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

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 126 95 104
Rank change year-on-year -31 +9 -32
Contract jobs citing Retail 773 892 1,086
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.18% 2.43% 2.32%
As % of the General category 3.45% 4.13% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 445 470 627
10th Percentile £225 £263 £285
25th Percentile £406 £402 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -1.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 12 35
10th Percentile £14.50 £16.44 £15.33
25th Percentile £15.25 £18.13 £19.06
Median hourly rate £16.34 £33.00 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -50.50% +66.58% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £50.31 £20.94
90th Percentile £25.15 £59.50 £29.75
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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 22,374 21,602 27,867
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 63.01% 58.97% 59.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,012 12,743 18,632
10th Percentile £270 £288 £285
25th Percentile £400 £410 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £649 £654
90th Percentile £737 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.09% -3.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,444 817 1,117
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.55 £17.08 £16.85
Median hourly rate £24.09 £29.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.34% -1.67% +20.00%
75th Percentile £44.77 £55.00 £57.33
90th Percentile £68.48 £70.00 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.24 £27.33
% change year-on-year -19.23% -0.35% +24.24%

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 15 November 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 November 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 November 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 -37 711 £525 - 1,622
London -26 365 £538 -2.27% 660
UK excluding London -15 351 £500 - 1,046
Work from Home -56 199 £550 +4.76% 708
South East -3 101 £525 -4.55% 335
North of England -34 88 £500 +5.26% 209
Midlands -26 62 £425 -15.00% 221
North West -12 46 £500 +11.11% 118
East Midlands +6 43 £425 -15.00% 111
East of England -21 40 £579 +10.24% 116
Yorkshire -32 38 £588 +14.63% 70
South West +13 33 £180 -55.99% 101
Scotland -3 21 £500 - 62
West Midlands -43 18 £425 -20.93% 107
Wales +4 5 £625 +331.03% 24
North East -10 5 £200 -66.67% 21
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 6

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 32 (4.14%) Confluence
2 19 (2.46%) CMS
3 12 (1.55%) SharePoint
4 8 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.78%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 6 (0.78%) Camunda
6 5 (0.65%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.52%) WordPress
8 3 (0.39%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.13%) Apache
9 1 (0.13%) Appian
9 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 32 (4.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.29%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.39%) Sketch
5 3 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.26%) Trello
6 2 (0.26%) UserZoom
7 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.13%) InDesign
7 1 (0.13%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 34 (4.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.81%) Shopify
3 9 (1.16%) Oracle Retail
4 8 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (1.03%) SAP Retail
5 6 (0.78%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.78%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.65%) SAP GTS
6 5 (0.65%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.52%) ResourceLink
7 4 (0.52%) Sprinklr
8 3 (0.39%) Avolution ABACUS
8 3 (0.39%) Magento
8 3 (0.39%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.39%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.39%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.26%) SAP Oil and Gas
9 2 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 1 (0.13%) SAP CAR
Cloud Services
1 99 (12.81%) Azure
2 59 (7.63%) AWS
