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 1 October 2026.

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

6 months to
1 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 2,593 1,837 2,024
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.57% 6.57% 6.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.04% 7.20% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,530 1,157 1,154
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 £658 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £764
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 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 £94.88 £86.65 £74.99
UK median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -1.94% +24.40% -4.15%

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 42,912 25,497 30,028
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.18% 91.25% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,400 16,457 18,407
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £727 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,611 1,389 1,358
10th Percentile £14.65 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.33 £21.37
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -0.46%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -2.82%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 1,256 £550 -4.35% 2,033
South East -7 379 £533 -3.18% 497
North of England -21 333 £578 -0.43% 449
Midlands -8 228 £500 -11.11% 255
North West -16 220 £583 -5.97% 264
South West +14 193 £553 -5.06% 217
West Midlands +2 164 £500 -11.11% 197
East of England -14 106 £552 +0.36% 161
Yorkshire -20 89 £575 +21.05% 100
East Midlands -10 58 £525 -6.67% 58
North East -23 23 £750 +38.89% 86
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 587 (22.64%) Security Cleared
2 486 (18.74%) Stakeholder Management
3 476 (18.36%) SAP
4 396 (15.27%) SC Cleared
5 384 (14.81%) Microsoft
6 356 (13.73%) Migration
7 305 (11.76%) Oracle
8 269 (10.37%) Azure
9 245 (9.45%) User Acceptance Testing
10 244 (9.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 216 (8.33%) Problem-Solving
12 215 (8.29%) Cybersecurity
13 205 (7.91%) Validation
14 204 (7.87%) Workshop Facilitation
15 199 (7.67%) SAP S/4HANA
16 179 (6.90%) SQL
17 177 (6.83%) Analytics
18 176 (6.79%) Roadmaps
19 159 (6.13%) Data Migration
20 157 (6.05%) Continuous Improvement
20 157 (6.05%) ERP
21 155 (5.98%) Requirements Gathering
22 154 (5.94%) AWS
23 150 (5.78%) Agile
24 139 (5.36%) AI
25 138 (5.32%) DV Cleared
26 137 (5.28%) Power Platform
27 122 (4.70%) Dynamics 365
28 121 (4.67%) Business Intelligence
29 118 (4.55%) Knowledge Transfer

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 63 (2.43%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.54%) Confluence
3 30 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.35%) WebSphere
5 8 (0.31%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
6 6 (0.23%) SAS
7 4 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.15%) CMS
8 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.12%) IIS
8 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.12%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
9 2 (0.077%) Apache
9 2 (0.077%) SAP Portal
9 2 (0.077%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.077%) WordPress
10 1 (0.039%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.039%) Oracle Application Server
10 1 (0.039%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 40 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) 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
1 199 (7.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.74%) Oracle EBS
3 47 (1.81%) SAP FI
4 41 (1.58%) Oracle Payables
4 41 (1.58%) SAP PSCD
5 40 (1.54%) SAP Payroll
6 39 (1.50%) Oracle ERP
7 36 (1.39%) Oracle Receivables
8 34 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
8 34 (1.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 32 (1.23%) SAP CO
10 30 (1.16%) SAP HCM
10 30 (1.16%) Workday HCM
11 29 (1.12%) NetSuite
12 28 (1.08%) SAP HR
13 27 (1.04%) SAP FI/CO
14 25 (0.96%) SAP SD
15 22 (0.85%) SAP BRIM
15 22 (0.85%) SAP MM
16 20 (0.77%) Oracle Payroll
Cloud Services
1 269 (10.37%) Azure
