7 (1.00%) scikit-learn
8 7 (1.00%) Spring
8 7 (1.00%) Spring Boot
9 6 (0.86%) FastAPI
9 6 (0.86%) Kafka
9 6 (0.86%) OpenTelemetry
9 6 (0.86%) XML
10 5 (0.72%) CSS
10 5 (0.72%) LangChain
10 5 (0.72%) Matplotlib
10 5 (0.72%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 36 (5.16%) Product Ownership
2 30 (4.30%) Legacy Systems
3 24 (3.44%) Self-Motivation
4 21 (3.01%) EPoS
4 21 (3.01%) Onboarding
5 20 (2.87%) IoT
6 17 (2.44%) Management Information System
7 16 (2.30%) FMCG
8 13 (1.87%) Cloud Native
8 13 (1.87%) Data Centre
8 13 (1.87%) Data Structures
8 13 (1.87%) Driving Licence
9 9 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
9 9 (1.29%) Mobile App
10 8 (1.15%) Algorithms
10 8 (1.15%) Mainframe
11 6 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (0.86%) Replication
12 5 (0.72%) Reference Data
12 5 (0.72%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 38 (5.45%) Windows
2 10 (1.43%) Linux
3 7 (1.00%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.72%) Android
4 5 (0.72%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.43%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.29%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.14%) VMS
7 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 167 (23.96%) Stakeholder Management
2 166 (23.82%) Agile
3 112 (16.07%) Problem-Solving
4 89 (12.77%) Project Management
5 79 (11.33%) E-Commerce
6 78 (11.19%) Analytics
7 73 (10.47%) Migration
8 65 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 60 (8.61%) Continuous Improvement
10 58 (8.32%) Roadmaps
11 57 (8.18%) Workshop Facilitation
12 53 (7.60%) AI
13 52 (7.46%) Scrum
14 50 (7.17%) Business Intelligence
14 50 (7.17%) Decision-Making
15 49 (7.03%) Data Modelling
16 47 (6.74%) DevOps
17 46 (6.60%) CRM
18 45 (6.46%) Customer Experience
18 45 (6.46%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 71 (10.19%) SQL
2 62 (8.90%) Python
3 18 (2.58%) Java
4 13 (1.87%) JavaScript
5 11 (1.58%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.43%) Bash
7 7 (1.00%) Kusto Query Language
7 7 (1.00%) Shell Script
7 7 (1.00%) TypeScript
8 6 (0.86%) C#
9 4 (0.57%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.29%) ABAP
10 2 (0.29%) PHP
10 2 (0.29%) R
10 2 (0.29%) Swift
10 2 (0.29%) VBA
11 1 (0.14%) JCL
11 1 (0.14%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.14%) ProC
11 1 (0.14%) VB
Qualifications
1 33 (4.73%) Degree
2 20 (2.87%) PMP
3 18 (2.58%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.44%) PMI Certification
5 9 (1.29%) Master's Degree
6 6 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
6 6 (0.86%) MBA
6 6 (0.86%) SC Cleared
7 5 (0.72%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (0.57%) APMP
8 4 (0.57%) CCIE
8 4 (0.57%) CCNP
8 4 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (0.57%) CISSP
8 4 (0.57%) CSPO
9 3 (0.43%) CISM
9 3 (0.43%) CRISC
9 3 (0.43%) GIAC
9 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.02%) Data Quality
2 23 (3.30%) QA
3 17 (2.44%) PMO
4 16 (2.30%) GDPR
5 13 (1.87%) SLA
6 12 (1.72%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.86%) COBIT
8 5 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.43%) IFRS
9 3 (0.43%) NCSC
9 3 (0.43%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 2 (0.29%) NIST
11 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.14%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.14%) MiFID
11 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.14%) Solvency II
System Software
1 11 (1.58%) Docker
2 10 (1.43%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.57%) RACF
4 3 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (0.43%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.14%) Varnish
5 1 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 23 (3.30%) Terraform
2 11 (1.58%) Kubernetes
3 6 (0.86%) Ansible
4 5 (0.72%) Argo
4 5 (0.72%) Istio
5 4 (0.57%) Grafana
5 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.43%) SCCM
6 3 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.14%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.14%) Cacti
7 1 (0.14%) Control-M
7 1 (0.14%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.14%) Nmap
7 1 (0.14%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.14%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.14%) zSecure
Vendors
1 77 (11.05%) Microsoft
2 62 (8.90%) SAP
3 45 (6.46%) Oracle
4 43 (6.17%) Salesforce
5 29 (4.16%) Google
6 20 (2.87%) Databricks
7 19 (2.73%) Adobe
8 13 (1.87%) HP
9 12 (1.72%) Dell
10 10 (1.43%) CheckPoint
10 10 (1.43%) F5
11 9 (1.29%) Dynatrace
12 8 (1.15%) ServiceNow
12 8 (1.15%) Sitecore
13 7 (1.00%) Cisco
14 5 (0.72%) Apple
14 5 (0.72%) Meraki
14 5 (0.72%) MicroStrategy
14 5 (0.72%) Temenos
14 5 (0.72%) Zscaler