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 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 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 2,605 1,847 2,037
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.60% 6.60% 6.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.07% 7.24% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,537 1,159 1,161
10th Percentile £413 £413 £413
25th Percentile £463 £488 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £560 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.79% +1.82% -
75th Percentile £660 £660 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £765
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 42,886 25,528 30,220
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 91.21% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,349 16,462 18,545
10th Percentile £325 £279 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.11%
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 3,627 1,402 1,358
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.31 £21.37
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -1.20%
75th Percentile £67.87 £52.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,267 £550 -4.35% 1,983
South East -10 381 £533 -3.18% 520
North of England -23 333 £580 -0.04% 474
Midlands -7 227 £500 -12.09% 249
North West -15 221 £585 -5.65% 273
South West +9 191 £556 -3.30% 219
West Midlands -1 162 £500 -13.04% 191
East of England -15 107 £552 +0.36% 165
Yorkshire -19 88 £575 +21.05% 105
East Midlands -9 59 £525 -5.62% 57
North East -28 23 £750 +38.89% 97
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 585 (22.46%) Security Cleared
2 491 (18.85%) Stakeholder Management
3 478 (18.35%) SAP
4 393 (15.09%) SC Cleared
5 389 (14.93%) Microsoft
6 354 (13.59%) Migration
7 306 (11.75%) Oracle
8 271 (10.40%) Azure
9 245 (9.40%) User Acceptance Testing
10 241 (9.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 219 (8.41%) Problem-Solving
12 217 (8.33%) Cybersecurity
13 209 (8.02%) Validation
13 209 (8.02%) Workshop Facilitation
14 200 (7.68%) SAP S/4HANA
15 182 (6.99%) Analytics
16 176 (6.76%) Roadmaps
16 176 (6.76%) SQL
17 158 (6.07%) Continuous Improvement
17 158 (6.07%) Data Migration
17 158 (6.07%) Requirements Gathering
18 157 (6.03%) ERP
19 153 (5.87%) Agile
19 153 (5.87%) AWS
20 142 (5.45%) AI
21 138 (5.30%) DV Cleared
22 135 (5.18%) Power Platform
23 123 (4.72%) Dynamics 365
24 119 (4.57%) Business Intelligence
24 119 (4.57%) 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 62 (2.38%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.54%) Confluence
3 30 (1.15%) 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 (0.038%) Oracle Application Server
10 1 (0.038%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.038%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 42 (1.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.038%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.038%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.038%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.038%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 200 (7.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.73%) Oracle EBS
3 46 (1.77%) SAP FI
4 41 (1.57%) SAP Payroll
4 41 (1.57%) SAP PSCD
5 40 (1.54%) Oracle Payables
6 39 (1.50%) Oracle ERP
7 35 (1.34%) Oracle Receivables
8 34 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
8 34 (1.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 31 (1.19%) SAP CO
9 31 (1.19%) SAP HCM
10 30 (1.15%) Workday HCM
11 28 (1.07%) NetSuite
11 28 (1.07%) SAP HR
12 26 (1.00%) SAP FI/CO
13 25 (0.96%) SAP SD
14 23 (0.88%) SAP MM
15 22 (0.84%) SAP BRIM
16 20 (0.77%) Oracle Payroll
Cloud Services
1 271 (10.40%) Azure
2 153 (5.87%) AWS
3 135 (5.18%) Power Platform
4 123 (4.72%) Dynamics 365
5 91 (3.49%) SuccessFactors
6 88 (3.38%) GCP
7 76 (2.92%) OCI
8 75 (2.88%) Microsoft 365
9 59 (2.26%) Entra ID
9 59 (2.26%) Power Automate
10 55 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (1.61%) SaaS
12 39 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
13 29 (1.11%) PowerApps
14 26 (1.00%) Microsoft Purview
15 23 (0.88%) GitHub
16 20 (0.77%) Snowflake
17 16 (0.61%) Copilot Studio
17 16 (0.61%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 14 (0.54%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 63 (2.42%) Firewall
2 58 (2.23%) Network Security
3 32 (1.23%) WAN
4 28 (1.07%) BGP
5 24 (0.92%) VPN
6 17 (0.65%) 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 (0.38%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.38%) 5G
10 10 (0.38%) IPsec
10 10 (0.38%) MPLS
10 10 (0.38%) 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 75 (2.88%) Power BI
2 32 (1.23%) Oracle Reports
3 31 (1.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 27 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
4 27 (1.04%) SAP BW
4 27 (1.04%) SQL Server
5 26 (1.00%) SAP HANA
6 25 (0.96%) Metadata
7 21 (0.81%) Tableau
8 17 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
9 12 (0.46%) Power Query
10 9 (0.35%) Oracle Database
11 8 (0.31%) DynamoDB
11 8 (0.31%) Relational Database
12 7 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.23%) Oracle ODI
13 6 (0.23%) SAP Data Services
14 5 (0.19%) Looker
14 5 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 78 (2.99%) JIRA
2 25 (0.96%) Git
3 14 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 10 (0.38%) GitLab
4 10 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
5 7 (0.27%) PowerBuilder
6 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.15%) Cypress.io
7 4 (0.15%) Hudson
7 4 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.12%) JDeveloper
8 3 (0.12%) LoadRunner
8 3 (0.12%) Maven
8 3 (0.12%) Snyk
