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 27 April 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 35 34
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,155 672 1,021
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.86% 5.27% 4.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.28% 5.71% 5.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 662 438 730
10th Percentile £400 £425 £369
25th Percentile £450 £484 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £548 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% -0.45% -
75th Percentile £613 £620 £650
90th Percentile £711 £688 £725
UK median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 10 24
10th Percentile £51.60 £62.92 £26.63
25th Percentile £56.25 £70.00 £42.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £84.25 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -31.75% +48.11% -13.81%
75th Percentile £59.38 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £60.00 £86.03 £63.29
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -30.30% +33.93% -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 21,870 11,767 19,249
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 92.28% 92.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,843 7,564 11,777
10th Percentile £276 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £676 £651 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £516 £525
% change year-on-year -3.10% -1.71% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,435 823 2,230
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.06 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £18.13 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 £28.75 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.52% -24.34% -10.30%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £29.25 £35.96
% change year-on-year +47.01% -18.66% -20.09%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -2 348 £538 -4.91% 220
Midlands -11 225 £525 -2.33% 83
North of England -25 225 £525 -2.33% 281
South West +24 176 £525 -4.55% 160
West Midlands -6 152 £550 - 54
North West -28 108 £518 -4.93% 200
Yorkshire -16 97 £544 +3.57% 62
East of England -11 83 £550 +10.00% 56
Scotland +31 72 £450 -13.63% 33
East Midlands -17 66 £500 -3.85% 29
Wales +11 30 £550 +37.50% 17
North East -22 20 £525 -1.69% 20
Northern Ireland 0 4 £525 +0.96% 23
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 27 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.

1 254 (21.99%) Security Cleared
2 243 (21.04%) SAP
3 198 (17.14%) SC Cleared
4 159 (13.77%) Oracle
5 155 (13.42%) Migration
6 142 (12.29%) ERP
7 122 (10.56%) Azure
8 114 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 106 (9.18%) Problem-Solving
10 104 (9.00%) SQL
11 87 (7.53%) Workshop Facilitation
12 85 (7.36%) SAP S/4HANA
13 84 (7.27%) Microsoft
14 83 (7.19%) Stakeholder Management
15 82 (7.10%) Data Migration
16 80 (6.93%) Continuous Improvement
17 79 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
18 74 (6.41%) User Acceptance Testing
19 67 (5.80%) Validation
20 65 (5.63%) Business Intelligence
21 62 (5.37%) Agile
22 59 (5.11%) Roadmaps
23 57 (4.94%) PLM
24 56 (4.85%) Change Management
25 55 (4.76%) Data Protection
26 53 (4.59%) Siemens
26 53 (4.59%) XML
27 52 (4.50%) Analytics
27 52 (4.50%) DV Cleared
28 51 (4.42%) AWS

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 21 (1.82%) SharePoint
2 17 (1.47%) Confluence
3 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
4 5 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.26%) Apache
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
5 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.087%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.087%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.087%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.087%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.087%) WebLogic
Applications
1 37 (3.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.61%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.43%) PTC Creo
5 2 (0.17%) Lectora
5 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
5 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.087%) CATIA
6 1 (0.087%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.087%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.087%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 85 (7.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (3.98%) Oracle EBS
3 28 (2.42%) Oracle Receivables