3 55 (7.12%) Power Platform
4 37 (4.79%) GCP
5 32 (4.14%) Dynamics 365
6 27 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
7 19 (2.46%) SaaS
8 14 (1.81%) Figma
9 12 (1.55%) Power Automate
10 11 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
11 10 (1.29%) GitHub
11 10 (1.29%) OCI
11 10 (1.29%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 10 (1.29%) Snowflake
12 9 (1.16%) Serverless
12 9 (1.16%) Vertex AI
13 8 (1.03%) Entra ID
13 8 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
14 7 (0.91%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 7 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.94%) RFID
1 15 (1.94%) Wireless
2 14 (1.81%) NFC
3 10 (1.29%) Firewall
4 6 (0.78%) VPN
5 5 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (0.52%) LAN
7 3 (0.39%) Broadband
7 3 (0.39%) DNS
8 2 (0.26%) ATM
8 2 (0.26%) HTTP
8 2 (0.26%) Network Security
8 2 (0.26%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.26%) WAN
9 1 (0.13%) Cisco Nexus
9 1 (0.13%) DHCP
9 1 (0.13%) Multicast
9 1 (0.13%) NAS
9 1 (0.13%) SMS
9 1 (0.13%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (5.95%) Power BI
2 18 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
3 16 (2.07%) Metadata
4 13 (1.68%) BigQuery
5 12 (1.55%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.55%) Tableau
6 11 (1.42%) Data Lake
7 6 (0.78%) Power Query
8 5 (0.65%) Big Data
8 5 (0.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (0.52%) MongoDB
9 4 (0.52%) Redis
10 3 (0.39%) Data Vault
10 3 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.39%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.39%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.39%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
11 2 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.26%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 58 (7.50%) JIRA
2 18 (2.33%) Git
3 14 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.52%) Artifactory
4 4 (0.52%) Selenium
4 4 (0.52%) Storybook
4 4 (0.52%) Xcode
5 3 (0.39%) Android Studio
5 3 (0.39%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.39%) GitLab
5 3 (0.39%) Gradle
5 3 (0.39%) Postman
6 2 (0.26%) ERwin
6 2 (0.26%) JUnit
6 2 (0.26%) Maven
6 2 (0.26%) MLflow
6 2 (0.26%) PowerDesigner
6 2 (0.26%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 276 (35.71%) Social Skills
2 179 (23.16%) Finance
3 86 (11.13%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (10.48%) Banking
5 56 (7.24%) Marketing
6 49 (6.34%) Retail Banking
7 45 (5.82%) Investment Banking
7 45 (5.82%) Manufacturing
8 44 (5.69%) Public Sector
9 42 (5.43%) Corporate Banking
10 39 (5.05%) Organisational Skills
11 30 (3.88%) Legal
12 23 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
13 17 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
14 16 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 13 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
16 12 (1.55%) Financial Institution
17 11 (1.42%) French Language
17 11 (1.42%) Telecoms
18 10 (1.29%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 155 (20.05%) Analyst
2 90 (11.64%) Architect
3 76 (9.83%) Project Manager
4 67 (8.67%) Business Analyst
5 52 (6.73%) Lead
6 51 (6.60%) Senior
7 48 (6.21%) Solutions Architect
8 37 (4.79%) Consultant
9 33 (4.27%) Developer
10 22 (2.85%) Administrator
11 21 (2.72%) Programme Manager
11 21 (2.72%) Senior Manager
12 20 (2.59%) Product Manager
13 19 (2.46%) Data Analyst
14 15 (1.94%) Product Owner
15 13 (1.68%) SAP Consultant
15 13 (1.68%) Senior Analyst
16 12 (1.55%) Field Engineer
16 12 (1.55%) Help Desk Analyst
16 12 (1.55%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (2.85%) REST
2 21 (2.72%) React
3 17 (2.20%) HTML
4 14 (1.81%) Node.js
5 12 (1.55%) CSS
6 11 (1.42%) PySpark
7 10 (1.29%) .NET
7 10 (1.29%) React Native
8 9 (1.16%) Kafka
9 8 (1.03%) Oracle Fusion
10 7 (0.91%) Redux
10 7 (0.91%) RESTful
10 7 (0.91%) scikit-learn
11 6 (0.78%) EDI
11 6 (0.78%) FastAPI
11 6 (0.78%) Web Services
11 6 (0.78%) XML
12 5 (0.65%) Middleware
12 5 (0.65%) PyTorch
12 5 (0.65%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (5.30%) Product Ownership
2 30 (3.88%) Legacy Systems
3 28 (3.62%) EPoS
4 21 (2.72%) Mobile App
