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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 111 81
Rank change year-on-year +18 -30 +12
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,384 793 1,115
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.63% 2.45% 2.58%
As % of the General category 4.80% 3.89% 4.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 840 405 621
10th Percentile £298 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -0.49% -2.83%
75th Percentile £645 £630 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -1.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 42 85
10th Percentile £13.05 £14.58 £12.06
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £16.30 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.83% +1.88% -19.23%
75th Percentile £22.50 £31.81 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £76.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.92 £15.73 £16.00
% change year-on-year +7.57% -1.69% -19.23%

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 28,861 20,389 24,702
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.84% 63.01% 57.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,315 12,811 15,435
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £488
% change year-on-year +6.15% -3.38% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,989 1,028 1,922
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.36 £12.88
25th Percentile £18.38 £16.30 £15.67
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.75 £31.97
Median % change year-on-year +21.50% -16.33% +4.75%
75th Percentile £61.18 £52.75 £53.94
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.84 £31.25
% change year-on-year +42.29% -26.91% +20.42%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 10 July 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 +14 1,269 £540 +2.86% 1,313
London +22 734 £550 - 514
UK excluding London +2 549 £525 +5.00% 948
Work from Home -18 305 £500 - 450
South East +11 167 £525 -5.41% 291
North of England -30 157 £550 +7.32% 233
North West +7 104 £575 +15.00% 130
Midlands -12 102 £500 +8.11% 205
East of England +6 60 £550 -4.35% 103
East Midlands 0 53 £495 +7.03% 109
West Midlands -35 49 £550 +20.55% 95
Yorkshire -46 47 £513 -2.38% 80
South West -28 36 £325 -19.38% 99
Scotland -7 21 £496 -3.22% 23
North East -35 6 £173 -79.07% 26
Northern Ireland +6 3 £196 -64.32% 16
Wales -15 3 £190 +29.52% 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 36 (2.60%) Confluence
2 19 (1.37%) CMS
3 15 (1.08%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 12 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.51%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.36%) SAS
7 4 (0.29%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.22%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.14%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.14%) CICS
9 2 (0.14%) Mule
10 1 (0.072%) Apache
10 1 (0.072%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 37 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.02%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.94%) Chatbot
6 11 (0.79%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 10 (0.72%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.65%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.43%) InDesign
9 6 (0.43%) MS Visio
10 3 (0.22%) Notion
10 3 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
11 2 (0.14%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.072%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.072%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.072%) Maya
12 1 (0.072%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.072%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 33 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (2.02%) Shopify
3 14 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.72%) Oracle Retail
5 9 (0.65%) SAP CRM
6 7 (0.51%) Magento
7 6 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.43%) SAP Retail
8 5 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.29%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.29%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.29%) SAP SD
10 3 (0.22%) Finacle
10 3 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 3 (0.22%) SAP CAR
10 3 (0.22%) SAP ERP
11 2 (0.14%) Cognos Controller
11 2 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
11 2 (0.14%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 166 (11.99%) Azure
