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 21 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 153 88 93
Rank change year-on-year -65 +5 -4
Contract jobs citing Retail 805 820 1,023
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.84% 2.80% 2.31%
As % of the General category 3.23% 4.45% 3.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 509 435 593
10th Percentile £191 £291 £286
25th Percentile £358 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -7.50% - -0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 17 66
10th Percentile £12.77 £16.98 £11.09
25th Percentile £13.27 £21.25 £12.15
Median hourly rate £17.89 £32.50 £15.95
Median % change year-on-year -44.97% +103.76% -19.49%
75th Percentile £43.34 £55.25 £21.37
90th Percentile £54.80 £81.50 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.50 £22.50 £13.47
% change year-on-year -26.67% +67.04% -32.00%

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 24,936 18,425 25,810
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.88% 62.82% 58.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,582 11,746 16,473
10th Percentile £300 £297 £266
25th Percentile £405 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £493
% change year-on-year - -3.60% -1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,533 670 1,803
10th Percentile £13.72 £15.20 £12.81
25th Percentile £17.05 £20.12 £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +15.38% -25.71%
75th Percentile £57.50 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £76.75 £75.03 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £27.97 £25.00
% change year-on-year -15.98% +11.88% -16.67%

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 21 March 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 21 March 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 21 March 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 -54 726 £500 -4.76% 1,089
London -44 404 £538 -2.27% 353
UK excluding London -33 332 £463 -7.50% 874
Work from Home -74 197 £488 -7.14% 379
South East -36 101 £423 -21.40% 247
North of England -48 83 £500 +11.11% 217
Midlands -40 70 £495 -1.00% 181
East Midlands -10 42 £495 -1.00% 117
North West -29 42 £513 +13.89% 104
Yorkshire -34 37 £513 +38.51% 93
East of England -17 33 £498 -5.24% 88
West Midlands -62 27 £463 -11.90% 64
Scotland +10 22 £450 -15.49% 51
South West -19 19 £261 -40.63% 79
North East -13 4 £206 -72.50% 22
Northern Ireland -2 2 £190 -44.48% 11
Wales -9 2 £235 +60.19% 24

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 35 (4.35%) Confluence
2 16 (1.99%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.61%) CMS
4 12 (1.49%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 10 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.50%) WordPress
7 3 (0.37%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.37%) SAS
8 2 (0.25%) Magnolia
9 1 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.12%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.12%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 25 (3.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (2.11%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (1.37%) Chatbot
6 10 (1.24%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.50%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.37%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.25%) InDesign
9 2 (0.25%) Trello
10 1 (0.12%) 3ds Max
10 1 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.12%) Maya
10 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
10 1 (0.12%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 16 (1.99%) SAP S/4HANA
1 16 (1.99%) Shopify
2 12 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.49%) SAP Retail
3 9 (1.12%) Oracle Retail
4 6 (0.75%) Finacle
4 6 (0.75%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 5 (0.62%) SAP Payroll
6 4 (0.50%) ResourceLink
6 4 (0.50%) SAP MDG
6 4 (0.50%) Temenos T24
7 3 (0.37%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 2 (0.25%) BambooHR
8 2 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.25%) Sage X3
8 2 (0.25%) Sprinklr
9 1 (0.12%) FLEXCUBE
9 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.12%) SAP SRM
Cloud Services
1 85 (10.56%) Azure
2 54 (6.71%) AWS
3 52 (6.46%) Power Platform
4 44 (5.47%) GCP
