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 30 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 146 92 105
Rank change year-on-year -54 +13 -26
Contract jobs citing Retail 725 892 977
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.96% 2.68% 2.26%
As % of the General category 3.23% 4.37% 3.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 420 471 554
10th Percentile £206 £268 £275
25th Percentile £400 £410 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -5.45%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £491 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.75% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 9 30
10th Percentile £14.95 £17.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.17 £18.13 £16.12
Median hourly rate £17.00 £32.50 £19.81
Median % change year-on-year -47.69% +64.06% -
75th Percentile £19.50 £38.75 £21.42
90th Percentile £25.15 £50.00 £29.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.34 £25.32 £19.81
% change year-on-year -35.47% +27.79% -

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 22,475 20,390 25,601
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 60.75% 61.24% 59.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,080 12,182 16,891
10th Percentile £280 £288 £275
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £756 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,414 695 1,101
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.48 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.67 £16.54
Median hourly rate £23.50 £27.39 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.19% -17.02% +32.00%
75th Percentile £45.94 £54.38 £59.03
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.14 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.94 £26.12 £30.48
% change year-on-year -16.02% -14.29% +37.52%

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 30 December 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 30 December 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 30 December 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 -51 668 £500 -4.76% 2,972
London -39 344 £550 - 476
UK excluding London -43 324 £491 -1.75% 2,714
Work from Home -71 182 £534 +1.62% 1,838
South East -20 99 £518 -5.77% 685
North of England -54 77 £498 +6.13% 649
Midlands -45 63 £450 -10.00% 530
East Midlands -2 43 £479 -4.25% 246
East of England -17 42 £565 +2.73% 394
Yorkshire -37 40 £500 +17.65% 278
North West -32 32 £498 +7.57% 323
South West +3 20 £180 -55.99% 277
Scotland -2 19 £450 -12.20% 115
West Midlands -49 19 £375 -28.57% 255
North East -5 6 £206 -65.63% 48
Wales 0 3 £625 +331.03% 65
Northern Ireland -10 1 - - 37

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 33 (4.55%) Confluence
2 19 (2.62%) CMS
3 17 (2.34%) SharePoint
4 7 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.83%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 5 (0.69%) Camunda
6 5 (0.69%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.55%) WordPress
8 2 (0.28%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.28%) Magnolia
9 1 (0.14%) SAS
9 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 26 (3.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
5 5 (0.69%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.69%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.28%) Trello
8 1 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.14%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 25 (3.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.38%) Oracle Retail
2 10 (1.38%) SAP Retail
2 10 (1.38%) Shopify
3 9 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
5 5 (0.69%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.55%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.55%) NetSuite
6 4 (0.55%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.55%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.41%) SAP GTS
7 3 (0.41%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.28%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.28%) Magento
8 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.28%) SAP MDG
8 2 (0.28%) SAP Oil and Gas
8 2 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 87 (12.00%) Azure
2 48 (6.62%) Power Platform