2 138 (9.97%) AWS
3 81 (5.85%) GCP
4 67 (4.84%) Power Platform
5 52 (3.76%) Snowflake
6 30 (2.17%) GitHub
7 25 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
8 24 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
9 22 (1.59%) Entra ID
9 22 (1.59%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 21 (1.52%) GitHub Actions
11 20 (1.45%) Figma
12 18 (1.30%) SaaS
13 14 (1.01%) dbt
14 13 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
15 12 (0.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 11 (0.79%) Google Workspace
16 11 (0.79%) Microsoft 365
16 11 (0.79%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 10 (0.72%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.01%) WAN
2 13 (0.94%) ATM
2 13 (0.94%) Firewall
2 13 (0.94%) Network Security
2 13 (0.94%) Wireless
3 11 (0.79%) VPN
4 9 (0.65%) RFID
5 8 (0.58%) LAN
5 8 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.43%) Cisco Firepower
6 6 (0.43%) SD-WAN
7 5 (0.36%) BGP
7 5 (0.36%) Cisco ASA
7 5 (0.36%) Cisco Nexus
7 5 (0.36%) IPsec
7 5 (0.36%) OSPF
7 5 (0.36%) VSAN
8 4 (0.29%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 4 (0.29%) Internet
8 4 (0.29%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (4.70%) Power BI
2 31 (2.24%) BigQuery
3 30 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.52%) Tableau
5 20 (1.45%) Metadata
5 20 (1.45%) MySQL
6 18 (1.30%) Data Lake
7 16 (1.16%) NoSQL
8 15 (1.08%) SQL Server
9 12 (0.87%) Relational Database
10 8 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
10 8 (0.58%) MongoDB
10 8 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
10 8 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.51%) Power Query
11 7 (0.51%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.43%) Data Vault
12 6 (0.43%) Looker
12 6 (0.43%) Semantic Layer
13 5 (0.36%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 72 (5.20%) JIRA
2 30 (2.17%) Git
3 19 (1.37%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.51%) Subversion
5 5 (0.36%) GitLab
6 4 (0.29%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.29%) Maven
7 3 (0.22%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.22%) ERwin
7 3 (0.22%) Hudson
7 3 (0.22%) JMeter
7 3 (0.22%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (0.22%) Selenium
8 2 (0.14%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.14%) git-flow
8 2 (0.14%) MLflow
8 2 (0.14%) Postman
8 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.14%) WebDriver
8 2 (0.14%) webpack
General
1 392 (28.32%) Social Skills
2 320 (23.12%) Finance
3 127 (9.18%) Analytical Skills
4 119 (8.60%) Banking
5 88 (6.36%) Marketing
6 82 (5.92%) Manufacturing
7 61 (4.41%) Retail Banking
8 60 (4.34%) Organisational Skills
9 47 (3.40%) Investment Banking
10 45 (3.25%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (1.95%) Public Sector
11 27 (1.95%) Telecoms
12 24 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
12 24 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.66%) French Language
14 22 (1.59%) Legal
15 20 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (1.30%) Advertising
16 18 (1.30%) Spanish Language
17 14 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 231 (16.69%) Architect
2 198 (14.31%) Analyst
3 168 (12.14%) Senior
4 124 (8.96%) Project Manager
5 117 (8.45%) Solutions Architect
6 115 (8.31%) Business Analyst
7 101 (7.30%) Lead
8 63 (4.55%) Developer
8 63 (4.55%) Senior Manager
9 47 (3.40%) Designer
10 44 (3.18%) Product Manager
11 40 (2.89%) Consultant
11 40 (2.89%) Enterprise Architect
12 38 (2.75%) Technical Manager
13 36 (2.60%) Senior Project Manager
14 33 (2.38%) Data Architect
15 31 (2.24%) Data Analyst
15 31 (2.24%) Programme Manager
16 30 (2.17%) Data Engineer
17 29 (2.10%) Supply Chain Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (4.55%) REST
2 37 (2.67%) Middleware
3 33 (2.38%) React
4 27 (1.95%) Spring
5 26 (1.88%) Kafka
6 22 (1.59%) VML
7 21 (1.52%) Node.js
8 19 (1.37%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.30%) RESTful
10 17 (1.23%) HTML
11 16 (1.16%) CSS
11 16 (1.16%) SOAP
12 15 (1.08%) MACH
13 14 (1.01%) Django
13 14 (1.01%) OAuth
14 13 (0.94%) J2EE
15 11 (0.79%) .NET
15 11 (0.79%) JSON
16 9 (0.65%) AngularJS
16 9 (0.65%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 85 (6.14%) Product Ownership
2 54 (3.90%) FMCG
3 48 (3.47%) EPoS
4 44 (3.18%) Onboarding
5 41 (2.96%) Cloud Native
6 40 (2.89%) Driving Licence
7 27 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
7 27 (1.95%) Mobile App
