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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 110 80
Rank change year-on-year +20 -30 +15
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,419 795 1,110
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.69% 2.44% 2.63%
As % of the General category 4.91% 3.88% 4.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 862 407 619
10th Percentile £305 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £410 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.88% -2.38% -0.94%
75th Percentile £655 £635 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -1.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 42 79
10th Percentile £13.03 - £12.15
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.50
Median hourly rate £21.00 £16.30 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +28.83% - -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £31.81 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £76.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.92 £15.73 £16.00
% change year-on-year +7.57% -1.69% -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 28,882 20,470 24,177
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.84% 62.94% 57.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,256 12,838 15,149
10th Percentile £313 £281 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £469 £489
% change year-on-year +6.61% -4.09% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,010 1,053 1,774
10th Percentile £14.09 £13.27 £13.06
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £33.00 £26.21 £33.29
Median % change year-on-year +25.91% -21.26% +8.61%
75th Percentile £62.00 £51.80 £55.00
90th Percentile £81.24 £70.13 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £22.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +46.67% -31.82% +24.62%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +13 1,299 £550 +4.76% 1,025
London +23 758 £550 - 376
UK excluding London +6 555 £520 +4.00% 756
Work from Home -24 312 £500 - 353
South East +14 168 £525 -7.49% 236
North of England -24 163 £550 +10.00% 207
North West +2 108 £575 +15.00% 106
Midlands -9 103 £500 +17.65% 147
East of England +12 60 £550 +4.76% 95
East Midlands +5 54 £488 +18.18% 82
West Midlands -29 49 £613 +36.11% 64
Yorkshire -41 48 £506 -3.57% 81
South West -43 34 £325 -8.59% 66
Scotland -3 21 £496 -3.22% 20
North East -34 7 £173 -79.07% 23
Northern Ireland +3 3 £196 -64.32% 10
Wales -14 3 £190 +29.52% 10

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 (2.61%) Confluence
2 19 (1.34%) CMS
3 15 (1.06%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 11 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.49%) SharePoint
6 6 (0.42%) SAS
7 4 (0.28%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.14%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.14%) CICS
9 2 (0.14%) Mule
10 1 (0.070%) Apache
10 1 (0.070%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 42 (2.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (2.18%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (1.27%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (0.92%) Chatbot
6 12 (0.85%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 10 (0.70%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.63%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.42%) InDesign
10 4 (0.28%) MS Visio
11 3 (0.21%) Notion
11 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
12 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.14%) UserZoom
13 1 (0.070%) 3ds Max
13 1 (0.070%) Maya
13 1 (0.070%) PlantUML
13 1 (0.070%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 36 (2.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.90%) Shopify
3 13 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.70%) Oracle Retail
5 9 (0.63%) SAP CRM
6 8 (0.56%) Magento
7 6 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.42%) SAP Retail
8 5 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.35%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.35%) SAP SD
9 4 (0.28%) NetSuite
10 3 (0.21%) Finacle
10 3 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 3 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.21%) SAP CAR
10 3 (0.21%) SAP ERP
11 2 (0.14%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 172 (12.12%) Azure
2 135 (9.51%) AWS
