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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 124 93
Rank change year-on-year +30 -31 +9
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,637 750 906
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.96% 2.26% 2.42%
As % of the General category 5.23% 3.57% 4.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 960 423 466
10th Percentile £308 £284 £280
25th Percentile £450 £425 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% - -
75th Percentile £660 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 63 16
10th Percentile £12.76 £15.25 £13.31
25th Percentile £13.45 £15.37 £15.75
Median hourly rate £14.50 £16.34 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -11.23% +0.21% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £19.50 £25.72
90th Percentile £42.25 £25.15 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £13.81 £16.34 £16.00
% change year-on-year -15.46% +2.09% -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 31,316 20,992 21,990
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.66% 63.27% 58.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,212 13,093 12,972
10th Percentile £313 £275 £280
25th Percentile £420 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £646
90th Percentile £738 £738 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £477
% change year-on-year +5.26% -0.42% -4.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,802 1,249 919
10th Percentile £13.48 £13.51 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.01 £16.17 £17.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -21.88% +7.56%
75th Percentile £53.84 £44.75 £59.98
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £21.39 £30.00
% change year-on-year +28.56% -28.70% +11.11%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 14 October 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 +39 1,496 £550 +4.76% 2,241
London +40 834 £575 +4.55% 1,187
UK excluding London +16 682 £525 +5.00% 1,075
Work from Home +13 356 £550 +0.46% 939
North of England -11 185 £538 +7.50% 312
Midlands +32 167 £500 +17.65% 237
South East -6 160 £581 +5.68% 260
North West +7 115 £550 +10.00% 172
East Midlands +13 88 £500 +17.65% 115
East of England +13 83 £538 -2.27% 102
West Midlands +14 78 £550 +20.55% 122
Yorkshire -35 52 £475 -19.15% 120
South West -17 51 £500 +177.78% 86
Scotland -15 26 £168 -66.47% 58
North East -26 18 £525 +288.89% 21
Wales -10 7 £180 -71.20% 25
Northern Ireland +9 4 £191 - 17

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 52 (3.18%) Confluence
2 27 (1.65%) CMS
3 21 (1.28%) SharePoint
4 19 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 4 (0.24%) Apache
6 4 (0.24%) SAS
6 4 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
6 4 (0.24%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
7 3 (0.18%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.12%) Mule
8 2 (0.12%) WordPress
9 1 (0.061%) CICS
9 1 (0.061%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.061%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.061%) Mendix
9 1 (0.061%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.061%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 77 (4.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 57 (3.48%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (0.86%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 13 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.61%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.43%) Photoshop
9 6 (0.37%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.37%) CPLEX
10 5 (0.31%) InDesign
11 4 (0.24%) Notion
12 1 (0.061%) 3ds Max
12 1 (0.061%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.061%) Chatbot
12 1 (0.061%) PlantUML
12 1 (0.061%) Revit
12 1 (0.061%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.061%) SOLIDWORKS
12 1 (0.061%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 63 (3.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.71%) Shopify
3 15 (0.92%) SAP Retail
4 13 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
5 11 (0.67%) SAP CRM
6 9 (0.55%) Magento
6 9 (0.55%) Oracle Retail
7 6 (0.37%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.37%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.31%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
9 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.24%) SAP CAR
9 4 (0.24%) SAP SD