4 27 (2.34%) SAP PSCD
5 25 (2.16%) Oracle Payables
6 23 (1.99%) SAP FI
6 23 (1.99%) SAP MM
7 22 (1.90%) Teamcenter
8 21 (1.82%) Oracle EBS R12
9 20 (1.73%) SAP HCM
10 19 (1.65%) Oracle Assets
10 19 (1.65%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 17 (1.47%) Oracle Cash Management
11 17 (1.47%) Oracle ERP
11 17 (1.47%) Oracle General Ledger
12 15 (1.30%) SAP EWM
13 13 (1.13%) SAP Hybris
14 12 (1.04%) SAP BRIM
14 12 (1.04%) SAP PP
15 11 (0.95%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 122 (10.56%) Azure
2 51 (4.42%) AWS
3 50 (4.33%) OCI
4 45 (3.90%) Power Platform
5 42 (3.64%) Dynamics 365
6 31 (2.68%) SuccessFactors
7 24 (2.08%) GCP
8 18 (1.56%) Microsoft 365
9 16 (1.39%) Power Automate
9 16 (1.39%) SaaS
10 15 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
11 14 (1.21%) Entra ID
11 14 (1.21%) SAP Commerce Cloud
12 11 (0.95%) PowerApps
13 10 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
14 7 (0.61%) Copilot Studio
14 7 (0.61%) GitHub
15 5 (0.43%) Oracle Service Cloud
15 5 (0.43%) Serverless
16 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.21%) Network Security
2 13 (1.13%) Firewall
3 12 (1.04%) SNMP
4 9 (0.78%) FTP
5 5 (0.43%) HTTP
6 4 (0.35%) SAN
6 4 (0.35%) VPN
7 3 (0.26%) Cisco ISE
7 3 (0.26%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.26%) SMS
7 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.26%) WAN
8 2 (0.17%) Connectrix
8 2 (0.17%) DNS
8 2 (0.17%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.17%) Intranet
8 2 (0.17%) LAN
8 2 (0.17%) VLAN
8 2 (0.17%) VXLAN
8 2 (0.17%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (3.03%) Oracle Reports
2 34 (2.94%) Power BI
3 17 (1.47%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 17 (1.47%) Oracle ODI
4 14 (1.21%) SAP HANA
5 9 (0.78%) Tableau
6 8 (0.69%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.52%) SAP Data Services
8 4 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
8 4 (0.35%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
9 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
9 3 (0.26%) GIS
9 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.26%) Metadata
9 3 (0.26%) NonStop SQL
9 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.26%) SAP BW
9 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 32 (2.77%) JIRA
2 14 (1.21%) Hudson
3 7 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
4 4 (0.35%) Git
4 4 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
5 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.26%) Toad
6 2 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.087%) Appium
7 1 (0.087%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.087%) GitLab
7 1 (0.087%) JUnit
7 1 (0.087%) MSTest
7 1 (0.087%) NUnit
7 1 (0.087%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.087%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 229 (19.83%) Finance
2 223 (19.31%) Social Skills
3 100 (8.66%) Public Sector
4 95 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
5 39 (3.38%) Manufacturing
6 28 (2.42%) Legal
7 24 (2.08%) Billing
8 23 (1.99%) Banking
9 21 (1.82%) General Ledger
10 19 (1.65%) Telecoms
11 15 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
12 14 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
13 12 (1.04%) Aerospace
13 12 (1.04%) Retail
14 11 (0.95%) Local Government
15 10 (0.87%) Law
15 10 (0.87%) Marketing
16 9 (0.78%) Documentation Skills
17 8 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.61%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.59%) XML
2 42 (3.64%) REST
3 33 (2.86%) Oracle Fusion
4 20 (1.73%) SOAP
5 17 (1.47%) Web Services
6 11 (0.95%) JSON
7 7 (0.61%) .NET
8 6 (0.52%) SAP Basis
9 5 (0.43%) LDAP
10 4 (0.35%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.35%) BAPI
10 4 (0.35%) Middleware
10 4 (0.35%) RESTful
10 4 (0.35%) SailPoint
10 4 (0.35%) SAP Fiori
11 3 (0.26%) IDoc
11 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.26%) OpenTelemetry
11 3 (0.26%) PySpark
11 3 (0.26%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 29 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
2 20 (1.73%) Replication
3 18 (1.56%) Operational Technology
4 15 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
4 15 (1.30%) Onboarding
5 13 (1.13%) Product Ownership
6 12 (1.04%) Public Cloud
7 11 (0.95%) AI Agents
8 10 (0.87%) Security Posture
9 9 (0.78%) Management Information System
9 9 (0.78%) NHS
10 8 (0.69%) Cloud Native
10 8 (0.69%) Data Structures
11 7 (0.61%) Data Centre
11 7 (0.61%) SCADA
