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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 118 80
Rank change year-on-year +29 -38 +16
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,488 775 1,054
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.81% 2.37% 2.63%
As % of the General category 5.12% 3.76% 4.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 905 406 583
10th Percentile £300 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +7.45% -2.39% -4.65%
75th Percentile £650 £630 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -1.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 45 72
10th Percentile £12.98 £14.80 £12.15
25th Percentile £14.24 £15.25 £12.50
Median hourly rate £21.00 £16.30 £16.15
Median % change year-on-year +28.83% +0.93% -18.48%
75th Percentile £22.50 £25.15 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £73.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.13 £15.96 £16.00
% change year-on-year +1.05% -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 29,045 20,618 23,003
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.94% 62.96% 57.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,309 12,899 14,508
10th Percentile £313 £280 £287
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 £470 £493
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.67% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,070 1,093 1,536
10th Percentile £14.09 £13.35 £13.66
25th Percentile £18.27 £16.25 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.00 £25.32 £36.33
Median % change year-on-year +30.33% -30.31% +18.97%
75th Percentile £61.18 £51.18 £57.50
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.13 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.25 £22.14 £37.50
% change year-on-year +50.18% -40.96% +38.89%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +23 1,358 £550 +4.76% 1,300
London +35 793 £550 - 516
UK excluding London +11 584 £513 +2.50% 935
Work from Home -8 326 £500 - 456
South East +14 172 £525 -7.49% 288
North of England -21 170 £550 +10.00% 252
Midlands +5 110 £500 +17.65% 185
North West 0 110 £575 +15.00% 126
East of England +13 62 £550 - 90
East Midlands +10 59 £500 +21.21% 78
West Midlands -20 51 £613 +36.11% 106
Yorkshire -38 50 £500 - 101
South West -32 38 £325 -8.59% 88
Scotland -4 24 £470 -8.39% 38
North East -37 10 £155 -64.89% 29
Northern Ireland +4 5 £196 -64.32% 7
Wales -16 3 £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 (2.55%) Confluence
2 19 (1.28%) CMS
3 15 (1.01%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 11 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.34%) SAS
5 5 (0.34%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.27%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.20%) Anypoint
8 2 (0.13%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.13%) CICS
8 2 (0.13%) Mule
9 1 (0.067%) Apache
9 1 (0.067%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 46 (3.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.14%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.87%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 13 (0.87%) Chatbot
6 10 (0.67%) Photoshop
7 9 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.40%) InDesign
9 4 (0.27%) MS Visio
10 3 (0.20%) CPLEX
10 3 (0.20%) Notion
10 3 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
11 1 (0.067%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.067%) Maya
11 1 (0.067%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.067%) SOLIDWORKS
11 1 (0.067%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 42 (2.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.88%) Shopify
3 12 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.67%) Oracle Retail
4 10 (0.67%) SAP CRM
5 8 (0.54%) Magento
6 6 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.40%) SAP MDG
6 6 (0.40%) SAP Retail
7 5 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
7 5 (0.34%) SAP SD
8 4 (0.27%) NetSuite
9 3 (0.20%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.20%) SAP CAR
9 3 (0.20%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.13%) Cognos Controller
10 2 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 178 (11.96%) Azure
2 140 (9.41%) AWS
3 74 (4.97%) GCP
4 63 (4.23%) Power Platform
5 50 (3.36%) Snowflake
6 39 (2.62%) GitHub
