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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 111 81
Rank change year-on-year +16 -30 +13
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,332 753 1,104
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.59% 2.41% 2.54%
As % of the General category 4.74% 3.81% 4.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 797 387 619
10th Percentile £271 £308 £289
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -0.49% -2.83%
75th Percentile £644 £627 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 38 86
10th Percentile £12.99 £14.32 £11.88
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £16.30 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.83% +1.88% -19.23%
75th Percentile £22.50 £36.69 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £80.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.92 £15.73 £15.95
% change year-on-year +7.57% -1.38% -19.49%

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 28,093 19,745 24,813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.53% 63.14% 57.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,844 12,414 15,535
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.60% -4.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £472 £490
% change year-on-year +5.88% -3.62% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,944 978 1,954
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.50 £12.81
25th Percentile £18.14 £16.50 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.00 £27.31 £31.76
Median % change year-on-year +17.19% -14.01% +4.11%
75th Percentile £60.00 £52.00 £53.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.49 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.56 £23.00 £30.60
% change year-on-year +37.20% -24.83% +21.78%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 +16 1,222 £538 +2.38% 1,454
London +22 706 £550 - 598
UK excluding London +7 530 £515 +3.00% 972
Work from Home -20 289 £500 - 516
South East +21 163 £550 - 324
North of England -38 143 £550 +7.32% 230
Midlands -13 101 £500 +8.11% 199
North West +2 94 £575 +15.00% 132
East of England +18 60 £550 - 112
East Midlands +2 55 £495 +7.03% 111
West Midlands -33 46 £529 +15.91% 88
Yorkshire -52 46 £531 +1.19% 81
South West -20 36 £325 -19.38% 71
Scotland +1 21 £496 -3.22% 34
Northern Ireland +5 3 £196 -64.32% 19
Wales -20 3 £190 +29.52% 14
North East -38 3 £173 -79.07% 20

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 (2.78%) Confluence
2 19 (1.43%) CMS
3 15 (1.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 12 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.53%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.38%) SAS
7 4 (0.30%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.15%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.15%) CICS
9 1 (0.075%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.075%) Apache
9 1 (0.075%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 32 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.95%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.28%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.98%) Chatbot
6 10 (0.75%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 10 (0.75%) Photoshop
7 9 (0.68%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.45%) InDesign
8 6 (0.45%) MS Visio
9 3 (0.23%) Notion
9 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.15%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.075%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.075%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.075%) Maya
11 1 (0.075%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.075%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 31 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.73%) Shopify
3 13 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.83%) Oracle Retail
5 7 (0.53%) SAP CRM
5 7 (0.53%) SAP Retail
6 6 (0.45%) Magento
7 5 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 4 (0.30%) Finacle
8 4 (0.30%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
8 4 (0.30%) SAP SD
9 3 (0.23%) SAP CAR
9 3 (0.23%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.23%) SAP MDG
10 2 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
10 2 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
10 2 (0.15%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 164 (12.31%) Azure
