Consultant Contract Job Trends in England

Consultant
UK > England

The median Consultant daily rate in England is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 28 29
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,612 1,859 2,034
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.65% 6.62% 6.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.14% 7.27% 6.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,534 1,145 1,156
10th Percentile £413 £413 £408
25th Percentile £463 £490 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £570 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -
75th Percentile £660 £671 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 26 22
10th Percentile £36.15 £28.52 £55.00
25th Percentile £45.00 £44.01 £61.53
Median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -4.52% +24.40% -2.88%
75th Percentile £85.00 £81.25 £72.59
90th Percentile £90.75 £86.63 £74.99
UK median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -4.52% +24.40% -5.61%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 42,569 25,573 30,075
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.03% 91.11% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,022 16,463 18,384
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,727 1,438 1,284
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.89%
75th Percentile £67.94 £50.94 £67.81
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +65.84% -39.40% -7.78%

Consultant
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Consultant' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Consultant job vacancy trend in England

Consultant
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in England

Consultant
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Consultant in England over the 6 months to 11 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Consultant in England

Consultant
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in England

Consultant
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Consultant in England over the 6 months to 11 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in England

Consultant
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Consultant within the England region over the 6 months to 11 October 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -3 1,272 £550 -4.35% 1,951
South East -1 381 £525 -4.55% 385
North of England -16 344 £576 -3.96% 412
North West -15 226 £585 -5.84% 239
Midlands -7 220 £501 -12.96% 213
South West +8 190 £600 +9.09% 199
West Midlands -3 160 £500 -13.04% 154
East of England -16 108 £559 +1.55% 121
Yorkshire -22 88 £575 +18.56% 85
East Midlands -7 53 £550 -3.30% 58
North East -16 29 £750 +36.36% 88
Consultant
UK

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 11 October 2026, Consultant contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Consultant in the job title.

1 591 (22.63%) Security Cleared
2 504 (19.30%) Stakeholder Management
3 487 (18.64%) SAP
4 408 (15.62%) Microsoft
5 398 (15.24%) SC Cleared
6 359 (13.74%) Migration
7 299 (11.45%) Oracle
8 285 (10.91%) Azure
9 243 (9.30%) User Acceptance Testing
10 238 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 233 (8.92%) Problem-Solving
12 224 (8.58%) Cybersecurity
13 215 (8.23%) SAP S/4HANA
14 214 (8.19%) Validation
14 214 (8.19%) Workshop Facilitation
15 187 (7.16%) Analytics
16 173 (6.62%) Roadmaps
17 172 (6.58%) SQL
18 165 (6.32%) Requirements Gathering
19 163 (6.24%) Continuous Improvement
20 162 (6.20%) Data Migration
20 162 (6.20%) ERP
21 147 (5.63%) Agile
22 146 (5.59%) AWS
23 142 (5.44%) AI
24 140 (5.36%) DV Cleared
25 130 (4.98%) Power Platform
26 128 (4.90%) Knowledge Transfer
27 121 (4.63%) Business Intelligence
28 119 (4.56%) Dynamics 365

