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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 92 91
Rank change year-on-year -45 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Retail 876 799 1,060
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 2.73% 2.42%
As % of the General category 3.46% 4.34% 4.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 547 428 608
10th Percentile £191 £286 £290
25th Percentile £361 £404 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £505
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +3.96% -4.72%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £729 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -7.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 18 78
10th Percentile £12.87 £17.27 £11.13
25th Percentile £14.75 £23.19 £12.15
Median hourly rate £16.50 £33.00 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% +106.25% -19.23%
75th Percentile £29.19 £64.44 £21.37
90th Percentile £50.05 £87.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £22.50 £15.29
% change year-on-year -27.40% +47.16% -22.82%

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 25,287 18,421 25,526
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.91% 63.00% 58.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,739 11,798 16,205
10th Percentile £303 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £643 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,575 734 1,865
10th Percentile £13.67 £14.78 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.20 £18.51 £15.39
Median hourly rate £25.77 £29.00 £26.24
Median % change year-on-year -11.14% +10.52% -25.03%
75th Percentile £59.00 £57.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £27.24 £25.22
% change year-on-year -8.21% +8.02% -19.36%

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 6 April 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 6 April 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 6 April 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 -46 797 £500 -4.76% 1,108
London -31 444 £525 -4.55% 362
UK excluding London -37 362 £463 -7.50% 867
Work from Home -62 214 £500 -4.76% 379
South East -25 110 £416 -22.56% 242
North of England -54 94 £500 +11.11% 224
Midlands -42 76 £495 -1.00% 186
Yorkshire -28 46 £525 +36.36% 91
East Midlands -8 44 £495 -1.00% 118
North West -42 44 £475 - 111
East of England -19 38 £475 -9.52% 88
West Midlands -53 31 £500 +11.11% 68
Scotland +6 21 £450 -15.49% 41
South West -19 19 £310 -4.62% 84
North East -13 4 £206 -72.50% 25
Northern Ireland -4 2 £190 -44.48% 9
Wales -15 2 £235 +60.19% 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 37 (4.22%) Confluence
2 15 (1.71%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 13 (1.48%) CMS
4 9 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.46%) WordPress
6 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.34%) SAS
7 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.23%) Magnolia
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.11%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.11%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 28 (3.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.17%) Microsoft Project
3 14 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
4 13 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (1.37%) Chatbot
6 10 (1.14%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.57%) Photoshop
8 4 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
9 3 (0.34%) InDesign
10 2 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.23%) Trello
11 1 (0.11%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.11%) Maya
11 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
11 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
11 1 (0.11%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 20 (2.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.94%) Shopify
3 13 (1.48%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (1.48%) SAP Retail
4 8 (0.91%) Oracle Retail
5 6 (0.68%) Finacle
5 6 (0.68%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 5 (0.57%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.46%) ResourceLink
7 4 (0.46%) SAP MDG
7 4 (0.46%) Temenos T24
8 3 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
8 3 (0.34%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 2 (0.23%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.23%) NetSuite
9 2 (0.23%) Sage X3
9 2 (0.23%) Sprinklr
