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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 96 87
Rank change year-on-year -34 -9 +5
Contract jobs citing Retail 913 783 1,068
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 2.67% 2.44%
As % of the General category 3.60% 4.23% 4.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 561 420 613
10th Percentile £200 £275 £283
25th Percentile £369 £406 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £726 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 19 82
10th Percentile £12.95 £14.98 £11.19
25th Percentile £15.25 £18.13 £12.15
Median hourly rate £17.21 £32.50 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% +103.13% -19.23%
75th Percentile £23.21 £61.38 £21.37
90th Percentile £46.25 £87.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.92 £18.13 £14.62
% change year-on-year -6.67% +24.05% -26.22%

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 25,372 18,505 25,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.25% 63.17% 58.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,742 11,825 16,175
10th Percentile £304 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,589 769 1,908
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.13 £15.39
Median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -21.43%
75th Percentile £59.00 £56.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £26.42 £26.00
% change year-on-year -4.80% +1.61% -16.85%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -30 830 £500 -4.76% 1,016
London -19 456 £525 -4.55% 328
UK excluding London -28 383 £475 -5.00% 803
Work from Home -56 225 £500 -4.76% 345
South East -16 117 £416 -22.56% 219
North of England -40 104 £500 +11.11% 227
Midlands -43 76 £495 -1.00% 161
North West -17 58 £500 - 125
Yorkshire -41 42 £513 +38.51% 82
East of England -22 41 £475 -9.52% 108
East Midlands -13 40 £495 -1.00% 87
West Midlands -52 35 £500 +12.68% 74
Scotland +5 21 £450 -15.49% 34
South West -23 20 £318 -6.62% 72
North East -16 4 £206 -72.50% 25
Northern Ireland -1 2 £190 -44.48% 9
Wales -17 2 £235 +60.19% 15

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 37 (4.05%) Confluence
2 17 (1.86%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 10 (1.10%) CMS
5 9 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.44%) SAS
7 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.22%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.22%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.22%) Magnolia
8 2 (0.22%) WordPress
9 1 (0.11%) CICS
9 1 (0.11%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.11%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 33 (3.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.08%) Microsoft Project
3 16 (1.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
5 13 (1.42%) Chatbot
6 11 (1.20%) MS Visio
7 6 (0.66%) Photoshop
8 5 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.33%) InDesign
10 2 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.22%) Trello
11 1 (0.11%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.11%) Maya
11 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
11 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
11 1 (0.11%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 19 (2.08%) Shopify
2 17 (1.86%) SAP S/4HANA
3 14 (1.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (1.10%) SAP Retail
5 8 (0.88%) Oracle Retail
6 6 (0.66%) Finacle
6 6 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 5 (0.55%) SAP Payroll
8 4 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.44%) ResourceLink
8 4 (0.44%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.44%) Temenos T24
9 3 (0.33%) SAP MM
9 3 (0.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 2 (0.22%) BambooHR
10 2 (0.22%) NetSuite
10 2 (0.22%) Sage X3
10 2 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
10 2 (0.22%) Sprinklr
11 1 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 92 (10.08%) Azure
2 59 (6.46%) AWS
3 58 (6.35%) Power Platform
4 55 (6.02%) GCP
5 28 (3.07%) Dynamics 365
6 25 (2.74%) Snowflake
7 20 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
7 20 (2.19%) GitHub
