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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 96 83
Rank change year-on-year -22 -13 +11
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,016 769 1,086
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.13% 2.64% 2.52%
As % of the General category 3.94% 4.16% 4.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 600 409 603
10th Percentile £206 £307 £280
25th Percentile £389 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £505
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +3.96% -3.81%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £740 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.30% - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 20 88
10th Percentile £13.21 £15.12 £11.56
25th Percentile £16.02 £16.30 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £32.00 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.38% +100.00% -19.23%
75th Percentile £36.69 £58.31 £21.37
90th Percentile £44.25 £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 25,814 18,467 25,035
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.09% 63.31% 58.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,819 11,773 15,784
10th Percentile £306 £294 £275
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +0.63% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,647 781 1,939
10th Percentile £13.86 £14.00 £12.77
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.44 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.82% -10.24%
75th Percentile £61.18 £56.00 £52.78
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.74 £24.66 £28.50
% change year-on-year +12.49% -13.47% -1.72%

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 9 May 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 9 May 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 9 May 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 -9 929 £500 -4.76% 1,139
London -12 508 £525 -4.55% 388
UK excluding London -4 431 £494 -1.30% 863
Work from Home -44 253 £500 -3.85% 392
North of England -29 127 £510 +13.33% 235
South East -24 117 £425 -15.00% 272
Midlands -24 86 £495 -1.00% 150
North West -3 76 £518 +3.50% 140
East of England -14 50 £480 -8.67% 111
East Midlands -5 48 £495 -1.00% 83
Yorkshire -47 47 £513 +38.51% 81
West Midlands -46 38 £500 - 67
South West -21 27 £333 -33.50% 75
Scotland +6 21 £474 -10.45% 35
North East -17 4 £200 -73.33% 17
Northern Ireland +4 2 £190 -44.48% 7
Wales -13 1 £190 +29.52% 17

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 (3.64%) Confluence
2 17 (1.67%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.08%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 9 (0.89%) CMS
5 7 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.49%) SAS
7 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.20%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.20%) Magnolia
9 1 (0.098%) CICS
9 1 (0.098%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.098%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 33 (3.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (1.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 19 (1.87%) Microsoft Project
4 16 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
5 13 (1.28%) Chatbot
6 11 (1.08%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.79%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.59%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.30%) InDesign
10 2 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.20%) Trello
10 2 (0.20%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.098%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.098%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.098%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.098%) Maya
11 1 (0.098%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.098%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 21 (2.07%) Shopify
2 19 (1.87%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.69%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 7 (0.69%) Oracle Retail
4 7 (0.69%) SAP Retail
5 6 (0.59%) Finacle
6 5 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.49%) SAP CRM
7 4 (0.39%) SAP MDG
7 4 (0.39%) Temenos T24
8 3 (0.30%) Magento
8 3 (0.30%) NetSuite
9 2 (0.20%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
9 2 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 2 (0.20%) Sage X3
