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 3 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 126 93
Rank change year-on-year +37 -33 +8
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,584 760 936
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.95% 2.34% 2.44%
As % of the General category 5.35% 3.68% 4.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 918 401 511
10th Percentile £324 £281 £300
25th Percentile £456 £400 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -4.67% -
75th Percentile £663 £635 £625
90th Percentile £738 £725 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 57 45
10th Percentile £12.76 £14.95 £12.15
25th Percentile £13.51 £15.25 £12.50
Median hourly rate £15.92 £16.34 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -2.54% +0.21% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £24.38 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £28.19 £27.77
UK excluding London median hourly rate £13.86 £16.30 £16.00
% change year-on-year -15.00% +1.88% -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 29,612 20,656 22,043
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.22% 63.55% 57.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,492 12,822 13,546
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
25th Percentile £417 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £740 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £496
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.14% -0.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,296 1,169 1,200
10th Percentile £13.69 £13.50 £14.27
25th Percentile £16.77 £16.17 £17.08
Median hourly rate £30.73 £25.15 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.19% -31.10% +32.73%
75th Percentile £55.00 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £69.65 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.48 £22.05 £36.00
% change year-on-year +42.77% -38.75% +38.46%

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 3 September 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 3 September 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 3 September 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 +29 1,457 £550 +9.89% 3,169
London +51 830 £568 +3.18% 1,649
UK excluding London +11 646 £525 +5.00% 1,810
Work from Home +2 344 £525 +5.00% 1,209
North of England -14 190 £550 +10.00% 543
South East +1 168 £538 -2.27% 434
Midlands +21 141 £513 +19.05% 345
North West +6 118 £550 +10.00% 303
East Midlands +14 81 £500 +14.68% 171
East of England +13 70 £600 +14.29% 163
West Midlands -10 59 £550 +29.41% 174
Yorkshire -43 55 £500 - 196
South West -27 46 £375 +19.05% 165
Scotland -11 25 £402 -23.43% 113
North East -31 17 £525 +18.64% 47
Wales -13 4 - - 40
Northern Ireland +5 3 £203 - 44

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 52 (3.28%) Confluence
2 20 (1.26%) CMS
3 12 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
3 12 (0.76%) SharePoint
4 10 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 5 (0.32%) SAS
6 4 (0.25%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.19%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.13%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.13%) CICS
8 2 (0.13%) Mule
9 1 (0.063%) Apache
9 1 (0.063%) Mendix
9 1 (0.063%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.063%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 58 (3.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (1.01%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 15 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
6 11 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.63%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.51%) MS Visio
10 7 (0.44%) InDesign
11 6 (0.38%) CPLEX
12 5 (0.32%) Chatbot
13 4 (0.25%) Notion
14 1 (0.063%) 3ds Max
14 1 (0.063%) PlantUML
14 1 (0.063%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.063%) SOLIDWORKS
14 1 (0.063%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 51 (3.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.83%) Shopify
3 15 (0.95%) SAP Retail
4 11 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
5 10 (0.63%) Oracle Retail
5 10 (0.63%) SAP CRM
6 8 (0.51%) Magento
7 6 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.32%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.32%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.25%) SAP SD
10 3 (0.19%) OpenText VIM for SAP
10 3 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.19%) SAP IBP
10 3 (0.19%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
