Pay and posts: How have salaries and vacancies changed in retail over the last five years?

To understand the change in salaries, it’s important to first view the picture through the lens of retail vacancies. The time period under review shows us several distinct phases for employment in retail.

We begin in 2020, so of course we see a sharp drop in vacancies as many retailers closed their doors in the midst of the pandemic and paused hiring. Between January and June, the change in the number of retail jobs advertised is stark, dropping from almost 23,000 to about 7,000 – which will have been dominated by roles at grocers and in ecommerce.

After a few months without much movement, once we reach March 2021 we begin to see the number of retail jobs on offer sharply increase, leaping from around 12,000 to more than 38,000 as lockdown restrictions eased and much of the UK seized the opportunity to get out of the house and begin the long walk back to normality. As we all made our way back to the shops in 2022, vacancies reached their peak – approaching almost 50,000 in November ahead of Christmas.

Normalisation

Since the rollercoaster of the pandemic and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis, normalisation has indeed bedded in since 2023. That year we saw a peak of Christmas job advertisements but with several thousand fewer roles open than in 2022. Vacancies ahead of Christmas in 2024 were also significantly lower, down by roughly 20,000. 

As we continue in 2025, those lofty peaks seem a distant memory as the already contracted number of vacancies remains on a downward trajectory. In February 2025, we had just around 6,000 more vacancies than in February 2021 a time when non-essential retailers were still ordered to close for several more months and England had just entered the third national lockdown; but this time it’s hesitation around economic uncertainty – National Insurance thresholds and inflation causing the lull. 

Couple this data with the change in salaries and we have a different picture. The most striking element is the inverse relationship between vacancies and salaries throughout much of the period under review. When vacancies were at their highest, salaries were declining or flat. Now that vacancies have contracted significantly, salaries are rising at double-digit rates.

Double-digit rise

The most dramatic shift has occurred in the past 14 months, with vacancies plunging from 31,521 in January 2024 to just 16,384 by February 2025 – a steep 48% decline. This has been accompanied by a substantial rise in average salaries, from £29,070 to £34,468 over the same period – an impressive 18.6% increase.

The average retail salary in January 2020 was just over £27,000, today it’s almost 30% higher. In fact, the average retail salary has seen consecutive month-on-month percentage increases since October last year, and wages have seen year-on-year growth since March 2023.

Salary increases have been mostly driven by inflation, with a competitive labour market coupled with the staff members’ cost-of-living pressure forcing retailers to increase wages, especially since mid-2023.

For many retailers, there’s been intense competition to be among the best paying. This has played out particularly fiercely among supermarkets, with the leader Aldi upping its staff pay four times in less than a year in 2023, a further two times last year and twice in as many months of 2025, prompting its competitors to do the same in order to keep up and keep pace with the cost-of-living. 

Fewer jobs, higher pay

Although we’re just beginning to understand the ripple effect of the government’s autumn Budget, the picture of vacancies and salaries does set the scene for the BRC’s verdict of fewer retail jobs with higher pay.

Speaking about the reduction in retail jobs at the end of last year, BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “Despite a further fall in the number of retail jobs, the industry remains the largest private sector employer providing approximately 2.9 million jobs in the UK, with another 2.7 million in the supply chain.

“The current fall is partially explained by the ongoing transformation in the industry, from increased investment in automation and higher productivity to a shift to outsourcing of warehousing and logistics that are not all captured by the ONS retail figures.

Dickinson noted that transformation within the industry played a huge role in the reduced roles, with automation and outsourcing within supply chains significantly reducing headcount within retailers. She also didn’t make light of how the Budget had made the cost of hiring skyrocket, with increases to the National Living Wage costing retailers an extra £2.7bn on their wage bills while raising the threshold for employer NI contributions would add a further £2.3bn – hastening the reduction in retail jobs and particularly the recruitment of part-time roles.

“Retailers are responding to the changing business landscape, with most saying they will further increase investment in automation and improve worker productivity,” she said. “It is inevitable the Budget will also put pressure on jobs and hours in the coming year, potentially affecting communities all over the UK that rely on retail as a vital provider of entry-level, local jobs.”