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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 120 96
Rank change year-on-year +34 -24 +5
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,648 758 898
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.00% 2.32% 2.38%
As % of the General category 5.38% 3.65% 4.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 953 403 483
10th Percentile £319 £300 £277
25th Percentile £456 £413 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% - -
75th Percentile £669 £638 £625
90th Percentile £738 £738 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 66 31
10th Percentile £12.76 £15.25 £12.15
25th Percentile £13.45 £15.31 £15.07
Median hourly rate £15.24 £16.34 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% +0.21% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £19.50 £21.37
90th Percentile £42.75 £25.15 £38.75
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 30,644 20,748 21,900
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.86% 63.46% 58.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,940 12,852 13,090
10th Percentile £313 £275 £283
25th Percentile £420 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,583 1,203 1,057
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.73
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.50 £25.11 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.48% -28.26% +27.27%
75th Percentile £54.45 £47.12 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £70.73
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.27 £35.00
% change year-on-year +41.04% -39.23% +27.27%

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 23 September 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 23 September 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 23 September 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 +38 1,513 £550 +4.76% 3,713
London +45 841 £568 +3.18% 1,694
UK excluding London +9 687 £525 +5.00% 2,226
Work from Home +9 367 £550 +4.76% 1,455
North of England -18 199 £550 +10.00% 619
South East -3 166 £575 +4.55% 557
Midlands +37 160 £550 +29.41% 435
North West +11 124 £550 +10.00% 347
East Midlands +18 92 £500 +17.86% 187
East of England +13 82 £544 -7.45% 203
West Midlands +7 67 £575 +35.29% 248
Yorkshire -46 57 £500 -4.76% 213
South West -20 49 £400 +26.98% 196
Scotland -12 25 £261 -48.99% 132
North East -25 18 £525 +288.89% 64
Wales -12 4 - - 74
Northern Ireland +6 3 £203 - 59

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 53 (3.22%) Confluence
2 22 (1.33%) CMS
3 18 (1.09%) SharePoint
4 15 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.49%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.30%) SAS
7 4 (0.24%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.24%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.18%) Apache
9 2 (0.12%) CICS
9 2 (0.12%) Mule
9 2 (0.12%) WordPress
10 1 (0.061%) Mendix
10 1 (0.061%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.061%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 75 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 52 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.91%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 12 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.61%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.55%) Photoshop
8 8 (0.49%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.36%) CPLEX
9 6 (0.36%) InDesign
10 4 (0.24%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.24%) Notion
11 1 (0.061%) 3ds Max
11 1 (0.061%) PlantUML
11 1 (0.061%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.061%) SOLIDWORKS
11 1 (0.061%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 56 (3.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.58%) Shopify
3 15 (0.91%) SAP Retail
4 14 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
5 10 (0.61%) Oracle Retail
5 10 (0.61%) SAP CRM
6 8 (0.49%) Magento
7 6 (0.36%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.30%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.30%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.24%) SAP SD
10 3 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
10 3 (0.18%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.18%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.18%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 215 (13.05%) Azure
2 148 (8.98%) AWS
3 80 (4.85%) Power Platform
4 77 (4.67%) GCP
5 57 (3.46%) Snowflake
6 48 (2.91%) GitHub
