Consultant Contract Job Trends in England

Consultant
UK > England

The median Consultant daily rate in England is £554, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 January 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 29 31
Rank change year-on-year -2 +2 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,983 1,644 2,068
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.23% 6.12% 5.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.81% 6.58% 6.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,181 963 1,251
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £463 £488 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £554 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.73% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £644 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 14 32
10th Percentile £40.48 £56.95 £42.50
25th Percentile £57.19 £68.80 £54.48
Median hourly rate £67.75 £77.38 £63.15
Median % change year-on-year -12.44% +22.54% -11.06%
75th Percentile £81.25 £86.00 £81.56
90th Percentile £84.58 £87.13 £90.23
UK median hourly rate £70.50 £77.38 £63.29
% change year-on-year -8.89% +22.25% -9.59%

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 29,136 24,984 34,175
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.61% 92.97% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,589 15,457 23,164
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,790 766 1,671
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.92 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £18.00
Median hourly rate £28.00 £35.00 £41.23
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -15.11% +17.80%
75th Percentile £61.55 £64.67 £64.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.69
% change year-on-year -15.38% -20.13% +19.68%

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 18 January 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 18 January 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 18 January 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 -2 918 £575 +4.55% 403
North of England -4 278 £595 +8.18% 193
South East -3 273 £540 -1.82% 357
Midlands -15 177 £531 +1.19% 116
North West -1 168 £623 +15.71% 96
West Midlands -7 137 £550 +4.76% 52
South West +15 112 £588 +11.90% 189
Yorkshire +6 101 £550 -12.00% 76
East of England +2 91 £550 -4.35% 108
East Midlands -22 39 £505 -2.88% 60
North East -21 9 £620 +3.33% 22
South Coast - 1 £550 -
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 January 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.

1 502 (25.32%) SAP
2 498 (25.11%) Security Cleared
3 406 (20.47%) SC Cleared
4 277 (13.97%) Migration
5 260 (13.11%) SAP S/4HANA
6 254 (12.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 250 (12.61%) Problem-Solving
8 243 (12.25%) Oracle
9 240 (12.10%) Stakeholder Management
10 204 (10.29%) Microsoft
11 194 (9.78%) Azure
12 172 (8.67%) Workshop Facilitation
13 155 (7.82%) Agile
14 154 (7.77%) ERP
15 136 (6.86%) Roadmaps
16 135 (6.81%) User Acceptance Testing
17 130 (6.56%) Analytics
18 125 (6.30%) SQL
19 117 (5.90%) Data Migration
20 116 (5.85%) Cybersecurity
21 110 (5.55%) Business Intelligence
22 104 (5.24%) Knowledge Transfer
22 104 (5.24%) Validation
23 102 (5.14%) Risk Management
24 101 (5.09%) DevOps
25 97 (4.89%) AWS
26 96 (4.84%) Dynamics 365
27 90 (4.54%) AI
27 90 (4.54%) Python
28 87 (4.39%) Continuous Improvement

