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 16 October 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 28 29
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,626 1,883 2,010
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.61% 6.68% 6.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.10% 7.32% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,544 1,159 1,139
10th Percentile £413 £413 £408
25th Percentile £463 £488 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £570 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -
75th Percentile £663 £667 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £770
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 26 21
10th Percentile £35.85 £28.52 £55.00
25th Percentile £45.00 £44.01 £61.50
Median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -4.52% +25.81% -3.97%
75th Percentile £85.00 £81.25 £69.69
90th Percentile £89.75 £86.63 £74.87
UK median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -4.52% +25.81% -6.67%

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 43,038 25,712 29,854
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 91.15% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,329 16,534 18,240
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -2.78%
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% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,814 1,462 1,240
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.84 £15.10
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.48 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -41.51% -6.89%
75th Percentile £67.85 £51.61 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £41.08
% change year-on-year +63.24% -38.77% -8.72%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 1,286 £550 -4.35% 1,256
South East -3 382 £533 -3.18% 297
North of England -16 346 £575 -4.17% 326
North West -15 225 £585 -6.02% 177
Midlands -7 220 £501 -12.96% 155
South West +5 184 £600 +8.84% 128
West Midlands -3 162 £500 -11.11% 110
East of England -15 108 £552 +0.36% 73
Yorkshire -22 91 £563 +10.62% 68
East Midlands -7 51 £550 -4.35% 45
North East -14 29 £750 +36.36% 81
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 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.

1 601 (22.89%) Security Cleared
2 521 (19.84%) Stakeholder Management
3 498 (18.96%) SAP
4 421 (16.03%) Microsoft
5 405 (15.42%) SC Cleared
6 364 (13.86%) Migration
7 298 (11.35%) Azure
8 293 (11.16%) Oracle
9 244 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 242 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
11 240 (9.14%) User Acceptance Testing
12 225 (8.57%) Cybersecurity
13 222 (8.45%) Workshop Facilitation
14 219 (8.34%) SAP S/4HANA
15 214 (8.15%) Validation
16 189 (7.20%) Analytics
17 180 (6.85%) Roadmaps
18 170 (6.47%) Requirements Gathering
19 167 (6.36%) Continuous Improvement
19 167 (6.36%) ERP
19 167 (6.36%) SQL
20 161 (6.13%) Data Migration
21 151 (5.75%) AI
22 149 (5.67%) Agile
23 145 (5.52%) AWS
24 143 (5.45%) DV Cleared
25 131 (4.99%) Power Platform
26 130 (4.95%) Knowledge Transfer
27 120 (4.57%) Business Intelligence
28 119 (4.53%) DevOps

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 61 (2.32%) SharePoint
2 45 (1.71%) Confluence
3 29 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.30%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.27%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.15%) CMS
7 4 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.15%) SAS
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 (0.076%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.076%) OpenEdge
9 2 (0.076%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.076%) WordPress
10 1 (0.038%) Appian
Applications
1 44 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.34%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.11%) 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
1 219 (8.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 68 (2.59%) Oracle EBS
3 48 (1.83%) SAP FI
4 45 (1.71%) SAP Payroll
5 40 (1.52%) SAP PSCD
6 38 (1.45%) Oracle ERP
6 38 (1.45%) Oracle Payables
6 38 (1.45%) SAP HCM
7 37 (1.41%) Oracle Receivables
8 36 (1.37%) Oracle General Ledger
9 33 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
10 32 (1.22%) SAP CO
11 31 (1.18%) Workday HCM
12 29 (1.10%) SAP HR
