Consultant Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Consultant
UK > UK excluding London

The median Consultant daily rate in the UK excluding London is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 June 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 37 32
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,204 665 1,066
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.78% 5.10% 5.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.21% 5.56% 5.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 665 419 729
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £450 £466 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £650 £725
UK median daily rate £540 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -1.82% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 14 21
10th Percentile £51.90 £28.12 £26.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £38.43 £50.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% +23.06% -13.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £61.60
% change year-on-year -17.86% +13.64% -6.67%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 23,124 11,954 19,293
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.87% 91.75% 92.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,303 7,572 11,580
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £403 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £594
90th Percentile £681 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,666 882 2,443
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.51 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.25 £16.95 £15.85
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.39% -36.94% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +60.71% -25.33% -16.67%

Consultant
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Consultant job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Consultant in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 6 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Consultant in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Consultant job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Consultant in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 6 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Consultant in the UK excluding London

Consultant
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Consultant within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 6 June 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
South East -1 339 £525 -4.55% 284
North of England -17 266 £550 +3.77% 374
Midlands -13 228 £525 -4.55% 115
South West +36 201 £577 +4.91% 215
West Midlands -9 151 £525 -4.55% 71
North West -16 131 £525 -3.67% 249
Yorkshire -11 113 £550 +15.79% 86
Scotland +22 73 £418 -9.73% 74
East of England -9 72 £550 +6.08% 52
East Midlands -11 68 £500 -3.85% 43
Wales -3 30 £550 +37.50% 16
North East -28 22 £638 +19.38% 39
Northern Ireland +1 3 £600 +15.38% 57
Consultant
UK

Consultant Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 6 June 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 UK excluding London region featuring Consultant in the job title.

1 256 (21.26%) SAP
2 254 (21.10%) Security Cleared
3 186 (15.45%) SC Cleared
4 151 (12.54%) ERP
4 151 (12.54%) Migration
5 138 (11.46%) Azure
5 138 (11.46%) Oracle
6 121 (10.05%) Microsoft
7 120 (9.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 115 (9.55%) Problem-Solving
9 107 (8.89%) SQL
10 99 (8.22%) Continuous Improvement
11 97 (8.06%) Stakeholder Management
12 92 (7.64%) SAP S/4HANA
13 89 (7.39%) Data Migration
14 83 (6.89%) Cybersecurity
14 83 (6.89%) Validation
15 80 (6.64%) Workshop Facilitation
16 70 (5.81%) User Acceptance Testing
17 69 (5.73%) Agile
18 62 (5.15%) Roadmaps
19 61 (5.07%) AWS
20 60 (4.98%) PLM
21 59 (4.90%) Business Intelligence
22 57 (4.73%) Change Management
22 57 (4.73%) Data Protection
23 54 (4.49%) Siemens
24 53 (4.40%) Analytics
25 51 (4.24%) CISSP
25 51 (4.24%) DV Cleared