Consultant Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 58 (2.22%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.53%) Confluence
3 30 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.31%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.27%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.23%) SAS
7 4 (0.15%) CMS
7 4 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.11%) Apache
8 3 (0.11%) IIS
8 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.11%) SAP Portal
8 3 (0.11%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.077%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.077%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.077%) WordPress
10 1 (0.038%) Appian
10 1 (0.038%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 43 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.34%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.077%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.038%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.038%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 215 (8.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 73 (2.79%) Oracle EBS
3 48 (1.84%) SAP FI
4 44 (1.68%) SAP Payroll
5 41 (1.57%) SAP PSCD
6 38 (1.45%) Oracle Payables
6 38 (1.45%) SAP HCM
7 37 (1.42%) Oracle ERP
7 37 (1.42%) Oracle Receivables
8 35 (1.34%) Oracle General Ledger
9 33 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
10 32 (1.23%) SAP CO
11 31 (1.19%) Workday HCM
12 29 (1.11%) SAP HR
13 27 (1.03%) SAP FI/CO
14 26 (1.00%) NetSuite
15 25 (0.96%) SAP SD
16 23 (0.88%) Oracle Payroll
16 23 (0.88%) SAP BRIM
17 21 (0.80%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 285 (10.91%) Azure
2 146 (5.59%) AWS
3 130 (4.98%) Power Platform
4 119 (4.56%) Dynamics 365
5 89 (3.41%) SuccessFactors
6 86 (3.29%) GCP
7 79 (3.02%) OCI
8 73 (2.79%) Microsoft 365
9 64 (2.45%) Entra ID
10 57 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
11 50 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 42 (1.61%) SaaS
13 35 (1.34%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.03%) PowerApps
15 24 (0.92%) GitHub
15 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
16 23 (0.88%) Snowflake
17 17 (0.65%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 16 (0.61%) Azure Logic Apps
19 15 (0.57%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 61 (2.34%) Firewall
1 61 (2.34%) Network Security
2 31 (1.19%) WAN
3 28 (1.07%) BGP
4 24 (0.92%) VPN
5 17 (0.65%) DNS
6 15 (0.57%) LAN
7 13 (0.50%) SNMP
7 13 (0.50%) TCP/IP
8 12 (0.46%) IPsec
8 12 (0.46%) SAN
9 11 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
10 10 (0.38%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.38%) 5G
10 10 (0.38%) MPLS
10 10 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.34%) VXLAN
11 9 (0.34%) X.509
12 8 (0.31%) NGFW
13 7 (0.27%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (2.83%) Power BI
2 31 (1.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
2 31 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
3 28 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (1.00%) SAP BW
5 25 (0.96%) Metadata
5 25 (0.96%) SAP HANA
6 24 (0.92%) SQL Server
7 19 (0.73%) Tableau
8 17 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
9 16 (0.61%) Power Query
10 10 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
11 9 (0.34%) Oracle Database
12 8 (0.31%) DynamoDB
12 8 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
12 8 (0.31%) Relational Database
13 6 (0.23%) BigQuery
14 5 (0.19%) Looker
14 5 (0.19%) SAP Data Services
14 5 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 75 (2.87%) JIRA
2 27 (1.03%) Git
3 14 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.42%) GitLab
5 9 (0.34%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.27%) PowerBuilder
7 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.15%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.15%) Hudson
8 4 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.11%) JDeveloper
9 3 (0.11%) LoadRunner
9 3 (0.11%) Maven
9 3 (0.11%) Snyk
9 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 3 (0.11%) Zephyr
10 2 (0.077%) Burp Suite
10 2 (0.077%) MLflow
10 2 (0.077%) TestRail
General
1 587 (22.47%) Social Skills
2 569 (21.78%) Finance
3 202 (7.73%) Public Sector
4 193 (7.39%) Analytical Skills
5 111 (4.25%) Manufacturing
6 98 (3.75%) Banking
7 78 (2.99%) Legal
8 67 (2.57%) Documentation Skills
9 64 (2.45%) Telecoms
10 62 (2.37%) Billing
11 53 (2.03%) Retail
12 52 (1.99%) General Ledger
13 45 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
14 41 (1.57%) Marketing
15 33 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 32 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
17 25 (0.96%) Law
18 24 (0.92%) Local Government
18 24 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
19 17 (0.65%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.64%) Oracle Fusion
2 60 (2.30%) REST
3 54 (2.07%) Terraform
4 37 (1.42%) SAP Fiori
5 35 (1.34%) Middleware
6 30 (1.15%) SOAP
7 29 (1.11%) Web Services
8 22 (0.84%) XML
9 21 (0.80%) SailPoint
10 18 (0.69%) OAuth
11 17 (0.65%) LDAP
12 14 (0.54%) ADO
12 14 (0.54%) HTML
12 14 (0.54%) SAPUI5
13 13 (0.50%) JSON
