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 14 May 2026.

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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 35 33
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +23
Contract jobs requiring a Consultant 1,143 661 1,034
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.72% 5.19% 5.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.13% 5.64% 5.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 642 421 730
10th Percentile £400 £400 £380
25th Percentile £450 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
75th Percentile £613 £605 £650
90th Percentile £713 £669 £725
UK median daily rate £538 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -2.27% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 12 23
10th Percentile £51.00 £37.27 £26.50
25th Percentile £56.25 £59.81 £51.45
Median hourly rate £57.50 £76.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.59% +27.08% -8.40%
75th Percentile £58.75 £86.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £60.00 - £63.29
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £75.00 £61.60
% change year-on-year -23.33% +21.75% -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 22,273 11,721 18,839
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.95% 92.08% 92.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,915 7,486 11,466
10th Percentile £290 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £595
90th Percentile £686 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,513 834 2,255
10th Percentile £14.64 £13.90 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.30 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 £27.24 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.21% -31.91% -4.94%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £43.43 £28.18 £37.50
% change year-on-year +54.13% -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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -4 336 £525 -6.67% 254
Midlands -16 229 £525 -2.33% 112
North of England -21 226 £525 -1.69% 306
South West +26 184 £550 +4.76% 196
West Midlands -5 154 £550 - 82
North West -28 105 £518 -4.93% 196
Yorkshire -7 102 £538 +6.17% 78
East of England -16 72 £550 +10.00% 64
Scotland +35 71 £425 -15.00% 26
East Midlands -16 67 £500 -3.85% 31
Wales +4 30 £550 +37.50% 27
North East -22 19 £538 +0.66% 33
Northern Ireland -2 3 £600 +15.38% 18
Consultant
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 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.

1 243 (21.26%) Security Cleared
2 240 (21.00%) SAP
3 180 (15.75%) SC Cleared
4 147 (12.86%) Oracle
5 145 (12.69%) Migration
6 144 (12.60%) ERP
7 127 (11.11%) Azure
8 109 (9.54%) SQL
9 106 (9.27%) Problem-Solving
9 106 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 100 (8.75%) Microsoft
11 89 (7.79%) Continuous Improvement
12 87 (7.61%) Data Migration
13 86 (7.52%) Stakeholder Management
14 85 (7.44%) Workshop Facilitation
15 82 (7.17%) SAP S/4HANA
16 76 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
17 73 (6.39%) User Acceptance Testing
18 72 (6.30%) Validation
19 63 (5.51%) Agile
19 63 (5.51%) Business Intelligence
20 60 (5.25%) PLM
21 56 (4.90%) Data Protection
22 55 (4.81%) AWS
23 54 (4.72%) Siemens
24 53 (4.64%) Change Management
24 53 (4.64%) DV Cleared
24 53 (4.64%) Roadmaps
25 52 (4.55%) Analytics
26 50 (4.37%) Power Platform

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 22 (1.92%) SharePoint
2 19 (1.66%) Confluence
3 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
3 6 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (0.26%) Apache
4 3 (0.26%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
5 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.087%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.087%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.087%) WebLogic
Applications
1 38 (3.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.44%) PTC Creo
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.17%) Lectora
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.087%) CATIA
8 1 (0.087%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.087%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.087%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 82 (7.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (3.32%) Oracle EBS
3 30 (2.62%) SAP PSCD
4 26 (2.27%) Oracle Payables