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 47 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 28 (1.41%) Confluence
3 27 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.25%) CMS
4 5 (0.25%) Jupyter
4 5 (0.25%) NetWeaver
5 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.15%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.15%) MTS
6 3 (0.15%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.10%) Apache
7 2 (0.10%) IIS
7 2 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.050%) SAS
8 1 (0.050%) SharePoint 2010
8 1 (0.050%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.050%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.050%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.050%) WebSphere
Applications
1 33 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.40%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.25%) Oracle Smart View
6 4 (0.20%) Navisworks
6 4 (0.20%) Revit
7 3 (0.15%) ProjectWise
7 3 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.10%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.050%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.050%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.050%) InVision
9 1 (0.050%) Sketch
9 1 (0.050%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 260 (13.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 65 (3.28%) Oracle EBS
3 53 (2.67%) Oracle Payables
4 46 (2.32%) Oracle Receivables
5 43 (2.17%) Oracle General Ledger
5 43 (2.17%) SAP FI
6 41 (2.07%) Oracle EBS R12
7 39 (1.97%) SAP EWM
8 38 (1.92%) Oracle Cash Management
9 33 (1.66%) Dynamics CRM
9 33 (1.66%) SAP HCM
9 33 (1.66%) SAP MM
10 32 (1.61%) Oracle Assets
11 31 (1.56%) SAP CO
12 29 (1.46%) SAP FI/CO
12 29 (1.46%) SAP Payroll
12 29 (1.46%) SAP WM
13 24 (1.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 23 (1.16%) SAP HR
14 23 (1.16%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 194 (9.78%) Azure
2 97 (4.89%) AWS
3 96 (4.84%) Dynamics 365
4 87 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 67 (3.38%) OCI
6 63 (3.18%) GCP
7 55 (2.77%) SaaS
8 52 (2.62%) Microsoft 365
9 42 (2.12%) Entra ID
10 29 (1.46%) SuccessFactors
11 28 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
12 27 (1.36%) Power Automate
13 21 (1.06%) PowerApps
14 20 (1.01%) GitHub
14 20 (1.01%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (0.86%) OneDrive
15 17 (0.86%) SAP Commerce Cloud
16 15 (0.76%) Serverless
17 12 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
17 12 (0.61%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 35 (1.77%) Firewall
2 14 (0.71%) DNS
3 13 (0.66%) Kerberos
3 13 (0.66%) Network Security
4 12 (0.61%) SMS
4 12 (0.61%) VPN
5 9 (0.45%) DHCP
5 9 (0.45%) SSH
6 8 (0.40%) HTTP
6 8 (0.40%) WAN
7 7 (0.35%) Cisco IPT
7 7 (0.35%) SSL
7 7 (0.35%) TCP/IP
8 6 (0.30%) SD-WAN
8 6 (0.30%) VLAN
9 5 (0.25%) SAN
9 5 (0.25%) VoIP
10 4 (0.20%) Intranet
10 4 (0.20%) LAN
10 4 (0.20%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (3.28%) Power BI
2 37 (1.87%) SAP HANA
3 33 (1.66%) Oracle Reports
4 24 (1.21%) SQL Server
5 22 (1.11%) Metadata
6 18 (0.91%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 17 (0.86%) SAP BW
8 13 (0.66%) Data Warehouse
9 10 (0.50%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
10 9 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 9 (0.45%) Tableau
11 8 (0.40%) DB2
12 6 (0.30%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
12 6 (0.30%) Oracle Database
12 6 (0.30%) SAP Data Services
13 5 (0.25%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.25%) Oracle ODI
13 5 (0.25%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 51 (2.57%) JIRA
2 21 (1.06%) Jenkins
3 18 (0.91%) Git
4 16 (0.81%) GitLab
5 10 (0.50%) Oracle Forms
6 8 (0.40%) Hudson
7 4 (0.20%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.20%) LSMW
7 4 (0.20%) Oracle APEX
7 4 (0.20%) Postman
8 3 (0.15%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.15%) JUnit
9 2 (0.10%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.10%) git-flow
9 2 (0.10%) Mockito
9 2 (0.10%) Selenium
9 2 (0.10%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.10%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.10%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.050%) Burp Suite
General
1 571 (28.79%) Social Skills
2 493 (24.86%) Finance
3 192 (9.68%) Public Sector
4 172 (8.67%) Analytical Skills
5 100 (5.04%) Manufacturing
6 71 (3.58%) Banking
7 63 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
8 59 (2.98%) Marketing
9 50 (2.52%) Presentation Skills
10 46 (2.32%) Legal
11 43 (2.17%) Billing
12 42 (2.12%) General Ledger
13 38 (1.92%) Telecoms
14 29 (1.46%) Retail
15 26 (1.31%) Law
16 22 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
17 20 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 19 (0.96%) Financial Institution
19 17 (0.86%) Front Office
20 16 (0.81%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (3.88%) Oracle Fusion
2 57 (2.87%) REST
3 49 (2.47%) SAP Fiori
4 39 (1.97%) Web Services
5 30 (1.51%) Node.js
6 29 (1.46%) SOAP
7 25 (1.26%) LDAP
8 23 (1.16%) SAP TM
8 23 (1.16%) XML
9 18 (0.91%) GraphQL
10 17 (0.86%) HTML
11 16 (0.81%) BAPI
11 16 (0.81%) Middleware
12 14 (0.71%) Kafka
12 14 (0.71%) SAP Basis
13 13 (0.66%) CSS
13 13 (0.66%) Playwright
14 12 (0.61%) Vitest
15 11 (0.55%) .NET
15 11 (0.55%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 63 (3.18%) Onboarding