9 2 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
9 2 (0.20%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.20%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 91 (8.96%) Azure
2 73 (7.19%) AWS
3 58 (5.71%) GCP
4 49 (4.82%) Power Platform
5 29 (2.85%) Snowflake
6 24 (2.36%) Dynamics 365
7 20 (1.97%) GitHub
8 18 (1.77%) Microsoft 365
8 18 (1.77%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
9 15 (1.48%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (1.38%) BigCommerce
11 13 (1.28%) Entra ID
11 13 (1.28%) Figma
11 13 (1.28%) SaaS
12 12 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (1.18%) Google Workspace
13 11 (1.08%) Cloud Run
13 11 (1.08%) Miro
14 10 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (0.79%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.57%) RFID
1 16 (1.57%) VPN
2 15 (1.48%) Firewall
2 15 (1.48%) Wireless
3 14 (1.38%) WAN
4 8 (0.79%) ATM
4 8 (0.79%) NFC
5 7 (0.69%) Cisco Nexus
5 7 (0.69%) LAN
5 7 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.59%) BGP
6 6 (0.59%) OSPF
7 5 (0.49%) Network Security
8 4 (0.39%) Cisco Firepower
8 4 (0.39%) EIGRP
8 4 (0.39%) VoIP
9 3 (0.30%) MPLS
9 3 (0.30%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.30%) VSAN
9 3 (0.30%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (4.43%) Power BI
2 26 (2.56%) BigQuery
3 16 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (1.28%) MySQL
4 13 (1.28%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.18%) Tableau
6 9 (0.89%) Data Lake
6 9 (0.89%) Metadata
7 6 (0.59%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.59%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.49%) Data Vault
9 4 (0.39%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.30%) Looker
10 3 (0.30%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.30%) OLAP
10 3 (0.30%) Oracle OLAP
10 3 (0.30%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.30%) Semantic Layer
10 3 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 74 (7.28%) JIRA
2 18 (1.77%) Git
3 11 (1.08%) GitLab
3 11 (1.08%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.39%) Maven
5 3 (0.30%) ERwin
6 2 (0.20%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.20%) Gatling
6 2 (0.20%) Hudson
6 2 (0.20%) JMeter
6 2 (0.20%) MLflow
6 2 (0.20%) Selenium
6 2 (0.20%) Subversion
6 2 (0.20%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.20%) WebDriver
7 1 (0.098%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.098%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.098%) IBM UrbanCode
7 1 (0.098%) Mockito
7 1 (0.098%) webpack
General
1 303 (29.82%) Social Skills
2 252 (24.80%) Finance
3 106 (10.43%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (9.25%) Banking
5 57 (5.61%) Marketing
6 46 (4.53%) Organisational Skills
7 45 (4.43%) Retail Banking
8 42 (4.13%) Manufacturing
9 39 (3.84%) Investment Banking
10 37 (3.64%) Corporate Banking
11 28 (2.76%) Presentation Skills
12 27 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
13 25 (2.46%) Public Sector
14 23 (2.26%) Telecoms
15 22 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
16 18 (1.77%) Legal
17 15 (1.48%) Back Office
18 13 (1.28%) Advertising
19 10 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
19 10 (0.98%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 162 (15.94%) Analyst
2 140 (13.78%) Architect
3 125 (12.30%) Senior
4 111 (10.93%) Project Manager
5 98 (9.65%) Business Analyst
6 79 (7.78%) Lead
7 53 (5.22%) Senior Manager
8 49 (4.82%) Solutions Architect
9 36 (3.54%) Technical Manager
10 33 (3.25%) Consultant
10 33 (3.25%) Designer
10 33 (3.25%) Developer
11 28 (2.76%) Enterprise Architect
11 28 (2.76%) Senior Project Manager
12 26 (2.56%) Data Architect
13 23 (2.26%) Product Manager
14 22 (2.17%) Programme Manager
15 19 (1.87%) Service Manager
16 18 (1.77%) Data Engineer
17 17 (1.67%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.05%) Middleware
2 30 (2.95%) VML
3 28 (2.76%) REST
4 23 (2.26%) React
5 19 (1.87%) Spring
6 17 (1.67%) Node.js
7 13 (1.28%) Spring Boot
8 12 (1.18%) AngularJS
9 10 (0.98%) CSS
9 10 (0.98%) Kafka
9 10 (0.98%) PySpark
10 7 (0.69%) HTML
10 7 (0.69%) LangChain
10 7 (0.69%) SOAP
11 6 (0.59%) GraphQL
11 6 (0.59%) jQuery
11 6 (0.59%) JSON
11 6 (0.59%) OpenTelemetry
12 5 (0.49%) OAuth2
12 5 (0.49%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 68 (6.69%) Product Ownership
2 37 (3.64%) Driving Licence
3 35 (3.44%) EPoS
4 32 (3.15%) Cloud Native