5 23 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (2.86%) Dynamics 365
6 20 (2.48%) GitHub
7 19 (2.36%) Snowflake
8 17 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
9 14 (1.74%) GitHub Actions
10 13 (1.61%) SaaS
11 12 (1.49%) Google Workspace
12 11 (1.37%) Cloud Run
12 11 (1.37%) Figma
13 10 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
13 10 (1.24%) Entra ID
13 10 (1.24%) Miro
14 9 (1.12%) BigCommerce
14 9 (1.12%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 9 (1.12%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.86%) RFID
2 13 (1.61%) VPN
3 11 (1.37%) WAN
4 10 (1.24%) Firewall
4 10 (1.24%) Wireless
5 8 (0.99%) NFC
6 7 (0.87%) LAN
7 6 (0.75%) Cisco Nexus
7 6 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (0.50%) BGP
8 4 (0.50%) EIGRP
8 4 (0.50%) OSPF
8 4 (0.50%) VoIP
9 3 (0.37%) MPLS
10 2 (0.25%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.25%) Cisco Firepower
10 2 (0.25%) Network Security
10 2 (0.25%) SAN
10 2 (0.25%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.25%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (5.47%) Power BI
2 20 (2.48%) BigQuery
3 17 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (1.61%) SQL Server
4 13 (1.61%) Tableau
5 12 (1.49%) MySQL
6 11 (1.37%) Metadata
7 7 (0.87%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.87%) Data Vault
8 6 (0.75%) Delta Lake
8 6 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
9 5 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (0.50%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.50%) Redis
10 4 (0.50%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
10 4 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.37%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.37%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.37%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 72 (8.94%) JIRA
2 15 (1.86%) Git
3 10 (1.24%) GitLab
3 10 (1.24%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.62%) ERwin
5 4 (0.50%) Maven
5 4 (0.50%) MLflow
6 3 (0.37%) Selenium
6 3 (0.37%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.25%) PowerDesigner
7 2 (0.25%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.12%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.12%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.12%) JMeter
8 1 (0.12%) Mockito
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle APEX
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.12%) Xcode
General
1 273 (33.91%) Social Skills
2 189 (23.48%) Finance
3 88 (10.93%) Analytical Skills
4 76 (9.44%) Banking
5 57 (7.08%) Marketing
6 37 (4.60%) Public Sector
7 34 (4.22%) Manufacturing
8 32 (3.98%) Retail Banking
9 31 (3.85%) Organisational Skills
10 30 (3.73%) Investment Banking
11 28 (3.48%) Corporate Banking
12 23 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
12 23 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
13 19 (2.36%) Presentation Skills
14 15 (1.86%) Legal
15 13 (1.61%) Telecoms
16 9 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 8 (0.99%) Private Banking
18 7 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
18 7 (0.87%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 138 (17.14%) Analyst
2 109 (13.54%) Project Manager
3 93 (11.55%) Senior
4 89 (11.06%) Architect
5 73 (9.07%) Business Analyst
6 65 (8.07%) Lead
7 39 (4.84%) Senior Manager
8 36 (4.47%) Solutions Architect
9 35 (4.35%) Consultant
10 28 (3.48%) Technical Manager
11 22 (2.73%) Senior Project Manager
12 21 (2.61%) Developer
13 19 (2.36%) Programme Manager
14 18 (2.24%) Product Manager
14 18 (2.24%) Service Manager
15 17 (2.11%) Data Analyst
16 14 (1.74%) Data Architect
16 14 (1.74%) Designer
16 14 (1.74%) E-Commerce Manager
16 14 (1.74%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.86%) Middleware
1 23 (2.86%) REST
2 21 (2.61%) VML
3 17 (2.11%) Spring
4 13 (1.61%) React
5 12 (1.49%) Spring Boot
6 11 (1.37%) AngularJS
6 11 (1.37%) PySpark
7 10 (1.24%) scikit-learn
8 8 (0.99%) .NET
8 8 (0.99%) CSS
8 8 (0.99%) HTML
8 8 (0.99%) Node.js
9 7 (0.87%) PyTorch
10 6 (0.75%) JSON
10 6 (0.75%) Kafka
10 6 (0.75%) LangChain
10 6 (0.75%) OpenTelemetry
10 6 (0.75%) XML
11 5 (0.62%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.21%) Product Ownership
2 38 (4.72%) Driving Licence
3 27 (3.35%) EPoS
4 24 (2.98%) Cloud Native
4 24 (2.98%) Self-Motivation
5 22 (2.73%) Onboarding