Consultant Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 25 (2.08%) Confluence
2 18 (1.50%) SharePoint
3 7 (0.58%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.50%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.33%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.25%) Apache
6 3 (0.25%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.25%) Apache Superset
6 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.25%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.083%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.083%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.083%) SAS
7 1 (0.083%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (3.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.25%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.42%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Lectora
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.083%) CATIA
8 1 (0.083%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 92 (7.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (2.41%) Oracle EBS
2 29 (2.41%) SAP PSCD
3 25 (2.08%) Teamcenter
4 24 (1.99%) Oracle Payables
5 22 (1.83%) SAP MM
6 21 (1.74%) Oracle Receivables
7 19 (1.58%) Oracle ERP
8 18 (1.50%) SAP FI
9 15 (1.25%) SAP SD
10 14 (1.16%) SAP EWM
11 11 (0.91%) NetSuite
11 11 (0.91%) Oracle Cash Management
11 11 (0.91%) SAP CO
11 11 (0.91%) SAP HCM
11 11 (0.91%) SAP PP
12 10 (0.83%) SAP BRIM
12 10 (0.83%) SAP FI/CO
12 10 (0.83%) SAP Hybris
13 9 (0.75%) Oracle Assets
Cloud Services
1 138 (11.46%) Azure
2 61 (5.07%) AWS
3 50 (4.15%) Power Platform
4 45 (3.74%) OCI
5 44 (3.65%) Dynamics 365
6 31 (2.57%) GCP
7 28 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
8 23 (1.91%) SuccessFactors
9 19 (1.58%) Entra ID
9 19 (1.58%) Power Automate
10 17 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (1.33%) SaaS
12 12 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
12 12 (1.00%) PowerApps
13 11 (0.91%) GitHub
13 11 (0.91%) SAP Commerce Cloud
14 9 (0.75%) Cloud Computing
14 9 (0.75%) Copilot Studio
15 6 (0.50%) Azure AI
15 6 (0.50%) Oracle Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.91%) Network Security
2 16 (1.33%) SNMP
3 12 (1.00%) Firewall
4 9 (0.75%) FTP
5 5 (0.42%) HTTP
6 4 (0.33%) LAN
6 4 (0.33%) SAN
6 4 (0.33%) VPN
7 3 (0.25%) DNS
7 3 (0.25%) SMS
7 3 (0.25%) WAN
7 3 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.17%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (0.17%) Connectrix
8 2 (0.17%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.17%) Intranet
8 2 (0.17%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.17%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.17%) VXLAN
8 2 (0.17%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (2.91%) Oracle Reports
2 32 (2.66%) Power BI
3 17 (1.41%) Oracle ODI
4 16 (1.33%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 13 (1.08%) SAP HANA
6 9 (0.75%) Tableau
7 8 (0.66%) SQL Server
8 6 (0.50%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.50%) Oracle Database
9 5 (0.42%) Metadata
9 5 (0.42%) NonStop SQL
9 5 (0.42%) SAP Data Services
10 4 (0.33%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.33%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.25%) BusinessObjects
11 3 (0.25%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.25%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.25%) Power Query
11 3 (0.25%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 39 (3.24%) JIRA
2 12 (1.00%) Hudson
3 7 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (0.42%) Git
4 5 (0.42%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.25%) Toad
5 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
6 2 (0.17%) JDeveloper
6 2 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.083%) Appium
7 1 (0.083%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.083%) GitLab
7 1 (0.083%) JUnit
7 1 (0.083%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.083%) MSTest
7 1 (0.083%) NUnit
General
1 244 (20.27%) Finance
1 244 (20.27%) Social Skills
2 92 (7.64%) Analytical Skills
3 91 (7.56%) Public Sector
4 43 (3.57%) Manufacturing
5 31 (2.57%) Banking
6 29 (2.41%) Legal
7 22 (1.83%) Billing
8 21 (1.74%) General Ledger
9 20 (1.66%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.33%) Documentation Skills
11 15 (1.25%) Aerospace
11 15 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
11 15 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
12 13 (1.08%) Retail
13 12 (1.00%) Local Government
13 12 (1.00%) Marketing
14 11 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (0.66%) Advertising
15 8 (0.66%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (3.41%) XML
2 38 (3.16%) REST
3 26 (2.16%) Oracle Fusion
4 12 (1.00%) Web Services
5 9 (0.75%) SOAP
6 8 (0.66%) SAP Fiori
7 7 (0.58%) Middleware
8 6 (0.50%) JSON
8 6 (0.50%) RESTful
9 5 (0.42%) Microsoft Graph
9 5 (0.42%) SailPoint
9 5 (0.42%) SAP Basis
10 4 (0.33%) .NET
10 4 (0.33%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.33%) BAPI
10 4 (0.33%) LDAP
11 3 (0.25%) IDoc
11 3 (0.25%) PySpark
11 3 (0.25%) scikit-learn
