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 £530, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 May 2026.

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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 35 32
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,192 674 1,049
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.76% 5.19% 5.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.18% 5.66% 5.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 665 431 733
10th Percentile £402 £400 £389
25th Percentile £454 £470 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% -2.27% +1.85%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £724 £650 £725
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 14 22
10th Percentile £51.75 £28.12 £26.38
25th Percentile £56.25 £38.43 £50.73
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £58.44
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% +19.78% -10.77%
75th Percentile £59.69 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £60.00 - -
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 22,995 11,910 19,149
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.87% 91.74% 92.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,245 7,593 11,598
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £402 £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 £680 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,650 854 2,392
10th Percentile £14.68 £13.80 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.98 £15.75
Median hourly rate £43.69 £26.28 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.25% -34.30% -6.98%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.24 £62.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.18 £37.50
% change year-on-year +50.82% -24.85% -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 31 May 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 31 May 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 31 May 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 -5 339 £525 -4.55% 233
North of England -25 253 £550 +3.77% 312
Midlands -16 234 £525 -3.45% 86
South West +28 200 £600 +9.09% 151
West Midlands -5 156 £530 -3.64% 60
North West -24 124 £525 -3.23% 230
Yorkshire -13 108 £550 +15.79% 52
East of England -12 71 £550 +7.42% 44
Scotland +24 70 £410 -11.35% 52
East Midlands -14 69 £500 -3.85% 26
Wales +2 31 £550 +37.50% 13
North East -25 21 £725 +35.77% 30
Northern Ireland +3 3 £600 +15.38% 43
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 31 May 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.

1 252 (21.14%) SAP
1 252 (21.14%) Security Cleared
2 185 (15.52%) SC Cleared
3 153 (12.84%) Migration
4 151 (12.67%) ERP
5 136 (11.41%) Oracle
6 133 (11.16%) Azure
7 121 (10.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 115 (9.65%) Microsoft
9 113 (9.48%) Problem-Solving
10 105 (8.81%) SQL
11 97 (8.14%) Continuous Improvement
12 93 (7.80%) Stakeholder Management
13 92 (7.72%) Data Migration
14 90 (7.55%) SAP S/4HANA
15 83 (6.96%) Cybersecurity
16 82 (6.88%) Validation
17 81 (6.80%) Workshop Facilitation
18 67 (5.62%) User Acceptance Testing
19 66 (5.54%) Agile
20 60 (5.03%) PLM
21 59 (4.95%) AWS
21 59 (4.95%) Business Intelligence
21 59 (4.95%) Roadmaps
22 57 (4.78%) Data Protection
23 55 (4.61%) Change Management
24 54 (4.53%) DV Cleared
24 54 (4.53%) Siemens
25 52 (4.36%) Analytics
25 52 (4.36%) CISSP

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 23 (1.93%) Confluence
2 18 (1.51%) SharePoint
3 7 (0.59%) Oracle Workflow
4 6 (0.50%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.25%) Apache
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Superset
5 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.25%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.17%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.084%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.084%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.084%) SAS
7 1 (0.084%) Tomcat
Applications
1 41 (3.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.09%) 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 (0.084%) CATIA
8 1 (0.084%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.084%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 90 (7.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (2.52%) Oracle EBS
3 29 (2.43%) SAP PSCD