11 2 (0.13%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 195 (12.31%) Azure
2 143 (9.03%) AWS
3 80 (5.05%) Power Platform
4 71 (4.48%) GCP
5 54 (3.41%) Snowflake
6 38 (2.40%) GitHub
7 33 (2.08%) Entra ID
8 32 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
9 27 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
10 24 (1.52%) GitHub Actions
11 23 (1.45%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
12 22 (1.39%) SaaS
13 20 (1.26%) Figma
14 17 (1.07%) Azure Data Factory
14 17 (1.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 15 (0.95%) dbt
15 15 (0.95%) Microsoft 365
16 13 (0.82%) OCI
17 11 (0.69%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 9 (0.57%) Algolia
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.45%) WAN
2 20 (1.26%) Firewall
3 16 (1.01%) ATM
3 16 (1.01%) Wireless
4 15 (0.95%) LAN
4 15 (0.95%) Network Security
4 15 (0.95%) VPN
5 12 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
6 8 (0.51%) BGP
6 8 (0.51%) IPsec
6 8 (0.51%) OSPF
6 8 (0.51%) SD-WAN
6 8 (0.51%) Structured Cabling
7 7 (0.44%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 7 (0.44%) VLAN
8 6 (0.38%) Cisco Firepower
8 6 (0.38%) Internet
8 6 (0.38%) VSAN
9 5 (0.32%) Cisco ASA
9 5 (0.32%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (5.05%) Power BI
2 46 (2.90%) Data Warehouse
3 33 (2.08%) BigQuery
4 27 (1.70%) Data Lake
5 23 (1.45%) Metadata
6 20 (1.26%) SQL Server
6 20 (1.26%) Tableau
7 19 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 18 (1.14%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.82%) Power Query
10 12 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
10 12 (0.76%) MySQL
10 12 (0.76%) Relational Database
11 11 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
11 11 (0.69%) Star Schema
12 10 (0.63%) Redis
12 10 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (0.51%) Couchbase
13 8 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 7 (0.44%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 81 (5.11%) JIRA
2 26 (1.64%) Git
3 19 (1.20%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.51%) Subversion
5 7 (0.44%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
6 5 (0.32%) Hudson
6 5 (0.32%) JMeter
7 4 (0.25%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.25%) GitLab
8 3 (0.19%) Selenium
9 2 (0.13%) git-flow
9 2 (0.13%) MLflow
9 2 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.13%) Postman
9 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.13%) webpack
10 1 (0.063%) HP UFT
10 1 (0.063%) Toad
General
1 444 (28.03%) Social Skills
2 383 (24.18%) Finance
3 166 (10.48%) Analytical Skills
4 133 (8.40%) Banking
5 110 (6.94%) Marketing
6 105 (6.63%) Manufacturing
7 67 (4.23%) Retail Banking
8 65 (4.10%) Organisational Skills
9 43 (2.71%) Corporate Banking
9 43 (2.71%) Investment Banking
10 35 (2.21%) Public Sector
11 32 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (1.89%) Telecoms
13 28 (1.77%) Legal
14 27 (1.70%) Advertising
15 24 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
16 23 (1.45%) French Language
17 19 (1.20%) Back Office
18 18 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
18 18 (1.14%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 255 (16.10%) Architect
2 234 (14.77%) Analyst
3 177 (11.17%) Senior
4 143 (9.03%) Solutions Architect
5 133 (8.40%) Business Analyst
6 124 (7.83%) Project Manager
7 116 (7.32%) Lead
8 86 (5.43%) Developer
9 54 (3.41%) Consultant
10 51 (3.22%) Product Manager
11 48 (3.03%) Designer
12 46 (2.90%) Senior Manager
13 44 (2.78%) Data Analyst
14 41 (2.59%) Supply Chain Architect
15 38 (2.40%) Service Manager
16 36 (2.27%) Senior Developer
17 35 (2.21%) Data Architect
18 34 (2.15%) Enterprise Architect
18 34 (2.15%) Technical Manager
18 34 (2.15%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (4.10%) REST
2 51 (3.22%) Terraform
3 41 (2.59%) React
4 34 (2.15%) Kafka
5 29 (1.83%) Node.js
6 28 (1.77%) Spring
7 25 (1.58%) Middleware
8 23 (1.45%) Spring Boot
9 21 (1.33%) VML
10 20 (1.26%) Django
10 20 (1.26%) RESTful
11 19 (1.20%) MACH
12 18 (1.14%) SOAP
13 15 (0.95%) HTML
14 14 (0.88%) Next.js
15 12 (0.76%) OAuth
16 11 (0.69%) CSS
17 10 (0.63%) .NET
17 10 (0.63%) Jakarta EE
17 10 (0.63%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 84 (5.30%) Product Ownership
2 68 (4.29%) FMCG
3 57 (3.60%) EPoS
4 56 (3.54%) Onboarding
5 46 (2.90%) Cloud Native
6 36 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
7 28 (1.77%) Data Centre
7 28 (1.77%) Mobile App
8 26 (1.64%) Driving Licence
9 24 (1.52%) Data Structures
9 24 (1.52%) Greenfield Project
9 24 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 24 (1.52%) Marketing Technology