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.18%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 221 (13.50%) Azure
2 151 (9.22%) AWS
3 78 (4.76%) Power Platform
4 75 (4.58%) GCP
5 54 (3.30%) Snowflake
6 52 (3.18%) GitHub
7 40 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
8 33 (2.02%) Entra ID
9 30 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
10 28 (1.71%) SaaS
11 26 (1.59%) dbt
12 25 (1.53%) Azure Data Factory
13 24 (1.47%) Dynamics 365
13 24 (1.47%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 20 (1.22%) Figma
15 19 (1.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 17 (1.04%) Microsoft 365
17 16 (0.98%) OCI
18 12 (0.73%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 12 (0.73%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.28%) WAN
2 19 (1.16%) Firewall
3 16 (0.98%) ATM
4 14 (0.86%) Network Security
4 14 (0.86%) VPN
5 13 (0.79%) LAN
5 13 (0.79%) Wireless
6 12 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
7 9 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
8 7 (0.43%) BGP
8 7 (0.43%) Internet
8 7 (0.43%) IPsec
8 7 (0.43%) OSPF
9 6 (0.37%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 6 (0.37%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.37%) VLAN
10 5 (0.31%) DNS
10 5 (0.31%) SMS
11 4 (0.24%) Broadband
11 4 (0.24%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (4.58%) Power BI
2 58 (3.54%) Data Warehouse
3 35 (2.14%) Data Lake
4 27 (1.65%) BigQuery
5 24 (1.47%) SQL Server
6 22 (1.34%) Metadata
7 21 (1.28%) Tableau
8 19 (1.16%) MongoDB
9 18 (1.10%) NoSQL
10 16 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
11 15 (0.92%) Relational Database
11 15 (0.92%) SAP BW
12 14 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
12 14 (0.86%) MySQL
12 14 (0.86%) SAP HANA
13 12 (0.73%) Power Query
14 11 (0.67%) Redis
14 11 (0.67%) Star Schema
15 10 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 9 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 74 (4.52%) JIRA
2 24 (1.47%) Git
3 23 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.49%) Subversion
5 7 (0.43%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
6 5 (0.31%) JMeter
7 4 (0.24%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.24%) GitLab
8 3 (0.18%) Hudson
8 3 (0.18%) Postman
9 2 (0.12%) git-flow
9 2 (0.12%) LSMW
9 2 (0.12%) MLflow
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.12%) Pylint
9 2 (0.12%) Selenium
9 2 (0.12%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.12%) webpack
General
1 465 (28.41%) Social Skills
2 362 (22.11%) Finance
3 155 (9.47%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (8.67%) Marketing
5 117 (7.15%) Banking
6 114 (6.96%) Manufacturing
7 74 (4.52%) Organisational Skills
8 58 (3.54%) Retail Banking
9 38 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
10 37 (2.26%) Corporate Banking
11 36 (2.20%) Investment Banking
12 33 (2.02%) Public Sector
13 32 (1.95%) Advertising
14 26 (1.59%) Legal
15 25 (1.53%) Telecoms
16 19 (1.16%) French Language
17 16 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 15 (0.92%) Automotive
18 15 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (0.92%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 247 (15.09%) Architect
2 233 (14.23%) Analyst
3 170 (10.38%) Senior
4 143 (8.74%) Solutions Architect
5 132 (8.06%) Business Analyst
6 116 (7.09%) Lead
6 116 (7.09%) Project Manager
7 86 (5.25%) Developer
8 61 (3.73%) Consultant
9 55 (3.36%) Product Manager
10 50 (3.05%) Data Analyst
11 46 (2.81%) Designer
12 43 (2.63%) Supply Chain Architect
13 41 (2.50%) Senior Manager
14 39 (2.38%) EPoS Engineer
15 35 (2.14%) Service Manager
16 34 (2.08%) Senior Developer
16 34 (2.08%) Service Transition Manager
16 34 (2.08%) Transition Manager
17 32 (1.95%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (4.46%) REST
2 48 (2.93%) Terraform
3 42 (2.57%) Kafka
4 40 (2.44%) React
5 30 (1.83%) Node.js
5 30 (1.83%) Spring
6 26 (1.59%) Spring Boot
7 25 (1.53%) RESTful
8 24 (1.47%) Middleware
9 23 (1.41%) Django
9 23 (1.41%) SOAP
10 20 (1.22%) Next.js
11 18 (1.10%) .NET
11 18 (1.10%) MACH
11 18 (1.10%) SAP Fiori
12 16 (0.98%) HTML
13 14 (0.86%) VML
14 13 (0.79%) SAPUI5
15 11 (0.67%) CSS
15 11 (0.67%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 86 (5.25%) EPoS
2 84 (5.13%) Product Ownership
3 72 (4.40%) FMCG
4 67 (4.09%) Driving Licence
5 59 (3.60%) Onboarding
6 53 (3.24%) Cloud Native
7 37 (2.26%) Management Information System
8 35 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
9 31 (1.89%) Mobile App