5 20 (2.59%) Onboarding
6 19 (2.46%) IoT
6 19 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
7 18 (2.33%) FMCG
8 14 (1.81%) Greenfield Project
9 13 (1.68%) Data Structures
10 12 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (1.55%) Cloud Native
11 10 (1.29%) Driving Licence
11 10 (1.29%) Management Information System
12 8 (1.03%) Algorithms
13 7 (0.91%) Data Centre
13 7 (0.91%) Enterprise Software
13 7 (0.91%) Social Media
14 6 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
14 6 (0.78%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 42 (5.43%) Windows
2 8 (1.03%) Apple iOS
3 6 (0.78%) Linux
4 4 (0.52%) Android
4 4 (0.52%) Mac OS
5 3 (0.39%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.26%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.13%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (23.80%) Agile
2 173 (22.38%) Stakeholder Management
3 108 (13.97%) Problem-Solving
4 91 (11.77%) E-Commerce
5 85 (11.00%) Analytics
6 79 (10.22%) Project Management
7 68 (8.80%) Migration
8 67 (8.67%) Roadmaps
8 67 (8.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 61 (7.89%) Customer Experience
10 59 (7.63%) Continuous Improvement
10 59 (7.63%) DevOps
11 58 (7.50%) CRM
12 53 (6.86%) Business Intelligence
12 53 (6.86%) Data Modelling
13 51 (6.60%) AI
13 51 (6.60%) Workshop Facilitation
14 48 (6.21%) Logistics
14 48 (6.21%) Project Delivery
15 47 (6.08%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 71 (9.18%) Python
2 63 (8.15%) SQL
3 22 (2.85%) JavaScript
4 14 (1.81%) Java
5 13 (1.68%) TypeScript
6 10 (1.29%) Bash
6 10 (1.29%) PowerShell
7 8 (1.03%) C#
8 7 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.39%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.39%) X++
11 2 (0.26%) ABAP
11 2 (0.26%) Go
11 2 (0.26%) Korn
11 2 (0.26%) PHP
11 2 (0.26%) R
11 2 (0.26%) Swift
11 2 (0.26%) VB
11 2 (0.26%) VBA
Qualifications
1 38 (4.92%) Degree
2 21 (2.72%) PMP
3 17 (2.20%) PMI Certification
4 13 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (1.55%) Security Cleared
6 7 (0.91%) Master's Degree
7 6 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.65%) CISSP
8 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.39%) CISM
9 3 (0.39%) SC Cleared
9 3 (0.39%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 2 (0.26%) ACCA
10 2 (0.26%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.26%) CRISC
10 2 (0.26%) GIAC
10 2 (0.26%) MBA
10 2 (0.26%) SAP Certification
10 2 (0.26%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (0.13%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.23%) QA
2 23 (2.98%) GDPR
3 22 (2.85%) Data Quality
4 10 (1.29%) Accessibility
5 9 (1.16%) SLA
6 7 (0.91%) GRC
7 6 (0.78%) COBIT
8 5 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.65%) PMO
9 4 (0.52%) NIST
10 3 (0.39%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.26%) MiFID
11 2 (0.26%) NCSC
11 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.13%) FATCA
12 1 (0.13%) PSD2
12 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 14 (1.81%) Docker
2 13 (1.68%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.26%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.13%) Varnish
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.13%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 27 (3.49%) Terraform
2 20 (2.59%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.68%) Ansible
4 5 (0.65%) Grafana
5 4 (0.52%) SCCM
5 4 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.39%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.13%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.13%) Cacti
7 1 (0.13%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.13%) Nmap
7 1 (0.13%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.13%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 92 (11.90%) Microsoft
2 74 (9.57%) SAP
3 43 (5.56%) Oracle
3 43 (5.56%) Salesforce
4 25 (3.23%) Google
5 18 (2.33%) Adobe
6 17 (2.20%) HP
7 15 (1.94%) Databricks
8 10 (1.29%) Dynatrace
9 9 (1.16%) Dell
9 9 (1.16%) ServiceNow
9 9 (1.16%) Splunk
10 7 (0.91%) Workday
11 6 (0.78%) Apple
11 6 (0.78%) CheckPoint
11 6 (0.78%) F5
11 6 (0.78%) Planview
11 6 (0.78%) Sitecore
12 5 (0.65%) Genesys
13 4 (0.52%) Cisco