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 £536, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 32 26
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +13
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,387 869 1,100
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.92% 5.62% 6.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.38% 6.25% 6.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 828 560 665
10th Percentile £405 £413 £425
25th Percentile £460 £487 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £550 £567
Median % change year-on-year -2.59% -3.00% +8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £634 £638
90th Percentile £713 £716 £744
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 21 16
10th Percentile £44.25 £29.51 £53.95
25th Percentile £58.97 £51.25 £56.24
Median hourly rate £76.25 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% +25.81% -5.23%
75th Percentile £83.94 £81.25 £63.20
90th Percentile £100.40 £87.25 £72.28
UK median hourly rate £76.00 £77.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year -1.94% +25.81% -5.23%

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 25,758 13,901 16,435
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.40% 89.86% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,279 8,555 9,550
10th Percentile £304 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £361 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £660 £676
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,290 1,258 1,435
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.46 £14.33
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £52.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%

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 17 September 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 -5 397 £540 -1.82% 433
North of England -18 319 £575 - 504
Midlands +1 231 £500 -9.09% 269
South West +11 207 £550 -8.33% 262
North West -10 207 £575 -7.26% 321
West Midlands +2 163 £500 -9.09% 217
Scotland +30 127 £452 -9.70% 197
East of England -14 106 £550 - 175
Yorkshire -21 91 £575 +22.99% 112
East Midlands -2 62 £525 -4.55% 51
Wales -15 22 £550 +22.22% 40
North East -34 20 £750 +37.61% 72
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 - 4
Northern Ireland -8 2 £544 +4.57% 178
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 September 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.

1 424 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 336 (24.22%) SAP
3 287 (20.69%) SC Cleared
4 226 (16.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 193 (13.91%) Microsoft
6 163 (11.75%) Migration
7 157 (11.32%) Oracle
8 140 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 133 (9.59%) Cybersecurity
10 126 (9.08%) Problem-Solving
11 125 (9.01%) Azure
12 122 (8.80%) Continuous Improvement
13 118 (8.51%) ERP
14 116 (8.36%) SAP S/4HANA
15 106 (7.64%) Workshop Facilitation
16 103 (7.43%) Validation
17 102 (7.35%) DV Cleared
18 95 (6.85%) User Acceptance Testing
19 89 (6.42%) SQL
20 88 (6.34%) Agile
20 88 (6.34%) Roadmaps
21 86 (6.20%) AWS
22 81 (5.84%) Analytics
23 74 (5.34%) Data Migration
24 73 (5.26%) Knowledge Transfer
25 68 (4.90%) Requirements Gathering
26 64 (4.61%) BPSS Clearance
26 64 (4.61%) SuccessFactors
27 63 (4.54%) Dynamics 365
28 62 (4.47%) Risk Management

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 (1.66%) Confluence
2 16 (1.15%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.65%) WebSphere
4 8 (0.58%) WebLogic
5 6 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.22%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
7 2 (0.14%) Apache
7 2 (0.14%) Apache Superset
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.14%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.072%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.072%) OpenEdge
8 1 (0.072%) SAS
8 1 (0.072%) Tomcat
Applications
1 27 (1.95%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.58%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.072%) Adobe Captivate
6 1 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 116 (8.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (2.60%) SAP PSCD
3 25 (1.80%) SAP Payroll
4 23 (1.66%) Oracle ERP
5 20 (1.44%) Oracle EBS
5 20 (1.44%) Oracle Payables
6 19 (1.37%) SAP HCM
7 18 (1.30%) SAP EWM
7 18 (1.30%) SAP FI
7 18 (1.30%) Workday HCM