13 27 (1.03%) SAP FI/CO
14 25 (0.95%) SAP SD
15 23 (0.88%) NetSuite
15 23 (0.88%) Oracle Payroll
15 23 (0.88%) SAP BRIM
16 22 (0.84%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 298 (11.35%) Azure
2 145 (5.52%) AWS
3 131 (4.99%) Power Platform
4 116 (4.42%) Dynamics 365
5 89 (3.39%) SuccessFactors
6 87 (3.31%) GCP
7 79 (3.01%) OCI
8 78 (2.97%) Microsoft 365
9 68 (2.59%) Entra ID
10 59 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 52 (1.98%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.64%) SaaS
13 40 (1.52%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.03%) PowerApps
15 26 (0.99%) GitHub
16 24 (0.91%) Microsoft Purview
17 23 (0.88%) Snowflake
18 17 (0.65%) Azure AI
18 17 (0.65%) Azure Logic Apps
18 17 (0.65%) SAP Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 62 (2.36%) Network Security
2 60 (2.28%) Firewall
3 31 (1.18%) WAN
4 28 (1.07%) BGP
5 24 (0.91%) VPN
6 16 (0.61%) DNS
7 15 (0.57%) LAN
8 13 (0.50%) SNMP
9 12 (0.46%) IPsec
9 12 (0.46%) SAN
10 11 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
10 11 (0.42%) TCP/IP
11 10 (0.38%) 3GPP
11 10 (0.38%) 5G
11 10 (0.38%) MPLS
11 10 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
12 9 (0.34%) VXLAN
12 9 (0.34%) X.509
13 8 (0.30%) NGFW
14 7 (0.27%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (2.82%) Power BI
2 29 (1.10%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 28 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
3 28 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
4 26 (0.99%) Metadata
4 26 (0.99%) SAP BW
4 26 (0.99%) SAP HANA
5 24 (0.91%) SQL Server
6 18 (0.69%) Tableau
7 16 (0.61%) BusinessObjects
7 16 (0.61%) Power Query
8 10 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
9 9 (0.34%) Oracle Database
10 8 (0.30%) DynamoDB
10 8 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.30%) Relational Database
11 6 (0.23%) BigQuery
12 5 (0.19%) Looker
12 5 (0.19%) SAP Data Services
12 5 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 77 (2.93%) JIRA
2 28 (1.07%) Git
3 14 (0.53%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.42%) GitLab
5 7 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
5 7 (0.27%) PowerBuilder
6 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.15%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.15%) Hudson
7 4 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.11%) JDeveloper
8 3 (0.11%) LoadRunner
8 3 (0.11%) Maven
8 3 (0.11%) Snyk
8 3 (0.11%) Zephyr
9 2 (0.076%) Burp Suite
9 2 (0.076%) MLflow
9 2 (0.076%) ScriptRunner
9 2 (0.076%) TestRail
General
1 598 (22.77%) Social Skills
2 573 (21.82%) Finance
3 207 (7.88%) Public Sector
4 195 (7.43%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.42%) Manufacturing
6 100 (3.81%) Banking
7 79 (3.01%) Legal
8 69 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
9 64 (2.44%) Telecoms
10 60 (2.28%) Billing
11 54 (2.06%) General Ledger
11 54 (2.06%) Retail
12 46 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
13 41 (1.56%) Marketing
14 33 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
15 32 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (0.95%) Law
17 24 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
18 23 (0.88%) Local Government
19 19 (0.72%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.54%) Oracle Fusion
2 60 (2.28%) REST
3 56 (2.13%) Terraform
4 37 (1.41%) SAP Fiori
5 35 (1.33%) Middleware
6 30 (1.14%) SOAP
6 30 (1.14%) Web Services
7 21 (0.80%) SailPoint
7 21 (0.80%) XML
8 18 (0.69%) OAuth
9 17 (0.65%) LDAP
10 15 (0.57%) ADO
11 14 (0.53%) SAPUI5
12 13 (0.50%) HTML
12 13 (0.50%) JSON
12 13 (0.50%) NETCONF
12 13 (0.50%) YANG
13 12 (0.46%) SAML
14 11 (0.42%) .NET
14 11 (0.42%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 121 (4.61%) Onboarding
2 50 (1.90%) CMDB
3 46 (1.75%) Operational Technology
4 42 (1.60%) Data Centre
5 39 (1.49%) Data Structures
6 36 (1.37%) Product Ownership
7 28 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
8 25 (0.95%) Cloud Native
8 25 (0.95%) Security Posture
9 24 (0.91%) AI Agents
10 23 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
11 21 (0.80%) Replication
12 20 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
12 20 (0.76%) Management Information System
13 19 (0.72%) Public Cloud
14 17 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
15 15 (0.57%) Hybrid Cloud
15 15 (0.57%) PKI
