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 8 April 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 36 34
Rank change year-on-year +3 -2 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,164 656 1,020
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 5.05% 5.17% 4.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.49% 5.60% 5.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 676 435 737
10th Percentile £403 £425 £369
25th Percentile £455 £492 £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% - -2.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 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 - £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 21,212 11,713 19,336
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.03% 92.40% 92.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,573 7,634 11,970
10th Percentile £263 £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 £587 £598
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,337 766 2,132
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.46 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.38 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £41.68 £30.62 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.14% -12.53% -17.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.38 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £34.21
% change year-on-year +25.94% -7.16% -23.98%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +4 353 £525 -8.70% 278
Midlands -10 230 £525 - 104
North of England -18 221 £520 -3.35% 172
South West +22 171 £525 -4.55% 152
West Midlands -3 167 £550 +3.53% 52
North West -25 106 £525 -3.67% 109
Yorkshire -1 103 £500 -4.76% 53
East of England -3 94 £550 +10.00% 67
Scotland +22 65 £460 -12.38% 38
East Midlands -16 56 £500 -3.85% 51
Wales +10 32 £550 +37.50% 33
North East -27 12 £525 -2.23% 12
Northern Ireland +2 6 £428 -18.57% 15
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 275 (23.63%) Security Cleared
2 252 (21.65%) SAP
3 220 (18.90%) SC Cleared
4 174 (14.95%) Migration
5 155 (13.32%) Oracle
6 140 (12.03%) ERP
7 135 (11.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 116 (9.97%) Azure
9 111 (9.54%) Problem-Solving
10 101 (8.68%) SQL
11 99 (8.51%) SAP S/4HANA
12 94 (8.08%) Workshop Facilitation
13 91 (7.82%) Microsoft
14 85 (7.30%) Stakeholder Management
15 76 (6.53%) Data Migration
16 75 (6.44%) Continuous Improvement
17 71 (6.10%) User Acceptance Testing
18 69 (5.93%) Roadmaps
19 68 (5.84%) Cybersecurity
20 67 (5.76%) Business Intelligence
21 65 (5.58%) Validation
22 61 (5.24%) Change Management
23 58 (4.98%) Agile
24 56 (4.81%) Analytics
24 56 (4.81%) Knowledge Transfer
25 54 (4.64%) OCI
26 53 (4.55%) PLM
26 53 (4.55%) Siemens
26 53 (4.55%) XML
27 52 (4.47%) ISO/IEC 27001

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 29 (2.49%) SharePoint
2 17 (1.46%) Confluence
3 9 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
4 6 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.26%) Apache
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
5 3 (0.26%) MTS
6 2 (0.17%) CMS
6 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.086%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.086%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.086%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.086%) SAS
7 1 (0.086%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.086%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.086%) WebLogic
Applications
1 42 (3.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.69%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.43%) PTC Creo
5 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.17%) Lectora
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
6 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.086%) CATIA
7 1 (0.086%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.086%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.086%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 99 (8.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (3.35%) Oracle EBS
3 29 (2.49%) Oracle Receivables
3 29 (2.49%) SAP FI
3 29 (2.49%) SAP MM
4 27 (2.32%) Oracle Payables
4 27 (2.32%) SAP PSCD
5 21 (1.80%) Oracle EBS R12