2 134 (10.06%) AWS
3 81 (6.08%) GCP
4 64 (4.80%) Power Platform
5 51 (3.83%) Snowflake
6 28 (2.10%) GitHub
7 24 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
9 21 (1.58%) Entra ID
10 19 (1.43%) Figma
10 19 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
11 18 (1.35%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
12 17 (1.28%) SaaS
13 14 (1.05%) dbt
14 13 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (0.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 11 (0.83%) Google Workspace
15 11 (0.83%) Microsoft 365
16 10 (0.75%) OCI
16 10 (0.75%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.05%) WAN
2 13 (0.98%) ATM
2 13 (0.98%) Firewall
3 12 (0.90%) Network Security
3 12 (0.90%) Wireless
4 11 (0.83%) VPN
5 9 (0.68%) RFID
6 8 (0.60%) LAN
6 8 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.45%) Cisco Firepower
7 6 (0.45%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.38%) BGP
8 5 (0.38%) Cisco ASA
8 5 (0.38%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (0.38%) IPsec
8 5 (0.38%) OSPF
8 5 (0.38%) VSAN
9 4 (0.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 4 (0.30%) Internet
9 4 (0.30%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (4.65%) Power BI
2 29 (2.18%) BigQuery
2 29 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
3 21 (1.58%) MySQL
3 21 (1.58%) Tableau
4 18 (1.35%) Data Lake
4 18 (1.35%) Metadata
5 16 (1.20%) NoSQL
5 16 (1.20%) SQL Server
6 12 (0.90%) Relational Database
7 8 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
7 8 (0.60%) MongoDB
7 8 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 7 (0.53%) SAP HANA
9 6 (0.45%) Data Vault
9 6 (0.45%) Looker
9 6 (0.45%) Semantic Layer
10 5 (0.38%) Couchbase
10 5 (0.38%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 74 (5.56%) JIRA
2 27 (2.03%) Git
3 18 (1.35%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.45%) Subversion
5 5 (0.38%) GitLab
6 4 (0.30%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.30%) Maven
7 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.23%) ERwin
7 3 (0.23%) Hudson
7 3 (0.23%) JMeter
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (0.23%) Selenium
8 2 (0.15%) git-flow
8 2 (0.15%) MLflow
8 2 (0.15%) Postman
8 2 (0.15%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.15%) WebDriver
8 2 (0.15%) webpack
9 1 (0.075%) Cucumber
General
1 381 (28.60%) Social Skills
2 306 (22.97%) Finance
3 121 (9.08%) Analytical Skills
4 118 (8.86%) Banking
5 82 (6.16%) Marketing
6 78 (5.86%) Manufacturing
7 61 (4.58%) Retail Banking
8 60 (4.50%) Organisational Skills
9 47 (3.53%) Investment Banking
10 45 (3.38%) Corporate Banking
11 28 (2.10%) Public Sector
12 27 (2.03%) Telecoms
13 25 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
14 24 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
15 23 (1.73%) French Language
16 21 (1.58%) Legal
16 21 (1.58%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (1.35%) Spanish Language
18 17 (1.28%) Advertising
19 14 (1.05%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 223 (16.74%) Architect
2 190 (14.26%) Analyst
3 165 (12.39%) Senior
4 121 (9.08%) Project Manager
5 112 (8.41%) Solutions Architect
6 109 (8.18%) Business Analyst
7 100 (7.51%) Lead
8 63 (4.73%) Senior Manager
9 56 (4.20%) Developer
10 46 (3.45%) Designer
11 41 (3.08%) Consultant
12 40 (3.00%) Technical Manager
13 38 (2.85%) Enterprise Architect
14 37 (2.78%) Senior Project Manager
15 36 (2.70%) Product Manager
16 31 (2.33%) Data Architect
17 30 (2.25%) Data Analyst
17 30 (2.25%) Data Engineer
18 29 (2.18%) 2nd Line Support
18 29 (2.18%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (4.43%) REST
2 37 (2.78%) Middleware
3 29 (2.18%) React
4 27 (2.03%) Spring
5 24 (1.80%) Kafka
5 24 (1.80%) VML
6 19 (1.43%) Spring Boot
7 18 (1.35%) Node.js
8 17 (1.28%) HTML
9 16 (1.20%) CSS
9 16 (1.20%) RESTful
10 15 (1.13%) MACH
11 14 (1.05%) OAuth
11 14 (1.05%) SOAP
12 13 (0.98%) J2EE
13 12 (0.90%) Django
14 11 (0.83%) .NET
15 9 (0.68%) AngularJS
15 9 (0.68%) JSON
15 9 (0.68%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 86 (6.46%) Product Ownership
2 53 (3.98%) FMCG
3 49 (3.68%) EPoS
4 41 (3.08%) Driving Licence
4 41 (3.08%) Onboarding
5 39 (2.93%) Cloud Native
6 26 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
7 24 (1.80%) Data Centre
8 22 (1.65%) Marketing Technology
9 21 (1.58%) Data Structures
9 21 (1.58%) Mobile App
10 18 (1.35%) Mainframe