7 37 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
8 36 (2.18%) Entra ID
9 29 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
10 27 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
10 27 (1.64%) SaaS
11 25 (1.52%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
12 20 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
12 20 (1.21%) dbt
12 20 (1.21%) Figma
13 17 (1.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 16 (0.97%) OCI
15 15 (0.91%) Microsoft 365
16 13 (0.79%) Salesforce Service Cloud
17 11 (0.67%) Algolia
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.33%) Firewall
1 22 (1.33%) WAN
2 17 (1.03%) VPN
3 16 (0.97%) ATM
4 14 (0.85%) Network Security
4 14 (0.85%) Wireless
5 13 (0.79%) LAN
6 12 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (0.49%) BGP
7 8 (0.49%) IPsec
7 8 (0.49%) OSPF
7 8 (0.49%) Structured Cabling
8 7 (0.42%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 7 (0.42%) Internet
8 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
8 7 (0.42%) VLAN
9 5 (0.30%) DNS
10 4 (0.24%) Broadband
10 4 (0.24%) Cisco Firepower
10 4 (0.24%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (4.85%) Power BI
2 56 (3.40%) Data Warehouse
3 34 (2.06%) BigQuery
4 31 (1.88%) Data Lake
5 24 (1.46%) Metadata
6 21 (1.27%) SQL Server
7 20 (1.21%) Tableau
8 19 (1.15%) MongoDB
8 19 (1.15%) NoSQL
9 14 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
9 14 (0.85%) Relational Database
10 13 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
10 13 (0.79%) Power Query
11 12 (0.73%) MySQL
12 11 (0.67%) Redis
12 11 (0.67%) SAP HANA
12 11 (0.67%) Star Schema
13 10 (0.61%) SAP BW
13 10 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 9 (0.55%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 80 (4.85%) JIRA
2 24 (1.46%) Git
3 21 (1.27%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.49%) Subversion
5 7 (0.42%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.30%) Cypress.io
6 5 (0.30%) Hudson
6 5 (0.30%) JMeter
7 4 (0.24%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.24%) GitLab
8 3 (0.18%) Postman
9 2 (0.12%) git-flow
9 2 (0.12%) MLflow
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.12%) Selenium
9 2 (0.12%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.12%) webpack
10 1 (0.061%) Moq
10 1 (0.061%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 473 (28.70%) Social Skills
2 380 (23.06%) Finance
3 166 (10.07%) Analytical Skills
4 132 (8.01%) Marketing
5 124 (7.52%) Banking
6 113 (6.86%) Manufacturing
7 73 (4.43%) Organisational Skills
8 64 (3.88%) Retail Banking
9 43 (2.61%) Corporate Banking
10 42 (2.55%) Investment Banking
11 37 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
12 35 (2.12%) Public Sector
13 28 (1.70%) Advertising
13 28 (1.70%) Telecoms
14 27 (1.64%) Legal
15 22 (1.33%) French Language
15 22 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
16 19 (1.15%) Back Office
17 18 (1.09%) Spanish Language
18 17 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 275 (16.69%) Architect
2 239 (14.50%) Analyst
3 179 (10.86%) Senior
4 152 (9.22%) Solutions Architect
5 140 (8.50%) Business Analyst
6 121 (7.34%) Project Manager
7 116 (7.04%) Lead
8 87 (5.28%) Developer
9 56 (3.40%) Consultant
10 54 (3.28%) Product Manager
11 49 (2.97%) Designer
12 48 (2.91%) Data Analyst
13 46 (2.79%) Senior Manager
14 42 (2.55%) Supply Chain Architect
15 35 (2.12%) Data Architect
15 35 (2.12%) Senior Developer
15 35 (2.12%) Service Manager
16 34 (2.06%) Service Transition Manager
16 34 (2.06%) Transition Manager
17 33 (2.00%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (4.13%) REST
2 51 (3.09%) Terraform
3 42 (2.55%) React
4 40 (2.43%) Kafka
5 30 (1.82%) Node.js
6 28 (1.70%) Spring
7 25 (1.52%) Spring Boot
8 24 (1.46%) Middleware
9 21 (1.27%) Django
9 21 (1.27%) MACH
9 21 (1.27%) RESTful
9 21 (1.27%) SOAP
10 19 (1.15%) VML
11 16 (0.97%) HTML
11 16 (0.97%) Next.js
12 14 (0.85%) SAP Fiori
13 12 (0.73%) CSS
13 12 (0.73%) OAuth
14 10 (0.61%) .NET
14 10 (0.61%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 84 (5.10%) Product Ownership
2 71 (4.31%) FMCG
3 64 (3.88%) EPoS
4 58 (3.52%) Onboarding
5 50 (3.03%) Cloud Native
6 42 (2.55%) Driving Licence
7 35 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
8 32 (1.94%) Management Information System
9 28 (1.70%) Marketing Technology
9 28 (1.70%) Mobile App
10 27 (1.64%) Greenfield Project
11 26 (1.58%) Data Centre
12 24 (1.46%) Data Structures
13 22 (1.33%) Mainframe
13 22 (1.33%) Operational Technology