3 76 (5.36%) GCP
4 66 (4.65%) Power Platform
5 51 (3.59%) Snowflake
6 36 (2.54%) GitHub
7 27 (1.90%) Entra ID
8 25 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
9 24 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
9 24 (1.69%) GitHub Actions
10 21 (1.48%) Figma
10 21 (1.48%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 17 (1.20%) SaaS
12 13 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
13 12 (0.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 12 (0.85%) dbt
14 11 (0.78%) Google Workspace
14 11 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
14 11 (0.78%) Salesforce Service Cloud
15 10 (0.70%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.13%) Firewall
2 15 (1.06%) Wireless
3 14 (0.99%) VPN
3 14 (0.99%) WAN
4 13 (0.92%) ATM
4 13 (0.92%) Network Security
5 9 (0.63%) RFID
6 8 (0.56%) BGP
6 8 (0.56%) IPsec
6 8 (0.56%) LAN
6 8 (0.56%) OSPF
6 8 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (0.49%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 7 (0.49%) VLAN
8 6 (0.42%) Cisco Firepower
8 6 (0.42%) SD-WAN
9 5 (0.35%) Cisco ASA
9 5 (0.35%) Cisco Nexus
9 5 (0.35%) VSAN
10 4 (0.28%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (4.51%) Power BI
2 31 (2.18%) BigQuery
3 26 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (1.34%) Data Lake
5 18 (1.27%) Metadata
6 17 (1.20%) MySQL
6 17 (1.20%) Tableau
7 16 (1.13%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.85%) Relational Database
8 12 (0.85%) SQL Server
9 8 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
9 8 (0.56%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 7 (0.49%) PostgreSQL
10 7 (0.49%) Power Query
10 7 (0.49%) SAP HANA
11 6 (0.42%) Couchbase
11 6 (0.42%) Looker
11 6 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
12 4 (0.28%) Redis
Development Applications
1 70 (4.93%) JIRA
2 33 (2.33%) Git
3 20 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.56%) Subversion
5 5 (0.35%) Claude Code
5 5 (0.35%) GitLab
6 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
6 4 (0.28%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.28%) Maven
7 3 (0.21%) Hudson
7 3 (0.21%) JMeter
7 3 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (0.21%) Selenium
8 2 (0.14%) git-flow
8 2 (0.14%) MLflow
8 2 (0.14%) Postman
8 2 (0.14%) WebDriver
8 2 (0.14%) webpack
9 1 (0.070%) Gatling
9 1 (0.070%) IBM UrbanCode
General
1 393 (27.70%) Social Skills
2 328 (23.11%) Finance
3 133 (9.37%) Analytical Skills
4 120 (8.46%) Banking
5 92 (6.48%) Marketing
6 79 (5.57%) Manufacturing
7 63 (4.44%) Retail Banking
8 60 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
9 48 (3.38%) Investment Banking
10 46 (3.24%) Corporate Banking
11 27 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
12 26 (1.83%) Public Sector
13 25 (1.76%) Telecoms
14 24 (1.69%) Legal
15 23 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
15 23 (1.62%) French Language
16 21 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (1.27%) Advertising
17 18 (1.27%) Spanish Language
18 15 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 231 (16.28%) Architect
2 202 (14.24%) Analyst
3 175 (12.33%) Senior
4 129 (9.09%) Project Manager
5 120 (8.46%) Solutions Architect
6 116 (8.17%) Business Analyst
7 102 (7.19%) Lead
8 70 (4.93%) Developer
9 61 (4.30%) Senior Manager
10 49 (3.45%) Designer
11 45 (3.17%) Product Manager
12 39 (2.75%) Consultant
13 38 (2.68%) Technical Manager
14 37 (2.61%) Enterprise Architect
15 35 (2.47%) Data Analyst
16 34 (2.40%) Data Architect
16 34 (2.40%) Senior Project Manager
17 33 (2.33%) Programme Manager
18 31 (2.18%) Service Manager
19 30 (2.11%) Supply Chain Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (4.72%) REST
2 37 (2.61%) React
3 36 (2.54%) Middleware
4 28 (1.97%) Spring
5 27 (1.90%) Kafka
6 24 (1.69%) Node.js
7 21 (1.48%) VML
8 20 (1.41%) Spring Boot
9 18 (1.27%) Django
9 18 (1.27%) HTML
9 18 (1.27%) RESTful
10 17 (1.20%) CSS
10 17 (1.20%) SOAP
11 14 (0.99%) MACH
11 14 (0.99%) OAuth
12 13 (0.92%) J2EE
13 11 (0.78%) .NET
14 10 (0.70%) JSON
15 9 (0.63%) SAP Fiori
15 9 (0.63%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 83 (5.85%) Product Ownership
2 60 (4.23%) FMCG
3 49 (3.45%) EPoS
4 46 (3.24%) Onboarding
5 41 (2.89%) Cloud Native
6 39 (2.75%) Driving Licence
7 29 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (1.97%) Mobile App
9 26 (1.83%) Data Centre