3 43 (5.93%) AWS
4 33 (4.55%) GCP
5 24 (3.31%) Dynamics 365
6 22 (3.03%) Azure DevOps
7 16 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
7 16 (2.21%) SaaS
8 13 (1.79%) GitHub
9 11 (1.52%) Figma
9 11 (1.52%) OCI
9 11 (1.52%) Snowflake
10 10 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (1.38%) Power Automate
10 10 (1.38%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 10 (1.38%) SuccessFactors
11 8 (1.10%) Entra ID
11 8 (1.10%) Vertex AI
12 7 (0.97%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 7 (0.97%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.62%) RFID
2 18 (2.48%) NFC
2 18 (2.48%) Wireless
3 15 (2.07%) Firewall
4 12 (1.66%) VPN
5 7 (0.97%) WAN
5 7 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
6 5 (0.69%) Cisco Nexus
7 4 (0.55%) BGP
7 4 (0.55%) EIGRP
7 4 (0.55%) LAN
7 4 (0.55%) OSPF
7 4 (0.55%) VoIP
8 3 (0.41%) DNS
9 2 (0.28%) Broadband
9 2 (0.28%) MPLS
9 2 (0.28%) SAN
9 2 (0.28%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.28%) WLAN
10 1 (0.14%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.38%) Power BI
2 17 (2.34%) BigQuery
3 15 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
4 14 (1.93%) Metadata
5 12 (1.66%) Tableau
6 10 (1.38%) SQL Server
7 7 (0.97%) Data Lake
8 5 (0.69%) MongoDB
8 5 (0.69%) Power Query
9 4 (0.55%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.55%) Redis
9 4 (0.55%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.41%) Data Vault
10 3 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.41%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.41%) SAP HANA
10 3 (0.41%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.41%) Star Schema
11 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 66 (9.10%) JIRA
2 11 (1.52%) Jenkins
3 10 (1.38%) Git
4 7 (0.97%) GitLab
5 4 (0.55%) Selenium
5 4 (0.55%) Storybook
6 3 (0.41%) Postman
7 2 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.28%) ERwin
7 2 (0.28%) JMeter
7 2 (0.28%) JUnit
7 2 (0.28%) MLflow
7 2 (0.28%) Mockito
7 2 (0.28%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.28%) SoapUI
7 2 (0.28%) Xcode
7 2 (0.28%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.14%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio
General
1 259 (35.72%) Social Skills
2 147 (20.28%) Finance
3 78 (10.76%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (8.14%) Banking
5 51 (7.03%) Marketing
6 45 (6.21%) Public Sector
7 36 (4.97%) Manufacturing
7 36 (4.97%) Organisational Skills
8 33 (4.55%) Retail Banking
9 26 (3.59%) Corporate Banking
10 25 (3.45%) Investment Banking
10 25 (3.45%) Legal
11 22 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
13 16 (2.21%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 10 (1.38%) Telecoms
16 6 (0.83%) Financial Institution
16 6 (0.83%) Publishing
17 5 (0.69%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 136 (18.76%) Analyst
2 86 (11.86%) Project Manager
3 81 (11.17%) Architect
4 65 (8.97%) Senior
5 60 (8.28%) Business Analyst
6 55 (7.59%) Lead
7 34 (4.69%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (4.28%) Consultant
9 25 (3.45%) Senior Manager
10 21 (2.90%) Developer
11 20 (2.76%) Programme Manager
12 19 (2.62%) Product Manager
13 15 (2.07%) SAP Consultant
14 14 (1.93%) Administrator
15 13 (1.79%) Data Analyst
15 13 (1.79%) Senior Analyst
15 13 (1.79%) Technical Manager
16 12 (1.66%) Enterprise Architect
16 12 (1.66%) Field Engineer
16 12 (1.66%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.45%) React
2 16 (2.21%) Node.js
3 15 (2.07%) PySpark
3 15 (2.07%) REST
4 13 (1.79%) VML
5 11 (1.52%) HTML
6 8 (1.10%) .NET
6 8 (1.10%) AngularJS
7 7 (0.97%) React Native
7 7 (0.97%) scikit-learn
7 7 (0.97%) Spring
7 7 (0.97%) Spring Boot
8 6 (0.83%) CSS
8 6 (0.83%) FastAPI
8 6 (0.83%) Kafka
8 6 (0.83%) OpenTelemetry
8 6 (0.83%) Oracle Fusion
8 6 (0.83%) XML
9 5 (0.69%) LangChain
9 5 (0.69%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.38%) Product Ownership
2 30 (4.14%) Legacy Systems
3 24 (3.31%) Self-Motivation
4 23 (3.17%) IoT
5 20 (2.76%) EPoS
6 19 (2.62%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.34%) FMCG
8 15 (2.07%) Cloud Native
9 13 (1.79%) Management Information System
9 13 (1.79%) Mobile App
10 12 (1.66%) Data Centre
11 11 (1.52%) Driving Licence
