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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 121 81
Rank change year-on-year +33 -40 +15
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,526 759 1,027
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 2.31% 2.60%
As % of the General category 5.20% 3.65% 4.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 916 400 566
10th Percentile £302 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +7.45% -0.94% -6.05%
75th Percentile £652 £635 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +1.90% - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 44 70
10th Percentile £12.98 £14.73 £12.15
25th Percentile £13.81 £15.25 £12.50
Median hourly rate £18.75 £16.30 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +15.03% - -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £25.15 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £54.80 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.24 £15.96 £16.00
% change year-on-year -4.51% -0.25% -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 29,343 20,776 22,576
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.04% 63.17% 57.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,454 12,989 14,241
10th Percentile £313 £280 £286
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,143 1,108 1,460
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.25 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.92 £16.13 £16.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -32.93% +25.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £51.10 £57.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.05 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £22.14 £38.12
% change year-on-year +49.05% -41.92% +46.62%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +25 1,395 £550 +4.76% 1,822
London +41 803 £550 - 788
UK excluding London +13 615 £510 +1.90% 1,231
Work from Home -6 334 £520 +4.00% 687
North of England -19 179 £550 +10.00% 315
South East +17 176 £525 -6.25% 346
Midlands +13 122 £500 +17.65% 256
North West -1 114 £550 +10.00% 176
East Midlands +18 67 £500 +21.21% 107
East of England +16 63 £544 +3.57% 98
West Midlands -26 55 £600 +33.33% 148
Yorkshire -33 54 £500 - 103
South West -35 39 £325 -8.59% 113
Scotland +3 27 £447 -12.78% 58
North East -34 11 £155 -64.89% 40
Wales -10 5 £190 +29.52% 64
Northern Ireland +3 4 £196 -64.32% 16

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 41 (2.69%) Confluence
2 18 (1.18%) CMS
3 13 (0.85%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 12 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.59%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.33%) SAS
7 4 (0.26%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.20%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.13%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.13%) CICS
9 2 (0.13%) Mule
10 1 (0.066%) Apache
10 1 (0.066%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 51 (3.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.85%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 12 (0.79%) Chatbot
7 10 (0.66%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.59%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.39%) InDesign
9 6 (0.39%) MS Visio
10 4 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
11 3 (0.20%) CPLEX
11 3 (0.20%) Notion
12 1 (0.066%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.066%) Maya
12 1 (0.066%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.066%) SOLIDWORKS
12 1 (0.066%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 41 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.83%) Shopify
3 11 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.66%) SAP CRM
5 9 (0.59%) Oracle Retail
6 8 (0.52%) Magento
7 6 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.39%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.33%) SAP Retail
8 5 (0.33%) SAP SD
9 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
10 3 (0.20%) OpenText VIM for SAP
10 3 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.20%) SAP CAR
10 3 (0.20%) SAP ERP
11 2 (0.13%) IBM Planning Analytics
11 2 (0.13%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 185 (12.12%) Azure
2 140 (9.17%) AWS
3 74 (4.85%) GCP