2 55 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
3 43 (2.17%) Product Ownership
4 33 (1.66%) Security Posture
5 29 (1.46%) Cloud Native
6 24 (1.21%) Data Centre
6 24 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
7 23 (1.16%) Replication
8 22 (1.11%) Management Information System
9 16 (0.81%) Data Structures
10 13 (0.66%) Greenfield Project
10 13 (0.66%) Public Cloud
11 12 (0.61%) Hybrid Cloud
11 12 (0.61%) NHS
12 11 (0.55%) AI Agents
12 11 (0.55%) Operational Technology
13 10 (0.50%) FMCG
13 10 (0.50%) IoT
13 10 (0.50%) SCADA
14 9 (0.45%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 58 (2.92%) Windows
2 38 (1.92%) Linux
3 11 (0.55%) Unix
3 11 (0.55%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.45%) Mac OS
4 9 (0.45%) Windows 10
5 7 (0.35%) AIX
5 7 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (0.35%) Solaris
6 3 (0.15%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.15%) VMS
7 2 (0.10%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.10%) CentOS
7 2 (0.10%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2003
7 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
7 2 (0.10%) zOS
8 1 (0.050%) Android
8 1 (0.050%) tvOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 277 (13.97%) Migration
2 254 (12.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 250 (12.61%) Problem-Solving
4 240 (12.10%) Stakeholder Management
5 172 (8.67%) Workshop Facilitation
6 155 (7.82%) Agile
7 154 (7.77%) ERP
8 136 (6.86%) Roadmaps
9 135 (6.81%) User Acceptance Testing
10 130 (6.56%) Analytics
11 117 (5.90%) Data Migration
12 116 (5.85%) Cybersecurity
13 110 (5.55%) Business Intelligence
14 104 (5.24%) Knowledge Transfer
14 104 (5.24%) Validation
15 102 (5.14%) Risk Management
16 101 (5.09%) DevOps
17 90 (4.54%) AI
18 87 (4.39%) Continuous Improvement
19 82 (4.14%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 125 (6.30%) SQL
2 90 (4.54%) Python
3 62 (3.13%) PowerShell
4 55 (2.77%) ABAP
5 51 (2.57%) JavaScript
6 37 (1.87%) Java
7 25 (1.26%) TypeScript
8 22 (1.11%) PL/SQL
9 17 (0.86%) Groovy
10 15 (0.76%) Bash
11 11 (0.55%) C#
12 9 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
13 7 (0.35%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.30%) Apex Code
14 6 (0.30%) C++
15 5 (0.25%) Bicep
15 5 (0.25%) COBOL
15 5 (0.25%) R
16 4 (0.20%) Go
16 4 (0.20%) Korn
Qualifications
1 498 (25.11%) Security Cleared
2 406 (20.47%) SC Cleared
3 81 (4.08%) Degree
4 70 (3.53%) DV Cleared
5 54 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (2.62%) CISSP
7 37 (1.87%) CISM
8 25 (1.26%) SAP Certification
9 19 (0.96%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 15 (0.76%) CIMA
11 14 (0.71%) Master's Degree
12 11 (0.55%) ACCA
12 11 (0.55%) Cisco Certification
13 10 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
14 9 (0.45%) AWS Certification
14 9 (0.45%) CESG Certified Professional
14 9 (0.45%) CISA
14 9 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
15 6 (0.30%) CCNP
15 6 (0.30%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 63 (3.18%) GDPR
3 62 (3.13%) NIST
4 36 (1.82%) QA
5 35 (1.77%) GRC
6 33 (1.66%) Data Quality
7 19 (0.96%) NCSC
8 16 (0.81%) SLA
9 14 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
10 12 (0.61%) PCI DSS
11 11 (0.55%) PERC
12 9 (0.45%) PMO
13 8 (0.40%) COBIT
13 8 (0.40%) JSP 440
13 8 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.35%) Accessibility
14 7 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
14 7 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (0.35%) IFRS
15 6 (0.30%) SOC 2
System Software
1 61 (3.08%) Active Directory
2 38 (1.92%) Docker
3 24 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.81%) VMware NSX
5 8 (0.40%) vSphere
6 6 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.25%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 3 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.10%) NDS
9 2 (0.10%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.050%) Ceph
10 1 (0.050%) Firmware
10 1 (0.050%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.050%) KVM
10 1 (0.050%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.050%) QEMU
10 1 (0.050%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.050%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 52 (2.62%) Kubernetes
2 32 (1.61%) Terraform
3 18 (0.91%) Ansible
3 18 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
4 17 (0.86%) vRealize
5 13 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.55%) Grafana
7 10 (0.50%) PingFederate
8 9 (0.45%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.35%) SCCM
10 6 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.25%) Podman
12 4 (0.20%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 3 (0.15%) CASB
14 2 (0.10%) EnCase
14 2 (0.10%) Failover Clustering
14 2 (0.10%) FTK
14 2 (0.10%) Istio
14 2 (0.10%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.10%) vMotion
Vendors
1 502 (25.32%) SAP
2 243 (12.25%) Oracle
3 204 (10.29%) Microsoft
4 61 (3.08%) ServiceNow
5 58 (2.92%) VMware
6 52 (2.62%) Workday
7 45 (2.27%) Salesforce
8 41 (2.07%) Cisco
9 37 (1.87%) CyberArk
10 34 (1.71%) Aruba
11 31 (1.56%) Adobe
12 28 (1.41%) Google
13 23 (1.16%) Ariba
14 17 (0.86%) OpenText
15 15 (0.76%) Dynatrace
16 13 (0.66%) Murex
17 11 (0.55%) Databricks
17 11 (0.55%) IFS
17 11 (0.55%) Remedy
18 10 (0.50%) Atlassian