12 10 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
13 9 (1.24%) Data Structures
14 8 (1.10%) Algorithms
15 7 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
15 7 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
15 7 (0.97%) Mainframe
16 6 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
16 6 (0.83%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 42 (5.79%) Windows
2 7 (0.97%) Linux
3 6 (0.83%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.69%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.41%) Android
5 3 (0.41%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.28%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.14%) VMS
7 1 (0.14%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (24.14%) Stakeholder Management
2 170 (23.45%) Agile
3 113 (15.59%) Problem-Solving
4 90 (12.41%) Project Management
5 82 (11.31%) E-Commerce
6 79 (10.90%) Analytics
7 63 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 61 (8.41%) Migration
9 60 (8.28%) Roadmaps
9 60 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 53 (7.31%) AI
10 53 (7.31%) Workshop Facilitation
11 52 (7.17%) Customer Experience
12 50 (6.90%) ERP
13 49 (6.76%) Business Intelligence
13 49 (6.76%) CRM
13 49 (6.76%) Decision-Making
13 49 (6.76%) DevOps
13 49 (6.76%) Waterfall
14 46 (6.34%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 63 (8.69%) SQL
2 61 (8.41%) Python
3 15 (2.07%) Java
4 14 (1.93%) JavaScript
5 11 (1.52%) Bash
5 11 (1.52%) PowerShell
6 9 (1.24%) TypeScript
7 6 (0.83%) C#
7 6 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (0.55%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.41%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.28%) ABAP
10 2 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.28%) Go
10 2 (0.28%) PHP
10 2 (0.28%) R
10 2 (0.28%) Swift
10 2 (0.28%) VBA
10 2 (0.28%) X++
11 1 (0.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 33 (4.55%) Degree
2 23 (3.17%) PMP
3 19 (2.62%) PMI Certification
4 18 (2.48%) Security Cleared
5 8 (1.10%) Master's Degree
6 7 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.69%) SC Cleared
9 4 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (0.55%) CCIE
9 4 (0.55%) CCNP
9 4 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.55%) CISSP
9 4 (0.55%) CSPO
9 4 (0.55%) MBA
9 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.41%) APMP
10 3 (0.41%) CISM
10 3 (0.41%) CRISC
10 3 (0.41%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.45%) QA
2 21 (2.90%) Data Quality
3 16 (2.21%) GDPR
3 16 (2.21%) PMO
4 15 (2.07%) SLA
5 13 (1.79%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.83%) COBIT
7 5 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.41%) IFRS
8 3 (0.41%) NCSC
8 3 (0.41%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.28%) NIST
10 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.14%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.14%) MiFID
10 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.14%) Solvency II
System Software
1 12 (1.66%) Docker
2 10 (1.38%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.55%) RACF
4 3 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (0.41%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.14%) Varnish
5 1 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.14%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 24 (3.31%) Terraform
2 12 (1.66%) Kubernetes
3 7 (0.97%) Ansible
4 6 (0.83%) Grafana
5 5 (0.69%) Argo
5 5 (0.69%) Istio
5 5 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.41%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.41%) SCCM
8 1 (0.14%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.14%) Cacti
8 1 (0.14%) Control-M
8 1 (0.14%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.14%) Nmap
8 1 (0.14%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.14%) zSecure
Vendors
1 81 (11.17%) Microsoft
2 65 (8.97%) SAP
3 47 (6.48%) Oracle
4 40 (5.52%) Salesforce
5 28 (3.86%) Google
6 20 (2.76%) Databricks
7 16 (2.21%) Adobe
8 15 (2.07%) HP
9 10 (1.38%) CheckPoint
9 10 (1.38%) Dell
9 10 (1.38%) F5
10 7 (0.97%) Dynatrace
11 6 (0.83%) Cisco
11 6 (0.83%) Workday
12 5 (0.69%) Apple
12 5 (0.69%) Meraki
12 5 (0.69%) Planview
12 5 (0.69%) ServiceNow
12 5 (0.69%) Sitecore
12 5 (0.69%) Zscaler