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 8 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 134 97 103
Rank change year-on-year -37 +6 -32
Contract jobs citing Retail 755 893 1,097
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.16% 2.44% 2.33%
As % of the General category 3.43% 4.15% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 430 467 640
10th Percentile £262 £263 £299
25th Percentile £413 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £735 £738 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 11 34
10th Percentile £14.50 £16.00 £15.33
25th Percentile £15.25 £17.19 £19.06
Median hourly rate £16.34 £33.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -51.24% +69.11% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £51.88 £20.56
90th Percentile £25.15 £60.00 £22.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £17.82 £19.81
% change year-on-year -8.31% -10.07% -

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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 22,014 21,527 27,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 62.91% 58.83% 59.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,765 12,699 18,711
10th Percentile £273 £285 £288
25th Percentile £400 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £641 £660
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,401 817 1,110
10th Percentile £13.80 £14.89 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.92 £16.68
Median hourly rate £24.34 £29.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.07% -3.33% +20.00%
75th Percentile £44.75 £55.00 £57.46
90th Percentile £67.25 £70.00 £70.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.97 £27.13 £27.00
% change year-on-year -19.01% +0.46% +20.00%

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025. 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 -31 692 £525 - 2,811
London -31 351 £525 -4.55% 1,180
UK excluding London -13 347 £500 - 2,193
Work from Home -58 195 £529 +0.81% 1,202
South East -6 99 £525 -2.33% 1,142
North of England -27 89 £500 +5.26% 332
Midlands -24 60 £425 -15.00% 292
North West -9 46 £500 +11.11% 210
East Midlands +1 42 £425 -15.00% 155
Yorkshire -33 40 £588 +17.50% 95
East of England -19 38 £625 +19.05% 187
South West +14 34 £180 -56.57% 126
Scotland +11 21 £500 - 88
West Midlands -45 17 £438 -2.78% 119
Wales +3 5 £625 +331.03% 32
North East -10 4 £180 -70.00% 27
Northern Ireland -6 1 - - 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 30 (3.97%) Confluence
2 18 (2.38%) CMS
3 10 (1.32%) SharePoint
4 8 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.79%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 6 (0.79%) Camunda
6 5 (0.66%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.53%) WordPress
8 3 (0.40%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.13%) Apache
9 1 (0.13%) Appian
9 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 32 (4.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.32%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.53%) Sketch
6 3 (0.40%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.26%) Trello
7 2 (0.26%) UserZoom
8 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.13%) InDesign
8 1 (0.13%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 35 (4.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.85%) Shopify
3 9 (1.19%) Oracle Retail
4 8 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
4 8 (1.06%) SAP Retail
5 6 (0.79%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.79%) Payment Gateway
6 5 (0.66%) SAP GTS
6 5 (0.66%) SAP Payroll
7 4 (0.53%) ResourceLink
8 3 (0.40%) Avolution ABACUS
8 3 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 3 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.40%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.40%) Sprinklr
9 2 (0.26%) Magento
9 2 (0.26%) SAP Oil and Gas
9 2 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 98 (12.98%) Azure
2 61 (8.08%) AWS
3 55 (7.28%) Power Platform
4 37 (4.90%) GCP
5 32 (4.24%) Dynamics 365
6 27 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
