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 5 October 2026.

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

6 months to
5 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 2,580 1,842 2,045
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.60% 6.60% 6.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.08% 7.24% 6.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,519 1,146 1,176
10th Percentile £413 £413 £408
25th Percentile £463 £488 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £563 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +2.27% -
75th Percentile £663 £663 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £754
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 23 22
10th Percentile £36.25 £27.93 £55.00
25th Percentile £41.25 £39.05 £61.53
Median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -4.52% +24.40% -2.66%
75th Percentile £86.00 £81.25 £72.59
90th Percentile £93.75 £87.00 £74.99
UK median hourly rate £74.50 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -3.87% +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 42,458 25,439 30,190
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 91.08% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,019 16,376 18,496
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
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 3,652 1,417 1,343
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.79 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.48 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% -4.32%
75th Percentile £67.89 £52.16 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -4 1,263 £550 -4.35% 1,864
South East -7 378 £540 -1.82% 552
North of England -20 334 £578 -3.75% 504
Midlands -4 223 £500 -13.04% 276
North West -15 222 £585 -5.84% 266
South West +13 188 £578 +0.52% 243
West Midlands -4 159 £500 -13.04% 192
East of England -14 103 £552 +0.36% 168
Yorkshire -18 87 £575 +21.05% 116
East Midlands -6 58 £525 -9.09% 84
North East -21 24 £750 +36.36% 123
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 5 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.

1 581 (22.52%) Security Cleared
2 488 (18.91%) Stakeholder Management
3 472 (18.29%) SAP
4 391 (15.16%) SC Cleared
5 386 (14.96%) Microsoft
6 351 (13.60%) Migration
7 301 (11.67%) Oracle
8 267 (10.35%) Azure
9 241 (9.34%) User Acceptance Testing
10 240 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 220 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
12 217 (8.41%) Cybersecurity
13 210 (8.14%) Validation
14 209 (8.10%) Workshop Facilitation
15 204 (7.91%) SAP S/4HANA
16 182 (7.05%) Analytics
17 176 (6.82%) Roadmaps
18 172 (6.67%) SQL
19 158 (6.12%) Data Migration
19 158 (6.12%) Requirements Gathering
20 157 (6.09%) ERP
21 156 (6.05%) Continuous Improvement
22 148 (5.74%) Agile
23 147 (5.70%) AWS
24 140 (5.43%) AI
25 135 (5.23%) DV Cleared
26 132 (5.12%) Power Platform
27 120 (4.65%) Dynamics 365
28 119 (4.61%) Knowledge Transfer
29 117 (4.53%) Business Intelligence

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 (2.36%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.55%) Confluence
3 30 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.31%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.27%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
6 6 (0.23%) SAS
7 5 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.16%) CMS
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.12%) IIS
9 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.12%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.078%) Apache
10 2 (0.078%) SAP Portal
10 2 (0.078%) Smallworld
10 2 (0.078%) WordPress
11 1 (0.039%) OpenEdge
11 1 (0.039%) Oracle Application Server
11 1 (0.039%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 42 (1.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) 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
1 204 (7.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.75%) Oracle EBS
3 47 (1.82%) SAP FI
4 42 (1.63%) SAP Payroll
5 41 (1.59%) SAP PSCD
6 39 (1.51%) Oracle Payables
7 38 (1.47%) Oracle ERP
8 36 (1.40%) Oracle Receivables
9 35 (1.36%) Oracle General Ledger
10 34 (1.32%) Dynamics CRM
11 32 (1.24%) SAP CO
11 32 (1.24%) SAP HCM
12 30 (1.16%) Workday HCM
13 28 (1.09%) NetSuite
14 27 (1.05%) SAP FI/CO
14 27 (1.05%) SAP HR