4 25 (2.10%) Teamcenter
5 22 (1.85%) Oracle Payables
5 22 (1.85%) SAP MM
6 20 (1.68%) Oracle Receivables
6 20 (1.68%) SAP FI
7 18 (1.51%) Oracle ERP
8 15 (1.26%) SAP SD
9 14 (1.17%) SAP EWM
10 12 (1.01%) Oracle Cash Management
11 11 (0.92%) SAP CO
11 11 (0.92%) SAP HCM
11 11 (0.92%) SAP Hybris
11 11 (0.92%) SAP PP
12 10 (0.84%) NetSuite
12 10 (0.84%) Oracle Assets
12 10 (0.84%) SAP BRIM
12 10 (0.84%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 133 (11.16%) Azure
2 59 (4.95%) AWS
3 49 (4.11%) Power Platform
4 44 (3.69%) OCI
5 43 (3.61%) Dynamics 365
6 29 (2.43%) GCP
7 27 (2.27%) Microsoft 365
8 23 (1.93%) SuccessFactors
9 18 (1.51%) Power Automate
10 17 (1.43%) Entra ID
10 17 (1.43%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (1.34%) SaaS
12 12 (1.01%) SAP Commerce Cloud
13 11 (0.92%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (0.92%) PowerApps
14 9 (0.76%) Copilot Studio
14 9 (0.76%) GitHub
15 7 (0.59%) Cloud Computing
16 6 (0.50%) Azure AI
16 6 (0.50%) Oracle Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.76%) Network Security
2 16 (1.34%) SNMP
3 13 (1.09%) Firewall
4 9 (0.76%) FTP
5 5 (0.42%) HTTP
6 4 (0.34%) LAN
6 4 (0.34%) SAN
6 4 (0.34%) 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%) Wireless
9 1 (0.084%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.85%) Oracle Reports
2 31 (2.60%) Power BI
3 17 (1.43%) Oracle ODI
4 16 (1.34%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 13 (1.09%) SAP HANA
6 9 (0.76%) Tableau
7 7 (0.59%) SQL Server
8 6 (0.50%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.42%) Metadata
9 5 (0.42%) NonStop SQL
9 5 (0.42%) SAP Data Services
10 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.34%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.34%) SAP BW
11 3 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.25%) Delta Lake
11 3 (0.25%) Electronic Patient Records
11 3 (0.25%) GIS
11 3 (0.25%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.25%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 37 (3.10%) JIRA
2 14 (1.17%) Hudson
3 7 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (0.42%) Git
5 4 (0.34%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.34%) Visual Studio Code
6 3 (0.25%) Toad
7 2 (0.17%) JDeveloper
7 2 (0.17%) Postman
8 1 (0.084%) Appium
8 1 (0.084%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.084%) GitLab
8 1 (0.084%) JUnit
8 1 (0.084%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.084%) MSTest
8 1 (0.084%) NUnit
8 1 (0.084%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 247 (20.72%) Finance
2 239 (20.05%) Social Skills
3 93 (7.80%) Analytical Skills
4 88 (7.38%) Public Sector
5 44 (3.69%) Manufacturing
6 30 (2.52%) Banking
7 27 (2.27%) Legal
8 22 (1.85%) Billing
9 21 (1.76%) General Ledger
10 19 (1.59%) Telecoms
11 15 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
12 14 (1.17%) Aerospace
12 14 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
12 14 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
13 13 (1.09%) Marketing
14 12 (1.01%) Local Government
14 12 (1.01%) Retail
15 11 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.76%) Law
17 8 (0.67%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.52%) XML
2 40 (3.36%) REST
3 28 (2.35%) Oracle Fusion
4 12 (1.01%) Web Services
5 10 (0.84%) SOAP
6 8 (0.67%) SAP Fiori
7 6 (0.50%) JSON
7 6 (0.50%) RESTful
8 5 (0.42%) Microsoft Graph
8 5 (0.42%) Middleware
8 5 (0.42%) SailPoint
8 5 (0.42%) SAP Basis
9 4 (0.34%) .NET
9 4 (0.34%) AngularJS
9 4 (0.34%) BAPI
9 4 (0.34%) LDAP
10 3 (0.25%) IDoc
10 3 (0.25%) PySpark
10 3 (0.25%) scikit-learn
10 3 (0.25%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 31 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
2 20 (1.68%) Onboarding
3 19 (1.59%) Security Posture
4 17 (1.43%) Operational Technology
5 14 (1.17%) AI Agents
6 13 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (1.09%) Product Ownership
7 12 (1.01%) Public Cloud
7 12 (1.01%) Replication
8 9 (0.76%) Cloud Native
8 9 (0.76%) Management Information System
9 8 (0.67%) NHS
10 7 (0.59%) Data Centre
10 7 (0.59%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (0.59%) SCADA
11 6 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
11 6 (0.50%) Beowulf
11 6 (0.50%) Data Structures
11 6 (0.50%) Greenfield Project
11 6 (0.50%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 40 (3.36%) Windows
