Retail : Overview

In 2009, UK retail sales were over £285billion and are growing, despite the economic downturn in 2007. During 2010, the industry created an extra 12,750 full-time jobs, a 2.1% increase on the previous year.

In 2010, there were over 286,000 retail units and more than third of retail spending is done through shops. (British Retail Consortium, 2009)

It is becoming increasingly popular for UK customers to buy their products online and this area of the industry has seen continued growth since before the 2007 recession. The UK now has 150,000 online retail business and more than 600,000 British jobs are either directly in or support e-retail (Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), 2010). However, e-retailing currently only accounts for less than 7% of total retail sales although this is predicted to rise.

There are plenty of graduate opportunities across the sector and many of the leading companies have graduate schemes. Retail graduate jobs offer structured training in many areas, such as management, accounting, IT and creative roles, as well as benefits like staff discounts and pensions.

What kind of work can I do?

• Buying - sourcing new products and developing ranges each season.
• Merchandising - working with the buyers, looking after the department’s budget, analysing sales and data of the product sales.
• Design - creating design ideas for new products for each season.
• Marketing - communicating the brand to customers, through stores and online.
• PR - maintaining public image for the company.
• HR - hiring and training staff, providing support to managers.
• IT - managing the internal business IT systems.
• Finance - analysing and reporting on the business’s finances.
• Store operations - managing a store.
• Visual merchandising - designing and producing product display.
• Warehouse and logistics - stock storage and distribution.

What’s it like working in this sector?

The retail industry is highly commercial, driven by sales and profit. It is a very dynamic industry, always changing to appeal to customers and compete with competition.

Working in head office is generally a Monday to Friday job. Head office staff are responsible for monitoring the sales figures for the whole business each week and planning for future ranges and company growth.

Working in stores is a lot different to head office, it is likely to involve evenings and weekends and there is more face to face interaction with the customers. Working in a shop gives you first hand experience of the weekly sales and targets and your customers’ expectations.

How big is this sector?

Retail is the UK's largest private sector employer. The current UK retail market is dominated by a comparatively small number of large retailers who have over 500 employees. These large retailers employ 65% of all people working in retail and have 69% of all the annual turnover of retail businesses. (Skill Smart Retail LMI report, November 2009).

The UK retail industry employs 2.9 million people. This equates to 11% of the total UK workforce. (British Retail Consortium: Retail Stats & Info, 2009)

Where can I work?

The retail industry is global, and jobs are available around the world as well as both regionally and nationally in the UK. For further information on international jobs, please refer to opportunities abroad.