Consultant Contract Job Trends in the South West

Consultant
England > South West

The median Consultant daily rate in the South West is £588, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 42 57
Rank change year-on-year +1 +15 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 111 84 102
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 4.62% 4.36% 3.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.10% 4.65% 3.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 79 67 71
10th Percentile £460 £408 £300
25th Percentile £475 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £588 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +11.90% -4.55% -3.25%
75th Percentile £688 £678 £644
90th Percentile £713 £1,075 £725
England median daily rate £555 £550 £550
% change year-on-year +0.82% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 5
10th Percentile - - £61.25
25th Percentile - - £65.00
Median hourly rate - - £78.00
75th Percentile - - £80.00
90th Percentile - - £84.20
England median hourly rate £72.63 £74.00 £63.29
% change year-on-year -1.85% +16.92% -10.86%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South West. 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 the South West with a recognized job title 2,178 1,807 2,738
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.56% 93.72% 93.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,258 1,105 1,774
10th Percentile £230 £213 £215
25th Percentile £403 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £501 £530
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -5.57% +0.95%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £700 £725
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.24% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 308 116 301
10th Percentile £17.69 £16.85 £15.75
25th Percentile £22.69 £47.19 £45.00
Median hourly rate £44.00 £65.00 £59.68
Median % change year-on-year -32.31% +8.91% -8.18%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £73.88 £83.40
England median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.42
% change year-on-year -21.43% -19.38% +24.04%

Consultant
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Consultant' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Consultant job vacancy trend in the South West

Consultant
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the South West.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the South West

Consultant
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Consultant in the South West over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Consultant in the South West

Consultant
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the South West.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the South West

Consultant
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Consultant within the South West region over the 6 months to 12 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
Wiltshire -8 38 £650 +13.04% 14
Bristol -6 32 £600 +14.29% 81
Gloucestershire -3 18 £475 -36.67% 28
Somerset -4 8 £475 -4.04% 28
Dorset - 5 £500 - 16
Devon +6 2 £750 +129.01% 21
Consultant
England

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West

For the 6 months to 12 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 South West region featuring Consultant in the job title.

1 66 (59.46%) Security Cleared
2 55 (49.55%) SC Cleared
3 20 (18.02%) SAP
4 18 (16.22%) ERP
5 16 (14.41%) Microsoft
6 15 (13.51%) Migration
6 15 (13.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 14 (12.61%) Change Management
7 14 (12.61%) Stakeholder Management
8 13 (11.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 13 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
9 12 (10.81%) ITIL
10 11 (9.91%) Knowledge Transfer
10 11 (9.91%) PowerShell
11 10 (9.01%) Active Directory
11 10 (9.01%) Azure
11 10 (9.01%) DV Cleared
11 10 (9.01%) PingFederate
12 9 (8.11%) DevOps
12 9 (8.11%) Microsoft 365
12 9 (8.11%) Risk Management
12 9 (8.11%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (8.11%) Translating Business Requirements
13 8 (7.21%) CISSP
13 8 (7.21%) GDPR
13 8 (7.21%) JIRA
13 8 (7.21%) Service Management
14 7 (6.31%) Agile
14 7 (6.31%) Atlassian
14 7 (6.31%) Business Analysis

