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 1 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 102 84
Rank change year-on-year -2 -18 +9
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,116 742 1,081
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.28% 2.55% 2.52%
As % of the General category 4.24% 4.02% 4.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 651 379 600
10th Percentile £244 £313 £277
25th Percentile £403 £413 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £509
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +2.21% -5.79%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £625
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 24 88
10th Percentile £13.25 £15.25 £11.56
25th Percentile £15.75 £16.04 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £27.08 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.44% +69.22% -21.59%
75th Percentile £22.50 £58.31 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £87.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.50 £16.30 £15.90
% change year-on-year +7.36% +2.52% -19.74%

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 26,337 18,442 24,728
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.81% 63.30% 57.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,946 11,681 15,547
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £756 £764
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,748 823 1,981
10th Percentile £13.72 £13.50 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.94 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% -6.87% -7.12%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £67.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.07 £24.34 £28.34
% change year-on-year +19.43% -14.10% +3.04%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 -5 1,021 £520 -0.95% 1,601
London +3 567 £531 -3.41% 685
UK excluding London +3 466 £500 - 1,055
Work from Home -32 265 £500 - 619
South East -2 135 £475 -5.00% 311
North of England -34 133 £511 +2.25% 311
Midlands -16 90 £495 +10.00% 170
North West -8 82 £538 +7.50% 182
East Midlands -3 53 £495 +6.74% 84
East of England -5 51 £509 -3.05% 114
Yorkshire -56 48 £506 +9.46% 111
West Midlands -42 37 £529 +20.88% 86
South West -13 32 £326 -34.75% 84
Scotland +3 21 £500 -6.10% 46
North East -26 3 £173 -76.98% 21
Northern Ireland +4 2 £190 -44.48% 27
Wales -13 2 £190 +29.52% 22

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 38 (3.41%) Confluence
2 13 (1.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 13 (1.16%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.08%) CMS
4 11 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.36%) SAS
6 3 (0.27%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.18%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.18%) CICS
8 1 (0.090%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.090%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 30 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (2.15%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.70%) Microsoft Project
4 17 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.16%) Chatbot
6 11 (0.99%) MS Visio
7 10 (0.90%) Photoshop
8 8 (0.72%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.45%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 5 (0.45%) InDesign
10 3 (0.27%) Notion
11 2 (0.18%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.090%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe After Effects
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.090%) Maya
12 1 (0.090%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.090%) SOLIDWORKS
12 1 (0.090%) Spreadsheet
12 1 (0.090%) Trello
Business Applications
1 22 (1.97%) Shopify
2 20 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (0.72%) SAP Retail
5 7 (0.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (0.63%) SAP CRM
6 6 (0.54%) Finacle
6 6 (0.54%) Oracle Retail
7 5 (0.45%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.45%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.36%) Magento
9 3 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
10 2 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
10 2 (0.18%) Sage X3
10 2 (0.18%) SAP CAR
10 2 (0.18%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 2 (0.18%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 119 (10.66%) Azure
2 90 (8.06%) AWS
3 66 (5.91%) GCP