6 20 (1.72%) SAP HCM
7 19 (1.63%) Oracle Assets
7 19 (1.63%) Oracle Cash Management
7 19 (1.63%) Teamcenter
8 18 (1.55%) Oracle General Ledger
9 17 (1.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 17 (1.46%) SAP Hybris
10 16 (1.37%) Oracle ERP
10 16 (1.37%) SAP BRIM
11 14 (1.20%) SAP EWM
12 13 (1.12%) SAP PP
13 12 (1.03%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 116 (9.97%) Azure
2 54 (4.64%) OCI
3 45 (3.87%) AWS
4 36 (3.09%) Power Platform
5 33 (2.84%) Dynamics 365
6 32 (2.75%) SuccessFactors
7 21 (1.80%) GCP
7 21 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
8 19 (1.63%) Entra ID
9 18 (1.55%) SAP Commerce Cloud
10 17 (1.46%) SaaS
11 14 (1.20%) Microsoft Copilot
12 10 (0.86%) Azure DevOps
12 10 (0.86%) Power Automate
13 9 (0.77%) PowerApps
14 7 (0.60%) GitHub
14 7 (0.60%) OneDrive
15 5 (0.43%) Copilot Studio
16 4 (0.34%) dbt
16 4 (0.34%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.37%) Firewall
2 12 (1.03%) Network Security
3 8 (0.69%) FTP
3 8 (0.69%) SNMP
4 5 (0.43%) Cisco ISE
4 5 (0.43%) HTTP
4 5 (0.43%) Kerberos
4 5 (0.43%) SD-WAN
4 5 (0.43%) WAN
5 4 (0.34%) Cisco Firepower
5 4 (0.34%) SSH
5 4 (0.34%) VPN
5 4 (0.34%) VSAN
6 3 (0.26%) BGP
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco ASA
6 3 (0.26%) Cisco Nexus
6 3 (0.26%) EIGRP
6 3 (0.26%) LAN
6 3 (0.26%) OSPF
7 2 (0.17%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (2.75%) Oracle Reports
1 32 (2.75%) Power BI
2 18 (1.55%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 14 (1.20%) Oracle ODI
3 14 (1.20%) SAP HANA
4 9 (0.77%) SQL Server
4 9 (0.77%) Tableau
5 8 (0.69%) Metadata
6 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
6 6 (0.52%) SAP Data Services
7 4 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
7 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.34%) Snowflake Schema
8 3 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
8 3 (0.26%) GIS
8 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
8 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.17%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 33 (2.84%) JIRA
2 14 (1.20%) Hudson
3 6 (0.52%) Oracle Forms
4 4 (0.34%) Visual Studio Code
5 3 (0.26%) Git
5 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.086%) Appium
7 1 (0.086%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.086%) GitLab
7 1 (0.086%) JUnit
7 1 (0.086%) MSTest
7 1 (0.086%) NUnit
7 1 (0.086%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.086%) Toad
7 1 (0.086%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 238 (20.45%) Social Skills
2 236 (20.27%) Finance
3 120 (10.31%) Public Sector
4 97 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (3.18%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.32%) Billing
7 26 (2.23%) Legal
8 24 (2.06%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.98%) Banking
10 20 (1.72%) General Ledger
11 18 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (1.20%) Aerospace
12 14 (1.20%) Marketing
13 13 (1.12%) Local Government
13 13 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
14 12 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (0.95%) Law
16 8 (0.69%) Retail
17 6 (0.52%) Advertising
17 6 (0.52%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.55%) XML
2 46 (3.95%) REST
3 40 (3.44%) Oracle Fusion
4 22 (1.89%) SOAP
5 17 (1.46%) Web Services
6 12 (1.03%) JSON
7 11 (0.95%) LDAP
7 11 (0.95%) SAP Basis
8 10 (0.86%) SAP Fiori
9 7 (0.60%) .NET
9 7 (0.60%) SAML
10 6 (0.52%) OAuth
10 6 (0.52%) SAP Business Workflow
11 5 (0.43%) Middleware
12 4 (0.34%) AngularJS
12 4 (0.34%) BAPI
13 3 (0.26%) OpenID
13 3 (0.26%) RESTful
13 3 (0.26%) SailPoint
13 3 (0.26%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 27 (2.32%) Data Protection Act
2 21 (1.80%) Replication
3 19 (1.63%) Onboarding
4 16 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (1.20%) Operational Technology
6 13 (1.12%) Product Ownership
7 12 (1.03%) Public Cloud
8 10 (0.86%) Data Centre
8 10 (0.86%) NHS
9 9 (0.77%) AI Agents
9 9 (0.77%) Data Structures
9 9 (0.77%) Management Information System
10 8 (0.69%) Security Posture
11 7 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
12 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
13 5 (0.43%) BYOD