4 70 (4.59%) Power Platform
5 51 (3.34%) Snowflake
6 42 (2.75%) GitHub
7 30 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (1.97%) Entra ID
8 26 (1.70%) GitHub Actions
9 24 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
10 22 (1.44%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 20 (1.31%) Figma
12 17 (1.11%) SaaS
13 16 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (0.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 12 (0.79%) dbt
15 12 (0.79%) Microsoft 365
16 11 (0.72%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 11 (0.72%) Serverless
17 10 (0.66%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.11%) WAN
2 16 (1.05%) ATM
2 16 (1.05%) Firewall
3 15 (0.98%) Wireless
4 14 (0.92%) VPN
5 13 (0.85%) Network Security
6 11 (0.72%) LAN
7 9 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (0.52%) BGP
8 8 (0.52%) IPsec
8 8 (0.52%) OSPF
9 7 (0.46%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 7 (0.46%) RFID
9 7 (0.46%) Structured Cabling
9 7 (0.46%) VLAN
10 6 (0.39%) Cisco Firepower
10 6 (0.39%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.33%) Cisco ASA
11 5 (0.33%) Cisco Nexus
11 5 (0.33%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.52%) Power BI
2 31 (2.03%) BigQuery
2 31 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
3 21 (1.38%) Data Lake
4 18 (1.18%) NoSQL
5 17 (1.11%) Metadata
5 17 (1.11%) Tableau
6 15 (0.98%) MongoDB
6 15 (0.98%) MySQL
7 14 (0.92%) SQL Server
8 12 (0.79%) Power Query
8 12 (0.79%) Relational Database
9 10 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
9 10 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 9 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
11 8 (0.52%) Redis
12 7 (0.46%) Looker
12 7 (0.46%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.39%) Couchbase
13 6 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 72 (4.72%) JIRA
2 30 (1.97%) Git
3 19 (1.25%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.52%) Subversion
5 7 (0.46%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.33%) JMeter
7 4 (0.26%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.26%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.26%) GitLab
7 4 (0.26%) Maven
8 3 (0.20%) Hudson
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%) Selenium
9 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.13%) webpack
10 1 (0.066%) Pylint
10 1 (0.066%) Visual Studio
General
1 427 (27.98%) Social Skills
2 354 (23.20%) Finance
3 150 (9.83%) Analytical Skills
4 122 (7.99%) Banking
5 96 (6.29%) Marketing
6 93 (6.09%) Manufacturing
7 64 (4.19%) Retail Banking
8 60 (3.93%) Organisational Skills
9 48 (3.15%) Investment Banking
10 44 (2.88%) Corporate Banking
11 30 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.77%) Legal
12 27 (1.77%) Public Sector
13 24 (1.57%) Telecoms
14 23 (1.51%) Advertising
14 23 (1.51%) French Language
15 22 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
16 21 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
17 18 (1.18%) Spanish Language
18 14 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 245 (16.06%) Architect
2 222 (14.55%) Analyst
3 187 (12.25%) Senior
4 131 (8.58%) Solutions Architect
5 129 (8.45%) Business Analyst
6 123 (8.06%) Project Manager
7 110 (7.21%) Lead
8 80 (5.24%) Developer
9 56 (3.67%) Senior Manager
10 50 (3.28%) Designer
11 44 (2.88%) Product Manager
12 43 (2.82%) Consultant
12 43 (2.82%) Data Analyst
13 38 (2.49%) Service Manager
14 36 (2.36%) Enterprise Architect
14 36 (2.36%) Senior Developer
15 35 (2.29%) Technical Manager
16 34 (2.23%) Data Architect
16 34 (2.23%) Programme Manager
17 33 (2.16%) Supply Chain Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (4.72%) REST
2 40 (2.62%) React
3 33 (2.16%) Middleware
4 32 (2.10%) Spring
5 29 (1.90%) Kafka
6 28 (1.83%) Node.js
7 24 (1.57%) Spring Boot
8 21 (1.38%) VML
9 20 (1.31%) Django
9 20 (1.31%) RESTful
10 17 (1.11%) HTML
10 17 (1.11%) SOAP
11 16 (1.05%) CSS
12 15 (0.98%) MACH
13 14 (0.92%) OAuth
14 13 (0.85%) Jakarta EE
15 12 (0.79%) Next.js
16 11 (0.72%) .NET
17 9 (0.59%) OAuth2
18 8 (0.52%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 83 (5.44%) Product Ownership
2 64 (4.19%) FMCG
3 57 (3.74%) EPoS
4 56 (3.67%) Onboarding
5 46 (3.01%) Cloud Native
6 45 (2.95%) Driving Licence