8 3 (0.12%) Toad
8 3 (0.12%) Zephyr
9 2 (0.077%) JMeter
9 2 (0.077%) MSI
9 2 (0.077%) Postman
General
1 574 (22.03%) Finance
1 574 (22.03%) Social Skills
2 201 (7.72%) Public Sector
3 186 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (3.80%) Manufacturing
5 95 (3.65%) Banking
6 79 (3.03%) Legal
7 64 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
7 64 (2.46%) Telecoms
8 57 (2.19%) Billing
9 53 (2.03%) Retail
10 50 (1.92%) General Ledger
11 46 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
12 43 (1.65%) Marketing
13 35 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
14 32 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 24 (0.92%) Law
15 24 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
16 21 (0.81%) Local Government
17 17 (0.65%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.61%) Oracle Fusion
2 66 (2.53%) REST
3 53 (2.03%) Terraform
4 37 (1.42%) Middleware
4 37 (1.42%) SAP Fiori
5 33 (1.27%) SOAP
6 30 (1.15%) Web Services
7 27 (1.04%) XML
8 23 (0.88%) SailPoint
9 19 (0.73%) LDAP
9 19 (0.73%) OAuth
10 16 (0.61%) HTML
10 16 (0.61%) JSON
11 14 (0.54%) CSS
12 13 (0.50%) ADO
12 13 (0.50%) NETCONF
12 13 (0.50%) SAML
12 13 (0.50%) SAPUI5
12 13 (0.50%) YANG
13 11 (0.42%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 113 (4.34%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.96%) CMDB
3 48 (1.84%) Operational Technology
4 40 (1.54%) Data Centre
5 35 (1.34%) Data Structures
6 34 (1.31%) Product Ownership
7 29 (1.11%) Security Posture
8 27 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
10 25 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
11 23 (0.88%) Cloud Native
12 22 (0.84%) AI Agents
13 20 (0.77%) Replication
14 17 (0.65%) Management Information System
15 16 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
15 16 (0.61%) Public Cloud
16 15 (0.58%) PKI
17 14 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
18 13 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
18 13 (0.50%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 80 (3.07%) Windows
2 62 (2.38%) Linux
3 25 (0.96%) Unix
4 22 (0.84%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.73%) Solaris
6 10 (0.38%) AIX
6 10 (0.38%) 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 (0.038%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.038%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.038%) SUSE
10 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.038%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 491 (18.85%) Stakeholder Management
2 354 (13.59%) Migration
3 245 (9.40%) User Acceptance Testing
4 241 (9.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 219 (8.41%) Problem-Solving
6 217 (8.33%) Cybersecurity
7 209 (8.02%) Validation
7 209 (8.02%) Workshop Facilitation
8 182 (6.99%) Analytics
9 176 (6.76%) Roadmaps
10 158 (6.07%) Continuous Improvement
10 158 (6.07%) Data Migration
10 158 (6.07%) Requirements Gathering
11 157 (6.03%) ERP
12 153 (5.87%) Agile
13 142 (5.45%) AI
14 119 (4.57%) Business Intelligence
14 119 (4.57%) Knowledge Transfer
15 108 (4.15%) Workflow
16 107 (4.11%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 176 (6.76%) SQL
2 87 (3.34%) Python
3 50 (1.92%) ABAP
4 47 (1.80%) PowerShell
5 36 (1.38%) JavaScript
6 27 (1.04%) Java
7 26 (1.00%) PL/SQL
8 18 (0.69%) Bash
9 15 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 12 (0.46%) C#
10 12 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
11 10 (0.38%) 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%) R
16 4 (0.15%) Bicep
16 4 (0.15%) Perl
16 4 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 585 (22.46%) Security Cleared
2 393 (15.09%) SC Cleared
3 138 (5.30%) DV Cleared
4 83 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
5 62 (2.38%) CISSP
6 58 (2.23%) Degree
7 51 (1.96%) CISM
8 39 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
9 29 (1.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 25 (0.96%) CCSP
11 16 (0.61%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.58%) CRISC
13 14 (0.54%) ACCA
14 12 (0.46%) CIMA
14 12 (0.46%) PMP
15 10 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (0.38%) 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 (3.53%) Data Quality
2 91 (3.49%) NIST
3 71 (2.73%) GRC
4 67 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 42 (1.61%) NCSC
5 42 (1.61%) QA
6 29 (1.11%) GDPR
7 27 (1.04%) SLA
8 25 (0.96%) PMO
9 16 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
11 12 (0.46%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
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 67 (2.57%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.11%) 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 (0.38%) 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 (0.038%) NFS
12 1 (0.038%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.038%) oVirt
12 1 (0.038%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.038%) RHEV
12 1 (0.038%) SRDF
12 1 (0.038%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 44 (1.69%) Kubernetes
2 25 (0.96%) Ansible
3 21 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.69%) SCCM
5 12 (0.46%) vRealize
6 11 (0.42%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.38%) Grafana
7 10 (0.38%) 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%) logstash
13 3 (0.12%) Kibana
Vendors
1 478 (18.35%) SAP
2 389 (14.93%) Microsoft
3 306 (11.75%) Oracle
4 116 (4.45%) ServiceNow
5 66 (2.53%) Workday
6 53 (2.03%) VMware
7 39 (1.50%) Salesforce
8 36 (1.38%) Databricks
9 29 (1.11%) Splunk
10 27 (1.04%) Palo Alto
11 26 (1.00%) CyberArk
12 24 (0.92%) BMC
12 24 (0.92%) Google
13 22 (0.84%) Cisco
14 19 (0.73%) IBM
15 18 (0.69%) Ariba
16 17 (0.65%) OpenText
16 17 (0.65%) Zscaler
17 16 (0.61%) Dell
17 16 (0.61%) Veeam