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 7 October 2026.

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

 6 months to
7 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 2,615 1,853 2,031
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.62% 6.63% 6.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.10% 7.28% 6.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,538 1,151 1,164
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 £761
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 25 22
10th Percentile £35.95 £28.32 £55.00
25th Percentile £41.25 £41.60 £61.53
Median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £62.30
Median % change year-on-year -4.52% +24.40% -6.23%
75th Percentile £86.00 £81.25 £72.59
90th Percentile £92.25 £86.75 £74.99
UK median hourly rate £74.50 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -3.87% +24.40% -6.84%

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 42,862 25,455 29,887
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 91.08% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,286 16,391 18,275
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% -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 3,687 1,410 1,320
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.44 £17.33 £21.34
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% -4.32%
75th Percentile £67.87 £52.42 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +65.84% -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 7 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 7 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 7 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 1,277 £550 -4.35% 1,955
South East -5 380 £533 -3.18% 545
North of England -20 339 £576 -3.96% 477
North West -13 225 £585 -5.84% 266
Midlands -5 223 £500 -13.00% 253
South West +9 192 £600 +4.35% 225
West Midlands -6 160 £500 -13.04% 184
East of England -16 107 £559 +1.55% 170
Yorkshire -22 87 £575 +21.05% 102
East Midlands -13 57 £525 -9.09% 69
North East -20 26 £750 +36.36% 109
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 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.

1 589 (22.52%) Security Cleared
2 497 (19.01%) Stakeholder Management
3 479 (18.32%) SAP
4 399 (15.26%) Microsoft
5 396 (15.14%) SC Cleared
6 356 (13.61%) Migration
7 302 (11.55%) Oracle
8 277 (10.59%) Azure
9 244 (9.33%) User Acceptance Testing
10 239 (9.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 230 (8.80%) Problem-Solving
12 224 (8.57%) Cybersecurity
13 215 (8.22%) Validation
14 210 (8.03%) Workshop Facilitation
15 208 (7.95%) SAP S/4HANA
16 183 (7.00%) Analytics
17 175 (6.69%) Roadmaps
18 174 (6.65%) SQL
19 162 (6.20%) Data Migration
20 160 (6.12%) Requirements Gathering
21 159 (6.08%) Continuous Improvement
22 157 (6.00%) ERP
23 149 (5.70%) Agile
23 149 (5.70%) AWS
24 141 (5.39%) AI
25 136 (5.20%) DV Cleared
26 132 (5.05%) Power Platform
27 122 (4.67%) Knowledge Transfer
28 120 (4.59%) Dynamics 365
29 119 (4.55%) 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 60 (2.29%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.53%) Confluence
3 30 (1.15%) 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 (0.15%) CMS
9 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.11%) Apache
9 3 (0.11%) IIS
9 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.11%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
10 2 (0.076%) Apache Spark
10 2 (0.076%) SAP Portal
10 2 (0.076%) Smallworld
10 2 (0.076%) WordPress
11 1 (0.038%) Appian
11 1 (0.038%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 43 (1.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.99%) 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
1 208 (7.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 71 (2.72%) Oracle EBS
3 48 (1.84%) SAP FI
4 42 (1.61%) SAP Payroll
4 42 (1.61%) SAP PSCD
5 39 (1.49%) Oracle Payables
6 36 (1.38%) Oracle ERP
6 36 (1.38%) Oracle Receivables
7 35 (1.34%) Oracle General Ledger
8 34 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
8 34 (1.30%) SAP HCM
9 32 (1.22%) SAP CO
