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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 107 82
Rank change year-on-year +13 -25 +8
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,246 742 1,091
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.47% 2.49% 2.49%
As % of the General category 4.55% 3.92% 4.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 732 383 608
10th Percentile £245 £308 £297
25th Percentile £409 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £505
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% +2.97% -5.43%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -3.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 32 87
10th Percentile £13.03 £14.04 £11.50
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.15
Median hourly rate £21.00 £19.40 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% +21.25% -19.23%
75th Percentile £22.50 £51.88 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £86.50 £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 27,395 18,938 25,018
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.21% 63.50% 57.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,527 11,957 15,649
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.90% -4.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +6.38% -3.59% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,837 906 2,015
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.48 £12.78
25th Percentile £18.22 £16.57 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.00 £27.70 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.52% -9.18% -0.07%
75th Percentile £61.18 £53.95 £52.50
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £24.34 £29.75
% change year-on-year +29.25% -18.18% +12.31%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +6 1,143 £525 - 1,030
London +8 659 £540 -1.82% 369
UK excluding London +2 497 £500 - 818
Work from Home -23 272 £500 - 355
South East 0 153 £525 -1.18% 269
North of England -36 134 £519 +3.75% 179
Midlands -13 96 £500 +9.59% 160
North West +4 87 £563 +12.50% 99
East of England +4 55 £538 -2.27% 98
East Midlands 0 54 £495 +7.03% 94
Yorkshire -58 44 £500 - 63
West Midlands -36 42 £514 +14.32% 66
South West -16 33 £333 -26.11% 77
Scotland -3 20 £500 -6.54% 41
Northern Ireland +2 3 £196 -42.66% 12
Wales -17 3 £190 +29.52% 13
North East -35 3 £173 -76.98% 21

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 35 (2.81%) Confluence
2 16 (1.28%) CMS
3 14 (1.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 12 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.56%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.40%) SAS
7 3 (0.24%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.16%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.16%) CICS
9 1 (0.080%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 33 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (1.36%) Microsoft Project
4 16 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.04%) Chatbot
6 11 (0.88%) MS Visio
7 10 (0.80%) Photoshop
8 8 (0.64%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 8 (0.64%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.40%) InDesign
10 3 (0.24%) Notion
10 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
11 2 (0.16%) UserZoom
12 1 (0.080%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
12 1 (0.080%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.080%) Maya
12 1 (0.080%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.080%) Trello
Business Applications
1 28 (2.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (1.77%) Shopify
3 14 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.72%) Oracle Retail
4 9 (0.72%) SAP Retail
5 7 (0.56%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (0.56%) SAP CRM
6 6 (0.48%) Finacle
7 5 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.40%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.32%) Magento
8 4 (0.32%) NetSuite
8 4 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
9 3 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
9 3 (0.24%) SAP CAR
9 3 (0.24%) SAP SD
10 2 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 2 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 1 (0.080%) Cognos Controller
Cloud Services
1 138 (11.08%) Azure
2 111 (8.91%) AWS
3 71 (5.70%) GCP
4 64 (5.14%) Power Platform
5 44 (3.53%) Snowflake
6 23 (1.85%) Dynamics 365