7 30 (2.02%) Entra ID
8 26 (1.75%) Azure DevOps
9 24 (1.61%) GitHub Actions
10 23 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
11 22 (1.48%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
12 20 (1.34%) Figma
13 17 (1.14%) SaaS
14 12 (0.81%) Azure Data Factory
14 12 (0.81%) dbt
15 11 (0.74%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 11 (0.74%) Google Workspace
15 11 (0.74%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 10 (0.67%) Microsoft 365
17 9 (0.60%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.14%) WAN
2 16 (1.08%) ATM
2 16 (1.08%) Firewall
3 15 (1.01%) Wireless
4 14 (0.94%) VPN
5 13 (0.87%) Network Security
6 11 (0.74%) LAN
7 9 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (0.54%) BGP
8 8 (0.54%) IPsec
8 8 (0.54%) OSPF
8 8 (0.54%) RFID
9 7 (0.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 7 (0.47%) VLAN
10 6 (0.40%) Cisco Firepower
10 6 (0.40%) SD-WAN
10 6 (0.40%) Structured Cabling
11 5 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
11 5 (0.34%) Cisco Nexus
11 5 (0.34%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (4.17%) Power BI
2 31 (2.08%) BigQuery
3 25 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (1.28%) Data Lake
5 18 (1.21%) Metadata
6 17 (1.14%) Tableau
7 16 (1.08%) NoSQL
8 15 (1.01%) MySQL
9 12 (0.81%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.81%) Relational Database
10 10 (0.67%) SQL Server
11 8 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
11 8 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
11 8 (0.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 7 (0.47%) Looker
12 7 (0.47%) Power Query
12 7 (0.47%) Redis
12 7 (0.47%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.40%) Couchbase
13 6 (0.40%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 70 (4.70%) JIRA
2 30 (2.02%) Git
3 18 (1.21%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.54%) Subversion
5 6 (0.40%) Claude Code
6 4 (0.27%) Cypress.io
6 4 (0.27%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.27%) Maven
7 3 (0.20%) GitLab
7 3 (0.20%) Hudson
7 3 (0.20%) JMeter
8 2 (0.13%) git-flow
8 2 (0.13%) MLflow
8 2 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.13%) Postman
8 2 (0.13%) Selenium
8 2 (0.13%) webpack
9 1 (0.067%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.067%) MSI
9 1 (0.067%) Toad
General
1 413 (27.76%) Social Skills
2 341 (22.92%) Finance
3 142 (9.54%) Analytical Skills
4 118 (7.93%) Banking
5 96 (6.45%) Marketing
6 87 (5.85%) Manufacturing
7 61 (4.10%) Retail Banking
8 60 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
9 45 (3.02%) Investment Banking
10 42 (2.82%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (1.81%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.68%) Public Sector
13 24 (1.61%) Legal
14 23 (1.55%) French Language
14 23 (1.55%) Telecoms
15 22 (1.48%) Advertising
15 22 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
16 21 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
17 18 (1.21%) Spanish Language
18 14 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 242 (16.26%) Architect
2 211 (14.18%) Analyst
3 183 (12.30%) Senior
4 130 (8.74%) Project Manager
5 129 (8.67%) Solutions Architect
6 121 (8.13%) Business Analyst
7 107 (7.19%) Lead
8 74 (4.97%) Developer
9 59 (3.97%) Senior Manager
10 50 (3.36%) Designer
11 45 (3.02%) Product Manager
12 42 (2.82%) Consultant
13 41 (2.76%) Data Analyst
14 38 (2.55%) Service Manager
15 36 (2.42%) Enterprise Architect
16 35 (2.35%) Technical Manager
17 34 (2.28%) Data Architect
17 34 (2.28%) Programme Manager
18 33 (2.22%) Senior Developer
18 33 (2.22%) Senior Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (4.70%) REST
2 38 (2.55%) React
3 34 (2.28%) Middleware
4 31 (2.08%) Spring
5 29 (1.95%) Kafka
6 25 (1.68%) Node.js
7 23 (1.55%) Spring Boot
8 21 (1.41%) VML
9 20 (1.34%) Django
9 20 (1.34%) RESTful
10 17 (1.14%) HTML
10 17 (1.14%) SOAP
11 16 (1.08%) CSS
12 15 (1.01%) MACH
13 14 (0.94%) OAuth
14 13 (0.87%) Jakarta EE
15 11 (0.74%) .NET
16 10 (0.67%) Next.js
17 9 (0.60%) OAuth2
17 9 (0.60%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 83 (5.58%) Product Ownership
2 64 (4.30%) FMCG
3 58 (3.90%) EPoS
4 45 (3.02%) Driving Licence
4 45 (3.02%) Onboarding
5 44 (2.96%) Cloud Native
6 30 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (2.02%) Mobile App
