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 £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 29 27
Rank change year-on-year -10 -2 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,349 983 1,064
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.73% 6.16% 6.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.21% 6.87% 6.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 770 599 613
10th Percentile £413 £413 £420
25th Percentile £463 £492 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year - -2.22% +7.14%
75th Percentile £650 £642 £638
90th Percentile £725 £719 £737
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 24 17
10th Percentile £37.13 £31.61 £55.00
25th Percentile £56.25 £61.56 -
Median hourly rate £75.00 £77.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +25.81% -3.97%
75th Percentile £83.06 £81.25 £73.56
90th Percentile £91.13 £86.88 £79.92
UK median hourly rate £74.00 £77.50 £62.30
% change year-on-year -4.52% +24.40% -5.61%

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 25,908 14,300 15,977
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.90% 89.63% 92.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,943 8,801 9,090
10th Percentile £300 £206 £220
25th Percentile £412 £363 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £588
90th Percentile £688 £669 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,599 1,345 1,204
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.56 £14.73
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.50 £19.57
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.24% -41.18% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £66.33
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £41.27
% change year-on-year +65.23% -39.05% -8.30%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 -3 383 £533 -3.18% 319
North of England -18 349 £575 -4.17% 350
North West -17 227 £585 -6.02% 195
Midlands -8 220 £501 -12.00% 167
South West +5 185 £600 +9.09% 121
West Midlands -5 161 £500 -11.11% 115
Scotland +12 114 £500 - 134
East of England -17 108 £552 +0.36% 79
Yorkshire -23 91 £563 +14.33% 71
East Midlands -10 52 £550 -3.30% 52
North East -12 30 £750 +36.36% 84
Wales -25 19 £575 +27.78% 22
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 - 3
Northern Ireland -11 1 £638 +22.60% 50
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 October 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.

1 418 (30.99%) Security Cleared
2 338 (25.06%) SAP
3 271 (20.09%) SC Cleared
4 251 (18.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 201 (14.90%) Microsoft
6 171 (12.68%) Migration
7 135 (10.01%) Cybersecurity
8 134 (9.93%) Problem-Solving
9 133 (9.86%) Azure
10 131 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 126 (9.34%) Oracle
12 124 (9.19%) SAP S/4HANA
13 116 (8.60%) Validation
14 112 (8.30%) Workshop Facilitation
15 111 (8.23%) Continuous Improvement
16 107 (7.93%) DV Cleared
17 102 (7.56%) ERP
18 101 (7.49%) User Acceptance Testing
19 84 (6.23%) Roadmaps
20 83 (6.15%) Analytics
21 80 (5.93%) Agile
22 78 (5.78%) Data Migration
23 74 (5.49%) Knowledge Transfer
24 70 (5.19%) AWS
24 70 (5.19%) Requirements Gathering
25 68 (5.04%) SQL
26 64 (4.74%) BPSS Clearance
27 62 (4.60%) SuccessFactors
28 60 (4.45%) Windows
29 58 (4.30%) Dynamics 365

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 25 (1.85%) Confluence
2 21 (1.56%) SharePoint
3 8 (0.59%) WebSphere
4 7 (0.52%) WebLogic
5 3 (0.22%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.22%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.22%) SAP Portal
5 3 (0.22%) TIBCO ActiveMatrix
6 2 (0.15%) Apache
6 2 (0.15%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.074%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.074%) IIS
7 1 (0.074%) JBoss
7 1 (0.074%) OpenEdge
7 1 (0.074%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.074%) SAS
7 1 (0.074%) Tomcat
Applications
1 26 (1.93%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.22%) PTC Creo
5 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.074%) Adobe Captivate
6 1 (0.074%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 124 (9.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (2.74%) SAP PSCD
3 36 (2.67%) SAP Payroll
4 31 (2.30%) SAP HCM
5 25 (1.85%) SAP HR
6 23 (1.70%) SAP FI
7 22 (1.63%) Oracle ERP
7 22 (1.63%) Teamcenter
