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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 119 91
Rank change year-on-year +32 -28 +8
Contract jobs citing Retail 1,631 770 935
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.99% 2.33% 2.44%
As % of the General category 5.39% 3.67% 4.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 940 405 511
10th Percentile £325 £287 £285
25th Percentile £456 £413 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.32% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £663 £635 £625
90th Percentile £738 £733 £703
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 64 39
10th Percentile £12.76 - £12.15
25th Percentile £13.50 £15.25 £14.63
Median hourly rate £15.24 £16.34 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% +0.21% -17.72%
75th Percentile £22.50 £20.72 £21.37
90th Percentile £43.75 £25.15 £31.85
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 30,281 20,994 22,109
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.57% 63.64% 57.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,811 12,998 13,405
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £419 £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 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,436 1,187 1,144
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.66
25th Percentile £16.46 £16.17 £17.44
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% -32.93% +36.36%
75th Percentile £55.00 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.75 £70.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.40 £38.12
% change year-on-year +40.19% -43.86% +46.76%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +30 1,500 £550 +7.32% 1,924
London +47 839 £568 +3.18% 828
UK excluding London +11 680 £525 +5.00% 1,295
Work from Home +9 362 £525 +5.00% 728
North of England -15 198 £550 +10.00% 342
South East 0 173 £550 - 361
Midlands +25 152 £525 +21.95% 251
North West +5 121 £550 +10.00% 194
East Midlands +18 87 £500 +14.68% 124
East of England +10 78 £550 +4.76% 137
West Midlands 0 64 £563 +32.35% 127
Yorkshire -44 59 £500 - 106
South West -28 48 £350 +11.03% 123
Scotland -30 25 £385 -24.93% 53
North East -34 18 £525 +18.64% 47
Wales -11 4 - - 38
Northern Ireland +6 3 £203 - 28

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 51 (3.13%) Confluence
2 21 (1.29%) CMS
3 14 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
4 13 (0.80%) SharePoint
5 9 (0.55%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.31%) SAS
7 4 (0.25%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
8 3 (0.18%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.12%) 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 67 (4.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 50 (3.07%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.98%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 14 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
6 12 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.61%) Photoshop
8 9 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.49%) MS Visio
10 7 (0.43%) InDesign
11 6 (0.37%) CPLEX
12 5 (0.31%) Chatbot
13 4 (0.25%) Notion
14 1 (0.061%) 3ds Max
14 1 (0.061%) PlantUML
14 1 (0.061%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.061%) SOLIDWORKS
14 1 (0.061%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 52 (3.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.78%) Shopify
3 15 (0.92%) SAP Retail
4 11 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
5 10 (0.61%) Oracle Retail
5 10 (0.61%) SAP CRM
6 8 (0.49%) Magento
7 6 (0.37%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.31%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.31%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.25%) SAP SD
10 3 (0.18%) OpenText VIM for SAP
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.18%) SAP IBP
10 3 (0.18%) SAP MM
11 2 (0.12%) SAP CAR
Cloud Services
1 207 (12.69%) Azure
2 147 (9.01%) AWS
3 78 (4.78%) Power Platform
4 73 (4.48%) GCP
5 56 (3.43%) Snowflake
6 44 (2.70%) GitHub
7 35 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
8 33 (2.02%) Entra ID
9 27 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
9 27 (1.66%) GitHub Actions
9 27 (1.66%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 24 (1.47%) SaaS
11 20 (1.23%) Figma
12 19 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
