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 15 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 122 93 100
Rank change year-on-year -29 +7 -38
Contract jobs citing Retail 764 923 1,216
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.35% 2.42% 2.42%
As % of the General category 3.70% 4.18% 4.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 405 498 731
10th Percentile £287 £275 £313
25th Percentile £413 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £737 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 38 44
10th Percentile - £12.15 £16.28
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.03 £19.06
Median hourly rate £16.34 £16.30 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year +0.21% -17.72% -
75th Percentile £20.72 £21.37 £20.92
90th Percentile £25.15 £32.71 £22.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £16.15 £19.81
% change year-on-year +1.15% -18.48% +19.59%

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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 20,664 22,065 29,719
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 63.67% 57.85% 59.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,794 13,287 20,139
10th Percentile £275 £288 £306
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £672
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,190 1,117 1,072
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.72 £13.72
25th Percentile £16.17 £17.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.28 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.54% +35.56% +12.43%
75th Percentile £48.74 £60.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £67.25 £70.39 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.39 £37.28 £26.00
% change year-on-year -42.62% +43.38% +23.81%

Retail
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Retail as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Retail 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 15 September 2025.

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 15 September 2025.

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 15 September 2025. 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 -21 692 £520 -0.95% 2,267
London -29 352 £550 - 798
UK excluding London -4 336 £500 - 1,834
Work from Home -37 220 £500 -0.99% 764
North of England -4 116 £500 -4.76% 386
South East +15 80 £550 +15.79% 678
Yorkshire -13 59 £500 -4.76% 150
North West +5 52 £500 +8.11% 220
Midlands -20 51 £425 -15.00% 309
East of England -24 35 £525 +2.44% 207
South West +41 34 £315 -25.00% 184
East Midlands +7 32 £436 -12.80% 151
West Midlands -28 19 £425 -30.61% 150
Scotland -6 15 £513 +2.50% 67
North East -1 6 £443 -29.20% 23
Wales +5 4 £625 +364.82% 32
Northern Ireland -6 1 - - 12