10 22 (1.39%) Operational Technology
11 21 (1.33%) Mainframe
12 19 (1.20%) Smartphone
13 18 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
14 17 (1.07%) AI Agents
14 17 (1.07%) Credit Risk
15 16 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 51 (3.22%) Windows
2 20 (1.26%) Linux
3 11 (0.69%) Android
4 9 (0.57%) Unix
5 8 (0.51%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.38%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.38%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.32%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.19%) zOS
9 2 (0.13%) Debian
9 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
10 1 (0.063%) SUSE
10 1 (0.063%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.063%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 415 (26.20%) Stakeholder Management
2 378 (23.86%) Agile
3 240 (15.15%) E-Commerce
4 195 (12.31%) Migration
5 186 (11.74%) Problem-Solving
6 184 (11.62%) Analytics
7 178 (11.24%) Logistics
8 170 (10.73%) Roadmaps
9 169 (10.67%) AI
10 139 (8.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 138 (8.71%) Customer Experience
12 133 (8.40%) Decision-Making
13 130 (8.21%) Continuous Improvement
14 119 (7.51%) CI/CD
14 119 (7.51%) Project Management
15 116 (7.32%) Business Intelligence
16 114 (7.20%) CRM
17 108 (6.82%) User Acceptance Testing
18 104 (6.57%) DevOps
19 100 (6.31%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 141 (8.90%) SQL
2 109 (6.88%) Python
3 52 (3.28%) Java
4 34 (2.15%) TypeScript
5 28 (1.77%) JavaScript
6 13 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 10 (0.63%) C#
7 10 (0.63%) R
8 9 (0.57%) ABAP
8 9 (0.57%) Apex Code
8 9 (0.57%) SOQL
9 8 (0.51%) Bash
10 7 (0.44%) PowerShell
10 7 (0.44%) SOSL
11 6 (0.38%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.38%) Scala
12 5 (0.32%) Groovy
13 4 (0.25%) Bicep
13 4 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.25%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (4.04%) Degree
2 46 (2.90%) Security Cleared
3 23 (1.45%) PMP
4 21 (1.33%) SC Cleared
5 13 (0.82%) DBS Check
6 12 (0.76%) PMI Certification
7 8 (0.51%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
9 6 (0.38%) CISSP
9 6 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (0.32%) CCNP
10 5 (0.32%) CCSE
10 5 (0.32%) CCSM
10 5 (0.32%) CISM
10 5 (0.32%) CSPO
10 5 (0.32%) Six Sigma Green Belt
11 4 (0.25%) City & Guilds
12 3 (0.19%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.19%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (4.73%) Data Quality
2 74 (4.67%) QA
3 35 (2.21%) GDPR
4 24 (1.52%) PMO
5 23 (1.45%) Accessibility
6 14 (0.88%) PCI DSS
6 14 (0.88%) SLA
7 7 (0.44%) NIST
8 6 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.32%) WCAG
10 4 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.19%) GRC
11 3 (0.19%) PSD2
12 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.13%) GAAP
12 2 (0.13%) IFRS
12 2 (0.13%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.063%) GxP
13 1 (0.063%) IASME
System Software
1 35 (2.21%) Docker
2 29 (1.83%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.82%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.32%) Firmware
5 5 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.19%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.063%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (2.46%) Kubernetes
2 11 (0.69%) Ansible
3 10 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (0.44%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.38%) FortiGate
6 5 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.25%) SCCM
8 3 (0.19%) Bosun
9 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.13%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.13%) CA Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.13%) CloudHub
9 2 (0.13%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.13%) logstash
9 2 (0.13%) PingFederate
9 2 (0.13%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.063%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.063%) Nagios
10 1 (0.063%) vMotion
10 1 (0.063%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 145 (9.15%) Microsoft
2 127 (8.02%) SAP
3 82 (5.18%) Salesforce
4 78 (4.92%) Databricks
5 71 (4.48%) Oracle
6 44 (2.78%) Google
7 39 (2.46%) Adobe
8 25 (1.58%) Zscaler
9 22 (1.39%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.07%) Cisco
10 17 (1.07%) Workday
11 16 (1.01%) ServiceNow
12 14 (0.88%) Fortinet
13 13 (0.82%) Apple
13 13 (0.82%) IBM
13 13 (0.82%) Palo Alto
13 13 (0.82%) VMware
14 11 (0.69%) Braze
14 11 (0.69%) IFS
14 11 (0.69%) New Relic