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 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 28 29
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 2,600 1,861 2,037
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.63% 6.62% 6.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.11% 7.27% 6.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,531 1,150 1,163
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 £660 £663 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £762
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 26 22
10th Percentile £36.00 £28.52 £55.00
25th Percentile £42.19 £44.01 £61.53
Median hourly rate £74.50 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -3.87% +24.40% -6.23%
75th Percentile £85.85 £81.25 £72.59
90th Percentile £91.88 £86.63 £74.99
UK median hourly rate £75.00 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -3.23% +24.40% -8.04%

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 42,550 25,588 30,150
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 91.07% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,050 16,462 18,444
10th Percentile £325 £276 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
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 3,697 1,430 1,300
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.70%
75th Percentile £67.98 £51.55 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
% change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -2 1,269 £550 -4.35% 1,994
South East -3 380 £525 -4.55% 411
North of England -20 338 £578 -3.75% 435
North West -12 224 £585 -5.65% 253
Midlands -3 220 £501 -12.96% 223
South West +8 188 £600 +9.09% 189
West Midlands -3 160 £500 -13.04% 166
East of England -14 109 £552 +0.36% 145
Yorkshire -23 87 £575 +19.79% 90
East Midlands -15 54 £538 -5.49% 56
North East -20 26 £750 +36.36% 92
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 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 (22.58%) Security Cleared
2 503 (19.35%) Stakeholder Management
3 481 (18.50%) SAP
4 404 (15.54%) Microsoft
5 395 (15.19%) SC Cleared
6 360 (13.85%) Migration
7 302 (11.62%) Oracle
8 278 (10.69%) Azure
9 243 (9.35%) User Acceptance Testing
10 236 (9.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 232 (8.92%) Problem-Solving
12 222 (8.54%) Cybersecurity
13 216 (8.31%) Validation
14 212 (8.15%) Workshop Facilitation
15 210 (8.08%) SAP S/4HANA
16 184 (7.08%) Analytics
17 174 (6.69%) SQL
18 172 (6.62%) Roadmaps
19 164 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
19 164 (6.31%) Data Migration
19 164 (6.31%) Requirements Gathering
20 162 (6.23%) ERP
21 148 (5.69%) Agile
22 143 (5.50%) AWS
23 140 (5.38%) AI
24 139 (5.35%) DV Cleared
25 132 (5.08%) Power Platform
26 127 (4.88%) Knowledge Transfer
27 120 (4.62%) Business Intelligence
28 119 (4.58%) Dynamics 365

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 59 (2.27%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.54%) Confluence
3 30 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.31%) WebSphere
5 7 (0.27%) WebLogic
6 6 (0.23%) SAS
7 5 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.15%) CMS
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.12%) Apache
9 3 (0.12%) IIS
9 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.12%) SAP Portal
9 3 (0.12%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.077%) Apache Spark
10 2 (0.077%) Smallworld
10 2 (0.077%) WordPress
11 1 (0.038%) Appian
11 1 (0.038%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 42 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (1.00%) 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
7 1 (0.038%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 210 (8.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 72 (2.77%) Oracle EBS
3 48 (1.85%) SAP FI
4 43 (1.65%) SAP Payroll
5 41 (1.58%) SAP PSCD
6 38 (1.46%) Oracle Payables
7 36 (1.38%) Oracle ERP
7 36 (1.38%) Oracle Receivables
7 36 (1.38%) SAP HCM
8 34 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
8 34 (1.31%) Oracle General Ledger
9 32 (1.23%) SAP CO
9 32 (1.23%) Workday HCM
10 28 (1.08%) NetSuite
11 27 (1.04%) SAP FI/CO
