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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 88 94
Rank change year-on-year -60 +6 -9
Contract jobs citing Retail 748 852 1,024
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.86% 2.80% 2.29%
As % of the General category 3.17% 4.51% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 464 437 589
10th Percentile £194 £265 £273
25th Percentile £360 £408 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -3.30%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £735 £765 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -10.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 12 53
10th Percentile £12.95 £18.13 £11.01
25th Percentile £16.17 £26.28 £13.00
Median hourly rate £18.00 £33.00 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -45.45% +102.45% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.52 £70.00 £21.37
90th Percentile £45.09 £86.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £25.32 £15.29
% change year-on-year -35.47% +65.57% -22.82%

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 23,589 18,910 26,233
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.66% 62.08% 58.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,768 11,381 16,900
10th Percentile £298 £284 £266
25th Percentile £404 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £644 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £500
% change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,455 595 1,648
10th Percentile £13.69 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.36 £20.12 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £25.71
Median % change year-on-year -21.34% +12.80% -4.78%
75th Percentile £50.00 £57.50 £53.38
90th Percentile £71.80 £75.00 £67.64
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.73 £27.13 £24.83
% change year-on-year -19.91% +9.26% -0.70%

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 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 17 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 17 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 -57 679 £500 -4.76% 1,006
London -41 376 £550 - 322
UK excluding London -64 311 £450 -10.00% 839
Work from Home -87 178 £500 -6.98% 343
South East -32 84 £494 -10.23% 271
North of England -56 75 £475 +5.56% 179
Midlands -46 68 £456 -8.75% 179
East Midlands -8 42 £495 -1.00% 107
East of England -24 37 £526 -4.32% 90
North West -28 36 £500 +11.11% 113
Yorkshire -44 36 £500 +25.00% 53
West Midlands -55 25 £275 -47.62% 72
Scotland -1 21 £450 -14.29% 43
South West -12 20 £201 -38.08% 72
Wales -6 4 £453 +210.25% 19
North East -13 4 £206 -65.63% 13
Northern Ireland -2 2 £190 +41.31% 10