5 25 (2.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 25 (2.19%) Teamcenter
6 22 (1.92%) SAP MM
7 20 (1.75%) SAP FI
8 17 (1.49%) Oracle Assets
8 17 (1.49%) Oracle ERP
9 16 (1.40%) Oracle Cash Management
10 15 (1.31%) Oracle General Ledger
11 14 (1.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 13 (1.14%) Oracle EBS R12
12 13 (1.14%) SAP EWM
12 13 (1.14%) SAP PP
12 13 (1.14%) SAP SD
13 12 (1.05%) SAP Hybris
14 11 (0.96%) SAP BRIM
14 11 (0.96%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 127 (11.11%) Azure
2 55 (4.81%) AWS
3 50 (4.37%) Power Platform
4 49 (4.29%) OCI
5 46 (4.02%) Dynamics 365
6 27 (2.36%) GCP
7 23 (2.01%) SuccessFactors
8 20 (1.75%) Microsoft 365
9 18 (1.57%) Power Automate
10 16 (1.40%) Microsoft Copilot
10 16 (1.40%) SaaS
11 13 (1.14%) SAP Commerce Cloud
12 12 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (0.96%) Entra ID
13 11 (0.96%) PowerApps
14 8 (0.70%) Copilot Studio
15 7 (0.61%) GitHub
16 6 (0.52%) Oracle Service Cloud
17 5 (0.44%) Azure AI
17 5 (0.44%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.49%) Network Security
2 16 (1.40%) SNMP
3 11 (0.96%) Firewall
4 9 (0.79%) FTP
5 5 (0.44%) HTTP
6 4 (0.35%) SAN
6 4 (0.35%) VPN
7 3 (0.26%) SMS
7 3 (0.26%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.17%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (0.17%) Connectrix
8 2 (0.17%) DNS
8 2 (0.17%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.17%) Intranet
8 2 (0.17%) LAN
8 2 (0.17%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.17%) VSAN
8 2 (0.17%) WAN
9 1 (0.087%) Cisco Firepower
9 1 (0.087%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (3.06%) Power BI
2 33 (2.89%) Oracle Reports
3 17 (1.49%) Oracle ODI
4 15 (1.31%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 13 (1.14%) SAP HANA
6 9 (0.79%) SQL Server
6 9 (0.79%) Tableau
7 6 (0.52%) NoSQL
8 5 (0.44%) SAP Data Services
9 4 (0.35%) Electronic Patient Records
9 4 (0.35%) NonStop SQL
9 4 (0.35%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.35%) SAP BW
10 3 (0.26%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.26%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.26%) GIS
10 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.26%) Metadata
10 3 (0.26%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.26%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (2.89%) JIRA
2 15 (1.31%) Hudson
3 7 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
4 4 (0.35%) Git
4 4 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
5 3 (0.26%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.26%) Toad
6 2 (0.17%) Postman
7 1 (0.087%) Appium
7 1 (0.087%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.087%) GitLab
7 1 (0.087%) JDeveloper
7 1 (0.087%) JUnit
7 1 (0.087%) MSTest
7 1 (0.087%) NUnit
7 1 (0.087%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 239 (20.91%) Finance
2 221 (19.34%) Social Skills
3 90 (7.87%) Public Sector
4 88 (7.70%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (3.50%) Manufacturing
6 27 (2.36%) Legal
7 24 (2.10%) Banking
8 23 (2.01%) Billing
8 23 (2.01%) General Ledger
9 19 (1.66%) Telecoms
10 14 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
10 14 (1.22%) Retail
11 13 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
12 12 (1.05%) Local Government
13 11 (0.96%) Aerospace
14 10 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (0.87%) Marketing
15 9 (0.79%) Documentation Skills
16 8 (0.70%) Law
17 6 (0.52%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (4.11%) XML
2 45 (3.94%) REST
3 30 (2.62%) Oracle Fusion
4 13 (1.14%) SOAP
5 11 (0.96%) JSON
5 11 (0.96%) Web Services
6 7 (0.61%) .NET
7 6 (0.52%) SAP Fiori
8 5 (0.44%) LDAP
8 5 (0.44%) SAP Basis
9 4 (0.35%) AngularJS
9 4 (0.35%) BAPI
9 4 (0.35%) CSS
9 4 (0.35%) HTML
9 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Graph
9 4 (0.35%) Middleware
9 4 (0.35%) RESTful
9 4 (0.35%) SailPoint
10 3 (0.26%) OpenTelemetry
10 3 (0.26%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 31 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
2 18 (1.57%) Onboarding
3 16 (1.40%) Operational Technology
4 14 (1.22%) AI Agents
4 14 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (1.22%) Security Posture
5 12 (1.05%) Product Ownership
5 12 (1.05%) Replication
6 10 (0.87%) Public Cloud
7 9 (0.79%) Data Centre
7 9 (0.79%) Management Information System
8 8 (0.70%) Cloud Native
8 8 (0.70%) NHS
9 7 (0.61%) SCADA