13 13 (0.50%) NETCONF
13 13 (0.50%) YANG
14 12 (0.46%) CSS
14 12 (0.46%) SAML
15 11 (0.42%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 116 (4.44%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.95%) CMDB
3 48 (1.84%) Operational Technology
4 41 (1.57%) Data Centre
5 38 (1.45%) Data Structures
6 34 (1.30%) Product Ownership
7 28 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
8 26 (1.00%) Security Posture
9 24 (0.92%) Cloud Native
10 23 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
11 22 (0.84%) AI Agents
11 22 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
12 21 (0.80%) Replication
13 19 (0.73%) Public Cloud
14 18 (0.69%) Management Information System
15 17 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
16 15 (0.57%) Hybrid Cloud
16 15 (0.57%) PKI
17 13 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
17 13 (0.50%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 82 (3.14%) Windows
2 61 (2.34%) Linux
3 25 (0.96%) Unix
4 24 (0.92%) Windows Server
5 16 (0.61%) Solaris
6 10 (0.38%) VMS
7 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.31%) AIX
9 7 (0.27%) Android
9 7 (0.27%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.038%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.038%) macOS
12 1 (0.038%) SUSE
12 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.038%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (19.30%) Stakeholder Management
2 359 (13.74%) Migration
3 243 (9.30%) User Acceptance Testing
4 238 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 233 (8.92%) Problem-Solving
6 224 (8.58%) Cybersecurity
7 214 (8.19%) Validation
7 214 (8.19%) Workshop Facilitation
8 187 (7.16%) Analytics
9 173 (6.62%) Roadmaps
10 165 (6.32%) Requirements Gathering
11 163 (6.24%) Continuous Improvement
12 162 (6.20%) Data Migration
12 162 (6.20%) ERP
13 147 (5.63%) Agile
14 142 (5.44%) AI
15 128 (4.90%) Knowledge Transfer
16 121 (4.63%) Business Intelligence
17 117 (4.48%) DevOps
18 112 (4.29%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 172 (6.58%) SQL
2 90 (3.45%) Python
3 54 (2.07%) PowerShell
4 53 (2.03%) ABAP
5 32 (1.23%) JavaScript
6 26 (1.00%) Java
7 22 (0.84%) PL/SQL
8 21 (0.80%) Bash
9 19 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 16 (0.61%) C#
11 12 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.31%) T-SQL
13 7 (0.27%) Korn
13 7 (0.27%) Search Processing Language
13 7 (0.27%) TypeScript
14 5 (0.19%) Groovy
15 4 (0.15%) Bicep
15 4 (0.15%) Perl
15 4 (0.15%) R
15 4 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 591 (22.63%) Security Cleared
2 398 (15.24%) SC Cleared
3 140 (5.36%) DV Cleared
4 83 (3.18%) BPSS Clearance
5 57 (2.18%) CISSP
5 57 (2.18%) Degree
6 49 (1.88%) CISM
7 37 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (0.88%) CCSP
10 18 (0.69%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.54%) ACCA
12 13 (0.50%) CIMA
12 13 (0.50%) CRISC
13 10 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
13 10 (0.38%) PMP
14 9 (0.34%) DBS Check
15 8 (0.31%) CCIE
15 8 (0.31%) CISA
16 7 (0.27%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.94%) Data Quality
2 92 (3.52%) NIST
3 68 (2.60%) GRC
3 68 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 42 (1.61%) QA
5 41 (1.57%) NCSC
6 32 (1.23%) GDPR
7 27 (1.03%) SLA
8 25 (0.96%) PMO
9 16 (0.61%) PCI DSS
10 15 (0.57%) Accessibility
10 15 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
11 10 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 8 (0.31%) NIST 800
14 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (0.27%) GxP
15 6 (0.23%) Def Stans
15 6 (0.23%) WCAG
16 5 (0.19%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 72 (2.76%) Active Directory
2 28 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (0.92%) VMware NSX
4 15 (0.57%) Docker
4 15 (0.57%) vSphere
5 11 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.34%) Firmware
8 8 (0.31%) IAG
9 6 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
11 2 (0.077%) NFS
11 2 (0.077%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.038%) oVirt
12 1 (0.038%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.038%) RHEV
12 1 (0.038%) SRDF
12 1 (0.038%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 43 (1.65%) Kubernetes
2 26 (1.00%) Ansible
3 22 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.69%) SCCM
5 11 (0.42%) FortiGate
5 11 (0.42%) vRealize
6 10 (0.38%) Grafana
6 10 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.38%) vCenter Server
7 6 (0.23%) Nagios
7 6 (0.23%) VxRail
7 6 (0.23%) ZABBIX
8 5 (0.19%) logstash
8 5 (0.19%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.15%) CEMLI
9 4 (0.15%) Control-M
9 4 (0.15%) Kibana
9 4 (0.15%) Netcool
9 4 (0.15%) Tivoli
10 3 (0.11%) Tivoli Monitoring
Vendors
1 487 (18.64%) SAP
2 408 (15.62%) Microsoft
3 299 (11.45%) Oracle
4 115 (4.40%) ServiceNow
5 63 (2.41%) Workday
6 52 (1.99%) VMware
7 39 (1.49%) Salesforce
8 38 (1.45%) Databricks
9 27 (1.03%) Splunk
10 26 (1.00%) CyberArk
10 26 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 25 (0.96%) Google
12 22 (0.84%) BMC
13 21 (0.80%) Cisco
14 17 (0.65%) Ariba
14 17 (0.65%) IBM
14 17 (0.65%) Zscaler
15 16 (0.61%) Adobe
15 16 (0.61%) OpenText
15 16 (0.61%) Veeam