11 3 (0.25%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 31 (2.57%) Data Protection Act
2 23 (1.91%) Onboarding
3 20 (1.66%) Security Posture
4 17 (1.41%) Operational Technology
5 14 (1.16%) AI Agents
5 14 (1.16%) Product Ownership
6 13 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (1.00%) Public Cloud
7 12 (1.00%) Replication
8 9 (0.75%) Cloud Native
8 9 (0.75%) Management Information System
9 7 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (0.58%) NHS
9 7 (0.58%) SCADA
10 6 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (0.50%) Beowulf
10 6 (0.50%) Data Centre
10 6 (0.50%) Data Structures
10 6 (0.50%) Greenfield Project
10 6 (0.50%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 41 (3.41%) Windows
2 36 (2.99%) Linux
3 17 (1.41%) Solaris
4 13 (1.08%) AIX
5 11 (0.91%) VMS
6 4 (0.33%) Unix
7 3 (0.25%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.083%) Android
9 1 (0.083%) CoreOS
9 1 (0.083%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.083%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.083%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 151 (12.54%) ERP
1 151 (12.54%) Migration
2 120 (9.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 115 (9.55%) Problem-Solving
4 99 (8.22%) Continuous Improvement
5 97 (8.06%) Stakeholder Management
6 89 (7.39%) Data Migration
7 83 (6.89%) Cybersecurity
7 83 (6.89%) Validation
8 80 (6.64%) Workshop Facilitation
9 70 (5.81%) User Acceptance Testing
10 69 (5.73%) Agile
11 62 (5.15%) Roadmaps
12 60 (4.98%) PLM
13 59 (4.90%) Business Intelligence
14 57 (4.73%) Change Management
14 57 (4.73%) Data Protection
15 53 (4.40%) Analytics
16 47 (3.90%) AI
17 45 (3.74%) GAP Analysis
Programming Languages
1 107 (8.89%) SQL
2 46 (3.82%) Python
3 28 (2.33%) T-SQL
4 24 (1.99%) PL/SQL
5 22 (1.83%) PowerShell
6 13 (1.08%) Search Processing Language
7 12 (1.00%) JavaScript
8 10 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
9 9 (0.75%) ABAP
9 9 (0.75%) Bash
9 9 (0.75%) Java
10 7 (0.58%) R
11 5 (0.42%) C#
12 3 (0.25%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.17%) C++
13 2 (0.17%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) VBScript
14 1 (0.083%) ActionScript 2.0
14 1 (0.083%) SOQL
14 1 (0.083%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 254 (21.10%) Security Cleared
2 186 (15.45%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.24%) CISSP
3 51 (4.24%) DV Cleared
4 37 (3.07%) CISM
5 35 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 30 (2.49%) Degree
7 23 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
8 20 (1.66%) CCSP
9 19 (1.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 10 (0.83%) ACCA
10 10 (0.83%) CEH
10 10 (0.83%) CIMA
10 10 (0.83%) PMP
11 9 (0.75%) OSCP
12 8 (0.66%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 7 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.58%) SAP Certification
14 6 (0.50%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.50%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (3.90%) NIST
2 42 (3.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (2.57%) GRC
4 28 (2.33%) Data Quality
5 18 (1.50%) GDPR
6 13 (1.08%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.08%) QA
7 10 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
7 10 (0.83%) NCSC
8 8 (0.66%) JSP 440
9 7 (0.58%) Accessibility
9 7 (0.58%) COBIT
9 7 (0.58%) RMADS
9 7 (0.58%) SLA
10 5 (0.42%) PMO
10 5 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.33%) WCAG
12 2 (0.17%) ISO 22301
12 2 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
System Software
1 23 (1.91%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.83%) Docker
3 10 (0.83%) vSphere
4 9 (0.75%) VMware NSX
5 8 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.50%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.17%) NFS
9 1 (0.083%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.083%) IAG
9 1 (0.083%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 27 (2.24%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.08%) Nagios
2 13 (1.08%) ZABBIX
3 12 (1.00%) Netcool
3 12 (1.00%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.91%) Ansible
4 11 (0.91%) OpenView
4 11 (0.91%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 10 (0.83%) Terraform
6 6 (0.50%) NetBackup
6 6 (0.50%) Podman
6 6 (0.50%) vRealize
7 4 (0.33%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.25%) Grafana
8 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Management
8 3 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Manager
8 3 (0.25%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.25%) vRealize Orchestrator
9 2 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 256 (21.26%) SAP
2 138 (11.46%) Oracle
3 121 (10.05%) Microsoft
4 54 (4.49%) Siemens
5 27 (2.24%) ServiceNow
6 22 (1.83%) BMC
6 22 (1.83%) Splunk
7 21 (1.74%) VMware
7 21 (1.74%) Workday
8 18 (1.50%) Ariba
8 18 (1.50%) IBM
9 14 (1.16%) Sage
10 13 (1.08%) Google
10 13 (1.08%) SolarWinds
11 12 (1.00%) Databricks
11 12 (1.00%) HP
12 9 (0.75%) IFS
13 7 (0.58%) Epicor
13 7 (0.58%) Informatica
13 7 (0.58%) Veritas