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 28 September 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 28 29
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,539 1,807 2,046
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.50% 6.51% 6.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.97% 7.14% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,500 1,141 1,173
10th Percentile £413 £413 £413
25th Percentile £463 £488 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £555 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.90% +0.91% -
75th Percentile £656 £656 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - +0.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 22 22
10th Percentile £36.25 £27.73 £55.00
25th Percentile £42.19 £37.77 £61.53
Median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% +24.40% -1.11%
75th Percentile £86.08 £81.25 £72.59
90th Percentile £92.63 £86.65 £74.99
UK median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -1.94% +24.40% -2.66%

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 42,532 25,317 30,338
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.19% 91.27% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,192 16,337 18,640
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.46%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,576 1,391 1,390
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.75 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.31 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -1.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.13 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.72 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.89% -41.51% -3.37%

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 28 September 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 28 September 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 28 September 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 -4 1,230 £550 -4.35% 1,456
South East -4 374 £540 -1.82% 349
North of England -24 320 £575 - 369
Midlands -6 224 £500 -9.09% 204
North West -16 209 £581 -6.29% 220
South West +13 192 £556 -3.30% 174
West Midlands -3 161 £500 -9.09% 153
East of England -15 104 £552 +0.36% 116
Yorkshire -19 90 £575 +21.05% 72
East Midlands -8 59 £525 -4.55% 51
North East -30 20 £750 +38.89% 77
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 September 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.

1 569 (22.41%) Security Cleared
2 469 (18.47%) Stakeholder Management
3 464 (18.27%) SAP
4 382 (15.05%) SC Cleared
5 380 (14.97%) Microsoft
6 347 (13.67%) Migration
7 295 (11.62%) Oracle
8 264 (10.40%) Azure
9 243 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 239 (9.41%) User Acceptance Testing
11 209 (8.23%) Cybersecurity
12 206 (8.11%) Problem-Solving
13 201 (7.92%) Workshop Facilitation
14 196 (7.72%) Validation
15 194 (7.64%) SAP S/4HANA
16 180 (7.09%) SQL
17 175 (6.89%) Roadmaps
18 172 (6.77%) Analytics
19 156 (6.14%) Data Migration
20 155 (6.10%) Continuous Improvement
21 153 (6.03%) AWS
22 151 (5.95%) ERP
23 148 (5.83%) Requirements Gathering
24 147 (5.79%) Agile
25 140 (5.51%) AI
26 137 (5.40%) DV Cleared
27 136 (5.36%) Power Platform
28 121 (4.77%) Business Intelligence
29 120 (4.73%) Dynamics 365
30 115 (4.53%) ServiceNow

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 62 (2.44%) SharePoint
2 36 (1.42%) Confluence
3 30 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.35%) WebSphere
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
5 8 (0.32%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.24%) SAS
7 4 (0.16%) CMS
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.12%) Apache
8 3 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.12%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.079%) IIS
9 2 (0.079%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.079%) WordPress
10 1 (0.039%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.039%) Oracle Application Server
10 1 (0.039%) SAP Portal
10 1 (0.039%) Tomcat
Applications
1 40 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.039%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.039%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 194 (7.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 69 (2.72%) Oracle EBS
3 45 (1.77%) SAP FI
4 40 (1.58%) Oracle Payables
4 40 (1.58%) SAP PSCD
5 37 (1.46%) SAP Payroll
6 36 (1.42%) Oracle ERP
7 34 (1.34%) Dynamics CRM