12 6 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
12 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
12 6 (0.52%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (0.52%) FMCG
13 5 (0.43%) SCORM
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.42%) Windows
2 24 (2.08%) Linux
3 9 (0.78%) AIX
4 8 (0.69%) Solaris
4 8 (0.69%) VMS
5 4 (0.35%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.17%) Unix
8 1 (0.087%) CentOS
8 1 (0.087%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.087%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.087%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.087%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (13.42%) Migration
2 142 (12.29%) ERP
3 114 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 106 (9.18%) Problem-Solving
5 87 (7.53%) Workshop Facilitation
6 83 (7.19%) Stakeholder Management
7 82 (7.10%) Data Migration
8 80 (6.93%) Continuous Improvement
9 79 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
10 74 (6.41%) User Acceptance Testing
11 67 (5.80%) Validation
12 65 (5.63%) Business Intelligence
13 62 (5.37%) Agile
14 59 (5.11%) Roadmaps
15 57 (4.94%) PLM
16 56 (4.85%) Change Management
17 55 (4.76%) Data Protection
18 52 (4.50%) Analytics
19 46 (3.98%) Knowledge Transfer
20 43 (3.72%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 104 (9.00%) SQL
2 41 (3.55%) Python
3 28 (2.42%) T-SQL
4 23 (1.99%) PL/SQL
5 17 (1.47%) PowerShell
6 16 (1.39%) ABAP
7 15 (1.30%) JavaScript
8 9 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
9 8 (0.69%) Bash
9 8 (0.69%) Java
10 7 (0.61%) C#
10 7 (0.61%) R
11 4 (0.35%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.17%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.17%) VBScript
13 1 (0.087%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.087%) ActionScript 2.0
13 1 (0.087%) C++
13 1 (0.087%) VBA
Qualifications
1 254 (21.99%) Security Cleared
2 198 (17.14%) SC Cleared
3 52 (4.50%) DV Cleared
4 36 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 35 (3.03%) CISSP
6 31 (2.68%) Degree
7 24 (2.08%) CISM
8 13 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (0.87%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (0.69%) CCSP
10 8 (0.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 8 (0.69%) SAP Certification
11 7 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 7 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.52%) CEH
13 5 (0.43%) Azure Certification
13 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
14 4 (0.35%) ACCA
14 4 (0.35%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (4.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 48 (4.16%) NIST
2 33 (2.86%) GRC
3 25 (2.16%) Data Quality
4 18 (1.56%) GDPR
5 13 (1.13%) QA
6 11 (0.95%) JSP 440
6 11 (0.95%) PCI DSS
7 9 (0.78%) COBIT
7 9 (0.78%) NCSC
8 8 (0.69%) PMO
9 7 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
9 7 (0.61%) RMADS
9 7 (0.61%) SLA
10 5 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.17%) HL7
12 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.087%) DICOM
System Software
1 19 (1.65%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.87%) Docker
4 9 (0.78%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 6 (0.52%) vSphere
6 4 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.087%) Ceph
8 1 (0.087%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.087%) IAG
8 1 (0.087%) KVM
8 1 (0.087%) NFS
8 1 (0.087%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 15 (1.30%) Kubernetes
2 10 (0.87%) Ansible
3 9 (0.78%) Nagios
3 9 (0.78%) ZABBIX
4 8 (0.69%) Netcool
4 8 (0.69%) OpenView
4 8 (0.69%) Terraform
4 8 (0.69%) Tivoli
4 8 (0.69%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 6 (0.52%) Podman
5 6 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.43%) NetBackup
6 5 (0.43%) PingFederate
6 5 (0.43%) vRealize
7 3 (0.26%) Grafana
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Management
7 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Manager
7 3 (0.26%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.26%) Puppet
Vendors
1 243 (21.04%) SAP
2 159 (13.77%) Oracle
3 84 (7.27%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.59%) Siemens
5 24 (2.08%) ServiceNow
6 20 (1.73%) Cisco
6 20 (1.73%) VMware
7 19 (1.65%) Workday
8 18 (1.56%) Ariba
9 17 (1.47%) Splunk
10 15 (1.30%) Aruba
10 15 (1.30%) BMC
11 14 (1.21%) Sage
12 13 (1.13%) Google
12 13 (1.13%) IBM
13 12 (1.04%) IFS
14 10 (0.87%) Databricks
14 10 (0.87%) OpenText
15 9 (0.78%) SolarWinds
16 8 (0.69%) HP