15 25 (0.97%) SAP SD
16 22 (0.85%) SAP BRIM
16 22 (0.85%) SAP MM
17 20 (0.78%) Oracle Payroll
Cloud Services
1 267 (10.35%) Azure
2 147 (5.70%) AWS
3 132 (5.12%) Power Platform
4 120 (4.65%) Dynamics 365
5 87 (3.37%) SuccessFactors
6 86 (3.33%) GCP
7 74 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
7 74 (2.87%) OCI
8 57 (2.21%) Entra ID
9 55 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
10 54 (2.09%) Power Automate
11 42 (1.63%) SaaS
12 37 (1.43%) Microsoft Copilot
13 28 (1.09%) PowerApps
14 25 (0.97%) Microsoft Purview
15 23 (0.89%) GitHub
16 21 (0.81%) Snowflake
17 16 (0.62%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 14 (0.54%) Amazon S3
18 14 (0.54%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 62 (2.40%) Firewall
2 56 (2.17%) Network Security
3 32 (1.24%) WAN
4 28 (1.09%) BGP
5 24 (0.93%) VPN
6 17 (0.66%) DNS
7 15 (0.58%) LAN
8 13 (0.50%) SNMP
8 13 (0.50%) 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 (0.31%) NGFW
12 8 (0.31%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.31%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (2.83%) Power BI
2 30 (1.16%) Oracle BI Publisher
2 30 (1.16%) Oracle Reports
3 27 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
3 27 (1.05%) SAP BW
4 26 (1.01%) SAP HANA
5 25 (0.97%) Metadata
5 25 (0.97%) SQL Server
6 20 (0.78%) Tableau
7 17 (0.66%) BusinessObjects
8 13 (0.50%) Power Query
9 9 (0.35%) Oracle Database
10 8 (0.31%) DynamoDB
10 8 (0.31%) Relational Database
11 7 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
11 7 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.23%) Oracle ODI
12 6 (0.23%) SAP Data Services
13 5 (0.19%) BigQuery
13 5 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 77 (2.98%) JIRA
2 26 (1.01%) Git
3 14 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.39%) GitLab
5 9 (0.35%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.27%) PowerBuilder
7 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.16%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.16%) Hudson
8 4 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.12%) JDeveloper
9 3 (0.12%) LoadRunner
9 3 (0.12%) Maven
9 3 (0.12%) Snyk
9 3 (0.12%) Toad
9 3 (0.12%) Zephyr
10 2 (0.078%) MLflow
10 2 (0.078%) Postman
10 2 (0.078%) TestRail
General
1 568 (22.02%) Finance
1 568 (22.02%) Social Skills
2 201 (7.79%) Public Sector
3 188 (7.29%) Analytical Skills
4 100 (3.88%) Manufacturing
5 95 (3.68%) Banking
6 78 (3.02%) Legal
7 65 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (2.44%) Telecoms
9 60 (2.33%) Billing
10 52 (2.02%) Retail
11 51 (1.98%) General Ledger
12 46 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.63%) Marketing
14 35 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
15 32 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 24 (0.93%) Law
16 24 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
17 22 (0.85%) Local Government
18 17 (0.66%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.64%) Oracle Fusion
2 62 (2.40%) REST
3 53 (2.05%) Terraform
4 37 (1.43%) Middleware
4 37 (1.43%) SAP Fiori
5 33 (1.28%) SOAP
6 30 (1.16%) Web Services
7 26 (1.01%) XML
8 21 (0.81%) SailPoint
9 18 (0.70%) OAuth
10 17 (0.66%) LDAP
11 16 (0.62%) JSON
12 15 (0.58%) HTML
13 13 (0.50%) ADO
13 13 (0.50%) CSS
13 13 (0.50%) NETCONF
13 13 (0.50%) SAPUI5
13 13 (0.50%) YANG
14 12 (0.47%) SAML
15 11 (0.43%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 113 (4.38%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.98%) CMDB
3 47 (1.82%) Operational Technology
4 40 (1.55%) Data Centre
5 36 (1.40%) Data Structures
6 33 (1.28%) Product Ownership
7 27 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
7 27 (1.05%) Security Posture
8 25 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
9 23 (0.89%) Cloud Native
10 20 (0.78%) AI Agents
10 20 (0.78%) Replication
11 18 (0.70%) Management Information System
12 17 (0.66%) Public Cloud
13 16 (0.62%) Greenfield Project
14 15 (0.58%) PKI
15 14 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
16 13 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.50%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 77 (2.98%) Windows
2 59 (2.29%) Linux
3 24 (0.93%) Unix
4 22 (0.85%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.74%) Solaris
6 10 (0.39%) VMS
7 8 (0.31%) AIX
8 7 (0.27%) Android
