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 5 April 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 37 34
Rank change year-on-year +4 -3 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,179 646 1,025
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.17% 5.10% 4.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.62% 5.52% 5.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 429 740
10th Percentile £403 £425 £369
25th Percentile £457 £488 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £699 £688 £725
UK median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -2.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 10 25
10th Percentile - £69.50 £26.75
25th Percentile £56.25 £71.88 £42.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%
75th Percentile £60.00 £86.00 £62.54
90th Percentile £64.00 £86.03 £63.29
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £85.00 £61.60
% change year-on-year -32.35% +37.99% -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 20,996 11,708 19,417
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.02% 92.41% 92.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,459 7,637 12,043
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £585 £585 £595
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,287 758 2,116
10th Percentile £14.47 £14.48 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £41.06 £31.29 £34.61
Median % change year-on-year +31.21% -9.58% -18.32%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.73 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £32.00 £33.78
% change year-on-year +25.00% -5.26% -24.15%

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 5 April 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 5 April 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 5 April 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 +5 356 £525 -8.70% 278
Midlands -10 232 £525 - 104
North of England -20 230 £525 -2.42% 172
South West +25 169 £525 -4.55% 152
West Midlands +3 167 £550 +4.76% 52
Yorkshire +8 109 £519 -1.19% 53
North West -29 109 £525 -3.67% 109
East of England -7 95 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +26 65 £500 -4.76% 38
East Midlands -20 57 £500 -3.85% 51
Wales +8 34 £550 +37.50% 33
North East -23 12 £525 -1.69% 12
Northern Ireland +1 6 £405 -22.86% 15
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 5 April 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.

1 286 (24.26%) Security Cleared
2 256 (21.71%) SAP
3 232 (19.68%) SC Cleared
4 180 (15.27%) Migration
5 154 (13.06%) Oracle
6 143 (12.13%) ERP
7 137 (11.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 116 (9.84%) Azure
9 114 (9.67%) Problem-Solving
10 104 (8.82%) SAP S/4HANA
11 100 (8.48%) SQL
12 97 (8.23%) Workshop Facilitation
13 91 (7.72%) Microsoft
14 85 (7.21%) Stakeholder Management
15 76 (6.45%) Data Migration
16 75 (6.36%) Roadmaps
17 74 (6.28%) Continuous Improvement
18 70 (5.94%) User Acceptance Testing
19 68 (5.77%) Cybersecurity
20 67 (5.68%) Business Intelligence
21 63 (5.34%) Validation
22 61 (5.17%) Change Management
23 57 (4.83%) Analytics
24 55 (4.66%) Agile
24 55 (4.66%) Knowledge Transfer
25 53 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
25 53 (4.50%) PLM
25 53 (4.50%) Siemens
26 52 (4.41%) OCI
27 51 (4.33%) XML

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 30 (2.54%) SharePoint
2 17 (1.44%) Confluence
3 10 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.51%) Jupyter
4 6 (0.51%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.25%) Apache
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Superset
5 3 (0.25%) MTS
6 2 (0.17%) CMS
6 2 (0.17%) NetWeaver
6 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.085%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.085%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.085%) SAS
7 1 (0.085%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.085%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.085%) WebLogic
Applications
1 42 (3.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.68%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.42%) PTC Creo
5 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.17%) Lectora
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
6 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.085%) CATIA