7 27 (1.81%) Data Centre
8 22 (1.48%) Marketing Technology
9 21 (1.41%) Data Structures
9 21 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
9 21 (1.41%) Operational Technology
9 21 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
10 19 (1.28%) Mainframe
11 17 (1.14%) AI Agents
12 16 (1.08%) IoT
13 13 (0.87%) Management Information System
14 12 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
14 12 (0.81%) Graphic Design
Operating Systems
1 55 (3.70%) Windows
2 23 (1.55%) Linux
3 12 (0.81%) Unix
4 10 (0.67%) Android
5 7 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 7 (0.47%) zOS
6 6 (0.40%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.40%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.34%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.34%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.13%) Debian
9 1 (0.067%) SUSE
9 1 (0.067%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.067%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 361 (24.26%) Agile
2 360 (24.19%) Stakeholder Management
3 239 (16.06%) E-Commerce
4 199 (13.37%) Problem-Solving
5 179 (12.03%) Roadmaps
6 178 (11.96%) Migration
7 153 (10.28%) AI
8 152 (10.22%) Analytics
9 149 (10.01%) Customer Experience
10 127 (8.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 121 (8.13%) Logistics
12 115 (7.73%) Decision-Making
12 115 (7.73%) Project Management
13 113 (7.59%) CI/CD
13 113 (7.59%) Continuous Improvement
14 108 (7.26%) CRM
15 106 (7.12%) ERP
16 102 (6.85%) Project Delivery
16 102 (6.85%) User Acceptance Testing
17 93 (6.25%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 123 (8.27%) SQL
2 99 (6.65%) Python
3 58 (3.90%) Java
4 29 (1.95%) TypeScript
5 28 (1.88%) JavaScript
6 11 (0.74%) C#
7 9 (0.60%) PowerShell
8 8 (0.54%) ABAP
9 7 (0.47%) Apex Code
9 7 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 7 (0.47%) R
9 7 (0.47%) SOQL
10 6 (0.40%) Bash
10 6 (0.40%) Bicep
10 6 (0.40%) Kotlin
10 6 (0.40%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.40%) Scala
11 5 (0.34%) Groovy
11 5 (0.34%) SOSL
12 4 (0.27%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 60 (4.03%) Degree
2 38 (2.55%) Security Cleared
3 22 (1.48%) PMP
3 22 (1.48%) SC Cleared
4 13 (0.87%) DBS Check
5 12 (0.81%) PMI Certification
6 10 (0.67%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (0.60%) CISSP
8 6 (0.40%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.40%) CISM
8 6 (0.40%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
9 5 (0.34%) CCNP
9 5 (0.34%) CCSE
9 5 (0.34%) CCSM
9 5 (0.34%) CSPO
10 4 (0.27%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.27%) City & Guilds
10 4 (0.27%) PhD
11 3 (0.20%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (4.91%) QA
2 66 (4.44%) Data Quality
3 41 (2.76%) GDPR
4 28 (1.88%) PMO
5 22 (1.48%) Accessibility
6 16 (1.08%) PCI DSS
7 14 (0.94%) SLA
8 8 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (0.40%) NIST
10 4 (0.27%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 4 (0.27%) 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 (0.067%) COBIT
13 1 (0.067%) GxP
System Software
1 35 (2.35%) Docker
2 34 (2.28%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.87%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.34%) Firmware
5 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.13%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 45 (3.02%) Terraform
2 35 (2.35%) Kubernetes
3 14 (0.94%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 11 (0.74%) Ansible
5 6 (0.40%) FortiGate
5 6 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.34%) Grafana
7 4 (0.27%) 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 (0.067%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.067%) Nagios
10 1 (0.067%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.067%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 119 (8.00%) Microsoft
2 106 (7.12%) SAP
3 69 (4.64%) Oracle
4 66 (4.44%) Salesforce
5 61 (4.10%) Databricks
6 51 (3.43%) Google
7 37 (2.49%) Adobe
8 24 (1.61%) Zscaler
9 19 (1.28%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.14%) ServiceNow
11 15 (1.01%) Cisco
12 14 (0.94%) IFS
12 14 (0.94%) Splunk
12 14 (0.94%) Workday
13 13 (0.87%) Fortinet
13 13 (0.87%) IBM
13 13 (0.87%) Palo Alto
14 12 (0.81%) VMware
15 11 (0.74%) Braze
15 11 (0.74%) Informatica