6 21 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
7 20 (2.48%) Management Information System
8 18 (2.24%) Data Centre
8 18 (2.24%) FMCG
9 16 (1.99%) Data Structures
10 15 (1.86%) Mobile App
11 11 (1.37%) Mainframe
12 9 (1.12%) Algorithms
12 9 (1.12%) IoT
12 9 (1.12%) Virtual Team
13 8 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
13 8 (0.99%) Reference Data
14 7 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
15 6 (0.75%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 36 (4.47%) Windows
2 19 (2.36%) Linux
3 9 (1.12%) Mac OS
4 5 (0.62%) zOS
5 4 (0.50%) Android
5 4 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.50%) Unix
6 3 (0.37%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.12%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.12%) VMS
7 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 190 (23.60%) Stakeholder Management
2 187 (23.23%) Agile
3 155 (19.25%) Problem-Solving
4 108 (13.42%) E-Commerce
5 102 (12.67%) Project Management
6 86 (10.68%) Migration
7 81 (10.06%) Analytics
7 81 (10.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 80 (9.94%) Roadmaps
9 68 (8.45%) Customer Experience
10 66 (8.20%) ERP
10 66 (8.20%) Workshop Facilitation
11 65 (8.07%) Continuous Improvement
12 64 (7.95%) Project Delivery
13 63 (7.83%) Scrum
14 61 (7.58%) AI
14 61 (7.58%) Change Management
14 61 (7.58%) DevOps
15 59 (7.33%) Decision-Making
16 56 (6.96%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 74 (9.19%) SQL
2 65 (8.07%) Python
3 28 (3.48%) Java
4 18 (2.24%) JavaScript
5 14 (1.74%) PowerShell
6 11 (1.37%) Bash
7 9 (1.12%) Shell Script
8 8 (0.99%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (0.87%) C#
10 5 (0.62%) Kotlin
10 5 (0.62%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.62%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.50%) VBA
12 3 (0.37%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.37%) SOQL
12 3 (0.37%) SOSL
13 2 (0.25%) Bicep
13 2 (0.25%) Google Apps Script
13 2 (0.25%) PHP
13 2 (0.25%) R
Qualifications
1 47 (5.84%) Degree
2 22 (2.73%) PMP
3 20 (2.48%) Security Cleared
4 17 (2.11%) PMI Certification
5 8 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (0.99%) Master's Degree
5 8 (0.99%) SC Cleared
6 7 (0.87%) APMP
6 7 (0.87%) CISSP
6 7 (0.87%) MBA
7 6 (0.75%) CCNP
7 6 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (0.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (0.62%) CSPO
9 4 (0.50%) CCIE
9 4 (0.50%) CISM
9 4 (0.50%) CRISC
9 4 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.37%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (5.59%) QA
2 43 (5.34%) Data Quality
3 28 (3.48%) PMO
4 20 (2.48%) GDPR
5 19 (2.36%) SLA
6 13 (1.61%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.75%) PCI DSS
8 5 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.50%) IFRS
10 3 (0.37%) NIST
11 2 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.25%) COBIT
11 2 (0.25%) NCSC
11 2 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.12%) GAAP
12 1 (0.12%) IFRS 9
12 1 (0.12%) MiFID
12 1 (0.12%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (2.11%) Docker
2 14 (1.74%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.50%) RACF
3 4 (0.50%) VMware NSX
4 3 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.12%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 22 (2.73%) Terraform
2 15 (1.86%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.12%) Grafana
4 7 (0.87%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 6 (0.75%) Argo
5 6 (0.75%) Istio
5 6 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.37%) SCCM
6 3 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.25%) MOM
8 1 (0.12%) Ansible
8 1 (0.12%) Cacti
8 1 (0.12%) Control-M
8 1 (0.12%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.12%) Nmap
8 1 (0.12%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.12%) ZABBIX
8 1 (0.12%) zSecure
Vendors
1 74 (9.19%) Microsoft
2 63 (7.83%) SAP
3 52 (6.46%) Google
4 51 (6.34%) Oracle
5 32 (3.98%) Salesforce
6 26 (3.23%) Databricks
7 23 (2.86%) Adobe
8 14 (1.74%) ServiceNow
9 11 (1.37%) Sitecore
10 10 (1.24%) Cisco
11 9 (1.12%) IBM
12 8 (0.99%) CheckPoint
12 8 (0.99%) Temenos
13 7 (0.87%) Splunk
13 7 (0.87%) VMware
14 6 (0.75%) Avaloq
14 6 (0.75%) GoldenSource
14 6 (0.75%) IFS
14 6 (0.75%) Workday
15 5 (0.62%) Palo Alto