10 6 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (0.52%) Beowulf
10 6 (0.52%) Data Structures
11 5 (0.44%) BYOD
11 5 (0.44%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (0.44%) SCORM
Operating Systems
1 33 (2.89%) Windows
2 26 (2.27%) Linux
3 13 (1.14%) AIX
3 13 (1.14%) Solaris
4 9 (0.79%) VMS
5 4 (0.35%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.17%) Unix
7 1 (0.087%) CoreOS
7 1 (0.087%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.087%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (12.69%) Migration
2 144 (12.60%) ERP
3 106 (9.27%) Problem-Solving
3 106 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 89 (7.79%) Continuous Improvement
5 87 (7.61%) Data Migration
6 86 (7.52%) Stakeholder Management
7 85 (7.44%) Workshop Facilitation
8 76 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
9 73 (6.39%) User Acceptance Testing
10 72 (6.30%) Validation
11 63 (5.51%) Agile
11 63 (5.51%) Business Intelligence
12 60 (5.25%) PLM
13 56 (4.90%) Data Protection
14 53 (4.64%) Change Management
14 53 (4.64%) Roadmaps
15 52 (4.55%) Analytics
16 43 (3.76%) Knowledge Transfer
16 43 (3.76%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 109 (9.54%) SQL
2 42 (3.67%) Python
3 28 (2.45%) T-SQL
4 25 (2.19%) PL/SQL
5 19 (1.66%) PowerShell
6 16 (1.40%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.14%) Search Processing Language
8 8 (0.70%) Java
9 7 (0.61%) ABAP
9 7 (0.61%) Bash
9 7 (0.61%) C#
9 7 (0.61%) R
10 5 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.35%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.17%) VBScript
13 1 (0.087%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.087%) MATLAB
13 1 (0.087%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.087%) VBA
Qualifications
1 243 (21.26%) Security Cleared
2 180 (15.75%) SC Cleared
3 53 (4.64%) DV Cleared
4 40 (3.50%) CISSP
5 33 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
6 29 (2.54%) CISM
7 23 (2.01%) Degree
8 17 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
9 14 (1.22%) CCSP
10 13 (1.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 8 (0.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 7 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
12 7 (0.61%) SAP Certification
13 6 (0.52%) ACCA
13 6 (0.52%) CEH
13 6 (0.52%) CIMA
13 6 (0.52%) DBS Check
13 6 (0.52%) PMP
14 5 (0.44%) Azure Certification
14 5 (0.44%) CCSK
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (3.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 43 (3.76%) NIST
2 32 (2.80%) GRC
3 27 (2.36%) Data Quality
4 15 (1.31%) GDPR
5 12 (1.05%) QA
6 10 (0.87%) JSP 440
6 10 (0.87%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.70%) NCSC
8 7 (0.61%) COBIT
8 7 (0.61%) RMADS
8 7 (0.61%) SLA
9 6 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.52%) PMO
10 5 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.26%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.17%) HL7
12 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 2 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (1.49%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (0.96%) VMware NSX
4 9 (0.79%) Docker
4 9 (0.79%) vSphere
5 6 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 6 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.087%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.087%) IAG
7 1 (0.087%) NFS
Systems Management
1 21 (1.84%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.14%) Nagios
2 13 (1.14%) ZABBIX
3 12 (1.05%) Netcool
3 12 (1.05%) Tivoli
4 11 (0.96%) OpenView
4 11 (0.96%) Tivoli Monitoring
5 9 (0.79%) Ansible
6 7 (0.61%) Terraform
6 7 (0.61%) vRealize
7 6 (0.52%) NetBackup
7 6 (0.52%) Podman
8 3 (0.26%) Grafana
8 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Management
8 3 (0.26%) Oracle Identity Manager
8 3 (0.26%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.26%) Puppet
8 3 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.26%) vRealize Orchestrator
9 2 (0.17%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 240 (21.00%) SAP
2 147 (12.86%) Oracle
3 100 (8.75%) Microsoft
4 54 (4.72%) Siemens
5 22 (1.92%) ServiceNow
5 22 (1.92%) Splunk
6 21 (1.84%) VMware
7 20 (1.75%) BMC
8 17 (1.49%) Ariba
8 17 (1.49%) IBM
8 17 (1.49%) Workday
9 14 (1.22%) Sage
10 13 (1.14%) IFS
10 13 (1.14%) SolarWinds
11 12 (1.05%) Databricks
11 12 (1.05%) Google
12 11 (0.96%) HP
13 7 (0.61%) Informatica
13 7 (0.61%) OpenText
13 7 (0.61%) Veritas