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 11 October 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 30 27
Rank change year-on-year -7 -3 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,347 965 1,068
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.78% 6.08% 6.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.26% 6.79% 6.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 777 586 621
10th Percentile £412 £413 £420
25th Percentile £463 £493 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year - -2.22% +7.14%
75th Percentile £650 £645 £638
90th Percentile £719 £719 £734
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 24 17
10th Percentile £36.50 £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% -5.23%
75th Percentile £83.25 £81.25 £73.56
90th Percentile £93.00 £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 25,620 14,203 16,106
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 89.54% 92.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,787 8,730 9,165
10th Percentile £300 £208 £219
25th Percentile £413 £363 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
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% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,528 1,337 1,237
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.73
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.35 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +66.84% -41.18% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +65.84% -39.40% -7.78%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -1 381 £525 -4.55% 428
North of England -16 344 £576 -3.96% 547
North West -15 226 £585 -5.84% 333
Midlands -7 220 £501 -12.96% 266
South West +8 190 £600 +9.09% 258
West Midlands -3 160 £500 -13.04% 200
Scotland +8 116 £500 - 227
East of England -16 108 £559 +1.55% 141
Yorkshire -22 88 £575 +18.56% 107
East Midlands -7 53 £550 -3.30% 65
North East -16 29 £750 +36.36% 108
Wales -27 17 £575 +29.58% 45
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 - 3
Northern Ireland -12 1 £638 +22.60% 133
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 413 (30.66%) Security Cleared
2 329 (24.42%) SAP
3 269 (19.97%) SC Cleared
4 245 (18.19%) Stakeholder Management
5 202 (15.00%) Microsoft
6 167 (12.40%) Migration
7 136 (10.10%) Cybersecurity
8 133 (9.87%) Oracle
9 132 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 131 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
11 130 (9.65%) Azure
12 121 (8.98%) SAP S/4HANA
13 115 (8.54%) Validation
14 111 (8.24%) Continuous Improvement
15 110 (8.17%) Workshop Facilitation
16 104 (7.72%) DV Cleared
17 102 (7.57%) ERP
17 102 (7.57%) User Acceptance Testing
18 85 (6.31%) Analytics
19 84 (6.24%) Roadmaps
20 82 (6.09%) Agile
21 77 (5.72%) Data Migration
22 74 (5.49%) Knowledge Transfer
23 72 (5.35%) SQL
24 71 (5.27%) AWS
24 71 (5.27%) Requirements Gathering
25 65 (4.83%) BPSS Clearance
26 62 (4.60%) SuccessFactors
27 61 (4.53%) Dynamics 365
28 58 (4.31%) Windows

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 (1.86%) 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 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.15%) PTC Creo
4 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.074%) Adobe Captivate
5 1 (0.074%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 121 (8.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (2.82%) SAP PSCD
3 36 (2.67%) SAP Payroll
4 31 (2.30%) SAP HCM
5 25 (1.86%) SAP HR
6 22 (1.63%) Oracle ERP
6 22 (1.63%) SAP FI
7 20 (1.48%) Workday HCM
8 19 (1.41%) Oracle Receivables
8 19 (1.41%) Teamcenter
9 18 (1.34%) Oracle Payables
10 17 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
11 16 (1.19%) SAP BRIM
12 13 (0.97%) Oracle General Ledger
12 13 (0.97%) SAP Hybris
12 13 (0.97%) SAP QM
13 12 (0.89%) SAP EWM
14 11 (0.82%) SAP CO
14 11 (0.82%) SAP FI/CO
14 11 (0.82%) SAP PP
Cloud Services
1 130 (9.65%) Azure
2 71 (5.27%) AWS
3 62 (4.60%) SuccessFactors
4 61 (4.53%) Dynamics 365
5 53 (3.93%) Power Platform
6 50 (3.71%) GCP
7 43 (3.19%) OCI
8 39 (2.90%) Microsoft 365
9 34 (2.52%) Entra ID
10 20 (1.48%) Power Automate
11 19 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
11 19 (1.41%) SaaS
12 17 (1.26%) SAP Commerce Cloud
13 11 (0.82%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (0.74%) Microsoft Purview
14 10 (0.74%) Oracle Service Cloud
14 10 (0.74%) PowerApps
15 9 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
16 8 (0.59%) Azure Monitor
17 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%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.45%) FTP
8 6 (0.45%) 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%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (1.86%) 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 12 (0.89%) Metadata
7 11 (0.82%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.74%) BusinessObjects
9 6 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.45%) Oracle Database
9 6 (0.45%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.37%) Power Query
10 5 (0.37%) Tableau
11 4 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (0.30%) SAP Data Services
11 4 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
12 3 (0.22%) BigQuery
12 3 (0.22%) GIS
12 3 (0.22%) NonStop SQL
12 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
5 3 (0.22%) Toad
6 2 (0.15%) Gradle
6 2 (0.15%) JDeveloper
6 2 (0.15%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.15%) Maven
6 2 (0.15%) Postman
6 2 (0.15%) TestRail