8 17 (1.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 17 (1.23%) SAP HR
9 16 (1.15%) SAP QM
10 15 (1.08%) SAP MM
11 13 (0.94%) SAP PP
11 13 (0.94%) SAP SD
12 12 (0.87%) SAP BRIM
12 12 (0.87%) SAP Hybris
13 11 (0.79%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.79%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 125 (9.01%) Azure
2 86 (6.20%) AWS
3 64 (4.61%) SuccessFactors
4 63 (4.54%) Dynamics 365
5 58 (4.18%) Power Platform
6 55 (3.97%) GCP
7 52 (3.75%) OCI
8 35 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
9 31 (2.24%) Entra ID
10 23 (1.66%) Power Automate
11 15 (1.08%) SaaS
12 13 (0.94%) Microsoft Copilot
12 13 (0.94%) SAP Commerce Cloud
13 12 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
13 12 (0.87%) Oracle Service Cloud
14 10 (0.72%) GitHub
14 10 (0.72%) Microsoft Purview
14 10 (0.72%) PowerApps
15 9 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
16 8 (0.58%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 30 (2.16%) Network Security
2 22 (1.59%) Firewall
3 16 (1.15%) SNMP
4 12 (0.87%) BGP
4 12 (0.87%) WAN
5 8 (0.58%) DNS
5 8 (0.58%) VPN
6 7 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.43%) LAN
7 6 (0.43%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.43%) VSAN
8 5 (0.36%) SAN
9 4 (0.29%) DHCP
9 4 (0.29%) FTP
9 4 (0.29%) Wireless
10 3 (0.22%) Ethernet VPN
10 3 (0.22%) MPLS
10 3 (0.22%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.22%) SMS
10 3 (0.22%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (2.16%) Power BI
2 27 (1.95%) Oracle Reports
3 16 (1.15%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 16 (1.15%) SAP BW
4 15 (1.08%) SAP HANA
5 11 (0.79%) Metadata
5 11 (0.79%) Oracle ODI
5 11 (0.79%) SQL Server
6 9 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
6 9 (0.65%) Tableau
7 7 (0.50%) Oracle Database
7 7 (0.50%) Relational Database
8 6 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (0.43%) SAP Data Services
9 4 (0.29%) NonStop SQL
9 4 (0.29%) Power Query
10 3 (0.22%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.22%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.22%) RDBMS
10 3 (0.22%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 43 (3.10%) JIRA
2 15 (1.08%) Git
3 9 (0.65%) Hudson
4 8 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
5 6 (0.43%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.29%) GitLab
7 3 (0.22%) Toad
7 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.14%) Gradle
8 2 (0.14%) JDeveloper
8 2 (0.14%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.14%) Maven
8 2 (0.14%) Postman
8 2 (0.14%) TestRail
8 2 (0.14%) tSQLt
8 2 (0.14%) Zephyr
9 1 (0.072%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.072%) Oracle APEX
9 1 (0.072%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.072%) Yeoman
General
1 334 (24.08%) Social Skills
2 271 (19.54%) Finance
3 120 (8.65%) Public Sector
4 116 (8.36%) Analytical Skills
5 59 (4.25%) Manufacturing
6 33 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
8 30 (2.16%) General Ledger
8 30 (2.16%) Legal
9 29 (2.09%) Telecoms
10 25 (1.80%) Banking
11 23 (1.66%) Billing
12 20 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (1.44%) Retail
13 14 (1.01%) Financial Institution
14 12 (0.87%) Aerospace
14 12 (0.87%) Marketing
14 12 (0.87%) Military
14 12 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
15 8 (0.58%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (3.03%) REST
2 35 (2.52%) Oracle Fusion
3 22 (1.59%) Terraform
4 21 (1.51%) SOAP
5 19 (1.37%) Middleware
5 19 (1.37%) SailPoint
6 18 (1.30%) LDAP
7 17 (1.23%) SAP Fiori
8 16 (1.15%) Web Services
9 14 (1.01%) XML
10 9 (0.65%) SAP PI
11 6 (0.43%) EDI
11 6 (0.43%) IDoc
11 6 (0.43%) JSON
11 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Graph
11 6 (0.43%) SAP Basis
11 6 (0.43%) SAPUI5
12 5 (0.36%) JDBC
12 5 (0.36%) RESTful
12 5 (0.36%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 48 (3.46%) Onboarding
2 27 (1.95%) Operational Technology
3 25 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
4 24 (1.73%) Security Posture
5 23 (1.66%) CMDB
6 16 (1.15%) Product Ownership
7 14 (1.01%) PKI
8 13 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
9 12 (0.87%) Cloud Native
9 12 (0.87%) Replication
10 11 (0.79%) Data Centre
10 11 (0.79%) Data Structures
10 11 (0.79%) Management Information System
11 10 (0.72%) Learning Management System
12 8 (0.58%) FMCG
12 8 (0.58%) Private Cloud