11 27 (1.04%) SAP HR
12 25 (0.96%) SAP SD
13 23 (0.88%) SAP BRIM
14 21 (0.81%) Oracle Payroll
15 20 (0.77%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 278 (10.69%) Azure
2 143 (5.50%) AWS
3 132 (5.08%) Power Platform
4 119 (4.58%) Dynamics 365
5 89 (3.42%) SuccessFactors
6 83 (3.19%) GCP
7 78 (3.00%) OCI
8 73 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
9 64 (2.46%) Entra ID
10 56 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
11 52 (2.00%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.65%) SaaS
13 34 (1.31%) Microsoft Copilot
14 29 (1.12%) PowerApps
15 24 (0.92%) GitHub
15 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
16 22 (0.85%) Snowflake
17 17 (0.65%) SAP Commerce Cloud
18 16 (0.62%) Azure Logic Apps
19 14 (0.54%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 61 (2.35%) Firewall
1 61 (2.35%) Network Security
2 31 (1.19%) WAN
3 28 (1.08%) BGP
4 24 (0.92%) VPN
5 17 (0.65%) DNS
6 15 (0.58%) LAN
7 13 (0.50%) SNMP
7 13 (0.50%) TCP/IP
8 12 (0.46%) SAN
9 11 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
9 11 (0.42%) IPsec
10 10 (0.38%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.38%) 5G
10 10 (0.38%) MPLS
10 10 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
11 9 (0.35%) VXLAN
12 8 (0.31%) NGFW
12 8 (0.31%) X.509
13 7 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (2.85%) Power BI
2 31 (1.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
2 31 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
3 28 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (1.00%) SAP BW
5 25 (0.96%) Metadata
5 25 (0.96%) SAP HANA
5 25 (0.96%) SQL Server
6 19 (0.73%) Tableau
7 17 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
8 15 (0.58%) Power Query
9 10 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.35%) Oracle Database
11 8 (0.31%) DynamoDB
11 8 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
11 8 (0.31%) Relational Database
12 6 (0.23%) SAP Data Services
13 5 (0.19%) BigQuery
13 5 (0.19%) Looker
13 5 (0.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 76 (2.92%) JIRA
2 26 (1.00%) Git
3 14 (0.54%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.42%) GitLab
5 9 (0.35%) Oracle Forms
6 7 (0.27%) PowerBuilder
7 5 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.15%) Hudson
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%) TestRail
General
1 580 (22.31%) Social Skills
2 567 (21.81%) Finance
3 204 (7.85%) Public Sector
4 193 (7.42%) Analytical Skills
5 109 (4.19%) Manufacturing
6 97 (3.73%) Banking
7 77 (2.96%) Legal
8 66 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
9 64 (2.46%) Telecoms
10 61 (2.35%) Billing
11 52 (2.00%) Retail
12 50 (1.92%) General Ledger
13 45 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
14 41 (1.58%) Marketing
15 33 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 32 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
17 25 (0.96%) Law
17 25 (0.96%) Pharmaceutical
18 24 (0.92%) Local Government
19 17 (0.65%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.69%) Oracle Fusion
2 61 (2.35%) REST
3 54 (2.08%) Terraform
4 37 (1.42%) SAP Fiori
5 36 (1.38%) Middleware
6 31 (1.19%) SOAP
7 30 (1.15%) Web Services
8 24 (0.92%) XML
9 21 (0.81%) SailPoint
10 17 (0.65%) LDAP
10 17 (0.65%) OAuth
11 15 (0.58%) HTML
12 14 (0.54%) ADO
12 14 (0.54%) JSON
12 14 (0.54%) SAPUI5
13 13 (0.50%) CSS
13 13 (0.50%) NETCONF
13 13 (0.50%) YANG
14 11 (0.42%) SAML
14 11 (0.42%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 116 (4.46%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.96%) CMDB
3 47 (1.81%) Operational Technology
4 41 (1.58%) Data Centre
5 38 (1.46%) Data Structures
6 34 (1.31%) Product Ownership
7 28 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
8 26 (1.00%) Security Posture
9 24 (0.92%) Cloud Native
10 23 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
11 22 (0.85%) AI Agents
12 21 (0.81%) Replication
13 18 (0.69%) Management Information System
14 17 (0.65%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.62%) Greenfield Project
16 15 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
16 15 (0.58%) PKI
