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

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 115 83
Rank change year-on-year +18 -32 +10
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,302 738 1,093
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.55% 2.42% 2.52%
As % of the General category 4.69% 3.82% 4.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 777 380 608
10th Percentile £263 £308 £278
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £520
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -1.44% -1.89%
75th Percentile £644 £629 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 36 85
10th Percentile £12.99 £14.20 £11.85
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 £41.31 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £82.50 £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 27,783 19,344 24,812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.48% 63.32% 57.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,717 12,162 15,507
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,901 947 1,980
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.46 £12.79
25th Percentile £18.00 £16.39 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.00 £27.50 £31.76
Median % change year-on-year +16.36% -13.40% +3.98%
75th Percentile £60.25 £53.63 £53.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.50 £24.22 £31.00
% change year-on-year +30.06% -21.87% +19.46%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 +13 1,195 £538 +2.38% 1,015
London +21 693 £550 - 336
UK excluding London +2 515 £500 - 804
Work from Home -29 275 £500 - 325
South East +11 157 £550 - 266
North of England -28 139 £550 +8.64% 181
Midlands -14 99 £500 +8.11% 172
North West -6 91 £575 +15.00% 105
East of England +13 58 £550 +4.76% 104
East Midlands +4 56 £495 +7.03% 101
Yorkshire -47 45 £506 -3.57% 63
West Midlands -33 43 £514 +12.75% 71
South West -30 35 £325 -19.38% 69
Scotland +1 21 £496 -6.85% 27
Northern Ireland +3 3 £196 -64.32% 13
Wales -19 3 £190 +29.52% 8
North East -36 3 £173 -76.98% 19

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 39 (3.00%) Confluence
2 19 (1.46%) CMS
3 15 (1.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 13 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.54%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.38%) SAS
7 4 (0.31%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.15%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.15%) CICS
9 1 (0.077%) Apache
9 1 (0.077%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 31 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (1.00%) Chatbot
6 10 (0.77%) Photoshop
7 9 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 9 (0.69%) Adobe Illustrator
7 9 (0.69%) MS Visio
8 6 (0.46%) InDesign
9 3 (0.23%) Notion
9 3 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
10 2 (0.15%) UserZoom
11 1 (0.077%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.077%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.077%) Maya
11 1 (0.077%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.077%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 29 (2.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (1.84%) Shopify
3 13 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.84%) Oracle Retail
5 8 (0.61%) SAP Retail
6 7 (0.54%) SAP CRM
7 6 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.38%) Finacle
8 5 (0.38%) Magento
8 5 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.31%) NetSuite
9 4 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.31%) SAP MDG
10 3 (0.23%) SAP CAR
10 3 (0.23%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.23%) SAP SD
11 2 (0.15%) Cognos Controller
11 2 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
11 2 (0.15%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 156 (11.98%) Azure
2 127 (9.75%) AWS
3 77 (5.91%) GCP
4 64 (4.92%) Power Platform
5 50 (3.84%) Snowflake
6 26 (2.00%) GitHub
7 23 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (1.61%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.54%) Entra ID
10 18 (1.38%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 17 (1.31%) Figma