12 8 (0.58%) Public Cloud
13 7 (0.50%) Greenfield Project
13 7 (0.50%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.50%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 55 (3.97%) Windows
2 37 (2.67%) Linux
3 17 (1.23%) Solaris
4 12 (0.87%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.72%) AIX
5 10 (0.72%) Unix
6 5 (0.36%) VMS
7 4 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.072%) Android
9 1 (0.072%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.072%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 226 (16.29%) Stakeholder Management
2 163 (11.75%) Migration
3 140 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 133 (9.59%) Cybersecurity
5 126 (9.08%) Problem-Solving
6 122 (8.80%) Continuous Improvement
7 118 (8.51%) ERP
8 106 (7.64%) Workshop Facilitation
9 103 (7.43%) Validation
10 95 (6.85%) User Acceptance Testing
11 88 (6.34%) Agile
11 88 (6.34%) Roadmaps
12 81 (5.84%) Analytics
13 74 (5.34%) Data Migration
14 73 (5.26%) Knowledge Transfer
15 68 (4.90%) Requirements Gathering
16 62 (4.47%) Risk Management
16 62 (4.47%) Translating Business Requirements
17 58 (4.18%) CI/CD
18 57 (4.11%) AI
Programming Languages
1 89 (6.42%) SQL
2 53 (3.82%) Python
3 34 (2.45%) ABAP
4 27 (1.95%) PowerShell
5 20 (1.44%) JavaScript
5 20 (1.44%) PL/SQL
6 17 (1.23%) Java
7 12 (0.87%) Bash
8 11 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
9 10 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (0.43%) C#
11 5 (0.36%) R
12 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.22%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.14%) Groovy
14 2 (0.14%) Korn
14 2 (0.14%) Magik
14 2 (0.14%) Perl
14 2 (0.14%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.14%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 424 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 287 (20.69%) SC Cleared
3 102 (7.35%) DV Cleared
4 64 (4.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 54 (3.89%) CISSP
6 45 (3.24%) CISM
7 36 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (2.24%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 27 (1.95%) CCSP
10 23 (1.66%) Degree
11 13 (0.94%) ACCA
11 13 (0.94%) CIMA
12 12 (0.87%) CompTIA Security+
13 11 (0.79%) PMP
14 10 (0.72%) CRISC
15 8 (0.58%) Azure Certification
15 8 (0.58%) CCSK
15 8 (0.58%) CEH
15 8 (0.58%) OSCP
16 7 (0.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (3.46%) NIST
2 44 (3.17%) GRC
3 34 (2.45%) Data Quality
3 34 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (1.51%) QA
5 18 (1.30%) NCSC
6 16 (1.15%) SLA
7 14 (1.01%) GDPR
8 13 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
9 11 (0.79%) PMO
10 9 (0.65%) Accessibility
11 7 (0.50%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.50%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.43%) COBIT
12 6 (0.43%) Def Stans
13 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.29%) WCAG
15 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 3 (0.22%) JSP 440
15 3 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 50 (3.60%) Active Directory
2 22 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (1.01%) VMware NSX
4 13 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (0.72%) vSphere
6 9 (0.65%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.58%) Docker
8 5 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.22%) Firmware
10 3 (0.22%) IAG
11 1 (0.072%) NFS
11 1 (0.072%) PowerHA
11 1 (0.072%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 30 (2.16%) Kubernetes
2 18 (1.30%) Ansible
3 10 (0.72%) vCenter Server
3 10 (0.72%) vRealize
4 9 (0.65%) Nagios
4 9 (0.65%) ZABBIX
5 8 (0.58%) Netcool
5 8 (0.58%) Tivoli
6 7 (0.50%) Grafana
6 7 (0.50%) OpenView
6 7 (0.50%) Tivoli Monitoring
7 6 (0.43%) FortiGate
7 6 (0.43%) VxRail
8 5 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.36%) SCCM
9 4 (0.29%) CEMLI
9 4 (0.29%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.22%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 336 (24.22%) SAP
2 193 (13.91%) Microsoft
3 157 (11.32%) Oracle
4 59 (4.25%) ServiceNow
5 30 (2.16%) VMware
6 26 (1.87%) Workday
7 24 (1.73%) Splunk
8 19 (1.37%) Salesforce
9 18 (1.30%) Ariba
10 14 (1.01%) BMC
10 14 (1.01%) Databricks
10 14 (1.01%) JD Edwards
11 13 (0.94%) CyberArk
12 11 (0.79%) Google
12 11 (0.79%) IBM
13 9 (0.65%) SolarWinds
14 8 (0.58%) Cisco
14 8 (0.58%) HP
14 8 (0.58%) Veeam
15 7 (0.50%) Informatica