Retail
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 23 (3.01%) Confluence
2 13 (1.70%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.57%) CMS
4 6 (0.79%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.79%) Camunda
5 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.26%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.13%) Appian
8 1 (0.13%) SAS
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 37 (4.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (4.19%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.92%) Chatbot
5 6 (0.79%) Trello
6 4 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.52%) Sketch
7 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.26%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.26%) UserZoom
9 1 (0.13%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.13%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 32 (4.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (2.62%) Shopify
3 8 (1.05%) Oracle Retail
4 6 (0.79%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.65%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.52%) Avolution ABACUS
6 4 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.52%) Magento
6 4 (0.52%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.52%) SAP GTS
6 4 (0.52%) SAP Retail
7 3 (0.39%) NetSuite
7 3 (0.39%) SAP POS DM
7 3 (0.39%) Sprinklr
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.26%) SAP CAR
8 2 (0.26%) SAP CX
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.13%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
Cloud Services
1 88 (11.52%) Azure
2 54 (7.07%) AWS
3 48 (6.28%) Power Platform
4 35 (4.58%) GCP
5 32 (4.19%) Microsoft 365
6 31 (4.06%) Dynamics 365
7 23 (3.01%) Entra ID
8 20 (2.62%) SaaS
9 19 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (2.09%) Figma
11 12 (1.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 12 (1.57%) BigCommerce
12 10 (1.31%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
13 8 (1.05%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 8 (1.05%) Serverless
14 7 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
14 7 (0.92%) GitHub
14 7 (0.92%) Power Automate
15 6 (0.79%) OCI
15 6 (0.79%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.57%) Wireless
2 11 (1.44%) RFID
3 10 (1.31%) NFC
4 9 (1.18%) Firewall
4 9 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
5 5 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
6 4 (0.52%) DNS
6 4 (0.52%) LAN
6 4 (0.52%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.52%) WAN
7 3 (0.39%) Broadband
7 3 (0.39%) Cisco Nexus
7 3 (0.39%) HTTP
7 3 (0.39%) Network Security
8 2 (0.26%) ATM
8 2 (0.26%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (0.26%) DHCP
8 2 (0.26%) OSPF
8 2 (0.26%) VPN
8 2 (0.26%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (5.50%) Power BI
2 21 (2.75%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (1.70%) Tableau
4 12 (1.57%) Data Lake
5 10 (1.31%) Metadata
6 9 (1.18%) BigQuery
7 8 (1.05%) Power Query
7 8 (1.05%) SQL Server
8 7 (0.92%) Big Data
9 6 (0.79%) Data Vault
10 5 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
11 3 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.39%) Looker
11 3 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.26%) MongoDB
12 2 (0.26%) Oracle Reports
12 2 (0.26%) Parquet
12 2 (0.26%) Relational Database
12 2 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 50 (6.54%) JIRA
2 17 (2.23%) Git
3 13 (1.70%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.79%) GitLab
5 4 (0.52%) Artifactory
5 4 (0.52%) Gradle
5 4 (0.52%) Postman
5 4 (0.52%) Storybook
6 3 (0.39%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.39%) Selenium
6 3 (0.39%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.26%) Android Studio
7 2 (0.26%) JMeter
7 2 (0.26%) JUnit
7 2 (0.26%) Maven
7 2 (0.26%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.26%) Xcode
7 2 (0.26%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.13%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.13%) REST Assured
General
1 286 (37.43%) Social Skills
2 181 (23.69%) Finance
3 89 (11.65%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (10.60%) Banking
5 55 (7.20%) Retail Banking
6 53 (6.94%) Investment Banking
7 50 (6.54%) Marketing
8 49 (6.41%) Corporate Banking
9 43 (5.63%) Organisational Skills
10 40 (5.24%) Manufacturing
11 30 (3.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 30 (3.93%) Public Sector
12 27 (3.53%) Legal
13 17 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
14 15 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
15 13 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
16 12 (1.57%) French Language
17 11 (1.44%) Financial Institution
18 10 (1.31%) Automotive
18 10 (1.31%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 148 (19.37%) Analyst
2 83 (10.86%) Architect
3 74 (9.69%) Project Manager
4 58 (7.59%) Business Analyst
5 53 (6.94%) Senior
6 46 (6.02%) Solutions Architect
7 37 (4.84%) Lead
8 36 (4.71%) Consultant
8 36 (4.71%) Developer
9 27 (3.53%) Senior Manager
10 24 (3.14%) Product Manager
11 21 (2.75%) Data Analyst
11 21 (2.75%) IT Manager
