A new report by the British Retail Consortium has warned that there could be “900,000 fewer jobs in retail by 2025” as accelerated store closures and productivity improvements continue apace. The report, Retail 2020: Fewer but better jobs, is the first of three reports to be published on the future of the industry sets out how the BRC expects the retail landscape to change.

The second report, Retail 2020: What our people think, will include the detailed findings from a survey of those working in retail across the country. The third report, Retail 2020: Solutions will describe how the industry plans to tackle these changes and opportunities. The number of people employed in retail has declined since 2008, with the digital revolution, leases coming up for renewal and the diverging costs of labour versus technology expected to see this increase.

In the report, the BRC said that, although retail has been supportive of the national living wage, the effects on employment have been “underestimated” with an approximate drop of 900,000 jobs throughout the industry by 2025.

Sir Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the BRC and head of the John Lewis Partnership, told the BBC: “I do very much believe that persistent low pay needs to be tackled, which is why we're talking about 'fewer but better' jobs," he said.

"What the National Living Wage does is that it increases the pace at which wages will rise - and by the way that's not a bad thing, it's in many ways a very good thing - but it will also probably accelerate some of the changes within the workforce and the responses that retailers make in order to mitigate some of the rising cost pressure that they're seeing." He also criticised the current tax “burdens” on the retail industry, which he said has become “unsustainable”.