13 18 (1.10%) dbt
14 17 (1.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 15 (0.92%) Microsoft 365
16 14 (0.86%) OCI
17 13 (0.80%) Salesforce Service Cloud
18 11 (0.67%) Algolia
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.41%) WAN
2 20 (1.23%) Firewall
3 16 (0.98%) ATM
3 16 (0.98%) Wireless
4 15 (0.92%) LAN
4 15 (0.92%) Network Security
4 15 (0.92%) VPN
5 12 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
6 9 (0.55%) Structured Cabling
7 8 (0.49%) BGP
7 8 (0.49%) IPsec
7 8 (0.49%) OSPF
7 8 (0.49%) SD-WAN
8 7 (0.43%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 7 (0.43%) Internet
8 7 (0.43%) VLAN
9 6 (0.37%) Cisco Firepower
9 6 (0.37%) VSAN
10 5 (0.31%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (0.31%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 78 (4.78%) Power BI
2 50 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
3 33 (2.02%) BigQuery
4 30 (1.84%) Data Lake
5 23 (1.41%) Metadata
6 20 (1.23%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.23%) SQL Server
6 20 (1.23%) Tableau
7 18 (1.10%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.80%) Power Query
9 12 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
9 12 (0.74%) Relational Database
10 11 (0.67%) MySQL
10 11 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
10 11 (0.67%) Star Schema
11 10 (0.61%) Redis
11 10 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 8 (0.49%) Couchbase
12 8 (0.49%) SAP HANA
12 8 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 79 (4.84%) JIRA
2 27 (1.66%) Git
3 20 (1.23%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.49%) Subversion
5 7 (0.43%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
6 5 (0.31%) Hudson
6 5 (0.31%) JMeter
7 4 (0.25%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.25%) GitLab
8 3 (0.18%) Selenium
9 2 (0.12%) git-flow
9 2 (0.12%) MLflow
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.12%) Postman
9 2 (0.12%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.12%) webpack
10 1 (0.061%) Pylint
10 1 (0.061%) REST Assured
General
1 463 (28.39%) Social Skills
2 388 (23.79%) Finance
3 168 (10.30%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (8.22%) Banking
5 128 (7.85%) Marketing
6 108 (6.62%) Manufacturing
7 73 (4.48%) Organisational Skills
8 68 (4.17%) Retail Banking
9 43 (2.64%) Corporate Banking
9 43 (2.64%) Investment Banking
10 36 (2.21%) Public Sector
11 33 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (1.84%) Telecoms
13 28 (1.72%) Legal
14 27 (1.66%) Advertising
15 24 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
16 23 (1.41%) French Language
17 19 (1.16%) Back Office
18 18 (1.10%) Spanish Language
19 17 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 266 (16.31%) Architect
2 239 (14.65%) Analyst
3 183 (11.22%) Senior
4 148 (9.07%) Solutions Architect
5 139 (8.52%) Business Analyst
6 124 (7.60%) Project Manager
7 117 (7.17%) Lead
8 86 (5.27%) Developer
9 54 (3.31%) Consultant
10 52 (3.19%) Product Manager
11 48 (2.94%) Designer
12 46 (2.82%) Data Analyst
12 46 (2.82%) Senior Manager
13 41 (2.51%) Supply Chain Architect
14 36 (2.21%) Senior Developer
14 36 (2.21%) Service Manager
15 35 (2.15%) Data Architect
16 34 (2.08%) Enterprise Architect
16 34 (2.08%) Service Transition Manager
16 34 (2.08%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (4.17%) REST
2 53 (3.25%) Terraform
3 43 (2.64%) React
4 36 (2.21%) Kafka
5 31 (1.90%) Node.js
6 27 (1.66%) Spring
7 24 (1.47%) Middleware
8 23 (1.41%) Spring Boot
9 21 (1.29%) MACH
9 21 (1.29%) SOAP
9 21 (1.29%) VML
10 20 (1.23%) Django
10 20 (1.23%) RESTful
11 16 (0.98%) Next.js
12 15 (0.92%) HTML
13 12 (0.74%) Lightning Web Components
13 12 (0.74%) OAuth
14 11 (0.67%) PySpark
14 11 (0.67%) SAP Fiori
15 10 (0.61%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 85 (5.21%) Product Ownership
2 69 (4.23%) FMCG
3 60 (3.68%) Onboarding
4 57 (3.49%) EPoS
5 49 (3.00%) Cloud Native
6 36 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
7 33 (2.02%) Driving Licence
8 28 (1.72%) Data Centre
8 28 (1.72%) Management Information System
8 28 (1.72%) Mobile App
9 27 (1.66%) Marketing Technology
10 25 (1.53%) Data Structures
11 24 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
12 22 (1.35%) Mainframe
12 22 (1.35%) Operational Technology
13 21 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