6 23 (1.85%) GitHub
7 22 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
8 19 (1.52%) Entra ID
9 17 (1.36%) Figma
9 17 (1.36%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 15 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (1.12%) SaaS
12 13 (1.04%) Azure Data Factory
12 13 (1.04%) dbt
13 11 (0.88%) BigCommerce
13 11 (0.88%) Google Workspace
13 11 (0.88%) Microsoft 365
14 9 (0.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 9 (0.72%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.04%) ATM
1 13 (1.04%) WAN
2 12 (0.96%) Firewall
3 11 (0.88%) Network Security
4 10 (0.80%) VPN
4 10 (0.80%) Wireless
5 9 (0.72%) RFID
6 7 (0.56%) LAN
7 6 (0.48%) Cisco Firepower
7 6 (0.48%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.40%) Cisco ASA
8 5 (0.40%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (0.40%) VSAN
9 4 (0.32%) BGP
9 4 (0.32%) IPsec
9 4 (0.32%) OSPF
10 3 (0.24%) Broadband
10 3 (0.24%) MPLS
10 3 (0.24%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (4.98%) Power BI
2 26 (2.09%) BigQuery
3 23 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (1.52%) MySQL
4 19 (1.52%) Tableau
5 17 (1.36%) SQL Server
6 16 (1.28%) Metadata
7 12 (0.96%) Data Lake
8 11 (0.88%) NoSQL
9 9 (0.72%) Relational Database
10 6 (0.48%) Data Vault
10 6 (0.48%) MongoDB
10 6 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
11 5 (0.40%) Power Query
12 4 (0.32%) Big Data
12 4 (0.32%) Looker
12 4 (0.32%) SAP HANA
12 4 (0.32%) Semantic Layer
13 3 (0.24%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 75 (6.02%) JIRA
2 24 (1.93%) Git
3 12 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.40%) GitLab
5 4 (0.32%) Maven
5 4 (0.32%) Subversion
6 3 (0.24%) Cypress.io
6 3 (0.24%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.24%) ERwin
6 3 (0.24%) Hudson
6 3 (0.24%) JMeter
6 3 (0.24%) Selenium
6 3 (0.24%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.16%) git-flow
7 2 (0.16%) MLflow
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.16%) Postman
7 2 (0.16%) WebDriver
7 2 (0.16%) webpack
8 1 (0.080%) Cucumber
General
1 354 (28.41%) Social Skills
2 294 (23.60%) Finance
3 118 (9.47%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (9.07%) Banking
5 73 (5.86%) Marketing
6 62 (4.98%) Manufacturing
7 59 (4.74%) Organisational Skills
7 59 (4.74%) Retail Banking
8 46 (3.69%) Investment Banking
9 42 (3.37%) Corporate Banking
10 27 (2.17%) Telecoms
11 26 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
11 26 (2.09%) Public Sector
12 22 (1.77%) French Language
12 22 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (1.69%) Legal
14 20 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
15 17 (1.36%) Advertising
15 17 (1.36%) Spanish Language
16 15 (1.20%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 199 (15.97%) Architect
2 179 (14.37%) Analyst
3 151 (12.12%) Senior
4 115 (9.23%) Project Manager
5 102 (8.19%) Business Analyst
6 97 (7.78%) Lead
7 94 (7.54%) Solutions Architect
8 61 (4.90%) Senior Manager
9 49 (3.93%) Developer
10 43 (3.45%) Designer
11 41 (3.29%) Technical Manager
12 38 (3.05%) Consultant
12 38 (3.05%) Enterprise Architect
13 35 (2.81%) Product Manager
14 34 (2.73%) Senior Project Manager
15 28 (2.25%) 2nd Line Support
15 28 (2.25%) Data Engineer
16 26 (2.09%) Data Analyst
16 26 (2.09%) Data Architect
16 26 (2.09%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (3.77%) REST
2 34 (2.73%) Middleware
3 26 (2.09%) React
4 25 (2.01%) VML
5 22 (1.77%) Spring
6 21 (1.69%) Kafka
7 16 (1.28%) CSS
7 16 (1.28%) HTML
7 16 (1.28%) Node.js
7 16 (1.28%) Spring Boot
8 15 (1.20%) RESTful
9 11 (0.88%) MACH
10 10 (0.80%) .NET
10 10 (0.80%) J2EE
10 10 (0.80%) OAuth
10 10 (0.80%) SOAP
11 9 (0.72%) AngularJS
12 8 (0.64%) Django
12 8 (0.64%) OAuth2
12 8 (0.64%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 76 (6.10%) Product Ownership
2 46 (3.69%) EPoS
2 46 (3.69%) FMCG
3 41 (3.29%) Driving Licence
4 36 (2.89%) Onboarding
5 35 (2.81%) Cloud Native
6 21 (1.69%) Data Structures
7 20 (1.61%) Data Centre
8 19 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
8 19 (1.52%) Mainframe
8 19 (1.52%) Mobile App
9 17 (1.36%) Marketing Technology
9 17 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
10 16 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
11 15 (1.20%) AI Agents
11 15 (1.20%) Management Information System
12 11 (0.88%) Operational Technology
12 11 (0.88%) Smartphone