10 1 (0.11%) SAP ERP
10 1 (0.11%) SAP SRM
Cloud Services
1 90 (10.27%) Azure
2 57 (6.51%) Power Platform
3 55 (6.28%) AWS
4 53 (6.05%) GCP
5 27 (3.08%) Dynamics 365
6 23 (2.63%) Snowflake
7 21 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
8 19 (2.17%) GitHub
8 19 (2.17%) Microsoft 365
9 15 (1.71%) SaaS
10 12 (1.37%) Entra ID
10 12 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (1.37%) Google Workspace
11 11 (1.26%) Cloud Run
11 11 (1.26%) Figma
12 10 (1.14%) BigCommerce
12 10 (1.14%) Miro
12 10 (1.14%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
13 9 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
14 8 (0.91%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.83%) RFID
2 15 (1.71%) VPN
3 11 (1.26%) Firewall
3 11 (1.26%) WAN
3 11 (1.26%) Wireless
4 8 (0.91%) NFC
5 7 (0.80%) LAN
6 6 (0.68%) Cisco Nexus
6 6 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.57%) BGP
7 5 (0.57%) OSPF
8 4 (0.46%) EIGRP
8 4 (0.46%) VoIP
9 3 (0.34%) MPLS
10 2 (0.23%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.23%) Cisco Firepower
10 2 (0.23%) Network Security
10 2 (0.23%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.23%) VSAN
10 2 (0.23%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (5.59%) Power BI
2 25 (2.85%) BigQuery
3 15 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (1.48%) SQL Server
4 13 (1.48%) Tableau
5 12 (1.37%) MySQL
6 10 (1.14%) Metadata
7 7 (0.80%) Data Vault
8 6 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.57%) Data Lake
9 5 (0.57%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.57%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.46%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
11 3 (0.34%) Looker
11 3 (0.34%) OLAP
11 3 (0.34%) Oracle OLAP
11 3 (0.34%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.34%) Snowflake Schema
11 3 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 71 (8.11%) JIRA
2 14 (1.60%) Git
3 10 (1.14%) GitLab
4 9 (1.03%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.57%) ERwin
6 4 (0.46%) Maven
7 3 (0.34%) Selenium
7 3 (0.34%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.23%) MLflow
8 2 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
8 2 (0.23%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.11%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.11%) Hudson
9 1 (0.11%) JMeter
9 1 (0.11%) Mockito
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle APEX
9 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.11%) Xcode
9 1 (0.11%) Zephyr
General
1 299 (34.13%) Social Skills
2 214 (24.43%) Finance
3 99 (11.30%) Analytical Skills
4 80 (9.13%) Banking
5 60 (6.85%) Marketing
6 39 (4.45%) Manufacturing
6 39 (4.45%) Organisational Skills
7 37 (4.22%) Public Sector
8 33 (3.77%) Retail Banking
9 31 (3.54%) Investment Banking
10 29 (3.31%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
12 25 (2.85%) Presentation Skills
13 24 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
14 14 (1.60%) Legal
15 13 (1.48%) Telecoms
16 10 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
17 9 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 8 (0.91%) Private Banking
19 7 (0.80%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 158 (18.04%) Analyst
2 109 (12.44%) Project Manager
3 108 (12.33%) Architect
4 104 (11.87%) Senior
5 88 (10.05%) Business Analyst
6 69 (7.88%) Lead
7 43 (4.91%) Senior Manager
8 40 (4.57%) Solutions Architect
9 39 (4.45%) Consultant
10 32 (3.65%) Technical Manager
11 23 (2.63%) Senior Project Manager
12 22 (2.51%) Data Architect
12 22 (2.51%) Developer
13 21 (2.40%) Programme Manager
14 20 (2.28%) Enterprise Architect
15 19 (2.17%) Data Analyst
16 18 (2.05%) Service Manager
17 17 (1.94%) Designer
17 17 (1.94%) IT Manager
18 15 (1.71%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (2.85%) Middleware
2 24 (2.74%) VML
3 23 (2.63%) REST
4 17 (1.94%) Spring
5 14 (1.60%) React
6 12 (1.37%) AngularJS
6 12 (1.37%) Spring Boot
7 11 (1.26%) PySpark
8 9 (1.03%) CSS
8 9 (1.03%) HTML
9 8 (0.91%) .NET
9 8 (0.91%) Node.js
10 7 (0.80%) scikit-learn
11 6 (0.68%) jQuery
11 6 (0.68%) JSON
11 6 (0.68%) Kafka
11 6 (0.68%) LangChain
11 6 (0.68%) OpenTelemetry
12 5 (0.57%) OAuth
12 5 (0.57%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 57 (6.51%) Product Ownership
2 35 (4.00%) Driving Licence
3 26 (2.97%) Cloud Native
3 26 (2.97%) Self-Motivation
4 23 (2.63%) Onboarding
5 22 (2.51%) EPoS
6 21 (2.40%) Management Information System
7 20 (2.28%) Data Centre