8 26 (1.88%) Data Centre
9 23 (1.66%) Data Structures
10 22 (1.59%) Marketing Technology
11 20 (1.45%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (1.37%) Mainframe
12 19 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (1.08%) AI Agents
13 15 (1.08%) Management Information System
14 14 (1.01%) Operational Technology
15 11 (0.79%) Graphic Design
15 11 (0.79%) Taxonomies
15 11 (0.79%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 53 (3.83%) Windows
2 26 (1.88%) Linux
3 12 (0.87%) Unix
4 11 (0.79%) Android
5 7 (0.51%) Mac OS
5 7 (0.51%) zOS
6 6 (0.43%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.43%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.36%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.36%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.14%) Debian
9 1 (0.072%) SUSE
9 1 (0.072%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.072%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 338 (24.42%) Agile
2 333 (24.06%) Stakeholder Management
3 217 (15.68%) E-Commerce
4 193 (13.95%) Problem-Solving
5 183 (13.22%) Migration
6 173 (12.50%) Roadmaps
7 152 (10.98%) Analytics
8 136 (9.83%) AI
8 136 (9.83%) Customer Experience
9 123 (8.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 114 (8.24%) Project Management
11 104 (7.51%) CI/CD
11 104 (7.51%) Decision-Making
12 101 (7.30%) Logistics
13 100 (7.23%) CRM
13 100 (7.23%) ERP
14 98 (7.08%) Continuous Improvement
14 98 (7.08%) Project Delivery
15 93 (6.72%) Business Intelligence
16 92 (6.65%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 124 (8.96%) SQL
2 90 (6.50%) Python
3 56 (4.05%) Java
4 28 (2.02%) JavaScript
5 24 (1.73%) TypeScript
6 11 (0.79%) C#
7 10 (0.72%) PowerShell
8 8 (0.58%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.51%) ABAP
9 7 (0.51%) Apex Code
9 7 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 7 (0.51%) PL/SQL
9 7 (0.51%) SOQL
10 6 (0.43%) Bash
10 6 (0.43%) Bicep
10 6 (0.43%) Kotlin
10 6 (0.43%) R
10 6 (0.43%) Scala
11 5 (0.36%) Groovy
11 5 (0.36%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 62 (4.48%) Degree
2 39 (2.82%) Security Cleared
3 24 (1.73%) SC Cleared
4 17 (1.23%) PMP
5 11 (0.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (0.72%) CISSP
6 10 (0.72%) DBS Check
7 9 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (0.58%) PMI Certification
9 7 (0.51%) CISM
10 6 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (0.36%) CCNP
11 5 (0.36%) CCSE
11 5 (0.36%) CCSM
11 5 (0.36%) CSPO
12 4 (0.29%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.29%) City & Guilds
13 3 (0.22%) Master's Degree
13 3 (0.22%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (4.84%) Data Quality
1 67 (4.84%) QA
2 43 (3.11%) GDPR
3 29 (2.10%) PMO
4 21 (1.52%) Accessibility
5 17 (1.23%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.01%) SLA
7 9 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 7 (0.51%) NIST
9 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.22%) GAAP
10 3 (0.22%) IFRS
10 3 (0.22%) PSD2
11 2 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.14%) GRC
11 2 (0.14%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.14%) WCAG
12 1 (0.072%) COBIT
12 1 (0.072%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 28 (2.02%) Docker
2 26 (1.88%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.22%) Firmware
7 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 36 (2.60%) Terraform
2 28 (2.02%) Kubernetes
3 14 (1.01%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 9 (0.65%) Ansible
5 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.43%) SCCM
5 6 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.36%) Grafana
7 4 (0.29%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.14%) AirWatch
8 2 (0.14%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.14%) CloudHub
8 2 (0.14%) MOM
8 2 (0.14%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.072%) Argo
9 1 (0.072%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.072%) Istio
9 1 (0.072%) Nagios
9 1 (0.072%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 112 (8.09%) Microsoft
2 95 (6.86%) SAP
3 76 (5.49%) Oracle
4 66 (4.77%) Salesforce
5 55 (3.97%) Databricks
6 54 (3.90%) Google
7 37 (2.67%) Adobe
8 22 (1.59%) ServiceNow
9 19 (1.37%) MuleSoft
10 15 (1.08%) Cisco
10 15 (1.08%) IBM
11 14 (1.01%) IFS
11 14 (1.01%) Splunk
11 14 (1.01%) Zscaler
12 12 (0.87%) VMware
13 11 (0.79%) Fortinet
13 11 (0.79%) Palo Alto
13 11 (0.79%) Workday
14 10 (0.72%) Sitecore
15 9 (0.65%) Apple