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 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 28 27
Rank change year-on-year -5 -1 +7
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,633 1,874 2,024
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.62% 6.66% 6.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.11% 7.30% 6.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,542 1,154 1,146
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 £765
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 26 22
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.52 £55.00
25th Percentile £49.50 £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 £85.10 £81.25 £72.59
90th Percentile £89.88 £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 43,070 25,660 29,897
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.95% 91.15% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,333 16,528 18,273
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -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 3,798 1,445 1,249
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.80 £15.10
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.33 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -6.89%
75th Percentile £67.85 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £41.27
% change year-on-year +65.23% -39.05% -8.30%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 1,288 £550 -4.35% 403
South East -3 383 £533 -3.18% 129
North of England -18 349 £575 -4.17% 111
North West -17 227 £585 -6.02% 55
Midlands -8 220 £501 -12.00% 40
South West +5 185 £600 +9.09% 58
West Midlands -5 161 £500 -11.11% 31
East of England -17 108 £552 +0.36% 33
Yorkshire -23 91 £563 +14.33% 21
East Midlands -10 52 £550 -3.30% 9
North East -12 30 £750 +36.36% 35
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 599 (22.75%) Security Cleared
2 517 (19.64%) Stakeholder Management
3 495 (18.80%) SAP
4 416 (15.80%) Microsoft
5 403 (15.31%) SC Cleared
6 365 (13.86%) Migration
7 296 (11.24%) Oracle
8 295 (11.20%) Azure
9 242 (9.19%) User Acceptance Testing
10 241 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 238 (9.04%) Problem-Solving
12 226 (8.58%) Cybersecurity
13 219 (8.32%) SAP S/4HANA
13 219 (8.32%) Workshop Facilitation
14 215 (8.17%) Validation
15 188 (7.14%) Analytics
16 177 (6.72%) Roadmaps
17 169 (6.42%) SQL
18 167 (6.34%) Requirements Gathering
19 166 (6.30%) ERP
20 165 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
21 162 (6.15%) Data Migration
22 148 (5.62%) Agile
22 148 (5.62%) AI
23 144 (5.47%) AWS
24 143 (5.43%) DV Cleared
25 128 (4.86%) Power Platform
26 127 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
27 122 (4.63%) Business Intelligence
28 120 (4.56%) 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 58 (2.20%) SharePoint
2 42 (1.60%) Confluence
3 29 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.30%) 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 (0.076%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.076%) OpenEdge
9 2 (0.076%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.076%) WordPress
10 1 (0.038%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 44 (1.67%) 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 (8.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.70%) Oracle EBS
3 48 (1.82%) SAP FI
4 45 (1.71%) SAP Payroll
5 40 (1.52%) SAP PSCD
6 38 (1.44%) Oracle ERP
6 38 (1.44%) Oracle Payables
6 38 (1.44%) SAP HCM
7 37 (1.41%) Oracle Receivables
8 36 (1.37%) Oracle General Ledger
9 32 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
9 32 (1.22%) SAP CO
10 30 (1.14%) Workday HCM
11 29 (1.10%) SAP HR
12 27 (1.03%) SAP FI/CO
13 25 (0.95%) SAP SD
14 23 (0.87%) NetSuite
14 23 (0.87%) Oracle Payroll
14 23 (0.87%) SAP BRIM
15 22 (0.84%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 295 (11.20%) Azure
2 144 (5.47%) AWS
3 128 (4.86%) Power Platform
4 116 (4.41%) Dynamics 365
5 89 (3.38%) SuccessFactors
6 86 (3.27%) GCP
7 79 (3.00%) OCI
8 76 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 67 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 59 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
11 50 (1.90%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.63%) SaaS
13 37 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
14 27 (1.03%) PowerApps
15 26 (0.99%) GitHub
16 24 (0.91%) Microsoft Purview
17 23 (0.87%) Snowflake
18 17 (0.65%) Azure Logic Apps
18 17 (0.65%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 16 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 61 (2.32%) Firewall
1 61 (2.32%) Network Security
2 31 (1.18%) WAN
3 28 (1.06%) BGP
4 24 (0.91%) VPN
5 17 (0.65%) DNS
6 15 (0.57%) LAN
7 13 (0.49%) SNMP
7 13 (0.49%) 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 (0.30%) NGFW
13 7 (0.27%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (2.81%) Power BI
2 31 (1.18%) Oracle BI Publisher
2 31 (1.18%) Oracle Reports
3 28 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (0.99%) SAP BW
5 25 (0.95%) SAP HANA
6 24 (0.91%) Metadata
6 24 (0.91%) SQL Server
7 18 (0.68%) Tableau
8 16 (0.61%) BusinessObjects
8 16 (0.61%) Power Query
9 10 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.34%) Oracle Database
11 8 (0.30%) DynamoDB
11 8 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
11 8 (0.30%) Relational Database
12 6 (0.23%) BigQuery
13 5 (0.19%) Looker
13 5 (0.19%) SAP Data Services
13 5 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 77 (2.92%) JIRA
