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

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 147 91 107
Rank change year-on-year -56 +16 -32
Contract jobs citing Retail 727 892 1,001
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 2.61% 2.27%
As % of the General category 3.24% 4.28% 3.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 426 465 561
10th Percentile £206 £263 £276
25th Percentile £403 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 10 30
10th Percentile £14.50 £16.05 £13.85
25th Percentile £15.49 £18.13 £18.50
Median hourly rate £16.34 £32.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -49.74% +64.06% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £37.88 £21.12
90th Percentile £25.15 £49.38 £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 22,418 20,832 26,319
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 61.27% 60.94% 59.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,011 12,446 17,395
10th Percentile £275 £285 £280
25th Percentile £400 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £761 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,442 726 1,092
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.48 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.53 £16.74
Median hourly rate £23.58 £27.50 £32.75
Median % change year-on-year -14.27% -16.03% +31.00%
75th Percentile £45.46 £54.69 £59.15
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -16.98% -11.67% +41.01%

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 18 December 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 18 December 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 18 December 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 -43 669 £517 -1.62% 830
London -35 351 £545 -0.91% 256
UK excluding London -36 321 £498 -0.50% 676
Work from Home -77 184 £532 +1.29% 379
South East -16 98 £525 -4.55% 237
North of England -55 74 £500 +6.67% 189
Midlands -49 58 £450 -10.00% 119
East of England -14 44 £595 +10.70% 50
East Midlands -3 38 £450 -10.00% 55
Yorkshire -34 38 £513 +17.14% 65
North West -28 31 £500 +6.67% 101
South West +3 23 £183 -55.38% 53
Scotland 0 20 £475 -7.32% 32
West Midlands -55 19 £413 -21.43% 64
North East -5 6 £206 -65.63% 23
Wales +7 3 £625 +331.03% 9
Northern Ireland -6 1 - - 5