11 17 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
12 16 (1.23%) SaaS
13 14 (1.08%) dbt
14 12 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (0.84%) Google Workspace
15 11 (0.84%) Microsoft 365
16 10 (0.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 10 (0.77%) BigCommerce
16 10 (0.77%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.00%) ATM
1 13 (1.00%) Firewall
1 13 (1.00%) WAN
2 12 (0.92%) Network Security
3 11 (0.84%) VPN
3 11 (0.84%) Wireless
4 9 (0.69%) RFID
5 8 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (0.54%) LAN
7 6 (0.46%) Cisco Firepower
7 6 (0.46%) 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 (0.31%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 4 (0.31%) Internet
9 4 (0.31%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (4.76%) Power BI
2 28 (2.15%) BigQuery
2 28 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
3 21 (1.61%) MySQL
3 21 (1.61%) Tableau
4 18 (1.38%) Metadata
5 17 (1.31%) Data Lake
6 15 (1.15%) NoSQL
6 15 (1.15%) SQL Server
7 12 (0.92%) Relational Database
8 8 (0.61%) MongoDB
8 8 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
9 7 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
9 7 (0.54%) Data Vault
9 7 (0.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 6 (0.46%) Looker
10 6 (0.46%) Semantic Layer
10 6 (0.46%) Snowflake Schema
11 5 (0.38%) Couchbase
11 5 (0.38%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 77 (5.91%) JIRA
2 25 (1.92%) Git
3 14 (1.08%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.38%) GitLab
4 5 (0.38%) Subversion
5 4 (0.31%) Eclipse
5 4 (0.31%) Maven
6 3 (0.23%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.23%) ERwin
6 3 (0.23%) Hudson
6 3 (0.23%) JMeter
6 3 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
6 3 (0.23%) Selenium
6 3 (0.23%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.15%) git-flow
7 2 (0.15%) MLflow
7 2 (0.15%) Postman
7 2 (0.15%) WebDriver
7 2 (0.15%) webpack
8 1 (0.077%) Gatling
General
1 374 (28.73%) Social Skills
2 302 (23.20%) Finance
3 123 (9.45%) Analytical Skills
4 118 (9.06%) Banking
5 77 (5.91%) Marketing
6 74 (5.68%) Manufacturing
7 60 (4.61%) Retail Banking
8 59 (4.53%) Organisational Skills
9 47 (3.61%) Investment Banking
10 44 (3.38%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (2.07%) Telecoms
12 26 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
12 26 (2.00%) Public Sector
13 23 (1.77%) French Language
14 22 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
15 21 (1.61%) Legal
15 21 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (1.38%) Spanish Language
17 17 (1.31%) Advertising
18 14 (1.08%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 212 (16.28%) Architect
2 189 (14.52%) Analyst
3 163 (12.52%) Senior
4 120 (9.22%) Project Manager
5 110 (8.45%) Business Analyst
6 102 (7.83%) Solutions Architect
7 99 (7.60%) Lead
8 63 (4.84%) Senior Manager
9 54 (4.15%) Developer
10 44 (3.38%) Designer
11 40 (3.07%) Technical Manager
12 38 (2.92%) Consultant
12 38 (2.92%) Enterprise Architect
13 37 (2.84%) Senior Project Manager
14 35 (2.69%) Product Manager
15 29 (2.23%) 2nd Line Support
15 29 (2.23%) Data Analyst
15 29 (2.23%) Data Architect
15 29 (2.23%) Data Engineer
16 27 (2.07%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (4.22%) REST
2 35 (2.69%) Middleware
3 29 (2.23%) React
4 26 (2.00%) Spring
5 24 (1.84%) VML
6 23 (1.77%) Kafka
7 19 (1.46%) Spring Boot
8 17 (1.31%) HTML
9 16 (1.23%) CSS
9 16 (1.23%) Node.js
9 16 (1.23%) RESTful
10 14 (1.08%) MACH
11 13 (1.00%) OAuth
12 12 (0.92%) Django
12 12 (0.92%) J2EE
13 11 (0.84%) .NET
13 11 (0.84%) SOAP
14 9 (0.69%) AngularJS
15 8 (0.61%) OAuth2
15 8 (0.61%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 79 (6.07%) Product Ownership
2 50 (3.84%) FMCG
3 48 (3.69%) EPoS
4 41 (3.15%) Driving Licence
5 39 (3.00%) Onboarding
6 38 (2.92%) Cloud Native
7 24 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
8 23 (1.77%) Data Centre
9 21 (1.61%) Data Structures
9 21 (1.61%) Marketing Technology
9 21 (1.61%) Mobile App
10 18 (1.38%) Mainframe
10 18 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