2 27 (1.03%) Git
3 14 (0.53%) 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%) Zephyr
10 2 (0.076%) MLflow
10 2 (0.076%) Postman
10 2 (0.076%) TestRail
10 2 (0.076%) Toad
General
1 596 (22.64%) Social Skills
2 574 (21.80%) Finance
3 206 (7.82%) Public Sector
4 195 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.41%) Manufacturing
6 99 (3.76%) Banking
7 79 (3.00%) Legal
8 68 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
9 64 (2.43%) Telecoms
10 60 (2.28%) Billing
11 53 (2.01%) General Ledger
11 53 (2.01%) Retail
12 45 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
13 41 (1.56%) Marketing
14 33 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
15 32 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (0.95%) Law
17 24 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
18 23 (0.87%) Local Government
19 19 (0.72%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.53%) 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 22 (0.84%) XML
8 21 (0.80%) SailPoint
9 18 (0.68%) OAuth
10 17 (0.65%) LDAP
11 14 (0.53%) ADO
11 14 (0.53%) HTML
11 14 (0.53%) SAPUI5
12 13 (0.49%) JSON
12 13 (0.49%) NETCONF
12 13 (0.49%) YANG
13 12 (0.46%) CSS
13 12 (0.46%) SAML
14 11 (0.42%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 119 (4.52%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.94%) CMDB
3 47 (1.79%) Operational Technology
4 43 (1.63%) Data Centre
5 38 (1.44%) Data Structures
6 35 (1.33%) Product Ownership
7 27 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
8 25 (0.95%) Cloud Native
8 25 (0.95%) Security Posture
9 23 (0.87%) AI Agents
9 23 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
10 22 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (0.80%) Replication
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 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (0.49%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 86 (3.27%) Windows
2 62 (2.35%) Linux
3 25 (0.95%) 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
1 517 (19.64%) Stakeholder Management
2 365 (13.86%) Migration
3 242 (9.19%) User Acceptance Testing
4 241 (9.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 238 (9.04%) Problem-Solving
6 226 (8.58%) Cybersecurity
7 219 (8.32%) Workshop Facilitation
8 215 (8.17%) Validation
9 188 (7.14%) Analytics
10 177 (6.72%) Roadmaps
11 167 (6.34%) Requirements Gathering
12 166 (6.30%) ERP
13 165 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
14 162 (6.15%) Data Migration
15 148 (5.62%) Agile
15 148 (5.62%) AI
16 127 (4.82%) Knowledge Transfer
17 122 (4.63%) Business Intelligence
18 120 (4.56%) DevOps
19 114 (4.33%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 169 (6.42%) SQL
2 90 (3.42%) Python
3 54 (2.05%) PowerShell
4 53 (2.01%) ABAP
5 33 (1.25%) JavaScript
6 26 (0.99%) Java
7 21 (0.80%) Bash
8 20 (0.76%) PL/SQL
9 19 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 16 (0.61%) C#
11 11 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
12 8 (0.30%) 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%) Shell Script
16 3 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 599 (22.75%) Security Cleared
2 403 (15.31%) SC Cleared
3 143 (5.43%) DV Cleared
4 85 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 57 (2.16%) CISSP
6 56 (2.13%) Degree
7 49 (1.86%) CISM
8 37 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
9 27 (1.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 23 (0.87%) CCSP
11 18 (0.68%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.57%) ACCA
13 14 (0.53%) CIMA
14 13 (0.49%) CRISC
15 10 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (0.38%) PMP
16 9 (0.34%) DBS Check
17 8 (0.30%) CCIE
17 8 (0.30%) CISA
18 7 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.91%) Data Quality
2 93 (3.53%) NIST
3 69 (2.62%) GRC
3 69 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 43 (1.63%) QA
5 41 (1.56%) NCSC
6 32 (1.22%) GDPR
7 28 (1.06%) PMO
8 26 (0.99%) SLA
9 16 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
9 16 (0.61%) PCI DSS
10 15 (0.57%) Accessibility
11 10 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 8 (0.30%) NIST 800
14 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (0.27%) GxP
15 6 (0.23%) Def Stans
15 6 (0.23%) IFRS
15 6 (0.23%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 74 (2.81%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (0.91%) VMware NSX
4 16 (0.61%) vSphere
5 15 (0.57%) Docker
6 11 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (0.38%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.34%) Firmware
9 8 (0.30%) IAG
10 7 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
11 6 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
13 2 (0.076%) NFS
13 2 (0.076%) PowerHA
14 1 (0.038%) BitLocker
14 1 (0.038%) Corosync
14 1 (0.038%) oVirt
14 1 (0.038%) RHEV
14 1 (0.038%) SRDF
14 1 (0.038%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 45 (1.71%) Kubernetes
2 26 (0.99%) Ansible
3 23 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (0.76%) 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
1 495 (18.80%) SAP
2 416 (15.80%) Microsoft
3 296 (11.24%) Oracle
4 116 (4.41%) ServiceNow
5 62 (2.35%) Workday
6 53 (2.01%) VMware
7 40 (1.52%) Salesforce
8 39 (1.48%) Databricks
9 27 (1.03%) Splunk
10 26 (0.99%) CyberArk
10 26 (0.99%) Palo Alto
11 25 (0.95%) Google
12 22 (0.84%) BMC
13 21 (0.80%) Cisco
14 18 (0.68%) IBM
15 17 (0.65%) Ariba
15 17 (0.65%) Zscaler
16 16 (0.61%) Adobe
16 16 (0.61%) Murex
16 16 (0.61%) Veeam