10 31 (1.19%) Workday HCM
11 28 (1.07%) NetSuite
12 27 (1.03%) SAP FI/CO
12 27 (1.03%) SAP HR
13 25 (0.96%) SAP SD
14 23 (0.88%) SAP BRIM
15 21 (0.80%) SAP MM
16 20 (0.76%) Oracle Payroll
Cloud Services
1 277 (10.59%) Azure
2 149 (5.70%) AWS
3 132 (5.05%) Power Platform
4 120 (4.59%) Dynamics 365
5 89 (3.40%) SuccessFactors
6 87 (3.33%) GCP
7 76 (2.91%) OCI
8 75 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
9 61 (2.33%) Entra ID
10 57 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
11 53 (2.03%) Power Automate
12 43 (1.64%) SaaS
13 37 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
14 28 (1.07%) PowerApps
15 25 (0.96%) Microsoft Purview
16 23 (0.88%) GitHub
17 21 (0.80%) Snowflake
18 17 (0.65%) SAP Commerce Cloud
19 14 (0.54%) Amazon S3
19 14 (0.54%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 63 (2.41%) Firewall
2 61 (2.33%) Network Security
3 32 (1.22%) WAN
4 28 (1.07%) BGP
5 25 (0.96%) VPN
6 17 (0.65%) DNS
7 15 (0.57%) LAN
8 13 (0.50%) SNMP
8 13 (0.50%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
9 11 (0.42%) IPsec
9 11 (0.42%) SAN
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
12 8 (0.31%) NGFW
12 8 (0.31%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.31%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (2.83%) Power BI
2 30 (1.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
2 30 (1.15%) Oracle Reports
3 27 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
3 27 (1.03%) SAP BW
4 26 (0.99%) SAP HANA
5 25 (0.96%) Metadata
5 25 (0.96%) SQL Server
6 20 (0.76%) Tableau
7 17 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
8 13 (0.50%) Power Query
9 10 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.34%) 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 78 (2.98%) JIRA
2 26 (0.99%) Git
3 14 (0.54%) 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%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.15%) Hudson
8 4 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.11%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.11%) JDeveloper
9 3 (0.11%) LoadRunner
9 3 (0.11%) Maven
9 3 (0.11%) Snyk
9 3 (0.11%) Toad
9 3 (0.11%) Zephyr
10 2 (0.076%) JMeter
10 2 (0.076%) MSI
10 2 (0.076%) Postman
General
1 580 (22.18%) Social Skills
2 571 (21.84%) Finance
3 203 (7.76%) Public Sector
4 191 (7.30%) Analytical Skills
5 105 (4.02%) Manufacturing
6 96 (3.67%) Banking
7 79 (3.02%) Legal
8 67 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
9 64 (2.45%) Telecoms
10 62 (2.37%) Billing
11 53 (2.03%) Retail
12 51 (1.95%) General Ledger
13 46 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
14 41 (1.57%) Marketing
15 34 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
16 32 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 24 (0.92%) Law
17 24 (0.92%) Local Government
17 24 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
18 17 (0.65%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.59%) Oracle Fusion
2 62 (2.37%) REST
3 53 (2.03%) Terraform
4 37 (1.41%) Middleware
4 37 (1.41%) SAP Fiori
5 33 (1.26%) SOAP
6 30 (1.15%) Web Services
7 26 (0.99%) XML
8 21 (0.80%) SailPoint
9 18 (0.69%) OAuth
10 17 (0.65%) LDAP
11 16 (0.61%) JSON
12 15 (0.57%) 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 (0.46%) SAML
15 11 (0.42%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 114 (4.36%) Onboarding
2 51 (1.95%) CMDB
3 47 (1.80%) Operational Technology
4 40 (1.53%) Data Centre
5 37 (1.41%) Data Structures
6 34 (1.30%) Product Ownership
7 27 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
7 27 (1.03%) Security Posture
8 25 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
9 24 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
10 23 (0.88%) Cloud Native
11 21 (0.80%) AI Agents
12 20 (0.76%) Replication
13 19 (0.73%) Management Information System
14 17 (0.65%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
16 15 (0.57%) PKI
17 14 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
18 13 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
18 13 (0.50%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 81 (3.10%) Windows
2 61 (2.33%) Linux