11 17 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (1.15%) AI Agents
12 15 (1.15%) Management Information System
13 13 (1.00%) Operational Technology
14 11 (0.84%) Smartphone
14 11 (0.84%) Taxonomies
14 11 (0.84%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 53 (4.07%) Windows
2 27 (2.07%) Linux
3 12 (0.92%) Android
4 11 (0.84%) Unix
5 7 (0.54%) Mac OS
5 7 (0.54%) zOS
6 6 (0.46%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.46%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.38%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.38%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.15%) Debian
9 1 (0.077%) SUSE
9 1 (0.077%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.077%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 311 (23.89%) Agile
2 302 (23.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 189 (14.52%) Problem-Solving
4 188 (14.44%) E-Commerce
5 169 (12.98%) Migration
6 158 (12.14%) Roadmaps
7 143 (10.98%) Analytics
8 124 (9.52%) Customer Experience
9 118 (9.06%) AI
10 116 (8.91%) Project Management
11 112 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 95 (7.30%) Decision-Making
12 95 (7.30%) ERP
12 95 (7.30%) Project Delivery
13 93 (7.14%) CI/CD
14 91 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
14 91 (6.99%) Logistics
15 90 (6.91%) Business Intelligence
16 87 (6.68%) Change Management
16 87 (6.68%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 117 (8.99%) SQL
2 85 (6.53%) Python
3 54 (4.15%) Java
4 26 (2.00%) JavaScript
5 20 (1.54%) TypeScript
6 10 (0.77%) C#
6 10 (0.77%) PowerShell
7 9 (0.69%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.54%) PL/SQL
8 7 (0.54%) SOQL
9 6 (0.46%) Apex Code
9 6 (0.46%) Bash
9 6 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (0.46%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.38%) ABAP
10 5 (0.38%) Bicep
10 5 (0.38%) Groovy
10 5 (0.38%) R
10 5 (0.38%) Scala
10 5 (0.38%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 57 (4.38%) Degree
2 39 (3.00%) Security Cleared
3 25 (1.92%) SC Cleared
4 17 (1.31%) PMP
5 10 (0.77%) DBS Check
6 9 (0.69%) CISSP
6 9 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (0.69%) PMI Certification
7 7 (0.54%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (0.46%) CISM
9 5 (0.38%) CCNP
9 5 (0.38%) CCSE
9 5 (0.38%) CCSM
9 5 (0.38%) CSPO
9 5 (0.38%) Master's Degree
10 4 (0.31%) APMP
10 4 (0.31%) City & Guilds
10 4 (0.31%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.23%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (4.76%) QA
2 60 (4.61%) Data Quality
3 40 (3.07%) GDPR
4 30 (2.30%) PMO
5 19 (1.46%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.31%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.92%) SLA
8 9 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.54%) 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 (0.077%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 1 (0.077%) NCSC
System Software
1 25 (1.92%) Docker
2 24 (1.84%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.23%) Firmware
7 2 (0.15%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 34 (2.61%) Terraform
2 26 (2.00%) Kubernetes
3 14 (1.08%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 9 (0.69%) Ansible
5 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.46%) SCCM
5 6 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.38%) Grafana
7 4 (0.31%) 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 (0.077%) Argo
9 1 (0.077%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.077%) Istio
9 1 (0.077%) Nagios
9 1 (0.077%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.077%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 103 (7.91%) Microsoft
2 88 (6.76%) SAP
3 77 (5.91%) Oracle
4 59 (4.53%) Salesforce
5 54 (4.15%) Google
6 51 (3.92%) Databricks
7 36 (2.76%) Adobe
8 22 (1.69%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.23%) Cisco
10 15 (1.15%) IBM
11 14 (1.08%) IFS
11 14 (1.08%) Splunk
12 13 (1.00%) Zscaler
13 12 (0.92%) MuleSoft
13 12 (0.92%) Sitecore
13 12 (0.92%) VMware
14 11 (0.84%) Fortinet
14 11 (0.84%) Palo Alto
15 9 (0.69%) Apple
15 9 (0.69%) Dynatrace