4 49 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 39 (3.49%) Snowflake
6 25 (2.24%) GitHub
7 23 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (1.52%) GitHub Actions
9 17 (1.52%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 16 (1.43%) Figma
10 16 (1.43%) Microsoft 365
11 15 (1.34%) SaaS
12 14 (1.25%) Entra ID
13 13 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
14 12 (1.08%) BigCommerce
14 12 (1.08%) dbt
15 11 (0.99%) Cloud Run
15 11 (0.99%) Google Workspace
16 10 (0.90%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.25%) WAN
2 13 (1.16%) ATM
2 13 (1.16%) Firewall
3 12 (1.08%) VPN
4 9 (0.81%) Network Security
4 9 (0.81%) Wireless
5 8 (0.72%) RFID
6 7 (0.63%) Cisco Nexus
6 7 (0.63%) LAN
6 7 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.54%) Cisco Firepower
8 5 (0.45%) BGP
8 5 (0.45%) Cisco ASA
8 5 (0.45%) OSPF
8 5 (0.45%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.45%) VSAN
9 4 (0.36%) MPLS
10 3 (0.27%) Broadband
10 3 (0.27%) EIGRP
10 3 (0.27%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (4.12%) Power BI
2 28 (2.51%) BigQuery
3 20 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
4 16 (1.43%) MySQL
4 16 (1.43%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.08%) Tableau
6 11 (0.99%) Metadata
7 10 (0.90%) Data Lake
8 7 (0.63%) NoSQL
8 7 (0.63%) Relational Database
9 6 (0.54%) Data Vault
9 6 (0.54%) MongoDB
9 6 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
10 5 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
11 4 (0.36%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.36%) Looker
11 4 (0.36%) Semantic Layer
12 3 (0.27%) OLAP
12 3 (0.27%) Oracle OLAP
12 3 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 76 (6.81%) JIRA
2 22 (1.97%) Git
3 16 (1.43%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.99%) GitLab
5 4 (0.36%) JMeter
5 4 (0.36%) Maven
5 4 (0.36%) Subversion
6 3 (0.27%) ERwin
6 3 (0.27%) Hudson
6 3 (0.27%) Selenium
6 3 (0.27%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.18%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.18%) Eclipse
7 2 (0.18%) Gatling
7 2 (0.18%) git-flow
7 2 (0.18%) MLflow
7 2 (0.18%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.090%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.090%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.090%) Toad
General
1 320 (28.67%) Social Skills
2 275 (24.64%) Finance
3 111 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
4 104 (9.32%) Banking
5 68 (6.09%) Marketing
6 54 (4.84%) Retail Banking
7 52 (4.66%) Manufacturing
8 51 (4.57%) Organisational Skills
9 44 (3.94%) Investment Banking
10 40 (3.58%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (2.42%) Telecoms
12 26 (2.33%) Public Sector
13 25 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
14 21 (1.88%) Legal
14 21 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
15 19 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
16 17 (1.52%) French Language
17 15 (1.34%) Advertising
18 13 (1.16%) Back Office
18 13 (1.16%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 167 (14.96%) Architect
2 164 (14.70%) Analyst
3 138 (12.37%) Senior
4 117 (10.48%) Project Manager
5 95 (8.51%) Business Analyst
6 83 (7.44%) Lead
7 72 (6.45%) Solutions Architect
8 59 (5.29%) Senior Manager
9 45 (4.03%) Technical Manager
10 40 (3.58%) Developer
11 38 (3.41%) Designer
12 33 (2.96%) Product Manager
12 33 (2.96%) Senior Project Manager
13 32 (2.87%) Enterprise Architect
14 29 (2.60%) Consultant
15 28 (2.51%) Data Architect
16 27 (2.42%) Data Engineer
17 23 (2.06%) 2nd Line Support
17 23 (2.06%) Service Manager
18 21 (1.88%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (2.96%) Middleware
2 32 (2.87%) REST
3 27 (2.42%) VML
4 26 (2.33%) React
5 24 (2.15%) Spring
6 18 (1.61%) Node.js
6 18 (1.61%) Spring Boot
7 17 (1.52%) Kafka
8 14 (1.25%) AngularJS
8 14 (1.25%) CSS
9 12 (1.08%) RESTful
10 11 (0.99%) HTML
11 9 (0.81%) .NET
12 8 (0.72%) OpenTelemetry
12 8 (0.72%) PySpark
13 7 (0.63%) LangChain
13 7 (0.63%) MACH
13 7 (0.63%) OAuth2
13 7 (0.63%) OpenID
13 7 (0.63%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 71 (6.36%) Product Ownership
2 42 (3.76%) EPoS
3 41 (3.67%) Driving Licence
4 34 (3.05%) FMCG
5 33 (2.96%) Cloud Native
6 30 (2.69%) Onboarding
7 22 (1.97%) Data Centre
8 21 (1.88%) Mainframe
9 19 (1.70%) Data Structures
10 17 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