12 19 (2.49%) Programme Manager
12 19 (2.49%) Support Manager
13 18 (2.36%) Designer
13 18 (2.36%) IT Support
14 16 (2.09%) Service Analyst
14 16 (2.09%) Service Desk Analyst
15 15 (1.96%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.75%) HTML
1 21 (2.75%) React
2 18 (2.36%) REST
3 17 (2.23%) CSS
4 13 (1.70%) Node.js
5 12 (1.57%) VML
6 11 (1.44%) PySpark
7 10 (1.31%) Web Services
8 9 (1.18%) EDI
8 9 (1.18%) Kafka
8 9 (1.18%) Middleware
8 9 (1.18%) React Native
9 7 (0.92%) .NET
9 7 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
9 7 (0.92%) Redux
10 6 (0.79%) RESTful
10 6 (0.79%) SOAP
11 5 (0.65%) CSS3
11 5 (0.65%) HTML5
11 5 (0.65%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 40 (5.24%) Product Ownership
2 22 (2.88%) EPoS
3 19 (2.49%) iPhone
3 19 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
3 19 (2.49%) Onboarding
3 19 (2.49%) Smartphone
4 18 (2.36%) Mobile App
5 17 (2.23%) FMCG
6 16 (2.09%) IoT
7 13 (1.70%) Data Centre
8 12 (1.57%) Cloud Native
8 12 (1.57%) Data Structures
8 12 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
9 11 (1.44%) Greenfield Project
10 10 (1.31%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
12 7 (0.92%) Social Media
13 6 (0.79%) Algorithms
13 6 (0.79%) Renewable Energy
14 5 (0.65%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 37 (4.84%) Windows
2 20 (2.62%) Mac OS
3 8 (1.05%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.79%) Android
5 4 (0.52%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.39%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.26%) Linux
8 1 (0.13%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (22.12%) Agile
2 150 (19.63%) Stakeholder Management
3 116 (15.18%) Problem-Solving
4 99 (12.96%) E-Commerce
5 76 (9.95%) Project Management
6 69 (9.03%) Analytics
6 69 (9.03%) Migration
7 67 (8.77%) Roadmaps
8 61 (7.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 56 (7.33%) DevOps
10 55 (7.20%) Customer Experience
11 54 (7.07%) Wealth Management
12 51 (6.68%) ITIL
13 50 (6.54%) Continuous Improvement
14 49 (6.41%) Decision-Making
15 46 (6.02%) Data Modelling
15 46 (6.02%) Logistics
15 46 (6.02%) Project Delivery
16 45 (5.89%) CRM
16 45 (5.89%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 68 (8.90%) SQL
2 61 (7.98%) Python
3 22 (2.88%) JavaScript
4 12 (1.57%) Java
5 10 (1.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 9 (1.18%) TypeScript
7 6 (0.79%) C#
8 4 (0.52%) Bash
8 4 (0.52%) PowerShell
9 3 (0.39%) ABAP
9 3 (0.39%) Go
9 3 (0.39%) Korn
9 3 (0.39%) R
9 3 (0.39%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.26%) JSX
10 2 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.26%) Scala
10 2 (0.26%) VB
10 2 (0.26%) VBA
10 2 (0.26%) X++
Qualifications
1 35 (4.58%) Degree
2 15 (1.96%) PMP
3 12 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
4 11 (1.44%) PMI Certification
4 11 (1.44%) Security Cleared
5 8 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
6 7 (0.92%) SC Cleared
7 5 (0.65%) A+ Certification
7 5 (0.65%) MCSA
8 4 (0.52%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.52%) CISSP
9 3 (0.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
9 3 (0.39%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.39%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 2 (0.26%) ACCA
10 2 (0.26%) CCNP
10 2 (0.26%) CISA
10 2 (0.26%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (3.14%) QA
2 18 (2.36%) GDPR
3 16 (2.09%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.44%) Accessibility
4 11 (1.44%) PMO
5 9 (1.18%) GRC
5 9 (1.18%) PCI DSS
6 6 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.52%) COBIT
7 4 (0.52%) NIST
7 4 (0.52%) SLA
8 3 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.13%) CRD IV
9 1 (0.13%) FATCA
9 1 (0.13%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.13%) MiFID
9 1 (0.13%) SEPA
9 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (4.19%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.44%) Docker
3 1 (0.13%) Veritas Cluster Server
3 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.13%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 26 (3.40%) Terraform
2 20 (2.62%) Jamf Pro
3 19 (2.49%) Kubernetes
4 12 (1.57%) Ansible
5 4 (0.52%) SCCM
6 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.26%) Grafana
7 2 (0.26%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.26%) Puppet
7 2 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.13%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.13%) Foglight
8 1 (0.13%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.13%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.13%) Salt
8 1 (0.13%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.13%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 96 (12.57%) Microsoft
2 69 (9.03%) SAP
3 52 (6.81%) Salesforce
4 40 (5.24%) Oracle
5 31 (4.06%) ServiceNow
6 26 (3.40%) Adobe
7 23 (3.01%) Apple
8 20 (2.62%) Google
9 14 (1.83%) Databricks
9 14 (1.83%) HP
10 13 (1.70%) Sitecore
11 9 (1.18%) Dell
11 9 (1.18%) Dynatrace
11 9 (1.18%) Planview
12 8 (1.05%) Splunk
13 6 (0.79%) Citrix
13 6 (0.79%) MuleSoft
13 6 (0.79%) Workday
14 5 (0.65%) Cisco
14 5 (0.65%) Genesys