8 19 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
9 15 (1.64%) SaaS
10 13 (1.42%) Entra ID
10 13 (1.42%) GitHub Actions
11 12 (1.31%) BigCommerce
11 12 (1.31%) Google Workspace
12 11 (1.20%) Cloud Run
12 11 (1.20%) Figma
12 11 (1.20%) Miro
13 10 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
13 10 (1.10%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 9 (0.99%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.86%) VPN
2 16 (1.75%) RFID
3 13 (1.42%) Firewall
3 13 (1.42%) WAN
4 11 (1.20%) Wireless
5 8 (0.88%) LAN
5 8 (0.88%) NFC
6 6 (0.66%) Cisco Nexus
6 6 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.55%) BGP
7 5 (0.55%) OSPF
8 4 (0.44%) EIGRP
8 4 (0.44%) VoIP
9 3 (0.33%) Cisco Firepower
9 3 (0.33%) MPLS
9 3 (0.33%) Network Security
9 3 (0.33%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.33%) WLAN
10 2 (0.22%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.22%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (5.48%) Power BI
2 24 (2.63%) BigQuery
3 17 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
4 15 (1.64%) SQL Server
5 14 (1.53%) Tableau
6 12 (1.31%) MySQL
7 10 (1.10%) Metadata
8 8 (0.88%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.66%) Data Vault
9 6 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.55%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.55%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.44%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.33%) Looker
12 3 (0.33%) MongoDB
12 3 (0.33%) OLAP
12 3 (0.33%) Oracle OLAP
12 3 (0.33%) Snowflake Schema
13 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 71 (7.78%) JIRA
2 14 (1.53%) Git
3 10 (1.10%) GitLab
4 9 (0.99%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.55%) ERwin
6 4 (0.44%) Maven
7 3 (0.33%) Selenium
7 3 (0.33%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.22%) Hudson
8 2 (0.22%) MLflow
8 2 (0.22%) PowerDesigner
8 2 (0.22%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.11%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.11%) JMeter
9 1 (0.11%) Mockito
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle APEX
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.11%) Xcode
9 1 (0.11%) Zephyr
General
1 301 (32.97%) Social Skills
2 226 (24.75%) Finance
3 110 (12.05%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (8.87%) Banking
5 59 (6.46%) Marketing
6 42 (4.60%) Manufacturing
6 42 (4.60%) Organisational Skills
7 33 (3.61%) Retail Banking
8 31 (3.40%) Investment Banking
9 30 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
9 30 (3.29%) Public Sector
10 29 (3.18%) Corporate Banking
11 26 (2.85%) Presentation Skills
12 23 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
13 17 (1.86%) Telecoms
14 16 (1.75%) Legal
15 10 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
16 9 (0.99%) Back Office
17 8 (0.88%) Private Banking
18 7 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 159 (17.42%) Analyst
2 119 (13.03%) Architect
3 115 (12.60%) Project Manager
4 110 (12.05%) Senior
5 91 (9.97%) Business Analyst
6 76 (8.32%) Lead
7 45 (4.93%) Senior Manager
7 45 (4.93%) Solutions Architect
8 36 (3.94%) Consultant
9 33 (3.61%) Technical Manager
10 25 (2.74%) Senior Project Manager
11 23 (2.52%) Designer
11 23 (2.52%) Enterprise Architect
12 21 (2.30%) Data Architect
12 21 (2.30%) Developer
12 21 (2.30%) Programme Manager
13 17 (1.86%) Data Analyst
13 17 (1.86%) IT Manager
14 16 (1.75%) Product Manager
14 16 (1.75%) Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.07%) Middleware
2 27 (2.96%) VML
3 23 (2.52%) REST
4 17 (1.86%) Spring
5 15 (1.64%) React
6 12 (1.31%) AngularJS
6 12 (1.31%) Spring Boot
7 11 (1.20%) PySpark
8 10 (1.10%) CSS
9 8 (0.88%) .NET
9 8 (0.88%) HTML
9 8 (0.88%) Node.js
10 7 (0.77%) Kafka
10 7 (0.77%) LangChain
10 7 (0.77%) scikit-learn
11 6 (0.66%) jQuery
11 6 (0.66%) OpenTelemetry
12 5 (0.55%) JSON
12 5 (0.55%) SAML
12 5 (0.55%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 57 (6.24%) Product Ownership
2 33 (3.61%) Driving Licence
3 29 (3.18%) Cloud Native
4 27 (2.96%) Self-Motivation
5 23 (2.52%) EPoS
5 23 (2.52%) Onboarding
6 22 (2.41%) Data Centre
7 21 (2.30%) Management Information System
8 20 (2.19%) FMCG