11 16 (1.43%) Management Information System
11 16 (1.43%) Mobile App
12 12 (1.08%) AI Agents
12 12 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
13 11 (0.99%) Smartphone
14 10 (0.90%) Virtual Team
15 9 (0.81%) CCTV
16 8 (0.72%) Clustering
16 8 (0.72%) Mobile Payment
Operating Systems
1 48 (4.30%) Windows
2 22 (1.97%) Linux
3 10 (0.90%) Android
4 7 (0.63%) Unix
4 7 (0.63%) zOS
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.36%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.27%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.090%) Debian
8 1 (0.090%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.090%) SUSE
8 1 (0.090%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.090%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.090%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (22.31%) Agile
2 232 (20.79%) Stakeholder Management
3 186 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
4 164 (14.70%) E-Commerce
5 136 (12.19%) Migration
6 129 (11.56%) Roadmaps
7 120 (10.75%) Project Management
8 111 (9.95%) Analytics
9 110 (9.86%) Customer Experience
10 90 (8.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 86 (7.71%) ERP
12 84 (7.53%) Project Delivery
13 83 (7.44%) Continuous Improvement
14 82 (7.35%) Change Management
14 82 (7.35%) Decision-Making
15 79 (7.08%) Scrum
16 78 (6.99%) AI
17 74 (6.63%) CI/CD
18 73 (6.54%) User Acceptance Testing
19 72 (6.45%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 86 (7.71%) SQL
2 61 (5.47%) Python
3 34 (3.05%) Java
4 24 (2.15%) JavaScript
5 15 (1.34%) TypeScript
6 10 (0.90%) Shell Script
7 9 (0.81%) PowerShell
8 8 (0.72%) C#
9 6 (0.54%) Kotlin
9 6 (0.54%) SOQL
10 5 (0.45%) Apex Code
10 5 (0.45%) Bash
10 5 (0.45%) SOSL
11 4 (0.36%) Bicep
11 4 (0.36%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.36%) Scala
12 3 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.27%) R
12 3 (0.27%) VBA
13 2 (0.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 50 (4.48%) Degree
2 39 (3.49%) Security Cleared
3 26 (2.33%) SC Cleared
4 18 (1.61%) PMP
5 11 (0.99%) PMI Certification
6 9 (0.81%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (0.81%) DBS Check
7 8 (0.72%) CISSP
8 7 (0.63%) APMP
8 7 (0.63%) CCNP
8 7 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (0.63%) Master's Degree
9 6 (0.54%) CSPO
10 5 (0.45%) CCSE
10 5 (0.45%) CCSM
10 5 (0.45%) CISM
10 5 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (0.45%) MBA
11 4 (0.36%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (5.11%) Data Quality
2 56 (5.02%) QA
3 36 (3.23%) GDPR
4 33 (2.96%) PMO
5 16 (1.43%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.34%) SLA
7 11 (0.99%) PCI DSS
8 8 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.45%) NIST
10 2 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.18%) GRC
10 2 (0.18%) IFRS
10 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.18%) WCAG
11 1 (0.090%) COBIT
11 1 (0.090%) GAAP
11 1 (0.090%) GxP
11 1 (0.090%) ISO 8583
11 1 (0.090%) PSD2
System Software
1 23 (2.06%) Docker
2 21 (1.88%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.27%) RACF
5 3 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.27%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 25 (2.24%) Terraform
2 19 (1.70%) Kubernetes
3 11 (0.99%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 7 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.54%) Argo
5 6 (0.54%) Grafana
5 6 (0.54%) Istio
5 6 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.45%) SCCM
7 3 (0.27%) Ansible
8 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.18%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.18%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.18%) MOM
8 2 (0.18%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.090%) Nagios
9 1 (0.090%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.090%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 92 (8.24%) Microsoft
2 76 (6.81%) SAP
3 66 (5.91%) Oracle
4 52 (4.66%) Salesforce
5 51 (4.57%) Google
6 42 (3.76%) Databricks
7 29 (2.60%) Adobe
8 19 (1.70%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.43%) Cisco
10 15 (1.34%) IFS
11 14 (1.25%) Sitecore
12 12 (1.08%) IBM
13 11 (0.99%) Splunk
13 11 (0.99%) VMware
14 10 (0.90%) Palo Alto
15 9 (0.81%) Fortinet
15 9 (0.81%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.81%) Zscaler
16 8 (0.72%) CheckPoint
16 8 (0.72%) Temenos