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 (4.14%) Confluence
2 16 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.87%) CMS
4 9 (1.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 9 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.53%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.53%) WordPress
6 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.27%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.27%) Magnolia
7 2 (0.27%) SAS
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 24 (3.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.60%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (1.34%) MS Visio
5 9 (1.20%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.40%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.27%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.27%) 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 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.60%) SAP Retail
2 12 (1.60%) Shopify
3 8 (1.07%) Oracle Retail
4 6 (0.80%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 5 (0.67%) 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 (0.27%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.27%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.27%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.27%) Sprinklr
9 1 (0.13%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 84 (11.23%) Azure
2 51 (6.82%) AWS
3 47 (6.28%) Power Platform
4 45 (6.02%) GCP
5 23 (3.07%) Dynamics 365
6 19 (2.54%) Azure DevOps
7 18 (2.41%) Snowflake
8 16 (2.14%) GitHub
9 15 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
9 15 (2.01%) SaaS
10 12 (1.60%) Figma
11 11 (1.47%) Cloud Run
11 11 (1.47%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (1.34%) Google Workspace
13 9 (1.20%) OCI
14 8 (1.07%) dbt
14 8 (1.07%) Entra ID
14 8 (1.07%) Miro
14 8 (1.07%) SuccessFactors
15 7 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 23 (3.07%) RFID
2 18 (2.41%) NFC
2 18 (2.41%) Wireless
3 10 (1.34%) Firewall
3 10 (1.34%) VPN
4 9 (1.20%) WAN
5 5 (0.67%) LAN
5 5 (0.67%) 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 (0.27%) MPLS
7 2 (0.27%) SAN
7 2 (0.27%) 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 40 (5.35%) Power BI
2 23 (3.07%) BigQuery
3 20 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (2.01%) Metadata
4 15 (2.01%) Tableau
5 14 (1.87%) SQL Server
6 9 (1.20%) Data Lake
6 9 (1.20%) MySQL
7 7 (0.94%) Data Vault
8 6 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.67%) MongoDB
9 5 (0.67%) Oracle Reports
9 5 (0.67%) Relational Database
9 5 (0.67%) Snowflake Schema
10 4 (0.53%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.53%) Redis
10 4 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.40%) OLAP
11 3 (0.40%) Oracle OLAP
11 3 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 71 (9.49%) JIRA
2 13 (1.74%) Jenkins
3 11 (1.47%) Git
4 10 (1.34%) GitLab
5 5 (0.67%) ERwin
5 5 (0.67%) Selenium
6 3 (0.40%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.27%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.27%) JMeter
7 2 (0.27%) JUnit
7 2 (0.27%) Maven
7 2 (0.27%) MLflow
7 2 (0.27%) Mockito
7 2 (0.27%) Postman
7 2 (0.27%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.27%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.27%) Xcode
7 2 (0.27%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 260 (34.76%) Social Skills
2 160 (21.39%) Finance
3 76 (10.16%) Analytical Skills
4 66 (8.82%) Banking
5 55 (7.35%) Marketing
6 41 (5.48%) Organisational Skills
7 36 (4.81%) Manufacturing
7 36 (4.81%) Public Sector
8 29 (3.88%) Retail Banking
9 26 (3.48%) Corporate Banking
10 24 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
10 24 (3.21%) Investment Banking
11 21 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
12 19 (2.54%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (2.27%) Legal
14 13 (1.74%) Telecoms
15 11 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 7 (0.94%) Financial Institution
16 7 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
17 6 (0.80%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 133 (17.78%) Analyst
2 97 (12.97%) Project Manager
3 79 (10.56%) Architect
3 79 (10.56%) Senior
4 63 (8.42%) Lead
5 61 (8.16%) Business Analyst
6 38 (5.08%) Senior Manager
7 33 (4.41%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (4.14%) Consultant
9 24 (3.21%) Technical Manager
10 20 (2.67%) Developer
11 19 (2.54%) Product Manager
11 19 (2.54%) Senior Project Manager
12 17 (2.27%) Programme Manager
13 14 (1.87%) Data Engineer
13 14 (1.87%) Designer
13 14 (1.87%) E-Commerce Manager
14 13 (1.74%) SAP Consultant
14 13 (1.74%) Service Manager
14 13 (1.74%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (2.67%) REST
2 19 (2.54%) VML
3 14 (1.87%) PySpark
3 14 (1.87%) React
3 14 (1.87%) Spring
4 13 (1.74%) Spring Boot
5 12 (1.60%) Middleware
6 9 (1.20%) .NET
7 8 (1.07%) AngularJS
7 8 (1.07%) HTML
7 8 (1.07%) scikit-learn
8 7 (0.94%) FastAPI
8 7 (0.94%) Kafka
8 7 (0.94%) Node.js
8 7 (0.94%) OpenTelemetry
8 7 (0.94%) XML
9 6 (0.80%) JSON
9 6 (0.80%) LangChain
9 6 (0.80%) PyTorch
10 5 (0.67%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 40 (5.35%) Product Ownership
2 30 (4.01%) Driving Licence
3 26 (3.48%) EPoS
4 23 (3.07%) Onboarding
5 22 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
5 22 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
6 20 (2.67%) Management Information System
7 18 (2.41%) Cloud Native
7 18 (2.41%) FMCG
7 18 (2.41%) IoT
8 16 (2.14%) Mobile App
9 14 (1.87%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.74%) Data Centre
11 9 (1.20%) Algorithms
11 9 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.20%) Mainframe
12 8 (1.07%) Social Media
13 7 (0.94%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.80%) CMDB
14 6 (0.80%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 34 (4.55%) Windows
2 13 (1.74%) Linux
3 8 (1.07%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.67%) 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%) Unix
7 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 180 (24.06%) Stakeholder Management
2 171 (22.86%) Agile
3 139 (18.58%) Problem-Solving
4 99 (13.24%) Project Management
5 90 (12.03%) E-Commerce
6 79 (10.56%) Analytics
7 74 (9.89%) Migration
8 69 (9.22%) Roadmaps
9 68 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 65 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
11 62 (8.29%) Customer Experience
12 59 (7.89%) Workshop Facilitation
13 56 (7.49%) Decision-Making
14 55 (7.35%) Scrum
15 54 (7.22%) AI
16 53 (7.09%) Business Intelligence
17 51 (6.82%) Customer Service
18 50 (6.68%) DevOps
19 49 (6.55%) Project Delivery
20 47 (6.28%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 71 (9.49%) SQL
2 65 (8.69%) Python
3 26 (3.48%) Java
4 15 (2.01%) JavaScript
5 12 (1.60%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.47%) Bash
7 9 (1.20%) Shell Script
7 9 (1.20%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (0.94%) C#
10 6 (0.80%) Kotlin
11 5 (0.67%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.40%) VBA
13 2 (0.27%) Google Apps Script
13 2 (0.27%) PHP
13 2 (0.27%) Swift
14 1 (0.13%) CLIST
14 1 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.13%) R
14 1 (0.13%) Scala
Qualifications
1 43 (5.75%) Degree
2 22 (2.94%) PMP
3 18 (2.41%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.27%) PMI Certification
5 10 (1.34%) Master's Degree
6 8 (1.07%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.94%) CISSP
7 7 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (0.94%) MBA
7 7 (0.94%) SC Cleared
8 6 (0.80%) APMP
8 6 (0.80%) 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 (4.41%) QA
2 31 (4.14%) Data Quality
3 22 (2.94%) PMO
4 17 (2.27%) Accessibility
4 17 (2.27%) GDPR
5 13 (1.74%) SLA
6 6 (0.80%) 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 (0.27%) 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 (1.74%) Docker
2 10 (1.34%) 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 (2.81%) Terraform
2 12 (1.60%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.20%) Grafana
4 6 (0.80%) Argo
4 6 (0.80%) Istio
5 5 (0.67%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 4 (0.53%) Ansible
7 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.40%) SCCM
7 3 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.13%) Cacti
9 1 (0.13%) Control-M
9 1 (0.13%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.13%) Nmap
9 1 (0.13%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.13%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.13%) zSecure
Vendors
1 72 (9.63%) Microsoft
2 58 (7.75%) SAP
3 48 (6.42%) Google
4 46 (6.15%) Oracle
5 34 (4.55%) Salesforce
6 24 (3.21%) Databricks
7 21 (2.81%) Adobe
8 13 (1.74%) ServiceNow
9 10 (1.34%) Dell
10 9 (1.20%) Sitecore
10 9 (1.20%) Splunk
11 8 (1.07%) CheckPoint
11 8 (1.07%) Cisco
11 8 (1.07%) Dynatrace
11 8 (1.07%) F5
11 8 (1.07%) HP
12 7 (0.94%) IBM
13 6 (0.80%) Temenos
14 5 (0.67%) Apple
14 5 (0.67%) BMC