2 34 (2.85%) Linux
3 15 (1.26%) Solaris
4 13 (1.09%) AIX
5 11 (0.92%) VMS
6 3 (0.25%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.17%) Unix
8 1 (0.084%) Android
8 1 (0.084%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.084%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.084%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.084%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (12.84%) Migration
2 151 (12.67%) ERP
3 121 (10.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 113 (9.48%) Problem-Solving
5 97 (8.14%) Continuous Improvement
6 93 (7.80%) Stakeholder Management
7 92 (7.72%) Data Migration
8 83 (6.96%) Cybersecurity
9 82 (6.88%) Validation
10 81 (6.80%) Workshop Facilitation
11 67 (5.62%) User Acceptance Testing
12 66 (5.54%) Agile
13 60 (5.03%) PLM
14 59 (4.95%) Business Intelligence
14 59 (4.95%) Roadmaps
15 57 (4.78%) Data Protection
16 55 (4.61%) Change Management
17 52 (4.36%) Analytics
18 46 (3.86%) Workflow
19 45 (3.78%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 105 (8.81%) SQL
2 44 (3.69%) Python
3 28 (2.35%) T-SQL
4 25 (2.10%) PL/SQL
5 20 (1.68%) PowerShell
6 13 (1.09%) JavaScript
6 13 (1.09%) Search Processing Language
7 9 (0.76%) Java
7 9 (0.76%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.59%) ABAP
8 7 (0.59%) Bash
8 7 (0.59%) R
9 6 (0.50%) C#
10 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.17%) C++
10 2 (0.17%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.17%) VBScript
11 1 (0.084%) ActionScript 2.0
11 1 (0.084%) SOQL
11 1 (0.084%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 252 (21.14%) Security Cleared
2 185 (15.52%) SC Cleared
3 54 (4.53%) DV Cleared
4 52 (4.36%) CISSP
5 37 (3.10%) CISM
6 33 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
7 30 (2.52%) Degree
8 22 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
9 19 (1.59%) CCSP
10 18 (1.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 11 (0.92%) CEH
12 9 (0.76%) ACCA
12 9 (0.76%) CIMA
12 9 (0.76%) OSCP
12 9 (0.76%) PMP
13 8 (0.67%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 7 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (0.59%) SAP Certification
15 6 (0.50%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.50%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (3.94%) NIST
2 44 (3.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 29 (2.43%) GRC
4 28 (2.35%) Data Quality
5 17 (1.43%) GDPR
6 13 (1.09%) PCI DSS
7 12 (1.01%) QA
8 10 (0.84%) JSP 440
9 9 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.76%) NCSC
10 8 (0.67%) RMADS
10 8 (0.67%) SLA
11 7 (0.59%) COBIT
12 6 (0.50%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.50%) PMO
13 5 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.25%) WCAG
15 2 (0.17%) HL7
15 2 (0.17%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
System Software
1 21 (1.76%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (0.84%) Docker
3 10 (0.84%) VMware NSX
3 10 (0.84%) vSphere
4 8 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (0.50%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.17%) NFS
8 1 (0.084%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.084%) IAG
8 1 (0.084%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 26 (2.18%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.09%) Nagios
2 13 (1.09%) ZABBIX
3 12 (1.01%) Netcool
3 12 (1.01%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.92%) OpenView
4 11 (0.92%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 10 (0.84%) Ansible
6 9 (0.76%) Terraform
7 6 (0.50%) NetBackup
7 6 (0.50%) Podman
7 6 (0.50%) vRealize
8 4 (0.34%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.25%) Grafana
9 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Management
9 3 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Manager
9 3 (0.25%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.25%) vRealize Orchestrator
10 2 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 252 (21.14%) SAP
2 136 (11.41%) Oracle
3 115 (9.65%) Microsoft
4 54 (4.53%) Siemens
5 27 (2.27%) ServiceNow
6 22 (1.85%) BMC
6 22 (1.85%) Splunk
7 21 (1.76%) VMware
7 21 (1.76%) Workday
8 18 (1.51%) Ariba
8 18 (1.51%) IBM
9 14 (1.17%) Sage
10 13 (1.09%) Google
10 13 (1.09%) SolarWinds
11 12 (1.01%) Databricks
11 12 (1.01%) HP
12 11 (0.92%) IFS
13 8 (0.67%) Epicor
14 7 (0.59%) Informatica
14 7 (0.59%) Veritas