9 19 (2.08%) Mainframe
10 18 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
11 16 (1.75%) Data Structures
12 14 (1.53%) Mobile App
13 10 (1.10%) IoT
14 9 (0.99%) Virtual Team
15 8 (0.88%) Algorithms
15 8 (0.88%) Greenfield Project
15 8 (0.88%) Reference Data
16 7 (0.77%) Clustering
16 7 (0.77%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 34 (3.72%) Windows
2 18 (1.97%) Linux
3 8 (0.88%) Mac OS
4 6 (0.66%) zOS
5 5 (0.55%) Android
6 4 (0.44%) Unix
6 4 (0.44%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.33%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.11%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.11%) VMS
8 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 210 (23.00%) Stakeholder Management
2 200 (21.91%) Agile
3 178 (19.50%) Problem-Solving
4 116 (12.71%) E-Commerce
5 115 (12.60%) Project Management
6 113 (12.38%) Migration
7 102 (11.17%) Roadmaps
8 93 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 91 (9.97%) Analytics
10 84 (9.20%) Customer Experience
11 78 (8.54%) AI
12 76 (8.32%) ERP
13 74 (8.11%) Project Delivery
14 70 (7.67%) Change Management
14 70 (7.67%) Workshop Facilitation
15 69 (7.56%) Continuous Improvement
16 68 (7.45%) Decision-Making
17 65 (7.12%) Business Intelligence
17 65 (7.12%) Scrum
18 61 (6.68%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 73 (8.00%) SQL
2 61 (6.68%) Python
3 29 (3.18%) Java
4 19 (2.08%) JavaScript
5 13 (1.42%) PowerShell
6 9 (0.99%) Shell Script
7 8 (0.88%) Bash
8 7 (0.77%) C#
8 7 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.77%) TypeScript
9 5 (0.55%) Kotlin
10 4 (0.44%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.44%) VBA
11 3 (0.33%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.33%) Scala
11 3 (0.33%) SOQL
11 3 (0.33%) SOSL
12 2 (0.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.22%) Google Apps Script
12 2 (0.22%) R
Qualifications
1 50 (5.48%) Degree
2 31 (3.40%) Security Cleared
3 22 (2.41%) PMP
3 22 (2.41%) SC Cleared
4 17 (1.86%) PMI Certification
5 8 (0.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (0.88%) CSPO
5 8 (0.88%) Master's Degree
6 7 (0.77%) APMP
6 7 (0.77%) CISSP
7 6 (0.66%) CCNP
7 6 (0.66%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (0.66%) MBA
8 4 (0.44%) CCIE
8 4 (0.44%) CISM
8 4 (0.44%) CRISC
8 4 (0.44%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.33%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (5.48%) Data Quality
2 49 (5.37%) QA
3 33 (3.61%) GDPR
4 31 (3.40%) PMO
5 18 (1.97%) SLA
6 12 (1.31%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.66%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.55%) NIST
10 4 (0.44%) IFRS
11 3 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.22%) GRC
12 2 (0.22%) NCSC
13 1 (0.11%) COBIT
13 1 (0.11%) GxP
13 1 (0.11%) IFRS 9
13 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
13 1 (0.11%) WCAG
System Software
1 19 (2.08%) Active Directory
2 15 (1.64%) Docker
3 5 (0.55%) VMware NSX
4 4 (0.44%) RACF
4 4 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.11%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 21 (2.30%) Terraform
2 12 (1.31%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.77%) Grafana
3 7 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (0.77%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 6 (0.66%) Argo
4 6 (0.66%) Istio
5 4 (0.44%) SCCM
6 2 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.22%) CA Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (0.22%) MOM
6 2 (0.22%) PingFederate
7 1 (0.11%) Cacti
7 1 (0.11%) Control-M
7 1 (0.11%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.11%) Nmap
7 1 (0.11%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.11%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 85 (9.31%) Microsoft
2 70 (7.67%) SAP
3 54 (5.91%) Oracle
4 52 (5.70%) Google
5 44 (4.82%) Salesforce
6 37 (4.05%) Databricks
7 27 (2.96%) Adobe
8 20 (2.19%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.64%) Sitecore
10 13 (1.42%) Cisco
11 12 (1.31%) IFS
12 10 (1.10%) IBM
13 8 (0.88%) Palo Alto
13 8 (0.88%) Splunk
13 8 (0.88%) Temenos
13 8 (0.88%) VMware
14 7 (0.77%) CheckPoint
14 7 (0.77%) Workday
14 7 (0.77%) Zscaler
15 6 (0.66%) GoldenSource