13 10 (0.80%) Virtual Team
14 9 (0.72%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 53 (4.25%) Windows
2 24 (1.93%) Linux
3 12 (0.96%) Android
4 9 (0.72%) Unix
5 7 (0.56%) zOS
6 6 (0.48%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.40%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.40%) Windows Server
8 3 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.24%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.24%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.080%) Debian
9 1 (0.080%) SUSE
9 1 (0.080%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.080%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 282 (22.63%) Agile
2 273 (21.91%) Stakeholder Management
3 185 (14.85%) Problem-Solving
4 181 (14.53%) E-Commerce
5 156 (12.52%) Migration
6 150 (12.04%) Roadmaps
7 129 (10.35%) Analytics
8 121 (9.71%) Customer Experience
9 116 (9.31%) Project Management
10 107 (8.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 103 (8.27%) AI
12 93 (7.46%) ERP
13 89 (7.14%) Decision-Making
14 87 (6.98%) Change Management
14 87 (6.98%) Continuous Improvement
14 87 (6.98%) Project Delivery
14 87 (6.98%) User Acceptance Testing
15 84 (6.74%) Business Intelligence
15 84 (6.74%) Scrum
16 81 (6.50%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 102 (8.19%) SQL
2 76 (6.10%) Python
3 49 (3.93%) Java
4 26 (2.09%) JavaScript
5 18 (1.44%) TypeScript
6 10 (0.80%) Shell Script
7 9 (0.72%) C#
7 9 (0.72%) PowerShell
8 7 (0.56%) SOQL
9 6 (0.48%) Apex Code
9 6 (0.48%) Bash
9 6 (0.48%) Kotlin
9 6 (0.48%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.40%) Bicep
10 5 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (0.40%) SOSL
11 4 (0.32%) ABAP
11 4 (0.32%) R
11 4 (0.32%) Scala
12 3 (0.24%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 55 (4.41%) Degree
2 40 (3.21%) Security Cleared
3 27 (2.17%) SC Cleared
4 17 (1.36%) PMP
5 10 (0.80%) DBS Check
6 9 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (0.72%) PMI Certification
7 8 (0.64%) CISSP
8 7 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (0.56%) Master's Degree
9 6 (0.48%) APMP
10 5 (0.40%) CCNP
10 5 (0.40%) CCSE
10 5 (0.40%) CCSM
10 5 (0.40%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (0.40%) CISM
10 5 (0.40%) CSPO
10 5 (0.40%) MBA
11 4 (0.32%) City & Guilds
12 3 (0.24%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (4.90%) QA
2 56 (4.49%) Data Quality
3 38 (3.05%) GDPR
4 32 (2.57%) PMO
5 18 (1.44%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.20%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.96%) SLA
8 8 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (0.48%) NIST
10 3 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.24%) PSD2
11 2 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.16%) GAAP
11 2 (0.16%) GRC
11 2 (0.16%) IFRS
11 2 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.16%) WCAG
12 1 (0.080%) COBIT
12 1 (0.080%) GxP
12 1 (0.080%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 23 (1.85%) Active Directory
2 21 (1.69%) Docker
3 6 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
3 6 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.16%) Firmware
5 2 (0.16%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.080%) RACF
Systems Management
1 29 (2.33%) Terraform
2 21 (1.69%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.04%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 6 (0.48%) Ansible
4 6 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (0.40%) Grafana
5 5 (0.40%) SCCM
5 5 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.24%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.16%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.16%) CA Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.16%) MOM
7 2 (0.16%) PingFederate
8 1 (0.080%) Argo
8 1 (0.080%) CSIRT
8 1 (0.080%) Istio
8 1 (0.080%) Nagios
8 1 (0.080%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.080%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 103 (8.27%) Microsoft
2 84 (6.74%) SAP
3 75 (6.02%) Oracle
4 54 (4.33%) Google
4 54 (4.33%) Salesforce
5 43 (3.45%) Databricks
6 33 (2.65%) Adobe
7 22 (1.77%) ServiceNow
8 15 (1.20%) Cisco
9 14 (1.12%) IFS
10 13 (1.04%) IBM
10 13 (1.04%) Sitecore
10 13 (1.04%) Splunk
11 12 (0.96%) Zscaler
12 11 (0.88%) MuleSoft
13 10 (0.80%) Fortinet
13 10 (0.80%) Palo Alto
13 10 (0.80%) VMware
14 8 (0.64%) Dynatrace
15 7 (0.56%) Workday