8 20 (1.48%) Workday HCM
9 19 (1.41%) Oracle Receivables
10 18 (1.33%) Oracle Payables
11 16 (1.19%) SAP BRIM
12 15 (1.11%) Oracle EBS
13 13 (0.96%) Oracle General Ledger
13 13 (0.96%) SAP Hybris
13 13 (0.96%) SAP QM
14 12 (0.89%) SAP EWM
15 11 (0.82%) SAP CO
15 11 (0.82%) SAP FI/CO
15 11 (0.82%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 133 (9.86%) Azure
2 70 (5.19%) AWS
3 62 (4.60%) SuccessFactors
4 58 (4.30%) Dynamics 365
5 50 (3.71%) GCP
5 50 (3.71%) Power Platform
6 41 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
6 41 (3.04%) OCI
7 34 (2.52%) Entra ID
8 20 (1.48%) Azure DevOps
9 19 (1.41%) Power Automate
9 19 (1.41%) SaaS
10 17 (1.26%) SAP Commerce Cloud
11 11 (0.82%) Microsoft Copilot
12 10 (0.74%) Microsoft Purview
13 9 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
13 9 (0.67%) Oracle Service Cloud
13 9 (0.67%) PowerApps
14 8 (0.59%) Azure Monitor
15 7 (0.52%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 29 (2.15%) Network Security
2 21 (1.56%) Firewall
3 12 (0.89%) BGP
3 12 (0.89%) SNMP
4 11 (0.82%) WAN
5 9 (0.67%) VPN
6 8 (0.59%) DNS
7 7 (0.52%) FTP
7 7 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.44%) VSAN
9 5 (0.37%) DHCP
9 5 (0.37%) LAN
9 5 (0.37%) SAN
9 5 (0.37%) TCP/IP
10 4 (0.30%) Wireless
11 3 (0.22%) Ethernet VPN
11 3 (0.22%) MPLS
11 3 (0.22%) TACACS
11 3 (0.22%) VXLAN
12 2 (0.15%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (1.70%) Power BI
2 17 (1.26%) Oracle Reports
3 16 (1.19%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 15 (1.11%) SAP BW
5 14 (1.04%) SAP HANA
6 11 (0.82%) Metadata
6 11 (0.82%) SQL Server
7 9 (0.67%) BusinessObjects
8 6 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (0.44%) Oracle Database
8 6 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 5 (0.37%) Power Query
10 4 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
10 4 (0.30%) SAP Data Services
10 4 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
10 4 (0.30%) Tableau
11 3 (0.22%) GIS
11 3 (0.22%) NonStop SQL
11 3 (0.22%) NoSQL
11 3 (0.22%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 43 (3.19%) JIRA
2 17 (1.26%) Git
3 7 (0.52%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.30%) GitLab
4 4 (0.30%) Hudson
5 3 (0.22%) Oracle Forms
6 2 (0.15%) Gradle
6 2 (0.15%) JDeveloper
6 2 (0.15%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.15%) LSMW
6 2 (0.15%) Maven
6 2 (0.15%) Postman
6 2 (0.15%) TestRail
6 2 (0.15%) Toad
6 2 (0.15%) tSQLt
6 2 (0.15%) Zephyr
7 1 (0.074%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.074%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.074%) Gerrit
7 1 (0.074%) Yeoman
General
1 345 (25.57%) Social Skills
2 263 (19.50%) Finance
3 124 (9.19%) Public Sector
4 108 (8.01%) Analytical Skills
5 69 (5.11%) Manufacturing
6 40 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (2.52%) Telecoms
8 33 (2.45%) Legal
9 30 (2.22%) Billing
9 30 (2.22%) General Ledger
10 29 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
11 24 (1.78%) Banking
12 19 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
13 17 (1.26%) Aerospace
13 17 (1.26%) Retail
14 14 (1.04%) Financial Institution
14 14 (1.04%) Marketing
15 12 (0.89%) Military
15 12 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
16 8 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (2.59%) REST
2 34 (2.52%) Oracle Fusion
3 21 (1.56%) Middleware
3 21 (1.56%) SOAP
4 20 (1.48%) Terraform
5 19 (1.41%) Web Services
6 18 (1.33%) SailPoint
7 16 (1.19%) SAP Fiori
8 15 (1.11%) LDAP
9 13 (0.96%) XML
10 11 (0.82%) SAPUI5
11 9 (0.67%) SAP PI
12 7 (0.52%) Microsoft Graph
12 7 (0.52%) XSLT
13 5 (0.37%) IDoc
13 5 (0.37%) JDBC
13 5 (0.37%) OpenTelemetry
13 5 (0.37%) SAP Basis
13 5 (0.37%) SLSA
14 4 (0.30%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 50 (3.71%) Onboarding
2 28 (2.08%) Operational Technology
3 23 (1.70%) CMDB
4 20 (1.48%) Security Posture
5 18 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
6 17 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
7 16 (1.19%) Data Structures
8 14 (1.04%) Management Information System
8 14 (1.04%) PKI
8 14 (1.04%) Product Ownership
9 12 (0.89%) Data Centre
9 12 (0.89%) Learning Management System
10 11 (0.82%) Cloud Native
11 8 (0.59%) AI Agents
11 8 (0.59%) Legacy Systems
12 7 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (0.52%) Replication
13 6 (0.44%) Private Cloud