14 19 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
14 19 (1.16%) Smartphone
15 17 (1.04%) AI Agents
15 17 (1.04%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 53 (3.25%) Windows
2 19 (1.16%) Linux
3 11 (0.67%) Android
4 8 (0.49%) Apple iOS
4 8 (0.49%) Unix
5 6 (0.37%) Mac OS
5 6 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.37%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.31%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.18%) zOS
8 2 (0.12%) Debian
8 2 (0.12%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.061%) OS/2
9 1 (0.061%) SUSE
9 1 (0.061%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.061%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 423 (25.94%) Stakeholder Management
2 380 (23.30%) Agile
3 248 (15.21%) E-Commerce
4 193 (11.83%) Migration
5 192 (11.77%) Problem-Solving
6 186 (11.40%) Analytics
7 185 (11.34%) Logistics
8 174 (10.67%) AI
9 173 (10.61%) Roadmaps
10 142 (8.71%) Customer Experience
11 139 (8.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 138 (8.46%) Decision-Making
13 136 (8.34%) Continuous Improvement
14 125 (7.66%) CI/CD
14 125 (7.66%) CRM
15 120 (7.36%) Project Management
16 115 (7.05%) Business Intelligence
17 113 (6.93%) Customer Service
18 109 (6.68%) DevOps
19 107 (6.56%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 146 (8.95%) SQL
2 111 (6.81%) Python
3 51 (3.13%) Java
4 36 (2.21%) TypeScript
5 27 (1.66%) JavaScript
6 13 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 11 (0.67%) Apex Code
8 10 (0.61%) ABAP
8 10 (0.61%) C#
8 10 (0.61%) R
9 9 (0.55%) Bash
9 9 (0.55%) SOQL
10 7 (0.43%) PowerShell
10 7 (0.43%) SOSL
11 6 (0.37%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.37%) Scala
12 5 (0.31%) Groovy
13 4 (0.25%) Bicep
13 4 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.25%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 62 (3.80%) Degree
2 46 (2.82%) Security Cleared
3 23 (1.41%) PMP
4 21 (1.29%) SC Cleared
5 13 (0.80%) DBS Check
6 12 (0.74%) PMI Certification
7 8 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
8 7 (0.43%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (0.37%) CISSP
9 6 (0.37%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (0.31%) CCNP
10 5 (0.31%) CCSE
10 5 (0.31%) CCSM
10 5 (0.31%) CISM
10 5 (0.31%) City & Guilds
10 5 (0.31%) CSPO
10 5 (0.31%) Six Sigma Green Belt
11 3 (0.18%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 3 (0.18%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (4.84%) Data Quality
2 74 (4.54%) QA
3 36 (2.21%) GDPR
4 25 (1.53%) PMO
5 23 (1.41%) Accessibility
6 14 (0.86%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.74%) SLA
8 7 (0.43%) NIST
9 6 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 5 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.31%) 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 (2.15%) Docker
2 29 (1.78%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (0.49%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.31%) Firmware
5 5 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.18%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.061%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (2.39%) Kubernetes
2 11 (0.67%) Ansible
3 10 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (0.43%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 5 (0.31%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.25%) SCCM
8 3 (0.18%) Bosun
9 2 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.12%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.12%) CA Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.12%) CloudHub
9 2 (0.12%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.12%) logstash
9 2 (0.12%) PingFederate
9 2 (0.12%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.061%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.061%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.061%) Nagios
10 1 (0.061%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 153 (9.38%) Microsoft
2 133 (8.15%) SAP
3 91 (5.58%) Salesforce
4 81 (4.97%) Databricks
5 72 (4.41%) Oracle
6 46 (2.82%) Google
7 39 (2.39%) Adobe
8 27 (1.66%) MuleSoft
9 25 (1.53%) Zscaler
10 20 (1.23%) Cisco
11 19 (1.16%) Workday
12 16 (0.98%) IBM
12 16 (0.98%) ServiceNow
13 14 (0.86%) Fortinet
14 13 (0.80%) Apple
14 13 (0.80%) Palo Alto
14 13 (0.80%) VMware
15 11 (0.67%) Braze
15 11 (0.67%) New Relic
15 11 (0.67%) Splunk