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 29 (3.99%) Confluence
2 19 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 18 (2.48%) CMS
4 7 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.69%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 5 (0.69%) Camunda
5 5 (0.69%) Jupyter
5 5 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.55%) WordPress
7 2 (0.28%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.28%) Magnolia
8 1 (0.14%) SAS
8 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 24 (3.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.69%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 26 (3.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.38%) Oracle Retail
3 9 (1.24%) Shopify
4 8 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (1.10%) SAP Retail
5 6 (0.83%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.69%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.55%) ResourceLink
7 4 (0.55%) Temenos T24
8 3 (0.41%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.41%) SAP GTS
8 3 (0.41%) SAP MM
9 2 (0.28%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.28%) FLEXCUBE
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.28%) SAP Oil and Gas
9 2 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 2 (0.28%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 90 (12.38%) Azure
2 48 (6.60%) AWS
2 48 (6.60%) Power Platform
3 32 (4.40%) GCP
4 24 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
5 22 (3.03%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (2.34%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (2.34%) SaaS
7 13 (1.79%) GitHub
8 11 (1.51%) OCI
8 11 (1.51%) Power Automate
8 11 (1.51%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
8 11 (1.51%) Snowflake
9 10 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (1.38%) SuccessFactors
10 9 (1.24%) Entra ID
10 9 (1.24%) Figma
10 9 (1.24%) Vertex AI
11 7 (0.96%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 7 (0.96%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.61%) RFID
2 18 (2.48%) NFC
2 18 (2.48%) Wireless
3 15 (2.06%) Firewall
4 12 (1.65%) VPN
5 8 (1.10%) WAN
5 8 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
6 5 (0.69%) Cisco Nexus
6 5 (0.69%) LAN
7 4 (0.55%) BGP
7 4 (0.55%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.55%) OSPF
7 4 (0.55%) VoIP
8 3 (0.41%) Broadband
8 3 (0.41%) DNS
9 2 (0.28%) MPLS
9 2 (0.28%) SAN
9 2 (0.28%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.28%) WLAN
10 1 (0.14%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.36%) Power BI
2 16 (2.20%) BigQuery
3 14 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (1.93%) Metadata
4 12 (1.65%) Tableau
5 10 (1.38%) SQL Server
6 6 (0.83%) Data Lake
7 5 (0.69%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.69%) Power Query
7 5 (0.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (0.55%) Delta Lake
8 4 (0.55%) Redis
8 4 (0.55%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.41%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.41%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.41%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.41%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (0.41%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 57 (7.84%) JIRA
2 14 (1.93%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.79%) Git
4 6 (0.83%) GitLab
5 4 (0.55%) Selenium
5 4 (0.55%) Storybook
6 3 (0.41%) Postman
7 2 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.28%) ERwin
7 2 (0.28%) JMeter
7 2 (0.28%) JUnit
7 2 (0.28%) MLflow
7 2 (0.28%) Mockito
7 2 (0.28%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.28%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.28%) Xcode
8 1 (0.14%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.14%) Subversion
8 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio
General
1 255 (35.08%) Social Skills
2 150 (20.63%) Finance
3 77 (10.59%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (8.53%) Banking
5 54 (7.43%) Marketing
6 44 (6.05%) Public Sector
7 39 (5.36%) Manufacturing
8 35 (4.81%) Organisational Skills
8 35 (4.81%) Retail Banking
9 28 (3.85%) Corporate Banking
10 27 (3.71%) Investment Banking
10 27 (3.71%) Legal
11 21 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
13 15 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 11 (1.51%) Telecoms
16 8 (1.10%) Automotive
17 7 (0.96%) Financial Institution
18 6 (0.83%) Law
Job Titles
1 133 (18.29%) Analyst
2 85 (11.69%) Architect
3 83 (11.42%) Project Manager
4 61 (8.39%) Senior
5 57 (7.84%) Business Analyst
6 50 (6.88%) Lead
7 37 (5.09%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (4.26%) Consultant
9 24 (3.30%) Developer
9 24 (3.30%) Senior Manager
10 20 (2.75%) Programme Manager
11 17 (2.34%) Product Manager
12 16 (2.20%) Administrator
13 13 (1.79%) Data Analyst
13 13 (1.79%) SAP Consultant
13 13 (1.79%) Support Analyst
13 13 (1.79%) Technical Manager
14 12 (1.65%) Enterprise Architect
14 12 (1.65%) Field Engineer
14 12 (1.65%) Help Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.30%) React
2 18 (2.48%) Node.js
3 16 (2.20%) REST
4 15 (2.06%) PySpark
5 11 (1.51%) HTML
5 11 (1.51%) VML
6 9 (1.24%) .NET
7 7 (0.96%) AngularJS
7 7 (0.96%) Kafka
7 7 (0.96%) React Native
7 7 (0.96%) scikit-learn
8 6 (0.83%) CSS
8 6 (0.83%) FastAPI
8 6 (0.83%) Oracle Fusion
8 6 (0.83%) RESTful
8 6 (0.83%) Spring
8 6 (0.83%) Spring Boot
8 6 (0.83%) XML
9 5 (0.69%) EDI
9 5 (0.69%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.36%) Product Ownership
2 31 (4.26%) Legacy Systems
3 23 (3.16%) IoT
3 23 (3.16%) Self-Motivation
4 21 (2.89%) EPoS
5 20 (2.75%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.34%) Mobile App
7 16 (2.20%) FMCG
8 15 (2.06%) Cloud Native
9 12 (1.65%) Data Centre
9 12 (1.65%) Management Information System
10 11 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
10 11 (1.51%) Driving Licence
11 9 (1.24%) Algorithms
11 9 (1.24%) Greenfield Project
12 8 (1.10%) Data Structures
13 7 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
14 6 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
14 6 (0.83%) Mainframe
14 6 (0.83%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 42 (5.78%) Windows
2 6 (0.83%) Linux
2 6 (0.83%) Mac OS
3 5 (0.69%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.41%) Android
4 3 (0.41%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.28%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.14%) VMS
6 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (23.80%) Stakeholder Management
2 168 (23.11%) Agile
3 109 (14.99%) Problem-Solving
4 84 (11.55%) Project Management
5 80 (11.00%) Analytics
6 79 (10.87%) E-Commerce
7 64 (8.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 62 (8.53%) Migration
8 62 (8.53%) Roadmaps
9 61 (8.39%) Continuous Improvement
10 58 (7.98%) Customer Experience
11 53 (7.29%) AI
11 53 (7.29%) DevOps
12 51 (7.02%) CRM
13 49 (6.74%) Waterfall
13 49 (6.74%) Workshop Facilitation
14 48 (6.60%) Business Intelligence
15 47 (6.46%) Decision-Making
15 47 (6.46%) ERP
16 46 (6.33%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 64 (8.80%) Python
2 60 (8.25%) SQL
3 16 (2.20%) JavaScript
4 14 (1.93%) Java
5 11 (1.51%) Bash
5 11 (1.51%) PowerShell
6 10 (1.38%) TypeScript
7 7 (0.96%) C#
8 6 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.55%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.41%) X++
11 2 (0.28%) ABAP
11 2 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (0.28%) Go
11 2 (0.28%) PHP
11 2 (0.28%) R
11 2 (0.28%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.28%) Swift
11 2 (0.28%) VBA
12 1 (0.14%) REXX
Qualifications
1 35 (4.81%) Degree
2 21 (2.89%) PMP
3 18 (2.48%) PMI Certification
4 14 (1.93%) Security Cleared
5 9 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (0.96%) Master's Degree
7 5 (0.69%) CISSP
7 5 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (0.55%) CCIE
8 4 (0.55%) CCNP
8 4 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (0.55%) CSPO
9 3 (0.41%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.41%) CISM
9 3 (0.41%) CRISC
9 3 (0.41%) GIAC
10 2 (0.28%) ACCA
10 2 (0.28%) MBA
10 2 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (3.16%) QA
2 20 (2.75%) Data Quality
3 17 (2.34%) GDPR
4 15 (2.06%) SLA
5 13 (1.79%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.24%) PMO
7 6 (0.83%) COBIT
8 5 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.41%) IFRS
9 3 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.41%) NCSC
9 3 (0.41%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.28%) NIST
10 2 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
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%) SEPA
11 1 (0.14%) Solvency II
System Software
1 15 (2.06%) Docker
2 12 (1.65%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.41%) RACF
3 3 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (0.41%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.14%) Varnish
4 1 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.14%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 25 (3.44%) Terraform
2 15 (2.06%) Kubernetes
3 10 (1.38%) Ansible
4 6 (0.83%) Grafana
4 6 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.55%) Argo
5 4 (0.55%) Istio
5 4 (0.55%) SCCM
5 4 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.41%) Prometheus
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%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.14%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.14%) zSecure
Vendors
1 81 (11.14%) Microsoft
2 62 (8.53%) SAP
3 45 (6.19%) Oracle
4 41 (5.64%) Salesforce
5 27 (3.71%) Google
6 19 (2.61%) Databricks
7 15 (2.06%) HP
8 13 (1.79%) Adobe
9 10 (1.38%) CheckPoint
9 10 (1.38%) Dell
9 10 (1.38%) F5
10 7 (0.96%) Cisco
10 7 (0.96%) Dynatrace
11 6 (0.83%) Splunk
11 6 (0.83%) Workday
12 5 (0.69%) Apple
12 5 (0.69%) Meraki
12 5 (0.69%) ServiceNow
12 5 (0.69%) VMware
12 5 (0.69%) Zscaler