8 32 (1.26%) Oracle Receivables
8 32 (1.26%) SAP CO
9 29 (1.14%) Workday HCM
10 28 (1.10%) NetSuite
10 28 (1.10%) Oracle General Ledger
11 27 (1.06%) SAP FI/CO
11 27 (1.06%) SAP HCM
12 26 (1.02%) SAP SD
13 25 (0.98%) SAP HR
14 23 (0.91%) SAP MM
15 20 (0.79%) Oracle Payroll
15 20 (0.79%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 264 (10.40%) Azure
2 153 (6.03%) AWS
3 136 (5.36%) Power Platform
4 120 (4.73%) Dynamics 365
5 88 (3.47%) SuccessFactors
6 82 (3.23%) GCP
7 73 (2.88%) Microsoft 365
8 72 (2.84%) OCI
9 58 (2.28%) Power Automate
10 55 (2.17%) Entra ID
11 51 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
12 40 (1.58%) SaaS
13 37 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
14 28 (1.10%) PowerApps
15 25 (0.98%) Microsoft Purview
16 23 (0.91%) GitHub
17 20 (0.79%) Snowflake
18 15 (0.59%) Amazon S3
18 15 (0.59%) Copilot Studio
19 14 (0.55%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 61 (2.40%) Firewall
2 57 (2.24%) Network Security
3 32 (1.26%) WAN
4 28 (1.10%) BGP
5 24 (0.95%) VPN
6 17 (0.67%) DNS
7 15 (0.59%) LAN
7 15 (0.59%) SNMP
8 13 (0.51%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
9 11 (0.43%) SAN
10 10 (0.39%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.39%) 5G
10 10 (0.39%) IPsec
10 10 (0.39%) MPLS
10 10 (0.39%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.35%) VXLAN
12 8 (0.32%) NGFW
12 8 (0.32%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.32%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 77 (3.03%) Power BI
2 36 (1.42%) Oracle Reports
3 31 (1.22%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 28 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
5 27 (1.06%) SAP BW
6 25 (0.98%) Metadata
6 25 (0.98%) SQL Server
7 24 (0.95%) SAP HANA
7 24 (0.95%) Tableau
8 15 (0.59%) BusinessObjects
9 10 (0.39%) Power Query
10 9 (0.35%) Oracle Database
11 8 (0.32%) DynamoDB
11 8 (0.32%) Relational Database
12 7 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
12 7 (0.28%) Oracle ODI
13 5 (0.20%) Amazon Athena
13 5 (0.20%) Looker
13 5 (0.20%) SAP Data Services
13 5 (0.20%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 75 (2.95%) JIRA
2 22 (0.87%) Git
3 13 (0.51%) Jenkins
4 12 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
5 9 (0.35%) GitLab
6 7 (0.28%) Hudson
6 7 (0.28%) PowerBuilder
7 4 (0.16%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.12%) JDeveloper
8 3 (0.12%) LoadRunner
8 3 (0.12%) MLflow
8 3 (0.12%) Snyk
8 3 (0.12%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.12%) Toad
8 3 (0.12%) Zephyr
9 2 (0.079%) Postman
9 2 (0.079%) TestRail
9 2 (0.079%) tSQLt
General
1 562 (22.13%) Finance
2 559 (22.02%) Social Skills
3 193 (7.60%) Public Sector
4 167 (6.58%) Analytical Skills
5 92 (3.62%) Banking
6 91 (3.58%) Manufacturing
7 74 (2.91%) Legal
8 61 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
9 59 (2.32%) Telecoms
10 50 (1.97%) Billing
10 50 (1.97%) Retail
11 46 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
12 45 (1.77%) General Ledger
13 43 (1.69%) Marketing
14 34 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
15 33 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 24 (0.95%) Law
17 23 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
18 21 (0.83%) Local Government
19 16 (0.63%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.62%) Oracle Fusion
2 67 (2.64%) REST
3 50 (1.97%) Terraform
4 37 (1.46%) SAP Fiori
5 35 (1.38%) Middleware
6 33 (1.30%) SOAP
7 28 (1.10%) Web Services
8 26 (1.02%) XML
9 23 (0.91%) SailPoint
10 19 (0.75%) OAuth
11 18 (0.71%) LDAP
12 17 (0.67%) JSON
13 16 (0.63%) HTML
14 14 (0.55%) CSS
15 13 (0.51%) NETCONF
15 13 (0.51%) SAML
15 13 (0.51%) YANG
16 12 (0.47%) ADO
17 11 (0.43%) SAP Basis
17 11 (0.43%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 107 (4.21%) Onboarding
2 52 (2.05%) CMDB
3 45 (1.77%) Operational Technology
4 39 (1.54%) Data Centre
5 33 (1.30%) Product Ownership
6 31 (1.22%) Data Structures
7 29 (1.14%) Security Posture
8 26 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
9 25 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
10 22 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
11 20 (0.79%) AI Agents
12 19 (0.75%) Cloud Native
13 18 (0.71%) Replication
14 16 (0.63%) Greenfield Project
14 16 (0.63%) Management Information System
15 15 (0.59%) PKI
16 13 (0.51%) Hybrid Cloud
17 12 (0.47%) Life Science
17 12 (0.47%) Public Cloud
17 12 (0.47%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 77 (3.03%) Windows
2 59 (2.32%) Linux