5 25 (2.46%) Onboarding
6 24 (2.36%) Data Centre
7 21 (2.07%) FMCG
7 21 (2.07%) Mainframe
7 21 (2.07%) Management Information System
8 19 (1.87%) Data Structures
8 19 (1.87%) Self-Motivation
9 18 (1.77%) Mobile App
10 13 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
11 11 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
12 10 (0.98%) AI Agents
12 10 (0.98%) IoT
12 10 (0.98%) Virtual Team
13 8 (0.79%) Clustering
14 7 (0.69%) Hybrid Cloud
14 7 (0.69%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 41 (4.04%) Windows
2 21 (2.07%) Linux
3 8 (0.79%) Mac OS
4 7 (0.69%) Android
4 7 (0.69%) zOS
5 6 (0.59%) Unix
6 5 (0.49%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.39%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.20%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.098%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 220 (21.65%) Stakeholder Management
2 219 (21.56%) Agile
3 186 (18.31%) Problem-Solving
4 146 (14.37%) E-Commerce
5 127 (12.50%) Migration
6 116 (11.42%) Roadmaps
7 113 (11.12%) Project Management
8 101 (9.94%) Analytics
9 93 (9.15%) Customer Experience
10 90 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 83 (8.17%) ERP
12 78 (7.68%) AI
13 77 (7.58%) Continuous Improvement
14 76 (7.48%) Project Delivery
15 75 (7.38%) Decision-Making
16 71 (6.99%) Workshop Facilitation
17 70 (6.89%) Change Management
17 70 (6.89%) Scrum
18 68 (6.69%) User Acceptance Testing
19 63 (6.20%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 72 (7.09%) SQL
2 60 (5.91%) Python
3 31 (3.05%) Java
4 24 (2.36%) JavaScript
5 12 (1.18%) PowerShell
5 12 (1.18%) TypeScript
6 10 (0.98%) Shell Script
7 8 (0.79%) Bash
8 6 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
9 5 (0.49%) Apex Code
9 5 (0.49%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.49%) SOQL
9 5 (0.49%) SOSL
10 4 (0.39%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.39%) Scala
10 4 (0.39%) VBA
11 2 (0.20%) C#
11 2 (0.20%) Korn
11 2 (0.20%) R
11 2 (0.20%) REXX
Qualifications
1 47 (4.63%) Degree
2 38 (3.74%) Security Cleared
3 25 (2.46%) SC Cleared
4 18 (1.77%) PMP
5 13 (1.28%) PMI Certification
6 9 (0.89%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (0.89%) CSPO
7 7 (0.69%) APMP
7 7 (0.69%) CCNP
7 7 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (0.69%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.59%) CISSP
8 6 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (0.59%) DBS Check
9 5 (0.49%) MBA
10 4 (0.39%) CCIE
10 4 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.30%) CCSE
11 3 (0.30%) CISM
11 3 (0.30%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (5.22%) QA
2 49 (4.82%) Data Quality
3 36 (3.54%) GDPR
4 32 (3.15%) PMO
5 17 (1.67%) SLA
6 14 (1.38%) Accessibility
7 10 (0.98%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.49%) NIST
10 4 (0.39%) IFRS
11 3 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.20%) GRC
12 2 (0.20%) WCAG
13 1 (0.098%) COBIT
13 1 (0.098%) GAAP
13 1 (0.098%) IFRS 9
13 1 (0.098%) NCSC
13 1 (0.098%) Solvency II
System Software
1 21 (2.07%) Active Directory
2 18 (1.77%) Docker
3 5 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
4 4 (0.39%) RACF
5 3 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.098%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 21 (2.07%) Terraform
2 14 (1.38%) Kubernetes
3 9 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.69%) Grafana
5 7 (0.69%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 6 (0.59%) Argo
6 6 (0.59%) Istio
7 5 (0.49%) SCCM
8 3 (0.30%) Ansible
9 2 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.20%) CA Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.20%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.20%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.20%) MOM
9 2 (0.20%) PingFederate
9 2 (0.20%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.098%) Control-M
10 1 (0.098%) Nagios
10 1 (0.098%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 81 (7.97%) Microsoft
2 74 (7.28%) SAP
3 63 (6.20%) Oracle
4 54 (5.31%) Salesforce
5 49 (4.82%) Google
6 40 (3.94%) Databricks
7 26 (2.56%) Adobe
8 17 (1.67%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.57%) Cisco
9 16 (1.57%) Sitecore
10 15 (1.48%) IFS
11 11 (1.08%) IBM
11 11 (1.08%) VMware
12 10 (0.98%) Palo Alto
13 9 (0.89%) Splunk
14 8 (0.79%) CheckPoint
14 8 (0.79%) Temenos
14 8 (0.79%) Workday
14 8 (0.79%) Zscaler
15 7 (0.69%) Fortinet