10 22 (1.55%) Data Structures
10 22 (1.55%) Marketing Technology
11 21 (1.48%) Greenfield Project
11 21 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
12 19 (1.34%) Operational Technology
13 17 (1.20%) Mainframe
14 15 (1.06%) AI Agents
15 14 (0.99%) IoT
16 12 (0.85%) Graphic Design
16 12 (0.85%) Management Information System
17 11 (0.78%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 51 (3.59%) Windows
2 24 (1.69%) Linux
3 12 (0.85%) Unix
4 10 (0.70%) Android
5 7 (0.49%) zOS
6 6 (0.42%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.42%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.42%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.35%) Windows 10
7 5 (0.35%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.14%) Debian
9 1 (0.070%) SUSE
9 1 (0.070%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.070%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 351 (24.74%) Agile
2 346 (24.38%) Stakeholder Management
3 221 (15.57%) E-Commerce
4 197 (13.88%) Problem-Solving
5 179 (12.61%) Migration
6 176 (12.40%) Roadmaps
7 153 (10.78%) Analytics
8 144 (10.15%) AI
9 141 (9.94%) Customer Experience
10 126 (8.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 114 (8.03%) Project Management
12 113 (7.96%) Decision-Making
13 111 (7.82%) CI/CD
14 107 (7.54%) Continuous Improvement
15 106 (7.47%) Project Delivery
16 103 (7.26%) CRM
16 103 (7.26%) Logistics
17 102 (7.19%) ERP
18 99 (6.98%) User Acceptance Testing
19 92 (6.48%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 121 (8.53%) SQL
2 94 (6.62%) Python
3 54 (3.81%) Java
4 29 (2.04%) JavaScript
5 28 (1.97%) TypeScript
6 11 (0.78%) C#
7 9 (0.63%) PowerShell
8 8 (0.56%) ABAP
9 7 (0.49%) Apex Code
9 7 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 7 (0.49%) PL/SQL
9 7 (0.49%) SOQL
10 6 (0.42%) Bash
10 6 (0.42%) Bicep
10 6 (0.42%) Kotlin
10 6 (0.42%) R
10 6 (0.42%) Scala
11 5 (0.35%) Groovy
11 5 (0.35%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.35%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 63 (4.44%) Degree
2 38 (2.68%) Security Cleared
3 23 (1.62%) SC Cleared
4 20 (1.41%) PMP
5 12 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (0.70%) CISSP
6 10 (0.70%) DBS Check
7 8 (0.56%) PMI Certification
8 7 (0.49%) CISM
8 7 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (0.42%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (0.35%) CCNP
10 5 (0.35%) CCSE
10 5 (0.35%) CCSM
10 5 (0.35%) CSPO
11 4 (0.28%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.28%) City & Guilds
12 3 (0.21%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.21%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (5.07%) QA
2 63 (4.44%) Data Quality
3 43 (3.03%) GDPR
4 31 (2.18%) PMO
5 23 (1.62%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.20%) PCI DSS
7 14 (0.99%) SLA
8 9 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.49%) NIST
10 4 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.21%) GAAP
11 3 (0.21%) IFRS
11 3 (0.21%) PSD2
11 3 (0.21%) WCAG
12 2 (0.14%) GRC
12 2 (0.14%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.070%) GxP
13 1 (0.070%) NCSC
System Software
1 32 (2.26%) Docker
2 31 (2.18%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.28%) Firmware
7 2 (0.14%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 42 (2.96%) Terraform
2 32 (2.26%) Kubernetes
3 14 (0.99%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 11 (0.78%) Ansible
5 6 (0.42%) FortiGate
5 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.35%) Grafana
7 4 (0.28%) SCCM
8 2 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.14%) AirWatch
8 2 (0.14%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.14%) CloudHub
8 2 (0.14%) MOM
8 2 (0.14%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.070%) Argo
9 1 (0.070%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.070%) Istio
9 1 (0.070%) Nagios
9 1 (0.070%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 112 (7.89%) Microsoft
2 98 (6.91%) SAP
3 74 (5.21%) Oracle
4 63 (4.44%) Salesforce
5 57 (4.02%) Databricks
6 48 (3.38%) Google
7 36 (2.54%) Adobe
8 22 (1.55%) Zscaler
9 19 (1.34%) MuleSoft
9 19 (1.34%) ServiceNow
10 16 (1.13%) Cisco
11 14 (0.99%) IBM
11 14 (0.99%) IFS
11 14 (0.99%) Splunk
11 14 (0.99%) Workday
12 13 (0.92%) Fortinet
12 13 (0.92%) Palo Alto
13 12 (0.85%) VMware
14 10 (0.70%) Braze
14 10 (0.70%) Informatica