3 22 (0.87%) Unix
4 21 (0.83%) Solaris
5 19 (0.75%) Windows Server
6 10 (0.39%) AIX
7 9 (0.35%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Android
8 6 (0.24%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.20%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.039%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 469 (18.47%) Stakeholder Management
2 347 (13.67%) Migration
3 243 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 239 (9.41%) User Acceptance Testing
5 209 (8.23%) Cybersecurity
6 206 (8.11%) Problem-Solving
7 201 (7.92%) Workshop Facilitation
8 196 (7.72%) Validation
9 175 (6.89%) Roadmaps
10 172 (6.77%) Analytics
11 156 (6.14%) Data Migration
12 155 (6.10%) Continuous Improvement
13 151 (5.95%) ERP
14 148 (5.83%) Requirements Gathering
15 147 (5.79%) Agile
16 140 (5.51%) AI
17 121 (4.77%) Business Intelligence
18 111 (4.37%) Knowledge Transfer
19 109 (4.29%) Translating Business Requirements
20 106 (4.17%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 180 (7.09%) SQL
2 83 (3.27%) Python
3 47 (1.85%) ABAP
4 46 (1.81%) PowerShell
5 35 (1.38%) JavaScript
6 30 (1.18%) PL/SQL
7 23 (0.91%) Java
8 15 (0.59%) Bash
9 13 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 12 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
11 10 (0.39%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.35%) C#
12 9 (0.35%) Search Processing Language
13 7 (0.28%) TypeScript
14 6 (0.24%) R
15 5 (0.20%) Korn
15 5 (0.20%) Perl
16 4 (0.16%) Groovy
17 3 (0.12%) Bicep
17 3 (0.12%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 569 (22.41%) Security Cleared
2 382 (15.05%) SC Cleared
3 137 (5.40%) DV Cleared
4 81 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
5 62 (2.44%) CISSP
6 55 (2.17%) Degree
7 51 (2.01%) CISM
8 39 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 25 (0.98%) CCSP
11 15 (0.59%) ACCA
11 15 (0.59%) CRISC
12 14 (0.55%) AWS Certification
13 13 (0.51%) CIMA
13 13 (0.51%) PMP
14 10 (0.39%) CompTIA Security+
14 10 (0.39%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
15 9 (0.35%) CISA
16 8 (0.32%) Azure Certification
16 8 (0.32%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.54%) NIST
2 84 (3.31%) Data Quality
3 73 (2.88%) GRC
4 66 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 40 (1.58%) NCSC
5 40 (1.58%) QA
6 28 (1.10%) GDPR
7 24 (0.95%) PMO
8 23 (0.91%) SLA
9 17 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.59%) Accessibility
11 12 (0.47%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.32%) GxP
15 7 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.24%) Def Stans
16 6 (0.24%) IFRS
16 6 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 63 (2.48%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (1.02%) VMware NSX
4 15 (0.59%) vSphere
5 14 (0.55%) Docker
6 11 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (0.39%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.35%) IAG
9 5 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.16%) Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.079%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.079%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.039%) NFS
12 1 (0.039%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.039%) oVirt
12 1 (0.039%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.039%) RHEV
12 1 (0.039%) SRDF
12 1 (0.039%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 40 (1.58%) Kubernetes
2 22 (0.87%) Ansible
3 19 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.71%) SCCM
5 12 (0.47%) vRealize
6 11 (0.43%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.39%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.35%) Grafana
8 9 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.32%) Nagios
9 8 (0.32%) ZABBIX
10 6 (0.24%) Netcool
10 6 (0.24%) Tivoli
10 6 (0.24%) VxRail
11 5 (0.20%) OpenView
11 5 (0.20%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.20%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 4 (0.16%) CEMLI
13 3 (0.12%) Control-M
13 3 (0.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 464 (18.27%) SAP
2 380 (14.97%) Microsoft
3 295 (11.62%) Oracle
4 115 (4.53%) ServiceNow
5 62 (2.44%) Workday
6 54 (2.13%) VMware
7 38 (1.50%) Salesforce
8 37 (1.46%) Databricks
9 29 (1.14%) Splunk
10 26 (1.02%) Palo Alto
11 24 (0.95%) BMC
11 24 (0.95%) CyberArk
12 22 (0.87%) Cisco
13 20 (0.79%) Google
14 18 (0.71%) Ariba
14 18 (0.71%) IBM
14 18 (0.71%) OpenText
15 17 (0.67%) Zscaler
16 16 (0.63%) Dell
16 16 (0.63%) Veeam