7 1 (0.085%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.085%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.085%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 104 (8.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (3.31%) Oracle EBS
3 30 (2.54%) SAP FI
4 29 (2.46%) Oracle Receivables
5 27 (2.29%) Oracle Payables
5 27 (2.29%) SAP MM
6 26 (2.21%) SAP PSCD
7 21 (1.78%) Oracle EBS R12
8 20 (1.70%) SAP HCM
9 19 (1.61%) Oracle Assets
9 19 (1.61%) Oracle Cash Management
9 19 (1.61%) Teamcenter
10 18 (1.53%) Oracle General Ledger
11 17 (1.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 17 (1.44%) SAP Hybris
12 16 (1.36%) Oracle ERP
12 16 (1.36%) SAP BRIM
13 14 (1.19%) SAP EWM
13 14 (1.19%) SAP PP
14 13 (1.10%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 116 (9.84%) Azure
2 52 (4.41%) OCI
3 44 (3.73%) AWS
4 34 (2.88%) Power Platform
5 32 (2.71%) Dynamics 365
5 32 (2.71%) GCP
5 32 (2.71%) SuccessFactors
6 21 (1.78%) Microsoft 365
7 19 (1.61%) Entra ID
8 18 (1.53%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 17 (1.44%) SaaS
10 14 (1.19%) Microsoft Copilot
11 10 (0.85%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (0.85%) Power Automate
12 9 (0.76%) PowerApps
13 7 (0.59%) OneDrive
14 6 (0.51%) GitHub
15 5 (0.42%) Copilot Studio
16 4 (0.34%) dbt
16 4 (0.34%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.27%) Firewall
2 12 (1.02%) Network Security
3 8 (0.68%) FTP
3 8 (0.68%) SNMP
4 5 (0.42%) Cisco ISE
4 5 (0.42%) HTTP
4 5 (0.42%) Kerberos
5 4 (0.34%) SD-WAN
5 4 (0.34%) SSH
5 4 (0.34%) VSAN
5 4 (0.34%) WAN
6 3 (0.25%) BGP
6 3 (0.25%) Cisco ASA
6 3 (0.25%) Cisco Firepower
6 3 (0.25%) Cisco Nexus
6 3 (0.25%) EIGRP
6 3 (0.25%) LAN
6 3 (0.25%) OSPF
6 3 (0.25%) VPN
7 2 (0.17%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (2.63%) Oracle Reports
1 31 (2.63%) Power BI
2 18 (1.53%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 17 (1.44%) SAP HANA
4 14 (1.19%) Oracle ODI
5 11 (0.93%) SQL Server
6 8 (0.68%) Metadata
6 8 (0.68%) Tableau
7 6 (0.51%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.51%) SAP Data Services
8 5 (0.42%) SAP BW
9 4 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
9 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.34%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
10 3 (0.25%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.25%) GIS
10 3 (0.25%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.25%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.17%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 33 (2.80%) JIRA
2 14 (1.19%) Hudson
3 6 (0.51%) Oracle Forms
4 3 (0.25%) Git
4 3 (0.25%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.17%) Postman
6 1 (0.085%) Appium
6 1 (0.085%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.085%) GitLab
6 1 (0.085%) JUnit
6 1 (0.085%) MSTest
6 1 (0.085%) NUnit
6 1 (0.085%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.085%) Toad
6 1 (0.085%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 243 (20.61%) Social Skills
2 239 (20.27%) Finance
3 124 (10.52%) Public Sector
4 98 (8.31%) Analytical Skills
5 41 (3.48%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.29%) Billing
7 26 (2.21%) Legal
8 24 (2.04%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.95%) Banking
10 20 (1.70%) General Ledger
11 18 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (1.19%) Aerospace
12 14 (1.19%) Marketing
13 13 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
13 13 (1.10%) Local Government
13 13 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
14 11 (0.93%) Law
14 11 (0.93%) Retail
15 6 (0.51%) Back Office
16 5 (0.42%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.33%) XML
2 45 (3.82%) REST
3 40 (3.39%) Oracle Fusion
4 21 (1.78%) SOAP
5 17 (1.44%) Web Services
6 13 (1.10%) SAP Fiori
7 11 (0.93%) JSON
7 11 (0.93%) LDAP
7 11 (0.93%) SAP Basis
8 7 (0.59%) .NET
8 7 (0.59%) SAML
9 6 (0.51%) OAuth
9 6 (0.51%) SAP Business Workflow
10 5 (0.42%) Middleware
11 4 (0.34%) BAPI
12 3 (0.25%) AngularJS
12 3 (0.25%) OpenID
12 3 (0.25%) RESTful
12 3 (0.25%) SailPoint
12 3 (0.25%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 25 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
2 21 (1.78%) Replication
3 19 (1.61%) Onboarding
4 16 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (1.19%) Operational Technology
6 13 (1.10%) Product Ownership
7 12 (1.02%) Public Cloud
8 10 (0.85%) Data Centre
