Ongoing challenges in staff recruitment and retention are impacting charity retailers’ income targets, according to new research.
The Charity Shops Survey 2025, published in the October issue of Charity Finance, finds that charity retailers have faced “significant” challenges in this area over the past 12 months.
Several respondents cited difficulties in finding “high-quality staff with retail experience”, while others said it had been particularly difficult to recruit shop managers.
High turnover and recruitment failures
While a small number of the 40 respondents to the survey reported a stable year in terms of staff recruitment and retention, the majority reported facing challenges.
Age UK, which employed 667 full-time equivalent people in its retail operation as of 31 March, said staff turnover in its 268 shops is around 30% per year.
“In some areas, it’s more challenging to fill than in others – where this is the case, external agencies are used,” the charity said.
Oxfam GB disclosed that out of 337 advertised roles, it had 94 failed recruitments – almost 28%.
“On average, we receive fewer than eight applicants per role. If you contrast this to other divisions, retail roles receive significantly fewer applications – it’s not uncommon for some roles in headquarters to attract over 100 applicants,” it said.
“One likely reason for this is geography – most roles at headquarters are advertised as ‘hybrid’, while this is obviously not possible for shop-based roles. So, geography will naturally limit the talent pool, particularly for shops in rural parts of the UK.
“The low volume of applications is likely one of the primary causes of failed recruitments (though there may be many other reasons why a recruitment fails).”
Bolton Hospice reported that a shortage of quality staff with retail experience has been a significant issue, saying: “In some cases, we had to advertise roles more than once to fill them.
“This has ultimately had an impact on sales due to a lack of experienced teams in our shops.”
Meanwhile, Highland Hospice highlighted difficulties in getting “good applications, and many seem not to be prepared to work full time, so we’ve had to reduce hours”.
“Shops can struggle to stay open for required hours when these changes happen, takings go down, which leads to nervousness around the future.”
Manager and deputy roles most impacted
Respondents including East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) said the recruitment and retention challenges have mostly affected shop managers and deputy roles.
EACH said: “The impact to our shops is significant. There’s a clear relationship between shop income and a competent, motivated and experienced shop manager, and where we’ve struggled to recruit or retain, the drop in income is noticeable.
“Through a strong network of support, eg relief managers, cluster managers and overtime, we’ve managed to continuously trade shops, but resourcing issues stress this network and place an undeniable strain on the team.”
The Children’s Society said: “The delay in being able to recruit to a shop manager role impacts the shops’ income targets as it inevitably leads to lost trading hours due to shop closures.”
Meanwhile, Oxfam Ireland said: “The recruitment and retention of shop managers has been challenging. It resulted in a few days of some shops not trading due to staffing issues.”