10 30 (1.83%) Marketing Technology
11 28 (1.71%) Greenfield Project
11 28 (1.71%) Smartphone
12 24 (1.47%) Data Centre
13 22 (1.34%) Data Structures
14 21 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
14 21 (1.28%) Operational Technology
15 17 (1.04%) AI Agents
15 17 (1.04%) Credit Risk
15 17 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 50 (3.05%) Windows
2 17 (1.04%) Linux
3 12 (0.73%) Android
4 9 (0.55%) Unix
5 7 (0.43%) Apple iOS
5 7 (0.43%) macOS
6 6 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.37%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.24%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.18%) zOS
9 2 (0.12%) Debian
10 1 (0.061%) OS/2
10 1 (0.061%) SUSE
10 1 (0.061%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.061%) VMS
10 1 (0.061%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 429 (26.21%) Stakeholder Management
2 370 (22.60%) Agile
3 266 (16.25%) E-Commerce
4 189 (11.55%) Logistics
4 189 (11.55%) Migration
5 188 (11.48%) Analytics
6 170 (10.38%) AI
7 163 (9.96%) Problem-Solving
8 161 (9.84%) Roadmaps
9 149 (9.10%) Decision-Making
10 137 (8.37%) CRM
11 136 (8.31%) Customer Experience
12 133 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
13 130 (7.94%) CI/CD
14 123 (7.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 119 (7.27%) Customer Service
16 116 (7.09%) DevOps
17 111 (6.78%) Data Modelling
18 108 (6.60%) Business Intelligence
19 107 (6.54%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 161 (9.84%) SQL
2 119 (7.27%) Python
3 52 (3.18%) Java
4 33 (2.02%) TypeScript
5 29 (1.77%) JavaScript
6 14 (0.86%) ABAP
6 14 (0.86%) C#
7 12 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 10 (0.61%) R
9 9 (0.55%) Apex Code
9 9 (0.55%) Bash
10 7 (0.43%) PL/SQL
10 7 (0.43%) PowerShell
10 7 (0.43%) SOQL
11 5 (0.31%) Groovy
11 5 (0.31%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.31%) SOSL
12 4 (0.24%) Bicep
12 4 (0.24%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.18%) Scala
Qualifications
1 65 (3.97%) Degree
2 29 (1.77%) Security Cleared
3 23 (1.41%) PMP
4 14 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
5 12 (0.73%) PMI Certification
6 10 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (0.55%) DBS Check
8 8 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (0.49%) SC Cleared
9 6 (0.37%) CISSP
10 5 (0.31%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (0.31%) CISM
10 5 (0.31%) City & Guilds
11 4 (0.24%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.24%) SAP Certification
11 4 (0.24%) Six Sigma Green Belt
12 3 (0.18%) CCNP
12 3 (0.18%) CCSE
12 3 (0.18%) CCSM
12 3 (0.18%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (5.38%) Data Quality
2 75 (4.58%) QA
3 28 (1.71%) GDPR
4 26 (1.59%) PMO
5 24 (1.47%) Accessibility
6 13 (0.79%) PCI DSS
7 10 (0.61%) SLA
8 6 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 5 (0.31%) NIST
9 5 (0.31%) WCAG
10 4 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.18%) GRC
11 3 (0.18%) PSD2
12 2 (0.12%) GAAP
12 2 (0.12%) IFRS
13 1 (0.061%) Basel III
13 1 (0.061%) HL7
13 1 (0.061%) ISO 8583
13 1 (0.061%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 34 (2.08%) Docker
2 24 (1.47%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.31%) Firmware
6 4 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.061%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.061%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 41 (2.50%) Kubernetes
2 10 (0.61%) Ansible
2 10 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (0.43%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 5 (0.31%) FortiGate
4 5 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (0.24%) Bosun
6 3 (0.18%) Kubeflow
6 3 (0.18%) SCCM
7 2 (0.12%) AirWatch
7 2 (0.12%) CloudHub
7 2 (0.12%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.12%) logstash
7 2 (0.12%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.061%) Argo
8 1 (0.061%) CSIRT
8 1 (0.061%) Grafana
8 1 (0.061%) Nagios
8 1 (0.061%) vMotion
8 1 (0.061%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 163 (9.96%) Microsoft
2 141 (8.61%) SAP
3 86 (5.25%) Salesforce
4 78 (4.76%) Databricks
5 67 (4.09%) Oracle
6 56 (3.42%) Google
7 33 (2.02%) Adobe
8 31 (1.89%) MuleSoft
9 23 (1.41%) Zscaler
10 20 (1.22%) IBM
11 19 (1.16%) Cisco
12 18 (1.10%) Workday
13 13 (0.79%) New Relic
14 12 (0.73%) Apple
14 12 (0.73%) Splunk
15 11 (0.67%) Braze
15 11 (0.67%) ServiceNow
16 10 (0.61%) Fortinet
16 10 (0.61%) Informatica
16 10 (0.61%) JDA