7 17 (2.25%) SaaS
8 15 (1.99%) Figma
9 12 (1.59%) Microsoft 365
9 12 (1.59%) Power Automate
10 11 (1.46%) OCI
11 10 (1.32%) GitHub
11 10 (1.32%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 10 (1.32%) Snowflake
12 9 (1.19%) Entra ID
12 9 (1.19%) Serverless
12 9 (1.19%) Vertex AI
13 8 (1.06%) SuccessFactors
14 7 (0.93%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 7 (0.93%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.46%) RFID
1 11 (1.46%) Wireless
2 10 (1.32%) Firewall
2 10 (1.32%) NFC
3 5 (0.66%) LAN
3 5 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
4 4 (0.53%) VPN
5 3 (0.40%) Broadband
5 3 (0.40%) DNS
5 3 (0.40%) WAN
6 2 (0.26%) ATM
6 2 (0.26%) HTTP
6 2 (0.26%) Network Security
6 2 (0.26%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.13%) Cisco Nexus
7 1 (0.13%) DHCP
7 1 (0.13%) Multicast
7 1 (0.13%) NAS
7 1 (0.13%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.13%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (6.09%) Power BI
2 18 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
3 16 (2.12%) Metadata
4 13 (1.72%) BigQuery
5 12 (1.59%) SQL Server
5 12 (1.59%) Tableau
6 11 (1.46%) Data Lake
7 6 (0.79%) Power Query
8 5 (0.66%) Big Data
8 5 (0.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.40%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.40%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.40%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (0.40%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.26%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.26%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.26%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 58 (7.68%) JIRA
2 18 (2.38%) Git
3 14 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.53%) Artifactory
4 4 (0.53%) Selenium
4 4 (0.53%) Storybook
4 4 (0.53%) Xcode
5 3 (0.40%) Android Studio
5 3 (0.40%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.40%) GitLab
5 3 (0.40%) Gradle
5 3 (0.40%) Postman
6 2 (0.26%) ERwin
6 2 (0.26%) JUnit
6 2 (0.26%) Maven
6 2 (0.26%) MLflow
6 2 (0.26%) PowerDesigner
6 2 (0.26%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 274 (36.29%) Social Skills
2 180 (23.84%) Finance
3 82 (10.86%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (10.73%) Banking
5 55 (7.28%) Marketing
6 51 (6.75%) Retail Banking
7 47 (6.23%) Investment Banking
8 45 (5.96%) Public Sector
9 44 (5.83%) Corporate Banking
10 43 (5.70%) Manufacturing
11 41 (5.43%) Organisational Skills
12 28 (3.71%) Legal
13 22 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
14 19 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 17 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
16 12 (1.59%) Financial Institution
16 12 (1.59%) French Language
16 12 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
17 11 (1.46%) Telecoms
18 10 (1.32%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 149 (19.74%) Analyst
2 91 (12.05%) Architect
3 72 (9.54%) Project Manager
4 61 (8.08%) Business Analyst
5 49 (6.49%) Lead
5 49 (6.49%) Senior
5 49 (6.49%) Solutions Architect
6 37 (4.90%) Consultant
7 34 (4.50%) Developer
8 21 (2.78%) Administrator
8 21 (2.78%) Senior Manager
9 20 (2.65%) Programme Manager
10 19 (2.52%) Data Analyst
10 19 (2.52%) Product Manager
11 14 (1.85%) Product Owner
12 13 (1.72%) Enterprise Architect
12 13 (1.72%) SAP Consultant
13 12 (1.59%) Field Engineer
13 12 (1.59%) Security Analyst
13 12 (1.59%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.78%) React
1 21 (2.78%) REST
2 18 (2.38%) HTML
3 13 (1.72%) CSS
3 13 (1.72%) Node.js
4 11 (1.46%) PySpark
5 10 (1.32%) .NET
5 10 (1.32%) React Native
6 8 (1.06%) Kafka
6 8 (1.06%) Oracle Fusion
7 7 (0.93%) EDI
7 7 (0.93%) Redux
7 7 (0.93%) RESTful
7 7 (0.93%) scikit-learn
8 6 (0.79%) FastAPI
8 6 (0.79%) Web Services
8 6 (0.79%) XML
9 5 (0.66%) PyTorch
9 5 (0.66%) VML
9 5 (0.66%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 40 (5.30%) Product Ownership
2 30 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
3 29 (3.84%) EPoS
4 21 (2.78%) Mobile App
5 20 (2.65%) Onboarding