2 154 (5.94%) AWS
3 137 (5.28%) Power Platform
4 122 (4.70%) Dynamics 365
5 90 (3.47%) SuccessFactors
6 86 (3.32%) GCP
7 76 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
7 76 (2.93%) OCI
8 60 (2.31%) Power Automate
9 58 (2.24%) Entra ID
10 53 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (1.62%) SaaS
12 39 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
13 30 (1.16%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.00%) Microsoft Purview
15 23 (0.89%) GitHub
16 20 (0.77%) Snowflake
17 16 (0.62%) Copilot Studio
17 16 (0.62%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 14 (0.54%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 63 (2.43%) Firewall
2 58 (2.24%) Network Security
3 32 (1.23%) WAN
4 28 (1.08%) BGP
5 24 (0.93%) VPN
6 17 (0.66%) DNS
7 15 (0.58%) LAN
7 15 (0.58%) SNMP
8 13 (0.50%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
9 11 (0.42%) 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 76 (2.93%) Power BI
2 33 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
3 31 (1.20%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 28 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
5 27 (1.04%) SAP BW
6 26 (1.00%) SAP HANA
6 26 (1.00%) SQL Server
7 25 (0.96%) Metadata
8 23 (0.89%) Tableau
9 17 (0.66%) BusinessObjects
10 12 (0.46%) Power Query
11 9 (0.35%) Oracle Database
12 8 (0.31%) DynamoDB
12 8 (0.31%) Relational Database
13 7 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
14 6 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
14 6 (0.23%) Oracle ODI
14 6 (0.23%) SAP Data Services
15 5 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
15 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 79 (3.05%) JIRA
2 24 (0.93%) Git
3 14 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.39%) GitLab
4 10 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
5 7 (0.27%) PowerBuilder
6 6 (0.23%) Hudson
7 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.15%) 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 (0.077%) MLflow
10 2 (0.077%) Postman
10 2 (0.077%) tSQLt
General
1 574 (22.14%) Finance
1 574 (22.14%) Social Skills
2 199 (7.67%) Public Sector
3 181 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (3.70%) Manufacturing
5 94 (3.63%) Banking
6 77 (2.97%) Legal
7 65 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
8 63 (2.43%) Telecoms
9 57 (2.20%) Billing
10 51 (1.97%) Retail
11 49 (1.89%) General Ledger
12 46 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
13 43 (1.66%) Marketing
14 34 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
15 33 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 24 (0.93%) Law
16 24 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
17 21 (0.81%) Local Government
18 17 (0.66%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.63%) Oracle Fusion
2 67 (2.58%) REST
3 51 (1.97%) Terraform
4 37 (1.43%) SAP Fiori
5 36 (1.39%) Middleware
6 33 (1.27%) SOAP
7 30 (1.16%) Web Services
8 27 (1.04%) XML
9 23 (0.89%) SailPoint
10 19 (0.73%) LDAP
10 19 (0.73%) OAuth
11 17 (0.66%) JSON
12 16 (0.62%) HTML
13 14 (0.54%) CSS
14 13 (0.50%) ADO
14 13 (0.50%) NETCONF
14 13 (0.50%) SAML
14 13 (0.50%) SAPUI5
14 13 (0.50%) YANG
15 11 (0.42%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 109 (4.20%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.97%) CMDB
3 47 (1.81%) Operational Technology
4 39 (1.50%) Data Centre
5 34 (1.31%) Data Structures
5 34 (1.31%) Product Ownership
6 29 (1.12%) Security Posture
7 26 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
7 26 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
7 26 (1.00%) Legacy Systems
8 21 (0.81%) AI Agents
8 21 (0.81%) Cloud Native
9 20 (0.77%) Replication
10 17 (0.66%) Management Information System
11 16 (0.62%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (0.58%) PKI
12 15 (0.58%) Public Cloud
13 14 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
14 12 (0.46%) Life Science
14 12 (0.46%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 81 (3.12%) Windows
2 63 (2.43%) Linux
3 25 (0.96%) Unix
4 22 (0.85%) Windows Server
5 20 (0.77%) Solaris
6 10 (0.39%) AIX
6 10 (0.39%) VMS
7 7 (0.27%) Android