13 6 (0.44%) Public Cloud
13 6 (0.44%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 60 (4.45%) Windows
2 33 (2.45%) Linux
3 15 (1.11%) Windows Server
4 13 (0.96%) Solaris
5 9 (0.67%) Unix
6 6 (0.44%) AIX
7 5 (0.37%) VMS
8 4 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.22%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.15%) Android
10 2 (0.15%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.074%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.074%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (18.61%) Stakeholder Management
2 171 (12.68%) Migration
3 135 (10.01%) Cybersecurity
4 134 (9.93%) Problem-Solving
5 131 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 116 (8.60%) Validation
7 112 (8.30%) Workshop Facilitation
8 111 (8.23%) Continuous Improvement
9 102 (7.56%) ERP
10 101 (7.49%) User Acceptance Testing
11 84 (6.23%) Roadmaps
12 83 (6.15%) Analytics
13 80 (5.93%) Agile
14 78 (5.78%) Data Migration
15 74 (5.49%) Knowledge Transfer
16 70 (5.19%) Requirements Gathering
17 57 (4.23%) Risk Management
17 57 (4.23%) Vulnerability Management
18 56 (4.15%) AI
19 54 (4.00%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 68 (5.04%) SQL
2 44 (3.26%) Python
3 41 (3.04%) ABAP
4 26 (1.93%) PowerShell
5 18 (1.33%) Java
6 16 (1.19%) JavaScript
7 13 (0.96%) Bash
8 9 (0.67%) PL/SQL
9 8 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
10 7 (0.52%) Search Processing Language
11 5 (0.37%) C#
12 4 (0.30%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.22%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.15%) C++
14 2 (0.15%) Groovy
14 2 (0.15%) Korn
14 2 (0.15%) Magik
14 2 (0.15%) Perl
14 2 (0.15%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.15%) XPath
Qualifications
1 418 (30.99%) Security Cleared
2 271 (20.09%) SC Cleared
3 107 (7.93%) DV Cleared
4 64 (4.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (3.41%) CISSP
6 39 (2.89%) CISM
7 32 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (2.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (1.70%) CCSP
10 21 (1.56%) Degree
11 12 (0.89%) ACCA
11 12 (0.89%) CIMA
11 12 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
12 10 (0.74%) CRISC
13 8 (0.59%) DBS Check
13 8 (0.59%) PMP
14 6 (0.44%) CCA
14 6 (0.44%) CEH
14 6 (0.44%) CISA
14 6 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (2.97%) NIST
2 37 (2.74%) Data Quality
3 35 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 34 (2.52%) GRC
5 23 (1.70%) QA
6 20 (1.48%) NCSC
7 17 (1.26%) SLA
8 15 (1.11%) GDPR
9 13 (0.96%) Actionable Recommendations
9 13 (0.96%) PMO
10 9 (0.67%) Accessibility
11 7 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.52%) NIST 800
12 6 (0.44%) Def Stans
13 5 (0.37%) ISO 14001
13 5 (0.37%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 4 (0.30%) COBIT
14 4 (0.30%) PCI DSS
14 4 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 57 (4.23%) Active Directory
2 23 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (0.96%) VMware NSX
4 12 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (0.74%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.74%) vSphere
6 8 (0.59%) Docker
6 8 (0.59%) Firmware
7 5 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.30%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.15%) IAG
10 1 (0.074%) Corosync
10 1 (0.074%) NFS
10 1 (0.074%) PowerHA
10 1 (0.074%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 29 (2.15%) Kubernetes
2 17 (1.26%) Ansible
3 10 (0.74%) vCenter Server
4 9 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (0.67%) vRealize
5 7 (0.52%) Grafana
6 6 (0.44%) FortiGate
6 6 (0.44%) SCCM
6 6 (0.44%) VxRail
7 5 (0.37%) Nagios
7 5 (0.37%) ZABBIX
8 4 (0.30%) CEMLI
8 4 (0.30%) Netcool
8 4 (0.30%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.30%) Tivoli
9 3 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
9 3 (0.22%) OpenView
9 3 (0.22%) Tivoli Monitoring
10 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 338 (25.06%) SAP
2 201 (14.90%) Microsoft
3 126 (9.34%) Oracle
4 56 (4.15%) ServiceNow
5 31 (2.30%) Workday
6 30 (2.22%) VMware
7 22 (1.63%) Salesforce
8 19 (1.41%) Splunk
9 14 (1.04%) JD Edwards
10 12 (0.89%) CyberArk
10 12 (0.89%) Google
11 11 (0.82%) Concur
11 11 (0.82%) Databricks
12 10 (0.74%) BMC
13 8 (0.59%) IBM
13 8 (0.59%) Veeam
14 7 (0.52%) Epicor
14 7 (0.52%) Qualtrics
15 6 (0.44%) Okta
15 6 (0.44%) OpenAI