Consultant Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 6 (5.41%) Confluence
1 6 (5.41%) Microsoft Exchange
1 6 (5.41%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.90%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (6.31%) SAP EWM
1 7 (6.31%) SAP WM
2 5 (4.50%) SAP PP
3 2 (1.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (1.80%) Oracle SCM
3 2 (1.80%) SAP QM
4 1 (0.90%) Lorenzo
4 1 (0.90%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 10 (9.01%) Azure
2 9 (8.11%) Microsoft 365
3 5 (4.50%) AWS
3 5 (4.50%) GCP
4 4 (3.60%) Entra ID
4 4 (3.60%) OCI
4 4 (3.60%) OneDrive
4 4 (3.60%) ShareGate
5 3 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (1.80%) dbt
6 2 (1.80%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.90%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.90%) Azure Key Vault
7 1 (0.90%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Purview
7 1 (0.90%) PowerApps
7 1 (0.90%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
7 1 (0.90%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.80%) VPN
2 1 (0.90%) Firewall
2 1 (0.90%) LAN
2 1 (0.90%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.70%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.80%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.80%) Snowflake Schema
3 1 (0.90%) Amazon Aurora
3 1 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.90%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.90%) Electronic Patient Records
3 1 (0.90%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.90%) MySQL
3 1 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.90%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (7.21%) JIRA
2 1 (0.90%) Bitbucket
2 1 (0.90%) Git
General
1 27 (24.32%) Social Skills
2 19 (17.12%) Public Sector
3 16 (14.41%) Finance
4 14 (12.61%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (7.21%) Manufacturing
6 7 (6.31%) Marketing
6 7 (6.31%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (5.41%) Electronics
7 6 (5.41%) Telecoms
8 5 (4.50%) Local Government
9 3 (2.70%) Aviation
9 3 (2.70%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.80%) Legal
10 2 (1.80%) Military
11 1 (0.90%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.90%) Back Office
11 1 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.90%) Law
11 1 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (5.41%) REST
2 5 (4.50%) OpenID
2 5 (4.50%) SAML
3 4 (3.60%) LDAP
4 2 (1.80%) OAuth
4 2 (1.80%) OAuth2
5 1 (0.90%) CSS
5 1 (0.90%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.90%) HTML
5 1 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
5 1 (0.90%) Oracle Fusion
5 1 (0.90%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 3 (2.70%) Analytical Mindset
1 3 (2.70%) Cloud Native
2 2 (1.80%) CMDB
2 2 (1.80%) Onboarding
2 2 (1.80%) Security Posture
3 1 (0.90%) Client/Server
3 1 (0.90%) Clustering
3 1 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (0.90%) Manufacturing Execution System
3 1 (0.90%) NHS
3 1 (0.90%) Product Ownership
3 1 (0.90%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.80%) Linux
1 2 (1.80%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (16.22%) ERP
2 15 (13.51%) Migration
2 15 (13.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 14 (12.61%) Change Management
3 14 (12.61%) Stakeholder Management
4 13 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
5 12 (10.81%) ITIL
6 11 (9.91%) Knowledge Transfer
7 9 (8.11%) DevOps
7 9 (8.11%) Risk Management
7 9 (8.11%) Translating Business Requirements
8 8 (7.21%) Service Management
9 7 (6.31%) Agile
9 7 (6.31%) Business Analysis
9 7 (6.31%) Cybersecurity
9 7 (6.31%) ITSM
9 7 (6.31%) Mentoring
9 7 (6.31%) Scenario Testing
9 7 (6.31%) Web SSO
9 7 (6.31%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.91%) PowerShell
2 7 (6.31%) Python
3 4 (3.60%) SQL
4 1 (0.90%) Apex Code
4 1 (0.90%) Bicep
4 1 (0.90%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.90%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 66 (59.46%) Security Cleared
2 55 (49.55%) SC Cleared
3 10 (9.01%) DV Cleared
4 8 (7.21%) CISSP
5 7 (6.31%) Degree
6 6 (5.41%) CISM
6 6 (5.41%) SAP Certification
7 4 (3.60%) CESG Certified Professional
7 4 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.80%) CLAS
8 2 (1.80%) CRISC
8 2 (1.80%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
8 2 (1.80%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.90%) APMP
9 1 (0.90%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.90%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (11.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (7.21%) GDPR
3 5 (4.50%) Data Quality
3 5 (4.50%) NIST
4 4 (3.60%) RMADS
5 3 (2.70%) GRC
5 3 (2.70%) JSP 440
5 3 (2.70%) NCSC
6 2 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 2 (1.80%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.90%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.90%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.90%) QA
System Software
1 10 (9.01%) Active Directory
2 4 (3.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (3.60%) VMware NSX
3 2 (1.80%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.90%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (9.01%) PingFederate
2 9 (8.11%) Single Sign-On
3 4 (3.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (1.80%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (1.80%) NetBackup
4 2 (1.80%) SCCM
4 2 (1.80%) Terraform
5 1 (0.90%) Ansible
Vendors
1 20 (18.02%) SAP
2 16 (14.41%) Microsoft
3 7 (6.31%) Atlassian
3 7 (6.31%) Oracle
4 5 (4.50%) Ping Identity
5 4 (3.60%) VMware
6 3 (2.70%) CyberArk
6 3 (2.70%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.80%) Commvault
7 2 (1.80%) Google
7 2 (1.80%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.80%) Veritas
8 1 (0.90%) BMC
8 1 (0.90%) Cerner
8 1 (0.90%) Dell
8 1 (0.90%) IBM
8 1 (0.90%) Isilon
8 1 (0.90%) NEC
8 1 (0.90%) OpenText
8 1 (0.90%) Remedy