6 19 (2.52%) Self-Motivation
7 18 (2.38%) FMCG
8 15 (1.99%) IoT
9 14 (1.85%) Greenfield Project
10 13 (1.72%) Data Structures
11 12 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
12 11 (1.46%) Cloud Native
13 10 (1.32%) Management Information System
14 9 (1.19%) Driving Licence
15 8 (1.06%) Algorithms
15 8 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
16 6 (0.79%) Replication
16 6 (0.79%) Social Media
17 5 (0.66%) Data Centre
17 5 (0.66%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 42 (5.56%) Windows
2 8 (1.06%) Apple iOS
3 5 (0.66%) Android
3 5 (0.66%) Linux
3 5 (0.66%) Mac OS
4 3 (0.40%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.26%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.13%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (24.64%) Agile
2 166 (21.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 104 (13.77%) Problem-Solving
4 90 (11.92%) E-Commerce
5 82 (10.86%) Analytics
6 78 (10.33%) Project Management
7 65 (8.61%) Roadmaps
8 64 (8.48%) Migration
9 63 (8.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 61 (8.08%) Customer Experience
11 59 (7.81%) DevOps
12 56 (7.42%) CRM
13 54 (7.15%) Continuous Improvement
14 53 (7.02%) Data Modelling
15 52 (6.89%) Business Intelligence
16 49 (6.49%) Project Delivery
17 48 (6.36%) AI
17 48 (6.36%) Wealth Management
18 47 (6.23%) Logistics
19 45 (5.96%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 69 (9.14%) Python
2 63 (8.34%) SQL
3 22 (2.91%) JavaScript
4 13 (1.72%) Java
4 13 (1.72%) TypeScript
5 9 (1.19%) Bash
6 8 (1.06%) C#
6 8 (1.06%) PowerShell
7 7 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (0.40%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.40%) X++
10 2 (0.26%) ABAP
10 2 (0.26%) Go
10 2 (0.26%) JSX
10 2 (0.26%) Korn
10 2 (0.26%) R
10 2 (0.26%) Swift
10 2 (0.26%) VB
10 2 (0.26%) VBA
Qualifications
1 37 (4.90%) Degree
2 18 (2.38%) PMP
3 14 (1.85%) PMI Certification
4 13 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (1.59%) Security Cleared
6 7 (0.93%) Master's Degree
7 6 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.66%) CISSP
9 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.40%) CISM
10 3 (0.40%) SC Cleared
10 3 (0.40%) Six Sigma Green Belt
11 2 (0.26%) ACCA
11 2 (0.26%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.26%) CIPD
11 2 (0.26%) CRISC
11 2 (0.26%) GIAC
11 2 (0.26%) MBA
11 2 (0.26%) SAP Certification
11 2 (0.26%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (3.05%) GDPR
1 23 (3.05%) QA
2 22 (2.91%) Data Quality
3 11 (1.46%) Accessibility
4 8 (1.06%) GRC
5 7 (0.93%) SLA
6 6 (0.79%) COBIT
7 5 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (0.53%) NIST
8 4 (0.53%) PMO
9 3 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.40%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.26%) MiFID
10 2 (0.26%) NCSC
10 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.13%) FATCA
11 1 (0.13%) SEPA
11 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 15 (1.99%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.85%) Docker
3 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.13%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 27 (3.58%) Terraform
2 19 (2.52%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.72%) Ansible
4 4 (0.53%) Grafana
4 4 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
4 4 (0.53%) SCCM
5 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.26%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.13%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.13%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.13%) Nmap
7 1 (0.13%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 91 (12.05%) Microsoft
2 76 (10.07%) SAP
3 43 (5.70%) Oracle
4 40 (5.30%) Salesforce
5 22 (2.91%) Google
6 18 (2.38%) Adobe
7 17 (2.25%) HP
8 15 (1.99%) Databricks
9 10 (1.32%) Dynatrace
9 10 (1.32%) ServiceNow
10 9 (1.19%) Dell
10 9 (1.19%) Splunk
11 7 (0.93%) Apple
11 7 (0.93%) Workday
12 6 (0.79%) CheckPoint
12 6 (0.79%) F5
12 6 (0.79%) Planview
12 6 (0.79%) Sitecore
13 5 (0.66%) Genesys
14 4 (0.53%) MuleSoft