7 30 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
7 30 (1.97%) Mobile App
8 29 (1.90%) Data Centre
9 22 (1.44%) Marketing Technology
10 21 (1.38%) Data Structures
10 21 (1.38%) Mainframe
10 21 (1.38%) Operational Technology
11 20 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
11 20 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
12 19 (1.25%) Smartphone
13 17 (1.11%) AI Agents
14 16 (1.05%) IoT
15 15 (0.98%) Distributed Systems
15 15 (0.98%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 56 (3.67%) Windows
2 23 (1.51%) Linux
3 12 (0.79%) Unix
4 11 (0.72%) Android
5 8 (0.52%) Apple iOS
6 7 (0.46%) zOS
7 6 (0.39%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.33%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.33%) Windows 10
8 5 (0.33%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.13%) Debian
10 1 (0.066%) SUSE
10 1 (0.066%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.066%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 368 (24.12%) Stakeholder Management
2 362 (23.72%) Agile
3 236 (15.47%) E-Commerce
4 214 (14.02%) Problem-Solving
5 179 (11.73%) Migration
5 179 (11.73%) Roadmaps
6 160 (10.48%) Analytics
7 159 (10.42%) AI
8 151 (9.90%) Customer Experience
9 141 (9.24%) Logistics
10 132 (8.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 124 (8.13%) Decision-Making
12 123 (8.06%) CI/CD
13 121 (7.93%) Continuous Improvement
14 111 (7.27%) Project Management
15 109 (7.14%) CRM
16 107 (7.01%) ERP
17 103 (6.75%) User Acceptance Testing
18 102 (6.68%) Customer Service
18 102 (6.68%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 134 (8.78%) SQL
2 104 (6.82%) Python
3 58 (3.80%) Java
4 31 (2.03%) JavaScript
4 31 (2.03%) TypeScript
5 12 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 11 (0.72%) C#
7 8 (0.52%) ABAP
7 8 (0.52%) PowerShell
8 7 (0.46%) Apex Code
8 7 (0.46%) R
8 7 (0.46%) SOQL
9 6 (0.39%) Bash
9 6 (0.39%) Bicep
9 6 (0.39%) Kotlin
9 6 (0.39%) PL/SQL
9 6 (0.39%) Scala
10 5 (0.33%) Groovy
10 5 (0.33%) SOSL
11 4 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 61 (4.00%) Degree
2 40 (2.62%) Security Cleared
3 23 (1.51%) PMP
4 22 (1.44%) SC Cleared
5 13 (0.85%) DBS Check
5 13 (0.85%) PMI Certification
6 10 (0.66%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (0.59%) CISSP
8 6 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.39%) CISM
8 6 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (0.33%) CCNP
9 5 (0.33%) CCSE
9 5 (0.33%) CCSM
9 5 (0.33%) CSPO
10 4 (0.26%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.26%) City & Guilds
10 4 (0.26%) PhD
11 3 (0.20%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (4.98%) QA
2 69 (4.52%) Data Quality
3 41 (2.69%) GDPR
4 27 (1.77%) PMO
5 23 (1.51%) Accessibility
6 16 (1.05%) PCI DSS
7 14 (0.92%) SLA
8 8 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.46%) NIST
10 4 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 4 (0.26%) WCAG
11 3 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.20%) GAAP
11 3 (0.20%) GRC
11 3 (0.20%) IFRS
11 3 (0.20%) PSD2
12 2 (0.13%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.066%) Basel III
13 1 (0.066%) COBIT
System Software
1 36 (2.36%) Docker
2 34 (2.23%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.33%) Firmware
5 5 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 48 (3.15%) Terraform
2 37 (2.42%) Kubernetes
3 13 (0.85%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 11 (0.72%) Ansible
5 6 (0.39%) FortiGate
5 6 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.33%) Grafana
7 4 (0.26%) SCCM
8 3 (0.20%) 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%) MOM
9 2 (0.13%) PingFederate
10 1 (0.066%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.066%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.066%) Nagios
10 1 (0.066%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 126 (8.26%) Microsoft
2 104 (6.82%) SAP
3 69 (4.52%) Oracle
4 68 (4.46%) Databricks
5 66 (4.33%) Salesforce
6 52 (3.41%) Google
7 35 (2.29%) Adobe
8 24 (1.57%) Zscaler
9 19 (1.25%) MuleSoft
10 16 (1.05%) ServiceNow
10 16 (1.05%) Workday
11 15 (0.98%) Cisco
12 14 (0.92%) IFS
12 14 (0.92%) Splunk
13 13 (0.85%) Fortinet
13 13 (0.85%) IBM
13 13 (0.85%) Palo Alto
14 12 (0.79%) VMware
15 11 (0.72%) Braze
15 11 (0.72%) Informatica