10 18 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
11 17 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (1.13%) AI Agents
12 15 (1.13%) Management Information System
13 13 (0.98%) Operational Technology
14 11 (0.83%) Smartphone
14 11 (0.83%) Taxonomies
14 11 (0.83%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 54 (4.05%) Windows
2 27 (2.03%) Linux
3 12 (0.90%) Android
3 12 (0.90%) Unix
4 7 (0.53%) Mac OS
4 7 (0.53%) zOS
5 6 (0.45%) Apple iOS
5 6 (0.45%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.38%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.38%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.15%) Debian
8 1 (0.075%) SUSE
8 1 (0.075%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.075%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (24.17%) Agile
2 317 (23.80%) Stakeholder Management
3 200 (15.02%) E-Commerce
4 190 (14.26%) Problem-Solving
5 178 (13.36%) Migration
6 165 (12.39%) Roadmaps
7 147 (11.04%) Analytics
8 125 (9.38%) Customer Experience
9 119 (8.93%) AI
10 115 (8.63%) Project Management
11 112 (8.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 99 (7.43%) CI/CD
13 98 (7.36%) Decision-Making
14 97 (7.28%) ERP
14 97 (7.28%) Project Delivery
15 96 (7.21%) Logistics
16 94 (7.06%) Continuous Improvement
17 91 (6.83%) Business Intelligence
17 91 (6.83%) CRM
18 90 (6.76%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 121 (9.08%) SQL
2 87 (6.53%) Python
3 56 (4.20%) Java
4 26 (1.95%) JavaScript
5 22 (1.65%) TypeScript
6 11 (0.83%) C#
7 10 (0.75%) PowerShell
8 9 (0.68%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.53%) ABAP
9 7 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 7 (0.53%) PL/SQL
9 7 (0.53%) SOQL
10 6 (0.45%) Apex Code
10 6 (0.45%) Bash
10 6 (0.45%) Bicep
10 6 (0.45%) Kotlin
10 6 (0.45%) Scala
11 5 (0.38%) Groovy
11 5 (0.38%) R
11 5 (0.38%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 59 (4.43%) Degree
2 38 (2.85%) Security Cleared
3 24 (1.80%) SC Cleared
4 18 (1.35%) PMP
5 10 (0.75%) DBS Check
6 9 (0.68%) CISSP
6 9 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (0.68%) PMI Certification
7 7 (0.53%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.45%) CISM
9 5 (0.38%) CCNP
9 5 (0.38%) CCSE
9 5 (0.38%) CCSM
9 5 (0.38%) CSPO
10 4 (0.30%) APMP
10 4 (0.30%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.30%) City & Guilds
10 4 (0.30%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.23%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (4.73%) QA
2 61 (4.58%) Data Quality
3 40 (3.00%) GDPR
4 30 (2.25%) PMO
5 20 (1.50%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.28%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.90%) SLA
8 9 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.53%) NIST
10 3 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.23%) GAAP
10 3 (0.23%) IFRS
10 3 (0.23%) PSD2
11 2 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.15%) GRC
11 2 (0.15%) ISO 8583
11 2 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.15%) WCAG
12 1 (0.075%) COBIT
12 1 (0.075%) GxP
System Software
1 26 (1.95%) Docker
2 25 (1.88%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.23%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 34 (2.55%) Terraform
2 26 (1.95%) Kubernetes
3 14 (1.05%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 9 (0.68%) Ansible
5 6 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.45%) SCCM
5 6 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.38%) Grafana
7 4 (0.30%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.15%) AirWatch
8 2 (0.15%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.15%) MOM
8 2 (0.15%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.075%) Argo
9 1 (0.075%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.075%) Istio
9 1 (0.075%) Nagios
9 1 (0.075%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.075%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 103 (7.73%) Microsoft
2 92 (6.91%) SAP
3 80 (6.01%) Oracle
4 60 (4.50%) Salesforce
5 55 (4.13%) Google
6 54 (4.05%) Databricks
7 37 (2.78%) Adobe
8 22 (1.65%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.20%) Cisco
9 16 (1.20%) IBM
10 14 (1.05%) IFS
10 14 (1.05%) MuleSoft
10 14 (1.05%) Splunk
11 13 (0.98%) Zscaler
12 12 (0.90%) VMware
13 11 (0.83%) Fortinet
13 11 (0.83%) Palo Alto
13 11 (0.83%) Sitecore
14 10 (0.75%) Workday
15 9 (0.68%) Dynatrace