8 7 (0.27%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.23%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.039%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.039%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.039%) SUSE
11 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 488 (18.91%) Stakeholder Management
2 351 (13.60%) Migration
3 241 (9.34%) User Acceptance Testing
4 240 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 220 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
6 217 (8.41%) Cybersecurity
7 210 (8.14%) Validation
8 209 (8.10%) Workshop Facilitation
9 182 (7.05%) Analytics
10 176 (6.82%) Roadmaps
11 158 (6.12%) Data Migration
11 158 (6.12%) Requirements Gathering
12 157 (6.09%) ERP
13 156 (6.05%) Continuous Improvement
14 148 (5.74%) Agile
15 140 (5.43%) AI
16 119 (4.61%) Knowledge Transfer
17 117 (4.53%) Business Intelligence
18 109 (4.22%) Project Delivery
19 108 (4.19%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 172 (6.67%) SQL
2 84 (3.26%) Python
3 50 (1.94%) ABAP
4 46 (1.78%) PowerShell
5 34 (1.32%) JavaScript
6 26 (1.01%) Java
7 24 (0.93%) PL/SQL
8 18 (0.70%) Bash
9 16 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 12 (0.47%) C#
10 12 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (0.35%) T-SQL
12 7 (0.27%) Search Processing Language
12 7 (0.27%) TypeScript
13 6 (0.23%) Korn
14 5 (0.19%) Groovy
14 5 (0.19%) R
15 4 (0.16%) Bicep
15 4 (0.16%) Perl
15 4 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 581 (22.52%) Security Cleared
2 391 (15.16%) SC Cleared
3 135 (5.23%) DV Cleared
4 80 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 58 (2.25%) CISSP
6 55 (2.13%) Degree
7 48 (1.86%) CISM
8 38 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
9 28 (1.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 24 (0.93%) CCSP
11 17 (0.66%) AWS Certification
12 14 (0.54%) ACCA
12 14 (0.54%) CRISC
13 12 (0.47%) CIMA
14 11 (0.43%) PMP
15 10 (0.39%) CompTIA Security+
16 9 (0.35%) CISA
16 9 (0.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
17 8 (0.31%) CCIE
17 8 (0.31%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (3.64%) Data Quality
2 90 (3.49%) NIST
3 70 (2.71%) GRC
4 66 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 42 (1.63%) QA
6 41 (1.59%) NCSC
7 29 (1.12%) GDPR
8 27 (1.05%) SLA
9 25 (0.97%) PMO
10 16 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
12 12 (0.47%) PCI DSS
13 10 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
13 10 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 8 (0.31%) GxP
16 6 (0.23%) COBIT
16 6 (0.23%) IFRS
16 6 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 66 (2.56%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (0.97%) VMware NSX
4 15 (0.58%) Docker
4 15 (0.58%) vSphere
5 11 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.39%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.31%) IAG
8 6 (0.23%) Firmware
8 6 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.078%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.078%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.039%) NFS
11 1 (0.039%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.039%) oVirt
11 1 (0.039%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.039%) RHEV
11 1 (0.039%) SRDF
11 1 (0.039%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 43 (1.67%) Kubernetes
2 25 (0.97%) Ansible
3 21 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.70%) SCCM
5 12 (0.47%) vRealize
6 11 (0.43%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.39%) Grafana
7 10 (0.39%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.23%) Nagios
9 6 (0.23%) VxRail
9 6 (0.23%) ZABBIX
10 5 (0.19%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.16%) CEMLI
11 4 (0.16%) logstash
11 4 (0.16%) Netcool
11 4 (0.16%) Tivoli
12 3 (0.12%) Kibana
12 3 (0.12%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 3 (0.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 472 (18.29%) SAP
2 386 (14.96%) Microsoft
3 301 (11.67%) Oracle
4 113 (4.38%) ServiceNow
5 66 (2.56%) Workday
6 52 (2.02%) VMware
7 39 (1.51%) Salesforce
8 36 (1.40%) Databricks
9 27 (1.05%) Palo Alto
9 27 (1.05%) Splunk
10 25 (0.97%) CyberArk
11 24 (0.93%) Google
12 22 (0.85%) BMC
12 22 (0.85%) Cisco
13 18 (0.70%) Ariba
14 17 (0.66%) IBM
14 17 (0.66%) Zscaler
15 16 (0.62%) Dell
15 16 (0.62%) OpenText
15 16 (0.62%) Veeam