3 24 (0.92%) Unix
4 23 (0.88%) Windows Server
5 19 (0.73%) Solaris
6 10 (0.38%) VMS
7 9 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.31%) AIX
9 7 (0.27%) Android
9 7 (0.27%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.038%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.038%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.038%) SUSE
12 1 (0.038%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.038%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 497 (19.01%) Stakeholder Management
2 356 (13.61%) Migration
3 244 (9.33%) User Acceptance Testing
4 239 (9.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 230 (8.80%) Problem-Solving
6 224 (8.57%) Cybersecurity
7 215 (8.22%) Validation
8 210 (8.03%) Workshop Facilitation
9 183 (7.00%) Analytics
10 175 (6.69%) Roadmaps
11 162 (6.20%) Data Migration
12 160 (6.12%) Requirements Gathering
13 159 (6.08%) Continuous Improvement
14 157 (6.00%) ERP
15 149 (5.70%) Agile
16 141 (5.39%) AI
17 122 (4.67%) Knowledge Transfer
18 119 (4.55%) Business Intelligence
19 113 (4.32%) DevOps
20 111 (4.24%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 174 (6.65%) SQL
2 87 (3.33%) Python
3 51 (1.95%) ABAP
3 51 (1.95%) PowerShell
4 34 (1.30%) JavaScript
5 26 (0.99%) Java
6 24 (0.92%) PL/SQL
7 19 (0.73%) Bash
8 16 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 14 (0.54%) C#
10 12 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (0.34%) 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 (0.15%) Bicep
15 4 (0.15%) Perl
15 4 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 589 (22.52%) Security Cleared
2 396 (15.14%) SC Cleared
3 136 (5.20%) DV Cleared
4 84 (3.21%) BPSS Clearance
5 61 (2.33%) CISSP
6 55 (2.10%) Degree
7 51 (1.95%) CISM
8 38 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
9 28 (1.07%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 24 (0.92%) CCSP
11 17 (0.65%) AWS Certification
12 14 (0.54%) ACCA
12 14 (0.54%) CRISC
13 12 (0.46%) CIMA
14 11 (0.42%) PMP
15 10 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
16 9 (0.34%) CISA
16 9 (0.34%) DBS Check
16 9 (0.34%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
17 8 (0.31%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.79%) Data Quality
2 93 (3.56%) NIST
3 71 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 69 (2.64%) GRC
5 42 (1.61%) QA
6 41 (1.57%) NCSC
7 32 (1.22%) GDPR
8 27 (1.03%) SLA
9 25 (0.96%) PMO
10 16 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
10 16 (0.61%) PCI DSS
11 15 (0.57%) Accessibility
12 10 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 8 (0.31%) GxP
15 6 (0.23%) COBIT
15 6 (0.23%) IFRS
15 6 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 69 (2.64%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (0.96%) VMware NSX
4 15 (0.57%) Docker
4 15 (0.57%) vSphere
5 11 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.31%) IAG
8 7 (0.27%) Firmware
8 7 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.076%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.076%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.076%) 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 44 (1.68%) Kubernetes
2 26 (0.99%) Ansible
3 23 (0.88%) 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 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.23%) Nagios
9 6 (0.23%) VxRail
9 6 (0.23%) ZABBIX
10 5 (0.19%) logstash
10 5 (0.19%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.15%) CEMLI
11 4 (0.15%) Kibana
11 4 (0.15%) Netcool
11 4 (0.15%) Tivoli
12 3 (0.11%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 3 (0.11%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 479 (18.32%) SAP
2 399 (15.26%) Microsoft
3 302 (11.55%) Oracle
4 113 (4.32%) ServiceNow
5 66 (2.52%) Workday
6 52 (1.99%) VMware
7 38 (1.45%) Salesforce
8 37 (1.41%) Databricks
9 27 (1.03%) Palo Alto
9 27 (1.03%) Splunk
10 25 (0.96%) CyberArk
10 25 (0.96%) Google
11 22 (0.84%) BMC
11 22 (0.84%) Cisco
12 19 (0.73%) Ariba
13 17 (0.65%) IBM
13 17 (0.65%) Zscaler
14 16 (0.61%) Dell
14 16 (0.61%) OpenText
14 16 (0.61%) Veeam
3,718 Consultant jobs in England