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%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.074%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.074%) Yeoman
General
1 339 (25.17%) Social Skills
2 262 (19.45%) Finance
3 125 (9.28%) Public Sector
4 108 (8.02%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (4.90%) Manufacturing
6 39 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (2.52%) Telecoms
8 33 (2.45%) Legal
9 32 (2.38%) Billing
10 31 (2.30%) General Ledger
11 29 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
12 24 (1.78%) Banking
13 18 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
13 18 (1.34%) Retail
14 15 (1.11%) Aerospace
15 14 (1.04%) Financial Institution
15 14 (1.04%) Marketing
16 12 (0.89%) Military
16 12 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
17 9 (0.67%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (2.67%) Oracle Fusion
2 35 (2.60%) REST
3 21 (1.56%) Middleware
3 21 (1.56%) SOAP
4 20 (1.48%) Terraform
5 19 (1.41%) Web Services
6 18 (1.34%) SailPoint
7 16 (1.19%) SAP Fiori
8 15 (1.11%) LDAP
9 13 (0.97%) 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%) EDI
13 5 (0.37%) IDoc
13 5 (0.37%) JDBC
13 5 (0.37%) OpenTelemetry
13 5 (0.37%) SLSA
14 4 (0.30%) Jakarta EE
Miscellaneous
1 48 (3.56%) Onboarding
2 29 (2.15%) Operational Technology
3 23 (1.71%) CMDB
4 21 (1.56%) Security Posture
5 18 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
5 18 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
6 16 (1.19%) Data Structures
7 14 (1.04%) PKI
7 14 (1.04%) Product Ownership
8 13 (0.97%) Management Information System
9 12 (0.89%) Data Centre
9 12 (0.89%) Learning Management System
10 11 (0.82%) Cloud Native
11 9 (0.67%) AI Agents
12 7 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (0.52%) Replication
12 7 (0.52%) Security Operations Centre
13 6 (0.45%) FMCG
13 6 (0.45%) Private Cloud
13 6 (0.45%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 58 (4.31%) Windows
2 32 (2.38%) Linux
3 15 (1.11%) Solaris
3 15 (1.11%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.67%) Unix
5 6 (0.45%) AIX
6 5 (0.37%) VMS
7 4 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.15%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.074%) Android
9 1 (0.074%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.074%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.074%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 245 (18.19%) Stakeholder Management
2 167 (12.40%) Migration
3 136 (10.10%) Cybersecurity
4 132 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 131 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
6 115 (8.54%) Validation
7 111 (8.24%) Continuous Improvement
8 110 (8.17%) Workshop Facilitation
9 102 (7.57%) ERP
9 102 (7.57%) User Acceptance Testing
10 85 (6.31%) Analytics
11 84 (6.24%) Roadmaps
12 82 (6.09%) Agile
13 77 (5.72%) Data Migration
14 74 (5.49%) Knowledge Transfer
15 71 (5.27%) Requirements Gathering
16 57 (4.23%) AI
16 57 (4.23%) Vulnerability Management
17 55 (4.08%) Risk Management
18 54 (4.01%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 72 (5.35%) SQL
2 45 (3.34%) Python
3 41 (3.04%) ABAP
4 26 (1.93%) PowerShell
5 18 (1.34%) Java
6 16 (1.19%) JavaScript
7 13 (0.97%) Bash
8 11 (0.82%) PL/SQL
9 10 (0.74%) 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
1 413 (30.66%) Security Cleared
2 269 (19.97%) SC Cleared
3 104 (7.72%) DV Cleared
4 65 (4.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (3.41%) CISSP
6 39 (2.90%) CISM
7 32 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
8 27 (2.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (1.71%) CCSP
10 22 (1.63%) Degree
11 12 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
12 11 (0.82%) ACCA
12 11 (0.82%) CIMA
13 10 (0.74%) CRISC
14 8 (0.59%) DBS Check
14 8 (0.59%) PMP
15 6 (0.45%) CCA
15 6 (0.45%) CEH
15 6 (0.45%) CISA
15 6 (0.45%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (2.97%) NIST
2 37 (2.75%) Data Quality
3 34 (2.52%) GRC
3 34 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (1.56%) QA
5 20 (1.48%) NCSC
6 18 (1.34%) SLA
7 15 (1.11%) GDPR
8 13 (0.97%) Actionable Recommendations
9 12 (0.89%) PMO
10 9 (0.67%) Accessibility
11 7 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
11 7 (0.52%) NIST 800
12 6 (0.45%) Def Stans
13 4 (0.30%) COBIT
13 4 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.30%) ISO 14001
13 4 (0.30%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.30%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 56 (4.16%) Active Directory
2 22 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (0.97%) VMware NSX
4 12 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (0.74%) Hyper-V
6 9 (0.67%) vSphere
7 8 (0.59%) Docker
7 8 (0.59%) Firmware
8 4 (0.30%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.15%) IAG
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%) vRealize
5 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
6 7 (0.52%) Grafana
7 6 (0.45%) FortiGate
7 6 (0.45%) VxRail
8 5 (0.37%) Nagios
8 5 (0.37%) SCCM
8 5 (0.37%) ZABBIX
9 4 (0.30%) CEMLI
9 4 (0.30%) Netcool
9 4 (0.30%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.30%) Tivoli
10 3 (0.22%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (0.22%) OpenView
10 3 (0.22%) Tivoli Monitoring
11 2 (0.15%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 329 (24.42%) SAP
2 202 (15.00%) Microsoft
3 133 (9.87%) Oracle
4 56 (4.16%) ServiceNow
5 31 (2.30%) Workday
6 29 (2.15%) 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 (0.45%) Okta
15 6 (0.45%) OpenAI