13 5 (0.43%) FMCG
13 5 (0.43%) Market Risk
13 5 (0.43%) SCADA
13 5 (0.43%) SCORM
Operating Systems
1 34 (2.92%) Windows
2 27 (2.32%) Linux
3 12 (1.03%) AIX
4 7 (0.60%) VMS
5 4 (0.34%) Solaris
5 4 (0.34%) Windows 10
5 4 (0.34%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.17%) Unix
8 1 (0.086%) CentOS
8 1 (0.086%) CoreOS
8 1 (0.086%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.086%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.086%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 174 (14.95%) Migration
2 140 (12.03%) ERP
3 135 (11.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 111 (9.54%) Problem-Solving
5 94 (8.08%) Workshop Facilitation
6 85 (7.30%) Stakeholder Management
7 76 (6.53%) Data Migration
8 75 (6.44%) Continuous Improvement
9 71 (6.10%) User Acceptance Testing
10 69 (5.93%) Roadmaps
11 68 (5.84%) Cybersecurity
12 67 (5.76%) Business Intelligence
13 65 (5.58%) Validation
14 61 (5.24%) Change Management
15 58 (4.98%) Agile
16 56 (4.81%) Analytics
16 56 (4.81%) Knowledge Transfer
17 53 (4.55%) PLM
18 49 (4.21%) Workflow
19 48 (4.12%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 101 (8.68%) SQL
2 43 (3.69%) Python
3 28 (2.41%) T-SQL
4 25 (2.15%) PowerShell
5 22 (1.89%) ABAP
6 19 (1.63%) PL/SQL
7 14 (1.20%) JavaScript
8 9 (0.77%) Java
9 8 (0.69%) Bash
9 8 (0.69%) Search Processing Language
10 7 (0.60%) C#
11 6 (0.52%) R
12 4 (0.34%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.17%) VBA
13 2 (0.17%) VBScript
14 1 (0.086%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.086%) C++
14 1 (0.086%) MATLAB
14 1 (0.086%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 275 (23.63%) Security Cleared
2 220 (18.90%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.38%) DV Cleared
4 36 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (2.58%) Degree
6 27 (2.32%) CISSP
7 17 (1.46%) CISM
8 11 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (0.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 7 (0.60%) SAP Certification
13 6 (0.52%) Azure Certification
13 6 (0.52%) PMP
14 5 (0.43%) CEH
14 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
14 5 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
15 4 (0.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 4 (0.34%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (4.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 46 (3.95%) NIST
3 29 (2.49%) GRC
4 22 (1.89%) Data Quality
5 20 (1.72%) GDPR
6 16 (1.37%) QA
7 12 (1.03%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.95%) JSP 440
8 11 (0.95%) NCSC
9 9 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.69%) COBIT
10 8 (0.69%) PMO
11 7 (0.60%) RMADS
12 5 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
13 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.34%) SLA
14 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (0.17%) HL7
15 2 (0.17%) SOC 2
System Software
1 24 (2.06%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (1.12%) VMware NSX
3 10 (0.86%) Docker
4 7 (0.60%) vSphere
5 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 4 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.086%) Ceph
8 1 (0.086%) IAG
8 1 (0.086%) KVM
8 1 (0.086%) NFS
8 1 (0.086%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 14 (1.20%) Kubernetes
2 9 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
3 8 (0.69%) Nagios
3 8 (0.69%) Netcool
3 8 (0.69%) OpenView
3 8 (0.69%) Terraform
3 8 (0.69%) Tivoli
3 8 (0.69%) Tivoli Monitoring
3 8 (0.69%) ZABBIX
4 7 (0.60%) PingFederate
5 6 (0.52%) Podman
6 5 (0.43%) Ansible
6 5 (0.43%) NetBackup
7 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.26%) Puppet
7 3 (0.26%) vRealize
8 2 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.17%) SCCM
9 1 (0.086%) CEMLI
9 1 (0.086%) Control-M
Vendors
1 252 (21.65%) SAP
2 155 (13.32%) Oracle
3 91 (7.82%) Microsoft
4 53 (4.55%) Siemens
5 38 (3.26%) Cisco
6 33 (2.84%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.66%) Aruba
8 22 (1.89%) Workday
9 21 (1.80%) VMware
10 18 (1.55%) Ariba
11 14 (1.20%) BMC
11 14 (1.20%) IBM
11 14 (1.20%) Sage
12 13 (1.12%) Databricks
12 13 (1.12%) Splunk
13 12 (1.03%) Google
13 12 (1.03%) OpenText
14 11 (0.95%) IFS
15 8 (0.69%) Computacenter
15 8 (0.69%) SolarWinds