16 13 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.50%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.27%) Windows
2 62 (2.36%) Linux
3 26 (0.99%) Unix
4 24 (0.91%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.53%) Solaris
6 10 (0.38%) VMS
6 10 (0.38%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.30%) AIX
7 8 (0.30%) Android
7 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.038%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.038%) macOS
10 1 (0.038%) SUSE
10 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.038%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 521 (19.84%) Stakeholder Management
2 364 (13.86%) Migration
3 244 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 242 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
5 240 (9.14%) User Acceptance Testing
6 225 (8.57%) Cybersecurity
7 222 (8.45%) Workshop Facilitation
8 214 (8.15%) Validation
9 189 (7.20%) Analytics
10 180 (6.85%) Roadmaps
11 170 (6.47%) Requirements Gathering
12 167 (6.36%) Continuous Improvement
12 167 (6.36%) ERP
13 161 (6.13%) Data Migration
14 151 (5.75%) AI
15 149 (5.67%) Agile
16 130 (4.95%) Knowledge Transfer
17 120 (4.57%) Business Intelligence
18 119 (4.53%) DevOps
19 117 (4.46%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 167 (6.36%) SQL
2 90 (3.43%) Python
3 53 (2.02%) ABAP
3 53 (2.02%) PowerShell
4 31 (1.18%) JavaScript
5 26 (0.99%) Java
6 22 (0.84%) Bash
7 19 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 17 (0.65%) PL/SQL
9 16 (0.61%) C#
10 11 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.30%) T-SQL
12 7 (0.27%) Korn
12 7 (0.27%) Search Processing Language
12 7 (0.27%) TypeScript
13 5 (0.19%) Groovy
14 4 (0.15%) Bicep
14 4 (0.15%) Perl
14 4 (0.15%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 601 (22.89%) Security Cleared
2 405 (15.42%) SC Cleared
3 143 (5.45%) DV Cleared
4 85 (3.24%) BPSS Clearance
5 57 (2.17%) CISSP
5 57 (2.17%) Degree
6 49 (1.87%) CISM
7 37 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (0.88%) CCSP
10 18 (0.69%) AWS Certification
11 15 (0.57%) ACCA
12 14 (0.53%) CIMA
13 13 (0.50%) CRISC
14 10 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
14 10 (0.38%) PMP
15 9 (0.34%) DBS Check
16 8 (0.30%) Azure Certification
16 8 (0.30%) CISA
16 8 (0.30%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (3.96%) Data Quality
2 93 (3.54%) NIST
3 69 (2.63%) GRC
3 69 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 44 (1.68%) QA
5 41 (1.56%) NCSC
6 32 (1.22%) GDPR
7 27 (1.03%) PMO
8 26 (0.99%) SLA
9 16 (0.61%) PCI DSS
10 15 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
11 14 (0.53%) Accessibility
12 10 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
14 8 (0.30%) NIST 800
15 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (0.27%) GxP
16 6 (0.23%) Def Stans
16 6 (0.23%) IFRS
16 6 (0.23%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 74 (2.82%) Active Directory
2 25 (0.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (0.84%) 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 (0.30%) IAG
9 7 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.076%) NFS
12 2 (0.076%) PowerHA
13 1 (0.038%) Corosync
13 1 (0.038%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.038%) oVirt
13 1 (0.038%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.038%) RHEV
13 1 (0.038%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 45 (1.71%) Kubernetes
2 25 (0.95%) Ansible
3 24 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (0.76%) SCCM
5 11 (0.42%) FortiGate
6 10 (0.38%) Grafana
6 10 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (0.38%) vCenter Server
7 9 (0.34%) vRealize
8 6 (0.23%) Nagios
8 6 (0.23%) VxRail
8 6 (0.23%) ZABBIX
9 5 (0.19%) Control-M
9 5 (0.19%) logstash
9 5 (0.19%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.15%) CEMLI
10 4 (0.15%) Kibana
10 4 (0.15%) Netcool
10 4 (0.15%) Tivoli
11 3 (0.11%) Tivoli Monitoring
Vendors
1 498 (18.96%) SAP
2 421 (16.03%) Microsoft
3 293 (11.16%) Oracle
4 117 (4.46%) ServiceNow
5 64 (2.44%) Workday
6 48 (1.83%) VMware
7 40 (1.52%) Salesforce
8 39 (1.49%) Databricks
9 27 (1.03%) Splunk
10 26 (0.99%) CyberArk
10 26 (0.99%) Google
10 26 (0.99%) Palo Alto
11 22 (0.84%) BMC
12 21 (0.80%) Cisco
13 18 (0.69%) IBM
14 17 (0.65%) Ariba
14 17 (0.65%) Murex
14 17 (0.65%) Zscaler
15 16 (0.61%) Adobe
15 16 (0.61%) Veeam