7 20 (2.28%) FMCG
8 17 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
8 17 (1.94%) Mainframe
9 15 (1.71%) Data Structures
10 14 (1.60%) Mobile App
11 9 (1.03%) IoT
11 9 (1.03%) Virtual Team
12 8 (0.91%) Algorithms
12 8 (0.91%) Reference Data
13 7 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
13 7 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
13 7 (0.80%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 38 (4.34%) Windows
2 19 (2.17%) Linux
3 9 (1.03%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.57%) Android
4 5 (0.57%) zOS
5 4 (0.46%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.46%) Unix
5 4 (0.46%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.11%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.11%) VMS
6 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (22.95%) Stakeholder Management
2 194 (22.15%) Agile
3 171 (19.52%) Problem-Solving
4 113 (12.90%) E-Commerce
5 104 (11.87%) Migration
6 102 (11.64%) Project Management
7 94 (10.73%) Analytics
8 93 (10.62%) Roadmaps
9 90 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 80 (9.13%) Customer Experience
11 73 (8.33%) ERP
12 72 (8.22%) Workshop Facilitation
13 71 (8.11%) AI
13 71 (8.11%) Continuous Improvement
14 70 (7.99%) Project Delivery
15 68 (7.76%) Change Management
16 66 (7.53%) Scrum
17 65 (7.42%) Decision-Making
18 63 (7.19%) Business Intelligence
19 61 (6.96%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 71 (8.11%) SQL
2 61 (6.96%) Python
3 29 (3.31%) Java
4 19 (2.17%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.60%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.03%) Bash
6 9 (1.03%) Shell Script
7 8 (0.91%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.80%) C#
9 6 (0.68%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.57%) Kotlin
11 4 (0.46%) VBA
12 3 (0.34%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.34%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.34%) Scala
12 3 (0.34%) SOQL
12 3 (0.34%) SOSL
13 2 (0.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.23%) PHP
13 2 (0.23%) R
Qualifications
1 48 (5.48%) Degree
2 32 (3.65%) Security Cleared
3 21 (2.40%) PMP
4 19 (2.17%) SC Cleared
5 16 (1.83%) PMI Certification
6 8 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.80%) APMP
7 7 (0.80%) CISSP
7 7 (0.80%) CSPO
7 7 (0.80%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.68%) CCNP
8 6 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (0.68%) MBA
9 4 (0.46%) CCIE
9 4 (0.46%) CISM
9 4 (0.46%) CRISC
10 3 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.34%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (5.25%) Data Quality
2 45 (5.14%) QA
3 30 (3.42%) PMO
4 28 (3.20%) GDPR
5 19 (2.17%) SLA
6 12 (1.37%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.68%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.57%) NIST
10 4 (0.46%) IFRS
11 3 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.23%) GRC
12 2 (0.23%) NCSC
13 1 (0.11%) COBIT
13 1 (0.11%) GAAP
13 1 (0.11%) IFRS 9
13 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
13 1 (0.11%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (2.05%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.60%) Docker
3 4 (0.46%) RACF
3 4 (0.46%) VMware NSX
4 3 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.11%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 20 (2.28%) Terraform
2 12 (1.37%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.80%) Grafana
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (0.80%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 6 (0.68%) Argo
4 6 (0.68%) Istio
5 5 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.46%) SCCM
7 2 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.23%) CA Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.23%) MOM
7 2 (0.23%) PingFederate
8 1 (0.11%) Ansible
8 1 (0.11%) Control-M
8 1 (0.11%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.11%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.11%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.11%) zSecure
Vendors
1 83 (9.47%) Microsoft
2 69 (7.88%) SAP
3 52 (5.94%) Google
4 50 (5.71%) Oracle
5 38 (4.34%) Salesforce
6 35 (4.00%) Databricks
7 26 (2.97%) Adobe
8 19 (2.17%) ServiceNow
9 13 (1.48%) Sitecore
10 11 (1.26%) Cisco
11 9 (1.03%) IBM
11 9 (1.03%) IFS
12 8 (0.91%) Splunk
12 8 (0.91%) Temenos
13 7 (0.80%) CheckPoint
13 7 (0.80%) VMware
13 7 (0.80%) Workday
14 6 (0.68%) Apple
14 6 (0.68%) Palo Alto
14 6 (0.68%) Zscaler