7 7 (0.27%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.23%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.039%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.039%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.039%) SUSE
10 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 486 (18.74%) Stakeholder Management
2 356 (13.73%) Migration
3 245 (9.45%) User Acceptance Testing
4 244 (9.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 216 (8.33%) Problem-Solving
6 215 (8.29%) Cybersecurity
7 205 (7.91%) Validation
8 204 (7.87%) Workshop Facilitation
9 177 (6.83%) Analytics
10 176 (6.79%) Roadmaps
11 159 (6.13%) Data Migration
12 157 (6.05%) Continuous Improvement
12 157 (6.05%) ERP
13 155 (5.98%) Requirements Gathering
14 150 (5.78%) Agile
15 139 (5.36%) AI
16 121 (4.67%) Business Intelligence
17 118 (4.55%) Knowledge Transfer
18 109 (4.20%) Project Delivery
19 107 (4.13%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 179 (6.90%) SQL
2 87 (3.36%) Python
3 49 (1.89%) ABAP
4 47 (1.81%) PowerShell
5 35 (1.35%) JavaScript
6 27 (1.04%) PL/SQL
7 26 (1.00%) Java
8 18 (0.69%) Bash
9 15 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 12 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
11 10 (0.39%) C#
11 10 (0.39%) T-SQL
12 9 (0.35%) Search Processing Language
13 7 (0.27%) TypeScript
14 6 (0.23%) Korn
15 5 (0.19%) Groovy
15 5 (0.19%) Perl
15 5 (0.19%) R
16 4 (0.15%) Shell Script
17 3 (0.12%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 587 (22.64%) Security Cleared
2 396 (15.27%) SC Cleared
3 138 (5.32%) DV Cleared
4 83 (3.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 62 (2.39%) CISSP
6 56 (2.16%) Degree
7 51 (1.97%) CISM
8 39 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 25 (0.96%) CCSP
11 16 (0.62%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.58%) CRISC
13 14 (0.54%) ACCA
14 12 (0.46%) CIMA
14 12 (0.46%) PMP
15 10 (0.39%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (0.39%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
16 9 (0.35%) Azure Certification
16 9 (0.35%) CISA
17 8 (0.31%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.55%) NIST
2 89 (3.43%) Data Quality
3 70 (2.70%) GRC
4 68 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 42 (1.62%) NCSC
6 40 (1.54%) QA
7 28 (1.08%) GDPR
8 27 (1.04%) SLA
9 25 (0.96%) PMO
10 16 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
12 12 (0.46%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
15 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 8 (0.31%) GxP
17 6 (0.23%) COBIT
17 6 (0.23%) IFRS
17 6 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 67 (2.58%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (1.00%) VMware NSX
4 15 (0.58%) Docker
4 15 (0.58%) vSphere
5 11 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.39%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.31%) IAG
8 6 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.19%) Firmware
10 4 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.077%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.077%) 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 43 (1.66%) Kubernetes
2 24 (0.93%) Ansible
3 21 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.69%) SCCM
5 12 (0.46%) vRealize
6 11 (0.42%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.39%) Grafana
7 10 (0.39%) vCenter Server
8 9 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.31%) Nagios
9 8 (0.31%) ZABBIX
10 6 (0.23%) Netcool
10 6 (0.23%) Tivoli
10 6 (0.23%) VxRail
11 5 (0.19%) OpenView
11 5 (0.19%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.19%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 4 (0.15%) CEMLI
12 4 (0.15%) Control-M
12 4 (0.15%) logstash
Vendors
1 476 (18.36%) SAP
2 384 (14.81%) Microsoft
3 305 (11.76%) Oracle
4 117 (4.51%) ServiceNow
5 66 (2.55%) Workday
6 54 (2.08%) VMware
7 38 (1.47%) Salesforce
8 36 (1.39%) Databricks
9 29 (1.12%) Splunk
10 26 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 25 (0.96%) CyberArk
12 24 (0.93%) BMC
13 23 (0.89%) Google
14 22 (0.85%) Cisco
15 19 (0.73%) IBM
16 18 (0.69%) Ariba
16 18 (0.69%) OpenText
17 17 (0.66%) Zscaler
18 16 (0.62%) Dell
18 16 (0.62%) Veeam