17 13 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
17 13 (0.50%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 81 (3.12%) Windows
2 61 (2.35%) Linux
3 25 (0.96%) Unix
4 24 (0.92%) Windows Server
5 17 (0.65%) Solaris
6 10 (0.38%) VMS
7 9 (0.35%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.31%) AIX
9 6 (0.23%) Android
9 6 (0.23%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.038%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.038%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.038%) SUSE
11 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.038%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 503 (19.35%) Stakeholder Management
2 360 (13.85%) Migration
3 243 (9.35%) User Acceptance Testing
4 236 (9.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 232 (8.92%) Problem-Solving
6 222 (8.54%) Cybersecurity
7 216 (8.31%) Validation
8 212 (8.15%) Workshop Facilitation
9 184 (7.08%) Analytics
10 172 (6.62%) Roadmaps
11 164 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
11 164 (6.31%) Data Migration
11 164 (6.31%) Requirements Gathering
12 162 (6.23%) ERP
13 148 (5.69%) Agile
14 140 (5.38%) AI
15 127 (4.88%) Knowledge Transfer
16 120 (4.62%) Business Intelligence
17 116 (4.46%) DevOps
18 113 (4.35%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 174 (6.69%) SQL
2 90 (3.46%) Python
3 54 (2.08%) PowerShell
4 53 (2.04%) ABAP
5 33 (1.27%) JavaScript
6 26 (1.00%) Java
7 24 (0.92%) PL/SQL
8 21 (0.81%) Bash
9 18 (0.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 16 (0.62%) C#
11 12 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
12 9 (0.35%) 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%) R
15 4 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 587 (22.58%) Security Cleared
2 395 (15.19%) SC Cleared
3 139 (5.35%) DV Cleared
4 83 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
5 57 (2.19%) CISSP
6 56 (2.15%) Degree
7 49 (1.88%) CISM
8 37 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
9 27 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 23 (0.88%) CCSP
11 17 (0.65%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.58%) ACCA
13 13 (0.50%) CIMA
13 13 (0.50%) CRISC
14 11 (0.42%) PMP
15 10 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
16 9 (0.35%) DBS Check
17 8 (0.31%) CCIE
17 8 (0.31%) CISA
18 7 (0.27%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (3.92%) Data Quality
2 91 (3.50%) NIST
3 67 (2.58%) GRC
3 67 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 42 (1.62%) QA
5 41 (1.58%) NCSC
6 31 (1.19%) GDPR
7 27 (1.04%) SLA
8 25 (0.96%) PMO
9 16 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.58%) Accessibility
10 15 (0.58%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
13 8 (0.31%) GxP
13 8 (0.31%) NIST 800
14 7 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.23%) Def Stans
15 6 (0.23%) IFRS
15 6 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 72 (2.77%) Active Directory
2 28 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (0.92%) 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 7 (0.27%) Firmware
9 6 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.077%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.077%) NFS
10 2 (0.077%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.038%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.038%) oVirt
11 1 (0.038%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.038%) RHEV
11 1 (0.038%) SRDF
11 1 (0.038%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 43 (1.65%) Kubernetes
2 26 (1.00%) Ansible
3 22 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (0.69%) 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 (0.12%) Tivoli Monitoring
Vendors
1 481 (18.50%) SAP
2 404 (15.54%) Microsoft
3 302 (11.62%) Oracle
4 113 (4.35%) ServiceNow
5 64 (2.46%) Workday
6 52 (2.00%) VMware
7 37 (1.42%) Salesforce
8 36 (1.38%) Databricks
9 27 (1.04%) Splunk
10 26 (1.00%) CyberArk
10 26 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 25 (0.96%) Google
12 22 (0.85%) BMC
13 21 (0.81%) Cisco
14 18 (0.69%) Ariba
15 17 (0.65%) IBM
15 17 (0.65%) Zscaler
16 16 (0.62%) OpenText
16 16 (0.62%) Veeam
17 15 (0.58%) Murex