8 10 (0.85%) NHS
9 9 (0.76%) AI Agents
9 9 (0.76%) Data Structures
9 9 (0.76%) Management Information System
10 8 (0.68%) Security Posture
11 7 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
12 6 (0.51%) Beowulf
13 5 (0.42%) BYOD
13 5 (0.42%) Enterprise Software
13 5 (0.42%) Market Risk
13 5 (0.42%) SCADA
13 5 (0.42%) SCORM
Operating Systems
1 34 (2.88%) Windows
2 26 (2.21%) Linux
3 12 (1.02%) AIX
4 7 (0.59%) VMS
5 4 (0.34%) Solaris
5 4 (0.34%) Windows 10
5 4 (0.34%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.17%) Unix
8 1 (0.085%) CentOS
8 1 (0.085%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.085%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.085%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.085%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 180 (15.27%) Migration
2 143 (12.13%) ERP
3 137 (11.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 114 (9.67%) Problem-Solving
5 97 (8.23%) Workshop Facilitation
6 85 (7.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 76 (6.45%) Data Migration
8 75 (6.36%) Roadmaps
9 74 (6.28%) Continuous Improvement
10 70 (5.94%) User Acceptance Testing
11 68 (5.77%) Cybersecurity
12 67 (5.68%) Business Intelligence
13 63 (5.34%) Validation
14 61 (5.17%) Change Management
15 57 (4.83%) Analytics
16 55 (4.66%) Agile
16 55 (4.66%) Knowledge Transfer
17 53 (4.50%) PLM
18 48 (4.07%) Workflow
19 45 (3.82%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 100 (8.48%) SQL
2 43 (3.65%) Python
3 28 (2.37%) T-SQL
4 27 (2.29%) PowerShell
5 22 (1.87%) ABAP
6 19 (1.61%) PL/SQL
7 13 (1.10%) JavaScript
8 9 (0.76%) Java
9 8 (0.68%) Bash
9 8 (0.68%) Search Processing Language
10 7 (0.59%) C#
11 5 (0.42%) R
12 4 (0.34%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.17%) VBA
13 2 (0.17%) VBScript
14 1 (0.085%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.085%) ActionScript 2.0
14 1 (0.085%) Bicep
14 1 (0.085%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 286 (24.26%) Security Cleared
2 232 (19.68%) SC Cleared
3 50 (4.24%) DV Cleared
4 35 (2.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (2.54%) Degree
6 28 (2.37%) CISSP
7 18 (1.53%) CISM
8 11 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (0.68%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (0.68%) SAP Certification
11 6 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
11 6 (0.51%) PMP
12 5 (0.42%) Azure Certification
12 5 (0.42%) CEH
12 5 (0.42%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.42%) Oracle Certification
13 4 (0.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (0.34%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 47 (3.99%) NIST
3 28 (2.37%) GRC
4 21 (1.78%) Data Quality
5 20 (1.70%) GDPR
6 17 (1.44%) QA
7 13 (1.10%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.93%) JSP 440
8 11 (0.93%) NCSC
9 9 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.68%) COBIT
10 8 (0.68%) PMO
11 7 (0.59%) RMADS
12 5 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 3 (0.25%) SLA
15 2 (0.17%) HL7
15 2 (0.17%) SOC 2
System Software
1 25 (2.12%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (1.10%) VMware NSX
3 10 (0.85%) Docker
4 7 (0.59%) vSphere
5 6 (0.51%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.085%) Ceph
8 1 (0.085%) IAG
8 1 (0.085%) KVM
8 1 (0.085%) NFS
8 1 (0.085%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 14 (1.19%) Kubernetes
2 9 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
3 8 (0.68%) Nagios
3 8 (0.68%) Netcool
3 8 (0.68%) OpenView
3 8 (0.68%) Tivoli
3 8 (0.68%) Tivoli Monitoring
3 8 (0.68%) ZABBIX
4 7 (0.59%) PingFederate
4 7 (0.59%) Terraform
5 6 (0.51%) NetBackup
5 6 (0.51%) Podman
6 4 (0.34%) Ansible
6 4 (0.34%) vRealize
7 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.25%) Puppet
8 2 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.17%) SCCM
9 1 (0.085%) Control-M
9 1 (0.085%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 256 (21.71%) SAP
2 154 (13.06%) Oracle
3 91 (7.72%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.50%) Siemens
5 41 (3.48%) Cisco
6 35 (2.97%) Aruba
7 31 (2.63%) ServiceNow
8 23 (1.95%) Workday
9 22 (1.87%) Google
10 21 (1.78%) VMware
11 18 (1.53%) Ariba
12 14 (1.19%) BMC
12 14 (1.19%) IBM
12 14 (1.19%) Sage
13 13 (1.10%) Splunk
14 12 (1.02%) Databricks
15 11 (0.93%) CyberArk
15 11 (0.93%) IFS
15 11 (0.93%) OpenText
16 8 (0.68%) Computacenter