14 20 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
14 20 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
15 19 (1.15%) Smartphone
16 17 (1.03%) AI Agents
16 17 (1.03%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 54 (3.28%) Windows
2 17 (1.03%) Linux
3 12 (0.73%) Android
4 8 (0.49%) Unix
5 7 (0.42%) Apple iOS
5 7 (0.42%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.24%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.18%) zOS
9 2 (0.12%) Debian
9 2 (0.12%) Windows Server
10 1 (0.061%) OS/2
10 1 (0.061%) SUSE
10 1 (0.061%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.061%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 429 (26.03%) Stakeholder Management
2 376 (22.82%) Agile
3 247 (14.99%) E-Commerce
4 196 (11.89%) Migration
5 189 (11.47%) Analytics
6 188 (11.41%) Logistics
7 183 (11.10%) Problem-Solving
8 175 (10.62%) AI
9 170 (10.32%) Roadmaps
10 147 (8.92%) Decision-Making
11 142 (8.62%) Customer Experience
12 139 (8.43%) Continuous Improvement
13 133 (8.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 131 (7.95%) CRM
15 123 (7.46%) CI/CD
16 118 (7.16%) Customer Service
17 116 (7.04%) Business Intelligence
17 116 (7.04%) Project Management
18 109 (6.61%) DevOps
19 104 (6.31%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 149 (9.04%) SQL
2 111 (6.74%) Python
3 51 (3.09%) Java
4 35 (2.12%) TypeScript
5 26 (1.58%) JavaScript
6 13 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 12 (0.73%) ABAP
8 10 (0.61%) C#
8 10 (0.61%) R
9 9 (0.55%) Apex Code
9 9 (0.55%) Bash
10 7 (0.42%) PowerShell
10 7 (0.42%) SOQL
11 6 (0.36%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.30%) Groovy
12 5 (0.30%) Scala
12 5 (0.30%) SOSL
13 4 (0.24%) Bicep
13 4 (0.24%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 60 (3.64%) Degree
2 46 (2.79%) Security Cleared
3 23 (1.40%) PMP
4 22 (1.33%) SC Cleared
5 12 (0.73%) DBS Check
5 12 (0.73%) PMI Certification
6 11 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
7 8 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (0.36%) CISSP
9 5 (0.30%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (0.30%) CISM
9 5 (0.30%) City & Guilds
9 5 (0.30%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (0.30%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 4 (0.24%) CSPO
11 3 (0.18%) APMG
11 3 (0.18%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.18%) CCSM
11 3 (0.18%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 3 (0.18%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (4.79%) Data Quality
2 74 (4.49%) QA
3 34 (2.06%) GDPR
4 25 (1.52%) PMO
5 24 (1.46%) Accessibility
6 14 (0.85%) PCI DSS
7 10 (0.61%) SLA
8 7 (0.42%) NIST
9 6 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 5 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.30%) WCAG
11 3 (0.18%) GRC
11 3 (0.18%) PSD2
12 2 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.12%) GAAP
12 2 (0.12%) IFRS
12 2 (0.12%) ISO 8583
12 2 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.061%) GxP
13 1 (0.061%) HL7
System Software
1 35 (2.12%) Docker
2 29 (1.76%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.79%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.30%) Firmware
5 5 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.061%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 40 (2.43%) Kubernetes
2 12 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
3 11 (0.67%) Ansible
4 7 (0.42%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.36%) FortiGate
5 6 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.24%) Bosun
6 4 (0.24%) SCCM
7 2 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.12%) AirWatch
7 2 (0.12%) CA Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.12%) CloudHub
7 2 (0.12%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.12%) logstash
7 2 (0.12%) PingFederate
7 2 (0.12%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.061%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.061%) Nagios
8 1 (0.061%) vMotion
8 1 (0.061%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 159 (9.65%) Microsoft
2 137 (8.31%) SAP
3 93 (5.64%) Salesforce
4 84 (5.10%) Databricks
5 73 (4.43%) Oracle
6 49 (2.97%) Google
7 37 (2.25%) Adobe
8 30 (1.82%) MuleSoft
9 25 (1.52%) Zscaler
10 20 (1.21%) Cisco
11 19 (1.15%) Workday
12 18 (1.09%) IBM
13 17 (1.03%) ServiceNow
14 13 (0.79%) Apple
14 13 (0.79%) New Relic
15 12 (0.73%) Fortinet
15 12 (0.73%) Splunk
16 11 (0.67%) Braze
16 11 (0.67%) Palo Alto
17 10 (0.61%) IFS