Designing retaining structures depends on many factors, primarily the function of the retaining structure and soil conditions. It is not easy to choose the right retaining structure due to the great variety of their structural and material solutions. Preliminary numerical analyses in this case can be very useful. This article presents the results of numerical analyses of the behaviour of retaining structures and soil for various structural and material solutions as well as defined soil and water conditions. Six variants of retaining structures were analysed, in which the type of retaining walls, the materials used and the height of the walls were varied. The assessment was done basing on maps of stress and displacement of the retaining structure and soil. An additional factor in the selection of retaining structures are costs, durability and lead time. The finite element method allows the analysis of the behaviour of the structure - soil system. It enables comparison of various construction variants at the design stage and selection of the best solution in given soil and water conditions for the set selection criteria.